 | Issue: | Latin America II 2001 |
| Article no.: | 2 | |
| Topic: | The Role of Communication Satellites in Globalisation | |
| Author: | Fabio Massimo Galante | |
| Title: | Partner, Executive Director | |
| Organisation: | Eutelsat do Brasil Ltda | |
| PDF size: | 24KB |
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Article abstract
Globalisation has been with us since the Romans built roads to unite their empire. Roads have given way to the Internet and the satellite is the Roman road of our civilisation. Satellites allow for both globalisation and fragmentation. They have often been a channel for forcing cultural convergence. Conversely, though, they can now be used to re-inforce the creation of new cultural identities and pride-not just to impose a prevailing cultural norm as has occurred, too often, in the past. Globalisation as a consequence of technology advances Globalisation is not a recent phenomenon. The inherently human quest to accumulate wealth has always driven geographic expansion in search of new markets, raw materials, cheap labour, etc. since the times of early civilisations.
Full Article
Geographic expansion and therefore globalisation is the inevitable result of technological advances that offer ever-falling costs of transportation of inform-ation, merchandise and people. The Via Appia, Flaminia and other similar roads were the arteries, used by horse-driven carriages, through which the Roman Empire based its quest to globalise the known world. It took more than a millenium for technological evolution to produce railroads powered by steam engines to bring motor-drawn carriages to the world. It took almost as long to transform the Roman vessels criss-crossing the Mediterranean sea; first the Portuguese and Spanish crossed the oceans and then, later, ships using steam engines connected continents in days. It has taken almost 150 years, less than one-tenth of the time, to evolve from trans-oceanic information transmission speeds of seven words by minute (the Atlantic Cable was laid in 1866) to today’s fibre optics cables capable of over 60 Gbits (gigabits) per second. The Gemini system, for example, can carry more than one million simultaneous phone calls. New cables will provide a five-fold increase in capacity. It has taken 100 years since Marconi’s first wireless transmission across the Atlantic to today’s network of satellites wirelessly linking every point on the globe. Forty years ago the first commercial communication satellite, the Early Bird satellite, handled just 240 simultaneous phone circuits and a single television channel transmitted via few earth stations using antennas of over 30 metres diameter. Today, hundreds of commercial communication satellites and millions of earth terminals with antennas as small as 45 centimetres, are able to receive hundreds of television channels and to transmit telephony, data and internet services anywhere over the globe. Yesterday’s Via Appias and Flaminias, used to transport goods and people from one location to another, have evolved into today’s fibre optic cable super highways. They are used to transport information at Gigabits/sec speed and soon will be capable of Terabits/sec speeds. Since the nineteenth century people have been dealing with globalisation, albeit not calling it such. Consciousness of the globalisation phenomenon developed with the invention of railroads and telegraph: new technologies to transport people and information faster and cheaper. Investments in emerging markets were common even then and financial crises would spread almost as quickly as now thanks to telegraphy. An event in Argentina affecting the country’s railroad bonds or events in Germany or New York affecting foreign investments in those countries would, then as now, spread crises to stock exchanges throughout the world. The first British Trade Union Council in Manchester in 1868 had in its agenda the following items: o The need to deal with competition from the Asian colonies. o The need to match the educational and training standards of the United States. This is the past of today’s globalisation era. The new globalisation The accelerating pace at which technology advances in our time is the driving force behind the constantly increasing speed of globalisation. There exist two more traits distinguishing the new from the old globalisation: – The increased importance of trans-portation of information as compared to transportation of merchandise and people. – The number of people and countries able to participate and being affected by it. Transport of information versus transport of people and goods Many different strategies have been used to obtain geographic expansion: from military to missionary conquests, trade, migration and neo-imperialism; all of them increasingly supported and eased by the advances in transportation, both physical transportation and information transportation. Only a few decades ago, raw materials were transported from developing countries to technologically advanced countries; there they would be transformed into manufactured products using labour forces transported/ imported from developing countries; the manufactured products were then transported to the markets. Today the process tends to be rationalised: the labour force is trained locally here raw materials exist so products can be manufactured locally. Transport is only needed to carry the finished products directly to market. Two transportation processes are being eliminated: transportation of labor and transportation of raw material; they are being substituted by transportation of information, training and manufacturing specifications. The new era of globalisation is progressing thanks to faster, more reliable, cheaper transport of information as compared to the old era of globalisation where the phenomenon was based on faster and cheaper transports of goods and people. This process allows the organisation of the production and the control of markets on a global scale. It is both a trans-historical and a trans-national process. The scale of globalisation: one-to-one versus one-to-many Those in control of the transportation highways have compelled others to be their subalterns but have, nonetheless, been affected by their confrontation with the different cultures of their subalterns. The encounter of the colonising centres with the colonised periphery has culturally and mutually affected both on a one-to-one scale. One recent invention that has enormously accelerated the inevitable globalisation process, as well as its scale, is information broadcasting. Whereas the development of the transportation highways made the world smaller by creating easy paths to overcome distances and natural barriers such as mountains and oceans-broadcasting has made the world one. Today, globalisation is operating on a one-to-many or even one-to-all scale. For decades, broadcasts to remote regions of a country have