As a result of technological innovation and worldwide expansion, global media - including print, radio, television, cinema, web, and mobile phone - has become a powerful agent of international affairs. From jihadist recruiting videos to twittered images of public protests to Hollywood blockbusters with Pentagon-approved scripts, new forms of global media are emerging and spreading at alarming rates, often with little accountability and even less critical inquiry. Not only new thinking is required; so too is innovative counter-media that can imaginatively and cogently explore the power of global media while informing and engaging experts and public alike. The aim of the Global Media Project (GMP) is to bring under one roof academic researchers, policy practitioners and media producers who will create challenging global interest media as well as provide critical analytical tools for studying multiple media. The rationale for GMP is built upon four core issues:
- The international order is being redefined by a wide range of different actors and technological drivers, producing through interconnectivity profound global effects of complexity, insecurity, and heteropolarity.
- From print journalism to cable and satellite news to mobile phone twittering and YouTube videos, global media acts not only as conveyor but also as catalyst of global events
- Prior to but even more so since 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, civilian media spaces have become increasingly indistinguishable from military battlespaces.
- In critical matters of war and peace there is an increasing need not only to understand media in but also to create public media for international affairs, what we refer to as global interest media.
In an age defined by networks of information and power, getting the message right is no longer sufficient; understanding, producing and rapidly distributing global interest media is also required. The new relationship of global media to peace and security issues requires a strategy that crosses the traditional disciplinary boundaries of the sciences and humanities and spans the functional boundaries between the consumption and production of information. Dedicated to seeking innovative solutions to contemporary global problems and working at the intersection of academic and policy issues, the Watson Institute for International Studies is well positioned to host the Global Media Project.
A concerted effort to understand and critique as well as to influence and produce innovative media for international affairs first emerged from Watson's Information Technology, War and Peace Project, founded in 2001 by James Der Derian with the generous support of the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The InfoTechWarPeace project laid the groundwork for GMP with its early development of videoconferencing, web-based information interventions, discussion forums, MP3 file-sharing, and videostreaming of events (see www.infopeace.org). In collaboration with Udris Film, the project also produced two documentaries, VirtualY2K (distributed through the Media Education Foundation) and After 9/11 (broadcast on LinkTV), that have been screened internationally and gained global audiences. Seeking broader scope and and increased impact, James Der Derian and John Phillip Santos, a writer, producer, and filmmaker, co-founded the Global Media Project in 2005. In a brief five years the project produced a popular undergraduate course, 'Global Media: History/Theory/Production'; a film series that included prominent documentary filmmakers; a lecture and seminar series on global media; short documentaries based on pressing global issues and the research of Watson faculty; and two feature-length documentaries Human Terrain and Virtual JFK. The project also supports and houses the popular radio- and web-based show, Open Source, hosted by Christopher Lydon. GMP has been supported by the Ford Foundation and is currently funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which recently awarded the project a new grant, 'Global Engagement through Innovative Media'.
