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This article intends to argue for a comparative approach to media studies to be based on the recognition of a global encounter of cultures with the imperatives of modernity and industrialisation. As different as the capitalist development in question may turn out in respective areas, it will be argued that the divergent histories of modernisation nonetheless generate a common experience that connects the Global South and the Global North, the West and the non-West, the First, Second and Third Worlds. The article therefore argues for a theoretical approach that pays attention to the power relations existing between different geopolitical areas, yet refuses to epistemologically privilege a Eurocentric prism. Instead, it explores in what ways comparative media studies might deal with cultural forms that are wholly industrialised and relatively capital intensive in their provision, such as digital mass media that rely on telecommunication networks, computer hardware and subscription fees. Aiming to bridge the gap between text and context, the article calls for an analysis of media texts as signifying practices which seek to move their audience and users in specific discursive directions. As a compromise between capitalist form and local material, media texts are believed to provide cognitive maps to people that shape their understanding of being-in-the- world while providing them with means to deal with ideologies of capitalist modernity. The article begins with a general discussion of the question of theory in a postcolonial context, then goes on to focus on the move from world literature to world media, to finally conclude with a perspective on the relationship between text and context, especially with regard to digital cultures and their global as well as local negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1984, the Band Aid charity single was produced, followed by the Live Aid concert in 1985, to raise awareness and funds to alleviate poverty in Ethiopia and its surrounds. In 2005, Live 8 was organised to address the continued issue of poverty. Although this movement emanated from benevolent intentions, through the choice of the Band Aid song-lyrics, the images displayed, and the comments and decisions made regarding the concert events, the movement served tootherpeople from the global south. Thus, Band Aid and Live Aid/8 contributed to, and compounded, problematic truths which suggest that the global north is superior to the south. Such truths were also evident during the colonial period, and were promoted through exhibitions that advocated that people from the north were superior to colonial natives, and that colonialism was beneficial to the colonies, i.e., aiding the natives to improve themselves. Consequently, Band Aid, Live Aid/8 and colonial exhibitions all proclaimed to aid the people of the global south while advocating problematic truths. It is important to recognise that such truths endure, albeit evolved, as these truths continue to disempower countries in the global south, embedding the truth that the south is incapable of forging its own successful future without help from the north. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]