Detailed Outline chapter 8: The Global Implications of the Internet: Challenges and Prospects

Lamiae Mejjane

Chapter 8

I) Convergence theory and cultural identity

• Communication is a process of sharing information in which two or more participants reach mutual understanding.
• The convergence model posits reduced within group variance to be the primary result of the communication process and a requirement for collective action and the achievement of social goals.
• Cultural convergenge theory suggests that the variance between groups or national cultures would become smaller over time as a result of international communication.
  

II) Systems Approach and Social networks systems

Holism is better characterized by organizational structure, when an entity consisting of two or more basic parts, or people in communication with each other in which the outcome is something more or different than the sum of the parts (e.g., culture).

Definition of a system

“A system, then, is a set of things that affect one another within an environment and form a larger pattern that is different from any of he parts”
Social networks

Social network perspectives focus on the structure of social systems elements of a social system are put together


From the network perspective, social environment can be expressed as patterns or regularities in relationship among interacting units

These patterns are often called structure

III) Intercultural Communication

• Intercultural communication concerns the linkages between Groups A and B that involve individuals a, b, and c
• These links also include the mass media, telecommunications, including the Internet because the information that facilitates the understanding of Groups A and B is communicated via the mass media, either print or electronic

• These linkages among different cultural groups have increased, resulting in globalization:
  
  The process of strengthening the worldwide social relations that link distant localities in such a way that local events are shaped by circumstances at remote places in the world
  
  
  
  1. Trans-border communication has opened cultural boundaries and began the process of cultural convergence
  
  2. It has created a global community with an increasingly homogenous culture, particularly regarding political, economic, educational, and scientific activities, although in the area of religion this process has been much slower
  
  3. The Internet is one channel that directly connects people of different cultural and national groups from across the globe with one another
  
  Information flows via the Internet may facilitate the convergence of national cultures, leading to a universal set of beliefs that includes a change from national to global identity
  

Detailed Outline chapter 14: Patterns in Global Communication: Prospects and Concerns

Lamiae Mejjane

Detailed Outline chapter 14



I)Introduction

• At end of 20th Cent, USA Congress passed a Laissez-faire Communication (new world order for media around the world)


• This was not a sign of democratization


• content control was always held within state bureacracies or by the citizen-owners of the nation


• media cartels have been formed to secure capital or dominate marketplace


• information revolution seems to have come to an end or the very least a maturation

II) the Status of Infrastructure in the Com. Industry

• information revolution called by some writers 'the com. age' or the 'era of new media'


• Nicholas Negroponte calls it 'digital revolution'


• wireless ind., ahieved through use of global satellites

a) the Global Satellite System

• 1965, Geosynchronous satellite (GEO) could handle only 240 voice circuit at a time


• now: 40% of voice traffic

b) Asia-Pacific Rim

• satellite established to serve Asian Pacific region


• ex: AsiaSat, Insat, KoreaSat, Palapa, etc


• New bus. development ('soft alliance')


• Hybrid network: combines both space and terrestrial connections to deliver customer signals efficiently and economically

c) The Middle-East

• progress through selling broadband internet access by satellite and DBS


• ArabSat: ME most important service providers

d) Africa

• with exception of some major cties, Africa's terrestrial com infrastructure is scarce at best and non existant at worst


• new GSM installation (growing) in africa


• 3 million users of Internet in africa (having a pop of 700 million)

e) Europe

• pioneer in the field of DBS and DTG transmission services


• Eutelsat important

f) South America

• Latin America is sustained by a variety of Trans-Atlantic Satellites, including Intelsat and PanAmSat, and thakns to the continent deregulation of the telecom sector


• Argentina: region's satellite sector

g) North America

• WTO agreement opened up the telecom market and formation of a Pan-American market for satellite services has emerged


• US and Latin America operators form partnerships


• USA monopolizes north american satellite market


• second and third generation tech implemented

h) Global Internet Services

• preeminent economies such as the ones of USA, Can, Japan, etc have perfected sophisticated fiber-optic telephone


• USA becomes the 1st fully integrated digital telecom in world


• base economies (developing countries relying on foreign aid)


• Expectant economy

III) Privacy and Information Warfare

• 'the evil incident to invasion of the privacy of the telephone is far geater than that involved in tampering with the mails'
• FBI capturing info of all kinds

a) Gov intrusion

• Surveillance system called Echelon: under covenant UKUSA, observe and anallyze telephone, fax, email and Internet com
• employs special computer program such as 'dictionary'
• FIDNET: against terrorism
  

b) Int Information Warfare

• spread of computer viruses, terrorists using propaganda
  

c) Int Debate concerning Free Access to New Media

• In many expectant and base economies, info cannot be freely exchanged via Internet
• media censorship in some Arab countries
  

