BRICS Building a New World Communication Order?

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel will examine the growing visibility and influence of media emanating from the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations, reflecting their growing economic power, and how this might affect the global communication order. While acknowledging the fact that in terms of volume and value global media and communication continue to be dominated by the West, with the US at its core, the panel suggests that that, in a dynamic and digitized 24/7 globalized multi-media age, the one-way vertical flow of media products –from the West to the Rest - has given way to multiple and horizontal flows, in which the BRICS countries play a key role.

Brazil’s media industry has been a major exporter in certain genres such as telenovelas for decades. The Chinese government has taken the commanding role in promoting the country’s soft power to supplement its hard economic prowess, as the world’s second largest economy, evident in the Chinese government’s extensive investment in international broadcasting: China has spent $7 billion on external communication activities, part of the so-called ‘going out’ initiative. India’s privately-owned bourgeoning creative and cultural industry – it is home to the world’s largest film industry, as well as a hub for the global IT industry - has become an important source of media products. The Russian-language internet - ‘Runet’ - has demonstrated exceptional growth: in the period 2003-2013, the main Russian top level domain ‘.ru’ grew from 200,000 to about 4.5 million. South Africa too has emerged as a major player in the African media sphere.

The panellists will address ideological concerns and empirical realities and thus provide a compelling session for broadening the discourses of media globalization, warranted by the growth of media in the BRICS countries. Despite its many internal differences and complex external affiliations, the BRICS group shares their non-Euro-Atlantic origins as well as their calls to redress power imbalances in existing international institutions and structures. As the world becomes increasingly mobile, networked and digitised, will such media flows erode US hegemony? Will the rise of the BRICS create a New World Communication Order for the digital age?

Sub Unit

• Global Communication and Social Change

Chair

• Daya Thussu, U of Westminster

Individual Presentations

• Building a New World Communication Order in Global, Regional and Transnational Cultural Spaces - Joseph D. Straubhaar, U of Texas - Austin

• From Alibaba to Xinhua: Where's the Reverse Flow? - Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Bowling Green State U

• The Hard Edges of Soft Power: The Case of the Dalai Lama’s South African Visa - Herman Wasserman, U of Cape Town

• The Appropriation and (Re)Invention of ‘Soft Power’ in China: A Discourse Analysis - Zhengrong Hu, Communication U of China; Lei Zhang, Communication U of China

• Russian Media in Global Market: The Case of RT - Elena Vartanova, Lomonosov Moscow State U

Respondent

• Zhengrong Hu, Communication U of China