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Satellites
over South Asia: Broadcasting, Culture and the Public Interest By
David Page and William Crawley (Sage, India 2001)
Introduction
In the town of Biratnagar in the Nepali terai - where the north
Indian plains confront the foothills of the Himalayas - students
debated the impact of satellite TV on their lives and disagreed
strongly among themselves. ' Personally' said one boy ' I don't
like Star movies and Channel V. The life shown on these channels
is far removed from the reality of our own country. Because of these
channels, Nepali girls too have started wearing short skirts.' '
I think films are much more dangerous to society' replied a girl,
'Nepali boys are very quick at copying. That's why we see boys wearing
earrings, bandanas on their heads and teasing girls. This is all
due to films.' 'Our earrings and bandanas have nothing to do with
TV', retorted a boy, 'though the provocative clothes girls wear
may be something they learnt from TV' ' I would not dare to kiss
a girl on the road, just because they do so on TV', mused another
male student 'But there have been changes in the way I dress and
in the way I look at things.'
The young men and women taking part in this discussion were students
at a local college. They all still watched Nepal state television
or Indian state television but almost all of them also had access
to twenty satellite channels on a local cable system. The charge
was 200 rupees or less than three dollars a month. The channels
included channel V and MTV, the youth and music channels, Zee TV,
the popular Hindi entertainment channel, three channels from the
Star platform offering regional news, movies and sports, plus international
news providers, CNN and BBC.
Ten years earlier, Biratnagar had a choice of only Indian and Nepali
state television channels and the difference is palpable. 'Nepal
TV programmes are not effective and neither are they good' said
one of the same students. ' In fact every month, NTV programmes
disappear from Biratnagar for days. This does not happen with the
satellite channels.' Another said: ' Before City-cable came to Biratnagar,
we had to watch the boring programmes of Nepal TV and I can say
no-one actually sat completely through any of them.' 'If we only
had Nepal TV' said a third, ' we would have come to know of the
nuclear tests of India and Pakistan really late.'
Satellite TV has made a huge difference to the choice of viewing
available even in relatively small towns in economically under-developed
parts of south Asia. It has opened windows to worlds which were
inaccessible before except to the well-to-do and it has provoked
a lively and often heated debate about the implications for nations,
communities and cultures.
It has also offered a major challenge to the national broadcasters
of south Asia who had the field to themselves for so long. Satellite
TV is no respecter of borders. It has created new electronic communities
which transcend old political boundaries. The same programmes can
now be watched in Karachi, Kandy, Kathmandu, Kolhapur and Khulna,
even if the language isn't always understood. It is a challenge
not just to the national broadcasters but to nationalism itself.
In Satellites over South Asia, we chart the progress of the satellite
revolution which brought these new visions to millions of viewers
in the south Asian subcontinent during the 1990s. We study its impact
as a south Asian regional phenomenon, looking not just at its influence
within individual countries but also its powerful overspill effect.
We have tapped public opinion in the metropolitan cities and smaller
towns of the five main countries of the region - India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. We have also spoken to a range
of experts from those countries to discover their views on the satellite
phenomenon : radio and television producers, film makers, academics,
journalists, government servants, media entrepreneurs, advertisers,
market researchers, politicians and many others. In making their
views more widely known, we hope the book will make a contribution
to debates about the future of civil society in the region and the
role that broadcasting might play in it.
The global background
Three important developments underpin the media revolution which
has changed the way south Asians see the world - the demise of communism,
the increasing integration of world markets and very rapid advances
in communications technology . In the aftermath of the collapse
of the Soviet bloc, free trade and the free flow of information
became the dominant philosophies of the late twentieth century,
with the United States the chief protagonist of both. Economic barriers
tumbled, state control of the public sector was rolled back and
liberalisation opened up world trade on market terms. Most states,
in some cases with reluctance, put their signatures to plans to
dismantle protectionist barriers , as outlined in the negotiations
setting up the World Trade Organisation in 1995.
The demise of communism accelerated a process of economic globalisation
which was already well advanced. By the 1980s, world financial markets
had become increasingly interdependent and many multi-national companies
had become global economic forces. The balance of power between
nation states and transnational interests had begun to shift.
In this process improved communications has played a central role.
The pace of progress in telecommunications, satellite and computer
technology has changed the nature of international communication
and opened up new commercial opportunities. The Internet has proved
its potential for personal communication; its ramifications for
broadcasting are still unfolding. The convergence of these technologies
is already taking effect.
