CHAPTER 6

International Communication
Theories

In a world that is continually more globalized, it is increasingly important to

understand implications of communicatiFn across national borders. Perhaps the
most valuable aspect of this is that studying media systems from other places can
lead to a better understanding of one’s own media system. With that in mind, this
chapter reviews some of the history of theories about international communica­
tion and explores the two major paradigms used to study communication around
the world: the flow of information model and the comparative media model:
• Information flow was the first of these to be developed, largely focused on
hegemonic influences of large, powerful countries over the information flows
of smaller ones in the post-World War II (post-colonial) era.
• Comparative media analysis, which was developed later, places international
communication in a global context with local influences. It has become a
more popular and productive approach since the end of the Cold War and
resulting obsolescence of the Three Worlds geopolitical model, which led to
the growth of globalized flows of information, goods, and financial services.
Comparative study can also help people understand their own media systems
better.

The statement that the world has shrunk is no longer a cliché. Arguably, we have come
to live in what Marshall McLuhan described as a global village (see Chapter 5). We can
see, hear, and in some ways experience events that happen around the world as readily
as if they happened in our home towns.
For example, the author of this chapter spent a semester teaching in Ireland and
was able to keep in touch daily with friends and family in the United States via social
media and internet video chats, a phenomenon sometimes called the “death of
distance.” He was able to consume U.S. media, including his hometown newspaper
and U.S. national news, through Internet apps. (He was also able to continue fol­
lowing Irish media in the same way upon returning home.) One of the semester’s
highlights was a trip to a conference in London, where he was able to meet,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003121695-6
 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES 151

in person, several U.K. journalists whom he had “met” only in the virtual world
before then.
This is an outcome of a phenomenon often called globalization, defined as “a
social system with the capacity to work as a unit on a planetary scale in real or chosen
time” (Castells, 2008). Globalization and related trends make it worthwhile to develop
an understanding of theories that can predict and explain international communication
practices and their implications.
As with some of this book’s other chapters, a historical approach will be used to
explore the realm of international communication theories. Information flow across
national borders was the first international communication phenomenon to be studied,
and for many years was the dominant way to theorize about it. Theories centered on
information flow originally were formed to explain how communication technology
and practices unfolded as new nations were created after World War II from what had
been the colonies of early-20th century European powers.
Now, the more recently developed comparative studies approach – such as the
model developed by Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini, which is explored in depth
later in this chapter – is the leading paradigm. This addresses differences in cul­
tures, media practices, and media systems that remain intact even in a shrunken
world. It also is valuable because examining differences in media across interna­
tional borders helps people understand their own national systems more com­
pletely. For instance, Shaw and Tan (2014) looked at advertising portrayals of
Western vs. Asian male models in magazine advertising to examine how masculi­
nity was portrayed differently for each race. Further, communication flows have
become so globalized that it no longer makes sense to confine media study just to
the activities within one nation’s borders (Livingstone, 2012). Esser (2013) calls
this expansion “deterritorialism.”
The starting point for studying international communication is realizing that
different nations have different political structures that influence their media sys­
tems, especially through different policies of media regulation. The U.S. system, for
example, is based on freedom of expression and freedom of information flows,
with strong constraints on government regulation of media content. Many coun­
tries, however, are not as strong in that tradition as the United States and have laws
that regulate media more strictly. This means American understandings of media
regulation may not always be helpful in interpreting how media from other nations
operate and interact with their societies. This is especially true in the online digital
realm. European Union constraints on things such as digital privacy, articulated in
its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules safeguarding personal
data, differ substantially from U.S. regulations, for example (Burgess, 2020;
Palmer, 2019).
152 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES

BOX 6.1

Why Is This Website Asking Me about Cookies?

FIGURE 6.1 Warnings about cookies address data privacy.

It’s become common now when visiting a website to find a pop-up box with a
warning about how the site handles cookies, which are small pieces of software
code left on a user’s computer by sites that are visited. Usually, cookies are left
to help the site “remember” the user, and are a vital part of things such as
recommendations, return logins, and shopping carts.

Websites that use these digital identifiers face requirements about disclosure
and opt-out policies under European Union regulations meant to give EU citizens
more control over their personal data. The cookie controls are part of the General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was adopted in April 2016 after four
years of planning, and took full effect in May 2018.
GDPR’s main purpose is limiting how businesses and other organizations
collect and use digital information that can directly or indirectly identify people. It
applies to European organizations but also to businesses outside of Europe that
operate in the EU or interact with EU citizens. Data that is affected, of course,
includes things such as names, addresses, credit card numbers and other personal
information. The regulations also classify IP addresses and cookies as personal
data, leading to limitations around them as well. (Another key provision of the
GDPR is the so-called “right to be forgotten,” which gives EU citizens control over
personal information about them that can be found with Internet search engines.)
 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES 153

