While globalisation has lead to a radical improvement in global communication, erasing boundaries and connecting remote communities with the world, the phenomenon has also lead to a rise in transnational media corporations known as the 'Global Oligopoly', which has affected the content and quality of journalism.
These select few corporations, including Time Warner, Sony, News Corporation and Disney, have created a concentration of media ownership due to the corporatisation and convergence of media outlets.
Due to the fact that the news is now told from a select few, mainly American owned corporations, there has been a standardisation and marginalisation of information.
"The homogeneity of information is pitched at a predominantly middle-class and Western audience...with large sections of the world left under-represented" (Breit in Tapsall, 2001, p. 215-216 Journalism: Theory in Practise).
The enormous growth of these transnational media corporations has resulted in their increasing power and influence through their ownership of various media forms such as newspapers, magazines, movies and social media. These companies' internet ventures have also meant that new communication technologies have not given the world a diverse global voice but reduced our worldviews to a narrow few.
Breit highlights this in Journalism in the Global Village, that "Technology is giving the media a global audience and strategic alliances are giving the media immense power, but this has not created a global voice" (2001, p.215).
These media outlets controlled by large corporations are structured around a business model, whereby all processes and products are a commodity, needed to be sold to make profits. "This packaging of news as a commodity that can be bought and sold [is] one of the greatest changes facing journalists" (Breit 2001, p.218). Therefore, journalists are being criticised for the lack of quality news, as many journalists must now write infotainment and soft news to ensure their stories are read and newspapers sold.
Stokes and Hudson, authors of Journalism and democracy across borders, Globalisation and Citizenship: The Transnational Challenge, state that "journalism associated with the global media conglomerates gives priority to advertising driven, commercial ventures" (2007, p.58).
Breit emphasises this by stating that "commercial considerations are tainting the news agenda in the global media" (2001, p.216), while Grattan (1998) states that "this convergence is particualrly obvious in Australian newspapers, which are struggling to understand their role in the increasingly commercial world" (cited in Briet 2001, p.216).
These media giants are framing the news and spreading their viewpoints of world events. Journalists are now driven by commerical interests, putting these interests before the public's 'right to know', which Breit emphasises "given the commerical environment and the standardisation of the media's message and target audience, journalists must consider whether a 'right to know' still accommodates the public interest" (2001, p.218).
The Internet is a major component of globalisation that has created a global audience. However, with the decrease in trust of journalists who send out standardised and marginalised news copy, localisation has risen. In particular, citizen journalism has been at the forefront of this phenomenon. It personalises news reports, democracies the news and abolishes gatekeepers. However, it has also been noted to increase regionalism.
While parts of the public have been proactive in restoring the news to cover local content, by producing their own news, it is evident that these individuals do not have the same qualifications as trained journalists. Although their stories may be newsworthy and well written, it is professional journalists who know how to gather, source and find information, conduct interviews and cross-check facts to provide accurate accounts of events.
Perhaps the consumers of news need to take greater responsibility in what they want to hear and read. Rather than the current need of infotainment and soft news, as seen splashed on the covers of tabloids and online news websites, consumers need to want hard news so that jouranlists have the opportunity to write qualilty news and pursue their role as being 'watchdogs'.
I also believe that journalists should resist commerical pressures and pursue their investigative role as being the public's 'watchdog', whereby state funded and public broadcasting institutions continue to support and develop the field of journalism by allowing journalists the freedom and chance to regain their journalistic integrity.
Below is a link to a YouTube clip that highlights American journalists protesting against transnational corporations' push of biased propaganda on journalists.
Globalisation and the media
Below is a link to a YouTube clip that shows Rupert Murdoch speaking about chaning media.
How Technology Has Changed the Media
