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The Mythology about Globalization 31

Eliade (1968), appeal to our primitive longings for cyclical regeneration and new
13
beginnings. [...]

The Myth of ‘Democracy for Export via American TV’

‘Democracy for Export’ is an old myth that displays uniformity over space, time
and sacred belief. That is to say, ‘Democracy for Export via American TV’ is a
recycled version of seasoned ideas about the power of the mass media to influ-
ence public opinion with respect to political ends. Accordingly, it updates the
technology but not the premise about direct media ‘effects’. 14
These ideas resurfaced in a US Department of Commerce inquiry into the
globalization of mass media firms (Obuchowski, 1990); the document, whose
economic aims are to expand US audiovisual trade competitiveness and domi-
nance, also envisages a politico-cultural agenda. The latter surfaces in assump-
tions about the effectiveness of US film and television products as exporters of
US values and ‘democratic ideals’, notions premised on assumptions that global
media can play ‘an increasingly significant role in promoting free speech and
fostering demands for democratic reforms internationally’ (Obuchowski, 1990: 7).
(A view that gains popular credence everytime CNN is cited as the lingua
franca of the video era by political leaders on the world stage and their media
watchers.)
What this conflation of politics and economy presents, then, is ‘Democracy for
Export via American TV’, a highly functional set of ideas for the US film and tele-
vision industries (and the US President’s own personal worldview, see next
section). Moreover, the benign view of media products as vehicles of political
enlightenment stresses their potential for political persuasion (e.g. abandoning
communism for democracy) over their potential for cultural dislocation (e.g.
emphasizing individualism over collectivism). [...]

The Myth of ‘The New World Order’

This, the most recent addition to globalization’s mythology, demonstrates how
new myths arise and old ones reappear or adapt in response to changing condi-
tions. From the US President’s first call for a ‘New World Order’ (NWO) during
the Gulf War, this myth’s core ideas have offered mixed messages, few of them
clear. Therefore, we may usefully distinguish between ‘world order’ as the
creation of order in the world and as an ordering of the world (according to a
particular set of ideological conditions or economic practices). Both meanings
are conflated in this myth and its ongoing revision.
Also evident from the outset was that even if the purported purposes were
global, the authorship was American, and that here was an unclear vision of a
New Jerusalem of world political power premised on the demise of communism
and the triumph of capitalism. Before the mirage was fully formed, however,