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.
We appear to be in the midst of an epochal social transformation.
Some accounts of this change dwell on the globalization of economic processes.
Others draw attention to the political realignments that have followed
the Cold War, the rekindling of nationalisms, the decline of the nation-state,
and the emergence of meta-state forms. Still others attend to socio-cultural
shifts relating to global consumerism and the flows of people across borders.
These changes have thrown up pressing questions for communication researchers:
How are various media implicated in these "new times"? What are the implications
of these changes for democratic projects? What role can communication
play in the construction of more
democratic polities?
Bailie and Winseck, the editors of Democratizing Communication?, have pulled together a collection of papers that address these and other important questions. Indeed, the editors claim that taken together the papers: "provide theoretical frameworks for grasping the essence of the momentous changes in communication and world history in progress ... [T]hey expand the range of concerns central to communication studies by complementing the study of State-capital- technological relations with an increased emphasis on the actors of civil society ... [They] demonstrate the continued viability of a modernist frame of reference ... [They] suggest that technological possibilities are structured by social, economic and political determinants" (pp. 6-7).
The breadth of the endeavor is impressive. Nineteen scholars, from 10 different countries, explore such issues as the globalization of media ownership, media regulatory reform, and the possibilities for democratizing communication as they take form within specific national, regional and international contexts. The volume contains four sections: "Theories of Communication and Theories of Democracy"; "Industrial Imperatives and the Possibility of Democratic Spheres of Communication"; "Constituents of Civil Society: Media Freedom, New Technologies and the Role of the Church"; "International Institutions: Creating Global Public Spheres or Transnational Markets."
The collection of papers hang together well. The editors' tight introduction adds to the coherence by tying together various threads from the 17 chapters. The main substantive contribution of the volume is that it provides an instructive cross-national comparative perspective on changes in the communication sector. Thus half of the chapters examines how global phenomena such as media regulatory reform play out in a variety of settings including the United States (Rideout and Mosco), Canada (Winseck), Spain (Maxwell), India (Pendakur and Kapur), the Caribbean (Brown) and various Eastern European countries (Kleinwaechter). Some of these contributions are rather descriptive (e.g., Brown), but most provide theory-driven investigations of the social forces and contexts shaping the media environments of interest. There are interesting contrasts here as some analysts ascribe explanatory power to global economic forces (e.g., Pendakur and Kapur), while others give more weight to local political and cultural factors (e.g., Maxwell). If we are to adequately understand, explain and respond to the dramatic changes alluded to earlier, we need to develop fresh theoretical perspectives. This volume is certainly not short on theoretical frameworks. Yet, there is a curious reluctance on the part of many of the contributors to reflect on whether we should adjust or jettison existing concepts or forge new concepts.
For example, the notion of "democracy" is of central concern to all contributions, yet there is little discussion of the concept. In the few cases where discussion is forthcoming (e.g., Winseck), there is no acknowledgment that "new times" have precipitated heated debate over the meaning of democracy. This struggle is, in part, rooted in the perception that group identity (based on nationality, ethnicity and gender, for example) appears to have substantially supplanted class interest as the chief medium of political mobilization. For many, cultural recognition seems to have displaced socio-economic redistribution as the goal of democratic projects. So what does democracy mean? Does it mean self-rule? Should every distinct "nationality" have its own sovereign state? Does democracy require the recognition of difference? Does it require material equality? Does it mean a process of communication across differences, where citizens participate together in discussion and decision-making to collectively determine the conditions of their lives?
These are difficult questions, but those interested
in construction of more democratic orders must address these. Nancy
Fraser (1995) and David Harvey (1993) convincingly argue that democractization
must involve the overcoming of material inequality and the "misrecognition"
of identity groups. In the collection under review, it is heartening
to see analyses of both kinds of impediments (primarily the former).
However, these fail to problematize the relationship between the two.
A partial exception is the paper by Mosco and Reddick. Their restatement
of the political economy approach clearly recognizes that class politics
aimed at material equality is intertwined with various cultural politics
of difference. However, their "non-essentialist" framework provides no
clue as to how one should examine the complements and conflicts between
these kinds of politics. If we are to identify democratic possibilities,
it is vital to develop theoretical frameworks that help us identify and
defend those versions of cultural politics of difference that we can coherently
combine with a politics aimed at socio-economic redistribution.
Democratizing Communication?
will be of interest to scholars of communication policy, international
communication, the political economy of communication technologies, and
the comparative study of media systems. Although the book has provided
the reader with a very useful critical assessment of the character and
consequences of rapidly changing media systems, it provides few policy
recommendations. Perhaps the latter will be the focus of a follow-up
collection.
Fraser, N. 1995. From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a "Post-Socialist" Age. New Left Review No. 212: 68-93.
Harvey, D. 1993. Class relations, Social Justice and the Politics
of Difference. In M. Keith
and S. Pile, eds. Place and the Politics of Identity (pp. 41-66).
New York: Routledge.
Peter Shields, assistant professor
Department of Telecommunications
School of Communication Studies
Bowling Green State University
These two books fill a remarkable gap in radio and television history
by documenting the growth and development of the media of native peoples.
There is a noticeable absence of this in most mainstream media history
texts.
Browne's book is global in focus. It examines community
radio (and some television) of indigenous groups in the United States and
Canada (Inuit and Native American); Australia (Aboriginal); New Zealand
(Maori); United Kingdom (Welsh); Ireland (Gaelic); France (Basque); and
Scandinavia (Sami). Keith's book focuses on the United States. It
looks at all Native American radio and television in the Lower 48 states
and provides a thorough description of the lively radio and television
stations of Alaskan native peoples.
Keith's book begins with a useful description of
who and what is Native America, and when and why the first radio stations
began in the United States. Suzan Shown Harjo helps contextualize
the book in her foreword: She describes "early" (late '60s/early
'70s) native radio as a vehicle for Indian activism in a world where "many
Native peoples were content just sailing down the mainstream" (p. xi).
