Introduction
In the beginning, Planet Earth had only one satellite, a
natural one called the Moon. Then we added another one in 1957
and called it Sputnik. From that time on, we continue launching
satellites. We eagerly started using satellite broadcasting from
1980s, called "the golden age of television." Today,
communication satellites, which encircle the globe performing
countless telecommunication task.
This great progress of the satellite broadcasting brings the
breaking down of existing rules and common knowledge of the usual
ground broadcasting. The satellite broadcasting goes over the
oceans and across borders. We start to face problems concerning
with cultural issues, national issues and so on. Yet, though
there are problems, we have never stopped watching the satellite
broadcasting. The growth of satellite broadcasting is too fast to
stop. It can also be said that we must not stop, the satellite
broadcasting for our individual right to know. As a result for
using the individual right to know, people in East Europe could
catch democracy in their countries.
In this paper, we would like to face the problems that the age
of the satellite broadcasting brought to us, mainly about the
problem of the gap between developed and developing countries. We
try to show the necessity of satellite broadcasting for
democracy, citing the examples of East European countries and
Soviet Union. For making this research clear, we divide this
paper into five parts.
In the first part, we will write about the technological
progress of satellite broadcasting. We make it clear why and how
the satellite broadcasting crosses over borders. We will put in
this part more information about the diffusion of television, the
number of parabolic antenna or the audience rate.
In Part 2, we cite some concrete examples of Part 1. East
European countries and Soviet Union, which had been influenced by
the satellite broadcasting, are mainly talked about in this
part.
Next, in Part 3, we consider other countries or areas that do
not succeed in practical use of the satellite broadcasting. We
cite the problems lying there.
In Part 4, we discuss the solution of the problems cited in
the above part. The problem of lacking balance of quality and
quantity of mutual communication will be solved by technological
contribution. The solution for the erosion of cultural or
political independence and identity brought by thinking great
deal of the right to know.
In Part 5, we think about the balance of the individual right
to know and national right, considering which is more important,
individual issues or national issues.
At last, in our Conclusion, we explore the potential of Japan.
Japan is in Asia, which has various nations, developing and
developed, capitalism and communism, socialism, and democracy,
and so on. Japan is one of the most developed countries and has
possibility to become a leader in Asia and even in the world.
Therefore, it is useful for this theme to consider Japan.
Part 1
As we mentioned above, we write about a brief summary of
broadcasting satellite in this part. We would like you to
understand why we take this topic by explaining the big power of
satellite broadcasting.
In satellite communication, "the technique basically involves
transmitting signals from an Earth station to an orbiting
satellite. The equipment aboard the satellite receives these
signals, amplifies them, and transmits them to a region of the
Earth" (Britannica 28: 504). Such artificial satellites are
moving in the orbit 36,000km above the equator at a speed of I
1,000km/h; that is "maintaining the same point above the Earth"
(Britannica 10: 466), and called a synchronous communication
satellite because it looks not to move from the Earth (Smith
164)
By this structure, receiving the electric wave from a height
of 36,000km using parabolic antennas, people came to get
information usually and steadily. People who live in islands or
woods also came to be able to watch TV easily (Smith 174). For
example, the Telesat system in Canada provides communication to
the sparsely populated regions as well as to the nation's urban
areas, and Indonesia's Palapa system covers some 3,000 islands
(Britannica 10: 488). Satellite broadcasting is also useful in
urban areas because high-rise buildings do not interfere with the
reception of the electric waves that come from a height of
36,000km (Shiga 136).
In this age of internationalization, the most important merit
of a broadcasting satellite is the ability of covering a wide
area. Now we should not think only about our own nation. We must
think of our region and whole our world. In this situation,
broadcasting satellite shows the real ability fully. According to
an opinion, using three satellites we can cover the entire world;
that is, we separate the world into three parts --- into European
area, American and Canadian area, and Asian Pacific area (Shiga
138). Within these regions any station can pick the same signals,
and then we can create communication links (Britannica 28 504).
Especially in Europe, to build a common market that is not
divided by borders, satellite broadcasting will be well used over
borders (Shiga 167). In Europe, 1993, they used 20 broadcasting
satellites (and communication satellites) and broadcast 89 TV
channels (Smith 182). In Asian bloc, the movement of launching
broadcasting satellites was behind that of European countries,
but the appearance of Star TV in 1991 is changing the situation
(Shiga 168).
Satellite broadcasting has great power, and people are easily
influenced by what TV shows. The influence of TV will be stronger
than ever. We must think of what kind of problem arises in
international broadcasting.
Part 2
Next, we cite a concrete example that shows the influence of
broadcasting satellite. In the latter half of 20th century, it
worked as a power of dismantling the East bloc.
