Case Study - Digital Stucco: Convergent Media and Social Consensus in the Postmodern Condition

CASE STUDY

The globalization debate and the G8 Summit in Sea Island

One visible area of conflict within the logics of the current global capitalist system in recent years has been the struggle surrounding the process of liberalization of trade at a world scale-and its economic, social and cultural consequences.  This debate brings forward the ideas supported by many diverse movements around the world-movements that group people with concerns that range from the environmental impact of globalization to its consequences in economic policies of Third World Countries.  Many of these movements are largely organized through the Internet (Castells 2004; Van Aelst and Walgrave 2002) as is the common front that materializes in particular instances such as the Seattle protests discussed in this section.   In those instances (with a turning point at the events in Seattle, as it will be discussed below) a point of convergence takes place between the traditional media and the online environment, in which “image events” organized and fueled in the digital networks have had an impact on the discourse of the mainstream press. Although it is difficult to assess the real influence of these actions on the course of the free trade negotiations (and this is not the purpose of this work), it is generally accepted that many of the particular points of view that form this antiglobalization front have emerged in the public arena through the impact of those events.  Thus this research looks at the debate surrounding a G8 Summit, one of the meetings that usually elicit the conformation of an antiglobalization front, to explore the convergence between the discussions in the online, interactive environment and those in the mainstream media.

Kevin Michael DeLuca and Jennifer Peeples (2002, 139) establish that the protest and violence that erupted in the streets of Seattle during the World Trade Organization meeting in 1999 brought the antiglobalization agenda to the mainstream media. The authors’ analysis of the evening news on the first day of the violence shows that “combined, coverage time on CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC increased by 26% from Monday’s [the day before the event started] coverage and the placement of the story improved from the third, fourth or fifth story to the lead or second story.”

This change in the level of attention to the protesters side allowed their voices to be heard on the national and international television stories, literally, as their soundbites made it to the reports, as well as background information on the substance of their positions (DeLuca and Peeples 2002, 139). However, the analysis of the television coverage of subsequent major globalization-related events (the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Washington and the next round of WTO meetings in Qatar), where violence was not present revealed a turnaround in that trend (DeLuca and Peeples 2002, 140).

This point of view implies that the coverage of the Seattle events would otherwise have provided simply a general overview of the bureaucratic proceedings and the analysis of its implications from the macroeconomic aspects of interest for governments and corporations.  Instead, the escalation of violence in the protests led to a change in the way that the mainstream media was covering the events in Seattle. 

In this sense, for the purposes of the present study, it is important to highlight the fact that not only the protesters actions made it to the front pages and to the lead of national newscasts-their specific topics of contempt against the meetings, and what they represented, did too. Even before these confrontations between the protesters and the police in Seattle happened, there was already a movement of forces that opposed what its members perceive as the negative consequences of globalization. But by emerging in the media spotlight the protesters had a chance to introduce the different angles of the debate to the general public, presenting particular issues within the scope of their protest such as environmental, labor concerns, and the rights of indigenous people.

Peter Van Aelst and Stephaan Walgrave (2002) look at how the antiglobalization activism shaped itself as a social movement through the Internet, particularly in the context of the Seattle events.  However, with such movement being shown not simply as a front against global capital, different groups of activists succeeded in exposing their views on the relationship between the globalization of capital and particular problems around the world.  This can be interpreted as a step forward in the pluralization of the debate regarding free global trade.

These alternative points of view not only reached the audiences of the mainstream media but also had an impact on the course of the negotiations, where world and corporate leaders had to acknowledge what was taking place in the streets of Seattle. DeLuca and Peeples (2002, 143) explain that

…thousands of global citizens managed to turn a summit dedicated to streamlining the world for corporate profits into an unruly “forum” on human rights, environmental standards, and social justice in the emerging new world.  In exposing the often arcane issues of trade policy to the glare of the media, the protest provoked a debate over free trade versus fair trade.  Public discussions about that are now considering environmental concerns as well as profit concerns, human rights as well as property rights.

The reflection of these new angles has endured in the language of the official groups debating issues of global capital.  The following is a description of the G8 organization posted in one of the governmental websites devoted to their summit in Savannah, Georgia, in June of 2004 (Savannah-Chatham County 2004): “Initially the group focused on issues that dealt with international business and relationships between the individual countries. However, in the past few years the agendas have expanded to include a myriad of subjects, including the environment, organized crime, arms control and counterterrorism.”

The demonstrations and riots in Seattle, through their impact in the global media, started a process of differentiation in the public view of the components that loosely align themselves under the label of antiglobalization movement. The “antiglobalization” title was coined by the mainstream media’s need of simplification but it has also been helpful in the analysis of the movement, accompanied by the exploration of the diversity that characterizes it (Castells 2004, 146; Van Aelst and Walgrave 2002, 467).

According to Castells (2004, 145) the events in Seattle brought to the attention of the global audience the idea that globalization was not a natural process but a politically driven process, highlighting the specific ways in which dominant interests shape such process.  Castells (2004, 146) also notes that many of the social actors engaged in the movement reject the idea of being considered within an antiglobalization block, as they have different and particular aspects that they want to see represented in the public discourse.

Apart from the practical convenience of presenting (in the media) and analyzing (in academia) this phenomenon under the general label of “antiglobalization movement,” there is also a sense of convergence of these various groups against the symbols or the power centers of what amounts to a perceived common enemy-from Starbucks to Gap, the G8 or the IMF, pieces of the “anti-democratic globalization forces.”  This convergence of interests materializes in situations like the Seattle protests, in which a common front emerged when activists pushing different agendas took advantage of a particular communicative situation.

This alliance illustrates the description of such coalitions in a postmodern approach as temporary, shifting and issue-oriented, as the combination of forces accomplished the goal of putting the protesters’ view in the media map. To achieve this objective, these social movements have produced communicative practices that play by the rules of the contemporary media environment.  Empowered by the use of new technologies that provide the conditions for a relatively easy role as “content producers” (because the relatively low cost and accessibility of the hardware, software and skills that their use demand), now these groups have a better chance to seek a more prominent role in the public eye. As a consequence, image and representation have moved to a central position within the activities of these organizations, leaving behind the traditional actions and practices of propaganda.

Practices more closely related to the sensibility of public relations become part of the dominant discourse. The protesters gathered in Seattle employed the same tools and channels that enable and accompany the development of the world of global capital that they are trying to change. They used the Internet to organize and coordinate the mobilization of their forces, attaining certain level of unity but also a diversified base, not only in the United States but around the world (Castells 2004, 155; Van Aelst and Walgrave 2002, 480-482).

The results of this activity were the “symbolic events” (Castells 2004, 148) or “image events” (DeLuca and Peeples 2002, 144) that transpired to the public discourse through the media coverage of the protests and the “symbolic” violence in Seattle. DeLuca and Peeples (2002, 144) suggest that these events “are meant to provoke in an instant the shock of the familiar made strange,” making the point that these were defining moments in the public perception of the anti-globalization movement.  If this is the beginning of a new era in this debate, then we can look at the way in which positions are taking shape in the public discourse as represented in the mainstream media and the online environment-which is “of the essence in the anti-globalization movement” (Castells 2004, 154).

This is a context in which the ideological scope of groups opposing global capital goes beyond the labels of “the working class” or “the South.” It conveys the need for an approach that abandons “economic universalism” for “less totalized assumptions” as suggested by Condit (1994, 210) in support of the analysis of social concord as a methodological model.  Condit proposes a Gramsci-inspired model of consent formation, revising the concept of hegemony to account for the nature of the political discourse in modern capitalist societies.  It focuses on the quality of social concord as “concordances can be more and less accommodating of fewer or more groups and hence can be better and worse” (Condit 1994, 210).

Method

The methodology for the present analysis is inspired in such “critique of concordance” (Condit 1994, 211) as it tries to illuminate the representation of different points of view involved in the debate about globalization.  Condit notes that the critique of concordance involves the close reading of texts, focusing on themes, narratives and rhetorical devices, with a “judgmental stance” that implies a notion in which “discursive accommodations are more favorable to some groups than others,” but such accommodations are inherent to the function of the political entity.  The role of the critic is, according to this view, to evaluate this “multivocal accommodation.”  Condit’s study (1994) refers particularly to an accommodation that takes place in the discourse of the mass media at a moment in which positions are taking shape in the debate about reproductive technologies.  The author argues that the analysis of consent formation has to take into account the consequences of “mass mediation” as the norm of political discourse, and the “extremely expensive” mass media time (Condit 1994, 209).

Bringing this model into the context of the networked society, and given the conditions of the Interactive Mode of Communication as explained in the previous section, the present analysis looks at the possibility that the accommodations attained in the mass media are not rigid, but dynamic, as the convergence of the new and the old media brings new voices into the public sphere.

