The Role of Mainstream Media Limited in Contemporary Globalized Essay

The Role of Mainstream Media Limited in Contemporary Globalized Society - Essay Example The power today lands in the hands of people who have become both the architects and focus of media, and are redefining globalization. The key question that this essay, analyses and addresses, is whether the role of mainstream media, in light of that has been limiting in today’s globalized world and how the power-shift towards social-media is affecting mainstream media. Introduction Of the three dimensions of globalization: political, economical and cultural, cultural globalization has been the face of globalization. It is partly because of concerns with economic and political forms of globalization (Robertson and White) and partly because of the active role that media has played in it. The speech of Boris Yelsen on the fall of Soviet Union, broadcasted by CNN satellite has been identified as the decisive moment of advent of globalization (Beck). Since then, Media has played an important role in defining, shaping and amplifying globalization. Marx and Engels contemplated that print media, known as the Fourth Estate, would be an important piece in the establishment of a democratic public body that catalyzes social change (Kellner and Pierce). The rise of global media with cable television, news networks and privatization of media further brought the world together. A number of networks became global in their outreach like CNN, MTV, HBO, ESPN, TNT, Nickelodeon, the Cartoon Network, Discovery, Disney, and many of these channels were translated and adopted as per local languages and cultures. Some scholars, however, have criticized this influence, as cultural imperialism as Western culture has been dominant in private media networks (Jan)(Thussu). Technological advancesand socia media The communication ecosystem of the industrial globalized society has been traditionally built on mainstream mass media, principally television, radio and the print press. These technologies have adopted the mass dissemination of a one-way communication from one-to-many. Since t he late 90s, the extensive spread and diffusion of the Internet, mobile technologies, digital media and a diversity of social technological tools throughout the globe has transmuted the one-to-many communication network into interactive horizontal linkages that link the local with the global. New forms of social media (online media tools that enable people to communicate easily with internet to known people or a wider audience), such as text messages, tweets, blogs, communication forums, social networking sites, podcasts and wikis, tailor the flow of messages from many-to-many. This medium has provided alternative means for citizen communication, participatory journalism and globalization. Power-paradigm within mainstream and social media Power has played an important role for mainstream media to create an impact on the society. In his book, Why study the Media?, author Roger Silverstone states that media holds the power to influence and change the political processes(Silverstone). It is about the reach, representation – presenting, revealing and explaining, that gave mainstream media a commanding control over how things are perceived in different types of the world. Similarly, (Volkmer) in his book, News in the Global Sphere: A study of CNN and its Impact on Global Communication, asserts that global political communications such as that of CNN International have been a dominative force in creating a global public sphere and thereby a global civil society. However,