Negotiating Distant Influences: Globalization and Broadcasting Policy Reforms in Zambia and South Africa

Abstract

Globalization operates as a powerful buzzword in discussions of media reform policy in the region of southern Africa. Implied in these debates is an insistence that the forces of globalization exert an inexorable external pressure on local national contexts. This sentiment is captured in Chris Arthur’s definition of globalization as that “inter-related complex of processes, industrial, economic, technological, cultural and cognitive, which have resulted in regional boundaries (whether of family, class, religion or nation) being rendered permeable to distant influences” (Arthur, 1998, p. 3). If one looks closely at southern Africa, it becomes evident that globalization has not had a uniform effect. This is apparent in the way such “distant influences” have played out on media policy reforms in South Africa and Zambia. As the discourse of globalization is not unique to southern Africa, this constitutes a case for some shared lesson-learning. In recent theoretical debates about the effects of globalization on poorer countries, Held, among others, posits “three different theses on globalisation” (in Servaes & Lie, 2003, p. 8). Firstly, there is the “globalist” thesis, which understands globalization as an inevitable development that cannot be resisted or significantly influenced by human intervention, particularly through traditional political institutions, such as nation-states. Globalists can be divided into two camps: the neo-liberalist and the neo-Marxist. Neo-liberal optimists emphasize the benefits of new technologies, global communications, and increased cultural contacts and welcome the triumph of individual autonomy and the market principle over state power. Neo-Marxist pessimists stress the dominance of major economic and political interests and point mainly to the uneven consequences of globalization. The second thesis is put forth by “traditionalists” who argue that the significance of globalization has been exaggerated and contend that most economic and social activity is regional, rather than global. The traditionalist thesis underplays the effects of distant influences and attributes changes in policy reform to the local level, and it thus sees a significant role for nation-states in the policy process. Thirdly, the “transformationalist” thesis posits that globalization is a significant