Although the GDPR codifies things further, the EU regulated cookies with
earlier policies dating to 2002 and 2009, called the ePrivacy Directive (EPD).
Regulations that must be followed to comply with the EPD include, among
others, that websites must receive users’ consent to use cookies, must describe
what the cookies track to help consumers decide whether to give consent, and
must document and store records of consent given by users.
The pop-up boxes that have become so common are the way this consent is
managed. They serve as a good example of globalization of media regulation
because they appear to web users worldwide who access sites based in Europe
or who visit sites of organizations with a strong presence there.
(In addition to cited sources, material was taken from various sections of the
“Complete guide to GDPR compliance” published by the EU, including https://
[Link]/; [Link] and [Link]

As a corollary, communication theories that reflect Western thought patterns may

not necessarily apply to non-Western societies such as those in Asia and Africa. This
notion of whether Western normative theories are valuable or relevant in other cultural
contexts is a major consideration in theorizing about communication on a global scale.
For example, because of cultural similarities based on historical immigration patterns,
the U.S. and European media systems are fairly similar. Even here, though, differences
can be found, as documented in Hallin and Mancini’s work.

EVOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

THEORIES
Eminent international communication scholar Oliver Boyd-Barrett describes the tradi­
tional development of international communication theory as beginning with propaganda
studies in the World War I era (see Chapter 2), and from there moving on to moder­
nization and free-flow of information as normative theories in the post-colonial era after
World War II. Questioning and critiques of those theories – especially whether they should
be considered normative – led to development of theories with opposing perspectives such
as dependency, cultural imperialism, and media imperialism. Finally, discourses of glo­
balization have developed more recently (Boyd-Barrett & Rantanen, 1998).
Globalization includes not only the technology that can “selectively connect
anyone and anything throughout the world” (Castells, 2008) but, also accompanying
institutional and organizational arrangements. In short, Castells maintains, all core
economic, communication and cultural activity has become globalized including: fi­
nance (investments and banking); production and distribution of goods such as
clothing and electronic hardware; and media and cultural goods.
Global exchange of media has a particular significance, however, that goes beyond
trade in things such as agricultural commodities or manufactured goods. This is because
154 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES

messages presented in media such as news reports, books, magazines, music, movies, and
television shows can “export” cultural values. Such messages can influence social beha­
viors and organization far from their society of origin, especially if they come from a large
and powerful place. For example, Bhattacharjee (2017) studied the impact of European
advertising in India while Fitzgerald (2019) examined the growth of Western streaming
video services such as Netflix there. These impacts can even include globalization of public
opinion and social movements through spontaneous organization on social networks. An
example of this would be how #BlackLivesMatter protests in the wake of George Floyd’s
death at the hands of police officers spread from U.S. cities to London, Berlin, and other
European cities, and even as far away as New Zealand (Rahim & Picheta, 2020).

Communication Infrastructure and Political Power

Global communication infrastructure was a critical element for 19th and early 20th
century European colonial empires to maintain control of far-flung territories. The
telegraph, developed in the mid-1800s, was an early tool for Great Britain to com­
municate to territories as far away as India, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Other
European powers such as France, Germany, and Belgium did the same with colonies
in Africa, Asia, South America, and elsewhere. Later, long distance voice commu­
nication through telephone and radio served the same purpose. A parallel develop­
ment of international media using similar infrastructure was the growth of
international news agencies, notably Reuters (United Kingdom), Agence France
Presse (France) and the Associated Press (United States). The early- to mid-20th
century saw global spread of media such as advertising, audio recording, films and,
eventually, television.
In the current globalized era, nation-states are no longer the only players on the
field; in fact, they may not be the most significant ones. Transnational corporations
have come to dominate not only news as in the days of Reuters and Associated Press
(both still around, as it happens) but nearly all aspects of international communication,
starting with the hardware used to produce and consume it. The most popular mobile
phones, for instance, come from Apple, an American firm that manufactures a large
share of its iPhones in China, and Samsung, a Korean corporation. They have sup­
planted Scandinavian suppliers – Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia – that were
the market leaders when mobile phones first became popular in the 1990s. Similarly,
top television brands sold worldwide are Korean (LG, and Samsung again) and
Japanese (Sony). All of these companies sell all of their devices worldwide.
While Asian companies dominate in hardware, American and European firms
tend to dominate content production, such as America’s Disney, Warner Brothers,
Paramount, and Universal in movies and Twentieth Century Fox, ABC, and NBC in
television. That is not meant to imply that U.S. firms are the only sources of such
content. America’s CNN is probably the world’s most recognized news brand, but
news from the British Broadcasting Corp. is respected around the globe. Also,
Japan’s Sony owns a major movie studio, and productions such as Indian
“Bollywood” films, Korean “K-pop” music recordings, and South American tele­
novela dramas have global audiences as well. Still, top selling movies and TV shows
 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES 155

around the globe tend to originate from U.S.-based transnational companies.

Meanwhile, the world’s top book publishers are European, including Penguin-
Random House (jointly owned by U.K. and German interests), Hachette Livre
(France), Harper-Collins (a subsidiary of U.K.-based News Corp.), and Macmillan
(a subsidiary of the German Holtzbrinck Publishing). The most popular social media
platforms and apps – Facebook, YouTube (owned by Google), Instagram (owned by
Facebook), Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp – are U.S. based.
Newcomer TikTok, founded in 2016, is based in China and by one accounting was
the seventh-most popular social media platform in the world by mid-2020, with
800 million users ([Link]).

