Global Media and Communication recent issues

Editorial

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

Theoretical approaches and methodological strategies in Latin American empirical research on television audiences: 1992--2007

Lozano, J.-C., Frankenberg, L. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

This article reports the findings of a review and methodological critique of 96 Latin American empirical studies on television reception published between 1992 and 2007 in the most important journals of the region. The analysis compares the studies according to their theoretical approach, the research technique used, their sample size, the type of audience members studied, the type of television content researched and the scholars mentioned the most in their references. Findings show that Cultural Studies is by far the most popular theoretical approach in Latin American audience research, and that two of the topics covered the most were television and daily life and the importance of social and cultural mediations. The article also concludes that many studies lack a solid methodological base. Morley, Orozco, Martín-Barbero, García-Canclini and Lull were the scholars mentioned the most in the reference sections. The article ends with a diagnosis of the strengths and weaknesses of current Latin American empirical research on television audiences and points out the need for more methodological rigor and more emphasis on the analysis of ideological readings and impact.

Minorities, media, marketing and marginalization

Sinclair, J. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

Given that increased rates of population movement across borders in recent decades have coincided with an era in which audiences for mass media are being fragmented and ever more precisely targeted according to demographic criteria, we might expect to find that ethnic minorities have become exposed to intensive exploitation as consumer markets. We would be wrong. The small size and often dispersed distribution of many minorities makes it uneconomical for major advertisers to seek to reach them, whether through their own ‘ethnic’ media at the local level, or even the international satellite channels which now serve globally distributed minority audiences. While there may be enviable advantages to being segregated from commercial influence in this way, it is also a form of marginalization, a restriction of full cultural citizenship. This article contrasts the case of Chinese-speaking minorities in Australia with that of Spanish speakers in the United States.

Servicing 'self-scheduling consumers': Public broadcasters and audio podcasting

Murray, S. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

Podcasting has moved rapidly from the underground and pirate radio fringe to the heart of public-service media, with the BBC, NPR, CBC and Australia’s ABC all early adopters of the technology. The public-service broadcasting (PSBing) ethos appears both compatible with, and challenged by, the podcasting phenomenon. Podcasting’s appeal lies in its capacity for time-shifting, portable consumption and global distribution of audio content. Moreover, podcasting piggybacks on existing distribution infrastructure, and is particularly appealing to technologically savvy youth audiences whom public-service broadcasters (PSBers) traditionally have difficulty attracting. Yet podcasting simultaneously creates highly fragmented audiences with doubtful brand loyalty. Equally problematically, the medium’s relationship to commercial media has been close from its inception, as the term ‘podcasting’ itself suggests. It is precisely podcasting’s complex relationship with PSBing ideals — both complementary and potentially conflictual — which makes it such a rich case-study for examining the continued viability of PSBing in the digital media environment.

Representing the rise of the rest as threat: Media and global divides

Nederveen Pieterse, J. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

Like a giant oil tanker, the world is turning. New growth poles of the world economy have been emerging in the South and East. Globalization once belonged to the West and now the tables are turning. We have entered the era of the ‘rise of the rest’. Western media and politics of representation have celebrated the rise of the West for 200 years, how then do they represent the rise of the rest? The main trends are that the rise of the rest is ignored, or represented as a threat, or celebrated in business media as a triumph of the marketplace. Media echoing free market ideology have contributed to vast wealth polarization; representing the rise of the rest as a threat contributes to global political polarization; recycling the 9/11 complex produces cultural and political polarization; and overusing celebrity narratives contributes to existential polarization. These are the global divides discussed in this article. In the wake of the economic crisis of 2008 there have been marked changes in discourse and a new motif has taken shape: recruiting the rest to rescue the West.

Book Review: Karol Jakubowicz and Miklos Sukosd (eds) Finding the Right Place on the Map: Central and Eastern European Media Change in a Global Perspective Bristol: Intellect Books, 2008, 302 pp. ISBN 978 1 84150 1932

Metykova, M. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

Book Review: Yuezhi Zhao Communication in China: Political Economy, Power and Conflict Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, 384 pp. ISBN 978 0 7425 1965 7

Yu, H. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

Book Reviews: Elisabeth Eide, Risto Kunelius and Angela Philips (eds) Transnational Media Events: The Mohammed Cartoons and the Imagined Clash of Civilizations Nordicom: Sweden, 2008, 290 pp. ISBN: 978 91 89471 64 1

Poole, E. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

Book Review: Bart Cammaerts Internet-Mediated Participation Beyond the Nation State Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008, 261 pp. ISBN 978 0 7190 7648 0

