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INTERNATIONAL NEWS CONTRAFLOW IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA: STRUGGLES OVER NORTH AMERICAN MEDIA MARKETS AND REGULATION OF AL JAZEERA AND CHINA CENTRAL TELEVISION BY IAN KIVELIN DAVIS DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communications in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor John Nerone, Chair Professor Cliff Christians Professor Dan Schiller Professor Angharad Valdivia ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I examine news media contraflow, flows of news and information from historically underrepresented parts of the globe into advanced media systems. I assess North American governance of news media flows in light of increased availability of nonwestern news organizations. The research in the following chapters examines the cases of the Al Jazeera Network (AJ) and China Central Television (CCTV) to more fully account for transformations in the gatekeeper roles of regulatory bodies, media distribution industries and communication norms that govern North America’s engagement with these emergent news providers. The proliferation of foreign news broadcasters makes examining institutions of reception – state regulators, public activist groups and distribution industries – increasingly important. Through case studies, I look, first, to recent changes in the production of international news in the neoliberal landscape of global communication. I examine significant new news content creators and identify what I call a hybrid media production model. State media enterprises are becoming savvy users of communication networks transformed by neoliberalism. In the second part of the dissertation, I outline the inchoate “foreign media policies” of the United States and Canada by analyzing the complex of law, norms and market conditions that influenced the reception of AJ and CCTV. ii To Finn, a teacher in his own right iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank many people for their role in making this work possible. First, the guidance of my committee members helped at every step. John Nerone is a rare advisor, providing intellectual and personal support through tough times. Tabe Bergman, Rich Potter and a long list of other colleagues at the Institute improved the project in too many ways to note. Will Youmans, Paula Chakravartty, Arlene Luck at IJoC and a number of anonymous reviewers for the ICA, NCA, UDC and the SIU/Texas Global Fusion conferences helped refine drafts of chapters. The Association for Canadian Studies in the United States provided funding for travel to Washington, DC and Ottawa where archives and interviews expanded my understanding immeasurably. The Canadian regulatory officials, Peter Foster and Tandy Yull in particular, were giving of time and resources. I also extend gratitude to the media activists who voluntarily met with me and enriched the research. The consistent kindness I experienced during my time in Ottawa has confirmed my love of Canadians. I would also like to offer deep thanks to my father, step-mother, sister and beloved Sarah Colvert for putting up with the “diss moments” when I alternated between frantic and apathetic. When work took me away, I could trust the love of family to support me and provide childcare. Without the personal touch and understanding of family I would have lost my way. The insights of Martin Srajek also made this possible by keeping my head and soul together. In the process of my graduate studies, I was lucky to have a son. The hours we spent together huddled around apartment heat vents enabled me to dive back into research with renewed vigor. Because of that time together, I emerge from graduate student life a better person. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………………. 1 CHAPTER 1: GLOBAL TELEVISION, PLURALISM AND NEWS CONTRAFLOW: TOWARD A RENEWED ACCOUNT OF DOMESTIC REGULATION AS “FOREIGN MEDIA POLICY” ........................……………………………30 CHAPTER 2: NEOLIBERAL CONTRAFLOW: AL JAZEERA’S HYBRID FUNDING TECHNIQUES ….…………………………………….78 CHAPTER 3: NEOLIBERAL CONTRAFLOW: CHINA CENTRAL TELEVISION’S HYBRID FUNDING TECHNIQUES ………………...110 CHAPTER 4: A REINTERPRETATION OF FOREIGN NEWS REGULATION IN THE UNITED STATES: AL JAZEERA AND CHINA CENTRAL TELEVISION ……………………………………...……………...137 CHAPTER 5: CHINESE MEDIA IN CANADA: SOCIAL CONFLICTS, MEDIA ACTIVISM AND THE GEOPOLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL MEDIA FLOWS …...................................................177 CHAPTER 6: A PARADOX OF PLURALISM: CANADA’S REGULATORY RESPONSE TO GLOBAL MEDIA GROWTH .