It was in 1965 that the East European socialist countries
started to have relation officially through media to the West
European democratic countries. In that year Euro-vision (the West
network of changing TV programs) and Inter-vision (the East
network of that) were connected with each other at Belgium. In
1979, the East and the West connected each of their
communications satellite networks. Using this connected network,
the East European people became to be able to come in contact
with the life of the Western countries. However, the programs
which were broadcast in the East Europe using these networks were
only ones the socialist government permitted to broadcast- in
other words, the programs which would have bad effect on the
present socialist system were not broadcast Maybe it was because
the Soviet Union, the leader of the socialist countries, still
kept a great influence on the East European countries in spite of
the power becoming weak.
The true liberalization of information in East European
countries did not start in their own countries. As they were
called satellite states, they were under the strong domination of
the Soviet Union. These countries (East European countries and
the Soviet Union) were strongly connected, with each other
economically and politically in the communist bloc, and the
movement of liberalization of information in East Europe started
under the influence of administrative reforms in the Soviet
Union.
It was after the big accident of a nuclear power plant that
Glasnost was started in earnest. Glasnost means 'information
disclosure', and that was one of the means to gain the success of
Perestroika for Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union (Uta
28). James Lull said in his book that in China television was
used to give the people an education to make them true socialists
(Lull 30). The same was in the Soviet Union and the East European
countries. Before the reforms, the purpose of media for the
socialism was the only propaganda and agitatsiya (agitation).
That is, the function of media was to inform the people of policy
which government decided, persuade them, and make them support
their policy (Uta 54). All of the information which was not
suited to this purpose were eliminated, both information inside
and outside of the communist bloc. It is really different from
that of democratic society. It was not the system to report a
fact or discuss a program. At the same time, the socialist
government must build an invisible wall to block information
coming from the outside of their territory over the borders.
Governments forbade the nations to receive the electric wave
coming from foreign countries and blocked it by jamming (Kawatake
12).
Gorbachev felt the need of changing this situation. When he
got a position as the leader of the Soviet Union, contradiction
between the reports and the actual life was apparent for all
people. He thought that government must acknowledge the present
condition and the faults of socialistic countries and make an
effort to make the socialist system work normally. Glasnost was a
way to improve the socialistic society by throwing away the false
vision spread by the socialist government and recognizing reality
(Uta 10).
Everyone knows that this reformation went to the direction
that no one expected. Rapidly the people who touched the new
opinions and thoughts which were basically against the
establishment changed their minds (Uta 20). The East Europeans
would not be exception because they touched the democratic
societies through the networks though that was only partially.
They must have become to demand more information through networks
without the pressure from the leader of the socialist countries.
Some people in the East Germany received the programs of West
Germany, and the Czechoslovaks and the Hungarian received that of
Austria (Kawataka 18). In addition to that, in Czechoslovakia,
people received the satellite broadcasting of West Europe. It is
said that using that they watched CNN, Eurosports or Skynews.
Through the communication satellites of the West, they caught
more than 30 TV channels (Mkanfi 73). We can easily guess the
influence of such channels that exerted on the East people.
Part 3
As mentioned above, we can see the revolutionary movement in
recent years was the result of the technological progress of
broadcasting. For us, people in a democratic state, cases in the
Soviet Union and East Europe seem to be good. The movements were
helped by overseas broadcast, so those cases are so-called the
fruits of electric waves crossing the Iron Curtain (NHK 12). Such
"fruits" were successful result; on the other hand there are some
examples which show the minus side of broadcast crossing over
borders (Time 48). In this part, we are to describe problems
caused by overseas electric waves.
There are many countries in this world, and most of them are
holding many problems about overseas broadcast. Especially seeing
the relationship between developed and developing countries, we
will find two large points of issue.
When people use the word, "the North-South problem," it means
the economic gap between rich and poor nations. Of course, a big
gap of technological progress of broadcasting between North and
South exists. Only rich countries can launch satellites, and the
others are just made to receive information from developed
countries. Today, this one-sided flow of information has caused
two issues; one is the problem of inclined information, and
another is erosion of cultural and political independence and
identity (Yamada 35).
First, we describe about bias in information. For example,
when we are asked, "Please remember a piece of recent news of
developing countries," what kind of news will be recalled? Coup
d'etats, strikes, wars, rebellions, natural disasters -- it is
expected that most people in developed countries think of some
negative news. For people in developing countries, such a
negative image cannot be accepted. It is a fact that in rich
nations there is little information that impresses people with
the positive image of poor countries. Naturally people tend to
become interested in others' misfortune, so news senders are fond
of reporting negative news. Developing countries hate this
situation. Media in developed countries merely feature positive
topics that the governments of developing countries hope, for
example, report of the fruits of development or something. As
negative news is to make a sensation much easily compared with
positive news, news senders tend to be partial. Such a situation
as just developed countries have the right to choose news
impressing negative image of poor countries is blamed by
developing countries (Yamada 183).
