The Media Matrix: China's Integration into Global Capitalism

Abstract

The realm of communication & culture provide a crucial vantage point for examining current global power relations, not only as soft power through ideological & cultural persuasion, but also because the communication & culture industries are important sectors of the global economy. Currently, the author argues that China is less of an imperial rival to the US, than a regional power that is being integrated into the "informal American Empire." Using Panitch & Gindin's conception of the informal American Empire, a brief historical narrative traces Sino/US relations from the television coverage of the Nixon visit through China's recent mimicking of CNN format & style. The accelerated reorganization of the Chinese communication & culture industry in the context of domestic political authoritarianism & global integration is analyzed in the film & magazine industry. The expansion of the Chinese media as a component of the penetration of China and transnational media industry is concluded to have made the politics of the Chinese internal class system less relevant. The author concludes that China's inability to meet the cultural needs of a fractured Chinese society appears even more self-evident as political economic, cultural, & ecological contradictions of the country's global integration deepen. References. J. Harwell