Who Owns the Media?: Global Trends and Local Resistance

About this book

The US model of media control and policy making - corrupt and dominated by powerful special interests - is being rapidly exported across the world. Some countries are attempting to preserve their own cultural production, and there are moves to try to keep culture out of the control of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Many books on the political economy of communications have either focused on general tendencies internationally, or have focused on the links between markets and media freedom in specific countries and regions. This book focuses on both local and international forces. While critiquing international capital, it also acknowledges the bargains that are struck between the local operators and transnationals. The contributors demonstrate the misfit between media ownership and public accountability and look ahead for ways to enable citizens around the world to become effective participants in media policy making.

Contents

List of Contributors Foreword - Peter Golding Editors' Foreword PART 1: THEORY AND POLICIES 1. The Political Economy of International Communication - Robert McChesney 2. Global Institutions and the Democratisation of the Media - Sean o Siochru 3. Intellectual Property Rights - Cees Hamelink PART 2: REGIONAL/COUNTRY CASE STUDIES 4. Privatisation: The Cost of Media Democratisation in East and Central Europe - Slavko Splichal 5. The Politics of the Media in the English Speaking Caribbean - Hopeton Dunn 6. The Political Economy of the Media in Southern Africa, 1990-2001 - William Hueva, Keyan and Ruth Tomaselli 7. Media Ownership and Control in Africa in the Age of Globalisation - Francis Nyamnjoh 8. Media Ownership in Latin America - Ana Fiol 9. Hard Times for Digital Capitalism: From Neo-Liberalism to Authoritarian Development? - Dan Schiller 10. The State, the Market, and Media Control in Reformed China - Zhao Yuezhi 11. Media Ownership and Communication Rights in India - Pradip N. Thomas 12. The Political Economy of Media Ownership in Nigeria - Mohammed Musa and Jibril Mohammed 13 Media Ownership and Control in Malaysia - Zaharom Nain and Wang Lay Kim PART 3: DEMOCRATIC COMMUNICATION FUTURES 14. The Whole World Is Watching: Online Surveillance of Social Movement Organisations - Sasha Constanza-Chock 15. A New Communications Order: Strategies for Intervention and Agendas for Research - Pradip N. Thomas

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Biography

Pradip Thomas is director of the Global Studies Programme at the ecumenical World Association for Christian Communication (WACC). Zaharom Nain is associate professor in communications at the Science University of Malaysia. The contributors are academics based all over the world. They include the internationally known scholar and activist on communications, Cees J Hamelink.