Value Sovereignty in the Era of Global Convergent Media

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With the onset of COVID-19 and the subsequent quarantine restrictions, the already considerable amount of time spent by people in front of screens (most often smartphone screens) has increased significantly. Basically the current socio-economic model could be characterized as an “attention economy” (Ray et al., 2020, p. 6) or “cognitive capitalism” (Nechaev & Belokonev, 2020, pp. 115—118), as people spend most of their working hours in front of the computer screens and other electronic devices, concentrated predominantly in megacities.

As of the end of 2020, most of the world’s media users’ time (at least 7 hours per day) is spent on digital devices (only 3 hours on TV) (Fig. 1). Of these 7 hours, almost 4.5 hours are spent not on the desktop computer but on mobile applications.

Therefore, the influence of social media on consumers is becoming almost limitless. The modern infomarket is not only and not even so much “about business” as it is about the “fourth estate”, as it establishes the most effective  tools for socializing modern society. In  turn,  the dissemination of social norms and values is crucial in shaping society and transmitting political attitudes as well as structuring the consumer market. The global media structures necessitate the regulation of the information space on national territory. However, due to the specific nature of the object of regulation, only the most powerful states can do this.

 

Fig. 1. Time spent on mainstream media
Source: (PWC, 2020, p. 13)

 

Problem Statement¹

In digital space sovereignty in its traditional sense (Agamben, 2011; Schmitt, 2005; Bartelson, 1995; Keohane, 2002; Krasner, 1999; Strange, 1996) is refracted through the prism of ‘network power,’ which is formed at several ontological levels (Fig. 2) (Zinovieva, 2022,  p. 9): 1—2 — basic (technological/ infrastructural, hardware), 3—4 — mid-level (software or service, software), and finally  5—7 — substantive or ideological (Yeli, 2017).

At a basic level, state sovereignty is limited by technological dependence on the network equipment used — mainly European (Nokia, Ericsson) or Chinese (Huawei, ZTE)^[2] as well as routers (American Cisco or Chinese Huawei).

As part of the “technological bipolarity” (USA — PRC), competing international Internet governance regimes are being formed (Degterev, Ramich & Piskunov, 2021; Zinovieva, 2015). The key role, especially in the US model, is played by powerful digital platforms that drive US information policy in the field (Danilin, 2020; Culpepper & Thelen, 2020).

The importance of data processing services exceeds the importance of software and technical infrastructure (“lower floors/levels,” see Fig. 2) (Zinovieva, 2019, p. 61), which leads to the development of the concept of “data sovereignty” (Nechaev & Belokonev, 2020,  p. 122). GAFAM’s “Big Cyber Five” (Google, Amazon, Facebook³, Apple as well as Microsoft) use powerful algorithms to promote ideologically “right” content and to conceal, remove and block “wrong” messages. In fact, it is about shaping the “global architecture for behavioural change” (Noor, 2020, p. 40) and “digital totalitarianism” (Nechaev & Belokonev, 2020, p. 120).

As part of strategies of establishing vertically integrated monopolies, global IT companies tend to focus on the strategically more important “upper floors” related to the creation and management of content, rather than hardware production. So, the Americans actually left the niche of 5G network equipment to European manufacturers. Another proof is Google’s unsuccessful purchase of hardware manufacturer Motorola: bought in 2012 for  USD 12.5 billion, a few years later sold for USD  2.9 billion.⁴ Amazon has transformed from a global e-commerce platform into a leading provider of cloud storage and public-cloud computing.⁵ In other words, in global business it is more profitable to focus on the storage, processing and use of data.

Fig. 2. The Information Security Threat Pyramid
Source: Roskomnadzor. URL: https://rkn.gov.ru/docs/ugrozy.-piramida.-new-04.02.2021.jpg (accessed: 17.02.2022).

Regarding the substantive level of the problem of information sovereignty, local rules regulating the activity of global media holdings to preserve national values are grouped by a number of experts into communication regimes (Gasumyanov & Komleva, 2020). Recently, a number of publications dealing specifically with digital sovereignty have appeared (Volodenkov et al., 2021; Zinovieva, 2022; Cuihong Cai, 2020; Lewis, 2020; Pohle & Thiel, 2020; Couture & Toupin, 2020). A rather original approach in this context is offered by  S.N. Fedorchenko, who transfers the main concepts of V.L. Tsymbursky’s intellectual heritage to the digital space (Fedorchenko, 2021).

It is noteworthy that in Russia the original broad concept of “information security” (the term “cybersecurity” is more commonly used globally), which previously included both the protection of network infrastructure and personal data as well as the value component, has now been split into two parts: “information security” in the narrow sense (paragraphs 48—57 of the National Security Strategy) and “protection of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, culture and historical memory” (paragraphs  84—93).⁶ The second part is about “value sovereignty” in an interpretation that is close to that of the Russian philosopher and social activist A.V. Shchipkov.⁷ It seems that the second (humanitarian) part is often even more complex than ensuring information (technical) security itself, including the introduction of clear requirements to localize the content of major social networks in the Russian Federation in the context of protecting the personal data of Russians.

Given Russia’s traditionally strong connection with European and wider Western culture (unlike, for example, China), the question arises as to what negative elements of the modern value agenda of the collective West are at odds with the civilizational identity of the Russian Federation. The first steps in this direction have already been taken. For example, prof. A.V. Lukin (Higher School of Economics) has made a clear deconstruction of the main elements of the “new ethics” (Lukin, 2021).

