Notice to authors: Please ask your publishers to send review copies of your books to Professor Shelton Gunaratne , JIC review editor, Mass Communications Department, Moorhead State University, Moorhead, MN 56563, U.S.A.
Anderson, Rob, Robert Dardenne and George M. Killenberg. 1994.
_The Conversation of Journalism: Communication, Community, and News_.
Westport, Conn.:Praeger. xvii+206pp.
Gillespie, Marie. 1995.
_Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change_. London and New York:
Routledge. xi+238pp.
Pedelty, Mark. 1995.
_War Stories: The Culture of Foreign Correspondents_. New York and
London: Routledge. 254pp.
Waters, Malcolm. 1995.
_Globalization_. London and New York: Routledge. xiv+185pp.
What is happening to journalism? Why do even many journalists insist on
writing its obituary? Is it because journalism no longer seems to have a
role to play, or an audience to address?
The foundational post-World War II work on the press -- from the four
theories of Siebert, Peterson and Schramm through Raymond Williams and the
schemata of news proposed by Galtung and Ruge (1) -- has accorded a signifiant
role to the nation. Revisions in the 1970s and the 1980s tended to
confirm, rather than challenge, the notion that a discernible and
convergent Western journalism prevailed with its roots in the liberal-
capitalist-democractic nation state (2). This was most transparently
enshrined in the public service BBC, but widely apparent elsewhere, too.
The dimension of the nation, and specifically the nation-state as
developed from the 19th century, was integral to media formation,
both at the most obvious levels (in the creation of a national newspaper
sector in the United Kingdom) and more subtly in the ways in which
"national" agendas dominated the journalism of the metropolitan daily in
the United States or the regional press in France (a facet that the
broadcast media largely took over subsequently).
It is surely not a pure accident that in all Western media structures
hierarchies run from the top down, and that the least valued press and
journalism is that operating at the local and community level. The
latter's classification as "unprofessional" often confirms its demeaned
status. The international news agencies (notably Reuters, Associated Press
and Agence France Presse), as well as the BBC World Service, became
carriers of the message in at least three distinct ways -- as exemplars,
as exports and as emissaries. Since 1927, the BBC's motto has been "Nation
shall speak peace unto nation."
This represents, as Malcolm Waters reminds us, the kind of globalization
that some people commonly associate with late 20th century media
developments, but which amounts to only the "interdependence between the
constituent economic units of formerly separate societies." As such, it is
not true globalization at all. That is why, Waters argues persuasively,
critiques of the "global" media which over-emphasize tendencies to
cultural imperalism, to the demotion of journalism, to standardisation, to
rampant commercialism, and to the abandonment of social responsibility,
miss the point. Globalization is better represented as a series of
shifting levels of interconnectedness of activity and thought.
It is interesting that, in both the United States and Britain,
commercially driven attempts to tap into these interconnections, such as
Gannett's _News 2000_ and Thomson's _Project Key_, have in large part
relied on attempts not only to capitalize on the opportunities perceived
in advanced consumerism but also on the rehabilitation of parochial
journalism. The concept which captures such ambivalence most succinctly
is that of _diaspora_, a description applied by Marie Gillespie to her
television-watching subjects, young Punjabi adults in Southall, west
London. Mark Pedelty could have usefully taken up this concept to decribe
the journalist members of the Salvadoran Foreign Press Corps Association.
One might categorize journalism as a function of intra- and
inter-diasporic communication.
The academy, of course, has routinely explored the connections between the
media, the nation-state and the formation of national identities.
Gillespie cites work done in the 1980s by, among others, Schlesinger,
Morley and Anderson. She also teaches in a department in which global and
local relationships form the core of a mass communications-journalism
degree programme.
Alternative interpretations of globalization are more commonplace,
however, and perhaps not unexpectedly, among Western nation states and many
intergovernmental organizations. Discussing the "new" media, a report to
the French government recently highlighted the opportunities the so-called
information superhighway seems to present for "the renewal of the great
tradition of _French_ public service ..." (3) (Emphasis added.)
It is of widespread concern that 90 percent of databases on the Internet
are in English, and that a handful of media proprietors, chiefly based in
the United States and Europe, appears to dominate journalistic outflows.
Gross, and often incompatible, assumptions are formed out of such data. As
Gillespie points out, Punjabis living in London are regarded as both
culturally different because of the amount of Indian video material
available, and as wanting to identify with the British state through
mainstream television consumption. The fluidity of the diaspora carries
little appeal where commonsense promotes the fixity of presumed identity.
Given their preference for simple dichotomies, and tendency to absolutes,
journalists have generally adopted this kind of position. What has been
happening in the media, they have found most useful to make sense of by
deploying the metaphor of revolution. This is a thread which connects
soundbite television news in the United States with the trivialization and
sensationalism of the British tabloid press, the growth of no-news
satellite broadcasting in Asia, and _Glasnost_ in the newsrooms of central
and eastern Europe.
As "new" media succeed the "old," an "old" journalism is being supplanted,
more or less successfully, by a "new" journalism. Where the "old" was
authoritarian and totalitarian (to use the typology proposed by Siebert,
Peterson and Schramm), the promise of the "new" is generally welcomed. On
the other hand, where the "old" was socially responsible and libertarian,
the "new" is often seen as flirting dangerously anew with authoritarianism
if not quite totalitarianism. A fundamentalist Muslim activist recently
told the BBC, "We definitely don't believe in a free press."
What journalists appear to fear most, though, is the dictatorship of the
market, in which bureaucratic and amoral corporations (media proprietors
and advertisers) resort to populism purely for short-term commercial
advantage. As has often been pointed out, this endangers journalism's
perceived central role in facilitating the "rational transfer of socially
and politically useful information." It militates against the journalistic
staple, hard news, and the "serious" press. It juxtaposes problematically
what journalists judge is important with what audiences find interesting
(4).
Thus some journalists have come to believe they have quite literally had
their news stolen from them (5).
Journalism seems to have become an optional extra (6). The promise "No
sex, no violence, no news" is the marketing mantra chanted by extra-terrestrial
broadcasters across Asia. More and more North American and European
television schedules escape the disfigurement of current affairs and news
documentary programmes, especially in peak viewing hours. The Western
equivalent of subordinating journalism to religious and political
fundamentalism is the subservience of the newsroom before the dogma of the
market researchers.
Journalists, especially but not exclusively in the United States, have
looked with what appears to be mounting desperation to counteract this
trend; to oppose market research with "public" or "civic" journalism, and
to produce their own formulae to satisfy the managerialist objective of
"getting closer to the customer."
What is obvious is that Murdoch, Turner and Eisner (or at least the
corporations they run) are not anchored in the nation. Nor indeed are
Hachette, Bertelsmann, Thomson, G+J, or Fairfax. Their "totalitarianism"
derives after all from the market, not the state; and it is surely
indicative that a common response to media multinationalism is xenophobia:
in Britain, Murdoch has been condemned for being both Australian and
American, and many states forbid foreign ownership of "their" media.
This helps reveal the extent to which even Western journalism is
particularist. The "essential shared values in journalism" -- accuracy,
balance, relevance and completeness (7) -- while perhaps American ideals,
would not automatically be subscribed to by every journalist in Europe or
Africa, where greater emphasis is often laid on defending the medium (and
its owners) than on serving the citizen.
This is possibly why blueprints like that offered by Anderson, Dardenne
and Killenberg mainly engender mystification beyond North America. They
propose a four-item agenda for "a journalism that communicates," whose
difference from, say, McManus's "five possible solutions," Kurtz's 11
things "newspapers need to do more of," or even Weaver's nine-point plan
for a "constitutional journalism" (8), appears, to the outsider at least, to
lie in the small print. Theirs is fundamentally an act of reclamation: an
attempt to wrest back journalism from those whom they believe have stolen
it.
Pedelty traverses similar ground, suggesting "multiperspectival, polyvocal
and global news alternatives." Again, his main target is U.S. journalism.
He is far less critical of the Canadian, Australian, Asian, European and
Latin American journalists he encounters. This is largely because he
shares an identifiably U.S. view of the media as an agency of democracy,
and journalism as a social practice, which, as John H. Pauly argues in a
foreword to _The Conversation of Journalism_, derives from the specificity
of American experience. The journalism of others raises fewer
expectations, and its exoticism appears to mask its shortcomings.
The Anderson, Dardenne and Killenberg text, which amounts to an
exhortation to embark on a root and branch reformation of journalism at
the level of education, is (to misappropriate Arthur Miller) a nation's
journalists talking to themselves. Theirs is a journalism for an American
democractic ideal, dichotomously opposed to any corrupted version, rather
than ambivalently engaging with it.
There is no sense of, say, Murdoch's British _Sun_, or the pan-European
_Hola!/Hello!_ representing fundamental changes in the nature of journalism,
it has to be admitted in large measure driven by marketing opportunism,
but also enabling a new sense of empowerment among their readers. What the
authors are railing against is advanced consumerism, and the
prioritization of values, preferences and taste over structural
stratification.
Yet to the extent that journalism has become subject to globalization, not
only will it become more "conversational" but a large part of the
conversation will be taken up by "irrational" speakers. While Anderson,
Dardenne and Killenberg, like others before them, are at pains to
foreground the particpant citizen, nearly 30 years ago, the Birmingham
(England) Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies suggested that tabloid
journalism reflected an experience in which readers felt "more exposed to
unforeseen events, both good and bad, less able to understand their origin
and implications, less able to control them ...". The tabloid format was
"simultaneous" rather than linear or logical (9).
Anderson, Dardenne and Killenberg's ambition of uniting "narrative
coherence and narrative fidelity" proceeds from the assumption that there
is a shared understanding of a set of distinctions between "fact and
fiction." The substantial literature on the negotiation which goes on
over media texts indicates there isn't.
At heart, and despite an obvious honesty of intent, the Anderson, Dardenne
and Killenberg approach is more fundamentalist than ecumenical. One of the
charges they lay against contemporary American journalism is its elitist
claim to sit in judgment, to pronounce on "right" and "wrong." Unlike
many similar texts, this one does not suggest a programme of education to
bring the community up to democratic scratch: the athors simply presume
that the American public wants the "right" kind of democracy.
