International Association for Media and Communication Research Asociación internacional de estudios en comunicación social Association internationale des études et recherches sur l’information et la communication IAMCR 2016 Political Economy Section Abstracts of papers accepted for presentation at the annual conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research IAMCR Leicester, UK 27-31 July 2016 Report any problems with this document to [email protected] Id: 11986 Title: PANEL: Global Media Giants and Media Power Session Type: Panel Submission Authors: Name: Benjamin J. Birkinbine Email: [email protected] Country: US (United States) Affiliation: University of Nevada, Reno Abstract: PANEL ABSTRACT & PRESENTER INFORMATION This panel features four different case studies from the forthcoming edited volume, Global Media Giants. The book, as well as each presenter on this panel, interrogates the ways in which media companies from around the world exercise power within their respective domains. Recognizing the varied nature of power, the panelists will discuss the economic, political, and cultural influence of each company. Furthermore, each will reflect on the nature of “media power,” including how it is constituted, exercised, and reinforced or reproduced by the companies they discuss. The case studies include National Amusements Incorporated, the Microsoft Corporation, the Interpublic Group of Companies, and one regional case study on East Asia and China. These case studies are representative of the diverse ways that media power is exercised around the world, and they also provide a look at companies that operate in different product markets. Presenters and Papers: Eileen R. Meehan, “National Amusements, Incorporated” Benjamin J. Birkinbine, “The Microsoft Corporation” Chris Chavez, “Interpublic Group of Companies” Yu Hong, “East Asia and China” Id: 11988 Title: PANEL: Global Media Giants and Media Power Session Type: Panel Submission Authors: Name: Eileen R. Meehan Email: [email protected] Country: US (United States) Affiliation: Southern Illiinois University Carbondale Abstract: Paper Title: "National Amusements, Incorporated" Among the global media giants headquartered in the United States and specializing in the entertainment-information sector, National Amusements, Incorporated, is an anomaly. First, the company is privately held – 80% of the stock is owned by Sumner Redstone and 20% by his daughter Shari Redstone. Second, no stock in National Amusements is publically traded – in contrast to News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, which are controlled by the Murdoch family but which trade non-voting stock publically. Third, unlike the rest of the US media oligopolists --- News Corporation, 21st Century Fox, the Disney Company, Time Warner, or Comcast – National Amusements is not a transindustrial media conglomerate. Instead, it is a horizontally integrated firm that owns chains of movie theaters and ranks tenth among the top ten chains in the US. Finally, Sumner Redstone also uses National Amusements as a holding company in which he parks his 80% of the voting shares in CBS and Viacom. Both CBS and Viacom are transindustrial media conglomerates. This paper examines how the ownership of these three firms and their corporate structure combine to transform three seemingly independent companies into a global media giant. Id: 11989 Title: PANEL: Global Media Giants and Media Power Session Type: Panel Submission Authors: Name: Chris Chavez Email: [email protected] Country: US (United States) Affiliation: University of Oregon Abstract: Paper Title: "Interpublic Group of Companies" As with other forms of media, advertising may be seen as an important form of representation. At the same time, what distinguishes advertising from other forms of cultural production is its unique capacity to translate symbolic representation into material consumption. That is to say that advertising is designed to connect audiences with particular types of goods and services. Today, much of the world’s advertising revenue is generated by just four large, global holding companies, which include WPP, the Omnicom Group, the Publicis Groupe and the Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG). Using a case study approach, I focus on IPG not only because the company exemplifies the consolidation that has defined the advertising industry in the modern era, but also because IPG was one of the early pioneers of global expansion. I will begin by situating the company historically, charting the transformation of IPG from a US based agency with trans-national interests into a truly global corporation that transcends the nation state. Second, I will detail the company’s contemporary strategies, which have enabled IPG to thrive in a highly competitive media marketplace. Reporting over $7 billion in total revenues in 2014, IPG’s growth strategy has been based on expansion, centralization and diversification. As the parent company of multiple, independently run agencies, IPG’s portfolio of companies is no longer limited to advertising agencies, but includes a range of assets including digital agencies, public relations firms, media buying companies and lobbying firms. Finally, I assess IPG’s global impact. As a result of its transnational presence, IPG’s has become a significant player in the global economy. Because it is of the most prolific producers of trans-national advertising, IPG has the unique capacity to facilitate the movement of goods across borders and promoting uniform patterns of consumption. At the same time, advertising may be considered to be a symbolic system that synthesizes a culture’s values and worldview. Consequently IPG has the unique capacity to project the ethos of global capitalism on a massive scale Id: 11990 Title: PANEL: Global Media Giants and Media Power Session Type: Panel Submission Authors: Name: Yu Hong Email: [email protected] Country: US (United States) Affiliation: University of Southern California Abstract: Paper Title: "Media Giants in the Making: Tencent, China Mobile and Shanghai Media Group" Since the late 1990s, a distinctive East Asian media market has contended, collaborated, and overlapped with the global Hollywood system. Nevertheless, the rise of China is affecting this political economy. After sketching media reforms in East Asia and the resulting regional interactions with transnational corporate networks, this chapter focuses on analyzing the nature of China’s potential media power. It examines China Mobile Communications Corporation, Shanghai Media Group, and Tencent Holdings as exemplary cases of media giants in the making. It argues that although Chinese state regulations continue to sustain distinct yet adjacent markets in the digital economy, the state is willing to tolerate loopholes and is poised to go down the deregulatory road. To be favorably positioned in the coming digital ecosystem, these corporations are using strategic investment and partnerships to grow their footprints. Id: 11991 Title: PANEL: Global Media Giants and Media Power Session Type: Panel Submission Authors: Name: Benjamin J. Birkinbine Email: [email protected] Country: US (United States) Affiliation: University of Nevada, Reno Abstract: Paper Title: "The Microsoft Corporation" The Microsoft Corporation rose to power during the 1980s and 1990s as its software was packaged with sales