For the world media, these advances have brought new opportunities
for the projection of a global presence. Television could not go
global until the commercial development of satellite communications
removed its previous dependence on terrestrial transmissions. Since
the late 1980s, however, television has developed into a global
industry and a key factor in the integration of world markets. Within
a very short period, there has been a consolidation of television
interests - both production and distribution - positioning them
to take advantage of markets where their services were previously
unknown.
Herman and McChesney have charted the growth of media consortia
into multi-billion dollar enterprises with global ambitions. They
have also shown how the same process is evident in the growing concentration
of ownership of advertising and market research companies. Improved
communications have made it possible for the same television programmes
to be watched at the same time all over the globe and for the same
advertisements to project global brands across a multitude of countries.
To this extent, technology, the media and advertising are collaborators
in the growing globalisation of commerce.
By the late 1990s, a handful of multi-billion dollar companies,
most of them American in origin, had come to dominate the global
media. The largest of these was Time Warner, publisher of Time Magazine,
owner of Warner Brothers film studios and Home Box Office, the largest
cable network in the world. In 1996, Time Warner purchased Turner
broadcasting, owner of CNN, which had nearly 100 million subscribers,
and the Cartoon Network. In early 2000, Time Warner joined forces
with America On-line in what was described as the world's 'biggest-ever'
company merger. It brought together the world's leading Internet
company with one of the world's leading content providers in a union
aimed at exploiting the rapid convergence of communication technologies.
At a combined value of 335 billion dollars, the category of media
company acquired a new dimension.
After Time Warner, the next largest conglomerate is Disney, which
had earlier transformed its structure and purpose to face similar
challenges. Previously primarily a content provider, Disney's purchase
in 1995 of the ABC TV and radio network made it a media giant in
its own right. That network included two ESPN sports channels, providing
24 hour sports in 21 languages to 165 countries. Sony, well known
as one of the world's leading hardware companies, acquired formidable
television expertise when it bought the American news provider CBS.
Its plans to exploit the Sony brand in global television included
the launch of new services for India. Viacom, which owns the Paramount
film studios, MTV, the RCA record label, Macmillans the publishers
and Blockbuster, the world's largest video chain, is also in the
top league with a market capitalisation of $ 37.2 billion.
Finally, as far as Asia is concerned, there is Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation, which has a controlling interest in Star TV. From
his origins in Australia, Murdoch extended his media empire first
to the UK, then to the USA, and next to Asia. Over 80% of News Corporation's
revenues come from the USA and Europe but it has invested heavily
in the Chinese and Indian markets. Other global companies have also
been trying to exploit the growing prosperity of Asian markets.
Time Warner, Disney and Viacom all hoped that Asia would contribute
over 40% of corporate profits by 2000, though the east Asian economic
crisis of 1997 made that unrealistic.
South Asia - the changing landscape
The end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet bloc involved
a diplomatic and economic re-orientation for the south Asian region.
India's conversion to a programme of economic liberalisation, which
accelerated considerably after 1991, was a reflection of these new
realities. Economic reforms introduced at that time opened up a
very large new market for foreign capital and consumer goods which
quickly attracted multi-national interest. As a result foreign trade
and investment increased substantially over the next few years.
All this seemed highly improbable in the 1970s and 80s, when India's
close relationship with the Soviet Union set the tone for many of
its foreign and economic policies.
Satellite television played a role in alerting international business
to the size and potential of the Indian market, which is now seen
as one of the most promising in the world. Star TV, the first in
the field with a range of different programmes, initially targeted
the Pacific rim economies, but India's enthusiasm for the programmes
soon put it at the centre of special media planning and attention.
Efforts to attract Indian audiences by broadcasting English-language
programming from the United States, Britain and elsewhere initially
led to accusations of a 'cultural invasion'. But before long commercial
attention was focussed on the Hindi speaking middle class, with
Zee TV emerging very quickly as the most popular and profitable
channel. By the mid 1990s, international channels targeting the
Indian market were competing both in the north and the south with
flourishing channels run by Indian entrepreneurs.
The nature of the new satellite media makes earlier notions of western
cultural domination look very oversimplified. Schiller's view, expressed
first in the late 1960s, that the media would spread American lifestyles
around the world and that a homogeneous globalised culture would
gradually replace other local and regional cultures plainly does
not fit the facts. Barriers of language and the political and economic
empowerment of a growing middle class over the past thirty years
have stood in the way of such a scenario. Even in former British
colonies, the English language elite, though still influential in
the professions, is no longer politically or economically dominant.
