Hamid Mowlana

The triumph of image over reality and reason is the theme of this book. New communication technologies have made possible the transportation of images and words in real time to hundreds of millions of people around the world. We thought we witnessed the Gulf War as we sat, mesmerized by the imagery. But the studies from the many countries assembled

Hidden from public sight and mind today are invisible crises that threaten our democracy and existence more than the crises we know about?or think we know about. These invisible crises include the promotion of practices that drug, hurt, poison, and kill thousands every day; cults of violence that desensitize, terrorize, and brutalize; the growing s

The new edition of this major work offers a comprehensive analysis of international communication systems and the global flow of information. Hamid Mowlana places the analysis of global mass media and other forms of communication within a critical overview of international and intercultural relations. Extensively rewritten and revised, Global Information and World Communication deals with the phenomenon of global information flow in all contexts - political, economic, cultural, technological, legal and professional. Mowlana illustrates how different communication strategies and systems have contributed to the creation of powerful interests and have altered the global scene. He takes into account recent events and shows how these have challenged basic assumptions and theories, enabling the debate about communication and world society to embrace broader concepts of world politics, information economy, cultural ecology and international development.

Hidden from public sight and mind today are invisible crises that threaten our democracy and existence more than the crises we know about?or think we know about. These invisible crises include the promotion of practices that drug, hurt, poison, and kill thousands every day; cults of violence that desensitize, terrorize, and brutalize; the growing siege mentality of our cities; widening resource gaps and the most glaring inequalities in the industrial world; the costly neglect of vital institutions such as public education and the arts; and media-assisted make-believe image politics corrupting the electoral process. Deprived of sustained attention but bombarded by eruptions of surface consequences (often presented as unique events stripped of historical context), people ar bewildered, fearful, angry, and cynical. The contributors to this volume?exploring such unattended crises, analyzing why they are hidden, and focusing on the increasing concentration of culture-power that keeps them from view?maintain that a profound general crisis of social vision, public communication, and representative government underlies all of the invisible crises.

Hamid Mowlana, for decades, has been one of the foremost trackers and analyzers of global communications--their volume, character, and impact. No one is more qualified to explain these increasingly important and central issues to a wide public. --Herbert S. Schiller, New York University The rapid changes in the way we communicate across the globe continue to alter the many facets of society. Both interdisciplinary and intercultural in its approach, Global Communication in Transition examines the human dimensions and technological imperatives of international communications. Author Hamid Mowlana provides a comprehensive analysis beginning with the rise of modern political systems and the interactions of various cultures, through the expansion of social organizations and the growing global infrastructure. This unique perspective on global communication is organized around a number of basic concepts such as history, power, community, legitimacy, and language. By analyzing the political, economic, and cultural implications of communication today, within the broader concepts of such issues as community, Mowlana provides a new paradigm for the study of international communication. This auspicious text covers the history, theories, processes, and issues of international communication. Advanced undergraduates and graduate students in political science and international relations as well as communication will benefit greatly from the insightful scholarship offered in Global Communication in Transition.

THE TRIUMPH OF IMAGE over reality and reason is the theme of this book. New communication technologies have made possible the transportation of images and words in real time to hundreds of millions of people around the world. We thought we witnessed the Gulf War as we sat, mesmerized by the imagery. But the studies from the many countries assembled for this book suggest that it was not the war in the Persian Gulf that we witnessed but rather imagery orchestrated to convey a sense of triumph and thus to achieve results that reality and reason could never have achieved. The book offers contributions from thirty-five authors in eighteen countries, including short samplings from the media of several regions. The authors explore the social, economic, and political context of media coverage in their countries, the domination of one image in most of them, and the struggle for alternative perspectives. The authors probe the dynamics of image-making and pose some challenges for the future as well as provide us with a unique glimpse of how the world outside of the United States (as well as many Americans) viewed the war in the Persian Gulf and how the dynamics of image-making and information control operate. Triumph of the Image will be useful to scholars and students in communications and mass media, international relations, political science, cultural studies, propaganda, censorship, and contemporary history as well as to the general public.