The Politics of Global Media Reform,1907–23

Abstract

In contrast to contemporary discussions of globalization and the rise of the global media that see these as fundamentally new phenomena, recent research suggests that the rise of the global media system can be traced back to a period between, roughly, the 1860s and 1920s. During this era the outlines of a global media system became apparent as a worldwide network of cable communications arose to support international markets, the expansion of global news agencies such as Reuters and Associated Press and, of course, colonialism. This article explores the era between 1907 and 1923, a second moment in long-standing efforts to change the way the global media system of the time was owned, regulated and used. This period followed an earlier one stretching from the 1880s to around 1902, and was anchored in three key issues: the critique of cable cartels, advocacy of state-owned cables and efforts to secure cheap rates. The politics of global media reform between 1907 and 1923 paralleled some aspects of the first period, as well as being distinguished from it, on the basis of a half dozen key themes: (1) debates over cable cartels and press/news agency monopolies; (2) continued, but weaker, advocacy of state-owned cables; (3) attempts to extend national regulatory authority to the global plane; (4) efforts to secure ‘cheap rates’ so that cable communications and telegraphy could become means of mass communication; (5) efforts to challenge cable cartels through radio before this ‘new medium’ succumbed to the idea that it would largely develop as an adjunct of cables and as part of the strategic arsenal of empire; and (6) the formalization of US global communication policy under the rubric of Wilsonian ‘internationalism’ linked to abortive efforts to establish a robust League of Nations.