Pedlety and Gillespie make the point that we still know too little about
what either people want from journalism, or how journalists actually go
about identifying and satisfying the desires of their audiences.
Ethnography, they argue to some effect, can describe, and thus offer
additional meaning, to the behavior of the principal actors.
Both reinforce previous work that stresses the multiplexity and reflexive
nature of the production and reception of journalism, adding considerable
and often fascinating specific detail. Neither subscribes to the vulgar
postmodernist view that audiences negotiate journalism texts, much less
that they are produced, wholly autonomously.
Pedelty's organizational theory, made up of borrowings from Foucault and
Althusser, of "disciplinary apparatuses" impinging on journalists, and
Gillespie's belief in consumption as "an expressive and productive
activity" overlap sufficiently to suggest that producers and audiences
inhabit inter-connected positions in the same spectrum.
The two studies do not really connect, however. Pedelty's remains
stubbornly media-centred, despite his protestations as an ethnographer.
None of the six "structural conditions" he proposes as impediments to a
more satisfactory journalism affords a significant role to the audience.
Yet, like Anderson, Dardenne and Killenberg, he berates "passive
participants and active consumers of a culture of growth and glut."
Theirs is a shared nightmare, if not induced then at least encouraged by a
corporate press that has bureaucratized and disempowered journalism.
What theories of globalization teach us, however, is that it is the
modernist project of delivering progressive material benefits and coherent
systems of meaning that has failed. Journalists need not just to
listen to pre-existing recognizable "communities" and to reshape news
values accordingly, but to acknowledge the constancy of forming and
re-forming alliances of status and values with few, if any, references to
essentially 19th century and Western ideals of identity and news.
_Footnotes_
(1) Fred S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson and Wilbur Schramm. 1956,1963.
_Four Theories of the Press_ (Urbana and Chicago: University of
Illinois Press; Raymond Williams. 1965. _The Long Revolution_.
Harmondsworth, England: Penguin; Johan Galtung and Mari Ruge. 1973.
"Structuring and Selecting News." Pp.62-72 in _The Manufacture of News:
Deviance Social Problems and the News Media_, edited by Stanley Cohen
and Jock Young. London: Constable.
(2) Whitney R. Mundt. 1991. "Global Media Philosophies." Pp.11-28 in
_Global Journalism_. 2ed. Edited by John C. Merill. New York: Longman.
(3) Gerard Thery. 1995. "Les Autoroutes de l'Information." Cited Henrikas
Yushkiavitshus in "Opening Remarks" (pp.2-3). Expert Meeting on Legal
and Ethical Issues in Access to Electronic Information (Paris: 6-7 July).
Paris: UNESCO.
(4) Peter Dahlgren. 1992. "Introduction." Pp. 1-23 in _Journalism and
Popular Culture_, edited by Dahlgren and Colin Sparks. London and
Newbury Park, Calif.: SAGE Publications.
(5) Mort Rosenblum. 1993. _Who Stole the News?_ New York: John Wiley;
Bob Franklin and David Murphy. 1994. "The Local Rag in Tatters." The
End of Fleet Street? The National Newspaper Industry in Historical
Perspective, City University London (4 Feb.).
(6) Jurek Martin. 1995. "The News According to Mickey Mouse." _Financial
Times_, 7 Aug., p. 7.
(7) Deni Elliott. 1988. "All is not Relative: Essential Shared Values
and the Press." _Journal of Mass Media Ethics_ 3 (1: pp.29-30).
(8) John H. McManus. 1994. _Market-Driven Journalism: Let the Citizen
Beware?_ Thousand Oaks, Calif., and London: SAGE publications. Pp.202-211;
Howard Kurtz. 1994. _Media Circus: The Trouble with America's
Newspapers_. New York and Toronto: Times Books and Random House. Pp.
385-388. Paul H. Weaver. 1994. _News and the Culture of Lying: How
Journalism Really Works_. New York and Ontario: The Free Press. Pp.
195-220.
(9) A. C. H. Smith et al. 1975. _Paper Voices: The Popular Press and
Social Change 1935-1965_. London: Chatto and Windus. Pp.232 passim.
_Michael Bromley_, lecturer
Department of Journalism
City University, London
Bourgault, Louise M. 1995.
_Mass Media in Sub-Saharan Africa_. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana
University Press. xv+294pp.
This is a historically based book directed at exposing mass media
management and production practices in sub-Saharan Africa from the early
1970s to the early 1990s. It adopts a multi-disciplinary approach to
analyze the relationship between the mass media and the social, economic,
political and cultural environments of the sub-region in which the mass
media had to function.
Bourgault says in the introduction that she wrote this book to examine
"the past three decades of media practice, warts and all." She asserts
that three factors have affected the mass media in sub-Saharan Africa to
varying degrees: the precolonial legacy of the oral tradition, the
presence of an alienated managerial class, and the domination of modern
African societies by systems of political patronage. These factors
constitute the "pillars" around which the book revolves.
Bourgault has divided the book into nine chapters. Chapter I discusses the
social order of sub-Saharan Africa before the Europeans colonized the
continent. It looks into such factors as political and social
organization, religion, values and education; and it concludes with a
detailed examination of the overall driving force of these factors -- oral
tradition. Chapter II is on the colonial legacy of sub-Saharan Africa. It
traces the evolution of an elite class consequent upon the administrative
and political system imposed on the existing oral culture. It discusses
the alienating influences of this administrative/political system on
social interaction and on individual and group expectations, paying
particular attention to the development of a patronage system.
The theoretical framework provided in these two chapters reverberates
through the remaining six chapters that constitute the main focus of the
book. Bourgault discusses the impact of patronage, alienation and oral
tradition on broadcast management in Chapter III. In Chapter IV, she
analyzes the same factors as they affect radio broadcasting. Here the
main focus is on radio news (pp. 76-81), the growth of vernacular-language
services (p. 80), cultural programs (p. 85), educational program (p. 87),
community-based radio (pp. 91-99), and the changing environment of African
radio broadcasting (pp. 99-102). Chapter V on television broadcasting has
two sections: one on news and information (pp. 109-140) with case studies
from five countries; the other on production and development of aesthetics
(pp. 140-152), using City TV in Kano, Nigeria, as a case study.
Chapters VI, VII and VIII deal with the press. These discuss the
newspaper in colonial and postcolonial sub-Saharan Africa, development
journalism, rural journalism and press freedom. These also discuss the
impact of oral tradition on the discourse style of the newspaper, as well
as the changing environment of the media. The last chapter examines
modernization, development and what the author calls the communitarian
social agenda. This chapter is less on the mass media than on development
communication, although Bourgault uses two examples of how Zimbabwe and
Ghana have used the mass media to encourage development.
_Mass Media in Sub-Saharan Africa_ has a number of weaknesses, the least
of which is not the excessive amount of time and space given to issues that
are, at best, tangential to mass media practice and management. While
historical and theoretical backgrounds are necessary, the very detailed
attention paid to colonial and precolonial legacies (Chs. I and II) do not
seem necessary. For example, the inclusion of precolonial political and
social organization, religion and education (pp. 2-6); the detailed
discussion on types of thought (pp. 8-20); and the very brief discussions on
elite marriage and elite family relations (pp. 28-30) do not specifically
add anything worthwhile to the quality of the book as a mass media text.
There is also the weakness of unwittingly veering off course. Chapter IX,
for example, discusses development communication, barely touching on the
mass media. The sub-section titled "Mass Media and Development" barely
discusses "development communication"; it merely mentions (p. 230, para.
2) projects that used the mass media, and provides scanty discussion
(pp. 248-251). The author could have provided a detailed discussion of each
of these projects (explaining problem identification, goal clarification,
media and strategy selection, operational planning and execution),
exposing areas of failures and successes, instead of the discussions on
modernity model, modernity failure, foreign aid, dependency theory
(paradigm?) and the New World Order (pp. 226-247). The book is on mass
media, and the emphasis here should have been on what the mass media have
done as a lesson for what the mass media can and should do.
One of the three principal influences that constitute the focus of this
book is what the author calls "alienated managerial class." This is a
concept that is bound to raise questions especially in Africa. Our
experience on that continent is that the poor and the underprivileged have
no powers to alienate the elite; it is the elite who alienate them. The
concept "alienated managerial class" gives the wrong impression that
managers and administrators of media organizations in the sub-region are
the victims of alienation inflicted by subordinates.
This book also has quite a lot in its favor. Bourgault is one of the very
few Western observers of and writers on the African scene who have managed
to steer along what many would call an objective course, critiquing rather
than criticizing what they have observed. She has managed, despite a
number of over-statements, probably caused by the variety of situations
across the region, to "critically evaluate social situations under study
without waxing critical." She definitely has a good grasp of the mass
media environment in the sub-Saharan region and she demonstrates (for a
foreigner) a very perceptive understanding of the relationship between
actions/behavior and the socio-cultural environment. For example, without
necessarily using the appropriate terminology, the author relates one of
the five fundamental principles that undergird the communication pattern
of oral Africa -- the sanctity of authority -- to the management and
practice of the mass media. Sanctity of authority has had a very negative
effect on management and relationship between managers and "managees,"
stifling initiative from the rank and file; and on media content,
encouraging prominence of subjects rather than consequence of events. It
is also partly responsible for the culture of "propaganda and exhortation"
that appears to be the unspoken rule for media practice in Africa.
Bourgault has not only dealt with the misuse of some positive African
values, but also with the neglect of some other positive values. She
shows, for example, that the neglect of the principle of the value of the
individual has not only had a negative impact on the relationship among
high-level, middle-level and low-level media personnel; it has also had a
devastating effect on attitude towards rural populations and the urban
poor. At best, media organizations in sub-Saharan Africa treat people in
such areas with benign neglect. They feel that "all the rural people want
is to be told what to do, and they will do it." But as the experience of
the author's trainee broadcasters in Swaziland shows (p. 61), rural people
will not just do it.
