Media imperialism (sometimes referred to as cultural imperialism) is an area in the international political economy of communications research tradition that focuses on how "all Empires, in territorial or nonterritorial forms, rely upon communications technologies and mass media industries to expand and shore up their economic, geopolitical, and cultural influence.
[3] Some of the key researchers in this area are: Oliver Boyd-Barrett,[2][4][5] Luis R. Beltrán and Elizabeth Fox,[6] Ariel Dorfman,[7] Thomas Guback,[8] Cees Hamelink,[9] Dal Yong Jin,[10][11] Armand Mattelart,[12][13] Robert W. McChesney,[14] Tom McPhail,[15] Toby Miller and Richard Maxwell,[16] Tanner Mirrlees,[1][2][17][18] David Morley,[19] Graham Murdock,[20] Kaarle Nordenstreng,[21] Herbert I. Schiller,[22][23][24][25] Dallas Smythe,[26] Colin Sparks,[27][28] Daya Thussu,[29][30] and Jeremy Tunstall.
According to Schiller, cultural imperialism "pressured, forced and bribed" societies to integrate with the U.S.’s expansive capitalist model but also incorporated them with attraction and persuasion by winning "the mutual consent, even solicitation of the indigenous rulers."
In some ways, Schiller's early definition of cultural imperialism is akin to Joseph Nye's more recent idea of soft power in international relations.
[33] The historical contexts, iterations, complexities, and politics of Schiller's foundational and substantive theorization of cultural imperialism in international communication and media studies are discussed in detail by political economy of communication researchers Richard Maxwell,[34] Vincent Mosco,[35] Graham Murdock,[20] and Tanner Mirrlees.
[37] From the late 1970s to the 2020s, Boyd-Barrett authored and edited numerous books and volumes on continuity and change in media imperialism.
[2][38][39] In 1987, Tom McPhail defined cultural imperialism as "electronic colonialism",[40] or, "the dependency relationship established by the importation of communication hardware, foreign-produced software, along with engineers, technicians, and related information protocols, that establish a set of foreign norms, values, and expectations which, in varying degrees, may alter the domestic cultures and socialization processes.
"[41] In 1988, Paul Siu-Nam Lee observed that "communication imperialism can be defined as the process in which the ownership and control over the hardware and software of mass media as well as other major forms of communication in one country are singly or together subjugated to the domination of another country with deleterious effects on the indigenous values, norms and culture."
Needless to say, all these international communication and media studies researchers agree that cultural imperialism is undertaken by the world system's dominant imperial countries with and through the available and new means of communications and mass media, and often to the detriment of the countries on the receiving end of this process.
[42] Building upon the political economy of communications scholarship of Herbert I. Schiller, Mirrlees argues that although the US government and media corporations pursue different interests on the world stage (the former, national security, and the latter, profit), they often collaborate to support the co-production and global distribution-exhibition of Empire-extolling media and popular cultural goods.
American media and cultural products whose messages and imagery is intentionally or inadvertently functional to the glorification and legitimization of the US Empire.
American news networks like CNN often have large international staffs, and produce specialized regional programming for many nations.
[48] Hollywood relies on four capitalist strategies "to attract and integrate non-US film producers, exhibitors and audiences into its ambit: ownership, cross-border productions with subordinate service providers, content licensing deals with exhibitors, and blockbusters designed to travel the globe.