Electronic colonialism
Encyclopedia
Electronic colonialism theory was first started by Tom McPhail
, a Canadian who began his career with Marshall McLuhan
. Following a posting with UNESCO
in Paris, McPhail wrote a book for SAGE
entitled Electronic Colonialism: the Future of International Broadcasting and Communication in 1981. The foreword
was written by Everett Rogers
. The theory is about the impact on the mind of repeated mass media
messages, including commercials
, on audiences around the world. Just as earlier colonial institutions
, like Great Britain, sought out soil anywhere in the world for colonies
, now multimedia
giants seek to capture the eyeballs, ears and minds of millions of viewers, readers, or listeners. Disney
, MTV
, Blockbuster
, Hollywood, CNN
, BBC
, Fox
, Google
, the Internet, and others--all seek to influence, not by force of arms, but by packaging media to attract large audiences for advertisers around the globe. The mass media over time will impact more and more individuals—primarily using the English language—to become more similar as indigenous films and artifacts become marginalized by a cultural tsunami created by high quality and mass produced media messages and systems.
Electronic colonialism theory explains how mass media are leading to a new concept of empire. It will not be one based on military power or land acquisition but one based on controlling the mind. It is a psychological or mental empire. It is an evolving global "Empire of the Mind." The global media are collectively influencing the minds, attitudes, values, and languages of individuals around the globe. It is an electronic mass media driven phenomena which over time will not only expand the frontiers of the multi-national communication firms but will far exceed even the vast reach of the declining, once-great British Empire
.
Prime examples of electronic colonialism are the initiatives of Google Inc
. The first is to digitize the works of five major US
and UK
libraries. (The libraries are at Harvard
, Stanford
, the University of Michigan
, Oxford University, and the New York Public Library
—all Anglo-Saxon
in language (English), history, focus, framing, and orientation. Google will help define the future of knowledge by its vast network power and global platform. The wealth and impact of other, non-English, libraries around the world will be both diminished and marginalized by the Google project. For example the 600-year-old National Library of France
will not contribute to the new data base and thus the 8-year-old-Google suddenly represents a major challenge to France
's academic, cultural, and linguistic heritage.
The second example is a 2007 project to personalize Google's search results. Using the search history or pattern used by individuals, Google intends to customize information or thinking patterns to select which results to prioritize for each individual researcher. Google and other internet-based search services are attempting to get into the brains of users to aid in presenting more relevant results based on previous research patterns. Other search firms, such as Microsoft
and Yahoo!
are also attempting to develop unique algorithm
s to aid in customizing searches based on user patterns. It is not only the large corporations that are tracking user's'patterns. CenturyTel Inc. of Louisiana
, a small telephone company, is also into behavior targeting. Using equipment installed on the phone lines, CenturyTel will collect data about every web site visited and then sell the information to external online advertisers.
All want a big piece of the $17 billion internet advertising market. By chasing more precise and detailed mapping behavior, via an algorithm, they want to deliver "the minds" of internet customers to a growing list of online advertisers.
The theory of electronic colonialism also examines the hegemonic
power of the USA as it applies to the global cultural industries. This includes the American-centric control of the Internet
via ICANN
and the expansion of American media and communication empires around the world.
Tom McPhail
Tom McPhail is a Canadian professor of media studies and a fellow in the Center for International Studies at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. He began his academic career with Marshall McLuhan and taught several seminars with McLuhan at the University of Toronto...
, a Canadian who began his career with Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar—a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communication theorist...
. Following a posting with UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
in Paris, McPhail wrote a book for SAGE
SAGE (organization)
SAGE is the USENIX Special Interest Group for Sysadmins, an international nonprofit professional association of system administrators.SAGE describes itself thus:Its goal is to serve the system administration community by:...
entitled Electronic Colonialism: the Future of International Broadcasting and Communication in 1981. The foreword
Foreword
A foreword is a piece of writing sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the writer of the foreword and the book's primary author or the story the book tells...
was written by Everett Rogers
Everett Rogers
Everett M. Rogers was a communication scholar, sociologist, writer, and teacher. He is best known for originating the diffusion of innovations theory and for introducing the term early adopter....
. The theory is about the impact on the mind of repeated mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
messages, including commercials
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
, on audiences around the world. Just as earlier colonial institutions
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, like Great Britain, sought out soil anywhere in the world for colonies
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
, now multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
giants seek to capture the eyeballs, ears and minds of millions of viewers, readers, or listeners. Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
, MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, Blockbuster
Blockbuster (movie rental store)
Blockbuster LLC is an American-based provider of home video and video game rental services, originally through video rental shops , later adding DVD-by-mail, streaming video on demand, and kiosks. At its peak in 2009, Blockbuster had up to 60,000 employees. There are around 1700 Blockbuster...
, Hollywood, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, the Internet, and others--all seek to influence, not by force of arms, but by packaging media to attract large audiences for advertisers around the globe. The mass media over time will impact more and more individuals—primarily using the English language—to become more similar as indigenous films and artifacts become marginalized by a cultural tsunami created by high quality and mass produced media messages and systems.
Electronic colonialism theory explains how mass media are leading to a new concept of empire. It will not be one based on military power or land acquisition but one based on controlling the mind. It is a psychological or mental empire. It is an evolving global "Empire of the Mind." The global media are collectively influencing the minds, attitudes, values, and languages of individuals around the globe. It is an electronic mass media driven phenomena which over time will not only expand the frontiers of the multi-national communication firms but will far exceed even the vast reach of the declining, once-great British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
.
Prime examples of electronic colonialism are the initiatives of Google Inc
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
. The first is to digitize the works of five major US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
libraries. (The libraries are at Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, Oxford University, and the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
—all Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
in language (English), history, focus, framing, and orientation. Google will help define the future of knowledge by its vast network power and global platform. The wealth and impact of other, non-English, libraries around the world will be both diminished and marginalized by the Google project. For example the 600-year-old National Library of France
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
will not contribute to the new data base and thus the 8-year-old-Google suddenly represents a major challenge to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
's academic, cultural, and linguistic heritage.
The second example is a 2007 project to personalize Google's search results. Using the search history or pattern used by individuals, Google intends to customize information or thinking patterns to select which results to prioritize for each individual researcher. Google and other internet-based search services are attempting to get into the brains of users to aid in presenting more relevant results based on previous research patterns. Other search firms, such as Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
and Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
are also attempting to develop unique algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
s to aid in customizing searches based on user patterns. It is not only the large corporations that are tracking user's'patterns. CenturyTel Inc. of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, a small telephone company, is also into behavior targeting. Using equipment installed on the phone lines, CenturyTel will collect data about every web site visited and then sell the information to external online advertisers.
All want a big piece of the $17 billion internet advertising market. By chasing more precise and detailed mapping behavior, via an algorithm, they want to deliver "the minds" of internet customers to a growing list of online advertisers.
The theory of electronic colonialism also examines the hegemonic
Hegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
power of the USA as it applies to the global cultural industries. This includes the American-centric control of the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
via ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
and the expansion of American media and communication empires around the world.