Democratizing Global Media explores the complex relationship between globalizing media and the spread of democracy around the world. An international, interdisciplinary group of journalists and scholars discusses key and often contentious issues such as the power of media, the benefits of media globalization, and the political role of media. More than a critique, Democratizing Global Media offers positive alternatives, from peace journalism to popular movements toward democratizing media and public communication.

Expanding peace journalism: comparative and critical approaches draws together cutting-edge contributions from 17 international writers to this rapidly emerging field of research. Media coverage of conflicts is propagandistic and commonly portrays two elite actors contesting a single goal of 'victory'. This major new text explores and interrogates peace journalism as a significant challenge to this hegemonic discourse, which has been advocated and elaborated over the recent years in journalism, media development and academic spheres. Expanding peace journalism traces boundaries and links with the adjacent fields including alternative media, social movement activism and media democratisation. It includes case studies - from the media of countries including Australia, Canada, Guatemala, India, Nigeria, Norway, Sweden and the US - and explores connections with human rights, as well as Indigenous and women's rights activism. The problem some 50 years ago was what criteria an event had to meet to qualify as news ... When the news represents a distorted world image, the distortions are worth knowing. This book, so rich in content, is a testimony to the need for empirical, critical and constructive scrutiny of media. Each chapter opens a new window, a new angle; all of them important. From the preface by Johan Galtung

Published Under the Garamond Imprint

North Americans now live in a highly complex media environment where newspapers are still immensely important vehicles for democratic communication. No other mass medium offers the same combined possibilities for accessibility, in-depth analysis, diversity of views, and sustained reflection on important political and economic issues.

But do newspapers in Canada really report an adequate range of views and issues? The authors argue that as significant as what is reported are the stories that are not reported, or "buried." What are the filters and blind spots that determine what gets into print... and what doesn't?

The authors believe that journalism's most important tasks in a democratic society include holding those in power accountable, and giving voice even to those without wealth or political influence. "The Missing News" shows us that Canadians have reason to be concerned.

This volume centers on a critical examination of press coverage of peace-related issues and of the relationships between newspaper journalism and the peace movement in Canada in the 1980s. The chapters deal respectively with the following topics: the relevance and impact of news media in relation to both international peace, and the emergence and success of antiwar movements; a critical review of previous research on the relation between media and antiwar movements; an extensive explanation of the nature of news; an overview of Canada's news media system; the political/discursive context of news concerning peace and defense; several case studies of relevant press coverage; a discussion of how open the news is to the expression of antiwar sentiment; and an epilogue considering whether the end of the Cold War has fundamentally changed the nature of North American media coverage of war and peace issues.