[Air-l] Media Policy and Globalization by Paula Chakravartty & Katharine Sarikakis

[geert lovink]

http://www.eup.ed.ac.uk/edition_details.aspx?id=12091

Media Policy and Globalization
Paula Chakravartty, Katharine Sarikakis

Volumes in the Media Topics series critically examine the core subject 
areas within Media Studies. Each volume offers a critical overview as 
well as an original intervention into the subject. Volume topics 
include: media theory and practice, history, policy, ethics, politics, 
discourse, culture and audience.

  This volume takes a fresh look at media and communications policy and 
provides a comprehensive account of issues that are central to the 
study of the field. It moves beyond the 'specifics' of regulation, by 
examining policy areas that have proved to be of common concern for 
societies across different socio-economic realities. It also seeks to 
address profound gaps in the study of policy by demonstrating the 
centrality of historical, social and political context in debates that 
may appear solely technical or economistic.

Media Policy and Globalization covers the institutional changes in the 
communications policy arena by examining the changing role of the 
state, technology and the market and the role of civil society. It 
discusses actual policy areas in broadcasting, telecommunications and 
the information society, and examines the often-overlooked normative 
dimensions of communications policy.

Paula Chakravartty is Assistant Professor of Communication, University 
of Massachusetts Amherst. Katharine Sarikakis is Senior Lecturer in 
Communications Policy and Course Director MA in Communications Studies, 
University of Leeds.

  "The ideas and explanation in this book are a very welcome antidote to 
the dominant discourse of the virtues of the market, new technologies 
and competition. The proponents of technological determinism have for 
the past 10 years asserted that greater audiovisual delivery capacity 
will automatically deliver diversity and pluralism and have sought to 
roll back virtually all audiovisual regulation. The authors describe 
well the valid political, social, economic and particularly cultural 
questions which demand an answer if the public interest is to be served 
in communications policy and the regulation which should flow from it.

  The authors rightly underline that the screen, large or small, is 
central to our democratic, creative, cultural and social life and that 
policy makers should give greater space to the views of civil society 
and parliamentarians interested in advancing the public interest. Rare 
is the attention paid to the realities of the digital divide as played 
out across the globe which provides important information for 
campaigners for greater technological redistribution and cultural 
diversity worldwide."

Carole Tongue, Visiting Professor, University of the Arts, London, 
Former MEP spokesperson on public service broadcasting

  "Media Policy and Globalization combines careful scholarship with a 
clear, accessible style that creatively integrates some of the best 
elements of critical theory. The book marks an important step in the 
development of media policy scholarship because it skilfully integrates 
political economic and cultural studies perspectives. It does an 
especially good job of placing research on state and gender theory into 
the centre of policy analysis."

  Vincent Mosco, Queen’s University, author of The Digital Sublime

  "Premised on the fact that there are different globalizations going on 
today, this comprehensive study successfully integrates structural and 
symbolic analyses of communications and media policy in the conflicted 
spaces of the nation-state, trans-nation, and sub-nation. Chakravartty 
& Sarikakis’s remarkably systematic approach to media policy, 
technology, content, and civil society formation, fills in crucial 
details left behind by grand theory, including progressive postcolonial 
theory of global communication. In doing so, the book re-energizes the 
hackneyed field of international media studies and transforms it."

  John Nguyet Erni, City University of Hong Kong

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Table of Contents

PART I: Policy Contexts
  1. Capitalism, Technology, Institutions and the study of 
Communications and Media Policy
  2. Revisiting the History of Global Communication and Media Policy

PART II: Policy Domains
  3. Governing the Central Nervous System of the Global Economy: Global 
Telecommunication Policy
  4. Governing the Backbone of Cultures: Broadcasting Policies

PART III: Policy Paradigms
  5. Policies for a New World or the Emperor’s New Clothes? The 
Information Society
  6. Civil Society and Social Justice: The Limits and Possibilities of 
Global Governance

Conclusions
References