STRUCTURE AND FLOW OF INTERNATIONAL

COMMUNICATION

The interconnection of media and political power that began in the imperial era is still a
common starting point for theorizing about international communication. Thussu
(2006) says the discipline has two main schools of thought, one that analyzes commu­
nication in relation to economic and political structures (a political economy approach)
and another rooted in cultural studies, or how media create shared meanings and values.
(Chapter 5 explores other differences in these two approaches.) The political economy
branch can be further divided into Marxist and non-Marxist schools of thought.

A Divided World
Around the time that many of the theories described here were developed, especially
the ones built around hegemony (or imperialism) of the developed world over the
developing world, the global community of nations was generally described with the
“Three Worlds” model. The terms First World, Second World, and Third World re­
ferred to geopolitical relationships during the time of the Cold War that followed
World War II. The breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s made these divisions less
meaningful. It is, however, useful to know this history relative to the development of
international communication theories from the era.
The concept of a “Cold War” meant that even though the shooting across Europe
had ended in 1945, the continent was still at war because two large, powerful military
complexes led by the United States and the Soviet Union faced each other in the region.
The U.S. had allies among Western European nations such as France and Great Britain,
while the Soviet allies were Eastern European states such as Poland, Hungary, and
Romania. The dividing line, labeled the “Iron Curtain” in a post-war speech by former
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was in Germany. It was determined roughly
by the territory the Western Allies and Soviets controlled when Nazi Germany sur­
rendered. Germany itself was divided into two countries (West and East) each with its
own government allied with the U.S. and the Soviets, respectively. This state of affairs
lasted into the early 1990s, when the Berlin Wall was removed and Germany was able
to reunite.
156 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES

Within this political arrangement, the term “First World” referred to developed,
capitalist, industrial countries led by the United States with generally common political
and economic interests. Geographically this meant North America, Western Europe,
Japan, and Australia. The “Second World” consisted of communist-socialist industrial
states of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, The People’s Republic of China and a few
other nations such as Cuba and North Korea. That left all other countries as the
“Third World,” notably developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
These Third World countries were characterized by low economic development,
high levels of poverty, and heavy dependence on industrialized nations. They often
had high rates of illiteracy and disease, along with unstable governments. Many
were former colonies of European powers that had gained independence after the
war and were seen by First World leaders as needing economic, political, and
cultural modernization.

Non-Marxist Theories of Political Economy

Modernization Theory
This theory developed in this post World War II era, stating that political and eco­
nomic modernization of underdeveloped Third World countries to improve their living
standards should also incorporate modern Western-style media as a normative model.
Recall that a normative theory or model is one that supposedly offers the most ben­
eficial way of establishing social systems. This theory stated that media with a liberal,
Westernized philosophy of commercial control and a free-flow-of-information ap­
proach could help developing post-colonial countries shed old, traditional (backward)
ways and help them aspire to a new, modern (i.e., Westernized) way of living.
One of modernization theory’s chief proponents, Daniel Lerner, said the media
assisted this process by helping citizens develop aspirations for what their nation could
become. “The modernization process begins with new public communication… new
ideas and new information which stimulate people to want to behave in new ways”
(Lerner, 1963, p. 86). This mediated process of illustrating individual and collective
aspirations would in turn create new social and political institutions that could support
economic modernization.
However, this theory is now seen as outdated and largely invalid. It was popular
from the 1960s to 1980s, especially as the Western world sought to influence the
development of South American, African, and Asian nations. It lost favor because of its
assumption that a Westernized lifestyle based in capitalist industrialism was the
“right” model for every society. This approach assumed that traditional cultural
customs required modernization, failing to recognize their value, and also assumed that
a modern economy and traditional lifestyles were mutually exclusive (Thussu, 2006,
pp. 44–45). The theory also failed to address unequal distribution of economic growth,
reinforcement of elite hegemony by media, and the uniqueness of local political/social/
cultural contexts. It was even seen as a variant on propaganda theory in that its
purpose seemed to be manipulation of people’s opinions, attitudes and behaviours.
Because of these shortcomings, especially the way it dismisses the value of indigenous
cultures, modernization is no longer considered a viable theory.
 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES 157

Free Flow of Information

The philosophical underpinning of media behavior in modernization theory was an
approach known as free flow of information theory. The U.S. media system based in
the First Amendment falls within this category. “Free flow” as a theoretical construct
proposes minimal state influence over media content or ownership for all countries, as
well as no barriers to information flow across borders. In this model, an individual’s
freedom to write or speak whatever he or she desires is raised to the level of a fun­
damental human right. A further principle in this approach is that all other freedoms
within a society must be supported by free expression, or a “marketplace of ideas.”
According to this theory, without free expression it is impossible to have political,
social, and economic freedom that allows a society to develop to its fullest potential.
Free flow of information is seen as particularly valuable in the political arena for two
reasons. First, it creates conditions for having the media serve as a watchdog or check on
the government. In contrast, one of the main features of an authoritarian environment is
controls on the media to prevent the spread of criticism against the government. Even
more importantly, the free flow of information theory maintains that it is not possible to
have effective self-governance unless the public has substantial knowledge about gov­
ernment officials, activities, and policies. Citizens need such information to make in­
telligent choices in self-governance; if the government can exercise control of the media,
this flow of information will be reduced and biased in favor of government viewpoints.