At the same time, the fact that international media entrepreneurs
are making programmes in Hindi to appeal to the Indian middle class
is not proof that all elements of the 'imperialism' thesis have
to be jettisoned. The satellite revolution enables the international
media to speak to the English-knowing middle class in one language
and the greater Indian middle class in others. The programme preferences
of these audiences may not overlap very much - though there are
some indications that the overlap is increasing - but the fact that
these audiences watch programmes in different languages does not
prevent them from being targeted with similar products and lifestyles.
For the advertiser, whether national or multi-national, the language
is the means to reach the audience. To this extent, the development
of programmes in Hindi by Star TV or of popular soap operas by Zee
TV is assisting the integration of India into the global consumer
economy.
The advertising agencies have the most demonstrable claim to be
the midwives of satellite television. Television advertising has
helped to create whole new markets in south Asia, both for new products
and for the re-branding of a range of consumer goods. But while
the advertisers have been targeting the Indian market, they have
created audiences across south Asia in general and in the Gulf as
well. The westernised middle class in Colombo or Karachi now watch
the same English-language programmes on CNN or BBC, Star News or
Cartoon Network. Pakistanis watch programmes made for India, particularly
the Hindi entertainment channels. Tamils in Sri Lanka have access
to satellite channels in their language aimed at south India. Bengali
satellite channels have audiences in both Bangladesh and West Bengal.
Much of this communication is still one way - from India outwards
- but it has already affected the nature of relationships between
states and peoples.
At the moment, there is no south Asian economic market, though the
countries of the region are committed to creating a Free Trade Area
in the longer term. There is plenty of awareness of the natural
economic synergies which closer cooperation could offer. But progress
towards such a goal has been held up by economic nationalism, political
suspicion, and in the case of India and Pakistan a long history
of hostility and war. What satellite television has created, however,
is a new cultural market, which transcends national boundaries and
has acquired geopolitical significance for this reason.
Taking a regional view
Given the history of the region and the nature of the medium, we
believe it is valuable to look at these trends from a south Asian
perspective. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were in colonial times
ruled as one country from the same capital, while Sri Lanka formed
part of the same Empire. They inherited much from that period which
has influenced their subsequent development: forms of government,
the rule of law, the role of English as a link language and common
approaches to broadcasting. Even Nepal, which did not come under
formal British rule, emerged as a nation state in the shadow of
colonial power and has since gradually conformed to a south Asian
political model.
What these countries have experienced in common, however, has been
overshadowed for the last half century by the differences between
them. Each nation state has tended to define itself in contradistinction
to its neighbours. India's Congress leadership projected a secular
image, contrasting with Pakistan's emergence as a homeland for Muslims.
Pakistan projected India as a 'Hindu' state to justify the act of
separation. Bangladeshi nationalists put language first when seceding
from Pakistan but later had to square their secular nationalism
with their Islamic inheritance. Islam was reasserted to distinguish
the new state from India. For similar reasons, the Sri Lankan state
has emphasised its role as a guardian of Buddhism, though this contributed
to the alienation of its own Tamil population. Nepal has promoted
the Nepali language as a key marker of difference, rather than the
cultural and religious heritage it shares with India. In all these
countries, nationalism has emphasised differences with neighbours
which the satellite revolution now threatens to undermine.
In this shaping of national identity, the state-controlled electronic
media have played a central role. They have been deployed by central
governments as an integrative force, championing in each country
the chosen language of nationalism - the Persianised Urdu of Radio
Pakistan, the sanscritised Hindi of All India Radio, the Bengali
of Bangladesh Radio which differs in important respects from the
same language broadcast by All India Radio Calcutta. National radio
and television have assisted in re-interpreting the histories of
the colonial and pre-colonial periods, projecting the heroes of
their freedom movements, broadcasting 'national' literature and
music, and inspiring their populations with the notion of being
citizens of the new states.
This nationalist project has also involved - to different extents
in each state - discouraging the articulation of 'regional' cultures
and languages and in effect erring on the side of uniformity while
paying lip service to nostrums of 'unity in diversity'. In most
south Asian states, governments have recognised the value of broadcasting
in many languages, in radio if not in television. But they have
not encouraged a genuine pluralism. India - south Asia's most diverse
state - goes further than the others in acknowledging its own diversity.
But even in India concessions to regional opinion have often been
made only in the face of intense political protest. In Sri Lanka,
the state media did recognise the country's diversity in the early
years but has done so less effectively since the Tamil insurgency
broke out in the 1980s. Pakistan's concessions to regional identity
have been much more limited. Nepal made almost no concessions until
the 'People's Movement' of 1990.
