"Thussu brings to this project the passion for news of a socially committed former journalist, the political economy of his international relations education and a formidable assembly of global detail, examining the recent explosion of 'infotainment'." - John Downing, Southern Illinois University "Thussu's account of war as infotainment, the Bollywoodization of news and the emergence of a global infotainment sphere is as compelling as it is alarming. This is a significant and essential book for anyone interested in exploring the connections between news journalism, informed citizenship and democracy." - Bob Franklin, The Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies Richly detailed and empirically grounded, this first book-length study of infotainment and its globalization by a leading scholar of global communication, offers a comprehensive and critical analysis of this emerging phenomenon. Going beyond - both geographically and theoretically - the 'dumbing down' discourse, largely confined to the Anglo-American media, the book argues that infotainment may have an important ideological role, a diversion in which 'soft news' masks the hard realities of neo-liberal imperialism. Chapters include a historical appraisal of infotainment; the infrastructure for its globalization as well as coverage of recent wars on television news as high-tech infotainment and the growing synergies between Hollywood and Bollywood-originated infotainment. A 'global infotainment sphere' is emerging, the book argues, within which competing versions of news - from 24/7 news networks to bloggers - coexist. Accessible, engagingly written and robustly argued, the book combines analyses of theoretical debates on infotainment with extensive and up-to-date comparative data.

The relationship between information and the nation-state is typically portrayed as a face-off involving repressive state power and democratic flows: Twitter and the Arab Spring, Google in China, WikiLeaks and the U.S. State Department. Less attention has been paid to those scenarios where states have regarded information and its diffusion as productive of modernity and globalization. It is the central argument of this book that the contemporary nation-state, especially in the global South, is far from hostile to the current informational milieu and in fact makes crucial use of it in order to develop adequate modes of governance, communication and sociality in a networked world. This book focuses on India - an emerging country that has recently witnessed a "software miracle" - to highlight the critical role informatics has historically played in the national imagination and to demonstrate how the state, private capital and civic society have drawn upon and engaged the precepts and protocols of the information age to fashion an "info-nation."

The Global News Challenge tackles one of the timeliest topics in mass communication today-the challenges facing international broadcasters with universal branding strategies in developing countries. In these heavily government-controlled media environments with a scarcity of reliable information, international news providers traditionally had an influential position. With the ongoing media liberalization, however, commercial domestic providers have gained in strength to become strong competitors. Additionally, in a number of countries, pan-Arab broadcasting enterprises have widened their reach, contributing to the growing competition for traditional international providers such as the BBC or France 24. This book employs a global perspective to explore the subject across the whole population and different media platforms in select developing markets of Africa and South Asia. It is unique in providing a theoretical framework by which to analyze demand and usage of and trust in news from international broadcasters across the whole population, not just opinion leaders. It outlines the strategic options for international broadcasters in these evolving market contexts.

Media policy issues sit at the heart of the structure and functioning of media systems in Europe and beyond. This book brings together the work of a range of leading media policy scholars to provide inroads to a better understanding of how effective media policies can be developed to ensure a healthy communication sector that contributes to the wellbeing of individual citizens, as well as a more democratic society. Faced with a general atmosphere of disillusionment in the European project, one of the core questions tackled by the volume's contributors is: what scope is there for European media policy that can exist beyond the national level? Uniquely, the volume's chapters are structured around four key policy themes: media convergence; the continued role and position of public regulatory intervention in media policy; policy issues arising from the development of new electronic communication network environments; and lessons for European media policy from cases beyond the EU. In its chapters, the volume provides enriched understandings of the role and significance of policy actors, institutions, structures, instruments and processes in communication and media policy.

In Asia, amidst its varied levels of economic development and diverse cultural traditions and political regimes, the Internet and mobile communications are increasingly used in every aspect of life. Yet the analytical frames used to understand the impact of digital media on Asia predominantly originate from the Global North, neither rooted in Asia's rich philosophical traditions, nor reflective of the sociocultural practices of this dynamic region. This volume examines digital phenomena and its impact on Asia by drawing on specifically Asian perspectives. Contributors apply a variety of Asian theoretical frameworks including guanxi, face, qing, dharma and karma. With chapters focusing on emerging digital trends in China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan, the book presents compelling and diverse research on identity and selfhood, spirituality, social networking, corporate image, and national identity as shaped by and articulated through digital communication platforms.

