1989 witnessed the initial rumblings of the transnationalization of the entire media sector. Media merged across industries, forming huge behemoths combining radio, cable, satellite, new media, film, video, theatres. The word synergy served to camouflage conglomeratization without regulatory controls. Sony, the Japanese hardware producer known for creating the Walkman, bought Columbia Studios. Warner Bros. And on and on.
Work is reengineered, downsized, deskilled, part-timed, degraded and sped up.
It declaws identities into market segments, devouring multiculturalism as an insidious advertising strategy. 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.