"Globalization, media audiences and television news: A comparative study of American, British, Israeli, German and French audiences." - By Anandam Philip Kavoori (1994)
A critique
(This paper was produced for JOUR 776 under guidance of Prof Carol Rogers)
By Saswat Pattanayak
Kavoori’s work is unique from three standpoints: firstly, this is a comparative media study across five, instead of between two countries, secondly, it revisits the media imperialism theories with a changed premise and last but not the least, the dissertation deals extensively with globalization from an ethnographic perspective.
“Globalization, media audiences and television news: A comparative study of American, British, Israeli, German and French audiences”, is suitably titled, deriving research data from a four year “Global Newsroom” project.
Appraisal:
Media globalization is exemplified by erstwhile gathering of masses around
a global alter-television. Hence television is clearly representative
of the global media. But what’s amiss is even a slight mention of
newspapers, radio programs or movies that have global circulation, even
as Kavoori holistically elaborates on several theories of media globalization.
Kavoori takes on the political economy critics who by formulating global interconnectedness, according to him, have contradicted Marx’s own model of dissolution of state. But neither does he name who the critics are, nor does he discuss the rationale behind the assumed fallacies. In his critical appraisal of political economy, the author underplays role of nation-building as the first stage toward socialistic economy.
Kavoori goes on to assume that globalization comes with withering away of nation-state, but also dismisses, in my view, any alternative paradigm which may claim to the contrary: that globalization strengthens territorial differences, thereby making nation-state a more relevant construct.
In the literature section, which Kavoori does not categorize thus, references are grossly inadequate, although the ones cited are significant to the study. Most important omissions have been Manuel Castells, Boyd-Barrett and Michael Palmer, whose works on media globalization are crucial to more diverse understanding. Kavoori’s study could have dealt more with Schramm, Giddens, Spivak and Edward Said, than he has. Since each of them represent different streams, it’s an abrupt juxtaposition under one category, as has been attempted at in this dissertation.
The study argues for a role for television news as a genre that perpetuates a modernist view of globalization. Post-modernist views of globalization are incorporated in the audience criticism of television. But Kavoori heavily relies on Anderson’s “Imagined Communities” to make a case for culturalist approach and to refute both modernist and post-modernist stands. At the same time, he refuses to discuss how culturalist approach could essentially differ from post-modernist, in that they both deal with culture as construct, and not nation-state (in case of modernity) or religion/monarchy (tradition).
McLuhan is considered the first global media guru by the author, notwithstanding Wilbur Schramm’s groundbreaking global studies of television news. The dividing line, however fine it may be, relates to the “content”, not “flow”. Ironically McLuhan never studied the contents, but just the medium, whereas Kavoori credits him for initiation of interest in global study. And incidentally the present dissertation deals with contents and audience reception, alien to McLuhan, closer to Schramm (notwithstanding the critics of ‘developmentalist’ schools) and home to Hall.
Three divisions have been made by Kavoori to explain relevance of one over another: ‘communication and development’, ‘cultural imperialism’ and ‘cultural pluralism’. He dismisses the role of the first two even without attributing the significances. The importance of fact that nation development was the key agenda for many postcolonial societies during the advent of television, a medium that needed to be used to test its effects, has been omitted. So far as cultural imperialism is concerned, although questions have been changed from “flow” area to “audience” area, the core problems, I assume still remains the same. Kavoori has missed the point, let alone address it. Talking about cultural imperialism, there is no mention of the “receiver” countries or the home-grown theorists, e.g., Said’s ‘Orientalism’ or Spivak’s subaltern studies (also Bhaba, Guha etc).
Methodology,
ethical issues and limitations:
Kavoori’s study is directly derived from four-year long Global Newsroom
Project which examined ranges of meanings media spread around the world,
identified the range of global-local semantic referents or patterns of
“domestication”, audience view of media and relation between
“text” and “audience”.
Kavoori’s chapter on methodology is very carefully crafted, with judicious elaboration on what constitutes Focus Group and how is it unique. He deals extensively on history of focus groups and justifies the approach in present study extremely well. Focus groups methods have been divided into three stages: planning, data collection and data analysis.
Under planning stage, five focus groups were assembled in each country. While collecting data, videotape and television stories were shown. Kavoori dwells on how issues of privacy were addressed at each stage. Although video-taping was not carried out, discussions were audio-taped. Verbal, not written, consent were obtained.
There were three international issues relating to South Korea unrest, Gulf refugees and South Africa violence. Kavoori does not mention if German and French participants spoke in English or in their languages. He gives comparatively much less space to discussions by French and Germans as he details Israeli, America and British responses.
Kavoori discusses the audience involvement, levels of self and ‘other’ referentialities. But justice has not been done to explanation of what the “other” constitutes. Even finer points of criticisms may point to lack of mention as to why the specific stories were chosen. More significantly, the number of participants in each focus group and the total number of participants still remain a guess.
Under data analysis, the disclaimers of Kavoori are interesting, prominently his grasp on dynamics of culture, ‘which to be viewed in totality would be sheer impossible’. Kavoori makes an appropriate comment on interpretive perspective: “Interpretation comes about through a continual negotiation between the empirical and theoretical with understanding not grounded in any one but emergent from both sides of this process.”
Kavoori gives due credit to difficulties in data analysis in qualitative research, when he says choosing the quotes used in the dissertation is very complex process. The author elaborately discusses all the steps he found appropriate, though difficult, to process the conversations for relevant analysis. In the end, he appends the transcripts of news, shown to participants.
Overall, the dissertation,
directed by Dr Michael Gurevitch of University of Maryland, is a commendable
effort, since it deals with issues having characters of imminent generalizability.
Studies across five countries are overwhelming for any researcher. This
is one of the fine works done in the field, which can and should go beyond
the library walls and reach the wider readers who are keen to “understand”
the audience interpretation of news, if not to explore the audience involvement
with the media.
Overarching limitations:
All
the five countries are “Western”. The orientation of the research
is from the Western point of view. The interpretations resorted to in
this dissertation is hence, borrowed heavily from the first world literature
of media studies and what “development” and “globalization”
means in context. For example, “Cultural Pluralism”, a phrase
discussed by the author as the culmination may have difficult meanings
for people in third world who see globalization as threat to their cultural
cohesion.
Reference:
Boyd-Barrett, O. (1998) The Globalization of News, London: Sage.
National Research Council (2001) Global Networks and Local Values, Washington
DC: National Academy Press.
Spivak, G.C. (1985) Selected Subaltern Studies, London: Routledge.
Saswat
Pattanayak
blog@saswat.com