Media Policy and Globalization - Blogs Unpad

40 MEDIA POLICY AND GLOBALIZATION
despite the expansive internationalization of policy practice that Habermas
and Held argue for cosmopolitan democracy in a ‘postnational’ political
world where transnational networks of communication, NGOs and
popular political movements form the basis for global sovereignty and
citizenship (Habermas 2001; Held 2004).
A wide range of oppositional movements has responded to the dislocating
effects of globalization that has not simply challenged, but actually
transformed the course of global integration, raising fundamental questions
about the legitimacy of the mechanisms of global governance. In
1998, Joseph Stiglitz, then Senior Vice President and Chief Economist
for the World Bank, acknowledging the power of this response, spoke of
a ‘Post-Washington Consensus’ signalling the end of an era of blind faith
in markets and US dominance in promoting neoliberal trade . While far
from radical in his prescriptions for reform, it is instructive to consider
the following principles of the new consensus that Stiglitz outlined:
One principle of these emerging ideas is that whatever the new consensus
is, it cannot be based on Washington. In order for policies to be
sustainable, they must receive ownership by developing countries. It
is relatively easier to monitor and set conditions for inflation rates and
current account balances. Doing the same for financial sector regulation
or competition policy is neither feasible nor desirable. The second
principle of the emerging consensus is a greater degree of humility, the
frank acknowledgment that we do not have all of the answers. (Stiglitz
1998)
Stiglitz’s comments preceded the mass mobilization against the WTO in
Seattle in 1999, and the subsequent protests at global summits and trade
talks that along with the creation of the World Social Forum in Porto
Alegre, Brazil, in 2001, became recognized as part of an organized global
justice movement directly challenging the legitimacy of the neoliberal
trade paradigm. These comments were instead responding to both the
rapid expansion of new economic powers like China, Brazil, India and
Russia as well as to the financial crises, social and economic dislocation
and mass mobilization against the violence of structural adjustment and
trade ‘harmonization’ across Africa, Asia and Latin America since the
1980s.
The faltering legitimacy of neoliberalism has many manifestations relevant
for scholars critical of global communication and media policy.
On the one hand, the rise of religious fundamentalisms and xenophobic
nationalisms in both the North and South mobilizes support around arguments
for cultural integrity or purity in response to foreign or ‘alien’
cultural influences. It becomes vital in this context to consider how the