In addition to the difficulty of meaningfully singling out negative content, there is also the question of the main channels of dissemination. For example, regulating content on established social networks and messengers has become a well-established practice. However, how to regulate the distribution of content on the territory of the Russian Federation, for example, from Clubhouse, a social network of voice messages launched in 2020? Or Pinterest, which promotes visual infographics, some of which openly hostilely reflects Russian history and modernity? What to do with Netflix? For every new channel of information (and socialization) already regulated by Roskomnadzor, alternatives emerge. To some extent, in the realm of values, it is a classic “security dilemma” (“the better the shield, the stronger the sword” and vice versa) (Degterev, 2017, p. 185).

The author attempts to formulate the basic principles for ensuring value sovereignty in the information space in the context of the digital economy. The author gives an account of the versatility of information sovereignty as an object of study, and value sovereignty in particular, as the subject of this article. The author’s analysis of the numerous determinants of sovereignty may seem somewhat eclectic, which is typical for assessing multifactorial processes (for example, D. Dunning’s eclectic paradigm of international production). Digital sovereignty, as a result of the impact of these determinants, is called by a number of authors an emergent property of the state, which is inherent in complex social systems (Volodenkov et al., 2021).

At the first stage (section “Political Economy of Value Sovereignty”), the very concept of value sovereignty is being rethought in the framework of ensuring social welfare. The main socialization mechanisms of the individual as he or she grows up in a converged media environment are then shown (section “Socialization in Convergence”). The dominance of Western media in the global media landscape is revealed (section “Structural Power of the West in the Communication Sphere”). The balance of power in information space and the cyber-strategies (“techno-nationalism”) of the great powers to ensure their digital sovereignty are explored (section “Multipolarity in the Network Space”). The final section provides some final ideas on value regulation in the information space.

Political Economy of Value Sovereignty

The use of ICT is linked to the provision of information services, a large proportion of which are “services aimed at the human mind”  (Table 1, shaded field).

A feature of the process of providing this type of service is the intangible nature of the action, as well as the need to “penetrate a person’s consciousness, shape his or her attitudes and influence behavior.” This  creates  a  kind of psychological dependency on the service provider and opportunities for manipulation, which necessitates the introduction of certain ethical standards (Lovelock, 2005, p. 81—82).

Table 1. Service Classification

Who or what is the direct object of the service?
Nature of action	People	Property objects
Tangible actions	Services aimed at people -    Passenger transport, hotels -    Health care, beauty salons, physiotherapy, sports clubs -    Restaurants, bars -    Barbershop -    Funeral services	Services aimed at physical facilities -    Cargo transport -    Repair and maintenance -    Warehouse storage -    Retail trade -    Laundry and dry cleaning -    Petrol station -    Improvement, waste, cleaning up
Intangible actions	Services aimed at human consciousness -    Advertising, PR -    Arts and Entertainment -    Television, communications -    Consulting Services, Education -    Information Services -    Music concerts -    Psychotherapy, Religion	Services based on information processing -    Accountancy, banks -    Data processing and transmission -    Insurance, legal services -    Programming and software advice Research -    Securities transactions

Source: (Lovelock, 2005, p. 79).

It is often a question of using the Internet for political purposes to shape the collective self-consciousness (‘collective subconscious’) of users (Zinovieva, 2019, p. 61). The ability to influence the minds of millions of people relatively easily leads to the securitization of this space.

Indeed, information wars are becoming widespread. The world’s leading powers are creating their own cyber forces to target the minds of other nations, especially young people (Akhmadeev, Bresler & Manoilo, 2021).

The Arab Spring and the color revolutions show that the use of global social media brings significant political risks in addition to economic benefits (Lewis, 2020, p. 67). There are also other political effects of the digital economy, linked to the redistribution of opportunities for influence between political actors (Nechaev & Belokonev, 2020, p.114—115).

The values promoted in the national media space also have a direct impact on socio-economic welfare. The value impact on the utility function of the consumers of a given state ultimately determines the structure of consumer demand and imports (Degterev, 2014, pp. 234—245). For states with large domestic markets (including Russia), this makes it possible to create or, on the contrary, make unprofitable national industries with an annual turnover of tens of billions of US dollars.

The values agenda ultimately determines the prioritization of strategic planning objectives. In this context, it is a question of cognitive sovereignty, allowing to “separate what you really need from what is imposed on you by others.”⁸

On the one hand, information services are an example of the normal business practice of providing commercial information. On the other hand, these market transactions often have a significant impact on third parties, which is not adequately reflected in the prices for these services. In economic science, this phenomenon is called external effects (externalities) (Fisher, Dornbusch & Schmalenzie, 1995, p. 236). The most well-known negative externalities are those associated with the location of environmentally polluting industries. The owners of the factories receive inflated profits, while society suffers net losses due to pollution and the deterioration of public health. Accordingly, the task of the state is to make it unprofitable to locate such harmful industries and to impose green technologies on their owners.

In the field of information, a number of experts are also developing the problem of externalities (Manokhin, 2010). Indeed, if a purely commercial service (such as a paid subscription to an international information resource) discredits an incumbent government or major national producers, the welfare of the state in question, and the majority of its citizens, is significantly diminished. There is a net loss to society, not mediated by the market, or negative externalities.

Accordingly, the task of the state as regulator is to “separate the wheat from the chaff” — to open markets to business and close them to politics (Lewis, 2020, p. 71). Chinese regulators have been most successful in this regard. On the one hand, China has seen an explosion in the popularity of streaming bloggers, with billions of dollars’ worth of goods being sold in a single online session. On the other hand, the activities of such influencers are strictly regulated and do not involve the dissemination of norms and values that are negative for society.⁹

Unlike environmental externalities, which reduce the welfare of all inhabitants of the planet, informational externalities tend to reduce the welfare of one society but simultaneously increase the profits of another. For example, the introduction of a fashion for “overseas goods” reduces the comparative usefulness of domestic goods and the welfare of local producers, but increases sales and profits of “overseas” companies. Consequently, the latter are tempted to influence the minds of the inhabitants of other countries in a neo-colonial manner.

