Satellites of Influence

For much of the twentieth century, geopolitics on screen meant grainy propaganda reels and rival international broadcasters battling for ears behind the Iron Curtain. Today, influence travels through glossy dramas, bingeable series and endlessly scrolling catalogues. Satellites still circle the earth, but the real satellites of influence are the television networks and global streaming platforms that quietly decide what appears, in what order, and for whom. This book argues that to understand power now, we must treat media systems as core political infrastructure.

Satellites of Influence follows the routes by which programmes and narratives cross borders: from state-backed news channels to K-drama export strategies, from regional telenovela networks to platform algorithms that tailor thumbnails for different publics. It shows how states, corporations and creative communities compete and collaborate to shape what counts as normal, modern or plausible on screen. Along the way, it explains how media soft power actually works in practice, why some nations become everyday fixtures in foreign living rooms while others remain marginal, and how censorship and regulation subtly rewrite what can be said or shown.

Written for students, journalists, policy analysts and curious viewers, the book offers more than a tour of notable channels and shows. It provides a framework for reading television schedules, app interfaces and licensing deals as elements of influence infrastructure. Readers come away able to trace how narrative distribution interacts with trade rules, ownership patterns, technological systems and audience habits. By the end, turning on a television or opening a streaming app will look different: less like a private leisure choice, and more like stepping into a contested field where images, identities and transnational audiences are quietly organised.