The relationship between information and the nation-state is typically portrayed as a face-off involving repressive state power and democratic flows: Twitter and the Arab Spring, Google in China, WikiLeaks and the U.S. State Department. Less attention has been paid to those scenarios where states have regarded information and its diffusion as productive of modernity and globalization. It is the central argument of this book that the contemporary nation-state, especially in the global South, is far from hostile to the current informational milieu and in fact makes crucial use of it in order to develop adequate modes of governance, communication and sociality in a networked world. This book focuses on India - an emerging country that has recently witnessed a "software miracle" - to highlight the critical role informatics has historically played in the national imagination and to demonstrate how the state, private capital and civic society have drawn upon and engaged the precepts and protocols of the information age to fashion an "info-nation."

This innovative collection investigates the ways in which television programs around the world have highlighted modernization and encouraged nation-building. It is an attempt to catalogue and better understand the contours of this phenomenon, which took place as television developed and expanded in different parts of the world between the 1950s and the 1990s. From popular science and adult education shows to news magazines and television plays, few themes so thoroughly penetrated the small screen for so many years as modernization, with television producers and state authorities using television programs to bolster modernization efforts. Contributors analyze the hallmarks of these media efforts: nation-building, consumerism and consumer culture, the education and integration of citizens, and the glorification of the nation's technological achievements.

Very little is known about how African journalists are forging "new" ways to practise their profession on the web. Against this backdrop, this volume provides contextually rooted discussions of trends, practices, and emerging cultures of web-based journalism(s) across the continent, offering a comprehensive research tool that can both stand the test of time as well as offer researchers (particularly those in the economically developed Global North) models for cross-cultural comparative research. The essays here deploy either a wide range of evidence or adopt a case-study approach to engage with contemporary developments in African online journalism. This book thus makes up for the gap in cross-cultural studies that seek to understand online journalism in all its complexities.

In this book, Porto analyzes the role of TV Globo in the democratization of Brazil. TV Globo, one of the world's largest media conglomerates, has a dominant position in Brazil's communications landscape. It also exports telenovelas to more than 130 countries and has established joint ventures with transnational media conglomerates. Beginning in the mid-1990s, TV Globo began a process of "opening," replacing its authoritarian model of journalism with a more independent reporting style. Representations of Brazil in prime time telenovelas have also shifted. Given this shift, Porto considers some of the following questions: *What explains these changes in Brazil's most powerful media company? *How are they related to processes of political and social democratization? *How did TV Globo's opening affect Brazil's emerging democracy, especially in terms of the quality of political accountability mechanisms? Porto uses the Brazilian case of TV Globo to analyze the larger links between democratization, civil society mobilization, and media change in transitional societies.

The Global News Challenge tackles one of the timeliest topics in mass communication today-the challenges facing international broadcasters with universal branding strategies in developing countries. In these heavily government-controlled media environments with a scarcity of reliable information, international news providers traditionally had an influential position. With the ongoing media liberalization, however, commercial domestic providers have gained in strength to become strong competitors. Additionally, in a number of countries, pan-Arab broadcasting enterprises have widened their reach, contributing to the growing competition for traditional international providers such as the BBC or France 24. This book employs a global perspective to explore the subject across the whole population and different media platforms in select developing markets of Africa and South Asia. It is unique in providing a theoretical framework by which to analyze demand and usage of and trust in news from international broadcasters across the whole population, not just opinion leaders. It outlines the strategic options for international broadcasters in these evolving market contexts.