Native broadcasting was never for monetary profit, but for social progress,
used in just the way the 1927 federal Radio Act stipulated the airwaves
to be used: "In the public interest, convenience, and necessity." However,
because of the funding situation of most electronic media in the United
States (based on advertising), native broadcasting has experienced great
difficulties staying alive.
A strength of Keith's book lies in the documentation
of the struggles of public (non-commercial) radio and television in the
United States. For this reason, it should be of interest to an international
audience. The determination of capitalist interests in the United States
that all mass media be privately owned, profit-making operations has resulted
in a deterioration of the quality of most mass media. All non-commercial
radio and television has suffered reductions in state support although
they have been able to keep alive through grants and membership. Native
American owned and operated radio and television has an ever greater struggle,
with much greater stakes. Some tribes in the United States are using
revenue
from gambling and casinos to finance their media. That allows some
independence. Two national programs already operate with some success:
National Native News, which originates from Alaska; and Native America
Calling, from New Mexico. New technologies such as a communication satellite
service (AIROS), digital compression, and digital audio broadcasting could
enable Native American broadcasters to be connected all over the huge geographic
space that is the United States. Financing is the weak link in this
development. Unless the state assists as part of the overall Information
Superhighway development, they do not have much chance of success.
Keith's book ends on another encouraging note. He
refers to several radio stations in the planning stages. In November 1996,
a new FM radio station, KNBA, went on the air in Anchorage, Alaska. It
appears to be popular and full of prospects. National Native News now originates
from this new station. It is financed by one of Alaska's numerous
native corporations formed through a large land settlement with the U.S.
federal government. Many of these are financially very successful.
A television program, "Heartbeat Alaska," also produced in Anchorage, is
now being shown in the Russian Far East, Greenland, and parts of western
Canada. This program is making efforts to broaden its focus to make
it interesting to an international native audience.
Browne begins with a brief general history. Then
he focuses more on overall development, supplying practical chapters on
programming and operations. He also provides a fascinating, in-depth
case study of Maori radio and television detailing the contextual history
of its development. One strength of Browne's book is the discussion
of the importance of language in the efforts of indigenous peoples all
over the world. He privileges the goal of the revival and renovation of
indigenous languages over other goals such as restoration of pride through
focus on past and present indigenous accomplishments (p. 239) and working
for a greater degree of cohesion among indigenous peoples (p. 239).
In my own work with the native peoples of the Sakha
Republic of Russia, I found this to be the over-riding determination in
their efforts to keep alive their radio stations despite decreased state
funding. The rationale is that the state wishes to eliminate their culture
and through the silencing of their languages over the airwaves. The
many references in Browne's text to similar state efforts at cultural hegemony
around the world are troubling. This should be a wake-up call to everyone
interested in diversity in our global airwaves. The useful theoretical
discussion of hegemony, cultural imperialism and dependency, and political
economy in the first chapter grounds the book. The absence of a similar
theoretical grounding in Keith's book is something of a weakness.
Browne also discusses the use of indigenous electronic
media as a vehicle for political aspirations of marginalized people.
Generally, there has been little political activism although there have
been some instances where the media have become involved in struggles with
law enforcement as in the 1973 incident at Wounded Knee, South Dakota,
and the 1990 Mohawk Nation siege at Oka, Quebec (p. 203). Indigenous stations
do support political candidates from their ethnic groups (p. 207), and
do advocate for sovereignty rights (p. 210). Both authors document
the use of the electronic media in the preservation of indigenous culture.
These media have become indispensable in this ongoing struggle. For
this reason, if for no other, these two books are important contributions
to the struggle.
Keith and Browne have done us a great service through
these two works. They are useful texts for media studies, political science,
international studies, and indigenous peoples or Native American studies.
They should also find an audience in people interested in community or
non-commercial radio and television around the world.
Joy F. Morrison, associate professor
Journalism & Broadcasting Department
University of Alaska-Fairbanks
A review essay
By Leslie Regan Shade
In a recent book review, Mark Poster (1995) commented that, given the inchoate form of electronic communities, the study of virtual communities must remain evanescent; and what one should avoid in the current social discourse are final judgments about the ultimate impact of electronic communities upon real communities.
Last year alone generated a veritable mini-genre of studies exploring the notion of virtual communities in both the academic and popular contexts. The overall tenor of most of these musings has been fairly well tempered and skeptical about the utopian claims concerning netizens, cyber-communities and cyber-democracy, even though such claims had not verged on fanatical Luddism.
Two recent books illuminate a trend in this discursive trajectory. William Mitchell's City of Bits exemplifies those works that focus on the cultural and social aspects of electronic networks. William Drake's edited collection, The New Information Infrastructure, represents a stream that is more concerned with the public policy implications that shape the networks.
Drake's collection is an excellent introduction of the challenges to both national and international public policies brought about by digitization, inquiring as it does into the proper role of government in this era of deregulation, competition and downsizing of government. Mitchell, in contrast, problematizes these questions and, through his lush prose, offers a view of how people can creatively construct and design these new digital milieus. The ultimate challenge that Mitchell throws up is an entreaty for designers, architects, computer scientists and geekheads to work together to build an interoperable bitsphere so that "cyberspace communities [can] work in just, equitable, and satisfying ways" (p. 160). Together, then, Drake and Mitchell complement each other by bringing together the public policy wonkiness with an appeal for the establishment of an intelligent design aesthetic.
Mitchell speculates on the emergent cyborgian constructions of the late 20th century: both the real and purported effects of the redrawing of new boundaries of architecture, urbanism and digital technologies--the new "invisible" or "soft" cities mediated by broadband fiber optics. He emphasizes that the most important task is not to physically build the digital plumbing and technology, but rather to "imagin (e) and creat (e) digitally mediated environments for the kinds of lives that we will want to lead and the sorts of communities that we will want to have" (p. 5).