This case study builds upon the notion that after the events in Seattle in 1999 the coverage of the antiglobalization movement in the mainstream media shifted (Castells 2004; DeLuca and Peeples 2002) to include the voices of the protesters-while during subsequent events where violence was not present the quantity of the coverage declined (DeLuca and Peeples 2002, 140). Therefore, one question that this analysis tries to answer is whether the dominant perspective presented in the mainstream media coverage of the G8 summit follows the corporate (official, macroeconomic) view or incorporates points of view related to the antiglobalization movement similar to those that emerge from the online environment.  The researcher also looks at how the variety of issues that shape the globalization debate is reflected in both environments.

The present analysis seeks to illuminate the convergence of the IMC and the BMC from the perspective of the subject of the convergent media environment. Such environment contains linear, centralized flows of information as well non-linear, decentralized interactions.  However, as discussed above, these experiences come to a linear realization at an individual level.  Thus, this study tests the notion that the convergence of the IMC and the BMC has the potential to provide greater insight than the exclusive focus on one or the other.

To accomplish these objectives this thesis also takes into consideration two previous works mentioned in this section: DeLuca and Peeples 2002; Van Aelst and Walgrave 2002.  Both articles look at the protest in Seattle and the role of the media while focusing in different aspects that inform this research. DeLuca and Peeples concentrate their analysis on the coverage of the events (and the antiglobalization movement) in television networks and newspapers.  Van Aelst and Walgrave look at websites related to this topic. This work tries to bring together both the traditional and the new media, for which it borrows elements of both studies.

Considering the vast amount of material related to this topic and the limited resources of this research, this analysis does not seek to cover the full extent of the debate.  It focuses on selected examples to explore and illustrate a particular communicative situation: the globalization debate surrounding the G8 Summit in Savannah, GA, June 8-10, 2004.  The results of this analysis will help inform the more general points of view expressed in this work regarding the convergence of the new interactive media with the traditional broadcast media.

Procedure

The targets for this analysis are instances of communication that occur over platforms that are widely available.  It covers material obtained from four different environments in which the BMC and the IMC manifest with varying degrees: two CNN programs, the CNN website, selected blogs and selected online discussion groups.  Along a continuum, the BMC is obviously dominant in the television programs, and the IMC is best represented in the online discussion groups. The website is a complex online entity, providing a centralized environment with a lesser degree of interactivity while the blogs provide greater potential for interaction while serving as centralizing platforms around the blogger’s discourse.  The online discussion groups were identified from Yahoo! Groups and the blogs were identified through Google and three blog-specific search engines: daypop.com, blogstreet.com and blogdex.com (all the selected blogs came up in more than one search engine). CNN, Yahoo! And Google are recognized name brands at a global level, thus fitting the global nature of this debate.

The analysis of television shows focused on Lou Dobbs Tonight and Newsnight with Aaron Brown. Lou Dobbs Tonight airs nightly on the network’s USA feed and in some international feeds[1].  The program reports on economic matters and social issues and in the past few months it has focused on topics that relate to the debate regarding free trade, such as outsourcing (in developing countries where labor is cheaper than in the US). According to the programs own website (Lou Dobbs Tonight 2004), it has “launched a national debate, through its extensive investigative reporting, on those companies that export American jobs overseas with its ongoing series ‘Exporting America.”  Lou Dobbs Tonight has also presented a series of stories and interviews on topics such as immigration and its effects in the US economy.  The program’s focus on economic matters makes it a media space where considerable attention is devoted to the topics of free trade and global capital, and the editorial line of CNN calls for a balanced presentation of points of view, even as in this particular show the opinions of the host[2] take a central role in interviews and commentaries (this will be an interesting point to consider in the discussion section of the present work). Newsnight is a general news program with a focus on “the day’s headlines and issues” (Newsnight 2004).  The coverage was no likely to be as focused on economic issues but the emphasis of the show on the correspondents’ stories would provide a balance for the input that Lou Dobbs brings to Tonight. The material for this research was gathered from transcripts of the programs posted on the CNN website[3].  The researcher analyzed stories related to the topic that aired during the week of the G8 Summit (from Monday, June 7, 2004 through Friday, June 11, 2004).

The website at cnn.com is one of the most visited news sites on the web.  It provides constant coverage of news and general interest topics.  The stories on the G8 summit were gathered in the evening to avoid the duplication of texts that could emerge from the frequent updates.

On the IMC side, the blogs for this analysis were selected by running searches using the keywords “globalization”, “Georgia” and “G8.”  The material was gathered from selected blogs where there was discussion of these topics. The search was repeated after the end of the Summit to account for discussions that may have started as a result of the events. Yahoo! Groups (http://groups.yahoo.com/) are online forums where participants discuss issues ranging from sports or health to current events. They can share photos, or files, and organize events. The list of groups and the bulletin boards for these groups can be searched by keyword and the results can be organized by date or by thread.  Some groups are restricted to members only, and in some groups membership is restricted by the owner, but others are available to the general public.  The material for this research was gathered from the most active public groups (with daily postings on the days of the study) that appeared under the search terms “globalization,” “Georgia” and “G8.”  This search was repeated after the end of the Summit, in order to include new groups that may have emerged as a direct result of the event. The researcher analyzed messages (and threads) related to the topic that were posted during the week of the G8 Summit.  Only the public archives of these groups were used for data collection, because the researcher had access to those texts without the requirement of becoming a member of the groups.

This study attempts to answer the questions stated in the previous section through the textual analysis of the material relevant to the globalization debate and the G8 Summit.  The present research design seeks to contrast the reflection of this debate in instances of the Broadcast Mode of Communication and the Interactive Mode of Communication.  The former is best represented in the linear discourse of the television programs and the later in the decentralized online environment of the online groups.  The situation in the online groups is one of higher levels of interaction as opposed to what happens in centralized points like the websites devoted to particular antiglobalization causes, where Van Aelst and Walgrave (2002, 478) found only “basic feedback” as the most interactive function.

As a qualitative research design, this work employs non-statistical and exploratory textual analysis to organize and synthesize the materials, looking to identify themes and their pattern of recurrence in this debate.  Philip Stone (1997, 36) points out that themes are the subject matter of documents or discussion, and run through a text as do “the melodic subjects embedded in musical compositions.” Even though thematic text analysis can involve coding and quantification, Stone (1997, 36) also notes that this methods are “quite informal” and that they may involve judgments and inferences by the researcher who is trying to asses changes over time or compare themes in different sources.

The latter is the case of the present design, in which the intention is to identify different voices in the debate about globalization and analyze the variety of points of view rather than quantifying it.  However, a limited quantitative tally of themes and actors was included in order to identify trends in the online environments and to illustrate the amount of time devoted to these topics in the television programs-as Condit (1994, 216) did-since the competition for time/space is one of the attributes that differentiate the Broadcast Mode of Communication from the competition for attention that characterizes the Interactive Mode of Communication.

In order to categorize the data collected, this research design uses the topics of the antiglobalization movement identified by Van Aelst and Walgrave (2002, 479) in their study of websites related to these matters. These categories are: 1-Free trade (against the liberalization of trade, pro fair trade, against the WTO); 2-Economic domination (of the markets over political and social lives); 3-International democracy (undemocratic international institutions); 4-Unequal North-South distribution (third world debt relief, IMF programs); 5-Sustainable development (environmental problems, animal rights); 6-Human rights (protection of minorities, poverty); 7-Labor (employee rights, wages); 8-Civil society (cooperation between NGOs, movements, action groups); 9-Participative democracy (participation of citizens on policy); 10-Decentralization (decisions at lower level, communities); 11-Cultural homogenization (against Americanization, pro cultural autonomy).

For the purpose of this research, the category of social action needs to be added to the list, since protests and violence have played such a crucial role in the emergence of the antiglobalization debate after the events in Seattle.  This list was the starting point for the analysis, as this research analyzed different points of view surrounding these topics.  Nevertheless, during the course of the investigation this classification scheme was adapted to accommodate the data that is present in the texts under analysis, as Carl Roberts (1997, 2) suggests.  The modified list of categories is also more appropriate for the effort to have a uniform system to cover both the IMC and the BMC environments.  Categories for the analysis were designated as follows: 1-Free trade; 2-Economic domination of the markets over political and social lives; 3-Democracy (including international institutions, Civil Society, participative democracy and decentralization); 4-North-South distribution; 5-Environmental concerns; 6-Human rights; 7-Labor; 8-Cultural homogenization; 9-International politics (US domination in international arena); 10-Social action.

The researcher looked for themes related to the topics mentioned above (noting both issues and actors). The data was processed through a comparison of the themes that emerge from the different environments, identifying those that were exclusive to one environment or appeared in others too. The researcher also accounted for instances in which texts from one medium appeared on others and how those were presented. This was a highly interpretative process, as it included not only the identification of such themes but also a critical point of view that incorporates the researcher’s perspective about the context in which these texts occurred.

In its look at the mainstream media, this study takes into account the “frames” or “condensing symbols” described by Gaye Tuchman (1991, 89) as part of the qualitative methods related to the analysis of news.  This concept refers to the use of symbolic devices appealing to general themes in popular culture as a means of simplifying the exposition of an issue by providing a “frame” from which it is presented.