Then we describe about erosion of cultural and political
independence and identity. This problem is not involved by only
the North-South problem. For example, in the revolutionary
movement in East Europe, people in Eastern bloc had gotten
entertaining programs of the Western bloc and envied them. As we
have mentioned above, it is sure that such want made people in
socialism pursue capitalism. However, can we say the movement was
right? To people and governments in Western bloc, democratization
is the right thing, so those phenomenon in socialist states were
thought to be all right. On the other hand, for governments of
Eastern Europe countries, electric waves from Western bloc were
harmful, because it played an important part to collapse their
national ideology. As another example, we think of what satellite
broadcasting for merchant in Western bloc who seeks to get
audience rating may drive away the boring but good quality
programs in Eastern and Southern countries. To developing
countries, the right to inform and be informed true objective
news is actually denied. Worldwide inequality of means of ability
for communication has caused, so-called, the colonial
relationship. This kind of relation makes it difficult for
developing countries to make their own progress. Overseas
broadcasting works to strengthen such interdependent relation
(Uchikawa 81).
From these considerations, we should know that over crossing
broadcasting holds not only successful points but also
failures.
Part 4
As we stated above, the pluses and minuses of broadcasting
from foreign countries are evenly balanced. For some countries,
it has been the cornerstone of democratization, and on the other
hand, it has made the gap between Southern and Northern countries
become wider. Now, in this part, we will try to give some
suggestion for demerit of international broadcasting.
First, we are going to seek the solution to problem about a
bias in information. As we referred in the previous part, it
seems to be clear that developed countries tend to report
negative news in developing countries. This fact shows that
Western capitalistic countries deal with information as
commodities. However, it is inevitable for TV stations in
capitalistic states to be greedy to improve the audience ratings
in order that the senders can survive, because in capitalistic
states there is cutthroat competition in this industry. If
developing countries let such overseas information flown into and
hope to get objective news that is not reported from the view of
developed countries, they need to send news by themselves. To be
concrete, they should try to promote news agencies and
journalists. As another example, we think it is good that each
developing countries joins forces and launches satellites to
maintain communication without intervention by developed country,
In fact, from 1970s, Yugoslavia and some other nations have tried
to realize such a plan to transmit and receive news without
concern of former suzerain states in the colonial period. At the
project, the problem was that they wanted for advanced
technology. In order not to cause new domination, aid from
advanced countries should not be expected. We hope for
technological progress in developing countries.
Then, we are going to think about the fear that overseas
electric waves may erode culture and policy of the receiver. When
we see the revolutionary movement in East Europe, it is sure that
broadcasting from foreign countries changed national ideology. As
another example, American movies might be so interesting that the
audience rating of educational program in the other nations. A
reader of Time says like this: "the communicational revolution
may advance the cause of democracy, infuse the Third World with
Western values and haste the demise of odious authoritarian
regimes, but at an incalculable barriers" (Time 5). It is an
inevitable fact that overseas broadcasting programs affect our
politics, culture and so on.
However we think there is no reason for denying globalization
by electric waves crossing the borders. The journalists who
observed and reported revolution in East Europe and the case at
Tianamen say as following; The roles of media varies with the
countries, but in every country development of technology for
telecommunication (for example, electric waves of TV and radio,
videos) has made people to observe autocracy and save their
energy to break through such a political system (NHK 12). The
people who had been in ideological fetters and oppressed by
dictatorship were driven for the purpose of getting a way of
living as a human. The wish was caused by information coming from
abroad and telling the gap of standard of living between
foreigners' and their own (NHK 305).
People would like to move toward the reality reported by
overseas broadcasting that was made to be possible by
technological innovation. We believe that it is wrong to reject
foreign broadcasts in order to protect politics and culture in a
nation. Everyone has the right to inform and the right to be
informed. The right to communicate is basic civil liberties
announced in the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. It seems to
be nonsense to manage to protect national politics and culture
with ignoring human rights.
As mentioned above, there has been biased information given
about developing countries and the progress of technology,
particularly about how technology can solve economic problems. On
the other hand, when we think about erosion of cultural and
political independence and identity, overseas broadcasting will
never be seen as a problem, because people have their own rights
which should not be infringed.
Crossover broadcasting has changed the world. "In this age of
information, the concept of border is going to be dismissed.
