Power of Media and a Harmonious Asia, Boao Forum for Asia(2007.4.22)

全球媒体一体化对人权和自由的挑战

----李希光在博鳌亚洲论坛演讲全文

Global media: a threat to free press and human rights

.                                     By LI Xiguang[1]

Mr. Chairman,

Thank for inviting me to talk about such a big topic as global media integration, Asian harmony and Asian image. But first, I want to extend my warm congratulations to the Boao Forum of Asian media, which I believe will allow voices from many parts of the world being heard. I believe that if we hear only once voice globally, that is global dictatorship. A global press freedom means that people from any parts of the world have their right to set their own agenda and have their independent voices being heard equally and globally. If people with identical ideas come together and speak at the same forum, it is not a free forum. As Confucius said 2,500 years ago, “Men of honor live in harmony with differences.” And indeed Boao has offered us this forum for a genuine global free expression where we can all speak here without pressure and without fear. And we don’t have to speak to please anyone or any government here.

Speaking about the global media integration, We need to know what are the most important issues for the global media integration? What is the key question we need to address about global media integration and its impact on Asian media? What are the key issues involved global media in image-making for Asia?

What is global media integration? The final product of global media integration is global media. It means the concentration of the press into fewer and fewer corporate hands and into fewer and fewer countries.

In the age of global media, what is an Asian image? Our image depends on the acceptance and rejection of certain vocabulary and terms used by the global media in describing an Asian nation, for example, India, China, North Korea, China, Burma, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, etc. Who are we? We are what we watch on global media.

Two thousand years ago, Confucius in defining human wisdom says that a wise man knows what he knows and also knows what he does not know. But today we human beings don’t know we don’t know and don’t see we don’t see because we are living in a deceptive global media system.

What does free press mean to us? Free press means that we are getting truthful stories and truthful pictures from the media. Under a free press system, people are getting better informed and wiser in daily decision making.

What is a global free press? Global free press means pluralism, diversified views, diversified cultures globally. Global free press also means that people are to be informed of important and relevant news locally and from different points of view.

But in the age of satellite TV broadcasts and global communications, what are we watching on TV everyday? News or propaganda? Truth or lies？From as far as Iraqi War to as recent as the campus killings of Virginia Tech, can we trust our own eyes and ears in the age of global media? In the age of information decentralization and fragmentization, the flow of international news on the contrary is becoming more centralized. The global flow of information continues to be one way and unbalanced. The global media corporate giants are becoming  global dominating forces, leaving the forces for democracy, diversity and decentralizations scrambling to catch up. 

Speaking about global communication？Can we enforce the First Amendment on a global scale? Can we have a global democracy which means to protect the underdog country’s right to speak and make sure the voice of the weak nations be heard?

The American journalism has long been regarded as a model for many countries with an emerging free press. Journalists in developing countries admire the American press for its brave coverage of Vietnam War and the Pentagon Paper. But if the model functions consciously and unconsciously as a crisis-driven machine or war monger, and Asian media are always telling stories according to the global media. it would be always an imagination about a harmonious Asia.

Judging a press whether it is free or not depend on whether it replies heavily on government sources. Most TV viewers do not know that many of the Asian crisis what they saw and heard on global media is a world seen through the frame of the government spin doctors and agenda setter.

Today, everyone is talking about a booming market economy in the age of globalization. A market economy encourages competing perspectives, diversified frames, all possible angels in news reporting. But experiences with the satellite TV coverage of major Asian event shows that living in the global media system, the international audiences are looking at international events in a more narrow and stereotyped way.

The first step of getting closer to truth is to be freed from the bird cage of the global media. No more picture or live broadcast of an embedded journalist bragging atop a military vehicle or aboard a aircraft carrier. As journalist I.F. Stone pointed out that all governments are manipulated by liars. I.F. Stone might sound extreme, but his critical and skeptical spirit is vanishing among both Chinese and some Asian journalists in the age of global media. To get free from the global media mentality, the Asian community  should both have easy access and the desire to all sorts of views, angles, frames and focuses in news reporting. And that could only come when the international community is able to watch Indian TV, CNN, BBC, CCTV, Indonesian TV, Vietnamese TV, Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, Malaysian TV and Singaporean TV all at the same time when another big news event happens.