The channels for this are plentiful. Virtually any of the services directed at the human mind (see Table 1) are intangible (and therefore difficult to control) and can quite easily be associated with negative informational externalities. In addition to TV, radio and other purely informational services, a negative image of one’s country and its businesses can be shaped indirectly through the education and public science systems, art and film, music, NGOs and religious organizations.

The obvious negative informational externalities are mitigated through the introduction of appropriate “rules of the game.” For example, Russia established a list of foreign and international NGOs whose activities are considered undesirable¹⁰ and a special regulation of educational activities outside the official educational programs.¹¹

However, the regulation of the value component itself, which is reflected, for example, in culture and art, the media and the social sciences, is a much more difficult task. What is the proportion of artistic or authorial intent (including allegorical) and what is the negative value proportion in an article or work of art? It is even more difficult to determine these shares in the royalties received for a given piece of work. While a number of affiliate programs for video bloggers (such as those by Yoola¹²) involve obvious negative information externalities for Russia, in other cases the monetization of anti-Russian content is not as explicit and is set up through the social media algorithms already mentioned.

It is no coincidence that the “Foundations of the State Policy for the Preservation and Strengthening of Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values” ​​are being carefully prepared in Russia. A draft law based on the results of a public review conducted in early 2022 is being finalized.¹³ Many similar rules have long been introduced in the PRC, as well as in the EU. For instance, since 2015, the EUvsDisinfo project “to combat Russian disinformation campaigns” affecting the EU, member states and neighbouring countries has been operating under the aegis of the European External Action Service (“the European Foreign Office”).¹⁴ Individual publications in 15 languages disseminating a pro-Russian narrative are monitored. The authors and publishers printing these articles are tracked.

In establishing value sovereignty, a number of actors have traditionally advocated the preservation of previous neo-colonial patterns, often justifying this by the costliness of measures to establish an effective system for regulating negative information externalities. For example, in Russia this was most evident in the implementation of the provisions of the “Yarovaya Package” on the retention of personal data.¹⁵ Indeed, for individual companies or even industries, the cost of establishing digital and value sovereignty could be quite high.

However, the net gain for society as a whole is much larger. In the Russian case, it is hundreds of billions of dollars annually. But only a strong (both economically and technologically) state can afford this regulation.

Socialization in Convergence

The individual’s socialization process consists of several stages (Fig. 3). Primary socialization takes place in childhood (up to the age of 9 years), adolescence (from 9 to 15 years old) and youth (from 16 to 18 years), with 70% of the individual’s personality already formed in childhood. Secondary socialization takes place during adulthood (from 18 to 50 years) and beyond.¹⁶

There are different institutions of socialization (Table 2), with their relative importance changing over time. The ‘newer media’ associated with digital services — messengers (Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber), TikTok and podcasts are playing an increasingly important role.

Different generations (according to the adapted Strauss-Howe’s classification (Strauss & Howe, 1997)) — the “zoomers” or “homelanders” (born after 2003), “millenials” (born 1985—2002), “generation X” (born 1964—1984) and “baby boomers” (born  1944—1963)¹⁷ have different preferences for the main channels of socialization (Fig. 4).

Fig. 3. The Main Stages of the Socialization Process
Source: Mechanisms of personal socialization — what they are, types. URL: https://srazu.pro/socializacia/mexanizmy-socializacii-lichnosti.html (accessed: 17.02.2022).

Table 2. Major Socialization Institutes

Traditional institutions	Traditional media	New media	Newest media
-    family -    religion -    school	-    TV -    radio -    newspapers	-    social networks -    LiveJournal -    YouTube	-    messengers -    TikTok -    podcasts

Source: compiled by the author.

Thus, while the baby boomer generation (born 1944—1963) spent almost 7 hours a day watching TV and similar formats in 2016—2017, and almost 3 hours listening to AM/FM radio stations, this declines significantly thereafter. Generation X (born 1964—1984) already has 4 and 2 hours, generation Y (born 1985—2002) has 3 and 1.5 hours, and generation Z (born after 2003) only 2 and 1 hour, respectively. Behavioural patterns do not change much over time within the same generation, but differences across generations are significant. The Millennial generation has the most hours of Internet browsing on smartphones (up to 2.5 hours per day in 2017) (Turow, 2020).

Since primary socialization takes place at an early age, it affects predominantly Zoomers as well as Millennials, and is conducted in a way that takes into account the specific socialization institutions they use. These groups, socialized predominantly in cyberspace, are better adapted to the challenges of the digital economy than older, ‘analogue’ generations (Nechaev & Belokonev, 2020, p. 117). The effect of socialization is enhanced when several socialization institutions are used simultaneously (see Table 2), allowing information content to be consolidated in traditional ways. A successful project of this kind is ‘Film Lessons in Russia’s Schools,’  where  social   practices  based  on  the values depicted in the films are developed with the support of school teachers.¹⁸

Fig. 4. Average Time (in hours) Spent on Different Types of Media
Source: (Turow, 2020, p. 323).

Global media holdings are now involved in both online video, online advertising and online news, film production, TV, radio, publishing (newspapers, magazines, books), entertainment (video games) and, in the last couple of years, augmented (virtual) reality technology. The main thing is content, for the dissemination of which the most modern technologies and sales channels are used, primarily within the Internet. The key role is not played by official media, but mostly by popular bloggers, including children, within the framework of adopted E. Katz’s two-stage information flow theory (Katz, 1957).