Marxist Political Economy Theories

The central feature of Marxist political economy theories is examination of the con­
nection between media systems and political power within a society (also described in
Chapter 5). Marxist theory developed first as a critique of the intertwined interests of
the state and capitalist economic interests. Marxism says these connections provide a
structure that allows powerful elite forces (and people) in a society to oppress the lower
classes. However, cultural institutions, including the media, are also seen as aligned
with capitalist interests in what Marx called a “superstructure” that supports or
maintains an ideology that capitalist values are normative. Some theories that use this
basis to explain how the media relate to the political-economic structure were devel­
oped specifically regarding global communication patterns.

Dependency Theory
Dependency theory states that transnational corporations with support of their home
governments (especially from the United States and Europe) set the agenda for world
economic development. As part of this, they seek to keep developing countries eco­
nomically and culturally dependent upon the involvement of the transnational cor­
porations in those countries. Transnational control of the media, for its part, helps
maintain an ideology that supports this relationship in a dependent country
(Straubhaar, 2003). Transnational firms gain this by getting the support of the gov­
ernment for their operations, and in turn help maintain public opinion favorable to the
government. This theory emerged to explain economic and media activities in Latin
America in the 1960s, and was in part a reaction to modernization theory. Dependency
158 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES

was a forerunner of other theories that proposed an imperialistic relationship between

the developed and developing worlds.

Structural Imperialism
This theory states that people of higher political and social status (elites) in the de­
veloped world of “core” countries build structural relationships to elites in developing
“peripheral” countries. In this context the core refers to developed Western nations,
primarily the United States and European countries, while the periphery lies mostly in
Africa, Latin America and southern Asia. (The term “Global South” is sometimes used
to describe this collection of countries because that is their geographic position relative
to the United States and Western Europe.) Not coincidentally, the “core” is mostly
colonial imperial powers and the “periphery” former colonies.
Through these relationships, dominance of the core countries over the peripheral
countries is maintained by a harmony of interest between the power elite on both sides.
In other words, the elite individuals of peripheral countries have more in common with
and are more strongly connected to the elite of the core nations than they are to lower-
class people and interests in their own countries. The structural result is beneficial
primarily to the core countries in the relationships (Galtung, 1971). Structural im­
perialism is not strictly a media theory, since it also concerns social, political, and
economic relationships. The theory also states that flow of news and other information
is a key component of maintaining these structural relationships, similar to the Marxist
concept of superstructure. As a result, in peripheral countries, the general (non-elite)
population knows more about affiliated core countries than they do about neighboring
countries (Galtung & Ruge, 1965).

Cultural Imperialism
This theory was proposed by Herbert Schiller in 1976 to describe and explain the way in
which large multinational corporations from developed countries, including media
companies, dominated developing countries. (Schiller’s related commodification of cul­
ture theory is covered in Chapter 5.) Cultural imperialism proposes that a society is
brought into the modern world system when it is attracted, pressured, forced, or some­
times bribed into shaping its social institutions to correspond to the values and structures
of the dominating center of the system (Schiller, 1976). Cultural imperialism further
maintains that U.S.-based transnational corporations undermined cultural autonomy of
countries in the Global South and created dependencies in communication hardware
(equipment) and software (content) (Thussu, 2006, p. 47). The popularity of U.S. tele­
vision shows, movies, Internet platforms, and celebrities abroad is one example of this.

Media Imperialism
This idea related to cultural imperialism was proposed by British scholar J. Oliver
Boyd-Barrett, who defined it as “the process whereby the ownership, structure, dis­
tribution, or content of the media in any country are singly or together subject to
substantial external pressures from the media interests of any other country or coun­
tries, without proportionate reciprocation of influence by the country so affected”
(Boyd-Barrett, 1977, p. 117). This means that while Hollywood blockbusters are
 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES 159

popular around the world, many of the films produced by studios in other countries are
never screened in the United States. Those that do reach the U.S. market generally have
limited release in art-house cinemas rather than on hundreds of screens at the multi­
plexes around the country. This theory overlaps with Schiller’s, of course, but is ad­
dressed a little more narrowly to the influences of media exports by powerful media
producers (especially the United States). These exports influence the media content
available in less-developed countries, providing Western media for consumption in
those countries that replaces or crowds out indigenous media.