Hintz, A. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

Book Review: Colin Sparks Globalization, Development and the Mass Media London: Sage, 2007, 258 pp. ISBN 978 0 7619 6162 8

Servaes, J. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

Film Review: Why the sun shines on Slum Dog

Kavoori, A. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

TV Review: Blood and Oil, featuring Michael T. Klare (directed by Jeremy Earp) Media Education Foundation, USA (2008). Duration: 52 minutes. ISBN: 1 932869 25 5

Walsh, M. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:01:45 PST

Editorial

Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

NGOs and `modernization' and `democratization' of media: Situating media assistance

Miller, J. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

Western-supported media assistance in transition and developing countries has a long history. Building independent media, preferably through the nongovernmental sector, is seen as an important aspect of achieving modernization and democratization. This article questions the idealized assumptions underlining such programmes and argues that media assistance donors rarely analyze it critically. The article discusses the political character of Western media assistance and explores the organizational eco-system in which NGOs flourish. The article concludes by observing NGOs' unexpected power in the process of providing Western media assistance.

The re-mythologization of Islam and the Arab world in Adam Curtis's The Power of Nightmares

Khoury-Machool, M. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

This article presents a discursive analysis of Adam Curtis's series of documentary films, The Power of Nightmares, broadcast on the BBC in 2004. The series proposes that both Arab Islamist and American neoconservative groups have constructed, and appropriated, the illusion of a `global Islamist terror threat', in order to bolster their own respective ideologies. The analysis reveals that both groups examined in the documentary are misrepresented, and that the filmmaker omits critical historical information that is relevant, and essential, to a broader understanding of the issues he explores. Moreover, ideas and events are communicated from a predominantly Western perspective. Consequently, such partial representations and omissions serve only to reinforce Western misconceptions of the causal factors behind the recent emergence of political Islam and the so-called `War on Terror'. Through close textual analysis, this article demonstrates that, in spite of Curtis's stated aim of undermining the mythical perceptions of Muslims and Arabs, the documentary in fact restates and reinforces the very ethno-religious stereotypes which Curtis claims to deconstruct.

Selling God/saving souls: Religious commodities, spiritual markets and the media

Thomas, P. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

The relationship between the religious commodity market, popular culture and political economy remains under-theorized. The globalization of religion has led to a massive global trade in on-line and off-line religious commodities. This article explores the mobile Christian commodity form and its specific politics of use. Using examples from India and the US, it explores the ways in which Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal groups use multi-media products and platforms for evangelization. The profit potential in religious fare has not gone unnoticed in corporate circles, and synergistic relationships have developed between media corporations and Christian production houses involved in creating commodities for segmented audiences. The article argues that in the context of the global expansion and export of Christian fundamentalism, the increasingly close relationship between mediated Christianity and the commodity form facilitates the extension of specific, conservative, forms of values-based capitalism.

Europe as a partner: New spaces for audiovisual cooperation between Latin America and the EU

Moreno Dominguez, J. M., Montero, D. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

So far, the EU has exclusively set out to define an intrinsically European audiovisual identity counterpoised against US influence. These policies have ignored that the emerging transnational cultural landscapes highlight the need to create new spaces for cooperation and product exchange that extend beyond current national and regional borders. In this respect, opening a new and effective space for audiovisual cooperation between the EU and Latin America would imply the possibility of an enriching dialogue between two culturally different actors which share both historical links and the conception of cinema as a cultural manifestation that must be protected above and beyond its industrial value. The aim of this article is to analyse the current situation and to propose different ways forward, outlining the measures that should be taken in order to lay the foundations for a future of further audiovisual cooperation between the EU and Latin America. The article argues that such cooperation is sorely needed for the future development of both regions.

Review Essay: Global brands: Paul Grainge Brand Hollywood: Selling Entertainment in a Global Media Age London and New York: Routledge, 2008. 212 pp. ISBN 978--0--415--35405--9 Jing Wang Brand New China: Advertising, Media, and Commercial Culture Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2008. 411 pp. ISBN 0--674--02680--2 Scott Lash and Celia Lury Global Culture Industry: The Mediation of Things Cambridge: Polity, 2007. 240 pp. ISBN 978--0--7456--2483--9 (pbk)

Moor, L. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

Book Review: Steve Buckley, Kreszentia Duer, Toby Mendel, and Sean O'Siochru (with Monroe E. Price and Marc Raboy) Broadcasting, Voice, and Accountability: A Public Interest Approach to Policy, Law, and Regulation Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008. 416 pp. ISBN 978 0 472 03272 3