The phenomenon of convergence associated with the ubiquity of ICT technologies and the formation of unified communications has become widespread in the media (Zinovieva, 2019, p. 61). This refers to Over the Top technology — i.e. the provision of video services in a digital format via the Internet, rather than through the usual TV broadcasting channel.

An analysis of the corporate structures of the world’s largest media holdings shows a  great degree of diversification of their assets. For example, the Walt Disney Company (ranked  4—5 globally), which specializes in socializing children, includes such diverse assets as the ABC television channel as well as ESPN, the ESPN network of radio stations as well as ESPN online services, the Walt Disney theme parks, the Hyperion Books publishing house and the animation studio (previously a major asset)  (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. Organizational Structure of the Walt Disney Media Group
Source: (Turow, 2020, p. 174).

Cross-cultural differences in socialization tools are related to the level of Internet penetration as well as the prevalence of major online applications. Since the level of distribution of personal computers in the Global South is extremely low, mobile phones are the main tool for accessing the Internet. In this context, of particular importance is whether mobile phones have sufficient functionality to use the Internet, including the convenient operation of basic online applications. In the Global South countries, the prevalence of smartphones (the most advanced phone models that allow for the widest possible use of most online services) is uneven (see Fig. 5): from 86% of the population in Lebanon to only 32% in India.¹⁹

The COVID-19 pandemic has also significantly affected the global media landscape by changing the channels of information distribution, actually accelerating the decline in the share of traditional media (Fig. 6). The revenues of print media and traditional TV channels, as well as cinema chains, are declining. The segment of virtual reality creation, the provision of video services via the Internet  (Over the Top, already mentioned), video games and e-sports is growing the most.

The podcast segment also attracts particular attention. This refers to the process of creating and distributing audio or video files in the style of radio and television programs on the Internet (close to the already outlined Over the Top format). During the pandemic, there has been steady growth in both the advertising audience and the number of listeners (Fig. 7).

The podcast service allows for maximum customization of the information product offered, leading to the formation of trans-territorial social and political movements that emerge on the basis of shared (and quite narrowly specialized) values and interests (Nechaev & Belokonev, 2020,  p. 119).

Structural Power of the West  in the Communication Sphere

In terms of international political economy, there is a discourse on the structural power of the “collective West” in the communication sphere, which can be conventionally classified (according to S. Strange) as one of the components of knowledge structure, the fourth structural power of the “first level” along with security, production, and finance (Strange, 1994, pp. 119—138). In fact, it is about global self-sustaining systems for the reproduction of Western social norms and values.

Fig. 6. Cumulative Average Annual Growth Rates in Major Segments of the Global Entertainment  and Media Industry for 2020
Source: (PWC, 2020, p. 14).

Fig. 7. Advertising Revenues and Audience for Podcasts, 2015—2024
Source: (PWC, 2020, p. 19).

Established under the auspices of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Internet (ARPA-net) was initially presented as “no man’s land,” a “common good”, and cyberspace was sought to be given “digital exclusivity” and declared beyond national borders (Zinovieva, 2022, pp. 8—13).

The dominance of the first social platforms from California (USA) in the digital economy and  Westerners  among  the  first  Internet  user soverlapped with the unipolar moment in world politics. So, American approaches to network regulation were not initially challenged. Moreover, while in 2009 there were almost two dozen social networks in the world which were national leaders in both Western and non-Western countries, subsequently almost all of them were supplanted by the US Facebook  (Fig. 8). The U.S. has even forced its allies to abandon their ambitions to have their own social networks, setting out to create technological hegemony and extract the associated super-rent (Cuihong Cai, 2020, p. 49).

Fig. 8. The World’s Leading Social Network by Country in June 2009 (left) and January 2022 (right)
Source: World Map of Social Networks. URL: http://vincos.it/world-map-of-social-networks/ (accessed: 17.02.2022).

Meanwhile, in most post-Soviet countries the Russian VKontakte (VK) leads the way, while in more traditional societies (Moldova, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) the Russian Odnoklassniki dominated for a long time. In China and Iran, Facebook is administratively banned. So, in China the QZone network (developed by the Chinese company Tencent, now QQ) has taken the first place, the WeChat messenger and the Weibo microblogging service have also become widespread. In Iran, another American social network Instagram (on March 21, 2022, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow satisfied a lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation and recognized the activity of the social network Instagram, owned by Meta, as extremist, banning its operation in Russia. — Editor’s note) has spread (in the absence of its own competitive applications).

American dominance in cyberspace is reinforced by the leadership of the Google search engine, which, according to a number of estimates, accounts for over 90% of all searches on the Internet. There are only a few countries where Google is not a monopoly, including Russia (sharing the lead with Yandex), China (dominated by Baidu), the US (just over 10% of the market is held by Bing (from Microsoft), Yahoo! and DuckDuckGo.²⁰

In fact, it is about a “monopoly on truth,” a global control of information and the information society, or the already mentioned digital totalitarianism. Indeed, 90% of the world’s internet users receive the answer to their search query that Google gives them, and are influenced by Facebook algorithms, as well as YouTube.

In the context of media convergence, social platforms have been integrated into large communication holdings, including both traditional media (newspapers, television) and new online media. Since 2007, the US communications agency ZenithOptimedia  has been ranking the largest owners of global media (Table 3), classifying them by advertising revenues. The last such ranking was published in 2017.

Table 3 shows that in 2013 rising powers were represented in the top 30 only by two Latin American TV channels. In 2015, the Chinese search engine Baidu and the Chinese television channel  CCTV   started  their   ascent.  In  2017, China’s Tencent Corporation, which supports the QQ and WeChat instant messaging services, was added to the ranks.

