Chapter 2, Dtailed outline

Drawing a Bead on Global Communication Theories



I-Introduction

-Theorizing is a way of getting a phenomenon clearly in our sights.
-We need to attempt an explanation, a theory.
-Theorizing means careful focused thinking.
-A theory is not automatically right or mostly correct.
-Theorizing is a serious attempt to think connectedly and deeply about something.

II- Normative theories

1-Authoritarian theory; is designed to protect the established social order and its agents, setting clear and close limits to media freedom.

2- Libertarian; the press should be a free market place of ideas, in which the best will be recognized and the worst fail.

3-Soviet theory, assigned the media a role as collective agitator, propagandist and educator in the building of communism.

4-Socail responsibility theory; the media ownership and operation are a form of public trust or stewardship, rather than a unlimited private franchise.

5-Development media theory; limited resources available foe media can legitimately be allocated by government, and journalistic freedom can also be restricted.

6-Democratic participation media theory; supports the right to relevant local information, the right to answer back and the right to use the new means of communication for interaction and social action in small-scale settings of community , interest group or subculture.

III-A Different Approach I: Comparing and Contrasting Media

-At least four important issues must be considered –namely, how we understand the relation of mainstream media.

1) Political Power: Dictatorship (communism) equaled repression and censorship, in the name of justice.
- In dictatorships the state has control over the media
- The control over communication did not work at the end.
- A dual-level public real developed.

2) Economic Crisis: In dictatorships the media remains silent about the decline in the living standards and stagnation in productivity, and asserted that the capitalist countries were suffering from acute and irremediable economic problems.

3) Dramatic Social Transitions: It is wrong to assume that a media system is permanent or normal and that transition is inherent in media. Media transitions occur along with social transitions.

IV- A Different Approach II: Globalization and Media

-Different explanations of globalization;
1-Sometimes signifies structural economic changes.
2-It is also applied to cultural and media processes.
3-More or less, it means Americanization.
4- Hybridity: a merging of different perspectives and values to form a new blended culture.

V- A different Approach III: Small-scale Alternative Media

- Samizdat: The tern refers to the hand circulated pamphlets, poems, essays and plays.
- It began to emerge in Soviet Russia and later in other Soviet bloc Countries since the 60's.
- They contained widely varied messages, religious, nationalist, reformist, ecological and attacking Soviet politics.
- The term samizdat literally means self-published, in contradiction to state-published that is, approved by the Soviet regime as safe.

VI- Conclusions

-It is not only by studying media in just the United States or Britain, the currently dominant nations in media research publication, we can succeed in "drawing a bead" on media.