As with any qualitative analysis, the subjectivity of the researcher plays a particular role.  This researcher works as a producer and correspondent for a network that is part of the same company that produces Lou Dobbs Tonight, Newsnight with Aaron Brown and cnn.com-the CNN Newsgroup-although the researcher has never been associated with any of those outlets. In this case, along with the ability to comprehend the professional practices that may be behind the on-air product, the researcher needs to disclose the potential for the logical pre-existing values and judgments that may color the analysis.

The purpose of this work is not to generalize the findings or establish causal relationships between what happens in the networked world and what is reflected in the media.  Instead, it seeks to provide a particular interpretation of the communicative situation that arises in a situation in which both new and traditional media are strongly called upon as vehicles in a debate.  The internal validity of this study can be addressed through the concurrence of themes among the different sources of material and by the use of categorization systems devised in previous studies.  A replication of this study in another situation may not result in similar findings.  However, the present methodology and categorization system can inspire further studies on the topic of the convergent media.  It would also be fruitful to do similar research on this topic as manifested in the globalization debate around future events and compare the findings to look for development that may occur over time.

Results

The following pages contain the researcher’s assessment regarding the representation of the globalization debate in four different platforms in connection with the G8 Summit in Sea Island, GA.  A total of 103 items meet the criteria of relevance for the present study.  It should be noted that the death of Ronald Reagan dominated the attention in both the BMC and the IMC environments.  The items related to Reagan were not included in the analysis.  However, such concurrence also supports the notion that will be discussed in this section regarding the nature of the convergence between modes of communication.

Online groups

The researcher found discussions related to the debate about globalization and the G8 meeting in 8 message boards[4].  These groups were specifically devoted to globalization in general (like Globolist: Globalization, the group that yielded the most material for this analysis), or reflected particular concerns or ideological positions that have been associated with the antiglobalization movement (shobak_news::CNN FOR THE LEFT; smygo.anarchism libertarian socialism anti-authoritarian anti-statist anti-corporate anti-capitalist; voicenow, “an activist grassroots organization [to] promote activism and progressive issues”; FixGov: Fixing Government at all levels; AriseAction . Arise Peace and Solidarity Action List).  A few of the postings selected for this analysis came from two groups not particularly related to the globalization debate but where some of the topics related to the G8 meeting emerged during the week of the Summit (NEVs: Neighborhood Electric Vehicles and Bush_Is_A_Stinking_Liar3). From the archives of those public groups, 28 postings were selected according to their relevance with regards to the G8 meeting or topics related to the globalization debate.

The most recurrent themes in these messages were those that can be classified within the social action category (10), followed by those related to the economic domination of the markets over political and social lives (9) and environmental concerns (6). Free trade (3) and unequal North-South distribution (3), democracy (1), human rights (2), labor (1), cultural homogenization (1), and US domination in international politics (2) were the less represented categories.  In a majority (20) of the postings studied, the writers referenced other sources of information, including links to other pages, fragments of other texts or the texts in full. The dominant trend (12 postings) was to reference information originated in alternative online outlets such as legitgov.org, atlanta.indymedia.org, infoshop.org and nog8.org. Some (5) included material produced by other individual users, such as accounts of protesters that chronicled particular incidents during the G8 meeting (smygo message 4808) or a letter from the spouse of a Guatemala torture victim (smygo message 4813).  However, a considerable number of postings (8) cited mainstream media outlets (CNN, AP, Reuters).  In half of the comments that cited another source of information the posters simply included the texts or the link, while the other messages (9) included comments about the referenced material or highlights (1) made by the poster to attract attention about a particular idea.

The themes related to social action reflect mainly two general ideas: the efforts of the protesters to stage the demonstrations and the efforts of the organizers of the Summit to silence and repress them.  The antiglobalization activists are the main actors in 9 messages, generally presented in a positive way, with the posters highlighting the persistence of the people who marched down to the Savannah area to demonstrate amid adverse conditions. Andy Johnson writes (voicenow message 3572):

Walkers are now passing through N.E. Florida on their long long walk in the hot hot sun to the G8 Summit

…

More at

http://www.wagepeace.net

The walkers resume early on Wednesday morning into the center of downtown Yulee.

…

Some of you might want to join them for an hour or half a day or a whole day.[5]

Another message (4819) in the smygo group reproduces an AP wire reporting a particular incident involving a small number of protesters (35) who marched for 7 miles from the city of Brunswick to the gates on St. Simon Island (towards the only road to the Summit’s site, the secluded Sea Island where the G8 leaders were concluding their meetings).  The story mentions that they were confronted by 150 police officers and arrested when they refused to move.  The image of the protesters is more detailed when the messages portray the views of people reporting from the scene or nearby, as it is the case of a message (smygo message 4808) that compiles three different stories from Savannah. In one of those the author describes one demonstration as “a victory:”

Although the City of Savannah was more forthcoming with a permit than the City of Brunswick had been, the march organizers complained of barriers thrown up by all levels of government and law enforcement.  Despite the barriers, about 150 people marched from Forsyth Park to the Savannah Civil Rights Museum and back for a rally in the park, a victory for civil liberties according to organizers.

However, along with the celebration of the protesters’ endurance there is also in some of the postings the idea that the movement failed to show strength this time.  Introducing the stories from Savannah Dave Williams (smygo message 4808) writes:

…

It appears that the gov’t was successful in instilling fear into alot of us.  Very few protesters arrived in Savannah and Brunswick.

…

And Andrew Robinson (smygo message 4807) suggests multiple sites with coverage of the G8 meetings and then adds a comment on the size of the protests:

Andy’s comments: Bloody hell! Is it my imagination or hasn’t there been a big summit protest in North America since 911? This is really disappointing again compared to the European mobilizations just like Kananaskas, the WEF in New York, etc. Let’s hope the 2 Conventions get bigger crowds…

The “other side” of these events were the organizers of the Summit and the law enforcement forces.  The organizers of the events (officials of the G8 organization and the US Government) were mentioned in 5 of the selected postings, mainly in a negative way.  In some postings the situation is referred to as a “military occupation” of the area and the writers decry the organizers’ strategy of shielding the world leaders at the meeting by keeping the protesters from reaching the site.  One of the postings contains an assessment from “Maggie”, apparently from the area (Bush_Is_A_Stinking_Liar message 980):

…

There is a flotilla of Navy ships off the coastline of Georgia. St. Simon’s Island is awash with more security guards than there are citizens living on the island.  Anyone entering the island must pass through three checkpoints.  There is no way anyone could sneak past the watchful eyes of these vigilant warriors.

…

The writer then, mockingly, tells the story of how a lone raccoon triggered a full alert status of the heavily armed security apparatus. The author uses the incident as a device to illustrate the potential force of the military power displayed around the meeting, remarking how important it was for the G8 organizers to avoid any disturbance at the meeting.  Given the current threats of international terrorism, the security measures around the Summit were not only focused on the protesters but also on potential terrorist acts.  However, none of the postings under analysis reflects such consideration.  Instead, they present a vision of the Summit’s security apparatus as directed against the protesters. This is a notion related to the previous confrontations between police and antiglobalization protesters around meetings of international organizations after the Seattle clashes of 1999 (Castells 2004; Van Aelst and Walgrave 2002). One of the postings analyzed reproduces an article posted on ZNet, where the strategies displayed by the police at these meetings is identified as the “Miami Model,” referring to the response of security forces to the activities of protesters at the round of negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in Miami, in December, 2003, which according to the posting included pre-emptive arrests and deployment of heavily armed agents who infringed protesters rights.  Some of the postings (Bush_Is_A_Stinking_Liar3 message 999; Shoback_News message 1925) reproduce a piece from www.legitgov.org which announces that 2 000 body bags have been delivered to Sea Island.  According to the posting, this is a rumor heard by somebody on site and later confirmed by “one of the island’s fire chiefs.”  The story appears in other postings and blogs, and can be traced back to The Independent Digital at independent.co.uk.

Nevertheless, from the postings also emerges a sense of differentiation between the G8 organization as an entity that employs such measures and the law enforcement bodies-particularly local police.  In one of the stories from Savannah (smygo message 4808) the writer reports an incident in which local police officers displayed courtesy in their treatment of volunteers who were helping transform an old building into a youth shelter in Brunswick as their “G8 project.”  The volunteers had been previously “harassed” by law enforcement officers.  The writer notes that the policemen were “frustrated” with the situation, apparently overwhelmed by the pressure of dealing with such a big event.  And so were the local residents according to many of the writings analyzed here, some of which mention that they were going away from the area, afraid of protesters and terrorists.  However, the locals are portrayed in few of the postings and in all of them they are presented in a neutral way.

Another idea that is present in many of these postings is the need to present the issues behind the protests, remarking that the protesters want to call attention to the fact that “they are against bad globalization” (voicenow message 3572), and that they see a positive side of this situation (such as “the world’s peoples growing closer” and “greater access to information,” as described in smygo message 4808).  Some of these issues are also present in the message of other groups that do not refer directly to the social actions of the antiglobalization movement.  After social action, the domination of the economic interests over political and social interests was the next most present topic in the message boards analyzed for this research.  The chief theme in this category is the oil sector and its preponderance in the whole economic system and some political decisions.  This is concurrent with a spike in oil prices during the weeks prior to the Summit, along with a rise in gasoline prices in the US, amid the extended conflict in Iraq after a US invasion that some groups see as oil-motivated.   Some posters talk about a possible general economic collapse on account of the oil prices:

“If Saudi does not increase supply by 3m barrels a day by the end of the year we will face, how can I say this, it will be very difficult. We will have difficult times —chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol.”