Table 3. Top 30 Global Media in 2013—2017

No.	2013		2015		2017
1	Google	USA	Google	USA	Alphabet (Google)	USA
2	DirectTV	USA	Walt Disney	USA	Facebook	USA
3	News Corp.	Australia	Comcast	USA	Comcast	USA
4	Walt Disney	USA	XXI Century Fox	USA	Baidu	PRC
5	Comcast	USA	CBS Corp.	USA	Walt Disney	USA
6	Time Warner	USA	Bertelsmann	Germany	XXI Century Fox	USA
7	Bertelsmann	Germany	Viacom	USA	CBS Corp.	USA
8	Cox Enterprises	USA	Time Warner	UK	iHeartMedia	USA
9	CBS Corp.	USA	News Corp.	Germany	Microsoft	USA
10	BSkyB	UK	Facebook	USA	Bertelsmann	Germany
11	Viacom	USA	Advance Publ.	USA	Viacom	USA
12	Vivendi	France	iHeartMedia	USA	Time Warner	USA
13	Advance Publ.	USA	Discovery	USA	Yahoo	USA
14	Clear Channel Com	USA	Baidu	PRC	Tencent	PRC
15	Yahoo!	USA	Gannett	USA	Hearst	USA
16	Gannett	USA	Asahi Shimbun Com	Japan	Advance Publications	USA
17	Globo	Brazil	Grupo Globo	Brazil	JCDecaux	France
18	Grupo Televisa	Mexico	Yahoo!	USA	News Corp.	USA
19	Fuji Media Hold.	Japan	Fuji Media	Japan	Grupo Globo	Brazil
20	Yomiuru Holdings	Japan	CCTV	PRC	CCTV	PRC
21	Axel Springer	Germany	Microsoft	USA	Verizon	USA
22	Mediaset	Italy	Hearst Corp.	USA	Mediaset	Italy
23	Hearst Corp.	USA	JCDecaux	France	Discovery	USA
24	JCDecaux	France	Yomiuru Hold.	Japan	TEGNA	USA
25	Asahi Shimbun Com	Japan	Mediaset	Italy	ITV	UK
26	Microsoft	USA	Axel Springer	Germany	ProSiebenSat	Germany
27	Facebook	USA	ITV plc	UK	Sinclair Broadcasting	USA
28	ProSiebenSat	Germany	ProSiebenSat	Germany	Axel Springer	Germany
29	ITV plc	UK	NTV	Canada	Scripps Networks Int	USA
30	Sanoma	Finland	Sanoma	Finland	Twitter	USA

Note: Rising powers figures are darkened.
Source: Chinese Companies Enter Top 30 Global Media Owners for First Time // ZenithOptimedia. May 6, 2014. URL: https://www.zenithmedia.com/chinese-companies-enter-top-30-global-media-owners-for-first-time/ (accessed: 13.06.2022); Here Are the World’s Top Earning Media Owners // Marketing-Interactive. May 11, 2015. URL https://www.marketing-interactive.com/top-30-earning-media-owners-globally (accessed: 13.06.2022); Google and Facebook Now Control 20% of Global Adspend // ZenithOptimedia. 2017. URL https://www.zenithusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Top-30-Global-Media-Owners-2017_Press-Release_US.pdf (accessed: 13.06.2022).

Since 2007, a similar rating of world media concerns has been prepared by the German Institute for Media and Communication Policy. In the 2020 ranking, China’s Tencent is in 4th place with revenues of 61 billion euros, 9th is ByteDance (the developer of the short message service TikTok) with 32 billion euros, 11th is Shanghai Media Group (28 billion euros) and 22nd is Baidu (14.3 billion euros).²¹

Besides the entertainment content, values are strongly influenced by the news and information agenda promoted by the world’s leading holdings, including in English,  which  is the language of international communication (Table 4).

Table 4. Top 10 News Media Companies in the English-speaking Environment in 2019

No.	Company	Country	Brands	Total income, USD billion	News/information business revenue,  USD billion
1	Alphabet	USA	Google, Google News, YouTube	161.9	150.0
2	Facebook	USA	Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp	70.7	69.7
3	Apple	USA	Apple News, Apple News+, Apple TV, Apple One	260.2	53.8
4	Walt Disney	USA	ESPN, National Geographic, ABC, Viceland	65.4	28.4
5	Comcast	USA	MSNBC, NBC Sky, Sky News	108.9	25.5
6	ViacomCBS	USA	CBS, Chanel 5, MTV	27.8	24.4
7	Netflix	USA	Netflix	20.2	20.2
8	Amazon	USA	Amazon Prime Video, Kindle, Audible, Twitch	280.5	19.2
9	ByteDance	PRC	TikTok	16.0	16.0
10	Microsoft	USA	MSN, LinkedIn	143.0	15.8

Source: Turvill W. The News 50: Tech Giants Dwarf Rupert Murdoch to Become the Biggest News Media Companies in the English-Speaking World // PressGazette. December 3, 2020. URL: https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/biggest-media-companies-world/ (accessed: 17.02.2022).

In addition to the overwhelming dominance of the US in this ranking (9 out of  10 companies), it is also worth noting the “convergent” nature of the key participants’ businesses, discussed in detail in the previous section (Ciasullo, Troisi & Cosimato, 2018). Thus, both social platforms (Alphabet, Facebook, ByteDance), cartoon and film makers (Walt Disney, Netflix), content distributors (Amazon), software and computer developers (Microsoft, Apple), and representatives  of the cable television industry (Comcast, ViacomCBS) act as providers of information and, therefore, of value content. They are all key actors in the global information society (Zinovieva, 2019, pp. 83—92), “forging” the structural power of the collective West in the media sphere.

