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 -- 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