Mitchell is particularly interested in how digital constructions will affect urbanism. He argues that this new electronic agora "subverts, displaces, and radically redefines our notions of gathering place, community, and urban life" (p.8). He explores how everyday institutions and transactions--shopping, banking, libraries, education and medicine--are creeping onto the 'Net and what the consequences thereof are likely to be. The primary impedances for the rapid deployment of digital services, he says, are: the technical means of ensuring privacy and security of networked transactions, the development of complex user agents to ferret out individualized information, and the practicalities of how existing infrastructures can deal with the growing demand for networked resources in an era of deficit busting and often severe reductions in the workforce.
Mitchell also explores the changing social relationships resulting from digitization. Digital personas, including the mundane revelations exposed by one's e-mail address, the use of masks and aliases, gender swapping, and adoption of complex personalities that participants play out in role-playing MUDS or MOOs, have the potential to create a multi-layered personality. Is cyberspace the great equalizer? Does it allow for greater participation by those who are geographically isolated, homebound, disabled, sick or elderly?
Will digitization resurrect new forms of cottage industries? With more telework and cheaper network connections at home, multi-faceted social issues will emerge. These will include privacy and the opportunity for surveillance of workers by managers; ethical and economic issues, as in who pays for the home "office space" and who is responsible for childcare. Can this be a way for employers to abdicate their childcare responsibilities?
What happens when cyberspatial relationships supercede "rights of passage"? For instance, a future scenario could mean that leaving home to go to university no longer means physically leaving home, but connecting up from home through distance education ventures.
What does it mean when you no longer go out to work, but instead dial-in or video-connect to the office from home? What services will be built in urban and suburban enclaves to get home-bound workers out in face-to-face interactions -- cyber-cafes, e-kiosks in post offices, public libraries, laundromats? Is this feasible, given the intense privatization of domestic space, especially in North America?
The current realm of cyberspace that Mitchell has explored remains elitist -- it is still primarily the purview of Western, white, well-educated men. Are the public spaces that are being created gendered? Recent debates have focused on whether the Habermasian concept of the public sphere in cyberspace is attainable for women, given a prevalent sensibility (one which the media like to extol) that the Internet is "unsafe" for women. Several feminist critics have debunked this notion. Miller (1995, 57) writes that "the idea that women merit special protections in an environment as incorporeal as the Net is intimately bound up with the idea that women's minds are weak, fragile, and unsuited to the rough and tumble of public discourse." Light (1995, 142) calls for a degendered technology "that encompasses women's and men's varied perspectives." What would also be interesting is to imagine how feminist designs of the urban environment, and/or utopian environments as described by Dolores Hayden (1981), could impact and shape future digital environments.
Another area that Mitchell doesn't address in detail is the lack of access for most residents (overwhelmingly the new visible and minority immigrants) in inner-city environs. Given that much of the technological growth is taking place in the outer suburbs, edge cities and hi-tech parks, where there are often tax incentives and a congruence of higher amenities, central and inner-city urban areas are facing population losses and a lack of serviceable amenities (OTA, 1995). Indeed, an NTIA survey of computer/modem ownership Eand usage identified the information "have-not's" as being predominantly the poor in central cities and rural areas (NTIA, 1995). What public policies at both national and international levels are being promulgated to encourage equity and universal access?
Nor does Mitchell address the plight of developing countries, where Internet use is likely to be confined to a privileged elite and much more expensive than in the industrialized world. The Panos Institute (1996) estimated that while 70 percent of host computers are in the United States, fewer than 10 African countries are connected to the Internet.
Mitchell argues that access to the emergent information infrastructure is of paramount importance as it will profoundly affect our future ability to negotiate, engage and partake in public debates and services. The 'Net, then, will be to the 21st century as Aristotle's agora was to ancient Greece. Despite these deterministic views and positive conceptions of computing, Mitchell prods us to understand the changes and "tales of technological utopianism" (Iacono & Kling, 1995) to effectuate change: "if we can conceive and explore alternative futures, we can find opportunities to intervene, sometimes to resist, to organize, to legislate, to plan, and to design" (p. 5).
The National Information Infrastructure (NII) challenges
and undermines the traditional distinctions between local and long-distance
telecommunications industries. It also blurs the role of the telecommunications
and cable industries, creating a climate of convergence that has so far
bordered on frenzied moves to gobble up like-minded companies and reap
the most from ostensible "consumer demand" for new multi-media products.
Drake's edited collection intelligently discusses and
debates the many important issues raised by the converging telecom sector
(including access, governance, censorship, copyright and intellectual property)
occurring at both the national and global levels.
A number of authors (including Eli Noam, Francois Bar, Richard Jay Solomon, Henry Geller, Lee McKnight, W. Russell Neuman and Herbert Dordick) examine the complex interplay of the private and public markets, government policies, technological developments, and the recalcitrant and querulous policy implications of new information infrastructures at both the national and international level. This increasingly privatized and deregulated market in integrated and interoperable communications and information services and products was estimated to be valued at $718 billion in 1993 in the United States alone. It includes a heady mixture of hardware and software producers, content providers, major telecommunications companies, a plethora of ISPs (Internet service providers) and other service providers. Stakeholders include the infotainment sectors of Hollywood and multi-national entertainment entities, RBOCs, telecom giants, and the educational, librarian, non-profit, civic network and small business communities.
Drake's introductory essay and conclusions help us chart this murky territory and make sense of the stakeholders and stratagems surrounding the primary policy issues toward universal access, privacy, and governance and ownership. In particular, he recognizes that U.S. foreign policymakers have concentrated on promoting access to their products (both hardware and intellectual property rights), rather than ensuring the promotion of a publicly accessible Global Information Infrastructure (GII), which respects media diversity, noncommercial uses and local content.
NII debates consists of two separate, yet interrelated, debates touching on: 1) a struggle for positioning and market dominance by the major suppliers in the oligopoly sector; and 2) discussions within the distributed sector (i.e., education, librarian, community network, civil libertarian, disabled, non-profit and small business communities) over how to build an open, participatory and egalitarian NII. The challenge in creating a future direction for the NII and the GII is whether or not to create a purely commercial model governed by the oligopoly sector, or to create a mixed model that caters to a more heterogeneous citizenry. Of course, with market dominance of telecommunications by U.S. giants, and net norms that are governed, so far, by U.S. ideologies (i.e., First Amendment philosophies regarding free speech and censorship) a truly representative global information infrastructure has yet to arrive.