This collection of essays responds to the recent surge of interest in popular television in Eastern Europe. This is a region where television's transformation has been especially spectacular, shifting from a state-controlled broadcast system delivering national, regional, and heavily filtered Western programming to a deregulated, multi-platform, transnational system delivering predominantly American and Western European entertainment programming. Consequently, the nations of Eastern Europe provide opportunities to examine the complex interactions among economic and funding systems, regulatory policies, globalization, imperialism, popular culture, and cultural identity.This collection will be the first volume to gather the best writing, by scholars across and outside the region, on socialist and postsocialist entertainment television as a medium, technology, and institution.

In this book, Porto analyzes the role of TV Globo in the democratization of Brazil. TV Globo, one of the world's largest media conglomerates, has a dominant position in Brazil's communications landscape. It also exports telenovelas to more than 130 countries and has established joint ventures with transnational media conglomerates. Beginning in the mid-1990s, TV Globo began a process of "opening," replacing its authoritarian model of journalism with a more independent reporting style. Representations of Brazil in prime time telenovelas have also shifted. Given this shift, Porto considers some of the following questions:

What explains these changes in Brazil's most powerful media company?

How are they related to processes of political and social democratization?

How did TV Globo's opening affect Brazil's emerging democracy, especially in terms of the quality of political accountability mechanisms?

Porto uses the Brazilian case of TV Globo to analyze the larger links between democratization, civil society mobilization, and media change in transitional societies.

Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa examines the role that popular media could play to encourage political debate, provide information for development, or critique the very definitions of ?democracy? and ?development?. Drawing on diverse case studies from various regions of the African continent, essays employ a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to ask critical questions about the potential of popular media to contribute to democratic culture, provide sites of resistance, or, conversely, act as agents for the spread of Americanized entertainment culture to the detriment of local traditions. A wide variety of media formats and platforms are discussed, ranging from radio and television to the Internet, mobile phones, street posters, film and music.

As part of the Routledge series Internationalizing Media Studies, the book responds to the important challenge of broadening perspectives on media studies by bringing together a range of expert analyses of media in the African continent that will be of interest to students and scholars of media in Africa and further afield.

This innovative collection investigates the ways in which television programs around the world have highlighted modernization and encouraged nation-building. It is an attempt to catalogue and better understand the contours of this phenomenon, which took place as television developed and expanded in different parts of the world between the 1950s and the 1990s. From popular science and adult education shows to news magazines and television plays, few themes so thoroughly penetrated the small screen for so many years as modernization, with television producers and state authorities using television programs to bolster modernization efforts. Contributors analyze the hallmarks of these media efforts: nation-building, consumerism and consumer culture, the education and integration of citizens, and the glorification of the nation's technological achievements.

What happened when Sesame Street and Big Brother were adapted for African audiences? Or when video games Final Fantasy and Assassins' Creed were localized for the Spanish market? Or when Sherlock Holmes was transformed into a talking dog for the Japanese animation Sherlock Hound? Bringing together leading international scholars working on localization in television, film and video games, Media Across Borders is a pioneering study of the myriad ways in which media content is adapted for different markets and across cultural borders. Contributors examine significant localization trends and practices such as: audiovisual translation and transcreation, dubbing and subtitling, international franchising, film remakes, TV format adaptation and video game localization. Drawing together insights from across the audiovisual sector, this volume provides a number of innovative models for interrogating the international flow of media. By paying specific attention to the diverse ways in which cultural products are adapted across markets, this collection offers important new perspectives and theoretical frameworks for studying localization processes in the audiovisual sector. For further resources, please see the Media Across Borders group website (www.mediaacrossborders.com), which hosts a 'localization' bibliography; links to relevant companies, institutions and publications, as well as conference papers and workshop summaries.

