In The Public Sphere and the Constitution of Society, Manuel Castells mentions fours crises that are arising in the transition from a nation-state world to a globalized world. The crisis most pertinent to today I believe is the Crisis of Equity, which Castells defines as the increasing “inequality between countries and between social groups within countries.” Waisbord further clarifies what this inequality looks like in Media and the Reinvention of the Nation State, noting “wealthier nations have more media resources,” and therefore access to more information and the ability to send information into the world.
There has been much debate about the flow of information and it’s tendency to be from Northern countries to Southern countries. Media conglomerates like NewsCorp are based in wealthy nations, or the media is controlled by the elites within a society, choosing what messages are sent and how. In America and across Europe we have access to CNN and the BBC, “global” news sources, yet entirely based in wealthy nations. Al Jazeera is becoming a leading source for global news as well, but even this news station is based in Qatar, a country that has the highest per capita income[i]. As media becomes more global, is it not just becoming more global in a wealthier, or northern nation sense? Media is still not global in the sense that it reaches poorer nations and people, who mainly rely on radio and not the television for their news. The populations in these countries do not have internet access, or it is very limited, and they are not as digitally literate as the populations in Northern countries.
I believe this is leading to the emergence of two separate media circles. The first is a circle of the wealthier globalized media which spreads the “Northern view” of society. It covers news coming out of the developing world, but informs viewers on the “plight” of these societies as they try to modernize. The news is cast in such a light as being seen from outside these cultures and above them. The second media circle caters to local villages and neighborhoods through cheap mediums like radio. These media stations cover the developing world from the inside, and relay important neighborhood news and services. An example of this type of media could be in Somalia where the limited reach of Radio Mogadishu[ii] competes with local radio stations from Al Shabab. The contrasting views between these two services can be huge, leading to greater disparity of information and an endless cycle of inequality that is hard to break.
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