IV) Global Economics, Transnational media, and Vanishing Culture

• nostalgia for the past
• traditional values vs globalization
  

a) Cultural Impact

• flow of pop culture: a threat to local culture
• freedom of expression; a right in the West legitimized by constitutional authority
• in other parts of world; censorship easily tolerated as a form of civic responcibility within a legitimate social framework
• stereotyping imagery
  

b) Economic Impact

• create partnership
• recent years: 3 trading blocs: EU, NAFTA and Pacific Rim partners
• difficult to have eco progress without having access to com systems
• human brain power: create economic wealth today
  

V) Conclusion

digital tech led to losing privacy, security, etc and sovereignty

coming change: a brain power

Detailed Outline: Chapter 12: Global Advertising and Public Relations

Lamiae Mejjane
Chapter 12


Global advertising and PR

I. Introduction

• Newsom, Turk and Kruskeberg say that Public relations practitioners are intermediaries between the organizations they represent and all of their organizations’ publics
• Advertising and PR becoming more global
• Multiculturalism and technologies are changing communications

II. Brief History of Advertising and PR Worldwide
1. Western in origin
2. corporate in purpose
3. manipulative in role, function, and intent
a Western in Origin?
1. advertising existed in Middle East as early as 3000 B.C.
2. not only 20th ct. phenomenon. German org. had one of the earliest internal pr departments in 1890
3. PR is more culturally-based than marketing or ad. and thus it is harder to conduct transnational PR
4. difference in Western PR (between an institution and its environment) and developing country PR (between material and nonmaterial aspects of culture)
5. Advertising tailored to indigenous cultures, not all ads are appropriate by all cultural standards

Corporate in Purpose?
1. accompanying the growth of large corporate institutions and enjoying the growth of consumerism as a global economic phenomenon
2. Global corporations are finding niche markets now rather than appealing to a mass global consumer population
3. U.S. gov and NGOs have long used advertising and PR as well
4. focus of corporations on “relationship marketing”

Manipulative in Role, Function and Design?
1. true advertising aims to sell ideas and products but PR is more complex
2. PR can play an essential role in democratic society
3. “relationship marketing” and responsible corporate citizenship

Democratic in Tradition?
1. suggests availability of consumer choice
2. places value on public opinion (inherent to democracy)

Capitalistic in Heritage? True

III. Environmental Challenges, Population Growth, Poverty and Hunger, War
“social marketing” can help alleviate and/or deal with these problems

IV. Tensions from Technology, Globalism, and Multiculturalism
1. Technology is the intervening variable affecting gobalism and multiculturamism
2. Governments, Corporations and Private

V. Nationalism versus Globalism

• homogenous global culture vs. revamped nationalism

VI. Past vs. Future
Tensions between modern and traditional societies as well as within traditional

VII. Tensions among the First, Second, and Third WorldEast-West tension diminishing but new divide between poor and rich

VIII. Class Stratification

social class issues remain in the 21st century, digital divide
IX. Control of Technology

Citizens or corporations will control it?
X. An Ideological Foundation for Advertising and PR

Ad. and PR not a panacea for these problems but they can help. a participation in culture

XI. Conclusion
PR and Ad. can help International relations and communication but cannot cure all the problems facing a globalized world

Chapter 11: presented in class

I have participated in the presentation of this chapter in class

Detailed Outline chapter 10: The Politics of Global Communication

Lamiae Mejjane

The Politics of Global Communication

I) The Three substantive domains

• since the mid-19th cent, global com has developed into an important concern on the agenda of the international community
• Developed rules of conduct
• Telecommunications include data communication, intellectual property rights and mass media
• The main issues in telecom involve: Accessibility, confidentiality, allocation

The beginings

some norms adopted include the protection of the secrecy of correspondence, the right of all nations to use international telegraphy, and the rejection of all liability for int telegraphy service

International property rights

• Convention Establishing a General Union for the Protection of the Rights of AUthors in their Literacy and Artistic Works
• Ensure remuneration for an author by protecting his or her work agaisnt reproduction

Mass media

• spread of obscene publications across borders
• used as instrument of foreign diplomacy
• silent diplomacy vs public diplomacy

The New Multilateral Institutions

• Post 1945, UN and multilateral policy coordination
• Commission on Human Rights agaisnt discrimination

Specialized Agencies

• important in com (ITU, UPU, UNESCO, WIPO, etc)

The Non Governmental Organizations

• in post 1945 phase, a contribution was offered by a growing group of int NGOs.

Shifts in Global Com. Politics

• Global governance determines space that national govs. have for independent policy making
• Global com. defined by trade and market
• Powerful private players significantiv.
• Transnational corporations are prominent playersh.

