The Media and the Academic Globalization Debate : Theoretical Analysis and Critique

This study offers a reconstruction and critical evaluation of globalization theory, a perspective that has been central for sociology and cultural studies in recent decades, from the viewpoint of media and communications. As the study shows, sociological and cultural globalization theorists rely heavily on arguments concerning media and communications, especially the so-called new information and communication technologies, in the construction of their frameworks. Together with deepening the understanding of globalization theory, the study gives new critical knowledge of the problematic consequences that follow from such strong investment in media and communications in contemporary theory. The book is divided into four parts. The first part presents the research problem, the approach and the theoretical contexts of the study. Followed by the introduction in Chapter 1, I identify the core elements of globalization theory in Chapter 2. At the heart of globalization theory is the claim that recent decades have witnessed massive changes in the spatio-temporal constitution of society, caused by new media and communications in particular, and that these changes necessitate the rethinking of the foundations of social theory as a whole. Chapter 3 introduces three paradigms of media research the political economy of media, cultural studies and medium theory the discussion of which will make it easier to understand the key issues and controversies that emerge in academic globalization theorists treatment of media and communications. The next two parts offer a close reading of four theorists whose works I use as entry points into academic debates on globalization. I argue that we can make sense of mainstream positions on globalization by dividing them into two paradigms: on the one hand, media-technological explanations of globalization and, on the other, cultural globalization theory. As examples of the former, I discuss the works of Manuel Castells (Chapter 4) and Scott Lash (Chapter 5). I maintain that their analyses of globalization processes are overtly media-centric and result in an unhistorical and uncritical understanding of social power in an era of capitalist globalization. A related evaluation of the second paradigm (cultural globalization theory), as exemplified by Arjun Appadurai and John Tomlinson, is presented in Chapter 6. I argue that due to their rejection of the importance of nation states and the notion of cultural imperialism for cultural analysis, and their replacement with a framework of media-generated deterritorializations and flows, these theorists underplay the importance of the neoliberalization of cultures throughout the world. The fourth part (Chapter 7) presents a central research finding of this study, namely that the media-centrism of globalization theory can be understood in the context of the emergence of neoliberalism. I find it problematic that at the same time when capitalist dynamics have been strengthened in social and cultural life, advocates of globalization theory have directed attention to media-technological changes and their sweeping socio-cultural consequences, instead of analyzing the powerful material forces that shape the society and the culture. I further argue that this shift serves not only analytical but also utopian functions, that is, the longing for a better world in times when such longing is otherwise considered impracticable.

Lapset, media ja symbolinen vuorovaikutus : Suomalaisten, englantilaisten ja saksalaisten lasten mediasuhteen tarkastelua

