The International News Media's Birthing Of BRICS

Leaders from Brazil, India, China and South Africa (in short: the BRICS nations) meet regularly, cooperating with one another because their countries are claimed by the news to represent the economic and geopolitical powerhouses of the future. But the BRICS's economic performance and sociopolitical climate are far from steady to make the “powerhouse” label justified. Rather, the significance of “the BRICS arc” lies in the international news media "big business." This international news media big business has divided into continental offices and thus needs a nation to play the role of “leading continental powerhouse” to serve as the main character for their news-stories in a specific continent. China and India play the “powerhouse” characters in “Asia-Pacific,” while Brazil plays the same character for South America as South Africa does so for the African continent. A standardized and model narrative is in display for each continent, with the use of the “one core power per continent” story-line. If the specific proper names of BRICS countries are removed, the broadcast news in the “Asia-Pacific” region will resemble that in “Africa” or elsewhere to a great degree because of a kind of standard news template having been utilized by each continental office. Nations such as Nepal are not regular fixtures within international news channels, and so do not have roles to play, but for nations that are a regular fixture, there needs to be an arc or story in which they are placed as characters so that they can attract loyal viewers on a day-to-day basis.

The aesthetic orderliness of this simple idea of the one-powerhouse-per-continent arc makes it seem that the international news media shapes geopolitics in a way that makes the world seem pleasing to the audience: the goal of news being shaping geopolitics to make the news attractive, rather than relying on undramatic information-spreading. Also, the audience's demands for more relevant news-stories encourages the news media to build the story that each continent has its own powerhouse, a powerhouse which that whole continent can relate to and like or dislike. American power is in decline not only because of geopolitical tensions, but rather also because "America-as-sole-superpower" arc is no longer attractive for audiences of the international news media channels. The audiences have moved to appreciating a new kind of news-story, one where a regional nation takes up the role of regional powerhouse.

As so much of the news media's production relies on international relations, it follows that the news media are more invested in orienting international relations a certain way, in other words, the news media is not just invested in observing foreign nations, but rather is invested in actively monitoring and shaping the stories that emerge from foreign nations. The news media shapes geopolitics from behind-the-scenes in this way because it is good for business: it can expand its viewership and operate its offices in “Asia-Pacific” or “South America” if it can produce news that will keep South American viewers tuned in in South America and the African viewers tuned in in Africa and so on.