This is nowhere more apparent than in the controversy over the Communications Decency Act (CDA), an amendment nestled within the U.S. Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996. The CDA, intended to restrict the access of minors to indecent and obscene material on the Internet, had as its aim the criminalization of on-line communication that is "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass an other person" or "obscene or indecent" if the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age "regardless of whether the maker of such communication placed the call or initiated the communication." (see http://www.eff.org/pub/ Alerts/s652_hr1555_96_draft_bill.excerpt)
Although the CDA provisions have been ruled to be unconstitutional (see http://www.vtw.org/ speech/decision.html), its "trickle down" effect on other countries could still be ominous. In the wake of the G7 Information Society and Development ministerial conference in South Africa (see ISAD), Human Rights Watch (1996) commented: "Authoritarian regimes are attempting to reconcile their eagerness to reap the economic benefits of Internet access with maintaining control over the flow of information inside their borders. Censorship efforts in the U.S. and Germany lend support to those in China, Singapore, and Iran, where censors target not only sexually explicit material and hate speech but also pro-democracy discussions and human rights education."
Part III of the collection debates and discusses the policy implications of the GII. The international move toward deregulating telecommunications markets poses a challenge as to how the private markets, left unregulated by government intervention, will protect and sustain the public interest. The effects of the global information economy are just now being felt, but rising levels of high unemployment, economic and technical disparities between developed and developing countries, and cultural fragmentation are just a few of the earlier consequences.
Linda Garcia argues that it is far too simplistic to say that by merely privatizing and liberalizing the telecommunications sector, globalization will accrue. Globalization involves both equality of access to communication flows as well as to the development of new transnational and nongovernmental forms of decision-making. In such an unprotected global milieu, policies and standards concerning copyright and intellectual property, privacy and data protection will have to be harmonized together with the terms under which new domestic, national and multi-national stakeholders will operate.
Worldwide movements toward building competitive telecommunication
environments create the challenge of developing and sustaining global information
infrastructures. Peter Cowhey stresses that policy must adapt to the changing
U.S. international trade and regulatory practices brought about by the
shift from oligopolistic to distributed communication environments, by
"redefining market segments and regulatory objectives for equipment and
services, combining trade and technology strategies, changing the policymaking
processes to encourage new participants, and reconciling bilateral and
multilateral trade and regulatory approaches" (p.176). How can the new
distributed information "revolution" be regulated, and how can differing
trade laws be harmonized? Whether upcoming GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade) negotiations will result in resounding telecommunication service
agreements is not known at this time. However, the movements toward creating
GII pilot projects at the 1995 G7 Information Highway Summit in Brussels
was expected to create incentives toward reconciliation. Likewise, as Kalypso
Nicolaidis recounts, the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services),
brought about by the Uruguay Round accords, creates a new playing field
for dealing in
the international trade in information-intensive industries.
Bruno Lanvin addresses the global repercussions of intensive automation, the rise of the "knowledge society" and the decline of the service sector. Lanvin reminds us that the developing world has yet to embrace visions of the "wired society" that the pioneers in the industrialized countries are peddling. Addressing the norms and standards that will constitute a "global commons" will be a necessary feature if we are to avoid a fragmented global information economy. Lanvin suggests that it is possible to rectify this dichotomy through a multilateral course of action, conceived through institutions such as the United Nations agencies and the ITU (International Telecommunications Union), and by allowing developing countries to shape and formulate their own policy agenda through active participation in the global infosphere.
Joel Reidenberg chastises current U.S. policy for its failure to address global concerns, particularly in the areas of intellectual property and privacy. He specifically recommends a change in U.S. policy to reflect new standards for fair information practice, as well as promotion of ownership standards that encourage open, competitive markets.
In his conclusion, Drake outlines general principles of the GII, including the need for the United States to pursue "cooperative international applications" to allay cynical fears that the GII stands for "Global Information Invasion" (p.366). A process for ensuring global standards-making, the insistence on open and interoperable standards, harmonization of regulatory convergence and international coordination of competitive policies, and the recognition of cultural and linguistic diversity, are just a few of the difficult tasks to create a copacetic GII.
NII and GII platforms must also work to create and sustain the public interest, and such principles include promoting a diversity of media ownership, encouraging the development of open and interoperable systems, nurturing freedom of speech and heterogeneous content, and ensuring that universal service provisions are extended and funded. Drake reminds us that it is ordinary citizens who stand to gain from equitable NII and GII policies: "The point of creating an open, flexible, and participatory infrastructure is that it can encourage learning, innovation, and productivity by small businesses, teachers and students, artists, and other segments of society" (p.19).
References
Hayden, Dolores. 1981. The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
Human Rights Watch. Silencing The Net: The Threat to Freedom of Expression On-line. Human Rights Watch 8(2) May1996. URL: http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~monitors/1.1/hrw/ summary.html
Iacono, Suzanne, and Rob Kling. 1995. "Computerization Movements and Tales of Technological Utopianism," in Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices. 2nd Ed: Rob Kling (ed). San Diego: Academic Press.
ISAD. Information Society And Development Conference. Theme Paper. 13-15 May 1996, Gallagher Estate, Midrand, South Africa. URL: http://www.csir.co.za/isad/theme.htm
Light, Jennifer. 1995. "The Digital Landscape: New Space for Women?"
Gender, Place and Culture 2(2):133-146.
Miller, Laura. 1995. Women and Children First: Gender and the Settling
of the Electronic Frontier, pp. 49-57 in Resisting the Virtual
Life: The Culture and Politics of Information, eds. James Brook and
Iain A. Boal. San Francisco, Calif.: City Lights.
NTIA. July 1995. Falling Through the Net: A Survey of the "Have
Nots" in Rural and Urban America. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department
of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
OTA. (Office of Technology Assessment). September, 1995. The Technological Reshaping of Metropolitan America. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-ETI-643 Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.URL:ftp://otabbs.ota.gov/pub/ metro.america
Panos Institute. 1996. The Internet & the South: Superhighway or Dirt-Track? London: The Panos Institute.