Tämän hetken mediaympäristölle on ominaista intensiivisyys ja jatkuva läsnäolo. Medialla on merkittävä rooli myös pienten lasten jokapäiväisessä elämässä, sillä he aloittavat median säännöllisen seuraamisen keskimäärin kolmen vuoden iässä. Mediasisällöt, mediavälineet ja mediaan liittyvät sosiaaliset suhteet muodostavatkin lapsille mediaympäristön, jossa lapset rakentavat identiteettejään, oppivat sosiaalista kanssakäymistä ja kehittävät näkemyksiään yhteiskunnasta ja kulttuurista. Tutkimuksessa on selvitetty 4-6-vuotiaitten suomalaisten, englantilaisten ja saksalaisten lasten audiovisuaalisen median tulkintaa ja median roolia heidän elämässään. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on ollut syventää tutkimuksellista tietoa median sosiaalisesta ja kulttuurisesta merkityksestä pienten lasten elämässä ja sitä, miten he tulkitsevat mediasisältöä. Tutkimuksessa lasten mediasuhdetta on tarkasteltu välineellisenä, sosiaalisena, symbolisena ja kulttuurisena tulkintaympäristönä. Edellisten lisäksi tutkimuksessa on arvioitu harvemmin viestinnän tutkimuksessa käytetyn symbolisen interaktionismin teorian tarjoamia mahdollisuuksia lasten mediasuhteen tarkasteluun. Suomessa, Englannissa ja Saksassa kootun kansainvälisen aineiston pohjalta on tarkasteltu myös vertailuryhmien välillä olevia mediaan liittyviä kulttuurisia eroja. Eri vertailumaiden melko samankaltaisesta mediaympäristöstä huolimatta tutkimus antaa viitteitä mediatulkinnoissa olevista kulttuurisista eroista. Media mahdollistaa lapsen erilaistan taitojensa kehittymistä ja voi siten muodostaa heille sosiaalisia, symbolisia ja kulttuurisia resursseja, joilla on merkitystä lapsen kehittymisen kannalta. Lapsen ja median suhde on kaksisuuntainen vuorovaikutussuhde ja mediainformaation tulkinnassa ovat mukana lapsen aiemmat tiedolliset ja sosiaaliset kokemukset. Aktiivisessa mediatulkintasuhteessaan lapsi kehittää sanavarastoaan, havainnointiaan, ajatteluaan ja tunne-elämäänsä. Median käyttö sosiaalisena tapahtumana kehittää osaltaan lapsen sosiaalisia valmiuksia. Siten esimerkiksi perheen median käyttöön liittyvät säännöt ja ohjeet ohjaavat perheen sisäistä toimintaa ja määrittävät lapsen asemaa perheessä. Median sisällöt ja niihin liittyvät erilaiset oheistuotteet toimivat osaltaan lapsen kulttuuristen koodistojen ja luokittelujen muodostajana. Tutkimus osoittaa myös symbolisen interaktionismin teorian tarjoavan varsin poikkitieteellisen tutkimuksellisen viitekehyksen lapsia ja mediaa koskevalle tutkimukselle ja mahdollistaa lasten mediasuhteen tutkimisen ja ymmärtämisen useiden, erilaisten tekijöiden suhteena.

Rethinking Media Pluralism : A Critique of Theories and Policy Discourses

This study examines different ways in which the concept of media pluralism has been theorized and used in contemporary media policy debates. Access to a broad range of different political views and cultural expressions is often regarded as a self-evident value in both theoretical and political debates on media and democracy. Opinions on the meaning and nature of media pluralism as a theoretical, political or empirical concept, however, are many, and it can easily be adjusted to different political purposes. The study aims to analyse the ambiguities surrounding the concept of media pluralism in two ways: by deconstructing its normative roots from the perspective of democratic theory, and by examining its different uses, definitions and underlying rationalities in current European media policy debates. The first part of the study examines the values and assumptions behind the notion of media pluralism in the context of different theories of democracy and the public sphere. The second part then analyses and assesses the deployment of the concept in contemporary European policy debates on media ownership and public service media. Finally, the study critically evaluates various attempts to create empirical indicators for measuring media pluralism and discusses their normative implications and underlying rationalities. The analysis of contemporary policy debates indicates that the notion of media pluralism has been too readily reduced to an empty catchphrase or conflated with consumer choice and market competition. In this narrow technocratic logic, pluralism is often unreflectively associated with quantitative data in a way that leaves unexamined key questions about social and political values, democracy, and citizenship. The basic argument advanced in the study is that media pluralism needs to be rescued from its depoliticized uses and re-imagined more broadly as a normative value that refers to the distribution of communicative power in the public sphere. Instead of something that could simply be measured through the number of media outlets available, the study argues that media pluralism should be understood in terms of its ability to challenge inequalities in communicative power and create a more democratic public sphere.

Construing and Defining the Out of Control : Addiction in the Media 1968-2008.

