7 From the Modern to the Postmodern The Future of Global Communications Theory and Research in a Pandemonic Age SANDRA BRAMAN University ofAlabama nternational communication theory and re­ agency, and "pan" because this agency is I search historically have done well with those everywhere. This chapter reviews inter­ subjects that characterize modernity, such as national communication theory and re­ the nation-state and "the fact." Today, how­ search as they have dealt with key features ever, it is the postmodern condition within of modernity-the nation-state, the fact, the which communication takes place-a con­ universal, and power. Each of these elements dition also known as the information society, must now be reconsidered. for many of the critical features of post­ modernity are the effects of the use of new information technologies. Under either desig­ nation, international communication theory THE NATION-STATE and research must respond to circumstances qualitatively and quantitatively different from The geopolitical form of modernity was the those of the past. The current environment combination of bureaucratic and cultural de­ may be described as "pandemonic," following ments that came to be known ~s the nation­ Hookway (1999), because it is ubiquitously state (Greenfeld, 1992; Held, 1989). Inter­ filled with information that makes things national communication historically has happen in ways that are often invisible, incom­ been oriented almost exclusively around prehensible, and/or beyond human control­ nation-states, looking at differences between "demonic" in the classic sense of nonhuman what happens within them (comparative INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION studies) and at flows of communications be­ sis, such as long-term projects carried out by tween them (international communication). multiply interdependent entities, as most valid International communication, like the field and useful in today's environment. Ethnic and of communication itself, has largely been a family ties have been identified as structural product of the U.S. higher education system forces in their own right as manifested in in­ in the 20th century. From World War II on, ternational trade and other types of inter­ however, the vast expansion of the reach and national information flows (Iyer & Shapiro, impact of that system exposed the ideas it 1999). Non-state actors, such as regions produced to profound questioning and criti­ (Blanco & van den Bukk, 1995), transna­ cism from other societies around the world tional corporations (Dezalay & Garth, 1996), (Wallerstein, 1996). Important work by and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) largely Western European sociologists en­ (Waterman, 1990), replace or complement riches and in some cases underlies interna­ the nation-state as site, subject, and agent in tional communication theory, but it is one of global communication studies. Increasingly, the important markers of the turn of the 21st statelike communities are defined virtually ra­ century that theory has itself become interna­ ther than geographically (Arquila & Ronfeldt, tionalized. Increasingly, major works in the 1996; Gopnik, 1996). field are being written by scholars outside the Such "cascading" interdependence (Rose­ United States, such as recent works on public nau, 1984) demands that those studying opinion by Shamir and Shamir (2000) from global communication move beyond depen­ Israel and by Splichal (1999) from Slovenia. dency theory. Constructivism (Adler, 1997) Although in the past work that drew together provides one means of doing so, focusing on theories from the United States and Europe the impact of today's global information in­ with those from elsewhere often cast one per­ frastructure on all aspects of international re­ spective within the context of a second, as lations (Singh & Rosenau, 2001). Other work when Mowlana and Wilson (1990) examined that starts from the position that borders be­ development communication within the con­ tween nation-states today are often not bright text of Islamic philosophy and practice, in the lines but rather zones that may be populated future the most important work will be based by millions of people with well-developed and on genuine theoretical syntheses of ideas from unique cultures of their own is beginning to around the world of the type modeled by Lult' appear (Lull, 1997). Within such zones, indi­ (2000) and Mattelart (1994). vidual identity is no longer a question of citi­ Theories from outside international com­ zenship but rather of ethnicity and/or hybrid­ munication should also be useful. Melucci ity (Mouffe, 1992). (1996), for example, provides an alternative The nation-state as the unit of analysis also approach to understanding political commu­ provided a logic and justification for compara­ nication across cultures with his emphasis on tive studies. Media systems have been com­ identity issues as the crux of contemporary so­ pared along several dimensions, including cial movements. Theories of turbulence and ownership patterns, organizational structures, chaos in international relations (Rosenau, regulatory systems, content trends, and recep­ 1990) should provide some relief for those tion. The example of comparisons of norma­ seeking to find generalizations in what may tive press-state relations-the ways in which a well be ephemeral, and perhaps random, con­ media system and a government interact with ditions. Network economists (Antonelli, mutual effect-demonstrates the limits of 1992) argue for the use of new units of analy- such comparative work. The Cold War-era From the Modern to the Postmodern 111 typology known as the "four theories of the and computers-distinguishing between com­ press" (Siebert, Peterson, & Schramm, 1956) munication with databases, programs, distinguishes among types of media systems intelligent agents, and avatars-as well as according to where they lie on a spectrum those communications between computers from complete government control (totali­ that never involve humans at all. Not only do tarian or communist) to democratic, with these other types of flows comprise an ever­ the notion of a press that operates in terms larger proportion of global information flows of "social responsibility" lying in between. (Tele-Geography, 2000), but they are also in­ This model reeks of its geopolitical origins creasingly sig11ificant as structural forces for (Simpson, 1994); for decades now-even in human society (Lessig, 1999). Indeed, the ar­ North America, and even before the dissolu­ gument has been made that the nation-state it­ tion of the Soviet Union-although the theory self might be best understood as an informa­ has been taught, in many cases this was done tion processor (Richards, 1993). with the caveat that the theory doesn't actu­ ally apply to the contemporary situation. A wide-ranging critique of this approach ap­ THE FACT peared in Last Rights (Nerone, 1995). The task today, however, is to come up with anal­ The narrative forms of modernity were de­ ternative typology of media systems that is fined by their relationship to the fact, what is comprehensive and complex enough to be known as "facticity." Fiction, for example, able to cope with the great variety of media defines itself as not being fact, whereas jour­ systems currently in existence and emerging. nalists, on the other hand, claim the news they Chan (1997) offers one such alternative present is. Issues raised by facticity are impor­ typology based on his analyses of media sys­ tant to ·the study of global communication tems in Asian countries. today in a number of ways. A further concomitant of the focus on the The unbundling of different types of infor­ nation-state is that each is a place between mation resources, the ways in which value is which communications flow. International added to them, and the means by which prop­ communication theory historically has done a erty rights can be asserted over them have good job of looking at the nature and impact been among the most notable features of the of communications flows on lar~e popula­ information economy that had appeared by tions, examining both mass media content as it the close· of the 20th century. This was just affects society and political communications the point of the debate over the New World as it affects nation-states. Conceptualization Information and Communication Order of these flows has become more complex (NWICO), which concerned the right and and has come to encompass not only flows of ability of developing nations to control flows content but also those of infrastructure, au­ of information about themselves, whether via diences, genres, and knowledge structures journalism or satellite surveillance. The ques­ (Appadurai, 1990; Braman, Shah, & Fair, tion of ownership and control over facts is 2000). also at the heart of ··-data privacy issues, first Those studying international communi­ addressed by the Organization for Economic _cation have focused exclusively on flows Cooperation and Development (OECD) in between humans. In the future, however, the 1970s. Already at that point Europe there will be an increasing need to take into and the United States were diverging in the account communications between humans degrees to which they protected the privacy 112 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNic:;ATION -~ of individuals about whom data had been Cohen & Roeh, 1992). Whereas the first two gathered for commercial, administrative, issues mentioned here deal with differences in and other purposes with significant im­ how facticity