A cultural approach to media imperialism: National identity in United States, British, Indian, and Pakistani media

The scholarship on media imperialism and subimperialism is dominated by a political economy perspective that focuses on transnational control of media markets. This chapter outlines a cultural studies approach that shifts attention to the media’s meaning-making agency in legitimising global relations of power—theorising media market control as a function of legitimised asymmetries. It draws upon the discourse analysis of media coverage of international aid in four nations—the United States, Britain, India, and Pakistan—over a 15-year period. The analysis suggests that while U.S. media construct the United States as a global hegemon, British, Indian, and Pakistani media not only acquiesce to U.S. hegemony but also construct their respective national identities as subordinate to the hegemon—Britain as a special ally, India as an emerging power, and Pakistan as an indispensable minion. Such identities, I argue, ordain the roles and responsibilities of these nations within a hierarchical order of international relations and constitute the rationale for each of them to maintain the order despite—or, perhaps, because of—its inherent injustices.