The four scientific articles comprising this doctoral dissertation offer new information on the presentation and construction of addiction in the mass media during the period 1968 - 2008. Diachronic surveys as well as quantitative and qualitative content analyses were undertaken to discern trends during the period in question and to investigate underlying conceptions of the problems in contemporary media presentations. The research material for the first three articles consists of a sample of 200 texts from Finland s biggest daily newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, from the period 1968 - 2006. The fourth study examines English-language tabloid material published on the Internet in 2005 - 2008. A number of principal trends are identified. In addition to a significant increase in addiction reporting over time, the study shows that an internalisation of addiction problems took place in the media presentations under study. The phenomenon is portrayed and tackled from within the problems themselves, often from the viewpoint of the individuals concerned. The tone becomes more personal, and technical and detailed accounts are more and more frequent. Secondly, the concept of addiction is broadened. This can be dated to the 1990s. The concept undergoes a conventionalisation: it is used more frequently in a manner that is not thought to require explanation. The word riippuvuus (the closest equivalent to addiction in Finnish) was adopted more commonly in the reporting at the same time, in the 1990s. Thirdly, the results highlight individual self-governance as a superordinate principle in contemporary descriptions of addiction. If the principal demarcation in earlier texts was between us and them , it is now focused primarily on the individual s competence and ability to govern the self, to restrain and master one's behaviour. Finally, in the fourth study investigating textual constructions of female celebrities (Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears and Kate Moss) in Internet tabloids, various relations and functions of addiction problems, intoxication, body and gender were observed to function as cultural symbols. Addiction becomes a sign, or a style, that represents different significations in relation to the main characters in the tabloid stories. Tabloids, as a genre, play an important role by introducing other images of the problems than those featured in mainstream media. The study is positioned within the framework of modernity theory and its views on the need for self-reflexivity and biographies as tools for the creation and definition of the self. Traditional institutions such as the church, occupation, family etc. no longer play an important role in self-definition. This circumstance creates a need for a culture conveying stories of success and failure in relation to which the individual can position their own behaviour and life content. I propose that addiction , as a theme in media reporting, resolves the conflict that emanates from the ambivalence between the accessibility and the individualisation of consumer society, on the one hand, and the problematic behavioural patterns (addictions) that they may induce, on the other.

Why Do Russians Support Censorship of the Media?

This article analyses support for censorship in Russia as part of the democratization process. Censorship has been an important part of Russian history and it was strengthened during the Soviet era. After the collapse of the Soviet system formal censorship was banned even though the reality has been different. Therefore it is not strange that many Russians would like to limit the freedom of the media and to censor certain topics. The views of Russians on censorship have been studied on the basis of a survey carried out in 2007. According to the results, three different dimensions of censorship were found. These dimensions include moral censorship, political censorship, and censorship of religious materials. Support for these dimensions varies on the basis of socio-demographic characteristics and media use. The article concludes that many Russians reject new phenomena, while support for the censorship of political criticism is not as high, but political censorship seems to enjoy more support among elites than among the common people.

Social Media as a Form of Organizational Knowledge Sharing

This study investigates the role of social media as a form of organizational knowledge sharing. Social media is investigated in terms of the Web 2.0 technologies that organizations provide their employees as tools of internal communication. This study is anchored in the theoretical understanding of social media as technologies which enable both knowledge collection and knowledge donation. This study investigates the factors influencing employees’ use of social media in their working environment. The study presents the multidisciplinary research tradition concerning knowledge sharing. Social media is analyzed especially in relation to internal communication and knowledge sharing. Based on previous studies, it is assumed that personal, organizational, and technological factors influence employees’ use of social media in their working environment. The research represents a case study focusing on the employees of the Finnish company Wärtsilä. Wärtsilä represents an eligible case organization for this study given that it puts in use several Web 2.0 tools in its intranet. The research is based on quantitative methods. In total 343 answers were obtained with the aid of an online survey which was available in Wärtsilä’s intranet. The associations between the variables are analyzed with the aid of correlations. Finally, with the aid of multiple linear regression analysis the causality between the assumed factors and the use of social media is tested. The analysis demonstrates that personal, organizational and technological factors influence the respondents’ use of social media. As strong predictive variables emerge the benefits that respondents expect to receive from using social media and respondents’ experience in using Web 2.0 in their private lives. Also organizational factors such as managers’ and colleagues’ activeness and organizational guidelines for using social media form a causal relationship with the use of social media. In addition, respondents’ understanding of their responsibilities affects their use of social media. The more social media is considered as a part of individual responsibilities, the more frequently social media is used. Finally, technological factors must be recognized. The more user-friendly social media tools are considered and the better technical skills respondents have, the more frequently social media is used in the working environment. The central references in relation to knowledge sharing include Chun Wei Choo’s (2006) work Knowing Organization, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi’s (1995) work The Knowledge Creating Company and Linda Argote’s (1999) work Organizational Learning.