of the personal computers at a time when the market was booming. Since that time, the company has diversified its product lines, and it is still currently trying to reinvent itself in light of the emerging mobile computing market. In this chapter, I chart the history of Microsoft’s development by examining its economic, political, and cultural influence. Throughout, I identify key strategies employed by the company in its pursuit of global dominance. Furthermore, I contextualize these strategies within history by stressing the growth and subsequent changes that took place in the personal computing market. Specifically, I argue that Microsoft’s conviction of violating antitrust laws in the United States marked a turning point for the company and its strategies, specifically, but also marked the end of an era in the broader information technology industry more generally. Id: 11996 Title: An African City: Web Television and the Promise of Alternative Production Session Type: Individual submission Authors: Name: Christopher Anthony Chavez Email: [email protected] Country: US (United States) Affiliation: University of Oregon Name: Ashley Cordes Email: [email protected] Country: US (United States) Affiliation: University of Oregon Abstract: In the spring of 2012, Nicole Amarteifio posted the first episode of An African City on YouTube, an online series that focuses on five, upper-middle class women living in Accra, Ghana. An African City has been compared to HBO’s Sex in the City because of its focus on high fashion and the sexual politics of dating, but the show may also be seen as a distinctly African product, addressing issues that are specific to the region. Soon after its release, the show quickly garnered a global following of Africans as well as those living in the diaspora. The success of An African City is remarkable for two reasons. First, with relatively few economic resources and no studio support, Amartafeio has accomplished the goal of attracting a following that spans the globe. Thus, An African City demonstrates the capacity for independent film-makers to cultivate a trans-national audience in a digital age. But the show is also remarkable because it promises to provide counter-hegemonic discourses outside the traditional network system. A trans-national television series that focuses on five, successful African women defies the conventions of western media, which has a very limited visual vocabulary when it comes representing the Africa and African life. A consistent finding in the literature is that tropes of violence and hopelessness continue to define African representation and in the process reify white superiority. When it comes to contemporary Black representation on global television, transnational media conglomerates ultimately create the conditions within which particular black portrayals are and are not thinkable. Black men tend to be confined to situation comedy, sketch comedy, animation and to a smaller degree, drama. By contrast, black women are portrayed as middle class women whose racial identities come across mainly through their linguistic styles. Focusing on An African City as a case study and using Pierre Bourdieu’s general theory of practice as an analytical tool, we examine the conditions that both enable and constrain the ability for independent film-makers to act as transformative agents within the field of television production. In recent years, several economic and technological disruptions to the television landscape, including the cheap audiovisual production equipment, channel fragmentation and new forms of distribution have enabled independent film-makers to distribute their programs globally. We argue, however, that not all independent projects are destined achieve global success. Instead, different film-makers possess different levels of economic, social and cultural capital that ultimately pre-determine their success in the marketplace. Id: 12001 Title: Beyond anthropocentrism: merging critical animal studies with the political economy of communication Session Type: Individual submission Authors: Name: Nuria Almiron Email: [email protected] Country: ES (Spain) Affiliation: Senior Lecturer at Deparment of Communication Abstract: This paper will introduce what the author considers to be the next natural step in the necessary constant rethinking and renewal of the political economy of communication (PEC) as a critical approach, namely to acknowledge the anthropological bias that prevents PEC scholars from seeing (and denouncing) the most widespread form of oppression taking place on Earth under capitalism: the oppression of nonhuman animals by human species. Our treatment of other species is not only immoral but, as research has increasingly shown, a form of violence interconnected with all other forms of violence, including violence amongst humans. It is a natural step because we have already taken the path towards a more moral understanding of the planet. Environmental political economy is already a well- established school of thought in political economy. As Mosco stated (1996, 2009): "An environmental approach advances political economy’s interest in the idea of the social totality by incorporating the natural totality of organic life. Concomitantly, it broadens political economy’s concern for moral philosophy by expanding the moral vision beyond human life to all life processes". (p. 61) A commitment to the environment in political economy was the missing piece in the necessary alliance between socialism and feminism to correct both the Neoclassical and Marxian tendency of neglecting nature in their analyses. Both inside and outside this alliance, environmental political economy has been very fruitful over the past decades. More recently, this approach has also produced results in the political economy of communication (for instance Maxwell and Miller, 2012; Maxwell et al, 2014). The PEC approach is now ready to fully expand the moral vision beyond human life, as other disciplines of the social sciences and humanities have done (particularly moral philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and psychology). This expanded moral vision includes realizing that humans are only a part of the planet, not above it, and that not awarding other species the same moral consideration as we do the human species is an anthropocentric bias which may be called speciesism and is deeply entangled with economic interests. To make this step forward, the paper will suggest considering the tenets of critical animal studies (CAS) as a necessary condition for PEC’s progress. The author will show how the two approaches have much in common and can mutually enrich one another. CAS is defined as a “radical, interdisciplinary field dedicated to establishing a holistic total liberation movement for humans, nonhuman animals, and the Earth” (Nocella II et al, 2014: xxvi). Like PEC, CAS argues for an engaged critical praxis, for the political economy perspective, and for political stances that dismantle structures of exploitation, domination, oppression and power. But CAS also provides a much needed desconstruction of the binary opposition between human and nonhuman animals and a holistic understanding of oppressions, so-called intersectionality, a concept that describes the ways in which oppressive institutions and systems are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another.