A global press freedom does not mean reporting according a single government, whether it is according to the White House or according to the Kremlin or according to the Zhongnanhai. If global press freedom means that the international audience hear only one voice, see pictures only from one perspective and get information only from one sources, what does global dictatorship mean?

The Economist（September 15, 2001） describes the terror attacks on the World Trade Center as “the day the world changed.” But the real world we are living with has not changed as a result of the tragedy. The biggest problems and challenges Asian countries are facing, such as poverty, pollution, diseases and the daily killings of innocent in wars are only getting worse. The day when the World Trade Center was attacked and about 2,500 innocent people were killed, 40,000 children were killed by diseases, hunger and poverty, 8,000 around the world were killed by HIV/AIDS. But the death toll of the latter has lost its newsworthiness comparing with the dramatic event of terror attack.  

Following the agenda  “fighting the first war of the 21^st century”, the global media industry has since launched an intense coverage of anti-terror war such as Afghanistan War, Iraqi War, Iranian and Korean nuclear crisis, burying all the other worthy issues. The mediated aisa presented by the global media has been accepted by the international community as the truthful world. The global audience does not care or even forget the problems of their own world and only care for the world presented by the global media.

The negative impact of global media journalistic values and ethics can be summarized as following:

- The anti-terrorism agenda has overwhelmed all other global issues. It has become a criterion for political correctness, only one opinion being legal and the other opinion being illegal or marginalized;

- Sources being more centralized to one government Sources contributed to NGO and other governments and peoples are being marginalized or even regarded as illegitimate sources;

- An honest journalism is being destroyed by such false coverage as Weapons of Mass Destruction. As a result, a decline in public confidence in the press;

- “Our news” are being ignored while “their news”. News relevant to the local people being ignored. - News from Asia, news from the developing countries, news of development are being ignored. The local readers, viewers and listeners are being turned into spectators of other people’s wars and violence. They are being amused by other people’s sufferings such as their families are being killed by HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, flu, tuberculosis, being killed by poverty, famine;

. - News about the root causes of terrorism, such as inequality, injustice, poverty, diseases, racial and cultural discrimination and universal abuses of human rights being ignored;

- A global media news vocabulary have been created by government sources, which have now been used like a Bible by many journalists throughout the world. As a result of this glossary, the news values are being redefined. A new universal values of making newsworthy stories have been created. For example, in order to get into lead stories and the front pages, the journalists have to use the White House vocabulary to cover the Iraqi War and other Asian issue. As a result, weapons of mass destruction, rogue states, China threat, international terrorism, Jihad, Islamic fundamentalists, Iraqi militants, coalition army, the embedded journalist have become the catch phrases in the lead news in every parts of the world. The impact of global media journalism was so intense that certain phrases and terminology became global, while others were rendered almost extinct, and only used at the risk of the story being alienated from the mainstream media. The global media glossary are replacing the journalistic glossary which includes poverty, water shortages, deaths of children and women, SARS, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Hepatitis B.

In view of this changing media landscape, what the readers, listeners and viewers want from the media? They want to see news events or stories which could catch their eyeballs, more violence, more wars, more infotainment and more militainment. enjoyment and entertainment. Due to the nature of entertainment and infotainment, the problem with the general public is that the more they consume the mass media today, the less they know about the world around them.

Speaking about the image making of Asia in the age of global media, Asian image has nothing to do with Asian media. Asian image seems to be influenced not only by economy, but also by US foreign policy and the vocabulary the global media chose in according to the policy. Those international issues which are on the agenda of US policy, they are considered worthy issues. If those issues are not on the agenda of US policy, they are considered unworthy issues and will rarely become the agenda of global media. Critics say that a news event could only becomes news until CNN’s cameraman sees it and reports it. But if an issue is not on the agenda of US foreign policy, It would be difficult for CNN to see it and report it. For example, when the Rwanda massacre happened in 1994, the atrocity was buried by the overwhelming news stories from Bosnia. This phenomena has been termed as “CNN factor”.

Dissenting global viewpoints are routinely marginalized in Asian mainstream media. The invasion of global media threatens independent journalism in Asia and weakens global democracy in deciding global affairs. Asian countries need nation branding to free themselves from old stereotypes and bring their image more relevant to their own reality.

In the age of global media, If Asian media are able to set their agenda independently from the crisis-driven agenda set by the global media, Asian media can promote harmony among Asian nations.

Thanks.