_Mass Media in Sub-Saharan Africa_ is an insightful text that
constitutes an important addition to the literature on mass media in
Africa. It is a useful book for observers of the African scene, and for
undergraduate studies. It is particularly suited for courses on
comparative mass media systems.
Andrew A Moemeka, professor
Department of Communication
Central Connecticut State University
Marques de Melo, Jose, ed. 1993.
Communication for a New World: Brazilian Perspectives. Sao Paulo,
Brazil: School of Communication and Arts, University of Sao Paulo.
383 pp.
Recent changes in Latin America, such as democratization, privatization
and market integration, have stirred a great deal of interest among U. S.
scholars. This interest is especially keen among communication scholars
and media institutions eager for connections with Latin American scholars
and universities. Unfortunately, little is known in the United States
about Latin American mass media. Knowledge of its growing body of media
scholarship is even more limited despite the very able efforts of
Elizabeth Fox, Joseph Straubhaar and other U.S. scholars who have written
amply on the subject.
Those familiar with Latin American mass media scholarship are aware of its
scope and depth. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela and Mexico, for
example, have built an impressive research bibliography of the region's
mass media over the past four decades. One can also find scholarly work on
the history of mass media, media effects, class struggle and media,
cultural imperialism and dependency, public opinion, and media and culture
in almost every country of the region. Simply said, Latin Americans are
fascinated with the mass media. Not surprisingly, few Latin American
universities lack a department of communications, and school enrollments
are at an all-time high.
Without a doubt, Brazil is, and has been for some time, the leading
contributor to Latin American mass media scholarship. Its impressive
television system, its sophisticated advertising industry and its vastly
different publics have been fodder for Brazilian researchers since the
1950s. Some of Brazil's best works, and in fact of Latin America's, are
those of Brazilian scholar Jos Marques de Melo, whose critical analyses of
media, public and culture are known around the world.
In _Communication for a New World_, Marques de Melo shares with us
Brazil's rich mass media scholarship by putting together a diverse
collection of works, presented at the 18th Conference of the International
Association for Mass Communication Research (IAMCR) in Sao Paulo in 1992 .
For those interested in present-day Brazilian mass media research thought,
this book is an indispensable source of information. Its 30 essays, of
which this review can mention only a few, include works on industry of
culture, advertising, political communication, fictional genres,
television and the child, Latin American movies, comparative television
systems, Brazilian radio, Brazilian television, mass media and
environment, AfricanÐ Brazilian identity and the press, the role of
television in Brazilian society, and more. To be sure, these are only a
sample of the vast wealth of mass media research that scholars are
conducting in Brazil today, as de Melo himself points out in the preface.
These works reflect Brazilian mass media research's strengths and
weaknesses, which one can generalize to the rest of Latin America.
This book is an eye-opener to the uninitiated. He or she will discover
that far from being provincial, Latin American, and especially Brazilian,
researchers have a level of sophistication that rivals European
scholarship. A review of Marxist, postmodernist and dependency theories
might be helpful before sitting down to read this book.
Some of the book's best works include Cacilda Rego's "On Readers and
Texts: Tracking the Routes of Cultural Studies." Rego's comparison of the
European, North American and Latin American perspectives on cultural
"artifacts" and "audiences" is at the core of current Latin American
thinking. Rego explores the relationship that exists between media and
audiences across cultures. This research tradition questions such
conspiracy theories as dependency and class struggle in terms of
communication and suggests that audiences assign meaning to the message
irrespective of institutional or governmental interventions. Thus, for
example, the immense popularity of MTV in Latin America has less to do
with American "imperialism" and everything to do with message appeal
across cultures. It makes more sense to talk about the culture of the
message than about the message as the medium. Rego, who is well versed in
the research literature of the three continents, makes insightful
comparisons across cultures. Simes Borelli's "Fictional Genres in Mass
Culture" and Maria Aparecida Baccega's "Verbal Language and Mass Media"
do an excellent elaboration on this theory as well.
Those interested in the history of Brazilian radio, television and
advertising will find adequate information in Moreira's "Radio in Brazil,"
Mattos' "A Profile of Brazilian Television" and Durand's "The Field of
Advertising in Brazil, 1930-1991." Those interested in communications'
theses and dissertations will find Vassallo de Lopes's "Communication
Research in Brazil" equally informative.
No volume on Latin American mass media is complete without a study of
media and politics. Since the return of democracy to several Latin
American countries, researchers have focused on the role of the media in
shaping public opinion against the old dictators. During the last decade,
"El marketing," "strategic planning" and "focus groups" have become part
of the region's political vocabulary. Fernandes' "New Dimension in
Political Communication," which puts a lot of stock on the power of the
media, gives us a glimpse of the Brazilian approach to propaganda research
and elaborates on the appeal of strategic planning to Brazilian
politicians.
Marques de Melo's _Communication for a New World_ does a good job at
presenting the scope and depth of contemporary Brazilian mass
communication research. But it also reveals its weaknesses. Generally,
Latin American empirical research lacks rigor, when it is not mishandled
altogether. In this book, readers will find several works in which the
authors have used survey techniques improperly and where the authors have
reported the results inadequately. The reader will also have to get
through some rough passages, improper grammar, faulty editing and
inconsistent citation styles, which may be due to problems in
translation from Portuguese into English.
But for anyone who wants to learn more about Latin American mass
media scholarship, this book is a must.
Gonzalo Soruco, associate professor
School of Communication
University of Miami
Fiske, John
_Media Matters: Everyday Culture and Political Change_. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press. 1994. xxviii+282pp.
John Fiske's list of citations must be one of the longest in the field.
His work as a cultural and media analyst has always demanded attention,
respect and response. His theories of the active audience and popular
culture as resistance have generated widespread discussion and debate --
more so over the singular-minded way in which they have been presented
than over their basic tenets.
Fiske's latest excursion into "everyday culture" will enhance his
reputation as a wild card in the cultural studies pack. The
unpredictability of wild cards creates unease and insecurity, as well as
focusing one's mind on the stakes. Fiske is unpredictable: you never know
into what "media event" his head will pop up next. In this reviewer, at
least, he has created considerable unease -- unease of the kind Fiske
himself no doubt intended for his white "liberal" readership, but also
another kind of unease which I'll elaborate on later. And the stakes?
Well, they're a lot higher than the capacity of audiences to apply
alternative or resistant meanings to television programs. At stake is the
future of a multicultural society in which white supremacists still hold
the upper hand while more liberal whites ignore or repress the racism that
underlies the system they uphold.
Although the book in question purports to deal with the "explosive mixture
of race, gender and sexuality" as it "ignites the cultural crisis of the
United States in the 1990s," its major preoccupation is race and racism as
they revolve around a series of much-publicized events: the debate between
Vice President Dan Quayle and the Murphy Brown sit-com over the impact of
Murphy's single motherhood; the Anita Hill- Clarence Thomas Senate
Hearings (with the Bill Cosby show thrown in for good measure); the
police bashing of Rodney King and the black uprising following the
acquittal of those responsible; and the arrest of O. J. Simpson.
Worldwide, millions, probably billions, of words have been written about
these events in the upmarket press and in critical and analytical
publications -- not to mention the even greater output of the popular
media. So why has Fiske popped up, somewhat belatedly, with his 125,000
worth? Again the answer is race; more specifically, the "non-racist
racism" by which white liberals and their media played down the racial
elements behind these events, concentrating instead on their more
manageable gender dimensions. Fiske wants to drag to the surface the "dark
side of the American Dream," those deep currents of repressed racism
neglected or only implied by other commentators even when they look like
erupting of their own accord during periods of cultural crisis.
Relentless in his pursuit of racism, and perhaps with the uncontaminated
observations and insights of a relative newcomer to the United States,
Fiske for the most part convincingly exposes the deep racial divisions,
fears and anxieties bedeviling American society. According to Fiske,
"whiteness is where racism originates." Fiske is unclear whether he is
referring here to racism in general -- a contentious claim -- or to racism
in America. But one thing is certain for Fiske: the events he analyses
show how the discourse of racism, whether blatant or implied, works to
maintain white supremacy and repress and marginalize others, blacks in
particular.
Isolating and summarizing Fiske's arguments makes them sound even more
stark -- and shocking -- than they originally appear when surrounded by
supporting analysis and "evidence." I hope the following nutshelled
selection, although lacking the nuance and complexity of Fiske's
arguments, reflects their basic gist: Men like O. J. Simpson, Rodney King
and Clarence Thomas are media representations of white imagination. For
whites, they embody the fascination with, and terror of, the black male as
a racial-sexual threat to white law and order and white women. Even the
figure of the "tame" black (Bill Cosby, for example) can never be free of
its "sinister obverse" -- the threat of racial-sexual insubordination or
violence. The O. J. case has all the ingredients -- interracial sex; a
violent black man out of control; the blood of a murdered white woman. If
O. J.'s first wife, a black woman, had been the victim, the response would
have been far less obsessive, Fiske claims. Although the media and
feminists highlighted gender issues in the Hill-Thomas affair, the black
response, which included questions about white manipulation of both
parties, was given little credence or coverage. The beating of Rodney King
partly resulted from a sexual threat: two white female police officers
were present and the chief perpetrator claims to have been fearful of a
"mandingo" situation arising. The Quayle-Murphy Brown debate, too, had a
strongly implied racial element. Quayle accused Murphy of encouraging
single parenthood among those who lacked her resources, but without
specifically referring to race, Quayle was attacking the growth of welfare
payments to single black mothers . According to Fiske, the rest of America
knew exactly what he was talking about.
Here the arguments are, for the most part, forceful and compelling. But,
occasionally, the strain of making a racial- and sexual- mountain out of a
molehill is too much, even for Fiske. Just how significant is it that
Thomas is married to a white woman or that white policewomen were present
at the King beating? How widespread was the stereotyping of Anita Hill as
a "black female sexual savage"?