The total infrastructure of our society and the military and the pharmaceutical complx is dependent on oil.

(FixGov message 6902)

The idea is also that corporate interests are driving policies that favor their economic goals:

…

We’ve been lied to believe by the Global Monetocracy System that answers to peak oil is just around the corner.  Yet none are even on the horizon.

…

As the price of oil increases so will the price increase for the manufacture of solar panels and nuclear power plants, which in turn, effects the market price of energy. (FixGov message 6902)

These topics connect with environmental concerns that are also relevant to the antiglobalization movement, with the idea that petroleum is a finite resource, and governments and international organizations are not proposing viable policies to find alternative solutions.  In this sense, the images of President Bush riding in a GEM electric vehicle became a topic of conversation.  The vehicles, donated by their maker, were used during the Summit and some posters inquired about what would happen to them after the event. Some messages made jokes out of the situation, which for some is a mere public relations strategy since the Bush Administration has been widely criticized for its environmental policies:

More than likely they will be donated to the G8 Summit organization for future use, besides who would like a GEM where Bush sat? you would have to burn the seats, LOL

(NEVs message 2054).

In these topics the corporations and the mainstream media are mentioned as actors, mostly presented in a negative light.  Sometimes the mainstream media outlets are referred to as “the corporate media” (AriseAction message 14051), denoting a negative perception about the control of big corporations over the mass media.  Some of the posters offer a critical view of the excerpts from the mainstream media that they reproduce in their messages.  For instance, Joe Smith (GloboList message 5464) posts a message containing an AP story on the general strike in Nigeria over fuel prices and he adds:

…

What the AP does not mention is that reduction & eventual elimination of the government subsidies that keep fuel prices low is a long standing demand of the IMF.  In the Delta, where Nigeria’s oil is produced, the combination of extreme poverty and substandard oil pipelines has often resulted in tragedy.

…

With regards to the US domination in international politics, the dominant theme was the perception of a confrontation between the Bush Administration and the European governments, particularly with France.  For instance, a posting in GloboList (message 5472) discusses an article by Mark Engler (in Znet) regarding “Bush’s Imperial Globalization,” highlighting the idea that the US has rejected multilateralism in international affairs to push a nationalist agenda that favors corporate interests.  This notion illustrates a perception of the Bush Administration policies that also appears in the messages about free trade, and unequal North-South distribution.  President Bush is one of the actors most frequently represented in these messages, always with a negative view (as happened also with the US Government as an institution).

Direct interactions among users were relatively scarce in the material collected for this study from the online groups, which is not consistent with the level of interactivity that could be expected in this type of environment.  The researcher found threads of messages only in three cases, with responses supporting the ideas of the original message in two of the cases and dissenting in the third.  This scarcity of exchanges between posters could be related to the particular nature of the topics analyzed in this work.  The situation could be different in other subject matters.  However, the writers who did post their messages had the opportunity to present their points of view to the rest of the online community.  The present analysis focuses on the ideas that were put forward by users taking advantages of this platform.

Blogs

The researcher identified 12 blogs[6] where the writers followed different aspects related to the G8 Summit or the debate about Globalization around the dates of the event.  The selected blogs vary in their approach as well as in the style in which the authors organize and present their comments.  Some are specifically devoted to the discussion of globalization topics (Globalization Issues; GLOBALIZE THIS) or activism (to the barricades; Ipecac; THIRD EYE).  Others devoted considerable attention to these topics in connection with the summit-such as the blogs of two area residents (STRAT SPEAKS OUT and G8 Countdown), the news-analysis site of The News Dissector and Informed Comment, by History Professor Juan Cole, on Middle East, History and Religion.  Some of the analyzed blogs employed a systematic and in-depth approach to the subjects of their attention, with an organized page structure and a more formal writing style (Globalization Issues; Informed Comment; The News Dissector) while others used a more casual approach, using a conversational-style (STRAT SPEAKS OUT, Ipecac, GLOBALIZE THIS) and a varied mix of comments, links and fragments of other texts (to the barricades; THIRD EYE).  From the selected blogs, 38 postings were identified as relevant for the purposes of the present study, taking into account that not all bloggers posted texts consistently every day and that they also on occasion included material about other unrelated topics-a practice that is consistent with the nature of this type of communications.

As happened with the message boards, the most recurrent themes in these postings are those related to the social actions of the antiglobalization movement.  More than half of the postings (23) were about this topic.  The writings of the bloggers that recounted day-to-day events from the area account for a great proportion of this number.  This was followed by the concerns about the domination of the US in international politics (10).  Themes related to domination of the economic forces over political and social lives were also present in these texts to some extent (4).  The less represented themes were those categorized under fair trade (2), environmental concerns (2), human rights (2), North-south unequal distribution (1), cultural homogenization (1) and democracy (1).  More than a half of the blog postings analyzed in this research (23) included references to other texts or fragments of other writings.  Many of those postings (13) referenced mainstream outlets such as CNN, The Raleigh News & Observer, The Washington Post, the AP and the BBC, while almost as many postings (10) referenced or reproduced material from alternative sources such as other blogs and indymedia.org. The writers chronicling the events from the area of the summit relied solely on their own writings.

In terms of the actions of the antiglobalization movement, in the blogs analyzed for this study the view that emerges of the protesters is somewhat different from the one that the researcher observed on the online discussion boards, particularly because the voices of the local residents represented in the selected blogs add a different perspective from actors that have only a tangential relation with the movement-as they are forced to look at these issues just by having the G8 Summit in the neighborhood.  The protesters are presented as the main actors in a considerable number of postings (12).  However, in many of those they are presented in a negative light through the eyes of the local residents who feared that they would destroy property or cause disruption in the lives of their towns. In the days prior to the meetings Strat comments on an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that talks about an “unfriendly environment” for the protesters expected in the area:

…

As if calling us meanies is going to help their cause at all.  They forget that we all know how some of these groups operate.  We’ve all heard about the tactics of the so called Black Group, and how they light trashcans on fire and roll them up against the buildings. (STRAT SPEAKS OUT, June 3)

The bloggers who have a more sympathetic view of the protesters relay accounts of particular demonstrations or incidents, mainly from alternative sources on the Internet.   However, they also reflect the idea that the demonstrations were not as successful as expected.  As they try to find the cause of this situation they point to the intense security measures that the organizers of the G8 meetings had put in place:

The G8 summit is surrounded by swarms of police, Patriot missiles, and tanks.  Locals have evacuated in fear of terrorists and those rascally protesters.  As far as the protests, the numbers seem smaller than was expected, perhaps because of the recent fears over terrorism and police violence. (to the barricades June

Other bloggers agree with this point of view as they try to defend the idea that the movement is not losing its strength.  In the posting of June 6 on Ipecac, the writer responds to that notion, presented in a column by Tom Friedman in The New York Times.  The writer accuses Friedman of “criminal ignorance” about the antiglobalization movement and points to the example of the World Social Forum in India, where tens of thousands of activists congregated to discuss “strategies of resistance to the model of globalization formulated at the annual World Economic Forum at Davos by large multinational corporations, national governments, IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, which are the foot soldiers of these corporations.”  In to the barricades (June 11, June 7) there are also mentions of protests against the G8 in North Carolina and San Francisco.  However, many of the bloggers emphasize the strength of the security forces that were deployed at Sea Island and the Savannah and Brunswick areas as a strategy that instilled fear in the ranks of the protesters-a point that is also present in the postings of the discussion boards mentioned above.  The story of the body bags was also picked up by some bloggers (The News Dissector June 9; THIRD EYE June 8).  They talk about how the police techniques have been perfected to curve the push of the activists.  A posting on to the barricades on June 8 responds to a news article in which an official of the Savannah-Chatham Police Department describes the security measures:

…

They [the G8 leaders] have a gateway on a secluded island and surround themselves with a small army…we oughta give them hell.  But then, there’s the shadow of Genoa [where riots during a G8 Summit in 2001 left one dead and hundred injured as demonstrators clashed with the police] hanging over this, and I suppose the fear of getting killed is there for some people.

On the posting of June 9 the same writer declares that “the term ‘police state’ is no longer a lefty hyperbole” and calls for protesters to be “prepared” for the up coming political conventions in Boston and New York, providing a link to a site that claims to show how to make smoke bombs.

The police are the subject of many of the postings in this study (10).  Although they are mostly presented in a negative frame as a repressive element, contrary to what was observed in the majority of the postings on the discussion boards, in the blogs the voices of the area residents project the law enforcement agents in a different tone.  The positive side of the police that has been recorded by the writers in the bulletin boards analyzed for this study was about single acts of kindness or politeness of the agents towards the protesters.  However, for the resident bloggers the heavily armed security apparatus is a good thing.  On the posting of June 7 Strat reports that the “amount of security is just phenomenal” and they are “doing their best to endear themselves to locals” which include attending local church services and letting the kids look inside their “Humvees,” something that make the local blogger “feel safer,” knowing that the security agents are guarding them all the time.

