Media Regulation and the International Expansion of Nickelodeon

Abstract

In De-Westernizing Media Studies, Curran and Park (2000) offer a typology to examine media policies and systems. We apply their work to five disparate countries—Mexico, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, China, and Canada—and the entrance of a transnational corporation—Viacom as represented by Nickelodeon—into those countries. Since its US launch in 1979, Nickelodeon has become a dominant transnational children's media brand and our findings indicate that Nickelodeon has a growing presence in each of the five countries either through relaxed regulation or technological exploits. Based on our five case studies, we argue that while the nation state is still important in regulating the children's media environment, the policies are, as argued by Curran and Park, increasingly replaced by market control and the will of the consumer.