The World Trade Organization

WTO

• Free trade pushed, global comm. generates $1.6 trillion annually

II)Current Practices

• Contemporary thoughti. Global comm. critical for development
• Installation and upgrading of infrastructure is expensive
• Private funding is needediv.
• Question of how much competition will result or will monopolies prevail?

WTO Telecommunicaitons Treaty

• Participating states need of liberalize to participate
• Public Telecom transport service
• Public telecom transport network
• TRIPS protects econ rights of investors over moral/creative rights of individuals or cultural interests of public at largee.

Domain of Mass Media

• Problem of oligopolies and cartels
• Preference for anti-cartle legislation clashes with free market agenda- liberal claims vs. protectionism

III) Lessons from a key project in the domain of global mass media politics

• New Intetrnational Information Order (NIIO) in the 1970s
• Lack of participation of ordinary people and nonstate actors

IV) Global Communications Polticis Today

• Access: Neoliberal focus on global consumer society vs. making sure people are literate so comm.. can promote democracy (humanitarian perspective)
• Knowlegde: As a commodity vs. as a public good
• Global advertising: Expansion vs. econological implications of global consuer society
• Privacy: Data collection to profile consumers vs. privacy for citizense.
• intellectual property rights: investors property vs. protecting communal property
• Trade in culture: Culture as any other commodity vs. exemptions on culture from trade provisions to protect autonomy
• Concentration: Business links vs. preventing mergers and oligopolies
• The commons: Private exploitation vs. public property
• Civil Advocacy: Humanitarian agenda and various lobbies
• The World Summit on the Information Society: In 2001, third sponsored by UN

Assignment 4: Public Diplomacy/ Hughes resigned from her job

Lamiae Mejjane
Question:
Please read BIOGRAPHY of Karen P. Hughes, who initiated a number of innovations and institutional changes in the conduct of America Public Diplomacy.
Please define the following terms: soft power, public diplomacy, propaganda and write why Hughes has resigned from her job.
Answer: Karen P. HUghes introduced a number of institutional changes in the American public diplomcacy. In fact, among the innovations initiated by her were the introduction of educational programs aiming at giving a 'face to American foreign policy' by giving the opportunity to the outside world to get in touch with the American culture, values, etc. Also, other programs such as facilitating the acquisition of American visas by people from Iran or Afghanistan in order to continue their studies in the USA constitute a step towards ameliorating the image the USA has among Muslim countries in the Middle East, especially after the terrorist attacks. The work of Hughes consisted upon visiting for example Middle Eastern countries, listening to some people's views, opinions, needs, etc in order to formulate policies based on these needs, perceptions, etc. this face to face type of communication is essential in Public Relations in order to get the feedback of the audience, know its opinion, gain credibility, and then formulate policies based on the interest of the people. This new form of diplomacy (different from the old perception of diplomacy which involved only diplomats, coming from the elite classes, discussing with each other, without taking into consideration the needs and interests of the people. Hughes has resigned from her job due to the fact that she could no longer work efficiently with the Bush policy aiming at misleading the people by telling them the truth, which is the opposite of what a PR professional should do. Ethics are important to gain people support, credibility, etc
Public Diplomacy: a new form of diplomacy. The general people get an important role in this new form of diplomacy (at the opposite of the elite in the past). Public Diplomacy is a form of Public Relations where an individual has to promote an institution, a person (a political leader for instance) or an ideology. Public Diplomacy is done to win the support of the general population, influence public opinion internationally, and make the people believe in what seems to be the truth for the PR professionals
Soft power, originally named by Joseph Nye, is the contrary of military power (the use of force during war for instance). SOft power is the use of persuasion techniques, rhetoric in order to shape the people's minds and ideologies based on the interest of the people doing soft power. Soft power is used by democratic states which do no longer believe in the importance of using military force to gain a war.
propaganda was highly used by authoritarian regimes under Hitler, stalin for instance. It is the use of communication channels, through known persuasive or manipulative techniques, in order to shape or alter public opinion. Unlike public diplomacy or PR(based on telling the 'truth'), prpaganda relies on lies. George Orwell Novel (1984) is an example of a state where propaganda is highly used during the period of war in the SOviet Union (exactly in 1948) where political leaders brainwash the public in order to reject any form of resistance.