`No book is more timely than this collection, which analyses brilliantly the Western media's relentless absorption into the designs of dominant, rapacious power' - John Pilger

`A most timely book, with many valuable insights' - Martin Bell O.B.E

`It has long been known that the outcome of war is deeply influenced by the battle to win 'hearts and minds'. This book provides a stimulating set of perspectives which combine the analyses of prominent academics with the experiences of leading journalists' -

Professor Tom Woodhouse, University of Bradford

`This volume represents an all-star cast of authors who have a tremendous amount of knowledge about media and world conflict. One of its strengths is that it doesn't focus entirely narrowly on media, but puts the discussion of media issues in the context of changes in the world order in military doctrine' -

Professor Daniel C. Hallin, University of California

`This book comes just in time. A coherent and wide-ranging collection of data, analyses and insights that help our understanding of the complex interaction between communication and conflict. A major intellectual contribution to critical thinking about the early 21st century' - Cees J Hamelink, Professor International Communication, University of Amsterdam

With what new tools do governments manage the news in order to prepare us for conflict?

Are the media responsible for turning conflict into infotainment?

Is reporting gender specific?

How do journalists view their role in covering distant wars?

This book critically examines the changing contours of media coverage of war and considers the complexity of the relationship between mass media and governments in wartime.

Assessing how far the political, cultural and professional contexts of media coverage have been affected by 9//11 and its aftermath, the volume also explores media representations of the `War on Terrorism' from regional and international perspectives, including new actors such as the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera - the pan-Arabic television network.

One key theme of the book is how new information and communication technologies are influencing the production, distribution and reception of media messages. In an age of instant global communication and round-the-clock news, powerful governments have refined their public relations machinery, particularly in the way warfare is covered on television, to market their version of events effectively to their domestic as well as international viewing public.

Transnational in its intellectual scope and in perspectives, War and the Media includes essays from internationally known academics along with contributions from media professionals working for leading broadcasters such as BBC World and CNN.

Very little is known about how African journalists are forging "new" ways to practise their profession on the web. Against this backdrop, this volume provides contextually rooted discussions of trends, practices, and emerging cultures of web-based journalism(s) across the continent, offering a comprehensive research tool that can both stand the test of time as well as offer researchers (particularly those in the economically developed Global North) models for cross-cultural comparative research. The essays here deploy either a wide range of evidence or adopt a case-study approach to engage with contemporary developments in African online journalism. This book thus makes up for the gap in cross-cultural studies that seek to understand online journalism in all its complexities.

This collection of essays responds to the recent surge of interest in popular television in Eastern Europe. This is a region where television's transformation has been especially spectacular, shifting from a state-controlled broadcast system delivering national, regional, and heavily filtered Western programming to a deregulated, multi-platform, transnational system delivering predominantly American and Western European entertainment programming. Consequently, the nations of Eastern Europe provide opportunities to examine the complex interactions among economic and funding systems, regulatory policies, globalization, imperialism, popular culture, and cultural identity.This collection will be the first volume to gather the best writing, by scholars across and outside the region, on socialist and postsocialist entertainment television as a medium, technology, and institution.

In Asia, amidst its varied levels of economic development and diverse cultural traditions and political regimes, the Internet and mobile communications are increasingly used in every aspect of life. Yet the analytical frames used to understand the impact of digital media on Asia predominantly originate from the Global North, neither rooted in Asia's rich philosophical traditions, nor reflective of the sociocultural practices of this dynamic region. This volume examines digital phenomena and its impact on Asia by drawing on specifically Asian perspectives. Contributors apply a variety of Asian theoretical frameworks including guanxi, face, qing, dharma and karma. With chapters focusing on emerging digital trends in China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan, the book presents compelling and diverse research on identity and selfhood, spirituality, social networking, corporate image, and national identity as shaped by and articulated through digital communication platforms.

Media policy issues sit at the heart of the structure and functioning of media systems in Europe and beyond. This book brings together the work of a range of leading media policy scholars to provide inroads to a better understanding of how effective media policies can be developed to ensure a healthy communication sector that contributes to the wellbeing of individual citizens, as well as a more democratic society. Faced with a general atmosphere of disillusionment in the European project, one of the core questions tackled by the volume's contributors is: what scope is there for European media policy that can exist beyond the national level? Uniquely, the volume's chapters are structured around four key policy themes: media convergence; the continued role and position of public regulatory intervention in media policy; policy issues arising from the development of new electronic communication network environments; and lessons for European media policy from cases beyond the EU. In its chapters, the volume provides enriched understandings of the role and significance of policy actors, institutions, structures, instruments and processes in communication and media policy.

Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa examines the role that popular media could play to encourage political debate, provide information for development, or critique the very definitions of democracy and development . Drawing on diverse case studies from various regions of the African continent, essays employ a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to ask critical questions about the potential of popular media to contribute to democratic culture, provide sites of resistance, or, conversely, act as agents for the spread of Americanized entertainment culture to the detriment of local traditions. A wide variety of media formats and platforms are discussed, ranging from radio and television to the Internet, mobile phones, street posters, film and music.

As part of the Routledge series Internationalizing Media Studies, the book responds to the important challenge of broadening perspectives on media studies by bringing together a range of expert analyses of media in the African continent that will be of interest to students and scholars of media in Africa and further afield.

"Thussu brings to this project the passion for news of a socially committed former journalist, the political economy of his international relations education and a formidable assembly of global detail, examining the recent explosion of 'infotainment'." - John Downing, Southern Illinois University "Thussu's account of war as infotainment, the Bollywoodization of news and the emergence of a global infotainment sphere is as compelling as it is alarming. This is a significant and essential book for anyone interested in exploring the connections between news journalism, informed citizenship and democracy." - Bob Franklin, The Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies Richly detailed and empirically grounded, this first book-length study of infotainment and its globalization by a leading scholar of global communication, offers a comprehensive and critical analysis of this emerging phenomenon. Going beyond - both geographically and theoretically - the 'dumbing down' discourse, largely confined to the Anglo-American media, the book argues that infotainment may have an important ideological role, a diversion in which 'soft news' masks the hard realities of neo-liberal imperialism. Chapters include a historical appraisal of infotainment; the infrastructure for its globalization as well as coverage of recent wars on television news as high-tech infotainment and the growing synergies between Hollywood and Bollywood-originated infotainment. A 'global infotainment sphere' is emerging, the book argues, within which competing versions of news - from 24/7 news networks to bloggers - coexist. Accessible, engagingly written and robustly argued, the book combines analyses of theoretical debates on infotainment with extensive and up-to-date comparative data.

`No book is more timely than this collection, which analyses brilliantly the Western media's relentless absorption into the designs of dominant, rapacious power' - John Pilger

`A most timely book, with many valuable insights' - Martin Bell O.B.E

`It has long been known that the outcome of war is deeply influenced by the battle to win 'hearts and minds'. This book provides a stimulating set of perspectives which combine the analyses of prominent academics with the experiences of leading journalists' -

Professor Tom Woodhouse, University of Bradford

`This volume represents an all-star cast of authors who have a tremendous amount of knowledge about media and world conflict. One of its strengths is that it doesn't focus entirely narrowly on media, but puts the discussion of media issues in the context of changes in the world order in military doctrine' -

Professor Daniel C. Hallin, University of California

`This book comes just in time. A coherent and wide-ranging collection of data, analyses and insights that help our understanding of the complex interaction between communication and conflict. A major intellectual contribution to critical thinking about the early 21st century' - Cees J Hamelink, Professor International Communication, University of Amsterdam

With what new tools do governments manage the news in order to prepare us for conflict?

Are the media responsible for turning conflict into infotainment?

Is reporting gender specific?

How do journalists view their role in covering distant wars?

This book critically examines the changing contours of media coverage of war and considers the complexity of the relationship between mass media and governments in wartime.

Assessing how far the political, cultural and professional contexts of media coverage have been affected by 9//11 and its aftermath, the volume also explores media representations of the `War on Terrorism' from regional and international perspectives, including new actors such as the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera - the pan-Arabic television network.

One key theme of the book is how new information and communication technologies are influencing the production, distribution and reception of media messages. In an age of instant global communication and round-the-clock news, powerful governments have refined their public relations machinery, particularly in the way warfare is covered on television, to market their version of events effectively to their domestic as well as international viewing public.

Transnational in its intellectual scope and in perspectives, War and the Media includes essays from internationally known academics along with contributions from media professionals working for leading broadcasters such as BBC World and CNN.