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This chapter examines the decline and possible renewal of Comparative Communication as an academic field, situating it within debates on dependency, imperialism, and the world-system. Initially linked to the U.S.-sponsored project of “communication for development,” Comparative Communication in Latin America was intended to consolidate modernization-oriented media systems that reinforced social stratification. Yet, in the 1960s and 1970s, Latin American scholars reframed the field through a critical lens shaped by theories of dependency and imperialism, culminating in significant contributions to UNESCO’s discussions on a New World Information and Communication Order. Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory is a key reference for comparative approaches. By proposing the world-system, rather than nation-states, as the unit of analysis, Wallerstein emphasized the encompassing nature of capitalist dynamics and their hierarchical organization into center, semiperiphery, and periphery. However, his structuralist orientation flattens contradictions, reducing culture to an “ideological battleground” where systemic struggles are merely reflected. In contrast, Ruy Mauro Marini’s concept of subimperialism, developed to interpret Brazil under military rule, highlights the coexistence of dependence and regional expansion. Subimperialism explains how a dependent economy can exercise domination over others playing a role in the imperialistic process of value transfer. This dialectical approach foregrounds contradiction as the motor of history, offering richer possibilities for comparative analysis. The notion of media subimperialism extends Marini’s framework to communication systems. This perspective recognizes media not merely as ideological battlegrounds but as active, material institutions that shape and reproduce dependency relations. The chapter concludes by underscoring the resurgence of nationalism and classical imperialist strategies in the current crisis of global capitalism. Against earlier claims about the erosion of nation-states, it argues for a research agenda based on dialectical comparativism, capable of grasping the contradictory roles of media in sustaining or contesting imperialism and subimperialism today.

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Media Subimperialism and the Limits of the Notion of Culture in World-System Theory

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Manoel D. Bastos

摘要

This chapter examines the decline and possible renewal of Comparative Communication as an academic field, situating it within debates on dependency, imperialism, and the world-system. Initially linked to the U.S.-sponsored project of “communication for development,” Comparative Communication in Latin America was intended to consolidate modernization-oriented media systems that reinforced social stratification. Yet, in the 1960s and 1970s, Latin American scholars reframed the field through a critical lens shaped by theories of dependency and imperialism, culminating in significant contributions to UNESCO’s discussions on a New World Information and Communication Order. Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory is a key reference for comparative approaches. By proposing the world-system, rather than nation-states, as the unit of analysis, Wallerstein emphasized the encompassing nature of capitalist dynamics and their hierarchical organization into center, semiperiphery, and periphery. However, his structuralist orientation flattens contradictions, reducing culture to an “ideological battleground” where systemic struggles are merely reflected. In contrast, Ruy Mauro Marini’s concept of subimperialism, developed to interpret Brazil under military rule, highlights the coexistence of dependence and regional expansion. Subimperialism explains how a dependent economy can exercise domination over others playing a role in the imperialistic process of value transfer. This dialectical approach foregrounds contradiction as the motor of history, offering richer possibilities for comparative analysis. The notion of media subimperialism extends Marini’s framework to communication systems. This perspective recognizes media not merely as ideological battlegrounds but as active, material institutions that shape and reproduce dependency relations. The chapter concludes by underscoring the resurgence of nationalism and classical imperialist strategies in the current crisis of global capitalism. Against earlier claims about the erosion of nation-states, it argues for a research agenda based on dialectical comparativism, capable of grasping the contradictory roles of media in sustaining or contesting imperialism and subimperialism today.