Research Article Open Access

New Trends in Global Broadcasting: "Nuestro Norte es el Sur" (Our North is the South)

Abstract

Using Pierre Bourdieu’s Field Theory, especially the concept of the interconvertability of cultural, economic, political and media capital, I examine the rise of regional and global centers of broadcasting that seek to compete with the CNN and the BBC, namely, TeleSUR of Latin America, Al-Jazeera Arabic, and Al-Jazeera International (AI) of Qatar (launched worldwide on November 15, 2006). I also describe the Latin American and Arab questioning of the inevitability of following “the Anglo-Saxon” model of “commercialization, depolitization and trivialization of news.” I examine the countermeasures the U.S., British and French governments are taking to fend off this regional and global competition from Latin American and Arab media.1 I conclude that diversity and the expansion of the news pie is a healthy phenomenon that is bound to help serious news gathering and reporting worldwide against the rising trend of infotainment that has started to taint serious news dissemination in the United States.

Orayb Najjar

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