Fiske is on firmer ground when he reverts to the broader picture of an
America obliged to come to terms with itself as demographic change
transforms a European-based consensus into a more diverse and divisive
society in which whiteness will become as visible as any other color and
therefore forced to see itself as part of the racial problem. But this
will be a dangerous time because the existing white supremacy has not yet
been changed into a residual one by the emerging currents of
multiethnicity. Nor will whites easily succumb to the erosion of their
position and power. Fiske knows all about the extremist white backlash,
but he directs his sights at white liberals and their media who, in their
"racial blindness," have ignored the long-term racial implications of the
events described in the book, thereby allowing the extremists to have
their day.
Now events are moving on. The April 1995 outrage in Oklahoma City has
shown that extremism is on the march; and although the private militia and
their supporters are no doubt racist to their bootstraps, they are
directing their hostility at the government and its agencies rather than
at specific racial groups. Indeed, deep and dark undercurrents are rising
to the surface in America and, regardless of whether racism is the most
treacherous of them all, we can be grateful to Fiske for drawing our
attention to its role in the paranoia to which that exciting but
dangerously nervous society is prone.
That leads me to a final expression of unease -- if not paranoia -- about
some aspects of this book. In his well-intentioned efforts at interpreting
black voices for whites, Fiske indulges in the postmodernist luxury of
relativising the "truth" of all voices, which leads to outbreaks of
textual complexity and contradiction. So while Fiske concedes that it may
not be "really" true that O. J. was framed by white extremists (as some
blacks claim), this is part of a "broader truth" explicit in black
knowledge of race relations. One may take or leave this kind of argument,
but things get a lot messier when Fiske devotes a whole chapter to
propagating the "truth," again held by some blacks, that AIDS was
deliberately introduced by white authorities as an act of genocide against
Africans and African-Americans. Yes, Fiske agonizes over his own role in
introducing such a "controversial" topic. According to Fiske, in the long
run, the objective truth of such a claim is irrelevant; what is important
is that we understand why it is that some people are driven toward their
version of the truth. Couldn't we say the same thing about the lunatic
bombers of Oklahoma City? In which case concepts such as reality or
truth, which should retain some sense of discrimination and value, are
allowed to become meaningless rallying cries for extremists of all
complexions. Fiske wants America to live "peacefully and respectfully"
within its growing social diversity. Will his apparent endorsement of
conspiracy fixation on one side of the racial equation hasten or inhibit
that objective?
Let John Fiske forever remain the wild card of cultural studies. Please
don't let him become its loose canon.
Grahame Griffin, senior lecturer
Department of Communication and Media Studies
Central Queensland University
Rockhampton
Gudykunst, William B., and Tsukasa Nishida. 1994.
_Bridging Japanese/North American Differences_. Thousand Oaks, Calif.:
SAGE Publications. ix+148 pp.
As you read this, the 50th anniversaries of the Hiroshima/ Nagasaki
bombings and Japan's surrender have come and gone. Some say the bombings
resulted from miscommunication and could have been avoided. Today many
observers sense a new wave of severe Japan-U.S. communication problems.
Karel van Wolferen in _The Enigma of Japanese Power_ (1993, p. 6) says,
"The communication gap, dating from the early 1970s that separates Japan
from the West ... appears to be widening."
Van Wolferen presents a negative and critical assessment of Japan's
relations with the West; Gudykunst and Nishida provide an antidote that
acknowledges differences but attempts to "provide suggestions" on
effective communications (p. 103). However, the barriers are many; indeed,
in their chapter titled "Cultural Similarities and Differences Between the
United States and Japan," Gudykunst and Nishida talk almost exclusively
about differences.
The book's other chapters include: "Language Usage in the United States
and Japan," " Communication Patterns in the United States and Japan," "
Expectations for Japanese/North American Communication" and "Effective
Japanese/ North American Communication." As the chapter titles indicate,
some uncertainty exists about whether this volume includes Canada or just
the United States.
Nishida, a professor of intercultural relations at Nihon University in
Mishima, Japan, did graduate work in speech communication in the United
States. Gudykunst, a professor of speech communication at California
State University, Fullerton, became interested in Japanese/North American
communication when he was an intercultural relations specialist with the
U.S. Navy in Yokosuka, Japan. Fullerton is a center of Japan-U.S.
communicaton studies. The reference list contains various papers from
Fullerton's 1991 Conference on Communication in Japan and the United
States.
Their book, one in the series "Communicating Effectively in
Multicultural Contexts," pulls together and highlights the work of many
scholars, including that of the authors. As an accessible meta-analysis,
its reference list has more than 300 entries by Western and Japanese
scholars. (But only a handful were originally in Japanese; one would have
hoped for more.)
For example, the authors (Ch. 2) draw inspiration from Hofstede (1984)
and Hall (1976) to identify five "dimensions of cultural variability":
1) Individualism (United States), which embraces self-realization and
personal well-being, vs. collectivism (Japan), which means attachment to
an ingroup.
2) Low-context (United States) vs. high-context (Japan) communication,
whereby information is conveyed in direct, explicit messages or
implicitly.
3) Low (United States) vs. high (Japan) uncertainty avoidance, whereby
dissent, emotionalism and deviant behavior is either accepted or avoided.
4) Power distance, which can be low (needing reasons for following a
superior's orders) or high (accepting orders without question); on
Hofstede's power distance scale, Japan scored higher (54) than the United
States (40).
5) Masculinity-feminity. On Hofstede's (1984) masculinity scale, Japan
ranked highest of all 40 countries studied, with a score of 95. By
contrast, the United States scored a middle-range 62.
In Japan's masculine culture, women and men occupy different spheres.
One wishes the authors had fully explored Japanese gender-related
communication patterns and how they would differentially affect Western
men and Western women.
The short (126-page) body text manages not to gloss over contradictions
and subtleties. For example, in discussing predispositions toward verbal
behavior, the authors explain (p. 76) that Japanese
are less assertive and responsive than North Americans
(Ishii, Thompson, Klopf, 1990). Patridge and Shibano (1991)
neverthe1ess argue that Japanese do behave assertively.
Japanese assertiveness, however, takes place within the
situatlonal contexts in which they embed their behavior.
Further, Japanese are less argumentive than North Americans
(Prunty, Klopf, & Ishii, 1990). North Americans use feelings
and emotions as information in verbal exchange more than
Japanese (Frymier, Klopf, & Ishil, 1990). Finally, Nortlh
Americans are more immediate than Japanese (Boyer, Thompson,
Kropf & Ishii, 1990).
The book does not shy away from Japanese terms, such as _aizuchi_ (a way
for the listener to let the speaker know he is still listening) and
illustrates them well. An example (p. 58) from Mizutani (1981) shows what
happens when the non-native speaker does not know the _aizuchi_ rules:
Japanese: Moshi moshi. (Hello.)
Foreigner: Moshi moshi. (Hello.)
Japanese: Ee, kochira, anoo, Yamamoto desu ga. (Uuh, this ls
Yamamoto.)
Foreigner: ...
Japanese: Moshi moshi. (Are you there?)
Foreigner: Moshi moshi. (Hello.)
Japanese: Kochira, Yamamoto desu ga. Johnson san wa ... (This
is Yamamoto. Is Mr./Ms. Johnson ... )
Foreigner: ...
Japanese: Moshi moshi. (Are you there?)
This reviewer's well-thumbed copy of the book has already proven its
usefulness. The next edition ought to include a section on communicating
with _meishi_ (business cards).
Anne Cooper-Chen, professor
E.W. Scripps School of Journalism
Ohio University
Hayward, Philip, and Tana Wollen, eds. 1993.
_Future Visions: New Technologies of the Screen_. London: British
Film Institute. xii+212pp.
Publishing a book about any of the new media technologies is
arguably a futile endeavour. Given the long lead times of most
publishers, combined with the speed with which digital
technologies are developing, any book is likely to be out of date
by the time it hits the booksellers' shelves. Yet, to their
credit, Hayward and Wollen have compiled not only an informative
anthology, but one that offers some solid historical and
theoretical groundwork which should give the volume an enduring
shelf-life.
Rather than focus on one area -- such as film, television or
computer animation -- the editors have pulled together a range
(from IMAX cinema projection through high definition television
to virtual reality) based on the fact that they all share the
'screen' as a presentational system. Although such screen
technologies cannot be characterised in terms of a
straightforward and linear history, Hayward and Wollen argue in a
brief but clear introduction that nevertheless "attaining the
real has been a forceful ambition" (p. 1). However, as they also
note, the photographic realism achieved in any particular era
soon looks "dated" once new technological developments seem to
make representations of the real even more "real." Thus, as they
so rightly observe: "our notions of the 'real' are changed by
the 'realisms' which supersede each other to represent it" (p. 2).
Hence the book's stated aims -- contrary to what one might expect --
are simply: "to gather and disseminate information about new
technologies for those whose engagement with older media leads
them to expect changes" (p. 8). Modest aims indeed -- as the
editors themselves acknowledge -- for such trendy, sexy subject
matter. Yet what many of us have found when trying to engage
with this area is precisely a lack of clear, accessible
information that endeavours to communicate a genuine
understanding of what is happening and the implications thereof
rather than wallowing in celebratory and speculative hype.
Although not formally divided into sections, the book addresses
three broad avenues of screen technology: image-enhancing
technologies such as IMAX and HDTV; digital processes and some of
their cultural forms (such as computer games); and, lastly, what
the editors term "some of the latest composite technologies" such
as CD-I and virtual reality. The nature of the "information"
disseminated within that broad framework is something of a mixed
bag since some writers take a more straightforwardly historical
approach -- as Rebecca Coyle does in "The Genesis of Virtual
Reality" or in Wollen's own chapter "The Bigger the Better: from
Cinemascope to IMAX" -- while others -- such as Robin Baker in his
"Computer Technology and Special Effects in Contemporary Cinema" --
endeavour to map out critical or theoretical frameworks within
which to make sense of what these new technologies actually do.
However, this is actually one of the book's strengths. The
combination of approaches , although not comprehensive in terms
of coverage, provides the beginnings of solid, informative
research on which future work can build.