Multipolarity in the Network Space

The Internet represents a new global political space (Bogaturov, 2011), whose governance regimes are at the stage of setting the agenda and the interaction of the main actors is in the process of bargaining (Zinovieva, 2019,  p. 36). There is an active construction of international legal regimes, and only part of the world actors (USA, China, the EU and Russia) can be classified as rule-makers (i.e. those who form the “rules of the game”), while the rest (“marginal majority”) are rule-takers. Thus, the same hierarchical system is being formed in cyberspace as in the traditional political space (Degterev, Ramich & Tsvyk, 2021, p. 215).

The legitimate efforts of nation-states to establish sovereignty in cyberspace were stigmatized in every way a few years ago.  For instance, in 2016, the Economist introduced the term “Balkanization of the Internet” (Zinovieva, 2022, p. 11), meaning that the formation of national segments of the  global network is akin to the uncontrolled  and bloody chaos of the collapse of Yugoslavia. The widespread term “techno-nationalism” (Cuihong Cai, 2020) should be considered in a similar vein — a coherent national information security policy has been equated almost to fascism.

However, despite the overwhelming superiority of the US, liberal cyberinterventionism gradually began to stall. China and Russia played a key role in  this by fostering multipolarity in the  information sphere.

In China, powerful Internet holdings — Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi (BATX) have been established, providing an effective alternative to GAFAM and challenging the informational structural power of the “collective West.” ByteDance is probably the biggest and most rapidly growing success of non-Western media companies to date, including in the Western media space. Its TikTok service is currently used by more than 2 billion people worldwide, with revenues reaching USD  58 billion in 2021,^[22] placing it at the top of the list of the world’s most popular media companies. The company’s success alarmed American media regulators, who began discussing the possibility of blocking the company in Western countries, and the company itself — the option of selling its US business to Oracle. But after D. Trump left, it changed the composition of key shareholders (a number of American funds entered) and managers, and continued to operate in the USA.²³

The PRC adopted the most developed rules for regulating the national Internet and implemented the “Strong Network State” strategy. The issues of ensuring information security and Internet sovereignty became national security priorities.²⁴ China was the first to demonstrate that the Western structural media power can be countered by consistent efforts to assert its information sovereignty, and that the “new ethics” is not an objective social reality, but the propaganda of pseudoscientific theories that can and should be fought against (Lukin, 2021). Having ensured its own value and, more broadly, information sovereignty, China took an active part in creating alternative rules of global Internet governance to those of the US (Degterev, Ramich & Piskunov, 2021).

In general, the Chinese strategy could be qualified as defensive techno-nationalism with independence and cooperation (emphasis on its own technological development), while the US strategy is called offensive techno-nationalism with unilateral hegemonism (Cuihong Cai, 2020). There is a direct analogy with two approaches of the realist paradigm — defensive approach by K. Waltz (emphasis on ensuring one’s own national security) and offensive  by J. Mearsheimer (maximization of one’s own power) (Mearsheimer, 2014).

At the first stage, the “collective West” presented the Chinese case as more of an aberration that the ‘free world’ was not supposed to follow. Russia did not initially impose strict restrictions on the use of global social  platforms. In free competition, Russian developers of social platforms VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Telegram and Internet services (Yandex, Ozon, etc.) competed with global companies on equal terms, thereby strengthening Russia’s informational sovereignty. P. Durov’s Telegram project has become the fastest-growing application in the world in 2021,²⁵ being a prototype of the structural power of the  non-Western communications industry. An increasing number of users in Russia, Asian and African countries, as well as in the West, including the US, choose this messenger  as an alternative to “conventional” Western products.

The Russian Federation participated actively in the development of international information security principles based on the sovereign equality within BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), initiated the UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) as well as the UN Open-ended Working  Group (OEWG) on ICT security for the period 2021—2025.

In the EU, a slightly different model of digital regulation and value promotion is emerging (Roberts et al., 2021; Burwell & Propp, 2020), which can be characterized as defensive techno-nationalism with multilateral cooperation (Cuihong Cai, 2020, p. 50—51).

Meanwhile, the number of Internet users in Asian and African countries, which had already become the majority, was gradually increasing. Naturally, the Western-centric narratives promoted online had little correspondence with the traditional values of the new users (Noor, 2020, p. 39).

However, the “last nail in the cap” of the “free Internet” was hammered by the Americans themselves, who imposed the strictest Internet censorship rules during the 2020 presidential election and blocked Donald Trump’s Twitter account.²⁶ The US authorities justified these measures by the need to combat disinformation to ensure the legitimacy of the election (Ray et al., 2020, p. 7). In other words, the same reason for establishing information security rules which are declared in non-Western countries.

As national regimes for information security and Internet sovereignty were formed, experts have increasingly noted a trend towards regionalization of the web (Zinovieva, 2019,  pp. 64—68) and formation of “technological islands.”²⁷ This process only accelerated after the aggravation of the situation in Ukraine in February 2022. Due to the unwillingness to block calls to violence against citizens of Russia and Belarus, Meta (social networks Facebook and Instagram) was declared extremist on  March 21, 2022, and its activities were banned in Russia.²⁸

This seems to be a reflection of a longer-term trend towards technological decoupling associated with the formation of a “new bipolarity,” the creation of closed loops of the “collective West” and the “collective non-West” (Degterev, Ramich & Tsvyk, 2021). These trends will only intensify, as the Ukrainian crisis is a local confrontation in the global “transit of power” (USA — China). The securitization of the information space, its use for military purposes to influence the enemy population will be suppressed by the main conflicting parties, which will lead to the formation of new information barriers.