People are to have their sense of values as earthians, not as
nationalists. " (Yoshizaki 244). What we need is the view of
earthians, we think.
Part 5
In the upper part, we cited some solution for the problems
that the satellite broadcasting has. Now you see, with our way
for solution, the satellite broadcasting becomes available for
people all over the world. Wide diffusion of technology lets
people get any information as they want. We also said that our
individual right as earthians should be taken precedence. In this
fifth part, we will reconsider that the individual issue as
earthians should be more important than the nation issue.
According to Keller (219), the rule by media managers and
political handlers will continue. However, we want throw a
question for this present and future situation by considering the
words of two historical men.
First, Frantz Fanon said, "A community will evolve only when a
people control their own communications" (Howell 179). Next, Max
Weber wrote in his book that "The question is: How are freedom
and democracy in the long run possible at all under the
domination of highly developed capitalism? Freedom and democracy
are only possible where the resolute will of a nation not to
allow itself to be ruled like sheep is permanently alive. We are
individualist and partisans of 'democratic' institutions 'against
the stream' of material constellations" (Keller 219).
From above saying by Frantz Fanon, we know that for good
management of a society, we need rules, and there would be people
who compromise against their wills. As Max Weber said, a society
is nothing but a group of individuals. The headmost of a society
is not a president, a government, the society itself, but each of
the individuals. The aim of society is happiness of individuals.
A society should esteem individual wills. Keller, in his book,
was anxious about that "Control of television by powerful groups
ensures that certain issues will not be articulated" (180).
National issue is made from individual issue. We are so
determined to manager the nation that we lack point of view to
consider the voice of individuals (Okamura 183).
We should protect our own individual right to know each other.
For the realization of democracy of a society and happiness of
individuals, we had better use cross over satellite broadcasting
with the solution that we cited in Part 4, as Keller said: "The
future of democracy thus depends upon the use of broadcast media.
Ultimately, then the struggle for a democratic communications
system is a struggle for democratic society" (222).
Conclusion
Now, we reach the conclusion. In this part, we want to
consider Japan. With watching the attitude of Japan towards the
satellite broadcasting, we want to search the way for worldwide
democracy. The reason why we choose Japan lies in the Japanese
potential through which we can see the great management of
economic and political field in Asia. Japan is obviously one of
most developed countries in Asia, and has big possibility to
become a leader in Asia and also in the world. It is helpful for
worldwide democracy with the satellite broadcasting to think
about Japan.
We said above that Japan is a developed country. However, this
can be said only in the economic and political field. Japan is a
developing country in the field of the satellite broadcasting.
How is Japan developing country in the field of the satellite
broadcasting? That does not rely on technology but on the
attitude towards global broadcasting with the thought of
democracy (Kurokawa 246). Technologically, Japan is the most
progressive country. By 1984, many nations had committed
themselves to communication satellite system. Japan is one of the
most active nations in satellite broadcasting. Japan sometimes
became a technological leader for launching the communication
satellites for the world (Howell 256). However, at the same time,
some foreign countries wondered why Japanese do not broadcast in
English for other nations in Asia (Shida 247). For long time,
Japan had been thought to broadcast only for Japanese. Japan is
afraid of the flow of information to other countries. Still now,
Japan is a developing country in the field of the satellite
broadcasting.
For Japan, the showing up of Star TV is shocking news. Star TV
makes Japan reconsider its attitude towards the satellite
broadcasting. In the summer of 1991, Star TV in Hong Kong started
satellite broadcasting. This enables Japan, keeping its mind on
only itself, to watch foreign TV programs with a few meters wide
parabolic antenna (Okamura 216). Not only Star TV but also no
less than 20 foreign broadcasters, for example, Intel Sat or
China Sat, reaches Japan. Now these broadcasts do not aim at
international communication. However, it is already the era of
international broadcasting (Okamura 225).
For this era, how does Japan become a leader of the satellite
broadcasting? Certainly, Japan lacks democratic thought as we
said in this part. However, only with democratic thought, we will
never succeed in international satellite broadcasting. Japan
happily has enough power economically and politically to realize
this system. More, in this era, Japan should fight its way
through not only with economic and political advance but also
with cultural extent to the world (Shida 248).
by Makiko Gotoh, Toshie
Hisanaka and Naomi Kohgo
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Howell, Jr. W.J. WorldBroadcasting in the Age of the
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1986
Douglas, Keller. Television and Crisis of Democracy.
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Kawatake, Kazuo. lbunkano Nakano Nippon (Nippon in the
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Kikuo, Yamada. Shin Kokusai Keizai Chitsujo no Kiso Kenkyu
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