Schejter, A. M. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

Book Review: Daya Kishan Thussu News as Entertainment: The Rise of Global Infotainment London: Sage 2008. 214pp. ISBN 9780 7619 6878 8

Bose, S. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

Book Review: Henrik Bang and Anders Esmark (eds) New Publics with/out Democracy Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur Press, 2007. 384 pp. ISBN: 87 5931 149 5

Cammaerts, B. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

Book Review: Edward A. Comor Consumption and the Globalization Project: International Hegemony and the Annihilation of Time New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. 211 pp. ISBN: 978 0 230 52224 4

Murphy, P. D. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

Book Review: Robert McChesney Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media New York: The New Press, 2007, 301 pp. ISBN 978 1 59558 207 2

Toynbee, J. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

China--Africa media relations

Franks, S., Ribet, K. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

TV Review: Big Brother in Brazil

Campanella, B. — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

Erratum

Tue, 12 May 2009 03:50:28 PDT

Editorial

Volkmer, I., Chouliaraki, L. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

Satellite cultures in Europe: Between national spheres and a globalized space

Volkmer, I. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

Satellites operate in a transnational communication sphere, independent of conceptual frames of national public territories. As satellites become major global industries and advance technologically, providing a variety of services, including broadcasting, telecommunication, internet applications, meteorological data and military intelligence, they contribute, this article suggests, to structurally multilayered forms of satellite cultures within an emerging European public sphere. The advances in the technology of satellite communication has, the article argues, created a platform for new, interesting flows of trans-European communication. The article considers the evidence for a new trans-European television sphere, while examples from the realities of European broadcast culture demonstrate the limitations of conventional terminologies of national, regional and local `broadcasting'.

Governance, globalism and satellites

Price, M. E. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

Governing and regulating the use of communication satellites and their signals is becoming increasingly difficult for governments and multilateral organizations. This article takes forward the question arising from the characterization of satellites as `trade routes in the sky' (Price, 1999), as to whether it is more appropriate to look for regional themes and models for state intervention rather than a global system of governance.

Satellite industry and the digital age

Bovet, C., Kellezi, P. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

This article provides an overview of regulatory and governance challenges faced by policy makers in view of increasingly sophisticated information and communication technologies and the growing commercialization of satellite communication. The authors, with expertise in pan-European legal and regulatory regimes, suggest ways in which public interest can be safeguarded.

Diversity and diaspora: Arab communities and satellite communication in Europe

Sakr, N. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

Since the late 1990s, Europe's satellite television landscape has been transformed, with European populations of non-European heritage increasingly watching television channels in their own languages. After surveying recent academic work on diasporic communication, multiculturalism and representation, this article examines examples of Euro-Arab interaction over Arabic-language satellite channels in the period 2003—6, exploring the evolving dynamic between symbolic and territorial power.

`Have you seen Bloomberg?': Satellite news channels as agents of the new visibility

Orgad, S. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

With the proliferation of transnational television flows, viewers can see their national affairs, traditionally covered predominantly by national news, portrayed by cross-border news channels. This article examines how transnational satellite news coverage of national events enhances nations' global visibility, and influences national public debate over national narratives. An analysis of the public debates in Spain and France over transnational channels' coverage of the March 2004 terror bombings in Madrid and the October 2005 French riots, respectively, provides the basis for discussing the implications of the `new visibility' (Thompson, 2005) of nations, in today's media age. The analysis demonstrates how transnational networks' coverage of these events generated estrangement, de-familiarized and cast doubt on national narratives and commonsensical discourses of us/them, thereby offering viewers an alternative distance from their national unit and encouraging a self-reflexive process of introspection and critical discussion. This process may open up the possibility for a more inclusive national space and strengthen democratic culture, but at the same time it triggers instabilities, which might contribute to citizens' loss of trust in the news media — a dangerous scenario for democracy.

The symbolic power of transnational media: Managing the visibility of suffering

Chouliaraki, L. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

This article explores systematic patterns in the visibility of suffering in satellite news, from the footage of 11 September 2001 to citizen-generated content from the 2007 anti-government demonstrations in Myanmar (Burma), so as to illustrate the role of transnational media as agents of symbolic power. It argues that the symbolic power of transnational broadcasting consists primarily in its capacity to manage the visibility of suffering so as to reproduce the moral deficiencies of global inequality. However, under certain conditions, technological as well as symbolic, satellite news stories might be able to produce a sense of moral agency that transcends geographical and cultural boundaries, thereby constituting cosmopolitan communities of emotion and action.

