Transnational Media Corporations Research Articles

Transnational media corporations in global media cities: A geographical approach to understanding media power through corporate office networks

A central concern of media scholars has been the discursive and economic power of a small number of transnational media corporations (TNMCs). In this paper, we advance research on TNMC power through a novel empirical analysis of their global-spatial organization, reflected in their corporate global office networks. Our findings reveal both global and regional corporate strategies and, further, demonstrate how US new media firms are expanding into Chinese global media cities to penetrate this emerging media market. Our analyses provide a crucial macro-level overview of the structural power of TNMCs to consolidate control over the global network of media.

A passage to India: The Indian film market and the political economy of Disney’s transnational operations

This study analyses Disney’s operations in the Indian film market through its subsidiary, UTV Motion Pictures, during earlier decades. Scholarship in the critical political economy has ignored how transnational media corporations make inroads into profitable markets. The present study addresses this critical gap by examining Disney’s expansion strategies in the Indian culture market. The analysis reveals that Disney has increased its influence in the Indian entertainment sphere by following the capitalistic logic of profit maximisation at the expense of local production, distribution and consumption of entertainment products. The study discusses the future research agenda for critical political economy theory.

Media Globalization Specificity and Contradictions to Diversification of Western Media

The issuesof media concentration have currently been quite often the topic of public discussion and the subject of study of many analysts and publicists. The fact that the processes of concentration in recent decades are beginning to acquire a global character is first of all evidenced by the creation of large transnational media corporations, which are already showing a desire for international domination in a particular area of the media business. In addition, media owners from developed countries are actively expanding into the information markets of developing countries. Given the global impact of information technology on the entire socio-economic space, it seems necessary to define the concept of information globalization, to assess the scale of information shifts in the modern media economy. The relevance of this study is due to the need for a scientific understanding of concentration and diversification as forms of organizing media business in the context of globalization. Researchers identify globalization, convergence, glocalization, demassification, and diversification as the main trends characterizing the development of modern mass media.The purpose of this articleis to characterize the processes of globalization in the communication industry that have influenced changes in the structure of the media market to describe the models of diversification and mutual integration of holding media.The theoretical and methodological basis of the work was formed by conceptual provisions, recommendations, and conclusions presented in the fundamental scientific works of domestic researchers on history, theory, typology, research methods of the Russian media industry (E. L. Vartanova, S. M. Gurevich, E. Ch. Andrunas, S. I. Beglov, S. S. Smirnov). When writing this article, we used the methods of system analysis, as well as expert analytical, descriptive, historical and theoretical methods.Conclusions. Globalization of information space, as an inevitable and extremely important phenomenon, affects all spheres of the socio-economic life of society, changing the motivation of economic actors at the micro level and modifying the macroeconomics in general.

“Everyone Working a Little More Closely Together”: The Transnationalization of Creative Production in TV Production Conglomerates

To survive contemporary developments in the TV industry and as a result of international mergers and acquisitions, production companies often form transnational media corporations. In this article, we examine TV production groups as global-local networks that pursue competitive advantages of transnational integration. Combining a critical industry studies approach with management perspectives, and building on different data sources, this article aims to open up the black box of management beliefs, discourses, and material practices within TV production networks. Our analysis shows how the industry’s hunt for profitable, reproducible practices and intellectual property (IP) rights translates into transnational creative pipelines, knowledge flows, and interdependencies. Transnational management practices include surveillance of local production, the installation of information flows, shared practices and procedures, and socialization processes. This article argues that corporate structures, strategies, and management practices coordinate TV production across borders, shape industrial practices, and foster a transnational production culture.

Review of Global Entertainment Media: A Critical Introduction by Lee Artz (Blackwell)

Artz gives overwhelming evidence of how the cultural hegemony of individualism and consumerism is promoted everywhere by transnational media corporations (TNMCs), so that current social relations in capitalism are reproduced and reinforced. The reader can get a clear outlook of TNMCs and their impact on the diversity, hybridization, and standardization of global culture and outlooks.

