War on terrorism is not a war of nations – it is a war of media. Is media now more powerful than nations? Communications technological advances allow media global audience access and content control to paradoxically propagate dominant American/Western ideologies often smothering localized cultures. American media is not promoting democracy – it is promoting hegemony of a capitalistic ideology to the world. The tragic events of September 11, 2001 are linked to the tensions to preserve “local” cultures, traditions, religious values, etc. Americans have historically fought to preserve these same rights in our culture. The increasing impositions of global modernism have played a pivotal role in the motivations underlying the September attacks and in recent global instability. Dennis Ross (2001), envoy to the Middle East in the Clinton administration, succinctly claims that the attacks were upon “America and modernity itself.”1 Are words the weapon of the new millennium?
We no longer need bombs to destroy countries. America historically has fought to preserve its rights over offensive actions of communism. Past era’s bombs destroyed communities, nations and values leading to surrender to new ideologies of the successor nation.
Today, global information traverses and undermines boundaries, reshaping nation-states, family structures, gender roles and societal values. While all nations are reshaped by cultural interchange, some exert more influence than others. Against William’s arguments that the U.S. controls global developments, globalization “affects the United States as it does other countries”1 however, globalization is not balanced in its impact or control. Over one-third of the world’s countries lack freedom of the press. The modernization characteristic of globalization breaks down communities by disrupting shared value systems and by promoting counter perspectives based upon dominant Western ideologies perpetrated in the media and on the Internet. As weaker societies fragment, members find it harder to identify with their political society as a community.
Communication is now redefined in political context. Western capitalism will soon accomplish what the past century’s wars could only dream of doing: effacing the cultural memory of entire nations. Defacing the very foundations of democracy.
One only has to examine the impact of the American press has had on domestic policy and culture. Over the last generation the debate concerning the media’s role in American politics has intensified critically denouncing the influence of conglomerate media stakeholders controlling the dissemination of information. The media has undermined public confidence in the American political system, trivialized and poisoned public discourse and severely disrupted the policy process to the point where it in fact cannot operate efficiently. This disruption fuels further press criticism that, in turn, makes good public policy even harder to make, creating a spiraling self-fulfilling dynamic. Through endless criticism and by propagating unrealistic expectations (perfection) of political leaders, the press has also convinced much of the public that its leaders are not acting in the national interest but are dedicated instead to increasing their own personal political power or further the interests of narrow special interests at the expense of the nation. Further, modernity uproots individuals from traditions leading to a persuasive consumer culture benefiting stakeholder interests for profit through media and advertising.
Media global impacts have intensified -- warranting investigation into boundaries of communication. A war of words becomes literally a battleground as we fight within the contexts of a new global reality. Globalization threatens the stability of international cultures. Freedom of the press is an extremely problematic concept for most non-democratic systems of government since, in the modern age, strict control of access to information is critical to the existence of most non-democratic governments and their associated control systems and security apparatus. Freedom of information promotes democracy if the information is not biased by private interests. Communications technological advances provide media the power to control the flow of communication to a global audience. America dominates communications technology and media. Democracy is freedom, yet does this very freedom extend the right to compel American/Western or other ideologies on others? Freedom of unbiased information should be universal. Controlling the context of communications grants political power. A war of media exists. More investigation is warranted into the ways to curb intercultural collision of political ideologies in media to prevent future tragic events.
1David Cratis Williams, “Introduction: communication perspectives on relationships between globalism and localism,” Communication Studies, Volume 53.1, (Spring 2002): pp. 1(3).