Conclusion

In the modern digital age, the processes of convergence between traditional media (TV, radio, press) and new Internet media (social platforms, blogs, podcasts) have accelerated. The digital space greatly enhances the information impact, and its use becomes the main  mechanism for the socialization of the population. Under the current conditions, it is of critical importance to ensure information, including value sovereignty, which is a complex process that includes technological, software and content components.

 If in the early years of the development of the Internet, which fell on the unipolar moment, cyberspace was presented as “no man’s land” and “common good” (in fact, it was the hegemon’s monopoly), today the discourse on preventing the “Balkanization” of the Internet is no longer relevant. Most of the world’s leading powers have moved on to creating their own regimes for ensuring information sovereignty. In the current realities, there is a question of combining various global approaches to ensuring information security (Lewis, 2020, p. 65).

In the present conditions of the overwhelming dominance of the “collective West” in the global media space (communication structural force), non-Western countries use asymmetric strategies — national models of information content regulation, developing multipolarity in the network space. For example, the most developed (“three-stage”) model of regulation of social networks is developed  today in China.²⁹ Russia’s neighbors in the  post-Soviet space also use their own mechanisms for regulating content in social networks³⁰ and form their own communication regimes (Begalinova et al., 2021). In recent years, Russia has also worked out a number of issues related to the regulation of the media space, and value sovereignty is already considered as a separate area of ​​national security.

In the process of regulating the provision of information services, it is necessary to take into account the negative externalities that affect the structure of consumer demand, the political system and the goal-setting system in the country. Taking into account the legitimate requirements of the regulator creates the prerequisites for moving away from neo-colonial models of interaction between global IT holdings and the media environment of non-Western countries.

 

^{1 The issue of value-based sovereignty was addressed in the author’s earlier work, notably in an extensive expert commentary for RIAC, parts of which have been used in this article. See: Degterev D. A. The Diffusion of Social Norms and Values in a Post-pandemic World: From a Reactive to a Proactive Approach // RIAC [Дегтерев Д. А. Распространение социальных норм и ценностей  в постпандемийном мире: от реактивного  к проактивному подходу // РСМД]. February 2, 2022. (In Russian). URL: https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/analytics/rasprostranenie-sotsialnykh-norm-i-tsennostey-v-postpandemiynom-mire-ot-reaktivnogo-k-proaktivnomu-p/ (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{2 For more information, see: RUDN G2 Research Project. URL: https://g2.rudn.ru/ (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{3 On March 21, 2022, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow satisfied a lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation and recognized the activity of the social network Facebook, owned by Meta, as extremist, banning its operation in Russia.}

^{4 Martin R. Mergers and Acquisitions: Don’t Lose the Lottery [Мартин Р. Слияния и поглощения: не проиграть в лотерее] // Harvard Business Review Russia.  (In Russian). URL: https://hbr-russia.ru/management/ strategiya/a18140/ (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

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^{6 Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of July 2, 2021 No. 400 “On the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation” [Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 02.07.2021 г. № 400 «О Стратегии национальной безопасности Российской Федерации»] // President of Russia. (In Russian). URL: http://www.kremlin.ru/acts/bank/47046/ (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{7 Shchipkov Aleksandr: Russia Needs to Defend “Value Sovereignty” [Щипков Александр: России необходимо отстаивать «ценностный суверенитет»] // Moscow Patriarchate. October 12, 2021. (In Russian). URL: http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/5851896.html (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{8 Peskov D. “Island of Russia”. Special Representative of the President on the New Digital Strategy [Песков Д. «Остров Россия». Спецпредставитель президента о новой цифровой стратегии] // RBC. June 9, 2022.  (In Russian). URL: https://www.rbc.ru/opinions/economics/ 09/06/2022/62a0e95b9a79472d8b713207 (accessed: 10.06.2022).}

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^{10 List of Foreign and International Non-Governmental Organizations Whose Activities Are Recognized as Undesirable on the Territory of the Russian Federation [Перечень иностранных и международных неправительственных организаций, деятельность которых признана нежелательной на территории РФ] // Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. May 31, 2022.  (In Russian). URL: https://minjust.gov.ru/ru/documents/ 7756/ (accessed: 09.06.2022).}

^{11 Federal Law No. 85-FZ of April 5, 2021 “On Amendments to the Federal Law on Education in the Russian Federation” [Федеральный закон от 05.04.2021 № 85-ФЗ «О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон “Об образовании в Российской Федерации”»] // Official Internet Portal of Legal Information. April 5, 2021. (In Russian). URL: http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/ View/0001202104050036 (accessed: 09.06.2022).}

^{12 Morgenstern Named Foreign Agent for Political Activities and Collaboration with Yoola Labs  [Моргенштерна внесли в иноагенты за политическую деятельность и сотрудничество с Yoola Labs] // BFM.RU. May 7, 2022. (In Russian). URL: https://www.bfm.ru/news/499450 (accessed: 09.06.2022).}

^{13 Conducting a Public Discussion of the Notification during the Development of the Draft Regulatory Legal Act “Fundamentals of State Policy “On Approval of the Fundamentals of State Policy for the Preservation and Strengthening of Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values” [Проведение общественного обсуждения уведомления при разработке проекта нормативного правового акта «Об утверждении Основ государственной политики по сохранению и укреплению традиционных российских духовно-нравственных ценностей»] // Federal portal of draft legal acts. (In Russian). URL: https://regulation.gov.ru/projects#npa=123967 (accessed: 09.06.2022).}

^{14 EUvsDisinfo. URL: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/ (accessed: 09.06.2022).}

