Page 213 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

192 Critical investigations in political economy

Conclusion
Neoliberalism has become a dominant force in supranational and national
communications policy. Corporations have also increased their influence to
unprecedented levels. The corporate grip on policy in the US poses risks that
communications arrangements for the next century will be decided with minimal
democratic involvement. Yet analysis needs to have regard for dynamic openness to
understand variations across different media systems and the complex configurations
of power shaping specific policy issues when viewed in more granular detail.
Attention to openness and contestation is required for media reform politics as well
as analysis. Reform requires us to identify and build on openings and possibilities
for change. Ó Siochrú et al. (2002) outline two main alternatives for global
media governance. The first is a dominant trade and liberalisation paradigm in
which a logic of commercialisation pervades the media and communication
sphere. The second, ‘multilateral cooperation reborn’, privileges democratic,
cultural and societal governance based on peoples’ communication rights. The
dominance of the first appears even more entrenched today, but as the authors
argue, the outcome is still not settled.

Notes
1 Hardy (2008) provides a summary of changes in international communications reg-
ulations. See also accounts of media policy paradigm shifts (Hoffman-Riem 1996; Van
Cuilenburg and McQuail 2000) and the internationalisation of media policy
(Ó Siocrú et al. 2002).
2 In March 2014 the G7 nations agreed to suspend the G8 until Russia changed its
policy towards Ukraine.
3 In July 2013 the cultural exception re-emerged as key sticking point in the negotiations
between the European Union and the US on what will be the world’s largest free
trade agreement.