Impact of Technology
Technology magnified a hidden truth in still another world-shaping event. Careful analysis of the tapes of Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu’s execution revealed evidence that he had not been summarily executed but probably had first been tortured; magnified portions of the tape played in slow motion carried the evidence to the world.
From the tape showing Ceausescu’s execution to scenes of crowds dancing atop the Berlin Wall, international television has fashioned common global experiences. At the same time it has provided a clearer Breitling Replica sense of the problems we share. For weeks in spring 1990, stories about the pollution of the air and water in East Germany heightened our awareness of the fragility of the ecostructure. Within the same period, international news carried a U.S. government study’s warning that inadequately stored waste produced by the manufacture of nuclear weaponry was posing an environmental hazard that would require a costly response.
In what political scientists are calling a “multipolar world,” the news the world sees will not necessarily represent the perspective of the superpowers, or focus on their special interests, in the way that such interests dominated international news from the end of World War II to the fall of communism in the Soviet Union.
The trend began in the 1980s. In 1987, CNN began a unique worldwide service that enabled television journalists or stations from any country to become contributors to CNN’s World Report by sending in a videocassette. If it is technically possible, the film is aired uncensored. Nancy Peckenham, the executive producer of World Report, explained CNN’s philosophy about airing these 2’/2 minute segments: “We don’t make judgment calls. We feel these reports are a reflection of life and the state of information and ideas in these countries. I don’t have the right to say something is propaganda and doesn’t meet the standards of journalism in the West. Everyone and every country have a bias and we don’t attempt to judge that bias.” CNN began the World Report in response to the concerns of television producers from developing countries who thought that their areas of the world were distorted by the mainstream media, which took an interest in their countries only when they were experiencing a natural disaster or political unrest. Robert Royer, producer of Jamaica Broadcasting Company, believes that “CNN’s World Replica Cartier Watches Report allows us to present our own views to the global audience.” But the reports can also affect local politics. Edmund Katiti, managing director of Cabelsat TV in Uganda, says that his government’s leaders “watch their step now because they are afraid we will do a CNN World Report on them.”
The emergence of a global village is changing the ways in which we think about ourselves and the world. What was once called “foreign” news is increasingly called “international” news, and those who habitually refer to the United States as “America” are increasingly aware that that is a label we share with our neighbors to the north and south.
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