Over the last forty years or so academic interest in 'globalization' has burgeoned, and, since the 1970s at least, attempts to define, analyse, and critically explain it have become vital areas of research and study across many disciplines. Moreover, if globalization is a defining phenomenon of our age, then it cannot begin to be understood without a close interrogation of the role of media and communications. Indeed, the complex relationship between macro and micro processes of globalization and the action of media and communications to create what the editor of this new Routledge collection describes as a 'mediated globalization' has, she argues, never been more significant. As serious academic work on and around globalization and the media continues to flourish as never before, this new title in Routledge's Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies series meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of a rapidly growing and ever more complex corpus of literature, and to provide a map of the area as it has emerged and developed. It is a landmark collection of foundational and the best cutting-edge scholarship in the field and is organized in four volumes. Edited by Terhi Rantanen, Professor of Global Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, Globalization and the Media is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.

The Globalization of News gives a comprehensive overview of those media organizations, the news agencies, which report and film the news for the press and broadcast media. Incorporating institutional, historical, political, economic, and cultural studies perspectives, this book + Reviews agency provision of general, video, and financial news + Analyzes the relationship between news agencies, nation-states, and "retail" media + Critically examines the impact of deregulation and globalization on the news agency business Contributors consider how leading players like Reuters and Associated Press help to define the nature of both the global and the local as well as focusing on the network of relations between international and national agencies. The book also takes into account the attempts by some national news agencies to establish radically different news agendas. Demonstrating how news agencies have contributed both to the process of globalization and, simultaneously, to the process of national construction, this book provides an important critical survey of the contemporary international news business. The Globalization of News will be welcomed by all undergraduate and post-graduate students of media studies and international communication.

This book overviews and reconsiders media organizations - the news agencies - which report and film the news for the press and broadcast media. Incorporating institutional, historical, political economic and cultural studies perspectives, the book: reviews agency provision of general news, video news and financial news; analyzes agency-state relations through periods of dramatic social upheaval; and critically examines the impact of deregulation and globalization on the news agency business. Contributors consider how leading players like Reuters and Associated Press help to define the nature of both the Global and the Local as well as focusing on the network of relations between international and national agencies. The book also takes into account the attempts by some national news agencies to establish radically different news agendas. Demonstrating how the news agencies have contributed both to the process of globalization and, simultaneously, to the process of national construction, this book provides an important critical survey of the contemporary international news business.

This is a necessary and very original book that really does address the lack of attention to media in previous discussions about globalization'

- "James Lull, San Jose State University

"

There is practically no globalization without media and communications. Yet this relationship is so obvious it is often overlooked. Rantanen challenges conventional ways of thinking about globalization and shows it cannot be understood without studying the role of the media.

This book offers:

- a clear and accessible overview of globalization and the pivotal role of the media

- an introduction to the concepts and theories of globalization

- empirical data on the production and consumption of media

- a methodology for relating individual, local experiences to the global picture

Rantanen has made this complex and huge subject very accessible by using personal histories and pictures to engage the reader.

It will be invaluable to students in international media, cultural studies, communications and international relations.