Are media geographies de-territorializing?

Are media geographies de-territorializing?

The development of science and technology has aided the process of globalisation, advanced forms of communications has allowed the efficient transmission of information and knowledge across boundaries, consequently effectively dissolving the old structures of national states and communities. However, with the course de-territorialization there is also evidence of the medias growing efforts of localisation and the formation of culturally and regionally specific identities. The media as an institution is also steadily becoming hugely influential in the economical structure of capitalist society. ‘the necessity of rethinking our sense of place in the context of the transformations and destabilisations wrought both by the forces of economic globalisation and by the global media industries.’ (Morley 2000:5).

The evolution of communication technologies has allowed the spread of media across the world, making media a powerful force within politics and the formation and spread of culture. Newspapers, magazines, television, radio, films, music, and not forgetting the Internet, are the primary mediums of informational communication throughout the public sphere. The sending, receiving and experience of media messages have become a large part of daily life, and individuals are unknowingly bombarded with advertising messages everyday. The reception of media is not only for instructive purposes, it has become a huge source of public interest and leisure. The role of the television is a prime example of how important the media is for the progression of globalisation, within the modern domestic home the television is a form of electronic media that allows the consumer to experience through sound and images different exotic locations and novel encounters without leaving the comfort of their own personal space. It can also be said that a type of culture has emerged from the consumption of the television, as people schedule their lives around the broadcasting timetable, in the home furniture is arranged around the television, and finally television programmes have provided mutual grounds for conversation in social interactions. On a social scale the television has initiated the de-territorialization of boundaries such as age, gender, class and culture, the same can be said for the role of film, music and radio.

Satellite televis...

... middle of paper ...

...party over the other. Moreover, during the American Re-election 2004, the Guardian newspaper in the UK used their power as media to encourage their readers to write letters to the people across the globe in the Ohio state in America, however this was an endeavour to influence the outcome of the election by attempting to form boundaries through shaping the public’s opinion.

Advances in the speed and quality of global communication technologies have allowed the development of mass media, subsequently aiding the process of de-territorialization. However this increase in public access to a diverse range of information has in contrast caused regulations of broadcasting and the formation of specific national identities. ‘While the media have become indeed globally interconnected, and programs and messages circulate in the global network, we are not living in a global village, but in customized cottages globally produced and locally distributed.’ (Castells 1996:370).

References

Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Blackwell.

McQuail, D (2000). Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity. Routledge.

Morley, D (2000). Mass Communication Theory. Sage Publications.