This is particularly apparent in the book's last three chapters,
all of which address virtual reality. Following on from Coyle's
mentioned above, Sally Pryor and Jill's Scott's "Virtual Reality:
Beyond Carthesian Space" has Scott actually describing her
experience of using a VR headset while visiting Virtual Reality
research centres in North America. Not only is it one of the
most accessible descriptions I've come across, which addresses
the problems of orientation, side-effects and the practicalities
of using the equipment, but her prose is interspersed with an
intelligent commentary by Pryor which usefully endeavours to
locate Scott's experiences within a multi-faceted cultural
context. The third VR chapter, "Situating Cyberspace: The
Popularisation of Virtual Reality" is by co-editor Hayward. Now
the reader has a reasonable grasp of what VR is, he goes on to
examine how a number of cultural discourses -- namely, science
fiction, rock culture, psychedelia and New Age mysticism -- which
have preceded VR have in fact framed, contextualised and
predicted its development. Taken together, the three chapters
with their very different approaches to the subject matter do
much to demystify the exotic and rather wacky aura that has come
to surround VR.
A further -- and invaluable -- strength of the book is the extent
to which most contributors have made technical processes easy to
understand for the non-specialist. Explaining technical
information and how a specific technology works can so easily be
excruciatingly dull. But with the possible exception of Jean-Luc
Renaud's chapter "Towards Higher Definition Television," most
writers have found accessible analogies or ways of gently guiding
the reader through the technical processes until they do make
sense. For instance, in his "Reconfiguring Culture," Timothy
Binkley makes such a wonderful job of explaining the difference
between analogue and digital media, that when he states "So
computerisation of cultural activities changes the role of the
media" (p. 103), the truth of his assertion is blindingly
obvious! Similarly, when Frank Rickett in his chapter
"Multimedia" discusses the problems of presenting moving images
in a multimedia system, he uses the following analogy to describe
how CI-I can easily deliver the large amount of digitised
information necessary but cannot do it fast enough: "[It] is
like being in the Sahara desert with a lifetime's supply of water
which can only be sucked through a straw with the diameter of a
pin" (p. 83).
Hayward and Wollen may have started out with modest aims for
their collection of essays, but the achievement of bringing
together a diverse range of material into a fairly coherent,
meaningful whole is not inconsiderable. Moreover, while _Future
Visions_ presents useful, solid research for anyone working in and
studying this area, the accessibility of much of the writing
means it can also function as an introduction for the non-
specialist.
Julia Knight, senior lecturer
School of Media Arts
University of Luton, UK
Kamalipour, Yahya, and Hamid Mowlana, eds. 1994.
_Mass Media in the Middle East: A Comprehensive Handbook_.
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 352pp.
Communication students often overlook books written in languages they do
not understand. Two communication experts have edited _Mass Media in the
Middle East_, which contains the contributions of authors who have used
standard English.
The book contains tables, acknowledgments, a selected bibliography, an
appendix, an introduction, more than 100 acronyms and academic profiles on
the 21 contributors -- mostly full-fledged professors in U.S. and Middle
East universities. Structured for easy reading, it opens with a modern map
of the region and discusses each of the 21 countries in alphabetical
order. Almost every chapter has a table that describes an aspect of
newspaper, radio, television, film and magazine. Of the 352 pages, 308
make up text and social indicators; one of every seven pages contains a
table and each chapter provides geophysical details on each country:
population, land size, gender and ethnic composition. The authors assert
that electronic media in the Middle East are "tools" of nationalism or
Islamic universalism" (p.xvi) -- reflected in the Gulf communication
policies.
Some chapters are more informative than others. Fayad Kazan's on Kuwait
would arouse the Western reader's attention, especially if he or she is
looking for new markets in the region. Kazan points out that "Kuwait has
provided hundred of low-interest development loans to Arab, African, and
Asian countries" (p.145). He goes on to say Kuwaiti media have progressed
both qualitatively and quantitatively because "Kuwait is characterized by
a more diversified and pluralistic demographic structure" (p.147).
The authors' contributions characterize the region's psycho- physical
composition -- basically a pluricultural, economically and politically
explosive region. To see this handbook as a subtraction from mass
communication discourse is to ignore its addition to the literature in the
field. One can only include it among mainstream works, especially after
considering the fact that corporations, governments and scholars need
information on different regions to facilitate their argument for a new
world information and communication order. King and Schneider (1991) even
make this position more tangible when they say: "Communication is being
shaped by an unprecedented mixture of geostrategic earthquakes and social,
economic, technological, cultural, and ethical factors" (p. xiii).
Following the current request to connect different world regions through
communication technology, communication students, diplomats and business
organizations should read books like that set
the precedence for incorporating that region in the globalization process.
How else could anyone fully discuss world communication without reading
this handbook?
The content of the handbook explains why an understanding of the region's
communication infrastructure makes it possible to exploit the human
potential in the region.
Reading _Mass Media in the Middle East_ is like visiting the government
offices, the landscape and the media industries. It includes each
country's profile of export products and per capita income as well as the
circulation capacity and ownership of newspapers. Despite the inclusion of
such details, certain articles have limited references, which can hinder
future research. The inclusion of indigenous sources that may benefit
especially the participatory researcher has enhanced the book's
credibility. However, a foreign scholar may encounter serious problems in
identifying and using them because they are only direct translations from
Arabic.
The accuracy of some of its content can also be a concern. The editors
claim that "aspects of communication and information flow in the Middle
East have not been explored" (p. xv), whereas other scholars have written
much on that subject: for example, Lerner (1958), Boyd (1982, 1993), Kazan
(1991) and Nouwaise (1981). The latter two, who are Arabs themselves, have
set the pace for understanding communication and information flow in the
region. The only difference between the handbook in question and the works
of the authors cited are relates to details on media history, size,
ownership and the large number of contributors.
As with edited collections, some chapters are more compelling than others.
However, that should not be construed as a structural weakness but a
construction of individual assignments.
Those engaging in the ever sensitive discourse on hegemony will find the
authors' presentation of Middle East policies and media content useful. In
fact, this is a must read book for media analysts, diplomats, graduates
students and instructors in international communication programs. Also,
those involved in Third World media studies will find intriguing
similarities between media policies in the Middle East and those in other
developing countries.
_References:_
Boyd, A.D. 1982. _Broadcasting the Arab World: A survey of radio and
television in the Middle East_. Philadelphia: Temple University
press.
Boyd, A.D.1993. _Broadcasting the Arab World: A survey of radio and
television in the Middle East_. 2nd ed. Ames: Iowa University
Press.
Kazan, E. F. 1993. _Mass media, modernity, and development: Arab
States of the Gulf_. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
King, A., and B. Schneider. 1991. _The first global revolution: A
report by the council of the Club of Rome_. New York: Pantheon Books.
Lerner, D. 1958. _The passing of traditional society: Modernizing
the Middle East_. New York: Free Press.
Nouwaise, A. 1981. _Mass media and national development_. Abu Dhabi,
United Arab Emirates: Al-Ittihad Foundation.
Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi, associate professor and chair
Department of mass communication
Wiley College
Marshall, Texas
Kissinger, Henry
_Diplomacy_. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1994. 912pp.
This book is a majesterial review of the history of diplomacy.
Kissinger's canvass is broad, but his mastery is sure. From the 18th
century to the present, he traces the major conflicts, the moving alliances
and shifting fortunes of the major powers, and how they were aided or
damaged by the diplomacy of their leading statesmen. The book, first of
all, is an informative guide to the major diplomatic events of the last two
centuries, supplemented by Kissinger's shrewd observations on particular
policies and leaders, and his asides about general factors in the
development of conflicts and policy. The book provokes many
reconsiderations of historical events, and provides insights into the
strategy and practice of political conflicts and international diplomacy.
The hero of Kissinger's book is state power, its pursuit, extension and
consolidation in the international sphere. He admires those who use this
power skilfully and judiciously to extend their state's influence.
Overwhelmingly, he admires most the conservative statesmen who accomplished
this, such as Richelieu, Metternich and Bismark. He also is a great
admirer of Stalin as a strategist and tactician, in advancing Russian
interests in the lead-up to and aftermath of World War II. What these men
had in common was a clarity of perception, a capacity to anticipate the
likely behaviour of other nations, and a strategic consistency, unclouded
by romantic emotion, personal vanity or moral scruples. His villains are
the soft-headed idealists, backward-looking conservatives and vainglorious
egotists, who abuse the craft of diplomacy. They fail to advance their
state's interests because they fail to appreciate international power
realities, or they cannot match their visions to their capacities, or they
allow sentiment -- either noble or ignoble -- to overwhelm their strategic
sense. Equally, he is scathing of those for whom the pursuit of the
balance of power becomes rigidified into mindless militarism, into
counter-productive aggression, which invites rivals to become determined,
balance of power becomes rigidified into mindless militarism, into
counter-productive aggression, which invites rivals to become determined,
mobilised opponents. He is particularly scathing of leaders like Napoleon
III or the German leaders who led their country into the first and second
world wars, for dissipating and wasting the potential national power they
commanded.
So the book is full of erudition, of shrewdness, of intelligent
reflection. Are there signs that betray the darker sides of the author's
own diplomatic record, remembering that this is the man who not only helped
Nixon in his breakthroughs to China and detente with the USSR, but also the
barbaric and inhuman bombing of Indochina, who undermined the American
system of government in the pursuit of his and his boss's pursuit of power,
who has been convincingly profiled by Seymour Hersch (_The Price of
Power_), among others, as a pathological and unscrupulous liar?
The most tangible evidence is in the worst chapter of the book -- the
one in which he was most directly involved, "Vietnam: the Extrication;
Nixon." Many passages are tendentious, and obviously aimed to settle
scores, or provide self-justification. Interestingly, too, it is only in
the accounts of the leaders of North Vietnam that the tone of detachment so
often gives way to moral condemnation, and where the descriptions are
clearly colored by personal dislike. If his account were consistent with
that adopted elsewhere in the book, one might have expected more admiration
for their success in achieving their objectives, and for the way they
brought to heel a much larger power, the United States.