…………………………...217 CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH ……………………………………………..250 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………………...261 APPENDIX A: LIST OF APPROVED NON-CANADIAN PROGRAMMING, 2012 ………………………………………………………………………297 APPENDIX B: LIST OF ACRONYMS………………………………………………………..308 v Introduction News Contraflow in North America 1 As a result of the globalization of economic activity, national governments can no longer design domestic cultural policy generally, and broadcasting policy in particular, without some reference to what is happening in other countries. --Armstrong, 2010, p. 223 The “Uprising” of 2003 I lived in North Chicago in 2003 working as a server and bartender at the Heartland Café, a self-styled community center and restaurant. The Heartland’s progressive demeanor was earnest; its owners were longtime Chicago residents connected with the late 1960s antiwar protests coordinated by Students for a Democratic Society. Most of the staff was made up of poor urban types with only vague commitments to liberal politics. The looming U.S. invasion of Iraq was a not so much a galvanizing injustice as a matter of resigned eye-rolling. It was with the onset of U.S. bombing raids in Iraq that Chicago caught political fire. Downtown streets were flooded with pedestrians waving signs against the invasion “countdown” started by the Bush Administration. Word spread that Lake Shore Drive, a major highway pinched between downtown and Lake Michigan, was shut down due to the war protesters clogging the lanes. I looked to CNN to see how the network covered protests in a major city. The silence was jarring. A CNN anchor interviewed retired U.S. military officials speaking on the capacity for resistance Saddam Hussein’s army could offer U.S. ground forces. Nothing about 1 I use the term North America to describe the Anglophone geo-linguistic market and thus exclude Mexico from my analysis. 1 the major public demonstrations. Nothing about the ring of Chicago police containing antiwar crowds, an image reminiscent of the anti-war riots in 1968. A month later I had joined a small activist group called Chicago Media Action. We took up the cause of localism in the wake of a change in media ownership laws. We made plans to attend the Federal Communication Commission’s localism hearings to voice concerns over the 2003 “multiple-ownership” decision. The change in regulation would relax restrictions intended to preserve diversity in media ownership within major markets like Chicago. Little did we know that we were playing a minuscule part in what Robert McChesney (2004) would call the “Uprising of 2003” the following year. Few Chicagoans attended the hearing about localism in Chicago. The hearing was held in Rapid City, SD, making it a “heavy lift” for activist volunteer participation. The irony was not lost on Chicago activists who drove over 900 miles to have a say about localism. We would have two minutes to speak to a panel consisting of two sitting Democratic commissioners and two or three South Dakotan broadcasting executives. A series of lights and a timer pointed at speakers as questions ranged from bad reception on the outskirts of Sioux Falls to the growing use of prepackaged public relations in local news. Each time, a red light flashed to tell the citizen to step away from the microphone and sit down. Matters of signal interference were quickly fielded by the industry representatives on the panel. Larger systemic questions, those related to structural concerns regarding the provision of local media for Midwestern communities, went unanswered. Any question or proposition that took the full two minutes was entered into the record while the empanelled regulators and station owners looked over paperwork. 2 The localism hearings in 2003 were performances. The Commission was performing its duty as public-interest advocate by enduring two-minute bursts of broad-ranging criticism from members of the public. Only two of the five commissioners attended: those who were critical of concentration in news-related industries. Members of the public were performing as well. Individual arguments would have little sway over the positions the commissioners had already taken. The best we could hope for, some activists argued in meetings throughout the day, was for the crowd to appear large enough to “perform” public opinion and hint that, if the ownership rule changes were to go through, there would be potential electoral consequences for those who appointed members of the Commission. As a new activist, I did not understand what leverage we had over the commissioners to make our voices heard. Another activist at the meeting quietly noted to me that only the commissioners of the party not in power had attended the meeting. This sort of public involvement in major decisions about communication policy in North America is at the center of this dissertation. The sense of dissatisfaction I had as I walked away from the podium

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