Reaction from the Periphery

Dependency, cultural imperialism and media imperialism theories all relate to the
phenomenon of information flow primarily from a Third World perspective, con­
tending that imbalances have a negative impact on the less-developed countries. As
Galtung described it, control of the major international media by core countries means
that most of the news in smaller, less-developed countries is about large, rich nations
and that smaller countries read the most about nations to which they are structurally
tied. To put it another way, most people in, say, a post-colonial African country would
get more news and information about their former imperialist “masters” than they
would of other countries on their own continent.
This “imbalanced” news flow into and among the Third World nations was seen
as a problem in the developing world. Not only was the news available in many Third
World nations mostly provided by core nations about core nations, but news about the
Third World that did reach core countries was mostly negative, and focused on war,
political strife, and natural disasters. (This was sometimes described as news about
“coups and earthquakes.”) Stevenson and Cole (1984) demonstrated that such an
imbalance of information and domination of news flow by core countries created
distorted perceptions on both sides of the core-periphery divide.
This led to a reaction in the mid- to late 1970s through the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to counter cultural and
economic hegemony in the flow of information around the world through two related
initiatives. The first was UNESCO’s International Commission for the Study of
Communication Problems, commonly known as the MacBride Commission after its
chairman, Irish diplomat Sean MacBride. The Commission’s 1980 report said the
world’s commercial media system was dominated by transnational corporations that
championed a free flow of information – but that this mostly benefited the information
“haves” of the core at the expense of information “have nots” in the periphery. The
MacBride Commission report listed 82 recommendations for reforming the interna­
tional communication system in ways that would help Third World countries
strengthen their independence, self-determination, and cultural identity by shifting
greater control of media resources to the local level.
This prepared the way for a resolution adopted by UNESCO in 1980 that called
for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). This would
encompass, among other things, “elimination of the imbalances and inequalities [of
information exchanges] which characterize the present situation” and “respect for each
people’s cultural identity and for the right of each nation to inform the world public
160 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES

about its interests, its aspirations and its social and cultural values” (UNESCO 21st
General Conference Resolution, in Thussu, [2009], pp. 471–72).
The NWICO proposal, however, was not readily accepted by the Western world.
Western news organizations said that, contrary to the report’s findings, they were not
purposely making poorer countries look bad. Rather, the news organizations said, they
were just reporting on realities of the difficult economic, political, and social conditions
in many Third World countries – and that undemocratic governments didn’t like this
news reporting because it reflected badly on them. Western authorities and media
companies also argued that the NWICO movement was a Soviet-inspired design to
justify government control of media throughout the Third World. They further said it
contradicted freedom of information so important in Western society, a viewpoint
based in free flow of information as a normative theory. In 1984 the United States
withdrew its membership from UNESCO over the matter, and in 1985 the United
Kingdom left UNESCO also. (The United States rejoined the organization in 2002, but
left again in 2019, this time after accusing the agency of being biased against
U.S. ally Israel.)

The Wall Falls, and Globalization Rises

While the UNESCO debates about the need for new world information orders played
out, geopolitical forces were at work that would shortly lead to the shattering of the
old world order anyway. The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 signaled the
beginning of the end of the Three Worlds geopolitical model, and was a catalyst for
the emergence of a truly new world political order – with impacts for economics,
culture, and media as well.
The Cold War had kept Eastern Europe secluded behind what former U.K. Prime
Minister Winston Churchill described as “an Iron Curtain,” with totalitarian dom­
ination by the Soviet Union. But after 1989, the nations of Eastern Europe were able to
become more fully integrated into the world community of nations. With the dis­
mantling of the Soviet Union two years later, the idea of a “Second World” dis­
appeared. This didn’t end cultural or economic hegemony in the world; in many ways,
transnational media companies have actually become more powerful in the decades
since then. It did, however, mean the end of an era in which Third World nations too
often became pawns in a global chess match by the U.S. and Soviet superpowers. This
in turn led to more freedom of movement for people, goods – and information.
The tensions of the old world order helped lead to theories such as modernization,
and reactions to it such as dependency theories and the UNESCO movements. These
competing ideas largely grew as an extension of former colonial nations’ drives for
independence after World War II; the media theories extended these anti-colonial ef­
forts in political and economic spheres into cultural ones as well (Sparks, 2012). Sparks
calls the set of imperialistic theories largely obsolete today. Globalization, he says “has
tended to discount the role of the state in favor of the relations between the global
and the local” (p. 282). Larger nations still seek to wield influence, sometimes in
competition with each other, but do not act with outright imperialism. In this per­
spective, there is no single core dominating a periphery in the globalized world. White
makes similar arguments, saying that theories such as cultural imperialism applied well
 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES 161