The Effects of 'Nostra Aetate:' Comparative Analyses of Catholic Antisemitism More Than Five Decades after the Second Vatican Council

From Roman Catholicism’s early days, Antisemitism was its Original Sin. With its Second Vatican Council Declaration aetate, many would have hoped that the Church buried the demons of Catholic Antisemitism for good. But just how thick is the ice that now separates global contemporary Catholic publics from the temptations of a re-emergence of Catholic Antisemitism? While the study of global Antisemitism received important new and global empirical insights from the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) 100 study (ADL, 2014) covering more than 100 countries, comparative studies on Antisemitism among global Roman Catholics are rather lacking. But Antisemitism is around in the world again, and it does so in staggering proportions. It is thus extremely important in view of Catholicism’s still existing role in Western society to find out whether or not practicing Roman Catholics are an exemption from these trends. Our study focuses on indicators of Antisemitism of entire countries in comparison with their practicing Roman Catholic communities, i. e. those Catholics who attend Sunday Mass regularly, the so-called Dominicantes, which still make up some 45% of the global 1.3 billion Roman Catholics according to our population weighted data. Our study is based on the rigorous statistical analysis of freely available cross-national opinion data sets, using the SPSS XXIV statistical software. Since our freely available global database, the World Values Survey, does not offer better, alternative Antisemitism indicators, we had to rely in our work on the rates of rejection of Jewish neighbors, which explain 56.16% of the variance of the far superior ADL (2014) data series, for which the original interviews and the background variables are unfortunately not freely available to global publics. Our proxy results about the anchoring of in the hearts and minds of active global Catholics, based on World Values Survey and other global opinion data are unfortunately not optimistic and suggest the following tendencies: On a global scale, about one in five practicing Roman Catholics still reject to have a Jewish neighbor, irrespective of all the Church’s teaching on Judaism since the Second Vatican Council; Ceteris paribus, adherence to Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and Islam all are still to be considered as lamentable and significant drivers of the rate of societal Antisemitism (ADL data) in standard OLS multiple regression analyses; A combined Index, developed for this publication, tells us how well active Roman Catholics, attending Church services each Sunday, accepted Jewish neighbors, secondly, whether active Roman Catholics more accepted Jewish neighbors than the society surrounding them, and third, whether the acceptancy of Jewish neighbors increased or decreased over time. Our data show that among the world’s top performing Roman Catholic active communities we find the Dominicantes in the Czech Republic, United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, and Argentina, while among world’s Catholicism worst Nostra aetate performers we find the active Catholic communities in Spain, Poland, Malta, Slovenia, Mexico, and Slovakia. In those countries, social realities among the active Catholic faithful could not be more distant from the ideas and perspectives, expressed in Nostra aetate. In our inter-religious comparison, we also found that only the Catholic Dominicantes in Argentina and the United States were among the world’s top 10% performers in overcoming Antisemitism, while the Catholic Dominicantes in Venezuela, Bosnia, Nigeria, Slovakia, South Africa and South Korea were among the world’s lamentable bottom 2/3 of communities in overcoming Antisemitism. We also analyzed PEW data on the support or rejection of the Jewish State, and European Social Survey data on the acceptancy of Jewish immigration to Europe among religiously active Roman Catholics in comparison to the respective total populations. We also highlight the drivers of Antisemitism by interreligious comparison, using an OLS regression procedure applied to World Values Survey data and analyze the connections between general religious tolerance and Antisemitism. Efforts of public diplomacy by states, transnational media corporations and transnational centers of higher learning concerned with these developments should be undertaken.

Paradox of professionalism: The professional identity of journalists who work across media cultures

Growing media practitioner mobility, as well as the migration of Transnational Media Corporations across borders and media cultures, gives rise to new questions about how journalistic professionalism travels. Transnational Media Corporations carrying their own organisational cultures must operate in wider national, political and cultural settings that may create dissonance for the organisation and its professional journalists. Normativisation of journalistic professional practices shapes professional identity formation and journalists’ perceived roles of professionalism in the news-making process. A degree of dissonance may be expected when practitioners who have been trained in and first worked under traditional liberal Western press cultures, take up journalistic positions in State-Owned Transnational Media Corporations belonging to countries that the West characterises as authoritarian. The case of CCTV-NEWS,1as a State-Owned Transnational Media Corporation that recruits Western journalists, will be investigated to find out how journalists manage the potential dissonance. The significance of this interpretive research is that it offers a glimpse into how journalism professionalism travels in the context of increasing international employment mobility for journalists. In addition, research into CCTV-NEWS, as a State-Owned Transnational Media Corporations, from the perspective of professional identity of international employees, is an innovation.

The Media of Power, the Power of Media

This essay combines international political economy with a critical political economy of media perspective that recognizes the crucial role of transnational media corporations (tnmc) in building consent for neoliberal globalization. Media are found to be instrumental for consolidating transnational capitalist hegemony—creating a popular culture based on individualism, deference to authority, and consumerism.tnmcs consolidate diverse national media for the production of hybrid programming that features multiple local images and symbols wrapped in consumerist ideology and narratives. Examples from animation reveal consistent themes intnmccontent that entertain and appeal to diverse audiences, illustrating media’s persuasive messages essential to the cultural hegemony of transnational capitalist leadership.