The unexpectedly small size of the protest was also noted by the bloggers from the area, although for them it was a positive development too.  One of them wrote from the road, as the whole family went away during the days of the event for fears of the potential mayhem.  She shows relief for the way things turned out, even though she notes that the economic bonanza that local business were expecting would not materialize.  The same fears that sent the locals away kept the tourists at bay too, as Strat points out:

It’s safe to say the anticipated cash windfall was just a rumor, but no one was injured and our property will return to something like its previous form.  After days of anxiously watching the news and overreacting to unanswered phones on the island, it’s done.  No big winners, no big losers.  We get our island back, a little shorn and worn but still home. (G8 Countdown June 12)

Another consequence of the toned-down protests that is mentioned by the writers reporting from Savannah (in the blogs and in the message boards as well) is the opportunity for the local residents to get acquainted with the causes that move the activists, since they ventured out of their homes to watch the demonstration once they saw that there was no violence involved.  Strat describes interactions in Savannah similar to those reported in one article included in one of the message board postings described above (smygo message 4808): meetings in which activists explained their views on positive and negative aspects of globalization.  The blogger from Savannah remarks that the locals actually listened, even if they did not agree, and says that these are “the right kind of protesters” (STRAT SPEAKS OUT June 7).  However, this view of the activists outnumbered by the police and demonstrating peacefully is also accompanied by a view of some of the protesters as a weird and picturesque group of people.  The following entry in STRAT SPEAKS OUT (June illustrates this point, which seems to be also the frame employed by the local television story that the writer refers to, reproducing a stereotype of the mainstream media:

The local news last night had a clip of ten or so protesters in St. Simons demonstrating against Coca-Cola.  “Coke is a Killer” read one of their posterboard signs.  The reporter on the scene asked a nearby local woman, who was observing the small demonstration, if she agreed with them.  The local woman, who was utilizing the scenario as a way to show her young daughter the freedoms of democracy in action, replied flatly, “I think the stuff they have on their hair is more dangerous than Coke.” Indeed, several of the protesters were sporting obviously dyed hair.

Freedom of speech is a beautiful thing.

From the accounts of this blogger (June 7) we learn also that most of the activists who were walking from Florida-as we read in the message boards-gave up.  Only 8 arrived. According to the writer, those who thought they could make it “must have forgotten about the heat and humidity.”

Aside from the themes related to social action, the other major area in the blogs selected for the present study was that of US domination in international politics.  Themes related to this category were present in 10 of the analyzed postings, particularly in negative comments about the posture of the Bush Administration towards the Middle East and the perceived disagreements with the governments of France and Russia.  President Bush is the main actor in 8 of the pieces.  In 6 of them he is portrayed in a negative way, as a politician that is pushing an imperialistic agenda.  In the other postings he is presented through a neutral point of view in the context of the meeting of the G8.  As the situation in the Middle East dominated the Summit (at least in the public communications of the participants), the postings that talk about this issue highlight the failure of the Administration to bring the key Middle Eastern leaders to the meeting, where the G8 organization was expected to discuss a plan for the region.  The invitation to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco and Qatar was seen as an effort on the part of the US to demonstrate engagement with the Arabs, but the posters concur in the argument that the Bush Administration is actually trying to impose its own views, putting aside international law, and principles of democracy and human rights.  The writer of Globalize This (June 10) jokes:

I don’t know which is worse.  That the G8 would meet to plot a Middle East reform plan WITHOUT any Middle Eastern leaders, or that Bush never expected to make Iraq a “free” country [referring to a comment in which President Bush said that it was a special day for him when he received the new Iraqi leader because he never thought that he would be sitting "next to an Iraqi president of a free country a year and a half ago]

Other writers refer to the situation in Iraq to illustrate the attitude of the Bush Administration in the Middle East:

The revelations about the torture memos [revealed by The Wall Street Journal, in which White House lawyers give green light to procedures that many people consider torture on the basis of the president's position as commander in chief in wartime] have cast a cloud over Bush’s presentations at the G8 Summit in Georgia. Since the Bush centerpiece at that conference was supposed to be promoting democracy in the Middle East, the Torturegate revelation pointed to US feet of clay. (Informed Comment June 9)

The US has banned al-Sadr [the rebel cleric leader of a militia that combats the US forces in Iraq] from taking part in the Iraqi elections.  He is, indeed a terrible man with some terrible ideas, and I wouldn’t like him to be elected either, but in the end it’s not up to me.  That’s the purpose of an election.

So they only let people run that they like, Nice.  I recall a certain…- oh, let’s call him “S. Hussein” doing a similar thing. (to the barricades June 9)

The bloggers concerned with the issue of US domination in international politics also look at the points of controversy between the Bush Administration and other members of the G8, particularly French president Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Professor Juan Cole, the writer of Informed Comment, writes about this topic on June 11, highlighting disagreements between Bush and Chirac with regards to the presence of NATO troops in Iraq.  On a lighter note he also points out that Chirac even defied Bush’s request for informality during the Summit, appearing in coat and tie (citing an AFP wire).  On June 11 the Mahablog writer reproduces a news story that talks about Putin’s views on Iraq. Although Putin appeared to demonstrate unity with the US position in the context of the G8 meeting, he also made clear the points of difference with US policy.  The writer comments that “Bush is lording it over the G8 Summit right now, playing the role of the conquering hero, but it sounds as if not everyone is fooled.”

The media are mentioned frequently in these blogs, particularly with in themes of the market dominance over the political and social live, as some of the writers present the mainstream US media as instruments of corporate interests.  The media are accused of oversimplifying the grassroots campaign of the antiglobalization movement.  On this point the writer of the Ipecac blog makes statements similar to those of Strat, the blogger from Savannah (albeit for different reasons) regarding media coverage of the protests during the G8.  The local resident thinks that the small protests are not relevant enough to be featured in the news coverage since they “look more like a picnic” (STRAT SPEAKS OUT June 7) while the Ipecac blogger argues (June 6) that the “corporate controlled mass media” have determined that protesting “is sexier than the daily work of local activists all over the globe” because “they have a stake in the outcome of the ideological struggle between the people at the grassroots level and entrenched global powers.”

On another colorful note, one of the blogs picked up on the story of the G8 leaders riding on electric cars (SebiMeyer June 10).  The entry is called “Pseudo Green” and points out that these vehicles consume electricity produced by traditional methods, while laughing at a BBC story that describes the video of President Bush riding the electric cars.  The story points out that while Bush was attempting to “establish his green credentials,” secret service agents in black SUVs were following him around all the time.

The CNN Website

The research into the coverage of the G8 Summit at cnn.com yielded 11 relevant stories posted on the site during the week of the event.  None of the stories related to the meeting were presented as the main story in the front page during this period, although during the days in which the Summit was taking place it was highlighted among the top headlines.  The emphasis of the coverage in the site during this week was the death of Ronald Reagan, which consistently took the most prominent position in the main page.  The coverage of the Summit on this site relied heavily on wire services (AP and Reuters), with 5 of the 11 items analyzed in this study reproducing text provided by the agencies.  The original stories produced by the site’s writers were “day wraps” summarizing the main events of the day in a straight-forward style-with the exception of one opinion piece.  The researcher did not find references to alternative online sources in any of the stories posted on the site. This is consistent with the site’s editorial policy, which prohibits the inclusion of external links in the text of the stories. News coverage was complemented by additional items posted in sidebars: articles explaining the G8 organization and the particularities of the Iraqi debt, as well as galleries of the official photos of the event, images of the protests and the security forces.  In some cases, sidebars also offered video stories filed by CNN correspondents (some of which will be analyzed below as part of the television coverage). However, the present analysis focuses on the texts of the main stories posted on the site.

Since the coverage at cnn.com was basically focused on the straight reporting of events surrounding the Summit, the most frequent themes in these texts were related to international politics (7), closely followed by those related to the actions of the antiglobalization movement (5), as the potential existed for confrontations between the protesters and the law enforcement forces.  Some of the stories also contained themes related to the North-South inequalities (3) because the Summit discussed the reduction of the Iraqi debt. There was only one brief mention of the free trade issues, as one “senior Bush Administration official” was quoted at the end of one of the “day wraps” (”Bush urges stronger NATO role in Iraq,” June 9) as saying that the Summit would “focus on raising global economic growth as well as initiatives on harnessing the power of the private sector to reduce poverty in the developing world.”  There was no follow up or discussion at the end of the Summit on the outcome of such negotiations.  The other areas of concern for the antiglobalization movement that this research explores were not mentioned at all in the coverage produced by this site.