to the time in which they were proposed, but further notes that “with the advent of
advanced communication technologies that allow for a multi-directional as opposed to
a unidirectional flow of information between countries, cultural imperialism is no
longer a useful framework for explaining the same phenomena that it was applied to in
the 1970s” (White, 2001, paragraph 8).
Other theorists disagree, and say that imperialist perspectives on world commu­
nication flows are still highly relevant because of the power that transnational media
corporations hold. One such theorist is Oliver Boyd-Barrett, who argues media im­
perialism is as valuable as ever to understanding the post-1989 world. While recognizing
that the decline of Marxist Eastern Europe led to skepticism about the validity and
relevance of dependency and imperialist theory, Boyd-Barrett says those theories still
help to explain “the relationship between national economies and the global capitalist
economy, and the role of culture and media in helping to sustain and reinvigorate that
relationship” (Boyd-Barrett & Rantanen, 1998, p. 151). Another is Schiller, who argues
that “The domination that exists today [in the early 1990s] … is better understood as
transnational corporate cultural domination (Schiller, 1991, p. 14).
1989 also was the year that British scientist Tim Berners Lee, who was working at
a research institute in Switzerland, proposed the idea of a computer network using a
tool he called hypertext to link documents and information. His idea was the foun­
dation for the World Wide Web. As the Web grew it became the most efficient way
ever invented for information to flow freely around the world, creating a truly global
and borderless media system. So, 1989 can be seen as a watershed year for both world
politics and international communication that saw the first steps taken on a path
leading to our current globalized, interdependent world.
Development of the Web contributed to the phenomenon of media systems that
were primarily national in 1990 being largely global by the turn of the 21st century ten
years later. “Today, one must first grasp the nature and logic of the global commercial
system and then determine how the local and national media deviate” (McChesney,
1999, p. 78). Similar to Boyd-Barrett and Schiller, McChesney notes that this global
media system is encouraged by and in turn supportive of global capitalism, especially
the interests of transnational corporations. He also notes that transnational groups
such as the World Trade Organization as well as the globalization of the advertising
industry provide further support for the related interests of global media and global
capitalism.

CONTEMPORARY PARADIGM: COMPARATIVE

MEDIA MODELS
Schiller’s discussion of the interplay of global, national and local forces illustrates that
despite the growth and expansion of a global information system, important political
and cultural differences do remain at the national level. This is why the most promi­
nent and popular theoretical framework for examining international communication
has become comparative studies, which analyzes the similarities and differences of
media systems in different nations or regions (groups of nations). Cultural and national
162 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES

settings for media systems – laws, geography, language, politics, economics and
technology – shape those systems (Trappel, 2011).
Esser (2013) notes that a comparative approach helps improve awareness that there
are no one-size-fits-all media models. Comparing systems also brings attention to things
about them that are not readily apparent or have not previously been noticed. “Virtually
no other approach has the potential to bring communication studies further forward in the
age of transnationalization than the comparative approach” (Esser, 2013, p. 113).
He cautions, however, that the approach will be valid only if theoretical frame­
works and concepts are equivalent for each case (country or region). Esser points to a
set of models developed by Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini as an example of a
comparative framework that meets these criteria. Trappel also cites Hallin and
Mancini’s approach as a productive one because it doesn’t use the East/West power
conflict or other ideologies as a starting point but rather seeks to make analyses based
on empirical characteristics of countries’ media systems.

A Comparative Framework
In doing this, Hallin and Mancini (2004) built on Siebert, Peterson and Schramm’s
“Four Theories of the Press” model (Siebert, Peterson, & Schramm, 1956). (These are
presented, in more detail, in Chapter 2.) The models they developed, called the Four
Theories of the Press, are:

Libertarian Model
This model supposes an almost pure form of free press with no government regulation.
In it, the media are privately owned and fulfill functions of informing and entertaining
their audiences, and keeping a check on government. The United States is said to come
closest to embodying this approach because of the First Amendment to its
Constitution, which restricts government interference in the content media may pro­
duce. Even the U.S. system has certain constraints, however. Therefore, pure liber­
tarian models exist in theory only and not at all in practice. In fact, the United States
falls behind most of Europe, Canada, Australia, and even some African and South
American countries in rankings of press freedom (see Box 6.2).

Social Responsibility Model

This model also presumes freedom of expression is a core value for a country, but with
an underlying principle that freedom carries obligations for the media to act in ways
that benefit society. This happens through two processes. First, media organizations
exercise voluntary restraint to act in the social interest. Second, government regulation
is both legitimate and necessary to control excesses.
As described in Chapter 2, a mix of government regulation and voluntary industry
restrictions place the U.S. media system in this category. However, the national public
broadcasting service models of the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) in the United
Kingdom, Raidió Teilifis Éireann (RTÉ) in Ireland and the Canadian Broadcasting
Corp. (CBC) are often said to embody this approach even more fully. These and other
media organizations in Great Britain, Canada, and Ireland have great freedom of
operation. However, the BBC, RTÉ, and CBC are wholly or partially funded by their
 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES 163

BOX 6.2

World Press Freedom Rankings

Americans like to think they live in the most free and open society in the world.
Freedom, though, is relative, and an organization called Reporters Sans
Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) publishes an annual ranking of press
freedom around the world. It is based on a survey of press experts and its own
tally of violent activity toward journalists. Factors the index takes into account
are pluralism, media independence, self-censorship, government regulation,
and transparency of government and other major institutions that journalists
cover.