been a way of integrating them into their country’s evolution.Through radio, and later television broadcasts, people from rural areas, living agricultural lifestyles, were exposed to urban lifestyles, food, market and entertainment trends. More recently, through satellite broadcasting, all the countries of a continent, indeed all the countries in the world, can be instantly exposed to the most varied ensemble of cultures that has ever existed. A single 60 cm receiving dish anywhere in Europe can receive, via the Eutelsat Hot Bird constellation of satellites, literally hundreds of TV channels-not only those originated in Europe but also those from Northern Africa, Middle East and even Far East countries. The broadcasting nature of satellites has indeed been the accelerator both in terms of speed and of scale of the present era of globalisation. Through satellite broadcasting, different cultures can permeate throughout the world to all population levels. Whereas past globalisation via the transportation highways would affect only those levels of population and areas reached by the highways, satellite broadcasting globalisation can reach the world both in geographical and societal terms. The fact that an eight-lane highway passes at few kilometers from a mountain village does not mean that all cars transiting the highway will visit the village. What is still needed is a highway exit, as well as a suitable road and interesting signs to stimulate people to leave the highway and visit the village; in their absence, the village will remain as isolated as if the highway passed hundreds of kilometers away. The broadcasting nature of the satellite brings hundreds of TV channels, and through them the world, into the village. However, as with most things in life, there are two sides to the coin. Satellites: culprits and saviours McQuail wrote, in 1994, that media broadcasting can serve to repress as well as to liberate, to unite as well as to fragment society, both to promote and to hold back change. McQuail again identified media broadcasting as a powerful tool able to: o Attract and direct public attention o Persuade in matters of opinion and belief o Structure definition of reality o Confer status and legitimacy o Inform quickly and extensively Herman and McChesney in 1997, stated that if media broadcasters ‘perform poorly, people will be ignorant, isolated and depoliticisied, demagoguery will thrive and a small elite will easily capture and maintain control over decision making’. Given this power of transforming the culture of societies, the dominant question is who owns the media, what interests are represented and what reality is presented? The media business, as any business, depends on its revenues. Accordingly, it must obey the demands of its source of revenues-the government for public broadcasters and advertisers for commercial broadcasters. This makes public content relatively uncritical of the status quo and makes the commercial content adaptable to as many markets as possible. Media business has, therefore, the tendency to stimulate, perhaps create, a global concept of popular and mass culture. The media business tends to give little attention either to the rich heritage of local cultures or the diversity of viewpoints and opinions from all over the globe. Although it is satellite media broadcasting that makes global amassing of audiences technically possible, satellite broadcasting also has the possibility and provides hope of transmitting a wide range of alternative views and, in this way, give exposure to and preserve local cultural identities. Let’s consider the economics. Ten years ago one satellite transponder was able to broadcast only one analog TV programme. Several years ago the same transponder could broadcast 10 digital TV programmes. Today, the same transponder can broadcast up to 80 programmes using new digital coding standards. The cost of satellite media broadcasting, as a consequence, can now be divided by 80. It has become affordable, not only for the media moguls but also for small communities and special interest groups. Further, access to satellites has become easier and cheaper. The Skyplex system developed by Eutelsat has eliminated the need for costly contribution links. Anyone within the satellite’s coverage, using a simple and inexpensive transmission station, can access the satellite’s transponder-on a shared basis-with 79 other TV programmes. Satellites contributed to the rapid advance of mass cultural globalisation. Today thanks to technological advances they contribute to counter this cultural amassing by providing inexpensive and simple access to alternative points of views and special interests. Satellites have become democratic information channels; they have the capacity, now, to transmit a diverse mixture of cultural content and, thereby, counteract the forced development of an homogenised World Culture. Satellites allow for both globalisation and fragmentation. They have often been a channel for forcing cultural convergence. Conversely, though, they can now be used to reinforce the creation of new cultural identities and pride-not just impose a prevailing cultural norm as has occurred, too often, in the past, Internet, globalisation and satellites. The Internet is a completely different type of media. Broadcasting is a passive form of communication; the Internet is active. Internet is, at the same time, the epitome of globalisation and epitome of individuality. Internet users can jump boarders and cultures with a click of the mouse. They can react inexpensively, express their views, debate and create communities of people with common interests. Audiences can select what they wish to see. People can select with whom they wish to interact. The primary role of satellites, and for media broadcasting, will be to provide Web access from even the most remote, areas of the world where connections suitable for Internet traffic do not exist. Interactive Internet via satellite has already been successfully demonstrated. Conclusion The secondary role of satellites, and of traditional media broadcasting as well, will be to offer easy, inexpensive, access to alternative information providers and thereby balance the predominance of the media moguls already present on the Net. This is what the recently launched ‘Open Sky’ multimedia platform offers in Europe. Unfortunately some governments strictly control Internet traffic permitting access only to carefully selected sites. It is not a coincidence that Eutelsat named its new multimedia platform ‘Open Sky’. Satellites can offer intellectual pluralism, and personalised control over commun-ications, to people throughout the world only if governments permit-and stimulate-an open sky policy. This is the path to follow if we are to foster understanding, respect and appreciation of different cultures in a globalised world and prevent massif-ication by one, imposed, culture.
