1989 marked a pivotal year in this accelerated restructuring of the media universe and the global downsizing of media democracy. The student protests in Tiananmen Square advocating democracy and free speech also demonstrated the political power of low-end accessible technologies like the internet, fax, and camcorders to create global alliances. The fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and Perestroika in the former Soviet Union presumably opened up the East to democracy. But ultimately, these momentous events unlocked the former Eastern bloc for Hollywood action adventure films, multiplexing, and the demise of national cinemas. By 1997, this unregulated media concentration across national borders heralds the most intensive cross-media merger activity in history.
Competition is now obsolete.
They span every continent and deploy nearly every available media technology. They embody the new 21st century versions of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, always subsuming new territory. 1989 also featured one of the most vitriolic, hateful attacks against the National Endowment for the Arts for funding the posthumous Robert Mapplethorpe photographic exhibition. The Mapplethorpe episode underscored the depth of the right's offensive against sexuality and difference. Yet this infamous, heartbreaking case which put a curator on trial and mobilized demonstrations in front of art museums was unfortunately a harbinger of the future.