In 2019, the group ranked the United States 45th out of 180 countries in its index.
Major Western powers ranked ahead of it included the United Kingdom,
Germany, and Canada. RSF attributed this relatively low U.S. ranking to a
general lack of transparency from the government along with arrests, assaults,
and harassment faced by U.S. journalists in 2019. “Much of that ire has come
from President Trump and his associates in the federal government, who have
demonstrated the United States is no longer a champion of press freedom at
home or abroad,” the agency reported on its website.
Reporters Without Borders ranked Western Europe as the region with the
greatest press freedom, particularly countries that Hallin and Mancini say follow a
“democratic corporatist” approach such as those in Scandinavia. (Although the
rankings were shuffled slightly, nine of the top 10 countries on the 2019 list were
the same ones as in 2015, listed in a previous edition of this book, with five of
them from Scandinavia.) By contrast, the countries at the bottom of the list in
both 2015 and 2019 were China, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, and North Korea.
Top Ten Countries for Press Freedom in 2019
(according to Reporters Without Borders):
Norway
Finland
Denmark
Sweden
Netherlands
Jamaica
Costa Rica
Switzerland
New Zealand
Portugal
Source: [Link]
164 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES

national governments and answerable to them. That means they have both financial
incentives and government regulations and policies encouraging them to create pro­
gramming “in the public interest.”

Authoritarian Model
In this approach, the media must support policies of the government and they are
punished if they do not. Media are not owned and operated by the government, but are
tightly controlled by it through prior restraint (censorship), subsequent sanction
(punishment for presenting content that the government finds objectionable), and
sometimes through licensing of media outlets. China stands out as an example in the
contemporary world. Goh (2015) studied another authoritarian system – Singapore –
and discovered that social media there helped to provide citizens with alternatives to
the closely controlled mainstream press during a general election.

Totalitarian Model
This approach also features strict control of the media, so that it can serve the purposes
of the state as a propaganda tool. Siebert, Peterson & Schramm referred to this as the
“Soviet communist theory of the press” because of how the Soviet Union media op­
erated in the 1950s when the Four Theories book was published. Perhaps the best
current example of this model is North Korea.

Like Siebert, Peterson and Schramm did, Hallin and Mancini (2004) seek to show the
interrelationship of media models with the specific social and political structures of the
nations in which they operate. In doing so, their theories fit firmly within the political
economy approach. They state that their purpose is to “develop a framework for comparing
media systems and a set of hypotheses for how they are linked structurally and historically to
the development of the political system” (p. 5). For example, the United States, Canada, the
United Kingdom and Ireland have common cultural and political histories and comparable
levels of economic development. A comparative approach analyzes how those commonal­
ities help to predict/explain the media systems each country has, but also sheds light on
differences that exist despite their common heritage. Hallin and Mancini focus on news
media and press regulation along four major dimensions, which are:
The contemporary situation and historical development of a country’s media
marketplace, especially the presence and growth of mass circulation newspapers and
commercial broadcasting. For example, they say that the most distinctive historical
characteristic of the North Atlantic countries (United States, United Kingdom, Ireland,
and Canada) “is the early and strong development of commercial newspapers”
(p. 202). In the United States commercial media began to replace the partisan press in
the mid-19th century (1840s) with development of the penny press. Similar develop­
ments occurred in the U.K. in the 1850s and Canada in 1880s, in line with the shift
from a rural population and agricultural economy to an urban, industrialized one.
Ireland, which industrialized later, saw its commercial media system begin to develop a
few decades later, in the early 20th century. On the other hand, southern Europe
(Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece), saw its commercial press develop later still,
and even today news media there have an elite audience rather than a mass one.
 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES 165

The state of political parallelism in a country or region, which is how closely news
media are related to political divisions in society. This is measured especially by the
number and prominence of partisan publications, including ones affiliated with poli­
tical parties and also with trade unions and other social institutions.
The level of journalistic professionalism found in a country, by which they pri­
marily mean level of independence and public service orientation. One way to think of
this is how thoroughly journalists follow the characteristics set out by Siebert, Peterson
and Schramm’s social responsibility theory.
Finally, Hallin and Mancini examine the degree of state intervention in the media
system, which varies dramatically around the world. The United States arguably has
the lowest level of government authority to intervene or regulate the media of any
country in the world because of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the
way it has been interpreted by the courts. (Although, as Box 6.2 describes, factors
other than legal authority affect levels of press freedom.) As noted earlier, Canada,
Ireland, and the United Kingdom also have national public-service broadcasting sys­
tems funded wholly or in part by the government and operating under a government
charter or authority. Although the U.S. Public Broadcasting System does receive a small
amount of government funding (through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting),
nothing like the BBC exists in the United States. Furthermore, a government charter
such as the one the British government grants for the BBC probably could not exist in
the United States without violating the First Amendment.
Applying the framework to countries across North America and Western Europe,
Hallin and Mancini developed three primary models, consisting of countries that have
similar characteristics along these dimensions but also fall into geographic groupings,
as follows:

• Liberal (North Atlantic) model, in which commercial media dominate while

political parallelism and government intervention are low. This model exists in the
United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Ireland.
• Democratic Corporatist model, where commercial media co-exist with ones closely
affiliated with social and political groups. These countries also have a tradition of
the state playing an active but limited role. The most common location for this set
of characteristics is northern Europe, including Germany, Austria, The
Netherlands, and Scandinavia.
• Polarized Pluralist Model, which is found in countries with weaker commercial
media, greater integration of media into party politics, and a stronger legal role for
the state in regulating the media. This model is associated with southern Europe,
notably Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece.

