Abstract
On February 4, 2022 the Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development was released. It described China’s and Russia’s role in the “redistribution of power in the world” informed by “the advent of the information society.” This statement was the event within a historically evolving rupture in the global relations detailed in Emmanuel Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory. The announcement of these new arrangements can inform research exploring the dialectics of communication within human development systems. While communication is the primary vehicle for globalization, it is the means through which the global orientation of world powers with each other is imbricated and effects change. Within the dialectical approach, the political economy of communication embodies a Rupture: it offers a radicality of systems of interaction that enhance economic development alongside cultural enrichment, which generate their opposite in relation to the original. In this case, referred to by Wallerstein as “structural crisis,” the rupture occurred as the US domination of the digital innovations associated with the Internet gave way, as China utilized U.S. and western technologies for its own purposes, achieving major power status by 2020, moving within the global system from the periphery to the core. A systems approach – grounded in critical theory with Marxist attention to the whole of (global) society – explores the impact of the rupture and the event of the Joint Statement for communication.
Presenters
Marcus BreenAssociate Professor of the Practice , Communication, Boston College, Massachusetts, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Wallerstein, China, Russia, Dialectics, Internet, Rupture, Marxism
