Globalization, Supranational Institutions, and Media

Abstract

A s the 20th century entered its closing decade, the concept of globalization became ever more seen and heard as “a key idea by which we understand the transition of human society into the third millennium” (Waters, 1995, p. 1) but with ever-decreased precision of meaning. At least in the humanities disciplines and social sciences relevant to media studies, one reason for this was that globalization was more than a new concept—it marked nothing less than a fundamental shift in the scope of their paradigm, as academic disciplines adjusted their focus to look beyond their former unit of analysis, the nation-state. Previously, to talk about “a society” or “a media system” meant a moreor-less self-contained national society and its media system—American, British, Canadian, and so on. The concept of globalization was adopted as it became necessary to see each nation-state and its various systems— cultural as well as economic and political—in a world context, a new reality in which supranational institutions were having their influence in shaping national structures and processes to an extent never quite known before. Thus, although the concept has gone on to become associated primarily in everyday discourse with the global economic and political interdependency brought about by such supranational institutions as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Bank, there has also developed a vigorous discourse about globalization in the sphere of 3

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