Transnational Media Corporations and Global Division of Cultural Labor and Consumption

Cet article décrit la nouvelle division internationale du travail culturel ‑en œuvre dans les industries culturelles et créatives transnationales (TNMC, pour Trans National Media Corporation )‑ qui consolide au niveau structurel et coordonne au niveau créatif la production médiatique locale et globale. Les TNMC produisent pour la télévision, le cinéma et la publicité, des contenus médiatiques hybrides tant au niveau linguistique que culturel, qui contribuent à une culture mondiale de la consommation indispensable au capitalisme néolibéral. Parallèlement à cette nouvelle division du travail créatif, une nouvelle culture internationale de la consommation vulgarise des modes de vie, des images culturelles de proximité, et des histoires de gratification individuelle, cautionnés par les medias de divertissement et la publicité transnationale des entreprises. La structure des médias transnationaux joue donc un rôle déterminant dans la création de publics acquis à la consommation de masse, la gratification individuelle, et l’autorité des marchés.

Extending the Broadcast: Streaming Culture and the Problems of Digital Geographies

This article examines the recent move by many television sports broadcasters of streaming their content online behind geographically restricted “geofences.” Despite the increasing use of this distribution method, we argue that Internet users are increasingly bypassing geofences that center sports consumption within a nationalized television broadcasting framework through the use of VPN (virtual private network) technologies. Importantly, the geographic fluidity of the Internet often allows users to do this legally—producing meaningful ruptures in the logic that seeks to replicate the structures of mediation central to the television broadcast model within the space of the Internet. We argue that the streaming of sports content, then, should be understood and analyzed as an enforcement of corporate media strategies and reflection of telecommunication policy, as well as a cultural practice and tactic. Large transnational media corporations, typically the holders of popular sporting rights, attempt to bend digital sports content consumption to the broadcast models that they have historically employed. Yet, amidst this emerging model of digital broadcasting lie the problems of digital geography and the cultural practice of a streaming culture within the conditions of post-convergence. This practice often rejects the restrictions and stipulations of digital broadcasting in favor of a globetrotting, station-hopping exercise of content hunting.

GLOBAL MEDIA CITIES IN TRANSNATIONAL MEDIA NETWORKS

ABSTRACTThis paper considers an alternative dimension of world city network formation, driven by transnational media corporations rather than advanced producer services. Through an empirical analysis of the office networks of leading media corporations, the paper measures the integration of global media cities into the world city network in 2011. An interlocking network model is employed to determine the connectedness of cities within media networks, and a principal components analysis used to identify six media fields that represent the locational strategies of transnational media corporations. The results highlight the regionality of global corporate media strategies, which are firmly anchored in the major home markets of North America, Europe and Japan but reach out to other world regions through strategically positioned media cities.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation: A Media Institution with A Mission

Two recent events in the United States have focussed attention on the political influence of the giant media group News Corporation and its chief executive officer, Rupert Murdoch. In the aftermath...

The Development of Transversal Media Corporations

This article analyzes the emergence, within the context of the global communications market, of a corporative set-up that hasappeared over the last twenty years: transversal media corporations (TVMCs). The geographical and product expansion of corporations has paved the way for the strengthening of this new type of contender, and isthe result of the evolution of transnational media corporations. At present, this title can be used for three companies: Time Warner, News Corporation and Bertelsmann.

Video Strategy of Transnational Media Corporations: A Resource-Based Examination of Global Alliances and Patterns

Subscribing to the resource-based view (RBV) framework of analyzing strategy and employing a case study approach, this study investigates the most critical sectors for the U.S.-based TNMCS in a global media marketplace and discusses how their resources were aligned with their local counterparts’ resources in the marketing of video-related products. The alliances involving Time Warner, News Corporation, Disney, Viacom, and NBC Universal were examined. Cross-case analysis identified six alliance patterns, including the importance of content-distribution resource alignment, the acquisition of local knowledge resources, the strategic alliances between TNMCs, the decrease of equity-based alliances, the growing interest in emerging markets and the complementary role of property and knowledge resources in entering such markets, and the necessity of uniting resources that enable the “glocalization” of video-related products.

