Global Media - 9780415591867

The authors take as their starting point the assumption that media can only be analyzed in the context of the political, economic, cultural and technological conjunctures in which they develop, are produced, distributed and consumed. Therefore the focus of this book is on ownership, regulation, production, distribution and consumption of different electronic media – radio, television, film, the Internet – at the global level, including the various sub-levels – transnational, cultural-linguistic, regional, national and local – which constitute the global.

The critical textbook:

• develops a new theory of media globalization
• investigates the often very different paths and degrees of globalization of the four main extant forms of electronic mass media – film, radio, television and the Internet
• analyzes how media globalization plays out in the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – to assess local, national and regional characteristics of media globalization within the broader theoretical and political economic, cultural and technological contexts introduced in parts I to III of the book.

While the authors believe that on one level the dominance of the global media system embedded in the power of Hollywood, and the US military, industrial entertainment complex must be recognized as a reality today, they also see that a multi-polar world is developing and that more attention must be played to developing countries if the emerging trajectory in media globalization is to be recognized, tracked and understood. Thus this text pays special attention to the BRIC countries because, despite a great deal of economic analysis of their potential to change or perhaps even dominate the future global media landscape, little has been written about them as a group in media studies.

Aimed at upper level undergraduate and beginning postgraduate students, this text will offer a sophisticated, wide ranging introduction to global media in the twenty first century.