Internationalizing media theory

Abstract

Media theory has been too narrowly conceptualized within the experiences of British and American scholars. Because the United States and Great Britain are the two countries where most media research has been done, our ideas of what constitutes a media “theory” have been limited by the cultural, political and economic contexts of these nations. But these two countries are far too similar for us to base general media theories on their experiences. Both nations share an imperial history, for example, and a diffuse Protestant Christian culture. They have also both experienced a great degree of political and institutional stability since 1865, and they share a basic economic structure as well as patterns of extensive affluence. Witticisms notwithstanding, they also share a common language. A few other countries have also contributed to our ideas about media theory—France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the Nordic nations have also had their savants in this field. But for the most part Anglo‐American ideas have dominated this discourse to date. None of these countries, however, has recently experienced the key economic, political or cultural dynamics evinced by most nations—such dynamics include dictatorship, wrenching economic change, huge urban migration; drastic regime changes; deeply rooted and often violent social conflicts over ethnicity, nationality, religion and class; and sometimes fascistic gender relations profoundly anchored in tradition.

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