Book Review: Book Reviews: Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Per Jauert (eds) Cultural Dilemmas in Public Service Broadcasting: RIPE @ 2005 Goteborg: Nordicom, 2006, 329 pp. ISBN 91 89471 32 6

Born, G. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

Book Review: Aeron Davis The Mediation of Power: A Critical Introduction London: Routledge, 2007, 218pp. ISBN 987 0 415 40491 4

Dinan, W. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

Book Review: Lincoln Dahlberg and Eugenia Siapera (eds) Radical Democracy and the Internet: Interrogating Theory and Practice Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 264 pp. ISBN 978 0 230 00720 1

Green, A. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

Book Review: Michael Curtin Playing to the World's Biggest Audience: The Globalization of Chinese Film and TV Berkeley: University of California Press, 353 pp. ISBN 978 0 520 25134 2

Zhengrong, H., Long, Z. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

Book Review: Jason Toynbee Bob Marley: Herald of a Postcolonial World Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007, 208 pp. ISBN 978 0 745 63089 2

Robotham, D. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

TV Review: The Story of India with Michael Wood: BBC television series (BBC/PBS: 2007)

Chatterjee, R. — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:17:59 PST

Editorial

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 PDT

Framing the Mohammad cartoons issue: A cross-cultural comparison of Swedish and US press

Stromback, J., Shehata, A., Dimitrova, D. V. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 PDT

The purpose of this article is to investigate how Swedish and US elite newspapers framed the publication of cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper in September 2005, and the events that ensued from that publication. These cartoons proved to be very controversial, and, since the original publication has been reprinted several times, continue to stir controversy. In order to investigate how different frames emerged in the news coverage, the study includes all news articles published in the selected newspapers during a six-month period from the first publication of the Mohammad cartoons. Methodologically, the study uses quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Theoretically, the study is based on framing theory and international news determinants. The results show some interesting differences as well as similarities. In the conclusions, four propositions that might be explored in future research are offered.

Advertising in the global age: Transnational campaigns and pan-European television channels

Chalaby, J. K. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 PDT

The first pan-regional satellite TV stations in Europe ran into financial difficulties because too few companies had the interest and ability to run international advertising campaigns. Their financial shape improved with the upturn of the pan-European advertising market in the 1990s. The pool of international advertisers expanded as multinationals adjusted their marketing strategy to the challenges and opportunities of globalization. The advertising industry restructured, this article argues, creating media buying agencies with specialist knowledge of pan-European television and the network to run transnational advertising campaigns that mix local and global objectives. Pan-European TV stations began, the article notes, to offer flexible local advertising windows and integrated communication solutions involving cross-format and cross-platform opportunities for advertisers.

Global 24/7 news providers: Emissaries of global dominance or global public sphere?

Cottle, S., Rai, M. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 PDT

The study of international and global news to date has focused on the operation of foreign news values, the unequal flows and emergent contra-flows of transnational news as well as the phenomenology of 24/7 live broadcasts. Today these debates are often played out under opposing `global dominance' and `global public sphere' positions. Each in its own way is concerned about communications democracy — whether its discerned curtailment by processes of geo-political economy or temporal-spatial extension by increased global cultural flows. In this article we contend that there is a `democratic lacuna' at the heart of these debates. This silence concerns how exactly leading world news channels — principally CNNI and BBC World but also international competitors such as Sky and Fox News — communicatively present the voices, views and values of contending interests and identities from around the world. Elaborating a new conception of `communicative frames' based on contemporary positions of social and political theory and applying this to a large corpus of news output, we begin to evaluate generalizing theoretical claims, both critical and celebratory, about the contribution of global 24/7 news to processes of global dominance or an emergent global public sphere.

Review Essay: The inadvertence of Benedict Anderson: A review essay of Imagined Communities on the occasion of a new edition

Desai, R. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 PDT

Book Review: Jeremy Tunstall The Media Were American: U.S. Mass Media in Decline New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. 480 pp. ISBN 9780 1951 8147 0

Boyd-Barrett, O. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 PDT

Book Review: Paula Chakravartty and Katharine Sarikakis Media Policy and Globalization Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. 224 pp. ISBN 978 0 7486 1849 1

Abramson, B. D. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 PDT

Book Review: Ursula Huws (ed.) The Spark in the Engine: Creative Workers in a Global Economy Blackpoint, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2007. 158 pp. ISBN 0 85036 582 1

Artz, L. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 PDT

Book Review: Kai Hafez The Myth of Media Globalization Cambridge: Polity, 2007. 232 pp. ISBN 9 7807 4563 9086

Corcoran, F. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 PDT

Partisan public television: A last barrier to the democratization of South Korea?

Chang Keun Lee, — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 PDT