Media Education in the Finnish School System : A Conceptual Analysis of the Subject Didactic Dimension of Media Education

The aim of the doctoral dissertation was to further our theoretical and empirical understanding of media education as practised in the context of Finnish basic education. The current era of intensive use of the Internet is recognised too. The doctoral dissertation presents the subject didactic dimension of media education as one of the main results of the conceptual analysis. The theoretical foundation is based on the idea of dividing the concept of media education into media and education (Vesterinen et al., 2006). As two ends of the dimension, these two can be understood didactically as content and pedagogy respectively. In the middle, subject didactics is considered to have one form closer to content matter (Subject Didactics I learning about media) and another closer to general pedagogical questions (Subject Didactics II learning with/through media). The empirical case studies of the dissertation are reported with foci on media literacy in the era of Web 2.0 (Kynäslahti et al., 2008), teacher reasoning in media educational situations (Vesterinen, Kynäslahti - Tella, 2010) and the research methodological implications of the use of information and communication technologies in the school (Vesterinen, Toom - Patrikainen, 2010). As a conclusion, Media-Based Media Education and Cross-Curricular Media Education are presented as two subject didactic modes of media education in the school context. Episodic Media Education is discussed as the third mode of media education where less organised teaching, studying and learning related to media takes place, and situations (i.e. episodes, if you like) without proper planning or thorough reflection are in focus. Based on the theoretical and empirical understanding gained in this dissertation, it is proposed that instead of occupying a corner of its own in the school curriculum, media education should lead the wider change in Finnish schools.

Conditionally One of 'Us' : A Study of Print Media, Minorities and Positioning Practices

This study deals with how ethnic minorities and immigrants are portrayed in the Finnish print media. The study also asks how media users of various ethnocultural backgrounds make sense of these mediated stories. A more general objective is to elucidate negotiations of belonging and positioning practices in an increasingly complex society. The empirical part of the study is based on content analysis and qualitative close reading of 1,782 articles in five newspapers (Hufvudstadsbladet, Vasabladet, Helsingin Sanomat, Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat) during various research periods between 1999 and 2007. Four case studies on print media content are followed up by a focus group study involving 33 newspaper readers of Bosnian, Somalian, Russian, and 'native' Finnish backgrounds. The study draws from different academic and intellectual traditions; mainly media and communication studies, sociology and social psychology. The main theoretical framework employed is positioning theory, as developed by Rom Harré and others. Building on this perspective, situational self-positioning, positioning by others, and media positioning are seen as central practices in the negotiation of belonging. In support of contemporary developments in social sciences, some of these negotiations are seen as occurring in a network type of communicative space. In this space, the media form one of the most powerful institutions in constructing, distributing and legitimising values and ideas of who belongs to 'us', and who does not. The notion of positioning always involves an exclusionary potential. This thesis joins scholars who assert that in order to understand inclusionary and exclusionary mechanisms, the theoretical starting point must be a recognition of a decent and non-humiliating society. When key insights are distilled from the five empirical cases and related to the main theories, one of the major arguments put forward is that the media were first and foremost concerned with a minority actor's rightful or unlawful belonging to the Finnish welfare system. However, in some cases persistent stereotypes concerning some immigrant groups' motivation to work, pay taxes and therefore contribute are so strong that a general idea of individualism is forgotten in favour of racialised and stagnated views. Discussants of immigrant background also claim that the positions provided for minority actors in the media are not easy to identify with; categories are too narrow, journalists are biased, the reporting is simplifying and carries labelling potential. Hence, although the will for the communicative space to be more diverse and inclusive exists — and has also in many cases been articulated in charters, acts and codes — the positioning of ethnic minorities and immigrants differs significantly from the ideal.