Poster, Mark. May 1995. "Techno-Communities". [Review of Steven
Jones, ed., Cybersociety]. Postmodern Culture, v.5, n.3. URL:
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/issue.595/review- 2.595.html
(Leslie Regan Shade <ac900@freenet.carleton.ca> is attached
to the Graduate Program in Communications, McGill University. She is also
a research affiliate with Information Policy Research Project, Faculty
of Information Studies, University of Toronto.)
The Program on Information Resources Policy at Harvard published an earlier version of this book in 1994 as Mikhail and the Multiplying Media. Thus, it is a study of the Soviet media at the time of Gorbachev's rise and fall. It opens with a brief overview of the beginnings of the Gorbachev era and discusses the media situation he inherited, the censorship mechanisms, the official attitude toward the media, and the education of journalists.
The book has three parts: the first devoted to glasnost and perestroika, the second to a detailed exploration of the events of 1990 and early 1991, and the third to an analysis of the role of media in the failed 1991 coup. These temporal boundaries (1985-1991) in discussing today's key issues in Russian media have been the natural choice also for other students of Russian media (e.g., Elena Androunas' Soviet Media in Transition: Structural and Economic Alternatives, Praeger, 1993; Brian McNair's Glasnost, Perestroika and the Soviet Media, Routledge, 1991).
Ganley offers systematic accounts on the penetration of new technologies in the rigid Soviet communication infrastructure during the perestroika period--namely on developments in telephony and the use of fax machines, and on the growth of joint ventures in telecommunications. She also discusses the computer situation (in industry and education, as well as in personal use) and computer networks (data transmission, various early computer networks, such as UseNet, FidoNet, EARN, GreenNet, GlasNet, SovAm, Teleport, and informal networks). She focuses on the blurred dividing lines (between state and mixed sectors) in computer industry and the early experiences of Western telecommunication companies setting up operation in the USSR. In spite the Soviet opening toward use of modern computer and network technologies in the early 1980s, Ganley notes the lack of modern telecommunication infrastructure as a major obstacle to more intensive exchanges of information.
The second part covers important media developments from the time preceding the dissolution of the Soviet union, namely the Soviet Press law of 1990, which, amidst problems of continued control, became the legal benchmark that officially abolished censorship and established the right to found publications. Ganley outlines Yeltsin's power struggle with Gorbachev through exploration of their relevant use of communication. Of particular importance here are the developments of independent print and broadcast outlets in Russia as opposed to the still dominant Soviet structures. In her insightful discussion of Gorbachev's own failed attempts to influence the workings of media, Ganley stresses the ironic resilience of glasnost press and broadcasting that, unlike the traditional Soviet ones, are no longer susceptible to control.
The final part examines the complex communication situation at the time of the attempted coup of August 1991. It opens with an account of the clumsy handling of mass media by the coup perpetrators compared to the much superior use of new communication channels by Yeltsin and his supporters. In spite of the restrictions imposed by the junta, many official publications, independent services such as Interfax and the Russian Information Agency, and some local media in remote regions played a crucial role in the resistance to the coup. Ganley documents the massive resistance to the decree restricting broadcasts and to the shutdowns in various radio and TV stations across the country. She discusses the use of electronic mail, telex, telephone, and fax, and the making of amateur videos as crucial resistance acts of individuals and grassroot groups during the crisis.
Along with Oswald Ganley, Gladys Ganley's name is connected to two books exploring new technologies: Global Political Fallout: The VCR's First Decade, Ablex, 1987; and To Inform or to Control: The New Communication Networks, Ablex, 1989. In international communication, she enjoys the reputation of an expert on new technologies and matters on information society. The subtitle of Unglued Empire, which promises a study of the Soviet experience with communication technologies, enhances this reputation, and the reader looks for a study detailing social implications of new technologies. The book covers these, but not as much as one expects.
Occasionally, Ganley comes up with patchwork discussions
of issues such as the cover-up of the Chernobyl accident, the advent of
new independent publications and the glasnost-style TV broadcasts such
as "Vzglyad" or "The Fifth Wheel." However, other recent writings on Soviet
media have abundantly highlighted these, and Ganley's accounts turn out
to be merely repetitive. Ganley would have done better if she had remained
faithful to her own area of expertise. She should have dealt exclusively
with technology issues. A good example here would be the work of
Ellen Mickiewicz: Split Signals, 1988; and Changing Channels,
1997. Mickiewicz' main studies on Soviet media deal with television
only, but are nevertheless a significant contribution to the theory of
the media in the region.
Unglued Empire ends its narrative in 1991.
It is thus another book devoted to the media of glasnost and perestroika.
It does not discuss developments related to new technologies in the post-Soviet
era. Since the early 1990s, however, the area has been undergoing
booming developments in technological innovation. One hopes that Ganley
is carefully observing the changing communication realities in Russia,
and will discuss them in a follow-up study.
Dina Iordanova, Rockefeller Fellow
University of Chicago
Kaplan, a 45-year-old Jewish journalist, mixes travel writing and political journalism in this incisive book, which provides a rich background for those studying international and intercultural communication. This is not an ill-prepared Western journalist's armchair dissection of the problems of the Third World. Kaplan's writing reflects his painstaking study of the carefully selected places he visited across the Earth--sometimes more than once.
The six parts of the book dwell on Kaplan's experiences in and his observations on West Africa, the Nile Valley, Anatolia and the Caucasus, the Iranian Plateau, Central Asia, and the Indian Subcontinent and Indochina. The 315 or so references at the end of the book attest to the diligence wherewith he studied his selected destinations to qualify himself to observe and comment. He mixes that knowledge with his travels under the most arduous circumstances to produce the kind of analysis that edifies the reader whose knowledge of the Third World is limited to the news atoms the mass media irregularly provide.
