Global Media Journal

Comparing global media: Losing the forest among the trees

John L. Sullivan
Muhlenberg College

Robert McKenzie. Comparing Media from Around the World. Boston: Pearson Education, 2006. xi + 372 pages. $62.40. (paper).

There is perhaps no topic with greater immediacy and urgency today than global media and communication. Introducing this topic in the classroom for undergraduate consumption, however, presents a range of serious conceptual and logistical challenges. The first challenge is one of information overload: Given a mind-boggling amount of information about how the world communicates, how much detail can be realistically included in a single text? Once the scope of the field is sufficiently bounded, organization then emerges as another major obstacle: How should one construct a narrative about global media and communication that connects economics, politics, culture, and human behavior in such a way as to deepen our understanding of media processes and effects?

Traditionally, introductory global media texts have offered in-depth explorations of individual countries’ media systems, leaving it to the reader to draw useful comparisons and conclusions about their operations. In obtaining such depth of detail on a single country, however, broader patterns of global media influence are submerged. To date, obtaining the right balance between an overly-general worldview and idiosyncratic country-specific analyses has been somewhat elusive (except, perhaps, for Thussu’s International Communication, 2000). Additionally, since communication systems and global political realities are constantly shifting, many books on the subject are dated almost as soon as they are published and they consequently go out of print quite frequently (as did Howard Fredericks’ excellent book Global Communication and International Relations, 1993, and Herman & McChesney’s The Global Media, 1997). The lack of a clear, dominant overview text makes the prospect of introducing students to global communication a daunting one. The field is certainly wide open for scholars to step in with excellent textbooks that provide up-to-date information and a clear organizational focus.

Robert McKenzie’s Comparing Media from Around the World (2006) is a new entry into the mix, attempting to provide a fresh perspective by offering an in-depth look at the media systems of eight different countries (France, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the USA, Mexico, China, Ghana, and Lebanon). McKenzie divides the media systems of these countries into specific elements such as their political and cultural characteristics, their regulatory philosophies and structures, media finance, accessibility, content (including imports and exports) and audiences. Interestingly, to better facilitate the cross-comparison that is sometimes lacking in country- or region-centered analyses, the book is organized according to the media system element, with one aspect of each country’s media system described in every chapter. So, for example, in the chapter on media regulations, McKenzie briefly outlines the types of organizational and institutional bodies that generally structure mass media and then proceeds, country by country, to explain the regulatory apparatus within the eight countries under investigation. If this sounds a bit laborious, it definitely is within the context of an introductory text. Nevertheless, this is the only book currently in print that offers this type of cross-comparative structure for analyzing international media systems.

McKenzie is crystal clear about his aims in authoring this text. The book, he writes, attempts to better understand “how the elements of a country’s media system affect the content that is available, how that media system relates also to cultural characteristics that are unique to a country or common to a region, and how audiences within countries are led to interact with media” (p. 10). The theoretical lens for this analysis is what McKenzie terms a “rhetorical perspective” on global media, which seeks to analyze “how media ‘invite’ a particular audience to think, feel, or behave, given a particular context” (p. 10). The aim of exploring the connections between culture, political structure, and media seems perfectly reasonable here, though the ultimate utility of the rhetorical perspective is a bit murky. What kind of analysis will this rhetorical perspective allow students and scholars to pursue? On this point, McKenzie is not so clear. Writing about the merits of such a cross-comparative approach, he notes that “the process of comparing inadvertently helps us to identify the reference points that form conceptions of the self…When it comes to comparing media systems, it is possible to define the points of reference that have been cultivated in you through your experiences with a particular set of media from particular countries or regions (p. 7).” One would hope that self-exploration is not the only motive behind the study of international communication systems. In practice, the use of the rhetorical perspective here serves mainly as an entrée to straightforward description, and lots of it.

Putting the fuzziness of the theoretical framework aside for the moment, however, Comparing Media has a lot to offer, including a wealth of detailed information about that is difficult to find in a single source. Following the introduction and two overview chapters which address globalization (Chapter 2) and the elements of media systems (Chapter 3), the balance of the book serves up detailed descriptions of various aspects of the media systems of the countries under investigation. The countries selected for in-depth study offer quite a nice cross-section of different media systems and cultures, and they are geographically diverse as well. One of the greatest strengths of the text is its attention to specific details about each country and its media systems (though this can turn into a liability as well, as discussed below). The book also features comparative summaries that are found at the end of each chapter, which are indispensable. In them, McKenzie summarizes the information from the chapter (no small task) in a table, noting interesting similarities and differences across the specific media element being explored.