Apart from this specific example, there are some intellectual themes,
typically implicit, running through the book, which together are compatible
with his historical role of villainy. First, the book is great-power
chauvinist. Smaller nations figure very much as pawns in the exchanges of
the dominant powers, and this is accepted as the natural order. Added to
that, the book is Atlantic-centric. It gives scant attention and is less
than comfortable with the emergence of major Asian powers, China and Japan,
let alone of regional powers like Brazil, India or Egypt. When one schism,
e.g., the Cold War, is seen as dominating an era, then developments that do
not fit neatly into his bilateral world view are not easily accommodated.
It is a view that is consistent with performing barbarities against the
periphery to pursue the metropolitan objectives.
Second, even more ominously, the book pictures states overwhelmingly as
autonomous entities, detached from social forces and aspirations, sometimes
even from the domestic politics, of the home countries. It treats the
interstate relations of the mid-19th century as if the social and economic
transformations in each of the major countries were irrelevant. Kissinger
several times touches on the changing mid-century international order, but
seems completely uninterested in the risings of 1848, for example, and the
political forces that led to such widespread unrest. This is telling,
especially insofar as it implicitly gives a licence for enlightened
statesmen who understand the national interest to pursue it, even if this
means the manipulation of domestic opinion, or the subduing of counter
voices. At best, it views them as nuisances with which the enlightened
statesman must deal. It is also important in that it pictures conflicts
only in their interstate dimensions, and neglects their internal dynamics.
Such considerations may be central when viewing small matters like the
justice of a cause. Even from purely pragmatic considerations, they often
led, during the Cold War, to misjudgments about likely outcomes in
essentially domestic conflicts which had acquired significance in the
bi-polar struggle. It is an approach that prevents the asking of power for
what? The pursuit of national power is unrelated to the quality of lives
of its citizenry.
Third, there is a bias, running through Kissinger's book, against moral
considerations. He, for example, is particularly critical of Woodrow
Wilson, writing often as if there were inherent flaws in Wilson's
aspirations for a League of Nations, for collective security built around
common interests, and for democracy as a safeguard against aggressive
tyranny. Kissinger writes as if the whole lead-up to World War II was a
clear repudiation of Wilson's views, whereas in fact they were never put
into practice, as his hopes were from the first confounded by the
isolationist and chauvinist voices in his own country.
Communication and media get surprisingly short shrift from someone who,
in practice, was a master manipulator of information and images, who
savoured and exploited the political advantages from publicising shuttle
diplomacy and major summits, let alone being the master of the unscrupulous
leak. There is much stress on how statesmen signal or conceal their
intentions, but little systematic attention to the actual processes of
either communication or perception. The press and media largely figure as
obstacles to governments achieving their aims, especially when there are
leaks, which make an intended course of action politically impossible.
Because the focus of the book is on the content of the interactions of
competing and complementary national interests, there is little suggestion
of how the changing processes of international transactions may have
changed the game.
Rodney Tiffen, associate professor
Department of Government
University of Sydney
McDaniel, Drew O. 1994.
_Broadcasting in the Malay World: Radio, Television and Video in Brunei,
Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore_. Norwood, N.J. Ablex Publishing
Corp. xii+339pp.
Before World War II, development in broadcasting in the then Malaya
appeared to be crawling like a snail. Indeed, it took about half a century
from the starting of the first radio broadcast to the introduction of
black-and-white television, which made its debut in Malaysia in 1963. The
Confrontation -- the undeclared war Indonesia foisted on Malaysia
following the formation of Malaysia -- did not deter the introduction of
television, which appeared to be taking its own natural course of
development. In 1978, Malaysia introduced colour television. Two decades
after the introduction of black-and-white television, the first private
commercial TV station made its debut in 1984, a sterling move signalling
Malaysia's new policy shift to privatisation. The new station is known as
TV3, meaning it is the third TV channel after the two government channels,
TV1 and TV2. And slightly more than a decade later, on 1 July 1995, a
second private commercial station came into being. From here on, things
are moving at a very dizzying speed.
If four is not enough, plans are afoot to add five more channels from
September through November 1995, all as subscription or pay television.
But viewing for the first three months would be free. Mega TV, a
consortium led by TV3, would provide these new channels. And to cap all
that, by April 1996, Malaysia is expected to have an additional 20
channels when the country launches its own domestic satellite MEASAT. With
or without MEASAT, the people of Malaysia will have access to more
channels after that when parabola dishes will become available in
abundance, legally or otherwise.
McDaniel's book _Broadcasting in the Malay World_ provides a very useful
and important backdrop to the above development. Without knowing the early
development of broadcasting since the 1920s, one will not be able to
really appreciate the current progressive development in Malaysia and the
surrounding countries, especially in Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei.
McDaniel had already recorded the possible birth of the fourth channel in
his book (pp 146-147). The nameless entity then, now known as the
MetroVision, is majority owned by the Melewar Corp. (a company connected
to the Negeri Sembilan Royalty), the company that submitted the proposal
for the channel as early as 1984. The new channel is also known as TV
Channel 8. But its catchword is MetroVision, with two crescents joining
together to form a reclining figure 8.
The appearance of _Broadcasting in the Malay World_ is most welcome, as
there is really a dearth of books on communication and the media about the
countries in the region. Information on historical development of
broadcasting in the region is not readily available, even though Malaysian
scholars are making efforts to carry out research. (For instance, Asiah
Sarji's doctoral dissertation _The Influence of Political and
Socio-Cultural Environment on the Development of Radio Broadcasting in
Malaya from 1920-1959_.) McDaniel's book not only touches about
development in radio, television and video in Malaysia, but also in
Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei. While the title gives the name of
countries covered in the book in alphabetical order, Malaysia actually
receives the lion's share. The book has 12 chapters. The first deals
briefly with the Malay-Indonesia Archipelago, its history, ethnic
component and the economies of the countries. This vital information helps
readers, especially those not familiar with the region, to follow the
later chapters with greater awareness.
The actual discussion on broadcasting development begins with Chapter 2,
which deals with radio in the Malay Archipelago between 1920-1941; and
this narrows down to a history of broadcasting in Malaysia and Singapore
between 1942-1969 (Chapter 3). Chapters 4 through 6 deal with broadcasting
in Malaysia, Chapter 7 with broadcasting in Singapore, Chapter 8 with
broadcasting in Brunei, and Chapters 9 and 10 with broadcasting in
Indonesia. Chapter 11 deals with home video.
This book is not merely a historical narration of broadcasting
development. Rather, it tries to see how broadcasting reflects cultural
pluralism, and the role assumed by media in cultural integration polities.
Indeed, as the author points out very early in his book (Chapter 1), the
countries in the region have to cope with a multi-racial population. Radio
and television in these countries have a special function to transmit
economic and special policies for national development. The author also
explores the formulation and implementation of national media policies,
and shows how mass communication is made to conform with national
political principles. McDaniel uses Sydney Head's viewpoint as a central
point of his book that "each country will have uniquely adapted
broadcasting to suit its own need."
While McDaniel has accomplished a lot in this volume, he has still omitted
a good deal of needed information. McDaniel has an open field if he has
the time to come again to this region. The most important development is,
of course, the use of parabola dishes to receive TV signals from
satellites in Malaysia, Brunei and Thailand while these countries are
coping with the problem of cultural invasion through television
programmes. The use of parabola dishes is illegal in Malaysia, but several
thousands are installed in Sarawak, a state on the eastern wing of the
country. These dishes are available just across the borders of Indonesia
and Brunei. One can construe Malaysia's efforts to flood the market with
television channels as a strategy to curb the need for people to have
direct access to satellite TV channels.
It is interesting to note that McDaniel's interest in the region
started in the early 1950s when he was a young shortwave radio listener.
The information and documents he collected then, plus working
stints in Kuala Lumpur and a research grant, enabled him to put together
this very informative book. It should be recommended reading in
communication schools, especially in the countries discussed.
Mohd. Safar Hasim, associate professor
Department of Communication
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle, and Ali Mohammadi. 1994.
_Small Media, Big Revolution: Communication, Culture and the Iranian
Revolution_.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. xxiii+225 pp.
Iran and its 1979 revolution have already become a topic of many
publications on international communication. The Mohammadis personally
experienced and participated in the Iranian revolution, before they left
the country in 1980. They describe the situation before, during and after
the political upheaval of 1979 and try to explain the phenomena of this
process. The book presents a case study of the communication dynamics of
popular revolutionary mobilization. The authors trace the use of the small
media (audio cassettes and leaflets) to disseminate the revolution, as they
question the credibility of the established media.
Sreberny-Mohammadi is professor and director of the Centre for Mass
Communication Research at the University of Leicester, England. During the
Iranian revolution, she taught sociology and communication at National
University and Damavand College in Tehran and edited the English-language
quarterly from 1977 to 1979 at the
Iranian Communications and Development Institute. Her name is also known
through the UNESCO/IAMCR foreign news study in 1979. Her husband, Ali
Mohammadi, a native Iranian, was the head of the graduate program in
culture and communication studies at Farabi University in Tehran before
and after the revolutionary events. He is co-editor of and has written about topics related to Iranian exiles, foreign
images and the cultural policy of the Islamic Republic. Now, he is a
reader in international communications and cultural studies at Nottingham
Trent University, England.
Essentially, this book explores the function of the media as a part of the
power structure of the authoritarian state in the Third World as well as
the toll for resistance against such state. In the Iranian case, "big
media," the official print and electronic media, were under control of the
shah. Small media, a popular rubric for various kinds of mediated
alternatives to state-owned electronic media, gave strong impulses for the
overthrow of the shah. They provided a public sphere for voicing popular
opinion in opposition to the state's big media.
The Mohammadis' book consists of four parts. Part I -- Chapters 1 and 2 --
gives a theoretical overview. The authors criticize the existing
communication models of modernization and dependency and try to explore a
newer approach of globalization. In their opinion, the main theories are
"underestimating the traditional cultural resources" (p. 39). However,
both authors are aware of creating a "myth of small media" (p. 40).