Assignment 3: Bridging Africa's digital divide

I think that the plan of having countries in AFrica accessing the Internet is a great development project. ALso, teaching the teachers in AFrica how to use the Internet would have a benefit in the educational domain since these teachers would be able to transmit the technology knowledge they were trained to into their students. However, this idea is very idealistic. however, setting such goals would be beneficial since it would motivate people and make them believe in the fact that all the AFrican countries would have access to the internet and thus to knowledge. Having access to the Internet may become a project for the United Nations Millenium goals (MDGs) set to reduce poverty by a half in the year 2015. However, other priorities enter in the agenda of the MDGs such as eradicating diseases of poverty and preventing them, have access to health care, education, gender equality, good governance, etc. THe priorities in education is to change some aspects of the local cultures, have girls going to schools, etc. However, the first step defined by the MDGs is to have a widespread schooling in the African countries and thus reduce illiteracy rates. This would be possible if only other causes of poverty are eradicated or prevented in order to ensure an economic growth or individual well being (such as AIDS, Malaria, etc which prevent prople from being interested in other human needs such as education, leisure time, etc). Nevertheless, having the project of introducing the Internet and the way to use this technologies within the shooling system in African countries is a good thing but it would take time to be efficient. I think that setting some priorities or objectives is better than having no objective, even if the implementation or the success of the projects would take time.
The case of India is different from other developing countries in the African continent. This is due to the fact that India is well known for having a great number of engineers mastering technology. therefore a project aiming at having a full national access to the Internet seems realizable at the short run. THis is due to the fact that the rate of schooling in INdia is greater than the one of poor countries in Africa. However, also India, just like other developing countries, faces a lack of communication infrastracture, especially in rural area,s which may hinder the realization of the project

Detailed Outline chapter 6

LAmiae Mejjane
Dr. Ibahrine

Global News and Information Flow in the Internet Age

I) Introduction

• The internet is universally characterized as a revolutionary medium because it has opened up an altogether new world of info and Com
• For instance, the International Telecommunication Union stated that by 2004, internet users had grown to nearly 700 million from around 360 million in 2000. However, at the same years three quarters of the world’s population did not own a telephone, a computer and a modem.

II) Origin and early history of news agencies

• The first half of the 1800s, the mass market press emerged by the creation of at least three of the major Westren news agencies: Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
• The mass market emerged as advertising became a significant source of revenue in industrialized societies. Adding to this, the rise in literacy and economic levels played an important part in this emergence.
• Michael Schudson attributed the mass market to the emergence of a “democratic market society” or the “Jacksonian” or mass democracy.Agence France-PresseAmong the oldest of the four major Western international news agencies is Agence France –Presse.

Agence France Press

• It was created by Charles-Louis Havas in 1835.
• because of the emergence of the 'cheap press in France, Havas expanded his operations by hiring more correspondents and used the newly invented telegraph for faster delivery of news.With the control of the Nazi over the French government, the agency was part of the official Nazi news agency which was set up as a propaganda office.
• In 1957, the agency became independent and took the name of the Agence France-Presse.

United Press International

• its founder is (Scripps) believed in no restrictions on who could purchase news

ITAR-TASS

Information Technology Association of Russia, successor of Soviet state agency (TASS)

The Associated Press
grew out of the Harbor News Association, formed by 10 men representing six News York City newspapers in 1848.

III) Supplemental News Agencies
The major supplemental services in the US are the New York Times News Services, the Los Angles Times-Washington Post News Services, and Dow Jones Newswires.

Broadcast News Services

Reuters and Associated Press Television News and the two dominant video news agencies in the world today, after taking over the operations of Visnews and WTN, respectively. Reuters has long claimed to have the world’s largest television news services, twice the size of CNN’s international news-gathering television news services, twice the size of CNN’s international news gathering operations.

IV) Global Newspapers, Magazines, and Broadcasters

• Several newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting organizations also play a significant role as puveyors of news globally.
• Three newspapers that are especially valued by opinion leaders around the world are:
• The New York Times, The Times of London, and The Guardian.The London Times, which became a tabloid in November 2004, had a daily circulation of 682.109, and The Guardian sold 377.292 copies daily in late 2004.
• Around newsmagazines, three stand out for their global reach-Time, Newsweek, and Britain’s Economist. CNN International’s biggest competitor today is BBC World.
• Another significant player in international television news broadcasting is Deutsche Well TV, the GERMAN Public broadcaster’s international satellite television channel. DW-TV broadcast news and public affairs programming in Germany, English, and Spanish in rotating 2 hour time slots.

V) News Flow Patterns: Offline and Online

• Developing countries have also raised specific concerns since the 1970s regarding the pattern of news flow emerging from the dominance of Western News agencies.
• in mid 1970s; developing countries pushed for a new world information order (NWIO) through UNESCO
• People are forced to see each other, and even themselves, through the medium of these agencies because they are major suppliers of news to the developing countries which raise a big concern.

Chapter 5: This Chapter was presented in Class

I have participated in the presentation of this chapter in class