In the category of international politics, the dominant theme is the effort of the Bush Administration to gather support for its Middle East plan.  The insistence of the White House on this topic dominates the reports on the public events of the meeting (which were mostly press conferences and photo opportunities staged for the media; journalists were positioned in a designated location with no access to the meeting site). In the other online environments analyzed for this work, this posture of the US government is seen mostly as a sign of the international hegemony of this country as it tries to impose its will on Middle Eastern nations.  This point of view is not reflected in the coverage at cnn.com.  The stories on cnn.com presented a neutral view of the President and the US government, with direct reporting of the positions expressed by Mr. Bush and other officials.  However, this researcher observes a frame in these reports that suggest the idea that the US is seeking to lead the forces of the global powers into a particular direction in the Middle East.  A news piece on June 9 (”G8 offers opportunities for Bush”) states:

President Bush is hoping that his greater Middle East initiative will be one of the key accomplishments of the 30^th annual economic summit of the world’s seven richest industrial countries and Russia.

Other stories posted on the first day of the Summit talk about the “improved” mood of the gathering on account of the approval of a new UN resolution setting the principles for the transition in Iraq.  A piece (”Economic summit will likely focus on Mideast”) underlines the idea that the resolution is a “breakthrough” for the Bush Administration because the issue of Iraq has “frayed relations among the G-8 partners.”   Concurrently, another point of balance employed with regard to the views of the US Government is the presentation of dissenting opinions-although these are presented through the somewhat neutral voices of analysts, or by registering the disagreements between Bush and other leaders (particularly Jacques Chirac).  For instance, in the article entitled “G-8 leaders aim to heal Iraq rift” (June 7), the writer quotes a British expert on International affairs to support the idea that the Europeans will not be a “pushover on Bush’s plan for the Middle East” because they don’t like the US stance, which they see as “too close to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.”  Other analysts of Middle Eastern topics are cited (”Bush urges stronger NATO role in Iraq”, June 9) supporting the notion that the invasion of Iraq “has made Bush widely unpopular in the region, making it more difficult for the Arab leaders to heed his calls for reform.”  In this same article, an observer to the Summit presented as an Egyptian democracy activist comments that “it is not the content of the message, but the messenger himself…[Bush] doesn’t have much credibility in the Arab world and that is not helping the message.” This particular piece talks about the point of view of some key Arab countries that oppose the American policies for the region (a topic that was also present in the blogs).  It stresses that the Middle East initiative “received a tepid response from some Arab leaders.”  The reporter mentions that Egypt and Saudi Arabia declined invitations to attend the Summit.

The disagreements between Bush and other G8 leaders was another dominant theme in this coverage, but the frame in this case is the presentation of the Summit as an event staged for the public eye.  The writers try to find and point out the nuances in the bits of public speech that may illustrate the real issues in the private negotiations-although this practice might not always be fruitful.  This is an example of such reporting strategy:

Publicly at least, there was a show of cordiality.

“We had our differences in the past year but we’re friends and friends are able to discuss the future,” Bush said after meeting Chirac on Thursday morning at the resort of Sea Island, Georgia.

They still had differences, notably over Bush’s proposal for a NATO role in Iraq in the future.  Chirac believes it would be “clumsy to fly the NATO flag” there, according to a French official.

(”Beach, Barney and burgers help thaw G8,” June 10)

As part of this way of presenting the Summit as an event designed for controlled publicity (through photo opportunities and press conferences for the press reporting from a distant location) there is an abundance of references to the multimillion-dollar cottages and the luxuries of the resort where the meeting was held (which in some of the blogs and the message boards was pointed out as ironic in the sense that the leaders were supposed to discuss world poverty among other topics).  An insistence in the colorful but trivial details-such as those highlighted in the title of the article cited above-accentuates the notion of the superficiality of such public events.

In terms of the social action of the antiglobalization movement the main themes in these articles are the small number of protesters and the strong presence of security forces.  The pieces collected for this study mostly chronicle some isolated incidents.  While reporting on this topic the writers included the voices of the protesters in most of the cases, in quotes that highlight their disappointment at the perceived failure of the mobilization and blame fear as the cause of the low turnout.  Some of the activists cited in these articles denounce attempts by local governments to block the demonstrations, refusing to issue permits amid a controversial state of emergency in the area issued by the State Governor. These are some examples of what they had to say:

Griggs also say she believes that the high-profile presence of law enforcement officers is intended to send a message.

“Look around.  It ‘s like martial law, really,” she said.  “It was to intimidate the people - to keep them from coming out or to [get them to] leave town.

(”G8 protest draws small crowd,” June 9)

“This was a low turnout in terms of the recent history of these events,” said Robert Randall, a Brunswick-based peace activist.  “That speaks to the reality of how the authorities have terrorized people.”

(”Anti-globalization army fails to mobilize for G8,” June 10)

Although the big demonstration did not occur, in most of the articles that mentioned the protesters they were portrayed as upbeat and defiant facing the challenge.  However, there was also a tendency to present them as a picturesque crowd with an interesting folklore, somehow framing the activists in a not-so-serious view.  One story asks whether the movement is “an aging, toothless tiger or a clever predator that wouldn’t take the bait?” (”Anti-globalization army fails to mobilize for G8,” June 10), while another (”Bush urges stronger NATO role in Iraq,” June 9) reports how the police resolve a standoff with protesters demanding access to a bridge that leads to Sea Island by “granting them symbolic access” -half of the protesters were allowed to walk across the street to the bridge entrance and then return to the other side.

Television

The coverage of the G8 Summit on the CNN programs selected for this study was overshadowed by the extensive attention devoted to the funeral and the figure of Ronald Reagan.  During the week CNN carried numerous live events, broadcasting for long periods of time different ceremonies that were carried out around the country to honor Reagan’s memory.  The network also produced several special programs as part of this coverage.  These circumstances impacted not only the contents of the shows but also the line up of programs.  On Wednesday, June 9, Lou Dobbs Tonight was preempted by the special coverage of Reagan’s state funeral while Newsnight aired in its usual slot and included some coverage of the Summit.  On Friday, June 11, Newsnight had a special edition dedicated entirely to the final ceremony of Reagan’s funeral-whereas under other conditions some analysis of the G8 meetings might have been included in the program after it followed the story throughout the week.  Overall, Lou Dobbs Tonight devoted greater attention to the Summit than Newsnight, consistent with its focus on economic matters.  During the week, Tonight also contained several items with topics related to the globalization debate-particularly regarding free trade, which is a recurrent area of coverage for this program.  Although some of these items were not directly related to the G8 Summit they were analyzed as they touched on relevant issues that are part of the overall discourse of the show in terms of the impact of globalization (as happened with some of the messages and blog entries included in this analysis).  The story of the G8 summit was in the headlines of both shows, from Monday through Thursday (there was no Lou Dobbs Tonight on Wednesday, June 9) and in the first block of both programs (with the exception of Monday’s Newsnight, where it was placed in the third block).  Tonight led with the G8 in three out of the four shows of the week. However, the emphasis in the headlines in both shows was related not to the meeting itself but to the issues of international politics in which the US was involved during the week, focusing on the perspective of the US (such as the efforts of the president seeking support for the new UN Resolution on Iraq, or for the Administration’s Middle East initiative).

Looking at the contents of both shows for the week, the researcher identified 25 pieces relevant to the present analysis.  The majority (19) aired in Lou Dobbs Tonight, which is consistent with the focus of the show in economic matters. Overall, the dominant themes were those that fall under the category of international politics (9), while the particular editorial orientation of Lou Dobbs Tonight provides for a heavy presence in its discourse of themes related to labor concerns (9), the domination of economic interests over political and social lives (6) and free trade (5).  Two of the items from Tonight contained environmental issues as they dealt with a decision of the US Supreme Court that paves the way for Mexican trucks to circulate in the US highway system. The other categories of themes researched in this study were not represented at all in the selected television programs.  Since both shows air in the evening, at the end of most regular “newsday” cycles, the reports about the Summit generally summarized the events of the day.  They focused on the event itself and the public statements of the G8 leaders.  Only at the end of one of these stories the reporter included a brief mention to the protests, registering the fact that the activists were “miles away” (John King on Newsnight, June 8).  The activities of the antiglobalization movement were not reflected otherwise in the coverage provided by these two programs.  However, the researcher did happen to note two other stories that aired as part of the dayside network coverage depicting particular angles of the demonstrations (and were also available on cnn.com at some point during the coverage). Even though these two particular reports were not deemed relevant enough to make it to the evening lineup (airtime was scarce as the dominant topic was Reagan’s funeral), they are relevant to this analysis as they illustrate a particular frame employed to present the protesters.  One of those stories presents the demonstration of a group of anarchists, in a scene of “political disorder and confusion… one of the dictionary definitions of anarchy” (Tuchman’s “G-8 anarchy,” June 9).  The other piece portrays a 93-years-old who has been “protesting since 1928″ and “likes her demonstrations peaceful… but plentiful” (Tuchman’s “Oldest G-8 protester,” June 8).  In both stories the demonstrators present their points of view, but the tone is consistent with the stereotype of the picturesque crowd that protests against globalization, such as the young, idealist 18-year-old anarchist or the “professional” protester.