Kaplan says that in his earlier bestseller, Balkan Ghosts, written before the outbreak of war in Yugoslavia, he "tried to see the present in terms of a difficult and bloody past." In The Ends of the Earth, he has "tried to see the present in terms of the future" and "give personal meaning to the kinds of issues raised in Paul Kennedy's Preparing for the Twenty-first Century" (p. xiii).
Anyone who had read this book would not have been
surprised at moderate cleric Mohammad Khatami's overwhelming victory in
the Iranian presidential election late May. Khatami easily won the women's
vote. Kaplan describes the Iranian women's disdain for their chadors.
He says, "Women in Teheran stare you in the face. Their eyes meet you dead-on"
(p. 181). He mentions the case of a young Iranian-American woman who returned
to Teheran every spring because "behind-the-curtain" parties in Iran were
so much better than in America. Although the U. S. State Department had
advised Kaplan not to go to Iran, he says he "felt safer in Teheran than
in many American cities" (p. 186). Contrary to the Western media's projection
of Iran as an Islamic "fundamentalist" society, Kaplan digs evidence to
show that "Iranians are not fanatical" (p. 219). He "noticed a lot of hand-holding
between young men and women, and a lot of makeup and fingernail polish.
Persian sensuality was apparently implanted in people's genes. It
struck me that the mullahs had gone wrong by insisting on being both purely
Persian and purely Islamic" (pp. 227-228). Kaplan puts down the U. S. policy
makers obsession with Iranian-sponsored terrorism for he "sensed the outlaw
behavior of Iran's current regime was one of those
problems that would soon be submerged" (p. 232).
Kaplan visited the Indian sub-continent in late 1994, at a time of riots and plague. The background he provides on this geographical entity is far superior to what students of international communication could gather from the sporadic news atoms in the Western mass media. The plague, which started in Surat, he points out, was "a partial result of economic development" (p. 142). The backdrop to the riots in Bangalore, the most Westernized and fastest growing city in India, was also "relative prosperity" (p. 141). In his view, communications technology has fostered hate more than unity. He observes that the Indian, as well as the Pakistani, central government is weakening, and "the future will likely see many fainter lines and smaller enclaves" (p. 353). Thus he introduces the reader to such an enclave--Rishi Valley, a creation of human ingenuity to find solutions to such ills as overpopulation and environmental degradation based on philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti's ideas that exemplify the "Gaia" theory. He says that Indians in Rishi Valley have rediscovered, on their own, a 2,000-year-old technique of channeling rainwater to make a dry area green, pioneered by the Nabateans.
Kaplan's observations on Thailand, on the other hand, shows a clear pro-Western bias. He claims that Thailand's emerging democracy works better for the economy than the more blatantly corrupt direct military rule. He says that Thailand provides evidence for Fukuyama's "end-of-history" argument that "democratic capitalism operating in the context of an economically developed, civil society is the best political system, and while it may not take hold everywhere, people will be happiest where it does" (p. 378).
Kaplan paints an "unsentimental" portrait of Africa. "Africa is falling off the world economic map" (p. 11), he says, because the population is growing at more than 3 percent per year--nearly double the planet's mean growth rate of 1.6 percent. Slash-and-burn agriculture and the mushrooming of shantytowns have eroded Africa's environmental base. Armed burglars and carjackers had become increasingly numerous in West African urban areas. In his view, Thomas Jefferson's 1802 map of Africa, which showed West Africa without the country borders might turn out to be more accurate than the present ones with colonial borders. Sierra Leone had become a "failed society" where almost "anyone with real ambition and talent" (p. 46) had left or was attempting to leave. The return to Jefferson's map was occurring through the emerging "neoprimitive shanty-domains, which put additional pressure on societies that already faced an erosion of values" (p. 83).
Commenting on the Nile Valley, Kaplan says that following the building of the High Dam, salinization and waterlogging has afflicted some 28 to 50 percent of Egypt's productive land causing a threat to the very existence of the Nile delta. Borrowing from Marx' concept of "Oriental despotism" and Wittfogel's "hydraulic society," Kaplan asks, "But is it possible for the Egyptian state to control its environment without becoming even more despotic?" (p. 100).
Kaplan provides vast insights on Central Asia, a region still quite unfamiliar to many outsiders who depend on the Western media for news atoms. He paints a bleak picture of this region's environmental degradation and clash of civilizations.
Kaplan admits to looking at the non-Western world with the biases of a Western journalist. However, his thoroughgoing research that preceded his travels makes his views more authoritative than those of many other journalists. An international communication course could use this book as required supplementary reading.
Shelton Gunaratne, professor
Mass Communications Department
Moorhead (Minn.) State University
As Keio University scholar Ito Youichi has noted, Japan has produced far better industrial products than mass media research. Given the dearth of even Japanese-language research, these two books make welcome additions to the nearly empty shelf of English-language works on Japan's rich mass media. As co-editor Krauss puts it (p. 368), "Japan, which is both media-saturated and small-group oriented, offers an ideal setting for testing the universality" of certain effects theories.
Written by specialists outside the field of mass communication, the papers in both books fail to acknowledge many key authors and communication concepts as theory bases; for example, while agenda setting appears, the work of Tichenor, Donohue and Olien on community attachment and media use does not. Moreover, both generally lack the viewpoint of Japanese authors.
The gender book, to its credit, had a quick turnaround from original conference presentations (November 1993) to publication. Most of the 12 chapters in the politics book date back to two conferences in 1985 and 1987; fortunately, one chapter by Kristin Kyoko Altman, a political reporter and anchor for TV Asahi, discusses the more recent watershed events of summer 1993 (when Japan's ruling party lost power after 38 years, changing the relation of Japanese politics and media).
Co-editor Krauss, a professor in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, does an excellent job as an analyst of the other contributors' papers in his wrapup chapter. He concludes (p. 369), for example, that in Japan we find agenda-setting political effects, "dense personal groups and a rich network of intermediate associations."
Preceding this wrapup, the book is organized into
four sections. Part I, "The Mass Media and Japan," written by co-editor
Susan J. Pharr, Edwin O. Reischauer professor of politics at Harvard, presents
the media's dual "trickster" role (such as its ability to both confer and
undermine status). Part II deals with media organization and behavior.