Because of the centralised character of the nation state, the satellite
revolution in south Asia has been more disruptive and far reaching
than in many other parts of the world. In most south Asian countries,
the satellite channels brought the first direct challenge to the
state-controlled sector and its bureaucratic broadcasting culture.
The new channels have offered better produced and more wide-ranging
international news and current affairs programmes and a very wide
range of new entertainment programmes. They have brought the consumer
values of the western world to a middle class accustomed to a diet
of more high-minded programmes with a national focus . In the new
atmosphere of liberalisation they caught on like a forest fire in
a dry summer. In some south Asian metropolitan centres, middle class
audiences for national broadcasters have virtually disappeared.
In this influential segment of the community, a key instrument of
state cultural control has been made almost redundant.
Rethinking the role of the state
What does all this mean for nationalism and the nation state in
south Asia? If the development of print capitalism was central to
the emergence of nationalism in the nineteenth century, as Benedict
Anderson has argued, what are the implications of transnational
media technologies for present-day nationalisms? In the twentieth
century, radio and television extended the process of nation building
, drawing much larger audiences than national newspapers and widening
the sense of belonging from those who could read to those who could
not. The new era of 'television without frontiers', however, creates
different possibilities, some exciting and liberating, others threatening
to notions of nationally autonomous cultures. Satellite technology
has created the means to build communities across frontiers and
even to challenge established political demarcations between states.
Collins, Locksley and Garnham in their analysis of trends in Europe
have argued that ' the maintenance of national sovereignty and identity
is becoming increasingly difficult as the unities of economic and
cultural production and consumption are becoming increasingly transnational.'
For them, the development of global satellite media is part of the
same economic process as the growing integration of world financial
markets, and threatens not just the autonomy of the nation state
but the concept of citizenship which goes with it. In Europe, national
politicians have to balance the advantages of economic integration
against the growing assertion of regional identities within their
own countries. We are witnessing what another commentator has called
'a leaking away of sovereignty from the state, both upwards to supranational
institutions and downwards to subnational ones'.
In south Asia, moves towards economic integration are at an early
stage and many politicians still exhibit a severely nationalistic
mind-set. Most south Asia states have their own repressed regional
cultures and their own crises of identity thrown up by the flawed
politics of nationalism since independence. In recent decades India,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka have all faced major challenges to their
central governments from ethnic minority groups. The satellite revolution
has posed new questions about these issues of identity and about
the capacity of existing state structures to deal with them.
The new circumstances also call for a re-examination of how the
public interest is defined. Until recently, the concept of public
service broadcasting has centred on the nation state and on the
state-controlled media. National broadcasters have not only acted
as custodians of national culture; they have also seen it as their
job to provide a universal service. The national radios of India
and Pakistan have been broadcasting in all the main languages of
their countries and many dialects as well, even if the core message
has come from the capital cities. They have been providing programmes
for schools and farmers, on health and hygiene, as well as education
for citizenship and classes in literacy. Many of these programmes
have not been made well , but they have reflected a perceived state
responsibility towards all citizens.
National television, a more recent and more expensive medium, has
pursued these objectives less comprehensively. It has served the
middle classes first and others afterwards. Satellite television
has more restricted audiences and strictly commercial objectives.
In the new era of liberalisation, the tendency of the different
governments has been to follow global trends and leave broadcasting
increasingly to market forces. One of the questions we examine is
whether this makes sense for states in which as many as 40% of the
population are defined as poor.
In Europe, as commercial broadcasting has proliferated and audiences
have become more fragmented, the erosion of the public service ideal
has raised the spectre of national broadcasting cultures being displaced
by a new homogenised culture, conceived largely according to American
ideals. In their book Spaces of Identity, David Morley and Kevin
Robins envisage new ' audiovisual geographies... detached from the
symbolic space of national culture and realigned on the more universal
principles of international consumer culture.' It is a prospect
that worries them in Europe, where average standards of living are
relatively high. It is more worrying in south Asia, where international
consumer culture, despite its attractions to the middle class, is
very much less 'universal' than the concepts of citizenship which
it threatens to displace.
Commerce and community
In his prophetic look at media trends Towards 2000, Raymond Williams
envisaged a world pulled between 'false and frenetic nationalisms'
and 'reckless and uncontrollable transnationalisms'. His fear that
the development of technology would strengthen the hands of the
state and of transnational economic interests has become a much
more widely shared anxiety today, though it is counterbalanced by
the opportunities for personal and cultural expression, particularly
for the middle classes, provided by the growth of the Internet.