In terms of international politics, the dominant theme was the efforts of President Bush to gather support for his positions on Iraq and the Middle East from key members of the G8 group who were at odds with Washington over the issue of the war.  The stories on this topic were focused on the reporting of the events at the G8 Summit.  This is consistent with the reports on cnn.com, within the constraints imposed by the nature of television reporting (particularly when there is not much time devoted to the subject), which requires synthesis and condensation of the ideas. However, the tone in the television reports is more tied to the official image projected by the organizers of the summit, as the stories concentrate solely the materials provided by the photo opportunities and the press conferences.  President Bush is the main actor in almost all the pieces filed from Sea Island, as he was the lead figure in many of the public events.  He is mostly portrayed in a positive view, having achieved some progress in his goals.  Here are some examples:

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president is hoping to use the g8 Summit to continue his campaign to renew ties with estranged allies and an apparent deal on a new U.N. resolution on Iraq is just the way the White House wanted to get things started here. (Newsnight, June 7)

DOBBS: Good evening.  The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution that backs the transfer of power to Iraq’s new government.  President Bush had earlier predicted the 15-0 vote at the opening of the G-8 summit.

…

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And Lou, the president just moments ago celebrating that unanimous vote at the United Nations Security Council and doing so during a meeting with one of his critics of the Iraq war, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin (Lou Dobbs Tonight, June

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Lou, Mr. Bush in an extraordinary upbeat mood as the summit closed… (Lou Dobbs Tonight, June 10)

Along with the Summit’s celebratory mood, the reports also register the disagreements (particularly between the US and France with regards to the involvement of NATO in Iraq) and mention the efforts of the White House to downplay the rift.  However, the reporters do not go into details to explain the points of disagreement.  They mention that the other leaders are eager to mend the relationship with the US, strained by the war debate.  This accentuates the frame in which the Summit is presented as a show for public consumption.  In his appearance in Lou Dobbs Tonight on June 10, correspondent John King relates how in a public event the day before Jacques Chirac had said that he “was skeptical about an expanded NATO role” in Iraq. But “he did not say so in Mr. Bush’s presence today,” King added, “instead they exchanged compliments and talked of cooperation…”  In another report King tells that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was also “sticking to [President Bush'] script of unity” (Lou Dobbs Tonight, June 8).  In the stories filed from Sea Island Bush calls the UN resolution on Iraq “a victory for the Iraqi people.”  The reporters also mention the skepticism with which the US position towards the Middle East is received in that region, remarking that some key Arab leaders declined the invitation to attend the G8 meeting.  However, the situation is presented as a “tough sell” (King story on Newsnight, June 9), or it is mentioned that the Arab leaders who came to the meeting would help send the “message” of the White House-the message is “that it is time to change the Middle East” (Correspondent Dana Bash on Lou Dobbs Tonight, June 7).  This way of presenting the issue implies a passive role for the region to which the plan is been “sold.”

The themes related to labor concerns, free trade and the domination of economic interests in social and political lives are present in pieces obtained from Lou Dobbs Tonight, which is consistent with the focus of the show on economic and political issues.  However, most of these themes emerge from a subject matter that has been a constant presence in the program in the past few months, as discussed above: overseas outsourcing, or “off-shoring”-what the program refers to as “exporting America.”  The topic of American companies with multinational presence taking advantage of the globalized economy to reduce costs by hiring cheap labor in other countries is discussed from different angles in the material collected for this study.  The dominant perspective through which it is presented is outrage: “Lou, I am outraged” writes a viewer commenting on the Mexican trucks decision in an email read during the show;  “my guest tonight says it is outrageous and wrong to reward a company for abandoning our country” says Dobbs introducing an interview with Representative Rosa Delaura who has authored legislation that would prevent the government to award contracts to foreign companies (she was invited to talk about the $10 Billion border security contract awarded to Bermuda-based Accenture).

The theme in terms of labor is the deterioration of the job market in the US as a consequence of this practice.  This is often presented in an alarming tone.  For instance, on June 10, the host discusses a report released by the Department of Labor confirming that in the first three months of the year “more than 4,600 American jobs were exported to those cheap foreign labor markets” and adds that the report “is certainly incomplete” because it does not count companies that employ less than 50 people or that has not laid off fewer than 50 employees.  Dobbs also says “the government study confirms what we’ve been reporting here for more than a year, that the manufacturing sector has been devastated…”  In the story that follows, correspondent Lisa Sylvester talks about a survey conducted by CFO Magazine which found that “outsourcing does not always result in big savings” but warns that “the trend is expected to grow.”  The story also mentions that the trend of exporting jobs is not limited just to the factory floor but it now affects a great number of “white collar” employees.  The topic of outsourcing branches out into the category of economic domination over political and social lives, as the corporations are presented as greedy entities favored by the government (as in the case of Accenture).  This is also connected with the topic of fair trade, with the government continuing to push for the liberalization of commerce in spite of its negative consequences, as it is manifested in the following exchange between Dobbs and correspondent Lisa Sylvester on June 7, after her report on the Supreme Court decision that opens the US highways to Mexican Trucks (environmental groups had sued claiming that Mexican trucks did not meet the correct emission standards, but the trucking industry argued that transferring cargo at the border was costly and the open border is contemplated in NAFTA):

DOBBS: Lisa, does this end the issue as - there’s effectively no, if you will, appeal from this judgment?

SYLVESTER: Not at this point.  It would essentially take the environmental protection agency stepping in.  Of course, that’s the Bush administration, so that’s something that’s not likely to happen.

In some sense these are topics that relate to the concerns of the antiglobalization movement, however they are presented from the point of view of the “other side.” Traditionally, activists have been preoccupied with the effects of the liberalization of commerce in developing countries (the cheap labor markets where transnational companies could cut costs with little regard for workers rights or environmental safeguard).  The fact that this debate is taking place within the US adds another layer to the debate.

Another relevant point that emerges from the study of this material is the inclusion of elements from the online environment in Lou Dobbs Tonight, as the program follows a trend in which many television shows try to include direct feedback from their audiences through the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web.  In this case, the program included 7 of such segments during the week: 2 online polls and 4 readings of viewer emails (3 to 5 in each occasion).  The online polls are non-scientific (not a valid measure of the public’s opinion) and there are disclaimers in the site to clarify that. They are mainly used as a means to encourage the audience’s participation and interest on the program, or to push a particular point of view-as is apparent in the way the questions are framed.  In terms of the email comments that are read during the program, there is no specific explanation about the selection process.  This practice of reading emails on the air allows the show to include the voices of some members of the audience-in many cases people directly affected by unemployment, since the dominant topics relate to labor concerns.  However, in the four instances analyzed for this study, there were no opposing points of view in the comments relayed to the general audience and they generally echo the positions that dominate the discourse of the show.  For example, just before the end of the program on June 10, Dobbs read some email comments with regards to a June 8 interview in which a professor at Darmout College had argued-against what seems to be the dominant opinion behind Tonight’s series “Exporting America”-that multinational corporations benefit American workers and have created two jobs in this country for every one that they have sent overseas (to countries where labor is cheap).  This is the segment:

DOBSS: Taking a look now at some more of your thoughts.  Many of you writing in about my interview last week with Darmouth economist who said multinational corporations are good for American workers.

Steve Stonick of Miami, Florida. ” For all the rhetoric I hear about job creation here at home no one states that the amount of full-time jobs once available are now available as part time.  All jobs can’t be compared as equal.”

Joe Lattuca of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.” Lou, we export one job to get two back, the numbers are great. Unfortunately the two back are either part time, temporary or fulltime without benefits.  Can it get any worse?”

[Dobbs replies] We hope not.  Let’s all try to make sure it doesn’t.

The viewer is left to wonder if nobody wrote to agree with the point of view expressed by the professor or to add a different angle other than the quality of the jobs (this had been a topic brought by Dobbs in the interview, with the professor citing other factors apart from outsourcing for the decreases in wages and benefits, such as technological changes and education).