The case studies in Part III include micro-analyses of media campaigns
by advocates of elderly rights and protesters against the bullet train.
Part IV, "Media and the Public," examines audience effects.
Both the politics and gender books exhibit the inconsistencies
of focus inherent to collections of conference papers. For example, most
papers focus solely on Japan, but some are comparative (e.g., D. Eleanor
Westney's "Mass media as business organizations: a U.S.-Japan comparison"
in Part II of Pharr and Krauss).
The authors of the gender book, unlike those of the
politics book, are almost all Japan specialists, but in the fields of sociology
or anthropology rather than communication. In their introduction, co-editors
Skov and Moeren, both faculty at the University of Hong Kong, argue (p.
9) that "as consumers, women have moved from the margins of society to
its centre" despite their "subordinate position in the labor market."
Three papers focus on specific segments of the female
audience. "Reading Japanese in Katei Gaho: the art of being an upperclass
Japanese woman" by Brian Moeren deals with one specific magazine, while
"The marketing of adolescence in Japan" by Merry White looks across
various media. "Antiphonal performances? Japanese women's magazines and
women's voices" by Nancy Rosenberger focuses on the increasing number of
single women who delay marriage beyond the age of 25.
Most of the other papers analyze content. Co-editor
Lise Skov looks thematically at one media genre in "Environmentalism seen
through Japanese women's magazines." John Clammer takes an even wider thematic
view in "Consuming bodies: constructing and representing the female body
in contemporary Japanese media." Two papers focus on a particular
work, one on a TV series ("Interpreting `Oshin'--war, history and women
in modern Japan" by Paul A.S. Harvey) and one on a novel ("Yoshimoto
Banana's Kitchen, or the cultural logic of Japanese consumerism" by John
Whittier Treat).
The most intriguing paper, Sharon Kinsella's "Cuties
in Japan," treats a popular culture phenomenon that has the reach and strength
to induce behavior changes, even as these changes percolate upward to influence
media styles. Kawaii ("childlike"), by 1992 probably the most widely used
word in the Japanese language, "celebrates sweet, adorable, innocent, pure,
simple, genuine, gentle, vulnerable, weak and inexperienced social behavior
and physical appearances" (p. 220).
Why a cult of cute? "Young women," explains Kinsella
(p. 244), "—by virtue of the strength of their oppression and exclusion
from most of the labour market and thus from active social roles -- have
come to represent in the media the freest, most un-hampered elements of
society." In Japan, Peter Pan wears a dress; young women rather than young
men "desire to remain free, unmarried and young" (p. 244)--forever.
Even if you can't read Japanese, you can hereafter
recognize cute handwriting (rounded and interspersed with hearts and cartoon
pictures)--as well instantly identify Katei Gaho, with its woman-holding-bouquet
cover format, on any newsstand--courtesy of this book's generous set of
illustrations. Start by looking at the pictures. I dare you not to get
sucked in and read the text.
Anne Cooper-Chen, director
Institute for International Journalism
Ohio University
Siebert, Peterson and Schramm's (1956) treatise Four Theories of the Press has shaped discussions on press systems of the world for the past 40 years. Apart from being prescribed as compulsory reading for courses in international communication taught worldwide, it has become a constant and steady source of reference for scholars and students of mass communication. In short, it has become a revered piece of writing, somewhat akin to the religious texts of yore.
Hence, it takes a special kind of courage to take a tilt at these revered theories. The brand of courage needed is even more special when the person attempting the joust is a relative lightweight from the Third World who is brave enough to write in his own national language. Such is the case for the theoretical discussion that underpins the approach to the study of the press system in Malaysia in Safar Hasim's book.
A former journalist with Malaysia's national news agency BERNAMA, Hasim has moved gracefully into academe, with this book serving as adequate testimony to the smooth and easy transition. Hasim's book is based on his 1993 doctoral dissertation. Malaysian legal expert Professor Ahmad Ibrahim notes in the preface that the book analyzes the development of the legal framework within which the Malaysian press has operated, going back to early colonial times and encompassing a time span of nearly two centuries. Not only does Hasim dissect the Four Theories, he also proposes his own typology applicable to the different periods since 1806, when the first English newspaper, The Prince of Wales Island Gazette, was published in the Straits Settlements.
Beginning with an overview of the press system in Malaysia, Hasim discusses various degrees of freedom and control over the press, focusing on the legal framework within which the press has operated (Chapter 1). He devotes Chapter 2 to a theoretical discussion from the perspective of power. Borrowing the ideas of Locke and Montesquieu regarding the doctrine of separation of powers, he utilizes the integration/power separation approach to analyze the press system. He sees power as one dimension that encompasses and affects five power elements in the state, viz., the executive, the legislative, the judiciary, the press and the people. Rejecting the approach dictated by the Four Theories, he zooms in on the varying relationships between the executive and the other elements. Thus, he proposes a nine-point typology of power relationships, ranging from absolute integrated power (wherein the executive totally controls the other four elements) to dispersed power (wherein the five elements are independent of each other and no single element controls the others).
It is this classification that merits Hasim's study to be regarded as exploratory in nature. One has to commend him for attempting to steer away from the Four Theories model and suggesting the new typology. Regrettably, he fails to refer to the typology again in the concluding section of the book. Such reference would have definitely strengthened the book's theoretical component.
Hasim divides the history of Malaysian journalism into four periods:
* 1806 to 1867: The beginnings of the press system
* 1867 to 1941: Power based on laws and regulations
* 1942 to 1957: The period of changes
* 1957 to 1990: The period of independence
Sections 2 to 5 of the book constitute a discussion of these four periods. They provide details various events and developments affecting the press system in Malaya/Malaysia.
