Abstract
In the last hour of the last class of my 14-week Global Communication class, I asked if anyone had any final questions. I didn’t really expect any, figuring most were silently hoping that this question would spell the end of the course, and all could leave early. But after a pregnant pause, one student – who had not said a word the entire semester – pensively raised his hand. With a frown on his face, he said, rather slowly, ‘… so what is a global communication job?’ Noting my raised eyebrows, head tilted forward, he quickly tried to clarify his question. ‘I mean, how do you get a global communication job?’ This moment remains in my mind as rather indicative of a broader problem that often arises with students of Global Communication: they can’t see the trees for the forest and find it difficult to connect personally and make sense out of the vague descriptions of the role of cross-border flows of media today. The old, simple days of pinpointing a smattering of moguls and counting broadcast hours to highlight the threat to national cultures have been substituted with subtle messages of ‘careers in global communication’ because, you know, the media are everywhere, and we are the media.
A question I was a little nervously expecting from my highly culturally diverse students – and had been the whole semester – was more of something like, ‘Does global communication really exist?’ This apprehension was brought about after reading Hafez and Grüne's Foundations of Global Communication (2022) shortly before the course began. The book presents a skeptical view on the global media, and the assumed existence and influence of global communication. For Hafez and Grüne, a global media system does not thus far exist, nor does global mass communication, since mass media are invariably geared toward national audiences, and national media edit content for local audiences (p. 50). The volume therefore aims to ‘provide a theoretical and empirical overview of the disparate achievements and shortcomings of global communication’ (p. 3).
For Hafez, the theme is not new. He has been skeptical of the specter of global (mass) media for some time. Professor of International and Comparative Media and Communication Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany, most prominently began to challenge assumptions regarding the globalization of the media in with the book The Myth of Media Globalization (Hafez, 2007). His other work has focused on a range of areas related to Middle Eastern media and politics, the image of Islam in European media, and political communication and representation. Anne Grüne is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Erfurt, her research has addressed global culture and transcultural entertainment.
The book consists of nine chapters plus introduction and conclusion. As most introductions do, key terms are defined and the parameters for the study are set, and in this ambitious volume it is key. Globalization for Hafez and Grüne is, ‘how media, systems and lifeworld actors cross borders through diverse types of human communication, and whether, and, if so, how, this communicative dissolution of boundaries across the world relates to new forms of an integrative global and epistemic community and society’ (p. 1). Declaring globalization to be a myth, the authors state their purpose as being, ‘to provide a theoretical and empirical overview of the disparate achievements and shortcomings of global communication’ (p. 3), using a system-lifeworld-network approach in order to best comprehend ‘communicators' specific prerequisites and capacities’ (p. 4). The authors refuse any suggestion that their work be associated with second wave (skeptical) approaches to globalization, insisting that their work be associated with ‘riding the third (transformationalist) wave’ (p. 7).
The first chapter, ‘Theory of global communication’, consists of a comprehensive literature review of the theoretical basis for the study, starting off by stating that the key approach in the book is that ‘mass media alone can at most generate a “global public sphere”, but not a “global community”’ (p. 9). Actor-specific modes of communication are defined to show the nature of exchange, and the intricacies and relationships of systematic actors (media, politics and economy as transnational systems, plus global civil society and large communities) and lifeworlds (individuals and small groups that observe and interact across borders, be they communities, organizations or informally) are explained. The area of mass media – typically what most scholars think of upon hearing the name ‘global communication’, is the focus of the second chapter, and for Hafez and Grüne clearly the most controversial, owing to their doubt concerning whether or not a global mass media actually exist. The authors argue that most global media are deeply connected to their states of origin, and cannot be considered as anything other than locally-tied media with some international reach. They stress that global communication via the mass media is observational as opposed to interactive, and thus the facilitation of global discourse cannot take place (p. 48). ‘We have yet to see the kind of structural change in the media that might ensure the desired synchronization in perceptions of global society’ (p. 74).
The next two chapters look at the nature of politics and global trade in a global communication context. In Chapter 3, the role and transformation of diplomatic communication and the influence of global governance is considered. Agenda-setting, framing, ‘signaling as non-verbal global communication’ (p. 86), propaganda and persuasion, cultural dialogue, global disinformation and international broadcasting, as well as communications on social media (‘diplomacy 2.0’), are all considered. Chapter 4 focuses on economic communication at a global level. The authors argue that although there is inarguably a quantitative increase in integrated global trade and investment, the communication context remains decidedly local (p. 106). Interaction and dialogue within and among global companies, the so-called ‘third space’ or ‘third culture’, is considered, as are corporate narratives, global storytelling and global teams as global communities. External economic communication is also considered in terms of advertising, PR and marketing, which, it is argued, is also distinctly local.
