Presentation to Digital Media Research Centre seminar Series #4, Queensland university of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, 11 September 2015

1. National Media Regulations in an
Age of Convergent Media: Beyond
Globalisation, Neoliberalism and
Internet Freedom Theories
Terry Flew
Digital Media Research Centre
Seminar Series #4
11 September, 2015
Digital Media Research Centre

2. Background
• T. Flew and S. Waisbord (2015)
The Ongoing Significance of
National Media Systems in the
Context of Media Globalization’,
Media, Culture and Society,
37(4): 620-36.
• T. Flew (2016, in press)
‘National Media Regulations in
an Age of Convergent Media’,
in T. Flew, P. Iosifidis and J.
Steemers (eds.), Global Media
and National Policies (Palgrave),
pp. 75-91.
Digital Media Research Centre

3. Background
• ICA pre-conference London, May 2013
• Joint event of CAMRI (U. Westminster, UK) and
CCI - 36 participants from 16 countries
• Questions
– Does media globalisation weaken state capacities?
– Is there a ‘return of the state’ in managing
convergence (e.g. copyright/IP laws)?
– How is convergence reshaping PSM?
– Pressures to harmonise national laws and regualtions
– Are Google, Apple etc. now media companies?
Digital Media Research Centre

4. Globalisation and the ‘digital turn’:
weakening nation states?
• End of ‘methodological nationalism’ (Ulrich Beck)
• Shift to cosmopolitan/diasporic media and identities
(Hepp & Couldry)
• ‘the state becomes just a node … of a particular
network’ (Manuel Castells)
• State institutions as ‘shell institutions’ (Anthony
Giddens)
• ‘TNCs have effectively surpassed the … nation-state’
(Hardt & Negri)
• ‘The nation-state is becoming too small for the big
problems of life, and too big for the small problems of
life’ (Daniel Bell, 1987)
Digital Media Research Centre

5. Drivers of change
1. Economic globalisation has shifted power away
from nation-states
2. Political ideologies of neo-liberalism have been
used to weaken nation-states
3. Globally networked internet cannot be regulated
at the national level
4. Media scarcity assumptions that underpinned
regulation no longer hold
5. Locus of influence has shifted to non-state
actors (corporations, NGOs, digital activists)
Digital Media Research Centre

6. Challenging the ‘disappearing state’
thesis
• Fallacy of the ‘scalar shift’: local > national >
global – interscalar relations
• Path-dependency of national institutions:
comparative media systems
• Global corporations operate as ‘nationalised’
entities
• No trend towards a declining public sector
• Diversity of capitalisms: developmental states,
state capitalism, Putinism etc.
Digital Media Research Centre

7. Government spending in 13 OECD
nations, 1980-2009
7Source: The Economist, March 17, 2011.

8. Media convergence and regulatory
divergence
• China: ‘Great firewall’/ ‘walled gardens’
• Brazil: Marco Civil
• Selective filtering in various jurisdictions
• Australia: mandatory ISP filtering failed
because of domestic politics
• Lessig, Code 2.0: need to get past state
censorship/personal liberty dichotomy
• Regulation occurs at levels of code, algorithm,
structuring of participation etc.
Digital Media Research Centre

9. Various public enquiries into how to
respond
• ‘Regulation constructed on the premise that
content could (and should) be controlled by how
it is delivered is losing its force, both in logic and
in practice’ (ACMA, 2011)
• Australia: Convergence Review 2012
• Singapore: Media Convergence Review 2012
• UK: Review of Communications Act
• EU: Convergence Green Paper (2013)
• NZ: Content Regulation in a Converged World
(2015)
Digital Media Research Centre

10. Conclusions
• Nation-states quite central to Internet and
digital media developments
• There is not a tendency towards policy
convergence (e.g. around neo-liberalism), but
considerable cross-national policy learning
occurs
• Tripartite levels of
policy/regulation/governance
• Exploratory phase for media policy making
worldwide
Digital Media Research Centre