The trend towards globalisation has also produced a countervailing
public demand, particularly in western countries, for greater devolution
of political power and more local democracy. The fact that the discourse
of devolution and community has been appropriated by the global
conglomerates themselves is perhaps the best evidence of popular
resistance to these globalising trends.
South Asia has no shortage of nationalities, ethnic groups and communities
who might benefit from new media technologies, nor of development
needs which the media might help to meet. But early expectations
of the benefits of mass media technologies in these fields now look
exaggerated and there is greater appreciation of the complexity
of social influences of which the media are only a part.
The satellite media in south Asia have given access to new and articulate
voices. Politicians and public figures have been called to account
in programmes which break with the deferential tradition of the
state broadcasters. Audience participation in debates, discussions
and interviews have added a new dimension to the public sphere.
But these welcome improvements in programme choice and quality have
come within a framework of market economics in which mass entertainment
dominates the schedules and the Hindi language reaches the largest
audiences. In its initial phase at least, the market has reinforced
the dominant position of Hindi as the lingua franca of India and
by its very success and attractiveness raised questions about the
future of other cultures.
Only in the southern states of India did the satellite revolution
foster an immediate flowering of alternative regional language channels
- in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Despite the Indian government's
long-established dominance of the electronic media, southern entrepreneurs
succeeded, as others did not, in throwing off the straightjacket
of central control and articulating their regional cultures in the
new medium.
Another area in which the satellite media have had remarkable success
is in linking up south Asian communities across the globe. The great
diasporas of Gujaratis, Punjabis, Kashmiris or Tamils living away
from home in the Gulf, Europe or North America can now watch the
same programmes as their relatives at home. Some of the private
satellite channels have actively developed new market opportunities
among the south Asian diaspora, while state broadcasters have seen
the importance of registering their presence on the same screens.
Part of the motive - for India and Pakistan especially - has been
propagandist, to ensure that audiences in neighbouring countries
and their citizens abroad have access to their own culture. But
there is also an international constituency for south Asian films,
popular music and dance which transcends south Asian borders. The
cultural invasion has been turned into an 'outvasion' to exploit
the global appeal of south Asian culture.
Arjun Appadurai has argued that satellite television has helped
to create what he calls 'diasporic public spheres, phenomena that
confound theories that depend on the continued salience of the nation-state
as the key arbiter of important social changes'. Satellite television
has certainly played a part in the creation of a new kind of hybridity
which is characteristic of contemporary metropolitan living; it
is a new and powerful influence challenging the nation state's role
as a purveyor of culture. But talk of a 'terminal crisis' of the
state may be premature. As James Curran and Myung-Jin Park have
argued: ' ...Globalisation theory... is often based on an aerial
perspective that simplifies. In particular, it tends to understate
the continuing importance of the nation.' The nation state remains
resilient, certainly in defence of its own prerogatives, and we
would argue that it needs to play a greater role as a regulator
in order to ensure that the public interest is safeguarded in the
new media environment.
Amartya Sen has pointed out that ' the threat to native cultures
in the globalising world of today is, to a considerable extent,
inescapable. The one solution that is not really within reach is
that of stopping globalisation of trade and economics, since the
forces of economic exchange and the division of labour are hard
to resist in a competitive world.' Some smaller cultures and languages
are certainly at risk of extinction, but most are in a constant
process of adaptation and are much less discrete and autonomous
than their defenders sometimes argue. Cross cultural influences
can be liberating, as can the vision of prosperity and materialism
which the new media market offers. But leaving everything to the
market does not ensure the level playing field that even private
entrepreneurs require. We argue that there is a need for a regulatory
environment which offers fairness, respects uniqueness, encourages
diversity and enables the media to work towards those ends rather
than against them.
Whether the state is in a position to play this role is an open
question. The state in south Asia has its own dilemmas of centralisation
and bureaucracy which are only partly inherited. It has played an
active managerial role in 'nation building' and has only recently
begun to de-nationalise important sectors of the economy. This same
legacy of centralisation and bureaucracy stands in the way of more
autonomy for state broadcasters or more decentralisation of responsibility
and resources. Our research shows that they do still have a constituency,
but there is disappointment that they have not risen to the challenge
of the satellite era more distinctively.