Generalizing about these models, Hallin and Mancini (2004, p. 76) make the following
observations:

• In the Liberal (North Atlantic) countries, the media are closest to business interests
and furthest from political influences. It’s not a coincidence that so many large
multinational media corporations such as Disney (U.S.) and News Corp. (U.K.) are
166 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES

based in the North Atlantic region since media systems there are friendliest to
commercial enterprises.
• The Polarized Pluralist countries of southern Europe are just the opposite. Media
are closely integrated with political interests, and operate from less of a
commercial basis.
• The Democratic Corporatist model in Northern Europe demonstrates relatively
strong ties of media both to commercial and political entities.
• The trend over time has been away from political control and more toward
commercial control, i.e., a gradual shift toward alignment with the liberal model,
in all regions of Europe.

Hallin and Mancini emphasize that these are not “pure” forms. Their point is not to
provide a taxonomy or classification system but instead to identify patterns and relation­
ships that can be used as a basis for comparing the systems. The four dimensions of market
structure, political parallelism, professionalism, and state intervention can be evaluated
independently for any particular analysis. For example, countries within the North Atlantic
model are highly similar but still have differences, especially between the United States and
the United Kingdom. The United States is closest to a libertarian model (though not wholly)
while the United Kingdom has elements of the democratic corporatist model with a blend
of commercial and state-chartered media and a generally more politicized media system.
Ireland and Canada are somewhere in between. However, it could be argued that the
growing influence of conservative right-wing media outlets in recent years has made the
U.S. media system more politicized, closing some of the differences Hallin and Mancini cite.
Hallin and Mancini also warn against seeing any of these as normative models. Their
liberal model is sometimes talked about as the normative ideal; certainly it is viewed that
way in the free flow of information and modernization theories. (Not by everyone, though,
as the NWICO movement and MacBride reports illustrated.) Hallin and Mancini are not
trying to endorse a normative approach, but rather seek to devise a framework that can be
used to help understand normative questions such as the proper relationship of the state to
the media and impact of commercialization and regulation on media independence.
The Hallin and Mancini model has become a popular way to study social and po­
litical influences on media systems, especially in Europe; a Google Scholar search in late
2020 showed about 7,600 citations of their 2004 book. These included studies of po­
pulist rhetoric by politicians in different Western democracies (Blassnig, Büchel, & Ernst,
2019), descriptive comparison of Nordic news audiences (Schrøder, Blach-Ørsten, &
Kæmsgaard Eberholst, 2020), a comparative review of whether people in different
countries will take political action in response to media content they perceive to be biased
against them (Barnidge, Rojas, Beck, & Schmitt-Beck, 2020), and a study of how au­
diences react to media disinformation (Humprecht, Esser, & Van Aelst, 2020).

CONCLUSION

Greater international information flow and the “death of distance” unquestionably make
it seem as if the world is smaller than it was a generation ago. People can e-mail or connect
 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES 167

on social media or video chat to others literally anywhere at any time. They consume news
and entertainment programs from distant countries as easily as those created in their own
towns. The days when people were marginalized and kept down by a small group of elite
actors maintaining a stranglehold on information flow are largely in the past, although
transnational media companies such as Disney and News Corp. do maintain a commercial
dominance that gives them a great influence in many countries around the world.
More efficient flow of more types of information in greater volumes does not mean it
is homogenized, however. Political, social, and economic systems still vary around the
world, and their associated media systems differ accordingly. Everyone lives in a place
where the media system has certain characteristics, but one way to develop a better
understanding of one’s own system is to examine systems from different settings. (That’s
also a rationale for why semester study abroad programs have become increasingly
popular.) Comparative media frameworks such as the popular one developed by Hallin
and Mancini have real value for the same reason. Knowing more about other people and
other cultures leads to greater self-awareness and self-understanding.

Discussion Questions/Application Exercises

1. Visit the home page of the British Broadcasting Corp.’s news operations at http://
[Link]/news and look at the mix of stories there. How many or what
proportion are coverage of U.S. news or issues?
2. If you have the language skills to do so, examine the main national broadcaster’s
website for a country such as Spain, Italy, Portugal or Greece and review news
stories there. Recall that Hallin and Mancini group together these Mediterranean
nations as having a “polarized pluralist” media system that would reflect partisan
views more strongly. Does that seem to have an impact on their coverage as
compared to news from outlets in the United States or United Kingdom (two
representatives of the liberal/North Atlantic model)?
3. If you have access to it,1 watch a broadcast of the BBC World News and compare
the content to a U.S. nightly network news show. This can start with which topics
or issues are covered, looking especially for differences in “local” stories (meaning
U.K. news for the BBC and U.S. news for the U.S. outlets) vs. international ones.
Also look at the format and style of how the news stories are constructed and how
they are delivered by the presenters.
4. As question 3 suggested with regard to news, compare and contrast U.S. vs. BBC
programming in another genre of programming such as comedies, dramas, talk
shows, or reality TV.
5. Are you, or any of your friends, fans of K-pop music groups, Latin American
telenovelas, Bollywood films, or European art-house cinema? How much of this
media content do you consume compared to American offerings?

NOTE
1 Available on many cable systems, and also on some PBS stations and via streaming options
168 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES

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