1Current Shanghai Media Landscape in the Age of Globalization（Abstract） In the age of Globalization, information flow, like capital flow and commodity flow, takes place increasingly at the global level. As cross-border operations of various industries, including media industries, become increasingly frequent, nations become more and more interdependent. In this global environment and with Chinas open and reform policies, in recent years, China has made great efforts for “letting the world know China better and letting China know the world better.” Shanghai as a large metropolis, naturally exhibits much enthusiasm in such efforts. The media form important channels for fulfilling this objective. This paper studies the current media landscape in Shanghai as waves of globalization lap the cultural seashores of various countries, with special emphasis on the issue of the media as channels for improving mutual understanding between China (Shanghai in particular) and the rest of the world. Furthermore, it explores the ways for better achieving this goal. Keywords: globalization media development mutual understanding I. Globalization and Global Communication In recent years, globalization has become a buzzword with frequent appearance in the media, and has received much academic attention in various fields. The field of communication studies is no exception. A recent search by the writer on “Google.com” by entering the words “globalization and media” led to the links to 576 items. In the discourse of globalization, there does not seem to be a generally accepted definition of the term. On different occasions globalization is viewed as the free worldwide flow of the elements and resources of production, or as “stateless” or “borderless” economy, or as the economic, political and cultural integration of the whole world, or as Westernization Opinions on what will be brought by globalization are divided as well. While some people tend to think that globalization will bring prosperity and progress to the whole world, others worry that it may bring poverty and cultural disaster to the developing countries. Regardless of the different views and conceptions of globalization, the fact remains that nowadays, capital, commodities, technologies, services and so on can flow across national boundaries with increasing speed and ease, transnational corporations have global operations, and nations are now more and more economically interdependent. And “globalization” appears to be a convenient term for labeling such a phenomenon and the process in which this phenomenon is growing in prominence. Thus, it is no wonder that “globalization” is causing much discussion. 2Even before the term “globalization” entered the academic as well as popular vocabulary in the 1990s, transnational corporations and global operations in various industries had existed and formed an important topic for academic studies. “Globalization” inevitably carries with it related problems, especially problems of imbalance in international trade and so on. In the world where different countries and regions exhibit different levels of economic and technological development and have different overall strengths, such imbalance easily occurs and has aroused a lot of concerns. In the field of communication, the phenomenon of the trading of media products in the international markets had long been a topic of much study. In 1983, for example, Hamelink showed his concern over the cultural autonomy of the developing countries in global communication (Hamelink, C., 1983); Mattelart discussed the extremely large market shares held by the transnational giants in the global communication markets (Mattelart, A., 1983). For another example, McPhail in 1985 discussed electronic imperialism (McPhail, T., 1985); Herbert Schiller in 1984 lashed at the spread of consumerist values by the transnational media corporations (Schiller, H., 1984) Academic attention to global communication and related issues has continued throughout the 1990s and up till now. Amidst various comments, the trend of globalization has persisted. And since the 1990s, this trend has been unfolding itself in multiple dimensions with greater momentum than before. In todays communication landscape, we see media systems daily pouring large number of messages into the world; we find trans-border information flows increasing exponentially; we perceive media products being traded in the international markets with transnational media giants dominating such trade. Global communication, though certainly with its problems, has become an increasingly prominent phenomenon in the world today. This constitutes the broad, international environment in which current media development in Shanghai takes place. II. Current Media Landscape in Shanghai With Chinas open and reform policies, media industries in China have grown rapidly in recent years. In Shanghai, media developmen