^{15 Kinyakina E. The Price of the Law: Why the “Yarovaya Package” Will Cost 45 Billion Rubles [Кинякина Е. Цена закона: почему «пакет Яровой» обойдется в 45 млрд рублей] // Forbes. May 14, 2018. (In Russian). URL: https://www.forbes.ru/tehnologii/361401-cena-zakona-pochemu-paket-yarovoy-oboydetsya-v-45-mlrd-rubley (accessed: 09.06.2022).}

^{16 Kulinich A. Mechanisms of Socialization of the Individual — What Are They, Types [Кулинич А. Механизмы социализации личности — что это, виды] // Srazupro. (In Russian). URL: https://srazu.pro/socializacia/ mexanizmy-socializacii-lichnosti.html (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{17 Russian School of Generation Theory [RuGenerations — Российская школа теории поколений]. (In Russian). URL: https://rugenerations.su/ (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{18 For more details, see: Panel Session 2. The Problem of Values in the Eurasian Space and Mechanisms for Their Dissemination. VII International Conference “Russia’s Foreign Policy in the Eurasian Space”. RUDN University, December 10, 2021 [Панельная сессия 2. Проблема ценностей на Евразийском пространстве и механизмы их распространения. VII Международная конференция «Внешняя политика России на евразийском пространстве». РУДН, 10.12.2021 г.] // Youtube. (In Russian). URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfL3ajY6zpA (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{19 Silver L. et al. Use of Smartphones and Social Media Is Common Across Most Emerging Economies // Pew Research Center. March 7, 2019. URL: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/03/07/use-of-smartphones-and-social-media-is-common-across-most-emerging-economies/#table (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{20 Search Engine Market Share Worldwide 2022 // Statcounter Global Stats. URL: https://gs.statcounter.com/ search-engine-market-share#yearly-2022-2022-bar (accessed: 13.06.2022).}

^{21 Die 50 größten Medien- und Wissenskonzerne  2020 // Institut für Medien- und Kommunikationspolitik. 2021. URL: https://www.mediadb.eu/de/datenbanken/ internationale-medienkonzerne.html (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{22 Kotchenko K. TikTok Owner Revenue Increased by 70% in 2021. Growth Slowed Down [Котченко К.  Выручка владельца TikTok увеличилась на 70 % за  2021 год. Рост замедлился] // RBC. January 20, 2022. (In Russian). URL: https://quote.rbc.ru/news/short_article/ 61e95d1a9a794713e519eb30 (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{23 Gerstein J. ByteDance Is Walking Away from Its Tiktok Deal with Oracle Now That Trump Isn’t in Office, Report Says // BusinessInsider. February 15, 2021. URL: https://www.businessinsider.com/bytedance-ending-oracle-deal-because-trump-is-out-scmp-2021-2 (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{24 Zhuravleva E. V. Regulation of Social Media in the PRC // RIAC [Журавлева Е. В. Регулирование социальных медиа в КНР // РСМД]. January 24, 2022.  (In Russian). URL: https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/columns/cybercolumn/regulirovanie-sotsialnykh-media-v-knr/ (accessed: 17.02.2022). See also: (Ponka, Ramich & Wu, 2020).}

^{25 Bikker G. 2021: The Year The World Is Set to Spend $135 Billion Dollars — In Mobile Apps and Games in New Record // Data.Ai. December 8, 2021. URL: https://www.data.ai/en/insights/market-data/2021-end-year-mobile-apps-recap/ (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{26 Polyakova V. Twitter Permanently Blocked Trump’s Account [Полякова В. Twitter навсегда заблокировал аккаунт Трампа] // RBC. January 9, 2021.  (In Russian). URL: https://www.rbc.ru/politics/09/01/ 2021/5ff8f6599a7947cb28665d7e (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{27 Peskov D. “Island of Russia”. Special Representative of the President on the New Digital Strategy [Песков Д. «Остров Россия». Спецпредставитель президента о новой цифровой стратегии] // RBC. June 9, 2022. (In Russian). URL: https://www.rbc.ru/opinions/economics/ 09/06/2022/62a0e95b9a79472d8b713207 (accessed: 10.06.2022).}

^{28 Lokotetskaya M. The Court Recognized Meta as an Extremist Organization and Banned it in Russia [Локотецкая М. Суд признал Meta экстремистской организацией и запретил на территории России] // BFM. March 21, 2022. (In Russian). URL: https://bfm-ru.turbopages.org/ bfm.ru/s/news/495697 (accessed: 10.06.2022).}

^{29 Zhuravleva E. V. Regulation of Social Media in the PRC // RIAC [Журавлева Е. В. Регулирование социальных медиа в КНР // РСМД]. January 24, 2022.  (In Russian). URL: https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/columns/cybercolumn/regulirovanie-sotsialnykh-media-v-knr/ (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

^{30 Kurylev K. P. Regulation of the Internet in the post-Soviet Space // RIAC [Курылев К. П. Регулирование Интернета на постсоветском пространстве //  РСМД]. November 15, 2021. (In Russian).  URL: https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/ columns/cybercolumn/regulirovanie-interneta-na-postsovetskom-prostranstve/ (accessed: 17.02.2022).}

About the authors

Denis A. Degterev

Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University); MGIMO University; Saint-Petersburg State University

Author for correspondence.
Email: degterev-da@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7426-1383

доктор политических наук, кандидат экономических наук, профессор, заведующий кафедрой теории и истории международных отношений Российского университета дружбы народов; профессор кафедры мировой экономики МГИМО МИД России; профессор кафедры европейских исследований СПбГУ

Moscow, Russian Federation; Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation

References

Supplementary files