The last-named period refers to the time span that followed the Malayan/Malaysian nation's independence from Britain. The word "independence" has little relevance to the state of the Malaysian press, which is far from being independent. Here is where one can detect a weakness in the book: In Part 5, Hasim fails to make a clearer distinction between the independence of the Malaysian nation and the independence of the press. One would have expected a more lengthy and in-depth discussion in the opening chapter of that section (Chapter 18), which is a rather skimpy four pages.
Other weaknesses are more technical in nature. Instances of inadequate proofreading, especially relating to English quotations and titles of laws/articles in English, stand out. For example, Ahmad Ibrahim's article is erroneously listed in the bibliography as "Communication and Law from Malaysia Viewpoint" (p.385). In another instance, Cheah Boon Kheng's Red Star over Malaya is listed twice (pp. 388 and 389). Inconsistencies in style, particularly in the bibliography, also become noticeable. A third technical weakness is the contents page, which does not list the chapters and their headings. However, the overall quality of editing and proofreading, particularly when compared with other academic books in Bahasa Malaysia, is good.
All in all, this is a good book that makes a useful
and lasting contribution to the study of mass communication in Malaysia.
I recommend it for students and scholars interested in this field who are
literate in Bahasa Malaysia/Indonesia. In addition, other students and
scholars of international communication interested in taking a tilt at
the Four Theories can benefit from Hasim's foray and, in turn, challenge
his nine-point typology of power relationships.
Sankaran Ramanathan
Coordinator of special projects
Asian Media Information and Communication Centre
Singapore
Sociologist Stevenson's ambitious aim is to fill the important gap between social theory and the media. His approach is to address those social theories that take the media seriously and use them to open a critical space that allows him to compare different media research traditions. He discusses three major paradigms of media research, and compares their interconnections and omissions, viz., the critical approach, the audience approach, and the technological approach.
The critical approach encompasses the British and German tradition of mass media research--the Marxist cultural studies of the British tradition, and the Frankfurt School, especially Juergen Habermas' work, as the German equivalent. Whereas the British strand has been focusing upon ideology, the Germans' interest has been the public sphere. However, whereas the British tradition is still very influential and challenging, the German school has lost its impact. One has to see this against the background of the German media research tradition in general, the Frankfurt School in particular, and Habermas' philosophical position, which demonstrated a conservative understanding of politics and culture in the dispute with Lyotard on the postmodern condition. Contemporary understanding of the media culture, Stevenson says, is more influenced by the British tradition with its challenging Marxist analysis of media, ideology and economy, and its interest in understanding these processes through the lenses of poststructuralist theories.
Stevenson also points out that the critical audience approach has got its most challenging ideas from cultural studies, in particular from its aim to analyze together the semiotic production of meaning with its material base, constraints and effects. The analyses of unconscious identification processes, power relations within the home, and the focus upon pleasure, fantasy and resistance have had an enormous impact on media research in the Anglo-American world.
The technological aspect of his book concentrates on the media of transmission. Each medium has a huge influence upon the communication and information structures of a society. Stevenson says the Canadian contribution enabled us to understand the media as technology, and, at the same time, as a symbolic imagery. The representatives of this point of view are Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and Arthur Kroker who was highly influenced by Jean Baudrillard. Stevenson, in his discussion of the work of McLuhan and Baudrillard in particular, criticizes their ignorance of state policy and audience activities. Economy, technology,ideology, and consumption have become the pivotal points of media theory.
To demonstrate Stevenson's line of argument, I will focus on the British Marxist and the critical audience research traditions. The chapter on British Marxism, which could also have been titled "From Raymond Williams to Stuart Hall," describes in a very readable way the key concepts and notions, and major discussions within the Glasgow University Media Group and the Centre for British Cultural Studies in Birmingham. The key concepts in this discussion are ideology, material culture and hegemony. Stevension's argument here is that an either-or structure has been dominating these discussions from the very beginning. Either the economic base has been overvalued or the ideological sphere has been theorized without any reference to the economic. Neither Williams nor Hall would have ever attempted such a synthesis.
Stevenson says that Williams' work demonstrates his struggle for a synthesis between the materiality of culture and its ideological role in shaping or better addressing the subject as such. Culture, Williams claims, is always a combination of a whole way of life with the arts, and learning is a special arena for discovery, and creative effort. But hegemony and ideology, as understood by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as two sides of a coin, are inscribed in the materiality of culture or cultural materiality. Through institutions, traditions and formations, hegemony acts as a shifting force to produce subjects and cultural intelligibility. Thus, I would argue, Stevenson's criticism of cultural studies overemphasizes ideology at the expense of the material base. His criticism fails because he doesn't see that culture has to be understood as always and already framed within ideology.
Stevenson appreciates Williams' work on TV viewing: Watching TV is no longer understood as producing victims of the mind industry, but as an active cultural production. This understanding has generated a huge body of literature, which Stevenson discusses in his second major chapter on critical audience research, focusing on Fiske and Morley as two representatives of cultural studies in Great Britain and the United States. Feminist theories have also become very influential in audience reasearch--works ranging from _Reading the Romance_ by Janice Radway to Watching Dallas by Ien Ang, to which Stevenson refers. Although Stevenson's criticism that some of these works have concentrated too much upon the micro level of the family and the viewers' psychic position is valid, he neglects other works, such as Angela McRobbie's or Mica Nava's on consumerism, youth, fantasy, and material culture. More recent work by Ang opens the nuclear circle of the family and theorizes "postmodernity" as creating a life- style form which invokes a necessity to choose. This will add much to future debates.
In his last chapter, Stevenson collects his critique of each of these three media paradigms, and argues that no strict reason exists for separating them. He suggests that an integration of the various view points would create an understanding of media culture as structuring everyday experience, state policy, the economic world, and the individual's psychic way of being.
Stevenson's aim is twofold. First he offers social
theory a highly sophisticated overview of media theory and its traditions.
Second, he aims to critique the poststructuralist (postmodern) media
theories through his own viewpoint, which has strong affinities to the
Frankfurt School. The book offers a good discussion of many influential
media theorists and thinkers. It is a valuable introduction for those interested
in media and social issues.
Marie-Luise Angerer, lecturer
Department of Communication
University of Salzburg