The media and civil society
One important result of the satellite revolution is the development
of a lively contemporary public debate about the role the media
should play. There is a great deal of media comment, political argument
and sociological analysis in all countries. In India and Sri Lanka
particularly, the terms of debate on issues of democratic representation,
national sovereignty, civil society and cultural identity are perceived
to hinge more than before on the influence of the media, with the
print media still paramount but the private electronic media playing
a catalytic role in some fields. In other countries, the state retains
greater control, though similar influences are working there too.
In discussing the role of the media, we use the concept of 'civil
society' as one whose 'institutional core... is constituted by voluntary
unions outside the realm of the state and the economy' . We believe
the term remains a valuable one, despite the fact that it has sometimes
been taken to exclude categories of gender and ethnicity which are
central to contemporary ideas of participatory democracy. Ultimately,
we argue, reform of the national media will depend on the development
of a more active public opinion on media issues and the creation
of a new relationship between the media and civil society.
Government policy towards the media has largely been based on a
functionalist approach, in which the media are seen as a causal
influence for continuity integration and normality in society. The
approach continues to provide a widely used and widely understood
terminology for discussing the relationship of the mass media and
society, even if its shortcomings are now well known. Those shortcomings
are amply borne out by the responses that we have recorded of those
who are exposed to the broadcast media. The active engagement of
audiences and their scepticism and capacity to resist as well as
to accept media messages underlines the autonomy of individual viewers
and listeners. But we share a perception common to broadcasters
and policy makers that television and radio can generate or promote
desirable or undesirable social and cultural trends, and that they
have an influence in negotiating ideas of modernity in the countries
of south Asia, and the place in it of the individual and the community.
The book begins with a brief history of the development of the electronic
media in the different south Asian countries from the colonial period
until 1990. The next chapter tells the story of the opening of the
skies, the media companies involved, the means of distribution and
the reception given to the programmes. After an examination of development
of the new television market in India in chapter 4, the following
three chapters examine the cultural influence of satellite programmes
across the whole region. Chapter 5 shows that satellite television
has been instrumental in creating a new south Asian popular culture,
which has proved both attractive and controversial in each country.
Chapter 6 looks at the implications of the popularity of Hindi entertainment
channels for other regional cultures in northern India. It draws
a contrast between Maharashtra and West Bengal, where satellite
services in regional languages did not initially develop, and Tamil
Nadu, where a thriving commercial satellite sector emerged very
rapidly. Chapter 7 tests opinion among India's neighbours on their
exposure to the new Indian satellite channels. The next two chapters
look at the role of the state in south Asia: firstly, at government
reactions to the breaking of the state monopoly and efforts to produce
a new regulatory framework and secondly at the problems of centralisation
which have impeded the development of effective local or community
media. The last two chapters examine the role of broadcasting in
serving the wider public interest and at practical policy issues
which arise for the future.
Notes and references: Chapter 1
1 Focus Group Discussion, College students, Biratnagar, June 1998.
2 Herman, E. & McChesney, R. (1997), The Global Media: new missionaries
of global capitalism.
3 Financial Times, 11 January 2000
4 Ibid. On 7 January 2000, the market capitalisation of Time Warner
was 76.4 billion dollars, Walt Disney $65.2
billion, and CBS $44.2 billion.
5 In early March 2000, Rupert Murdoch's global media company was
estimated to be worth 43.5 billion dollars. See Financial
Times, 2 March 2000.
6 Schiller, H..I.( 1976), Communication and Cultural Domination.
7 Collins, R. Garnham N., and Locksley,G. (1988), The Economics
of Television: UK case, p 55.
8 Lipschutz, R., Reconstructing world politics: the emergence of
global civil society, in Millennium: Journal of International
Studies, 21 (3), 1992.
9 Morley D., & Robins,K. (1995), Spaces of Identity: global media,
electronic landscapes and cultural boundaries, p 11.
10 Raymond Williams (1983),Towards 2000, pp 198-9.
11 Arjun Appadurai, (1997), Modernity at Large: cultural dimensions
of globalisation, p 4.
12 James Curran and Myung-Jin Park (Eds.)(2000), De-westernising
media studies, p 15.
13 Amartya Sen, Culture, Freedom and Independence, in Unesco World
Culture Report 1998, p 319.
14 Habermas, Jurgen, Further Reflections on the Public Sphere in
Calhoun,Craig (ed.) (1992) Habermas and the Public Sphere
p.453
15 cf. McQuail, Denis (1994) Mass Communication Theory p.78
16 For a discussion of the role of television role in this process
in the Indian context, see Nilanjana Gupta (1998), Switching
Channels, Chapter 5.
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