Part II -- Chapters 3 and 4 -- offers the interested reader a detailed
historic account and analysis of the development of mass media in Iran. It
shows how the "big state" had developed its big media. The shah speeded up
the development of the electronic media, which he saw as an effective tool
in the modernization process because of the continuing problem of
illiteracy and the power of oral culture in the Iranian society.
Part III examines the pre-revolution communication network of the
oppositional forces, both the secular and religious, using traditional
channels such as bazaars and mosques and new forms of "small media" such
as open letters and "samizdat type of literature" or self-produced
literature (p. 103). Furthermore, the authors explain how the two main
forms of the "small media," photocopied statements and cassette tapes
(also called "electronic minbar" and "pulpit," p. 120) were used
traditionally by religious leaders and popular movements.
Part IV -- Chapters 9,10 and 11 -- highlights the actual phase of the
revolution and demonstrates how the "small media" played an important role
of providing counterinformation, correcting the regime's version of news.
Chapter 11 characterizes how the communication and cultural politics
changed from the shah's modernization to an "Islamization" of Iranian
culture, which saw a re-rise of the state media and the demise of small
media.
This book also includes an introductory section, a glossary of Persian and
Arabic terms and illustrations within some chapters that show some of the
forms of small media used during the Iranian revolution such as leaflets
and pictures of Khomeni at various places. The book also has an 11-page
bibliography, with two pages of Persian references as well.
The book is a detailed inside look at mass media institutions in a
non-Western society in which both authors have lived. It is also a broad
cultural study of Iran. The authors provide a historical overview and draw
a picture of Iranian society in order to make clear why the Islamic
revolution found such fertile ground. Herein, they pay great attention to
explain the power and success of small media. Their thesis: "In Iran the
combination of traditional channels of communication, rooted in urban
social life, coupled with small media based on contemporary media
technologies, promoted an indegenous identity and opportunity for
participation, unlike the despotic state and its mass media" (p. 193).
The authors propose that future studies should not only focus primarily on
mass media, but also consider traditional forms of communication.
The book will be valuable for all who are interested in popular culture,
international media and particularly the Middle East.
Katrin Pomper, graduate student
E. W. Scripps School of Journalism
Ohio University
Tehranian, Katherine, and Majid Tehranian, eds. 1992.
_Restructuring for World Peace: On the Threshold of the Twenty-First
Century_. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press. xxv+365pp.
The end of the Cold War and the declining hegemony of modern culture
create important opportunities but also pose serious challenges to the
goal of world peace. This book is one of the first to seriously address
the issues raised by these developments. It contains a collection of
papers presented at an international conference held at the University of
Hawaii peace institute from June 2-5, 1991. The book raises and addresses
many important questions that the world must resolve to achieve world
peace. It is designed as a textbook that can introduce students to the
dominant, current perspectives in peace studies: reformist,
structuralist, and transformationalist. But it goes well beyond
introducing these perspectives; it presents important, useful statements on
how to reform peace studies to achieve the goal of world peace.
The greatest challenge to peace studies at present is the transformation
of its central values to achieve its goal. This book provides essays that
address this challenge and offer useful, new formulations. It is no
longer possible to advocate development, democracy, peace, security, and
freedom without recognizing that during the last few decades advocates
have too often used these values to promote global changes that impose
hegemonic modern culture. These advocates promoted Western-style
bureaucratic and technological strategies as the means of achieving these
values. But these have served to create greater social instability and
have further undermined indigenous cultures. Though the values may yet
prove worthwhile, the time has come to reassess them and to reformulate
the strategies for achieving them.
These essays make it clear that development must become something more
than linear progress toward greater material wealth. Democracy needs
broadening beyond representative government practiced in the West. Peace
must not entail suppression of those forms of conflict necessary to
negotiate equitable solutions to legitimate disputes. Security needs
broadening beyond the nation state to create regional and ultimately
global guarantees of security. Freedom must be given structure and
substance. It is not enough to merely achieve freedom from arbitrary,
authoritarian rules; people must exercise freedom to achieve valued goals.
The editors have divided the book into four subsections: Restructuring for
Peace with Security, Peace with Freedom, Peace with Justice, and Peace
with Community. Within these sections, the editors have allowed for
diverse opinions while maintaining a coherent theme. They have presented
case studies from many nations and cultures that illustrate both peaceful
and violent resolutions to conflict. They have used these case studies to
identify tendencies and trends of peace and violence.
Restructuring for peace with security collectively redefines traditional
concepts of "security." The book advances a global conception of security
rather than a nation-state interpretation of security. Collective
security of regions includes not only military security from invasion, but
environmental security from pollution and ecological hazards, and economic
security in the world trade arena. It calls for altering the traditional
security measures such as nuclear weapons and the United Nations to
reflect this sense of interdependence. Ultimately, the alterations may
come from global peace movements. Unaligned to any national agenda, these
movements could encourage the "free and balanced flow of information"
through new information channels such as the Internet. The critical
thrust of these articles is the necessity and utility of an expanded
conception of security.
Restructuring for peace with freedom focuses on establishing more
effective protection of human rights and more thorough redress of abuses
of those rights. The authors emphasize the need for local, regional, and
global organizations to work toward more equitable human rights policies.
Several authors indicate that communications links between these
organizations could facilitate developing a more coherent vision of human
rights and exploration of new ways of redressing abuses. Some suggest
that the segments of society who have a history of abuse could be at the
forefront of efforts to restructure for peace with freedom.
Peace with justice addresses legal and economic justice. This section
highlights the greatest differences between older and newer definitions of
democracy and development. Some authors use these terms as synonymous
with Western-style notions of representative government and technological
development. Others, however, challenge these conceptions arguing that
democracy should encompass psychological, sociological, technological,
economic, ecological, cultural and political interactions, rather than the
very narrow political role it plays in Western nations. Redefining and
implementing new definitions of development will be especially difficult
because the existing international structures (e.g., the International
Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development) support the older conceptions. Some
authors laud the creation of regional commissions for structuring and
determining goals of production and industry. They claim these
commissions are better suited to assess production capacity and fiscal
responsibility.
The final section concerns restructuring for peace with community. In this
section, authors confront one of the most troubling challenges created by
the declining hegemony of modern culture. How can worldwide cultural
diversity be encouraged while at the same time retaining and forging
strong cross-cultural links? The goal of a strong world community able to
maintain and promote peace is often at odds with the goal of enabling
indigenous communities to flourish. Various authors propose alternatives,
and Tu Wei-Ming ends this section with a call to seek out normative
standards that transcend cultures and ideologies. He argues there are
universal norms that constitute spiritual resources which affirm a
fundamental "togetherness" of human existence. With this as the
foundation, it is possible to restructure world economic and political
systems to accommodate a respectful interdependence among nations and
regions.
Although the focus of this book is on advancing the goal of world peace
through restructuring social institutions, it gives consistent attention
to the roles that new communications technology might play. Readers
interested in this area will find many concrete examples of how existing
communications technology is being applied and speculation about how it
might be used. For example, several authors discuss how the Internet has
become host to a wide variety of global peace and environmental movements
providing easier access to information and better communication between
movements. Global peace movements are restructuring to take advantage of
the Internet. The indigenous resistance movement in Chiappas in southern
Mexico is offered as an example of how movements can use new technology.
Ten years ago, the rebel freedom fighters would have been hard-pressed to
draw attention to their case from remote mountain bases. But Chiappas
rebels use the Internet and fax machines to lobby the Mexican government
and gain support from other movements around the world. Authors point out
that new technology also permits experimentation with new forms of direct
democracy.
This book makes an essential contribution to advancing peace studies
beyond the paradigms that have dominated scholarship over the past three
decades. It offers useful new conceptualizations of values and
institutions. It addresses fundamental problems and issues. It
identifies questions that should dominate the agenda for peace studies
over the next decade. Communication researchers interested in peace
studies will find this book useful as both a textbook and a reference
book. It suggests many ways that communication researchers could become
involved in the effort to advance world peace.
Dennis Davis, professor
School of Communication
University of North Dakota
Jennifer J. Davis, student
Department of History
Carleton College
Williams, Frederick, and John V. Pavlik, eds. 1994.
_The People's Right to Know: Media, Democracy, and the
Information Highway_, Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
xii+258pp.
The world is in the midst of an information revolution caused by the
computer, multimedia, interactive media and the information highway.
Sooner or later, this new technology will have a tremendous impact on
individuals and society in areas of interpersonal communication,
information retrieval, and even operation of government. Therefore, it
will be worthwhile to understand how to direct the new technology for the
benefit of the public, regardless of people's socio-economic status.
This book examines the current telecommunications situation that tends to
disproportionately serve the informationally and economically advantaged.
As a solution to the widening gap between the information rich and the
poor, it proposes public policies that would benefit all the citizens, not
just the socio-economically advantaged.
Co-editor Williams observes that people can tap information, message and
transaction services by upgrading the existing telephone network and the
cable system. He suggests that the U.S. federal government consider
promoting electronic information services as a "universal service" at
affordable cost -- a suggestion applicable to other countries as well.
The authors show no disagreement on promoting universal access to
essential information for citizens, but they offer different approaches to
achieve this goal. One group of scholars focuses on the introduction of
high technology that is likely to be commonplace soon; another emphasizes
instant access by most of the citizens using low technology; and a third
stresses the interconnection of separate networks.
Alfred C. Sikes points out that, with some 30 million personal computers
and better than half the work force working with computers, the United
States is rapidly becoming a computer-literate society. He predicts that
the American people will have the potential to truly transform their
society if American households are linked to a high-capacity network as
education and research centers have been.
Everett C. Parker goes one step further. Regretting not accelerating
deployment of a fiber optic network, he declares, "We should see that we
don't let any technology come in and give us a degraded product."
On the other hand, Herbert S. Dordick and Dale E. Lehman favor a "weak
link" theory over the trickle-down theory. The weak-link theory values
infrastructure investment for improving the efficiency of the weakest link
in the economic structure rather than enabling the most able segments.