Discussion

The previous pages describe a particular communicative situation, synthesizing the themes[7] related to the debate about globalization as they were present in four different environments, as well as the main actors and the frames employed to portray them[8]. According to the theoretical framework proposed by this work, the online message boards and the blogs can be analyzed as representing the Interactive Mode of Communication, because these platforms contain the features associated with it, such as:

Environment	Dominant Themes	Other Themes
Online groups	Social Action Economic Domination of Markets Environmental Concerns	Free Trade North-South Distribution Democracy Human Rights Labor Cultural Homogenization International Politics (US Dom.)
Blogs	Social Action International Politics (US Dom.) Economic Domination of Markets	Free Trade Environmental Concerns Human Rights North-South Distribution Cultural Homogenization Democracy
Website	International Politics Social Action (potential for confrontations)	North-South Distribution (Iraqi debt)
TV Programs	International Politics Labor (Lou Dobbs) Economic Domination of Markets (Lou Dobbs) Free Trade (Lou Dobbs)	Social Action (brief mentions)

Table 2. Summary of themes

the open content production (these types of online publishing do not require sophisticated infrastructure or know-how), the non-linearity and non-hierarchical nature of the interaction between users of the systems (or between users and texts) fostered by the hypertextual practices and the coexistence of producers and consumers of these communications in the same digital environment; and attention as the scarce commodity that the users as producers of content have to compete for.  The television programs manifest the Broadcast Mode of Communication with its restrictive content production and its linear discourse controlled and centralized by the gatekeepers.  Even when the programs include interactive elements (such as the viewer’s emails and online polls), those elements appear in the discourse of the show more as passive feedback that is filtered through the selective process inherent to a medium that has limited airtime available. In the case of the website, this analysis confirms the theoretical viewpoint that the online platforms produced by traditional outlets reproduce the patterns of the Broadcast Mode of Communication even as they exist in the same digital environment as platforms like the blogs or discussion groups.  This implies that they put out a discourse

Environment	Protesters	Police	Bush/US Gov.	Mainstream Media
Online groups	Positive view (courage)	Negative view (”military occupation”/ “Miami model”)	Negative view (”corporate media”)	Negative view (nationalist agenda in favor of corporate interests)
Blogs	Balanced view (strength/ stereotype)	Balanced view (force/ security)	Mostly negative view (unilateralism/ imperialistic position)	Negative view (corporate interests)
Website	Neutral (small number/ defiant/ stereotype)	Neutral (strong presence)	Neutral (direct reporting/ neutral analysts)
TV Programs	Neutral (few mentions/ stereotype)		Neutral in direct reporting of G8 events Negative in labor, free trade, economic domination (Lou Dobbs)

Table 3. Summary of main actors

that is generally hierarchical and linear (going as far as to avoid hypertextual links to try to keep their audience within the site) produced in a central fashion with diffusion as their orientation, rather than interaction.  These complex online entities have the advantage in terms of the competition for attention, as they are empowered by the wide recognition of their corporate brand.

Following this view, for the purposes of this particular analysis the present study groups together CNN television programs and cnn.com stories as representations of the traditional, mainstream media[9] equivalent to those subjected of the critique of concordance in Condit’s work (1994)-which reviews the accommodation attained in the presentation of opinions of the diverse forces involved in the debate about reproductive techniques.  The present study does not intend to replicate this method to reach a conclusive assessment about the current state of the globalization debate (it would be a different, larger project, since the debate on globalization does not involve a single issue but many different ones and multiple actors).  However, this analysis explores the topic in a way that can provide new notions to inform the theoretical and methodological positions of the critique of concordance in light of the current configuration of the communication system after the inception of the new media and the subsequent convergence of modes of communication.

A comparison between the ways in which the globalization debate was presented in the different environments analyzed for this study shows that the texts produced in the BMC environment contain a narrower focus than that of the texts obtained from the IMC environment, concentrating on the issues of international politics and the presentation of the point of view of the official actors (representatives of the government, G8 leaders), while largely ignoring the antiglobalization activists or presenting them through a frame that implies a condescending stance.  This seems to confirm the notion reflected by DeLuca and Peeples (2002, 140) that in the absence of symbolic violence, the media coverage and the airing of the activists’ causes wane.  In their assessment of the mainstream media coverage of the Seattle events (DeLuca and Peeples 2002, 144) they suggest that through the presentation of background stories and the inclusion of the voices of the protesters in their coverage of the riots the television coverage portrayed a more detailed view of the antiglobalization movement.  Comparing such outcome with the coverage of the G8 meeting analyzed in this study, it is possible to observe that any multivocal accommodation that had been achieved around the Seattle events has deteriorated.  An ideal accommodation would have reflected more points of view and a variety of issues similar to those contained in the IMC environment-on the basis of the assumption that the movement’s online presence reflects a valid measure of the elements that constitute it, as the goal of obtaining a comprehensive view of its full range faces the hurdle of its amorphous nature. These shifts in the accommodations attained in the mainstream media are consistent with the notion that the present study suggest: to substitute the analysis of configurations in the public debate on the traditional media as permanent and enduring (marked by deadlines and immutable, finished products in newspapers and newscasts) for a more fluid view of the accommodations that include the emergent forces in the Interactive Mode of Communication.

DeLuca and Peeples (2002) employ the concept of the “public screen” to analyze the emergence of the antiglobalization movement as a symbolic force at the Seattle events.  This concept proposes a view of the interconnected media of the contemporary society as “the essential supplement of the public sphere” that highlights “dissemination, images, hypermediacy, spectacular publicity, cacophony, distraction and dissent” (DeLuca and Peeples 2002, 145).  Such framework illuminates the role of the image event as a practice that provides opportunities in the context of participatory democracy in the current capitalist society.  It purposely emphasizes the function of mass communication, thus covering a narrower angle than the analysis of the convergent modes of communications proposed by the present work.  The point of view put forward in this analysis is not limited to the massive orientation of the communicative practices in contemporary media systems but also looks at the role of the interactions among networked individuals in a light that is closer to the conversational sense of the public sphere (as the notion could be extended-with reservations-to the discourses of the online environment).

As it happens with the analysis of the public screen, the critique of concordance is preoccupied with the massive-focusing on the representation of different voices in the mass media. However, the present research suggests that in the current condition of the media system a valid measure of the accommodation with regards to a particular public debate should include not only an assessment of the ideas highlighted by the mainstream media (which largely include the manifestations of the Broadcast Mode of Communication) but also of the dominant viewpoints emerging from the environment where the Interactive Mode of Communication prevails.  In the convergence of both modes of communication a larger accommodation is articulated, because, along with the content available from the media carrying the BMC, other trends emerge and positions are taken in the IMC environments when people with similar ideas concur-and these are available through centralized points and hypertextual practices (in search engines, portals directories) to the user seeking information about a specific debate.  An example observed in the present case study is the coincidence of themes in two different IMC environments (blogs and online discussion boards)-notably the identification of the new strategies of the official forces to deal with the protesters (the so-called Miami model) or the presentation of the Bush Administration’s plan for the Middle East as a project to impose its values on the region.  In such concurrence of paths (the linear realization of the multiple-referencing capabilities of the new media at an individual level) resides the potential of the IMC to conform discursive forces, providing a digital dimension to the networked individualism conceptualized by Castells.

The researcher also argues that, as a consequence of the convergence of both modes of communication, the ability of the users of the new media to articulate positions within the seemingly amorphous online environment is fostered by the reactions to dominant trends in the traditional mass media.  In this case study, such reactive condition seems to highlight polarizing points of view that are not represented, or are underrepresented, in the discourse of the mainstream media (for instance, the trends to highlight the absence of key Middle Eastern leaders at a gathering where plans for the region are discussed, or to mock president Bush’s efforts to project an environmentally-conscious image).  A wider variety of issues and points of view related to the globalization debate were observed in the IMC environments than in the BMC outlets. However, the dominant issues were similar in both sides (such as the impact of the protests, the plans for the Middle East, the disagreements between the US and the French governments).  This situation illustrates the notion put forward in this analysis that at the convergence of modes of communications the discourse of the traditional media becomes a point of reference-one that can be critically balanced by opposing discursive forces in the interactive environment, empowered by the condition of the digital stucco. The writers of the IMC environments exercise a certain amount of power over the texts produced in the BMC outlets.  Those texts are recontextualized in blog entries or bulletin-board messages, and they are used as elements of the discourse, captured and brought to the equalizing digital plane where the writers can highlight them (simply pointing attention to a particular text or idea), or respond to them directly (adding a commentary, agreeing o dissenting). These pieces of the mass media discourse become building blocks of new texts that emerge in the decentralized environment of the IMC, enriching the online debate with a wider spectrum of viewpoints. From the case study it is possible to observe that actors and communicators in both modes of communication generally understood and assumed the simulacral nature of the public event that was central to this communicative situation-the G8 Summit-but in this symbolic play of the capitalist forces opposed by antiglobalization activists the plot has changed over time as a consequence of the violent protests and the subsequent reaction of the official camp. As a traditional and crucial part of these image events (and largely uncritical of the official agenda unless challenged by extreme situations like the riots in Seattle, as discussed above) the mainstream media supporting the BMC are an important force in their convergence with the new media. It would be their natural trend to perpetuate accommodations less favorable to the interests of the antiglobalization movement, thus the challenging symbolic strategies to balance those accommodations logically emerge from the potential of the interactive environment.

---

[1] Program schedule available at cnn.com.

[2] Although the show is presented as a news and opinion program on economic and social issues, the host has projected himself into the debates of free trade issues in ways that do not conform to the traditional CNN style of reporting, presenting a “strong blend of journalism and advocacy” (as it is described in an AP article entitled “CNN’s Lou Dobbs is a man on a mission”, reported on msnbc.msn.com, April 9, 2004).  Critics underline the shift of Dobbs’ opinion towards a “new protectionism”, with one editorial of “The Economist” (2004) deeming it a rabidly anti-trade editorial agenda.”

[3] Available at http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/.

[4] See Appendix A.

[5] Throughout this section, the original spelling and syntax have been maintained in the examples reproduced here from the online environments to reflect the informal writing style that is typical in these texts.

[6] See Appendix B.

[7] See summary of themes in Table 2.

[8] See summary in Table 3.

[9] This point of view considers that there are alternative media outlets that manifest the BMC in varying degrees such as community television projects or online environments like indymedia.org.

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