Page 48 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

36 Communication, Commerce and Power

ways in which these institutions are structured will facilitate and/or
inhibit the development of capitalism in general and the interests of
particular dominant class fractions in particular. The history pres-
ented in this book reveals various domestic and transnational
political-economic agents to have sought the mobilization and/or
reformulation of state structures as their primary means of reforming
the international institutions through which their aspirations could be
pursued.
The historical development, implementation and implications of
communication technologies - such as DBS - has not only involved
struggles that are contextualized and mediated by established struc-
tural conditions; once established and part of daily life, such techno-
logies constitute new mediators in the historical process. But beyond
the capacities afforded by historically constructed ways of doing and
thinking, the capacity of a technology like DBS- and thus its role as a
mediator in the international political economy - also is directly
shaped by its material capabilities. While the economic, political and
military interests of US-based agents constitute essential dynamics
underlying how DBS has been perceived and used, such dynamics
have affected and have been affected by the very specific limits and
opportunities prescribed by the laws of physics and more general
levels of scientific, entrepreneurial and strategic knowledge present
at a given place and time.
The advantages of this dialectical understanding of the role of
institutional, organizational and technological media for the cultural
imperialism paradigm and Gramscian conceptions of hegemony and
consent are elaborated in the following chapters. At this stage, how-
ever, a number of preliminary points should be underlined. For
cultural imperialist theorists, the perspective presented in these pages
suggests that multiple levels of analysis are required in order to
explain, for instance, how a particular policy effort was imaginable
or unimaginable at a particular time in the minds of particular actors.
This perspective also accommodates an understanding of the potential
for resistance to such policies at particular historical junctures. In
sum, a focus on structures, media and process provides the analytical
tools needed to develop a precise understanding of history, anticipate
future tensions and conflicts, and better pin-point strategic opportun-
ities when and where they emerge.
For example, the essential role played by technologies, organiza-
tions and institutions (including the state) in contemporary structural
transformations in the global political economy intrinsically involve