Media imperialism (sometimes referred to as cultural imperialism) is an area in the international political economy of communications research tradition that focuses on how "all Empires, in territorial or nonterritorial forms, rely upon communications technologies and mass media industries to expand and shore up their economic, geopolitical, and cultural influence."[1] In the main, most media imperialism research examines how the unequal relations of economic, military and cultural power between an imperialist country and those on the receiving end of its influence tend to be expressed and perpetuated by mass media and cultural industries.
In the 1970s, research on media imperialism was mainly concerned with the expansion of US-based news and entertainment corporations, business models, and products into postcolonial countries as related to the problems of communication and media sovereignty, national identity formation and democracy. In the 21st century, research on media imperialism probes the whole gamut of the media, for example, how an Empire's global economic, military and cultural expansion and legitimization is supported by "the news, telecommunications, film and TV, advertising and public relations, music, interactive games, and internet platforms and social media sites."[2]
^Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Boyd-Barrett, Oliver (1977). Media imperialism: Towards an international framework for the analysis of media systems. London: Edward Arnold. ISBN978-0-7131-5939-4. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
^Mattelart, Armand (1979). Multinational corporations and the control of culture: The ideological apparatuses of imperialism (1st ed.). Brighton: Harvester.
^McChesney, Robert (2001). Global Media: The New Missionaries of Global Capitalism (1st ed.). London: Bloomsbury. ISBN978-0-8264-5819-3.
^Mirrlees, Tanner (2013). Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization (1st ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN9780415519823.
^Mirrlees, Tanner (2016). Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Culture Industry (1st ed.). Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. ISBN9780774830157.