The Event Movie: Marketing Filmed Entertainment for Transnational Media Corporations

Films have become an essential asset to transnational media corporations (TNMCs) such as Sony, Time Warner, or Disney. Since the 1990s these and other corporations have utilized a strategy called event movie. The central goal of this marketing strategy is to ensure the success of a film, as well as to provide content for the many different divisions owned or controlled by TNMCs, for example home entertainment, cable, and pay-television. The event movie strategy takes advantage of the film industry's macro structure and combines established concepts (blockbuster, high-concept marketing) with new business models, turning the value chain into a value cycle. This article describes an analytical framework for the event movie strategy that is used by the world's leading TNMCs. As a conclusion, the framework of the event movie strategy can be applied to better understand the success of individual films. The concept can also be expanded to describe the individual TNMC's strategy within the field of audiovisual content.

‘Think globally, act locally’

Using the case of MTV China, this article examines how transnational media corporations have been extending into China where ideological control and joint business cooperation remain barriers for foreign capital. Based on interviews with personnel of MTV, as well as observations of their programme productions, this article explores how MTV localizes in China under various economic and political constraints. It argues that the localization process is not a planned strategy that seeks to circumvent Chinese authorities. Instead, it is argued that transnational corporations have devised methods to maximize manoeuverability within the various political and economic constraints, and tune into the cultural and political configurations encountered. Whereas most academic studies have asserted that authoritarian states set high thresholds to prevent global capital from ‘Westernizing’ the culture, this article argues that the Chinese state, in various forms, is now flexible enough to work closely with Viacom in producing a new popular youth culture.

Transnational Media Corporations’ Strategies in Post-WTO China: Approaches of three Global Leaders

This study examines transnational media corporations’ (TNMCs’) strategies in the Chinese media market after its WTO entry, employing a theoretical model that involves the interactions of a company’s risk in terms of environmental uncertainties and control in terms of equity ownership. Interviews were used as the primary research method, with 15 informants from three global media giants—Disney, News Corporation and Sony. Findings suggested that in response to the risk they perceive, TNMCs have plans for increasing control through engaging in higher forms of ownership, developing connections with governments and distributors, localizing their products, and differentiating the products vis-à-vis their competitors. These plans comprise a roadmap for TNMCs’ long-term development in China.

Resisting Rupert through sporting rituals? The transnational media corporation and global-local sport cultures

The global mass media, with its expanding array of global networks and affiliations, has often been posited as a potential threat to local, national, or indigenous traditions, language, and culture. Yet, while media has certainly done much to erode cultural – as well as economic and political – boundaries, in this paper we suggest that the continues to remain a significant factor in determining global media's scope and reach. In particular, by examining an instance of local resistance to influential media conglomerate News Corporation within realm of Australian rugby league, we aim to demonstrate how domestic politics, histories, and traditions still play key, often predominant roles, in shaping local culture and identity. However, we also suggest that, just as they can be mobilised as a means of expressing, and enacting, anti-global, anti-corporate resistance, local sporting forms and practices are nonetheless increasingly constituted through workings of global corporate strategising.

A Sporting Gesture?

This article takes a specific action by a powerful transnational media corporation, BSkyB’s failed attempt to buy Manchester United, as a case study of the now crucial relationship between global media and sport in an era of technological expansion. In placing this take-over bid in the contexts of broadcasting, politics, and sport, the complexities of this relationship are illustrated through an analysis of a global media corporation’s conflicts with regulations, new technologies, sentiments, and identities in local, national, and regional arenas. This article illustrates the multidimensionality of globalization, both in terns of economics and culture, to argue that any understanding of globalization requires the analysis of the interaction of a number of places, actors, and tensions—not all of which are simply “global” or “local.”

Viacom Inc.

The article is a case study analysis of Viacom Inc., a leading transnational media corporation (TNMC) in the production, sale and distribution of electronic media entertainment. The study examines the history and development of Viacom, building on theoretical work that argues that business strategies and corporate culture of a company are often a direct reflection of the person (or persons) responsible for developing the organization and its business mission. Viacom’s longstanding CEO, Sumner Redstone, has shown himself to be an aggressive leader who is deeply involved in all aspects of the company’s operations. The article also examines the business strategy of Viacom, a unique media business entity that has been built through the steady acquisition of existing media companies. A critical challenge facing Viacom is the company’s inability to find a successor to Redstone in preparation for his future retirement. Viacom’s apparent lack of a succession plan is in large measure due to Redstone’s unwillingness to share power at the top and failure to appoint a CEO successor.