Modernization theory

Dependency theory
Dependency theory emerged in Latin America in the late 1960s and 1970s, partly as a consequence of the political situation in the conti­nent, with increasing US support for right-wing authoritarian governments, and partly with the realization among the educated elite that the developmentalist approach to international communication had failed to deliver.

Central to dependency theory was the view that transnational corporations (TNCs), most based in the North, exercise control, with the

support of their respective governments, over the developing countries by setting the terms for global trade - dominating markets, resources, production, and labour. Development for these countries was shaped in a way to strengthen the dominance of the developed nations and to maintain the 'peripheral' nations in a position of dependence - in other words, to make conditions suitable for 'dependent development'. In its most extreme form the outcome of such relationship was 'the development of underdevelopment' (Gunder Frank, 1969). This neo-colonial relationship in which the TNCs controlled both the terms of exchange and the structure of global markets, it was argued, had contributed to the widening and deepening of inequality in the South while the TNCs had strengthened their control over the world's natural and human resources (Baran, 1957; Mattelart, 1979).

The political-economy approach has its roots in the critique of capitalism produced by the German philosopher, Karl Marx (1818-83), but it has evolved over the years to incorporate a wide range of critical thinkers. Central to a Marxian interpretation of international commu­ni­ca­tion is the question of power, which ultimately is seen as an instrument of control by the ruling classes. In his seminal text, German Ideology, Marx described the relationship between economic, political and cultural power thus: The class which has the means of material production has control at the same time over the means of mental production so that, thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it... Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they ... among other things ... regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. (cited in Murdoch and Golding, 1977: 12-13).

Working within the neo-Marxist critical tradition, Schiller analysed the global power structures in the international communication indus­tries and the links between transnational business and the dominant states. At the heart of Schiller's argument was the analysis of how, in pursuit of commercial interests, huge US-based transnational corporations, often in league with Western (predominantly US) military and political interests, were undermining the cultural autonomy of the countries of the South and creating a dependency on both the hardware and software of communication and media in the developing countries. Schiller defined cultural imperialism as: the sum of the processes by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even to promote, the values and structures of the dominant centre of the system.

Schiller argued that the declining European colonial empires – mainly British, French and Dutch - were being replaced by a new emergent

American empire, based on US economic, military and informational power. According to Schiller, the US-based TNCs have continued to grow and dominate the global economy. This economic growth has been underpinned with communications know-how, enabling US busi­ness and military organizations to take leading roles in the development and control of new electronically-based global commu­ni­ca­tion systems.
Such domination had both military and cultural implications. Schiller's seminal work, Mass Communications and American Empire (1969/ 1992), examined the role of the US government, a major user of communication services, in developing global electronic media systems, initially for military purposes to counter the perceived, and often exaggerated, Soviet security threat. By controlling global satellite commu­ni­­cations, the USA had the most effective surveillance system in operation - a crucial element in the Cold War years. Such communication hardware could also be used to propagate the US model of commercial broadcasting, dominated by large networks and funded primarily by advertising revenue.

US dominance of global communication increased during the 1990s with the end of the Cold War and the failure of the UNESCO-supported demands for NWICO, Schiller argued in the 1992 revised edition of the book. The economic basis of US dominance, however, had changed, with TNCs acquiring an increasingly important role in international relations, transforming US cultural imperialism into 'transnational corporate cultural domination' (Schiller, 1992: 39).