Civil society and global movement communication is examined in Chapter 5, again seen as limited due to the ‘border separating civil society from individuals, groups and communities who are not acting in an explicitly political way’ (p. 133). The global asymmetry of INGOs is noted, being predominantly based in the West. The second part of the chapter considers whether social movements should be understood as ‘essentially phenomena of an unstable global public sphere rather than examples of stable (interactive) activist community building’ (p. 155). The authors conclude that social movement communication represents a model closest to representing a global community.
The following three chapters consider communities, groups and the individual, and the nature of their communication in a global context. In ‘Large Communities: Global Online Communication’ (Chapter 6), the formation and nature of global communities in an online context is questioned, examining whether or not they can form independently without structural intervention, how they communicate and to what extent it is indeed a global phenomenon. Reviewing the literature, the authors invariably find the global online community to be localized in nature, via the concentration of local activity as opposed to cross-border flows. When transnational communities occur, for example with gaming communities, the attention to the particular object of focus reduces the possibility of broader community building and understanding. Small groups are the focus of Chapter 7, in which the potential for small-group experiences to be a basis for global community is considered. The authors assess how global knowledge is created and nurtured in the context of small-group communication, the nature of processing ‘globalization experiences’ (p. 195), migration and tourism, the ‘global group communication paradox’ (p. 197), and interaction patterns in global group communication. Chapter 8 focuses on the individual, and what sort of cross-border communication exists, and with what significance. Cosmopolitanism and its impact as a resource, global socialization through family and education, and the impact of one's communicative abilities are just a few areas considered. The chapter concludes that the challenge and stress on the individual contains the greatest risk as well as the greatest potential for the global community (p. 241). Interdependencies of systems and lifeworlds are the topic of the ninth chapter, bringing together global communication systems and lifeworld actors, that had up to this point been considered separately. The authors argue that interdependence exists only to a very marginal extent, and the local remains prominent.
The concluding chapter summarizes that in terms of the classic approach to assessing the extent of media globalization, thereby considering the mass media, only a ‘fragmentary public sphere with direct implications for global society’ exists (p. 257). A number of future prospects are however considered, including, among other ideas, opening up national media to global discourses, and creating collaborative multinational projects through transnational media, which the authors themselves label as ‘reformist utopias’ (p. 360).
In summary, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of this book. In its enormous but sober scope, it makes one wonder how scholars in global communication and global media studies have managed to engage in the field for such a long time. The methodical approach to considering all forms of communication and their impact and influence on global interdependence is breathtaking. Those who have spent years gauging and assessing the globalizing power of mass media will have their bubbles burst – and enjoy it, for the sophistication through which this text carries its arguments leaves little room for anything but appreciation. In that sense, it is a genuine tour de force for the field and makes one wonder if anything will be the same after. The writing is comprehensive, convincing and utterly compelling.
A rather impressive aspect of this volume is the lack of engagement with popular perspectives of ‘all powerful’ global communication, for example approaches from scholars such as Thussu (2020), Herman and McChesney (1997), Hamelink (2015), Jin (2019) and others. For some, this perhaps equates to a refusal to acknowledge or polemicize, for others, simply taking the discussion elsewhere. Instead, we find carefully traced and described conclusions such as ‘The Internet is far more a localizing than a globalizing medium. The world's political and cultural boundaries are being reproduced on the internet’ (p. 185). Simple and clearheaded notions, along with related reminders that, for example, news is inherently local and domesticated with very few exceptions, encourage us to consider if we are being honest with ourselves about the real nature of global communication, or whether we remain drunk on possibility that it has never really transformed into reality.
With this book, Hafez and Grüne have made a towering contribution to the academy, destined to influence scholarship on global media and communication for some time to come in the foreseeable future. The way we look at cross-border communication desperately needs to change, and by more exactingly considering processes at work in social systems and lifeworlds, we may now have a more realistic empirical footing to stand on. Finally, the student of mine, looking for that global communication job, might now be able to have a clearer understanding of what global communication really is, or isn’t.