Over the past ten years, a great competition has emerged between the traditional media and the new digital media, in which the latter has prevailed.
Form has triumphed over content, image has taken precedence over text, screen culture has spread, and the control of the print press over the media in general has declined.
The new digital media has been able to change the media landscape through changing people’s communication habits. Billions of people have become dependent for their informational, cognitive, and entertainment needs on international media platforms that are limited in number and highly influential.
As a result, researchers are looking again at media monopolies and the concentration of ownership, exposing their negative effects both in the developed and the developing world.
Most traditional media outlets have suffered a decline, seeing their financial returns shrink and their production costs rise. Although they are still the primary producer of news, they are no longer the primary distributor of content, as the digital media have been able to dislodge them from the place they previously occupied.
The new media were able to carry out this task with great success and intelligence, helped by their low costs, artificial intelligence techniques, and the speed of change. They made full use of developments linked to innovations employed by digital environments, especially in the light of other factors such as interactivity.
Ease of access, low costs to the consumer, and an abundance of information were other factors, in addition to the digital media being an alternative venue for the mass of the population to express their opinions, especially since the institutional media may be difficult of access for these audiences.
This phenomenon is an extension of the ideas of hegemony and subordination that many academics in the developed and developing worlds have discussed for more than 40 years. However, today the hegemony of the digital media may have grown dangerous. While in the past, there may have been a certain dominance of media institutions over other institutions, today the hegemony of the digital media is characterised by its direct access to people’s minds without the need to pass through media institutions.
At most, these institutions simply reproduce that discourse from their own perspective and play the role of gatekeeper before it reaches the mass of the population.
As a result of this new form of domination, a limited number of technology companies has come to dominate the minds of billions of people across the world through the various services provided by the digital media, such as video, Internet searches, and social networking.
These services have contributed to reshaping customs, values, and traditions. Audience tastes have been reshaped according to a Western perspective, and with the passage of time Western culture has become the global culture that other cultures must adopt as their model. Cultural particularities disappear, and the idea of the global citizen and global culture arises as a result.
This situation has been helped by the rapid response of users to digital media and the rapid departure of audiences from traditional forms because of the features and benefits that the digital media provide, such as obtaining free information, sharing, commenting, finding alternative means for expressing an opinion, and providing an informal communication style that facilitates the public’s perspective on events.
The danger is that while this situation may appear to be positive, as it expands its participation base and increases its freedom of communication, it leads to an increase in the dominance of international media outlets over the local media scene in terms of the building of monopolies and concentration.
Whether it dominates in terms of means, content, or financial returns, the hegemonic position of the new media will mean a reduction in pluralism and diversity and the production of mostly trivial content, because the digital environment is dominated by a limited number of major players who now control the global communication scene.
Journalists working in the digital media may prioritise freedom over responsibility, profits over social role, a segmented audience over the general public, shorter content rather than in-depth analysis, and image over text. At the same time, the traditional media have been subjected to waves of downsizing, merging, and the reduction of costs and labour.
The dominance of a small number of companies in the digital media also heralds an increase in the dependency of individuals and media institutions in the Global South on these institutions, which further perpetuates the idea of a news flow that goes in one direction only and increases the media imbalance between North and South.
The logical result of this new situation is a reduction in the freedom of the media market: competition is limited to a very few players who, though they may be apparently diverse in characteristics, in fact are similar in goals. They divide the spoils between themselves, whether in the form of advertising or paid services.
This new media landscape has become a major influence on international issues. Whether in shaping global public opinion in a direction that serves the interests of these companies, their countries and their allies, or in exercising a more influential role in the conflicts taking place in many regions, influencing the thinking of the mass of the population in many countries of the world is what these huge institutions aim at, going beyond their merely technical functions to multiple political functions and the occupation of digital public space.
Subordination has thus come about as something enforced not chosen, and the hegemony of the Western media over minds worldwide has become a reality due to this lack of diversity. The digital media machine has turned into a new form of colonialism. Its virtual presence in people’s minds has become more dangerous than the actual presence of colonialism on their land.
It has become a tool for reproducing hegemony and bringing about cultural invasion, but it does so in a modern style that the mass of the population may be attracted to and may not resist – which is precisely where the danger lies.
The writer is media professor at Cairo University.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 18 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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