Dordick and Lehman ascribe productivity problems in the United States to
those uneducated and unskilled who constitute the weak link in the entire
chain of the interdependent production procedure. They recommend providing
terminals, along with education and training, for these educationally and
socially disadvantaged. They downplay the worry about technological
obsolescence because terminals could be modified and upgraded as
necessary.
To provide efficient access to users, Eli M. Noam stresses not so much new
construction but integration of the communications infrastructure to
overcome the barriers between the separate network systems, including
cable television networks and the other alternative local exchange
companies.
Along the same line, William H. Dutton sees a federal role in interlinking
multiple electronic networks and services by setting standards and
providing an indexing function for a transparent retrieval of information
regardless of its physical location across agencies.
Another topic this book analyses is whether the current electronic
environment can provide the substance if access is ensured.
Sikes set the ground by explaining why information is valuable to
citizens. He regards information as the building blocks of knowledge. By
digesting more information, citizens could become better informed and make
better educated decisions about their personal lives and world events.
Williams selects 32 areas ranging from abortion rights and counseling to
welfare rights as essential information services. He expects local
governments, public service agencies, or commercial sponsors to contribute
this information.
Analyzing the past activities of INFO LINE, Dutton contends that
individuals have a unique set of diverse needs so that thousands of
screens of public information can satisfy them. INFO LINE is a nonprofit
agency offering public information and referral services over the
telephone in Los Angeles County. Though he recognizes the difficulties of
providing useful public information, Dutton still favors developing the
infrastructure and applications to provide all sorts of electronic
services to the public. Otherwise, he says, access problems will continue
to worsen within an information society in which electronic media
increasingly tend to be involved in mediating all kinds of services.
George Heilmeier detects another barrier: that user-friendly access to
information requires additional cost. An answer could be Everette Dennis'
suggestion that information brokers such as librarians be used as a bridge
between information providers and unskilled citizens.
Roger Fidler still has hope for the newspaper as a commercial information
service because of its long experience as a major information provider and
its ample electronization experience except in delivery. But he admits
that a flat panel screen for reading the digital newspaper should provide
affordable service as well as transparent access and excellent display
quality if it is to be adopted.
Authors welcome promotion of competition among access providers and
government's intervention lest the market mechanism may bias toward an
upscale market.
Mark A. Thalhimer cautions that if current deregulatory trends continue,
the information networks will continue to promote mainly commercial uses
such as stock quotes, news reports, electronic mail, and electronic
bulletin boards. So he counts on the government's intervention to level
current inequities that limit many citizens' access to important
information. Charles D. Ferris and Parker also favor competition among
multiple conduit providers that will ensure a healthy communication
structure.
Using the views of leading communications scholars and analysts, John V.
Pavlik says that the U.S. Communications Act of 1934 gives a legal
justification to provide auniversal or equitable service. Among other
things, he suggests the provision of free access terminals in public
places, development of computer literacy, setting up of multilingual
information kiosks, and introduction of legislation as ways to achieve
universal access. He regards government intervention as an interim
solution until the development of thenetwork. Once that network is in
place, citizens will be able to pull back from government regulation and
let the marketplace play a more dominant role.
The data and information provided in this volume come mainly from a
research roundtable and a national conference held in 1992, even though
the book has a 1994 publication date. So it does not reflect the dizzying
developments on the Information Highway since then. Some overlapping and
redundancies are apparent in this book because of contributions from a
multiplicity of contributors.
Scholars and students in journalism, telecommunication and information
studies who have to cope with the electronic world, will certainly benefit
from this book. It offers the analysis of prospects for citizens'
information services and, in Everette E. Dennis' words, "a radical
proposal for ultimate information literacy."
Byung S. Lee, assistant professor
Mass Communications Department
Moorhead State University
Wiseman, Richard L., ed. 1995.
_Intercultural Communication Theory_. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE
Publications. vii+ 327pp.
This book is part of the series sponsored by the Speech Communication
Association's International and Intercultural Communication Division that
aims to promote "better understanding of communication processes in
international and intercultural contexts" (vii). More specifically,
Wiseman has sought to bring together the current theories on intercultural
communication that reflects the advances made in some of the theories
previously published in earlier works as well as the new theoretical
developments in the field. He has divided the 11 chapters of the book into
three main parts. It includes a section of references and another on the
contributors.
Part I: _The Role of Theory in Intercultural Communication Research_
consists of one chapter "Theorizing in Intercultural Communication" by
Richard Wiseman and Tasha Van Horn.
Part II: _Theories on Intercultural Communication Competence and
Adaptation_ consists of seven chapters: William B. Gudykunst's essay
"Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) Theory"; John R. Baldwin and Michael
I.Hecht's "The Layered Perspective of Cultural (In)Tolerance(s): The Roots
of a Multidisciplinary Approach"; Jeffrey C. Ady's "Towards a Differential
Demand Model of Sojourner Adjustment"; Cynthia Gallois, Howard Giles,
Elizabeth Jones, Aaron C.Cargile and Hiroshi Ota's "Accommodating
Intercultural Encounters: Elaborations and Extensions"; Min-Sun Kim's
"Towards a Theory of Conversational Constraints: Focusing on
Individual-Level Dimensions of Culture"; Young Yun Kim's "Cross-Cultural
Adaptation:An Integrative Theory"; and Judee K.Burgoon's "Cross-Cultural
Intercultural Applications of Expectancy Violations Theory."
Part III: _Theories of Intercultural Communication Contexts_ has three
chapters: Kim Witte and Kelly Morrison's "Intercultural and Cross-Cultural
Health Communication: Understanding People and Motivating Healthy
Behaviors"; John G. Oetzel's "Intercultural Small Groups: An Effective
Decision Making Theory"; and Tamar Katriel's "From 'Context' to 'Contents'
in Intercultural Communication Research."
The weakest section of the book is Part I, the first chapter, that deals
with the role of theory. In their efforts to establish a rationale, the
writers end up leaving the reader with what appears to be no parameters
and with an attitude that theory can do all things or be all things. There
also appears to be a strong Western ethnocentric attitude toward the role
and function that theory can play.
The strongest and most valuable sections of the book are in Parts II and
III that present the actual theories. These essays vividly portray the
creative and provocative status of the evolutionary process in the
development of an intercultural communication theory. The writers focus
specifically upon their specialized areas of interest and critically
assess the previous research they have done and identify the ensuing
problems and successes they encountered with the paradigms they employed.
They also attempt to relate their observations to the research findings
and theories of other scholars and researchers who are not only in the
field of intercultural communication but also in other academic
disciplines. With this effort to make connections to the work of other
researchers, an integrated and unified whole begins to emerge with an
emphasis on the importance of developing a multi-disciplinary perspective
in future projects. The writers also set forth specific suggestions for
future studies.There is also an obvious effort to make their theories
practical.
Of these essays, the most thorough and stimulating one is Gudykunst's
"Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) Theory: Current Status." Gudykunst
sets forth an outline and update of a theory that he identifies as AUM
theory that is separate and distinct from the uncertainty reduction theory
(URT) that he had previously been exploring and developing. He introduces
the concept of stranger to serve as a link to explain interpersonal and
intergroup communication in the same theory. He also integrates the
concepts of uncertainty, anxiety, effective communication and mindfulness
into the foundation for the theory. He presents 47 axioms in the main
theory and 47 axioms on variabiliy in AUM processes. He discusses sets of
these axioms according to specific factors and considers their functions
accordingly, i.e., variability in the self and self-concept; in motivation
in reaction to strangers; and in anxiety, uncertainty, mindfulness and
effective communication. In his concluding discussion of AUM, he explains
how the theory can be expanded to include intercultural communication.
Gudykunst stresses that one of his goals is to allow theory to be directly
applied in practical areas. He also reminds the reader that the theory is
in the process of being developed and is not a finished product.
The undergraduate student who is new to this field of study may initially
find these essays overwhelming because many of the essays are detailed and
based upon previously published works from a variety of disciplines.
However, the writers are very careful in developing their arguments to
cite the specific basis for their claims and in doing so present the
undergraduate an excellent foundation and historical perspective from
which he or she would benefit. The reference section also provides the
student with an excellent bibliography of works for additional reading and
research. Even the section "About the Contributors" at the end of the book
is a valuable resource for the individual who may wish to consider
graduate school.
Scholars especially interested in international communnication will find
interesting the discussion the writers develop on the ongoing concern
pertaining to how they can expand the purview of international
communication to include intercultural and cross-cultural communication.
They may also find particularly interesting the following essays in which
the writers have incorporated an international focus or application: Ady's
"Towards a Differential Demand Model of Sojourner Adjustment"; and Witte
and Morrison's "Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Health Communication:
Understanding people and Motivating Healthy Behaviors."
Ady writes that sojourner adjustment is a relatively short-term,
individually and time-based process that is conceptually distinct from
cultural or ethnic assimilation, adaptation and intercultural
communicative competence (p.93). Ady also argues that sojourner adjustment
is conceptualized as sojourner and environmental demands being met to
varying degrees across differential domains and time (p.113).
Witte and Morrison apply a theory to a specific context in their analysis.
They maintain that to promote health and prevent disease, intercultural
health communication research must focus on two central issues --
understanding and motivation. They discuss how there are unique and
idiosyncratic variables in each culture that must be addressed if
effective health communication is to occur, and they identify culturally
universal and culturally specific empirical variables necessary if one is
to deal effectively with patients in other countries. Their essay
demonstrates how scholars can effectively apply their research and
knowledge in pragmatic ways to assist society at large in dealing with
real issues and problems.
The book is most valuable to the serious scholar and graduate student in
intercultural communication because of the analysis of problems and
limitations that existing theories present, and for the specific
suggestions for further studies that are necessary if these emerging
theories are either to be developed or validated. If future researchers
take heed of the observations and suggestions presented, they could avoid
reinventing the wheel and achieve more specific progress in reaching the
goal of better understanding the communication processes in international
and intercultural contexts. This collection of essays is a necessary
addition to the library of anyone seriously interested in this field.
Timothy Y.C. Choy, professor
Department of Speech Communication
Moorhead State University