ABSTRACT
Many of the recent studies of “global media” have focused on television; its expansion and reach are a clear indication and evidence of the end of national media. Yet television has remained a national medium and even the advocates of globalization inevitably use “national” examples to map out the emergence of the new global media environment. There are good reasons for such nationally focused studies. Languages as well as political and cultural frameworks, among other things, remain overwhelmingly national. Yet across the southern hemisphere and in countries with few resources, television has been a complex blend of the national and global. It has been nationally organized, financed, and controlled, either through direct State intervention or family media businesses, which have sought power and profits via political connections and patronage. However, as Bourdon (2004) argues the “interaction between nations has been a key part of television history” (p. 94) in three significant areas-first, through interaction in policy. Developing countries in particular have adopted policy frameworks from other nations, usually the former colonial master. Second, through interaction and exchanges of technologies, again from the most advanced countries of the north to the south. And finally, through program sales and flows that, for most part, have been unidirectional, an area of research that is far more developed and documented in international communications research.
