MMC 4300 Module 4 Notes

Dr. Steve Collins Media Globalization Example

• Was in a Chinese restaurant in Uganda in 2011

• India-Pakistan cricket match was on satellite TV

• American music playing over the PA. (Kenny Rodger's "The Coward of the County)

Globalization: a process in which people and countries of the world are being brought closer together, economically and culturally, through trade, information, technology, travel, cultural exchanges, mass media and mass entertainment.

• Key aspects:

  • Connectedness

  • The flow of info, knowledge & money

  • Homogeneity of content

  • Often dependent on cheap labor from developing countries

  • Ideology of consumerism

• Drivers:

  • Technology (including cell phones and satellite TV)

  • Profit motive

  • A thirst for content

• Companies are increasingly trying to sell the same or similar products to very different people

• Basic approaches

  • Standardization (one standardized approach across all markets)

  • Adaption (adapting approach for each new market)

  • contingency approach (middle ground approach)

    • Coke and McDonald were held as success stories for standardization but actually have adapted their approach

    • economies of scale

      • savings are worthless if you sell fewer products cus your advertising isn’t as effective as it should be

  • Products with a “country of origin concept” like Belgian chocolate or French perfume

  • Technology has a chance of working with standardized approaches

  • standardized approaches are easier with newer products than older products

  • US companies are more likely than European and Asian companies to attempt to standardize

  • so called “born-global firms” are more likely to adapt themselves than a firm that originally started in one country

  • The more competition there is in a particular market sector, the more necessary it is to adapt.

Entertainment Media & the Rest of the World

• American movie studios now make more money on foreign ticket sales than from domestic audiences