Herbert I. Schiller

This title was first published in 1976

This title was first published in 1976. The attainment of political independence by more than ninety countries since the Second World War has directed attention to the conditions of economic helplessness and dependency that continue to frustrate the development of at least two-thirds of the world's nations. Two and sometimes three decades of disappointing efforts to extricate themselves from dependency have begun to provoke serious reappraisals in many lands about the entire concept of development. Accordingly, the time ahead will surely be a period of growing cultural-communications struggle · intra- and inter - nationally · between those seeking the end of domination and those striving to maintain it. The intention of this work is to assist, in a very modest way, in the outcome of this struggle.

Living in the Number One Country is social historian Herbert I. Schiller's chronicle of how the communication business transformed and propelled post-World War II American Empire. Schiller infuses elements of his own experience growing up during the Great Depression in New York, as a bureaucrat in the civilian sector of the military occupation forces in Berlin after the war, and as a radical journalist and academic, in arguing that what he first witnessed in Germany - the way it was rebuilt to suit the needs of large-scale capital - served as the prototype for later United States imperialism." "Schiller also traces how the U. S. government has supported corporatized information by pushing American products abroad both through phony pronouncements about "the free-flow of information," and by subsidizing research and development of new technologies.

This volume is a collection of contemporary commentaries on international communication issues, with the concept of national sovereignty as the departure point. Offering readers an introduction to current and emerging concerns, it provides the basic analytical tools needed to understand the issues involved. Problems are examined from the perspectives of journalism, social sciences, international politics, law, and emerging technology; topics include mass media communication across borders, communication satellites, and Third World nations and the need to establish a new world information order.

This volume is a collection of contemporary commentaries on international communication issues, with the concept of national sovereignty as the departure point. Offering readers an introduction to current and emerging concerns, it provides the basic analytical tools needed to understand the issues involved. Problems are examined from the perspectives of journalism, social sciences, international politics, law, and emerging technology; topics include mass media communication across borders, communication satellites, and Third World nations and the need to establish a new world information order.

This volume analyzes how information and the new information technologies and processes are being used to overcome the multiple crises afflicting the U. S. and other advanced, industrial, market societies. The book focuses on development of the new technologies to create new industries to make up for older ones lost to international competition; the application of the new instrumentation throughout the industrial system to raise productivity by eliminating labor; the ultilization of advanced communication systems to police and check opposition in poor parts of the world; the privatizaion of the public sector to reduce production costs at the expense of social welfare; and unilateralism in international communications issues to derive advantage for American media, information processing, and industrial enterprise.

This books uses information to reveal the current interconnections between domestic and foreign economic, cultural and political developments in the information sector. It analyzes the international and national factors promoting the development of the emerging information society and exmaines the weaknesses of existing information systems, critiquing their durability, applicability and ultimate desirability.