Page 27 - Communication Theory and Research

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16 Communication Theory & Research
The first level – transnationalization as an effect of international television
flows – must be thoroughly and systematically described before the second and
more interesting level of aggregated substantial effects can be examined. In some
ways this is not a very exciting exercise – which may be why there are so many
attempts to jump from some kind of description of flows to the second-level
effects. However, the first step is necessary in order to establish a properly
conceived context for approaching the ‘second-level effects’.
Concentrating now on the ‘first-level’ effects, I suggest that the transnationalization
variable is related to a specific ‘area’ like a country, a group of countries or
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delimited groups of TV viewers. Transnationalization, therefore, is basically
perceived as a national phenomenon, which is a consequence of international
flows as defined above. Transnationalization of supply therefore is the trans-
nationalization of nationally offered supply which means certain television signals
using standard technology that are available to a given country (or group of
countries or groups of viewers).
The next step in a systematic approach is to specify the object of ‘trans-
nationalization’. The objects normally dealt with in existing research are
‘ownership’, ‘supply’ and, to some extent, ‘consumption’. I will concentrate here
on ‘transnationalization of television supply’ and ‘transnationalization of television
consumption’.
In order to define and operationalize ‘transnationalization of national supply’
and ‘transnationalization of national consumption’ more precisely, I suggest a
distinction between three ‘sources’ or ‘dimensions’ of supply and consumption.
Television supply may be divided into the national supply of multilaterally
distributed television, the national supply of bilaterally distributed television
and the national supply of nationally distributed television. These divisions are
reflected in the concept of transnationalization and taken together they constitute
the total ‘transnationalization of supply and consumption’.
The national dimension of national supply and consumption relates to
television distributed by the domestic media (e.g. by national public service
broadcasters). This is referred to as ‘nationally distributed television’.
The bilateral dimension of national supply and consumption relates to
television which originates in the domestic media of another country and reaches
the nation under consideration (through normal transmission, or by satellite, etc.)
simultaneously and unedited (e.g. West German television in neighbouring
countries). This is called ‘bilaterally distributed television’.
The multilateral dimension of national supply and consumption relates to
television originating outside a particular country and with no single intended
direction of the flow (e.g. the signals from pan-European satellites). This is called
‘multilaterally distributed television’.
Every communication flow naturally has a technical point of origin. In principle
the multilateral dimension could be expressed as the sum of bilateral trans-
nationalization transmissions between the specific (technical) country of origin
and the countries where the signals are available. However, the substance of the
multilateral dimension is the existence of communication flows for which the