There are several standout chapters: One on media regulations in these countries and two others on entertainment and news media content. In the chapter on media regulation, McKenzie first outlines the types of regulatory bodies and interest groups (including citizen groups) that shape the format and content of media. His comparative summary of media regulations in these eight countries highlights some key distinctions around the world regarding the role of the media; as an extension of national culture (in countries such as France, Sweden, and the UK for example), as a tool of commerce (in the United States), and as an extension of government propaganda (in China, for instance). The chapters on entertainment and news reporting are both extremely detailed, offering numerous examples not only of the form of media content (including the size of newspapers and length of radio programs, for example), but also of the content. Numerous photographs of print and broadcast media from these countries, taken by McKenzie himself when he traveled there, help to bring the text to life.

Despite the clear organization and expansive detail about these eight countries’ media systems, however, there are a number of foundational weaknesses in the book. In particular, the limitations of McKenzie’s rhetorical approach rob the details of the proper context within which to understand the operations of these countries’ media systems. This is everywhere in evidence in the second introductory chapter, entitled “Climate of Globalization”. Clearly, no introductory text on global media is viable without grappling with the concept of globalization. McKenzie does so, defining it as “a kind of worldwide climate in which people, industries, governments, and countries across the world are being propelled into closer political, economic, and cultural unions” (14). Globalization is being stimulated by four factors, argues McKenzie, including international travel, communication technologies, global media conglomerates, and “audience curiosity.” As the word “climate” suggests, globalization is imagined here as an amorphous, weather-like phenomenon that is as inevitable as El Niño, rather than as a reality forged by powerful economic and geopolitical forces. While McKenzie does mention the “promiscuity of corporate profit making” as a prime symptom of greater transnational coordination and integration, the relative short shrift given to political economic factors underlying the operation of global media systems emerges as a major conceptual flaw in the book. Passing references are made here to the UNESCO debates of the 1970’s and 80’s, but these issues are underdeveloped, thereby obscuring the central role of the UN in global communications politics. Also irksome are citations of “leading researchers” in the field of global media that date back to 1973, suggesting that perhaps nothing of note has been accomplished by scholars since then. Finally, the fact that no mention is made here of either GATT or recent negotiations over international borders and telecommunications policy under the umbrella of WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) is a glaring omission that will hopefully be remedied in a future edition.

Another disappointment emerges in the chapter on international media audiences. Here again, the rhetorical perspective is invoked in order to explore “how people are invited to feel, think, and behave in relation to the media that are available” (p. 328). McKenzie is careful to espouse methodological ecumenism here, arguing that the rhetorical perspective “is used to combine both qualitative and quantitative information” about audience responses to media (p. 328). Given these assurances, the reader might expect the subsequent discussion to include an overview of scholarly studies exploring audience reception or interpretation of media in these countries. Unfortunately, the rest of the chapter features only a cavalcade of charts and tables listing the number of Internet users, newspaper readers, radio listeners, and television viewers in each country. Given the lack of audience-based scholarly research here, McKenzie is forced to speculate about the reason for some of the patterns that emerge from the quantitative data. Regarding newspaper readership in Sweden, for example, he writes:

In Sweden, reading newspapers appears to be integral to the daily lives of most people, since almost 90 percent of the adult population – evenly split between men and women – reads newspapers every day. The high readership might be an indication that because Sweden is a small country with a minority language, its people are inclined to read newspapers regularly to learn what is happening across the world, because world events have direct effects on Sweden. Or the high readership might indicate that Swedes simply enjoy newspapers as a form of communication. (p. 355)

Without any exploration of scholarly audience research, the motives for newspaper readership are mysterious and speculative. This is just one example of the limitations of the rhetorical perspective in understanding international media systems.

In sum, Comparing Media from Around the World delivers a wealth of detail about the media in eight very different nations around the globe, though this information is not supplemented with the kind of rigorous analysis that would assist an introductory student in constructing a coherent picture about the operation of international media systems. Though the clear organization of the text is a definite plus, the sheer volume of encyclopedic information within the prose of the chapters causes the text to almost collapse under its own weight. In its attempt to achieve both breadth and depth in the study of international media systems, the book’s reach often exceeds its ambitious grasp. As a result, Comparing Media is not necessarily an ideal primer on global communication, but it is certainly moving in the right direction. In an era of increasingly interdependent economic, cultural, and media ties, we need introductory global communication texts in print. My hope is that this is the first of many in the coming years.

References

Frederick, H.H. (1993). Global Communication and International Relations. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace & Company.

Herman, E.S. & McChesney, R.W. (1997). The Global Media: The Missionaries of Global Capitalism. London: Cassell.

Thussu, D.K. (2000). International Communication: Continuity and Change. London: Arnold Hodder.

About the Reviewer

John L. Sullivan is associate professor of media & communication at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA.