Global Advertising and Public Relations
I- Brief History of Advertising and Public Relations Worldwide
1- Western in Origin
2- Corporate purpose
3- Manipulative in their Role, Function, and Design
4- Democratic in tradition
5- Capitalistic in Heritage
6- Postmodern, Postmillennial, Post-Cold War Era
II- Environmental Challenges, Population Growth, Poverty and Hunger, War
III- The management of Change
IV- Tensions from Technology, Globalism, and Multiculturalism
V- Governments, Corporations, and Private Citizens
VI- Nationalism versus Globalism
VII- Past versus Future
VIII- Tensions among the First, Second, And Third Worlds
X- Class Stratification
XI- Control of Technology
XII- An Ideological foundation for Advertising and Public Relations
Monday, July 9, 2007
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Assignment 4
I think that video gaming can be considered as a new chapter in global communication for several reasons. First, Video games are popular all around the world, which make them part of the global pop culture. Second, through video games people learn more about different cultures. Video games also contribute to the theory of convergence, by making all people that play video games allover the word converge to one culture, which is that of video gaming.
chapter11, outline
Global communication and propaganda
I- Introduction
II- Origins of propaganda
III- seeking a definition
IV- Propaganda and public relations
V- Public diplomacy
VI- Research on persuasion
VII- Wartime propaganda
VIII- Strategies of a propaganda campaign
1- Name calling
2- Glittering generality
3- Image transfer
4- Testimonial
5- Plain Folks
6- Card Staking
7- Bandwagon Approach
IX- Modern use of propaganda
X- Terrorism as propaganda
XI- Addressing terrorism
XII- Conclusions
I- Introduction
II- Origins of propaganda
III- seeking a definition
IV- Propaganda and public relations
V- Public diplomacy
VI- Research on persuasion
VII- Wartime propaganda
VIII- Strategies of a propaganda campaign
1- Name calling
2- Glittering generality
3- Image transfer
4- Testimonial
5- Plain Folks
6- Card Staking
7- Bandwagon Approach
IX- Modern use of propaganda
X- Terrorism as propaganda
XI- Addressing terrorism
XII- Conclusions
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Chapter 10, detailed outline
The Politics of Global Communication
I- The three substantive domains
- The substantive domains of global communication politics encompass the fields of telecommunication, intellectual property rights, and mass media.
II- The beginnings
A- Telecommunication: International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the first treaty to deal with the world communication was adopted: The International Telegraphy Convention.
- The original text of the convention's treaty stated that the signatories desired to secure for their telegraphy traffic the advantages of simple and reduced tariffs, to improve the conditions of international telegraphy, and to establish a permanent cooperation among themselves while retaining their freedom of operation.
- Among the other norms adopted were the protection of the secrecy of correspondence, the right of all nations to use international telegraphy, and the rejection of all liability of international telegraphy services.
- The contracting parties also reserved the right to stop any transmission considered dangerous for state security or in violation of national laws, public order, or morals.
B- Intellectual Property Rights:
- The Berne treaty provided international recognition for the national treatment principle.
- In the development of author rights, the basic principles have been,
- To ensure remuneration for an author by protecting his or her work against reproduction.
- To demand respect for the individual integrity of the creator
- To encourage the development of the arts, literature, and science
- To promote a wider distribution of literary, artistic, and scientific works.
C- Mass Media:
- The positive, constructive contribution to the media to peaceful international relations generated considerable excitement.
- However, the negative social impact of the mass media was also a serious concern.
- A moral, educational concern was expressed regarding the spread of obscene publications across borders.
D- The new multilateral institutions:
- After 1945, global communication politics received a new movement through the establishment of the United Nations.
- The Un General Assembly has contributed to global communication politics through a vast number of resolutions that address such divergent issues as the jamming of broadcasts, the protection of journalists on dangerous missions, direct satellite broadcasting, and human rights aspects of science and technology.
- Among the various organs of the UN General Assembly, special attention for communication matters is located in the Third Committee of the General Assembly, and the Economic and Social Council.
- The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space became the focal point for the UN standard setting in outer space law, with important references to world communication politics through regulatory instruments addressing satellite broadcasting.
E- Specialized agencies:
- Multilateral policy is also made by the specialized agencies of the United Nations, and several of these became important regulators for the field of communication, especially the ITU.
F- The nongovernmental Organizations:
- In the post-1945 phase of the evolution of the world communication politics, an important contribution was offered by a rapidly growing group of international nongovernmental organizations.
- INGOs are partly international, in terms of membership and activities, and partly nationally based.
- They can influence the policymaking processes of the intergovernmental organizations as expert groups or as lobbying agents.
G- Shifts in Global Communication Politics:
- Today's global governance system to a large extent determines supranationally the space that national governments have for independent policy making.
- Global communication politics is increasingly defined by trade and market standards and ever less by political considerations.
- The most powerful private payers have become more overtly significant.
- The locus of policy making shifted form governments to associations of private business actors.
H- The World Trade Organization:
- The WTO was established as one of the outcomes of the GATT Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, completes in December1993.
- The WTO is generally more favorably to the trading interests of the major industrial countries than are other intergovernmental bodies.
- Among its main policy principles are the worldwide liberalization of markets and the nondiscrimination principle, which provides for national treatment of foreign competitors in national markets and for the treatment as most-favored nations.
- The rules of free trade are applied to the three main components of the world communications market: the manufacturing of hardware, the production and distribution of software, and the operation of networks and their services.
III- Current practices
A- The domain of telecommunication:
- The prevailing pattern of thought that guides global politics in relation to telecommunication infrastructures is based on the following assumptions:
- Telecommunication infrastructures are essential to development.
- The installation of the infrastructures is expensive.
- Private funding is needed.
- Countries have to liberalize their telecommunication markets and adopt pro-competition regulatory measures to attract private funding.
- Foe national and global telecommunication markets, the new policy implied privatization and liberalization.
- The key policy principles for global telecommunication are liberalization of the market and universal service.
- Liberalization can be defined as the opening of markets to competition; privatization refers to the transfer to state-owned institutions or assets to various degrees of private ownership.
- Governments pursue privatization and or liberalization policies for different reasons.
B- The WTO Telecommunication treaty:
- The basic telecommunication services are defined as follow:
- Public telecommunication transport service: any telecommunication transport service required by a member to be offered to the public generally.
- Public telecommunication transport network: The public telecommunication infrastructure that permits telecommunications between and among defined network termination points.
- Trade interests rather than sociocultural aspirations determine national telecommunication policy.
C- Changing the account rate settlement system:
- An important component of global communication politics is the so-called account rate system.
D- The Domain of Intellectual property rights:
- The essential governing institutions in the field of intellectual property rights are the World Intellectual Property Organization and the WTO.
- TRIPS contains the most important current rules on the protection of intellectual property rights. It is implemented within the WTO regulatory framework.
E- The domain of mass media:
- The main issues in relation to mass media concern concentration of ownership and the trade in media products.
- Oligopolization in the information industry may also undermine the civil and political fundamental right to freedom of expression.
- Oligropolists always have the tendency to use their market power to price gouge consumers. This means that access to information and culture becomes dependent upon the level pf disposable income.
- The contending positions are liberal-permissive claims versus protectionist restrictive claims.
- The liberal position prefers an arrangement that permits total liberalization of market access for media services.
- The more protectionist position favors levels of protection form media imports as instruments to support local media industries or to protect local culture.
IV- Lessons form a key project in the domain of global mass media politics
- During the 1970's, the new international information order (NIIO) was created.
- A new order that would be democratic, support economic development, enhance the international exchange of ideas, share knowledge among all the people of the world, and improve the quality of life.
- Among the various factors that contributed to the NIIO failure, the modt critical one was the lack of participation.
V- Global Communication Politics Today
A- Access:
- The neoliberal agenda perceives people primarily as consumers and aspires to provide them with access to communication infrastructure.
- The humanitarian agenda perceives people primarily as citizens and wants them to be sufficiently literate so than communication infrastructures can be used to promote democratic participation.
B- Knowledge:
- On the neoliberal agenda, knowledge is a commodity that can be processes and owned by private parties, and the property rights of knowledge producers should be strictly reinforced.
- On the humanitarian agenda, knowledge is a public good that cannot be privately appropriated.
C- Global Advertising:
- The neoliberal agenda has a strong interest in the expansion of global advertising.
- The humanitarian agenda is concerned about the ecological implications of the worldwide promotion of a consumer society.
D- Privacy:
- The neoliberal agenda has a strong interest in data mining: the systematic collection, storage, and processing of data about individuals to create client profiles for marketing purposes.
- The humanitarian agenda has a strong interest in the protection of people's privacy.
E- Intellectual Property Rights:
- The neoliberal agenda has a strong interest in the strict enforcement of a trade based system for the protection of intellectual property rights.
- This agenda has a strong interest in protecting the interests of communal property of cultural resources and in protecting resources in the public domain against their exploitation by private companies.
F- Trade in Culture:
- The neoliberal agenda has a strong interest in the application of the rules of international trade law to the export and import of cultural products.
- The humanitarian agenda is interested in exempting culture from trade provisions and in allowing national measures for the protection of cultural autonomy and local public space.
G- Concentration:
- The neoliberal agenda has a strong interest in creating business links with partners in order to consolidate controlling positions on the world market.
- The humanitarian agenda is concerned that today's global merger activities have negative consequences for both consumers and professionals in terms of diminishing diversity and creating the loss of professional autonomy.
H – The Commons:
- The neoliberal agenda wants to private exploitation of such commons as the airwaves.
- The humanitarian agenda wants to retain the public property of the human common heritage.
I- The three substantive domains
- The substantive domains of global communication politics encompass the fields of telecommunication, intellectual property rights, and mass media.
II- The beginnings
A- Telecommunication: International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the first treaty to deal with the world communication was adopted: The International Telegraphy Convention.
- The original text of the convention's treaty stated that the signatories desired to secure for their telegraphy traffic the advantages of simple and reduced tariffs, to improve the conditions of international telegraphy, and to establish a permanent cooperation among themselves while retaining their freedom of operation.
- Among the other norms adopted were the protection of the secrecy of correspondence, the right of all nations to use international telegraphy, and the rejection of all liability of international telegraphy services.
- The contracting parties also reserved the right to stop any transmission considered dangerous for state security or in violation of national laws, public order, or morals.
B- Intellectual Property Rights:
- The Berne treaty provided international recognition for the national treatment principle.
- In the development of author rights, the basic principles have been,
- To ensure remuneration for an author by protecting his or her work against reproduction.
- To demand respect for the individual integrity of the creator
- To encourage the development of the arts, literature, and science
- To promote a wider distribution of literary, artistic, and scientific works.
C- Mass Media:
- The positive, constructive contribution to the media to peaceful international relations generated considerable excitement.
- However, the negative social impact of the mass media was also a serious concern.
- A moral, educational concern was expressed regarding the spread of obscene publications across borders.
D- The new multilateral institutions:
- After 1945, global communication politics received a new movement through the establishment of the United Nations.
- The Un General Assembly has contributed to global communication politics through a vast number of resolutions that address such divergent issues as the jamming of broadcasts, the protection of journalists on dangerous missions, direct satellite broadcasting, and human rights aspects of science and technology.
- Among the various organs of the UN General Assembly, special attention for communication matters is located in the Third Committee of the General Assembly, and the Economic and Social Council.
- The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space became the focal point for the UN standard setting in outer space law, with important references to world communication politics through regulatory instruments addressing satellite broadcasting.
E- Specialized agencies:
- Multilateral policy is also made by the specialized agencies of the United Nations, and several of these became important regulators for the field of communication, especially the ITU.
F- The nongovernmental Organizations:
- In the post-1945 phase of the evolution of the world communication politics, an important contribution was offered by a rapidly growing group of international nongovernmental organizations.
- INGOs are partly international, in terms of membership and activities, and partly nationally based.
- They can influence the policymaking processes of the intergovernmental organizations as expert groups or as lobbying agents.
G- Shifts in Global Communication Politics:
- Today's global governance system to a large extent determines supranationally the space that national governments have for independent policy making.
- Global communication politics is increasingly defined by trade and market standards and ever less by political considerations.
- The most powerful private payers have become more overtly significant.
- The locus of policy making shifted form governments to associations of private business actors.
H- The World Trade Organization:
- The WTO was established as one of the outcomes of the GATT Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, completes in December1993.
- The WTO is generally more favorably to the trading interests of the major industrial countries than are other intergovernmental bodies.
- Among its main policy principles are the worldwide liberalization of markets and the nondiscrimination principle, which provides for national treatment of foreign competitors in national markets and for the treatment as most-favored nations.
- The rules of free trade are applied to the three main components of the world communications market: the manufacturing of hardware, the production and distribution of software, and the operation of networks and their services.
III- Current practices
A- The domain of telecommunication:
- The prevailing pattern of thought that guides global politics in relation to telecommunication infrastructures is based on the following assumptions:
- Telecommunication infrastructures are essential to development.
- The installation of the infrastructures is expensive.
- Private funding is needed.
- Countries have to liberalize their telecommunication markets and adopt pro-competition regulatory measures to attract private funding.
- Foe national and global telecommunication markets, the new policy implied privatization and liberalization.
- The key policy principles for global telecommunication are liberalization of the market and universal service.
- Liberalization can be defined as the opening of markets to competition; privatization refers to the transfer to state-owned institutions or assets to various degrees of private ownership.
- Governments pursue privatization and or liberalization policies for different reasons.
B- The WTO Telecommunication treaty:
- The basic telecommunication services are defined as follow:
- Public telecommunication transport service: any telecommunication transport service required by a member to be offered to the public generally.
- Public telecommunication transport network: The public telecommunication infrastructure that permits telecommunications between and among defined network termination points.
- Trade interests rather than sociocultural aspirations determine national telecommunication policy.
C- Changing the account rate settlement system:
- An important component of global communication politics is the so-called account rate system.
D- The Domain of Intellectual property rights:
- The essential governing institutions in the field of intellectual property rights are the World Intellectual Property Organization and the WTO.
- TRIPS contains the most important current rules on the protection of intellectual property rights. It is implemented within the WTO regulatory framework.
E- The domain of mass media:
- The main issues in relation to mass media concern concentration of ownership and the trade in media products.
- Oligopolization in the information industry may also undermine the civil and political fundamental right to freedom of expression.
- Oligropolists always have the tendency to use their market power to price gouge consumers. This means that access to information and culture becomes dependent upon the level pf disposable income.
- The contending positions are liberal-permissive claims versus protectionist restrictive claims.
- The liberal position prefers an arrangement that permits total liberalization of market access for media services.
- The more protectionist position favors levels of protection form media imports as instruments to support local media industries or to protect local culture.
IV- Lessons form a key project in the domain of global mass media politics
- During the 1970's, the new international information order (NIIO) was created.
- A new order that would be democratic, support economic development, enhance the international exchange of ideas, share knowledge among all the people of the world, and improve the quality of life.
- Among the various factors that contributed to the NIIO failure, the modt critical one was the lack of participation.
V- Global Communication Politics Today
A- Access:
- The neoliberal agenda perceives people primarily as consumers and aspires to provide them with access to communication infrastructure.
- The humanitarian agenda perceives people primarily as citizens and wants them to be sufficiently literate so than communication infrastructures can be used to promote democratic participation.
B- Knowledge:
- On the neoliberal agenda, knowledge is a commodity that can be processes and owned by private parties, and the property rights of knowledge producers should be strictly reinforced.
- On the humanitarian agenda, knowledge is a public good that cannot be privately appropriated.
C- Global Advertising:
- The neoliberal agenda has a strong interest in the expansion of global advertising.
- The humanitarian agenda is concerned about the ecological implications of the worldwide promotion of a consumer society.
D- Privacy:
- The neoliberal agenda has a strong interest in data mining: the systematic collection, storage, and processing of data about individuals to create client profiles for marketing purposes.
- The humanitarian agenda has a strong interest in the protection of people's privacy.
E- Intellectual Property Rights:
- The neoliberal agenda has a strong interest in the strict enforcement of a trade based system for the protection of intellectual property rights.
- This agenda has a strong interest in protecting the interests of communal property of cultural resources and in protecting resources in the public domain against their exploitation by private companies.
F- Trade in Culture:
- The neoliberal agenda has a strong interest in the application of the rules of international trade law to the export and import of cultural products.
- The humanitarian agenda is interested in exempting culture from trade provisions and in allowing national measures for the protection of cultural autonomy and local public space.
G- Concentration:
- The neoliberal agenda has a strong interest in creating business links with partners in order to consolidate controlling positions on the world market.
- The humanitarian agenda is concerned that today's global merger activities have negative consequences for both consumers and professionals in terms of diminishing diversity and creating the loss of professional autonomy.
H – The Commons:
- The neoliberal agenda wants to private exploitation of such commons as the airwaves.
- The humanitarian agenda wants to retain the public property of the human common heritage.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Chapter 10, outline
The Politics of Global Communication
I- The three substantive domains
II- The beginnings
A- Telecommunication
B- Intellectual Property Rights
C- Mass Media
D- The new multilateral institutions
E- Specialized agencies
F- The nongovernmental Organizations
G- Shifts in Global Communication Politics
H- The World Trade Organization
III- Current practices
A- The domain of telecommunication
B- The WTO Telecommunication treaty
C- Changing the account rate settlement system
D- The Domain of Intellectual property rights
E- The domain of mass media
IV- Lessons form a key project in the domain of global mass media politics
V- Global Communication Politics Today
A- Access
B- Knowledge
C- Global Advertising
D- Privacy
E- Intellectual Property Rights
F- Trade in Culture
G- Concentration
H – The Commons
I- Civil Advocacy
J- The World Summit on the Information Society
I- The three substantive domains
II- The beginnings
A- Telecommunication
B- Intellectual Property Rights
C- Mass Media
D- The new multilateral institutions
E- Specialized agencies
F- The nongovernmental Organizations
G- Shifts in Global Communication Politics
H- The World Trade Organization
III- Current practices
A- The domain of telecommunication
B- The WTO Telecommunication treaty
C- Changing the account rate settlement system
D- The Domain of Intellectual property rights
E- The domain of mass media
IV- Lessons form a key project in the domain of global mass media politics
V- Global Communication Politics Today
A- Access
B- Knowledge
C- Global Advertising
D- Privacy
E- Intellectual Property Rights
F- Trade in Culture
G- Concentration
H – The Commons
I- Civil Advocacy
J- The World Summit on the Information Society
Chapter 9, detailed outline
Milestones in Communication and National Development
I- Introduction
- This chapter explores the communication and development field.
- In this chapter the term Communication for development is used to describe the systematic use of a social system's communication resources to stimulate, promote, and support human development.
- Fraser and Restrepo- Estrada (1998) offered a comprehensive definition of communication for development: Communication for development is the use of communication processes, techniques and media to help people toward a full awareness of their situation and their options for change, to resolve conflicts, to work toward consensus , to help people plan actions for change and sustainable development, to help people acquire the knowledge and skills they need to improve their condition and that society , and to improve the effectiveness of institutions.
- Several strategies in communication are been used by community groups, national governments, regional and international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations to address the range of development challenges facing the world.
- Public awareness and information campaigns , community mobilization , folk media, social marketing , entrainment-education , and advocacy are among the dominant strategies being used to promote , support , and sustain projects aimed at agriculture , education , the environment , family planning and reproductive health, gender, equality, nutrition, and public health.
II- Post-World War II Realities
- At the end if the War II, the human condition was miserable.
- The devastation caused by the war and the consequences of colonialism challenged the international community to do something about the unacceptable state of the human condition.
- By the late 40's, humanity had a range of development challenges.
- The excitement associated with the success of the Marshall plan in the European reconstruction after War II suggested that a similar model could be applied to the conditions that existed in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Development aid became an important item on the international relations agenda, and the development project became the primary vehicle for connecting aid with the individuals who needed it.
- Development projects in the early postwar years emphasized the transfer of technologies and techniques to support industrialization. Industrialization was generally accepted as the engine driving social progress.
- Spheres of influence refer to the ability of powerful states to impose their will on other states through economic, cultural, and military means.
- The U.N has played a major role in the development of the field of communication for development.
III- What is development?
- Development is recognized as a complex, integrated, participatory process, involving stakeholders and beneficiaries and aimed at improving the overall quality of human life through improvements in a range of social sectors in an environmentally responsible manner.
- Stakeholders include national governments and politicians, international agencies such as the specialized agencies of the U.N system.
- Stakeholders have the power to help or delay the development and implementation of development projects.
- The beneficiaries are the hundreds of millions of humans who need improvement in their quality of life.
- The list of the pressing development challenges:
- Reduction and the elimination of poverty
- Provision of adequate housing
- Access the health care
- Access to lifelong education
- Development is a profound form of social change.
- Everett Rogers, described development as a widely participatory process of directed social change in a society, intended to bring about both social and material advancement including greater equality , freedom, and other valued qualities for the majority of the people through their gaining greater control over their environment.
- Development is accepted to be complex, multidimensional and dialectic process that had no universal recipe.
- According to Andrew Moemeka (2000) , communication for development has two roles; support of social change that aims for higher quality of life, social justice , and correction of the dysfunctions from early development interventions; and socialization, creating an environment in which established values that support positive social change are maintained and, further , supporting the development of attitudes and behaviors needed to create a social system that benefits all citizens.
IV- Communication for development
- Several forces have influenced the evolution of the field of communication for development: The growth of capitalism, advances in communication technology, and the ideological rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
- Of equal importance in the evolution of the field of communication for development were the influences of changing development paradigms and advances in communication theory, especially theories of mass media effects, persuasion, and behavior change.
- Most of the early theories that guided the practice of communication for development emerged out of the modernization paradigm.
- A paradigm is defined as an overarching body of thought whose core assumptions are subscribed to by all who work under its rubric.
A- Southeastern Ohio, USA: It is an example of maldevelopment and the process of underdevelopment.
- Contemporary southeastern Ohio is predominantly rural, with high levels of unemployment , high levels of physical inactivity , and substantial environment degradation.
- The concepts participatory and sustainable are central to contemporary communication for development practices.
- Participation refers to the involvement of citizens/beneficiaries in defining, designing, implementing, and evaluating development interventions.
- The term sustainable development is sued to describe an intervention whose outcomes are environmentally and culturally sound and can be continued by the community after the end of any resources that may have been provided by external agencies.
B-Turkmenistan: Communication for development inventions is also evident in the transitional societies that have emerged since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
- Turkmenistan, formerly a republic in the Soviet Union, became an independent state in 1992.
- The government sees the building of national identity and nurturing of national pride is important elements in the construction of individual and collective efficacy.
C- Eritrea: In Eritrea modern communication technologies are being used to create distance education systems aimed at improving access to formal education and the management of the economy.
VI- The Modernization Model
A- Modernization through Capitalism: At the end of WWII, two ideas contended for dominance in the discourse on development and human progress: Modernization through capitalism, and communism.
- The modernization perspective held that human society progresses in a linear fashion from traditional societies to modern systems of social organization and that they will continue to do so in an evolutionary manner.
- Traditional societies, according to modernization, tend to be oriented to maintaining a status quo dominated by approved status.
- Lack of self-efficacy, has also been identified as an attribute of traditional societies.
- A modern society on the other hand, is characterized by materialism, the dominance of capital as a form of wealth, consumerism, rational-legal authority, sub-cultural diversity, and positive evaluation of change.
- Modernization theorists argued that the process of becoming a modern society could be accelerated through the introduction of new ideas and practices.
- Modernization represents progress.
-Talcott Parsons' functionalist theory: Human society is like a biological organism, whose constituent institutions-economy, government law, religion, family and education-play key roles in maintaining the social stability required for progress in a society.
- In the advanced modern societies, progress is maintained through the increased consumption of material goods made possible by high incomes and higher standards of living.
- Walt Rostow identified four stages he considered necessary for progressing from traditional to a modern society: The pre-takeoff stage, the takeoff stage, the road to maturity, and the mass-consumption society.
- David McClelland emphasized the importance of motivated populace if society is to become modernized.
- Mass communication, especially broadcasting, was seen as a vehicle that would accelerate the behavioral and structural changes required for modernization.
B- Communism: Revolutionary socialists contended that true progress could occur only in a socialist society.
- Socialist transformation would replace inequitable economic practices with more egalitarian ones.
- In the process, the society would progress materially and spiritually, leading ultimately to withering away of the state.
- Information and communication had a special role in revolutionary socialist practice.
- The tensions between these two approaches –modernization through capitalism and progress through socialism influenced practices of communication for development within the international development community.
VII- The1980's: Development Support Communication and Project Support Communication
- The work of the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in establishing the importance of communication as a necessary ingredient in implementing development projects.
- Communication's role in this formulation was to accelerate the installation of the engines of modernization, especially the industrial infrastructure to facilitate economic growth.
A- Broadcasting: According to Lerner, broadcasting would serve as a psychic mobilizer, facilitating the modernizing process and preventing the adoption of Soviet ideology and practices.
- For Schramm, broadcasting was key in constructing national identity and national unity, and in mobilizing the society to execute the development goals designed by the political elites who dominated underdeveloped countries.
- Diffusion theory: broadcasting played an essential role in diffusion theory, by making the influential early adopters aware of the innovation.
- Broadcasting has remained central to the practice of communication for development.
B- The Dependency Critique: The critique of modernization emerged from two intellectual sources: ' one rooted in neo-Marxism , or structuralism, the other, in the extensive Latin American debate on development associated with the United Nations' economic Commission for Latin America".
- Dependency theorists demonstrated that the existing pattern of global economic relations, one dominated by the industrialized North, was contributing to the underdevelopment of the developing regions of the world.
- Dependency theorists contended that the broadcasting and other mass media systems that were put in place in the developing world to support modernization were actually undermining the possibilities of establishing equitable development.
- A phenomenon that Howard Frederick (1990) has termed development sabotage communication.
- The desires for change were articulated in UN resolution calling for a new world economic order and a new world information and communication order.
VIII- Another Development
- The new perspective on development was initially articulated by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation in Sweden and has three fundamental pillars;
1- Development should strive to eradicate poverty and satisfy basic human needs.
2- Priority should be given to self-reliant and endogenous change processes.
3- Development should be environmentally responsible.
- Further, it was recognized that the need for development did not exist only in the third world. Substantial regions of the industrialized world and the recently developed world were also in need.
IX- The World Conferences
- During the 80's and 90's, the international community organized a number of conferences that focused on the development challenges facing an interdependent world.
- Conferences focused on the environment, population and development, social development, women, and food.
- These conferences revealed that, despite marginal improvements in some sectors, the human condition continued to be unacceptable.
- The conferences reaffirmed the role of communication in the development process and called for its increased use.
X- Contemporary Strategies in Communication for Development
A- Public Awareness Campaigns: Systematically draw upon the power of the mass media, especially broadcasting, to create awareness in societies about the development intervention.
- Awareness is considered the first step in creating behavior change.
B- Social Marketing: is the application of commercial marketing ideas to promote and to deliver pro-social interventions.
- Central to the social marketing approach is harmonizing the four essential elements of the social marketing –price, product, promotion, and place.
C- Entertainment- Education; has been defined as the systematic embedding of pro-social educational messages in popular entertainment formats.
D- Advocacy: When stakeholders and beneficiaries in the development process promote the interventions by reporting on their positive experiences and benefits, the credibility of the communication increases.
- Advocacy for development does just that.
XI- Challenges in the 21st Century:
See page 197
I- Introduction
- This chapter explores the communication and development field.
- In this chapter the term Communication for development is used to describe the systematic use of a social system's communication resources to stimulate, promote, and support human development.
- Fraser and Restrepo- Estrada (1998) offered a comprehensive definition of communication for development: Communication for development is the use of communication processes, techniques and media to help people toward a full awareness of their situation and their options for change, to resolve conflicts, to work toward consensus , to help people plan actions for change and sustainable development, to help people acquire the knowledge and skills they need to improve their condition and that society , and to improve the effectiveness of institutions.
- Several strategies in communication are been used by community groups, national governments, regional and international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations to address the range of development challenges facing the world.
- Public awareness and information campaigns , community mobilization , folk media, social marketing , entrainment-education , and advocacy are among the dominant strategies being used to promote , support , and sustain projects aimed at agriculture , education , the environment , family planning and reproductive health, gender, equality, nutrition, and public health.
II- Post-World War II Realities
- At the end if the War II, the human condition was miserable.
- The devastation caused by the war and the consequences of colonialism challenged the international community to do something about the unacceptable state of the human condition.
- By the late 40's, humanity had a range of development challenges.
- The excitement associated with the success of the Marshall plan in the European reconstruction after War II suggested that a similar model could be applied to the conditions that existed in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Development aid became an important item on the international relations agenda, and the development project became the primary vehicle for connecting aid with the individuals who needed it.
- Development projects in the early postwar years emphasized the transfer of technologies and techniques to support industrialization. Industrialization was generally accepted as the engine driving social progress.
- Spheres of influence refer to the ability of powerful states to impose their will on other states through economic, cultural, and military means.
- The U.N has played a major role in the development of the field of communication for development.
III- What is development?
- Development is recognized as a complex, integrated, participatory process, involving stakeholders and beneficiaries and aimed at improving the overall quality of human life through improvements in a range of social sectors in an environmentally responsible manner.
- Stakeholders include national governments and politicians, international agencies such as the specialized agencies of the U.N system.
- Stakeholders have the power to help or delay the development and implementation of development projects.
- The beneficiaries are the hundreds of millions of humans who need improvement in their quality of life.
- The list of the pressing development challenges:
- Reduction and the elimination of poverty
- Provision of adequate housing
- Access the health care
- Access to lifelong education
- Development is a profound form of social change.
- Everett Rogers, described development as a widely participatory process of directed social change in a society, intended to bring about both social and material advancement including greater equality , freedom, and other valued qualities for the majority of the people through their gaining greater control over their environment.
- Development is accepted to be complex, multidimensional and dialectic process that had no universal recipe.
- According to Andrew Moemeka (2000) , communication for development has two roles; support of social change that aims for higher quality of life, social justice , and correction of the dysfunctions from early development interventions; and socialization, creating an environment in which established values that support positive social change are maintained and, further , supporting the development of attitudes and behaviors needed to create a social system that benefits all citizens.
IV- Communication for development
- Several forces have influenced the evolution of the field of communication for development: The growth of capitalism, advances in communication technology, and the ideological rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
- Of equal importance in the evolution of the field of communication for development were the influences of changing development paradigms and advances in communication theory, especially theories of mass media effects, persuasion, and behavior change.
- Most of the early theories that guided the practice of communication for development emerged out of the modernization paradigm.
- A paradigm is defined as an overarching body of thought whose core assumptions are subscribed to by all who work under its rubric.
A- Southeastern Ohio, USA: It is an example of maldevelopment and the process of underdevelopment.
- Contemporary southeastern Ohio is predominantly rural, with high levels of unemployment , high levels of physical inactivity , and substantial environment degradation.
- The concepts participatory and sustainable are central to contemporary communication for development practices.
- Participation refers to the involvement of citizens/beneficiaries in defining, designing, implementing, and evaluating development interventions.
- The term sustainable development is sued to describe an intervention whose outcomes are environmentally and culturally sound and can be continued by the community after the end of any resources that may have been provided by external agencies.
B-Turkmenistan: Communication for development inventions is also evident in the transitional societies that have emerged since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
- Turkmenistan, formerly a republic in the Soviet Union, became an independent state in 1992.
- The government sees the building of national identity and nurturing of national pride is important elements in the construction of individual and collective efficacy.
C- Eritrea: In Eritrea modern communication technologies are being used to create distance education systems aimed at improving access to formal education and the management of the economy.
VI- The Modernization Model
A- Modernization through Capitalism: At the end of WWII, two ideas contended for dominance in the discourse on development and human progress: Modernization through capitalism, and communism.
- The modernization perspective held that human society progresses in a linear fashion from traditional societies to modern systems of social organization and that they will continue to do so in an evolutionary manner.
- Traditional societies, according to modernization, tend to be oriented to maintaining a status quo dominated by approved status.
- Lack of self-efficacy, has also been identified as an attribute of traditional societies.
- A modern society on the other hand, is characterized by materialism, the dominance of capital as a form of wealth, consumerism, rational-legal authority, sub-cultural diversity, and positive evaluation of change.
- Modernization theorists argued that the process of becoming a modern society could be accelerated through the introduction of new ideas and practices.
- Modernization represents progress.
-Talcott Parsons' functionalist theory: Human society is like a biological organism, whose constituent institutions-economy, government law, religion, family and education-play key roles in maintaining the social stability required for progress in a society.
- In the advanced modern societies, progress is maintained through the increased consumption of material goods made possible by high incomes and higher standards of living.
- Walt Rostow identified four stages he considered necessary for progressing from traditional to a modern society: The pre-takeoff stage, the takeoff stage, the road to maturity, and the mass-consumption society.
- David McClelland emphasized the importance of motivated populace if society is to become modernized.
- Mass communication, especially broadcasting, was seen as a vehicle that would accelerate the behavioral and structural changes required for modernization.
B- Communism: Revolutionary socialists contended that true progress could occur only in a socialist society.
- Socialist transformation would replace inequitable economic practices with more egalitarian ones.
- In the process, the society would progress materially and spiritually, leading ultimately to withering away of the state.
- Information and communication had a special role in revolutionary socialist practice.
- The tensions between these two approaches –modernization through capitalism and progress through socialism influenced practices of communication for development within the international development community.
VII- The1980's: Development Support Communication and Project Support Communication
- The work of the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in establishing the importance of communication as a necessary ingredient in implementing development projects.
- Communication's role in this formulation was to accelerate the installation of the engines of modernization, especially the industrial infrastructure to facilitate economic growth.
A- Broadcasting: According to Lerner, broadcasting would serve as a psychic mobilizer, facilitating the modernizing process and preventing the adoption of Soviet ideology and practices.
- For Schramm, broadcasting was key in constructing national identity and national unity, and in mobilizing the society to execute the development goals designed by the political elites who dominated underdeveloped countries.
- Diffusion theory: broadcasting played an essential role in diffusion theory, by making the influential early adopters aware of the innovation.
- Broadcasting has remained central to the practice of communication for development.
B- The Dependency Critique: The critique of modernization emerged from two intellectual sources: ' one rooted in neo-Marxism , or structuralism, the other, in the extensive Latin American debate on development associated with the United Nations' economic Commission for Latin America".
- Dependency theorists demonstrated that the existing pattern of global economic relations, one dominated by the industrialized North, was contributing to the underdevelopment of the developing regions of the world.
- Dependency theorists contended that the broadcasting and other mass media systems that were put in place in the developing world to support modernization were actually undermining the possibilities of establishing equitable development.
- A phenomenon that Howard Frederick (1990) has termed development sabotage communication.
- The desires for change were articulated in UN resolution calling for a new world economic order and a new world information and communication order.
VIII- Another Development
- The new perspective on development was initially articulated by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation in Sweden and has three fundamental pillars;
1- Development should strive to eradicate poverty and satisfy basic human needs.
2- Priority should be given to self-reliant and endogenous change processes.
3- Development should be environmentally responsible.
- Further, it was recognized that the need for development did not exist only in the third world. Substantial regions of the industrialized world and the recently developed world were also in need.
IX- The World Conferences
- During the 80's and 90's, the international community organized a number of conferences that focused on the development challenges facing an interdependent world.
- Conferences focused on the environment, population and development, social development, women, and food.
- These conferences revealed that, despite marginal improvements in some sectors, the human condition continued to be unacceptable.
- The conferences reaffirmed the role of communication in the development process and called for its increased use.
X- Contemporary Strategies in Communication for Development
A- Public Awareness Campaigns: Systematically draw upon the power of the mass media, especially broadcasting, to create awareness in societies about the development intervention.
- Awareness is considered the first step in creating behavior change.
B- Social Marketing: is the application of commercial marketing ideas to promote and to deliver pro-social interventions.
- Central to the social marketing approach is harmonizing the four essential elements of the social marketing –price, product, promotion, and place.
C- Entertainment- Education; has been defined as the systematic embedding of pro-social educational messages in popular entertainment formats.
D- Advocacy: When stakeholders and beneficiaries in the development process promote the interventions by reporting on their positive experiences and benefits, the credibility of the communication increases.
- Advocacy for development does just that.
XI- Challenges in the 21st Century:
See page 197
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Chapter 9, outline
Milestones in Communication and National Development
I- Introduction
II- Post-World War II Realities
III- What is development
IV- Communication for development
A- Southeastern Ohio, USA
B-Turkmenistan
C- Eritrea
D- The Caribbean Community
VI- The Modernization Model
A- Modernization through Capitalism
B- Communism
VII- The1980's: Development Support Communication and Project Support Communication
A- Broadcasting
B- The Dependency Critique
VIII- Another Development
IX- The World Conferences
X- Contemporary Strategies in Communication for Development
A- Public Awareness Campaigns'
B- Social Marketing
C- Entertainment- Education
D- Advocacy
XI- Challenges in the 21st Century
XII- Lessons Learned
I- Introduction
II- Post-World War II Realities
III- What is development
IV- Communication for development
A- Southeastern Ohio, USA
B-Turkmenistan
C- Eritrea
D- The Caribbean Community
VI- The Modernization Model
A- Modernization through Capitalism
B- Communism
VII- The1980's: Development Support Communication and Project Support Communication
A- Broadcasting
B- The Dependency Critique
VIII- Another Development
IX- The World Conferences
X- Contemporary Strategies in Communication for Development
A- Public Awareness Campaigns'
B- Social Marketing
C- Entertainment- Education
D- Advocacy
XI- Challenges in the 21st Century
XII- Lessons Learned
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Digital Divide
Digital Divide
I- Digital Divide
- Inequalities in Internet access and use are shaped by broader social inequalities.
- Most fundamentally, the digital divide is about physical access to the Internet and its related to hardware and software but access is not the whole story.
- There is nit a single divide, but several:
- The access divide
- The skills divide
- The economic opportunity divide
- The democratic divide
- Global division between developed, developing and least developed countries.
- Divide is about production of content, not just its consumption.
II- Does Digital Divide Matter?
No:
- Natural play of Market forces makes internet across available to all who want it.
- More pressing problems facing today's societies, like poverty, hunger, and disease.
- Computers and net are akin to other luxury commodities that will never be equally.
Yes:
- Internet is different (a ladder out of poverty).
- Global shift towards informationalism.
- Developed countries have gradually increased their exports of knowledge- intensive products and services which the poorer parts of the developing world such as Africa fall even further behind.
- Developing countries may find that they arrive in terms of industrial development only to find that the game has moved on to post industrialism and informationalism.
- Internet diffusion may have powerful effects in areas such as education, health care, labor productivity, democratization, citizenship, social cohesion and integration with the world economy.
III- The Global digital divide
- Economic development variables
- Technology infrastructure variables
- Relevant policy variables
- Human capital variables
- Political capital
IV- Simputer
- A low cost portable alternative to PCs by which benefit of IT can reach common people.
- It has a special role in the third world because it ensures that illiteracy is no longer a barrier to handling a computer.
I- Digital Divide
- Inequalities in Internet access and use are shaped by broader social inequalities.
- Most fundamentally, the digital divide is about physical access to the Internet and its related to hardware and software but access is not the whole story.
- There is nit a single divide, but several:
- The access divide
- The skills divide
- The economic opportunity divide
- The democratic divide
- Global division between developed, developing and least developed countries.
- Divide is about production of content, not just its consumption.
II- Does Digital Divide Matter?
No:
- Natural play of Market forces makes internet across available to all who want it.
- More pressing problems facing today's societies, like poverty, hunger, and disease.
- Computers and net are akin to other luxury commodities that will never be equally.
Yes:
- Internet is different (a ladder out of poverty).
- Global shift towards informationalism.
- Developed countries have gradually increased their exports of knowledge- intensive products and services which the poorer parts of the developing world such as Africa fall even further behind.
- Developing countries may find that they arrive in terms of industrial development only to find that the game has moved on to post industrialism and informationalism.
- Internet diffusion may have powerful effects in areas such as education, health care, labor productivity, democratization, citizenship, social cohesion and integration with the world economy.
III- The Global digital divide
- Economic development variables
- Technology infrastructure variables
- Relevant policy variables
- Human capital variables
- Political capital
IV- Simputer
- A low cost portable alternative to PCs by which benefit of IT can reach common people.
- It has a special role in the third world because it ensures that illiteracy is no longer a barrier to handling a computer.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Chapter8, detailed outline
The Global Implications of the Internet: Challenges and Prospects
I- Convergence theory and cultural identity
- Communication can be defined as a process of sharing information in which two or more participants reach mutual understanding.
- Cultural convergence theory suggests that the variance between groups or national cultures would become smaller over time as a result of international communication.
- The global implications of the Internet based on the short and long-term effects:
- Cultural homogenization will be retarded in the near future by the increased use of advanced Internet-based communication technologies.
- The Long-term effect of the increased communication among the peoples of the world via the Internet will be that the differences among national cultures will diminish, resulting in the formation of a single global culture.
- One outcome of this process of cultural convergence is that separate cultural identities will also disappear, replaced by a single transnational identity, albeit with considerable variation.
II- Systems approach and social networks
A- Systems: Central to the systems perspective is holism , which implies that the interdependence and interrelationships of the parts of the system determine the whole.
- The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
- Holism is better characterized by organizational structure, when an entity consisting of two or more basic parts, or people, in communication with each other in which the outcome is something more or different than the sum of the parts.
B- Social networks: Social network perspectives focus on the structure of social systems and how the elements of a social system are put together.
- From the network perspective, the social environment can be expressed as patterns or regularities in relationship among interacting units. These patters are often called structure.
III- Convergence theory and communication networks
- Convergence theory envisions the flow of information through a communication network shared by those who participate in the process.
- This information has profound effects on the members of the network, which are indicated by changes in the belief systems of the members and the structure of their network.
- When communication is unrestricted, the process leads toward reduced within-groups variance among its members.
- The communication network is completely interconnected or dense.
- In this case, differences between its members are reduced through the iterative process of information exchange.
- The convergence model of communication predicts that all participants in the world system will converge over time on the average collective pattern of thought if communication is allowed to continue unrestricted.
- Unlimited and unrestricted communication between cultures would eventually lead to a reduction in the differences between cultures and toward a greater similarity beliefs and values.
IV- A structural model of intercultural communication
- The structural model of communication is adopted to help understand the impact of the Internet on Global culture.
- It represents the process of intercultural communication.
- Historically, linkages among different cultural groups have increased resulting in globalization; the process of strengthening the worldwide social relations that link distant localities in such a way that local events are shaped by circumstances at remote places in the world (Giddens 1990).
- Transborder communication has opened cultural boundaries and began the process of cultural convergence.
- The mass media and other communication technologies, especially the Internet compress time and space becoming a catalyst for globalization.
- As a result, Mcluhan's notion of the global village is becoming a reality.
V-The network structure of the international internet
- The Internet is one channel that directly connects people of different cultural and national groups from across the globe with one another.
- Information flows via the Internet may facilitate the convergence of national cultures, leading to a universal set of beliefs that includes a change from national to global identity.
- Internet formed a dense, completely interconnected network with a single group centered about the United States.
- National culture is strongly related to a country's position in the Internet network.
The more central a country is in the network, the greater its individualism.
- Some structural barriers in the infrastructure of the Internet could restrict communication among nations.
- United States encodes significantly more messages on the Internet more than any other nation, putting it at the center of these flows.
- This suggests that if the status quo were to continue, that universal culture is in the process of forming about the culture of the United States.
VII- Implications of the structural model for national identity: current trends
- Over time, with unlimited and unrestricted information exchange among people from different cultural groups, the potential consequence of the indigenous cultures of the world into a universal culture.
- However, in the short term, international communications will more likely first lead to the development of a number of regional civilizations composed of nations who are culturally similar.
- The process of globalization can be considered homogenization and hybridization.
- Global forms interplay with local, national, and regional patterns, producing a new pattern best characterized as a hybrid.
- Several factors may contribute to the slowing of the global convergence in the short term:
-Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) has been found to be sufficient for the maintenance of long-term meaningful relationships, allowing for the preservation of cultural connections at great distances.
- Content-specific online communities allow people to maintain contact with other individuals centered on mutual interests, such as cultural and social ties, providing a conduit for relationships to be formed and maintained.
- New Internet-based communication technologies allow for an outer action effect, where the communication connections surpass the traditional interaction abilities of communication media, offering an increased level of personal connectivity that extends beyond information exchange.
- Online communities provide the opportunity for people to access the cultural resources they need to feel as if they are still part of a cultural group, yet time and travel are reduced.
- These communities represent a shift to communities organized by shared interest.
- Internet technologies provide a mechanism for meaningful relationships to grow and flourish in content-specific online communities.
VII- Implications for national identity: the future
- The United States, the source for the plurality of Internet messages, is a product of cultural convergence. Its culture will be changing in the future due to changes in demographics and the dynamic patterns of international information flows resulting for the process of globalization.
- The structure if the Internet is dynamic, changing as non-Western countries increasingly come online.
- If we consider how the growth of Internet use in China will change the pattern of language use on the Internet, then the converged culture of the world system will have increasing Chinese elements, suggesting that global civilization will be some combination of Chinese and Anglo-American culture.
I- Convergence theory and cultural identity
- Communication can be defined as a process of sharing information in which two or more participants reach mutual understanding.
- Cultural convergence theory suggests that the variance between groups or national cultures would become smaller over time as a result of international communication.
- The global implications of the Internet based on the short and long-term effects:
- Cultural homogenization will be retarded in the near future by the increased use of advanced Internet-based communication technologies.
- The Long-term effect of the increased communication among the peoples of the world via the Internet will be that the differences among national cultures will diminish, resulting in the formation of a single global culture.
- One outcome of this process of cultural convergence is that separate cultural identities will also disappear, replaced by a single transnational identity, albeit with considerable variation.
II- Systems approach and social networks
A- Systems: Central to the systems perspective is holism , which implies that the interdependence and interrelationships of the parts of the system determine the whole.
- The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
- Holism is better characterized by organizational structure, when an entity consisting of two or more basic parts, or people, in communication with each other in which the outcome is something more or different than the sum of the parts.
B- Social networks: Social network perspectives focus on the structure of social systems and how the elements of a social system are put together.
- From the network perspective, the social environment can be expressed as patterns or regularities in relationship among interacting units. These patters are often called structure.
III- Convergence theory and communication networks
- Convergence theory envisions the flow of information through a communication network shared by those who participate in the process.
- This information has profound effects on the members of the network, which are indicated by changes in the belief systems of the members and the structure of their network.
- When communication is unrestricted, the process leads toward reduced within-groups variance among its members.
- The communication network is completely interconnected or dense.
- In this case, differences between its members are reduced through the iterative process of information exchange.
- The convergence model of communication predicts that all participants in the world system will converge over time on the average collective pattern of thought if communication is allowed to continue unrestricted.
- Unlimited and unrestricted communication between cultures would eventually lead to a reduction in the differences between cultures and toward a greater similarity beliefs and values.
IV- A structural model of intercultural communication
- The structural model of communication is adopted to help understand the impact of the Internet on Global culture.
- It represents the process of intercultural communication.
- Historically, linkages among different cultural groups have increased resulting in globalization; the process of strengthening the worldwide social relations that link distant localities in such a way that local events are shaped by circumstances at remote places in the world (Giddens 1990).
- Transborder communication has opened cultural boundaries and began the process of cultural convergence.
- The mass media and other communication technologies, especially the Internet compress time and space becoming a catalyst for globalization.
- As a result, Mcluhan's notion of the global village is becoming a reality.
V-The network structure of the international internet
- The Internet is one channel that directly connects people of different cultural and national groups from across the globe with one another.
- Information flows via the Internet may facilitate the convergence of national cultures, leading to a universal set of beliefs that includes a change from national to global identity.
- Internet formed a dense, completely interconnected network with a single group centered about the United States.
- National culture is strongly related to a country's position in the Internet network.
The more central a country is in the network, the greater its individualism.
- Some structural barriers in the infrastructure of the Internet could restrict communication among nations.
- United States encodes significantly more messages on the Internet more than any other nation, putting it at the center of these flows.
- This suggests that if the status quo were to continue, that universal culture is in the process of forming about the culture of the United States.
VII- Implications of the structural model for national identity: current trends
- Over time, with unlimited and unrestricted information exchange among people from different cultural groups, the potential consequence of the indigenous cultures of the world into a universal culture.
- However, in the short term, international communications will more likely first lead to the development of a number of regional civilizations composed of nations who are culturally similar.
- The process of globalization can be considered homogenization and hybridization.
- Global forms interplay with local, national, and regional patterns, producing a new pattern best characterized as a hybrid.
- Several factors may contribute to the slowing of the global convergence in the short term:
-Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) has been found to be sufficient for the maintenance of long-term meaningful relationships, allowing for the preservation of cultural connections at great distances.
- Content-specific online communities allow people to maintain contact with other individuals centered on mutual interests, such as cultural and social ties, providing a conduit for relationships to be formed and maintained.
- New Internet-based communication technologies allow for an outer action effect, where the communication connections surpass the traditional interaction abilities of communication media, offering an increased level of personal connectivity that extends beyond information exchange.
- Online communities provide the opportunity for people to access the cultural resources they need to feel as if they are still part of a cultural group, yet time and travel are reduced.
- These communities represent a shift to communities organized by shared interest.
- Internet technologies provide a mechanism for meaningful relationships to grow and flourish in content-specific online communities.
VII- Implications for national identity: the future
- The United States, the source for the plurality of Internet messages, is a product of cultural convergence. Its culture will be changing in the future due to changes in demographics and the dynamic patterns of international information flows resulting for the process of globalization.
- The structure if the Internet is dynamic, changing as non-Western countries increasingly come online.
- If we consider how the growth of Internet use in China will change the pattern of language use on the Internet, then the converged culture of the world system will have increasing Chinese elements, suggesting that global civilization will be some combination of Chinese and Anglo-American culture.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Reflection on the article The Battle on Dow Jones
I think that hat this is an excellent example of deregulation when it comes to the fierce competition between Rupert Murdoch and other people to buy Dow Jones. However, this is also a good illustration of the deregulation paradox where the market is only opened to big businesses and hegemonic agencies and people like Rupert Murdoch, so it doesn't serve its original purpose anymore, which is less competition and more competition. This also shows how media can be driven by impacts more than accuracy because there is no doubt that the Wall Street Journal and the news-wire services that Rupert Murdoch purchased are going to promote his ideas.
chapter 8,outline
The Global Implications of the Internet: Challenges and Prospects
I- Convergence theory and cultural identity
II- Systems approach and social networks
A- Systems
B- Social networks
III- Convergence theory and communication networks
IV- A structural model of intercultural communication
V-The network structure of the international internet
VII- Implications of the structural model for national identity: current trends
VII- Implications for national identity: the future
I- Convergence theory and cultural identity
II- Systems approach and social networks
A- Systems
B- Social networks
III- Convergence theory and communication networks
IV- A structural model of intercultural communication
V-The network structure of the international internet
VII- Implications of the structural model for national identity: current trends
VII- Implications for national identity: the future
Friday, June 22, 2007
Assignment 3
Moroccan cultural industries can reach globality by:
- Adapting their products to the global market.
- Becoming more competitive.
- Meeting the high quality standards of the global market.
- Making the products in the global English language to be able to reach people worldwide.
- Trying to make a good use of the Internet for advertising those products because it is a cheap telecommunications means and it is affordable for a country like Morocco.
- Adapting their products to the global market.
- Becoming more competitive.
- Meeting the high quality standards of the global market.
- Making the products in the global English language to be able to reach people worldwide.
- Trying to make a good use of the Internet for advertising those products because it is a cheap telecommunications means and it is affordable for a country like Morocco.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
chapter5, detailed outline
Communication and culture
I- What is culture?
- Culture defines what it means to be a human being.
- It is all out behavior summed up, out whole life experience.
- The study of culture as a way of life draws more on social history, anthropology, ad sociology and focuses on the structures of everyday life and its forms of interactions.
- Mass media are key components in any nation's culture.
II- Culture Industries
- The term cultural industries was coined by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.
- They developed an approach to scholarship called critical theory that was based on Marxist philosophy.
- They first coined the term Cultural Industries in their work Dialectic Enlightenment in 1947.
- It was used to refer to products which were tailored for consumption by masses, and which to a great extent determine the nature of that consumption by masses, are manufactured more or less according to a plan.
- They believed that the real purpose of mass media was to provide ideological justification for the capitalistic societies where these industries developed.
- Mass culture was developed as a tool of capitalism for the social control of society, according to Adorno and Horkheimer.
- The term culture industries carries a more positive meaning today.
-UNESCO describes culture industries as important national economic resources that allow expressions of creativity to be copied and boosted by industrial processes and worldwide distribution.
- UNESCO includes publishing, music audiovisual technology, electronics, video games, and the Internet in the category of cultural industries.
a- Other Cultural Groupings
- Businesses have cultures, and each business has its own set of cultural characteristics.
- Any organization to which we belong develops a culture if it manages to survive.
- An Organization's culture is the glue that keeps people attached to it and allows members to identify with it.
- It is the set of meanings the members of the group share.
- We all belong to multiple groups, each with its own characteristic culture. These include schools, religious organizations, and civic groups.
- Each family has a culture that distinguishes it from other families; a set of traditions, a way of living and interacting.
- Many animal groupings also have cultures.
III- Transmission of Culture
We must learn the culture of those groupings before we can become an integral part of them.
- The primary symbolic system used to transmit culture is that of language.
- While the written language increased the power to transmit one culture. Thereby bringing people together, it differentiated people and nations form other cultures, thereby separating them.
- This linguistic bond in contemporary society is achieved through television. Television helps perpetuate national cultures.
- The pervasiveness of English is believed to threaten many other cultures.
IV- How the west dominates in production of culture?
- The U.S is imperialistic when it comes to cultural products, especially when it comes to films and television programs.
- There are several factors besides the economy of a nation which influences the extent of inflow of TV material. The population size is naturally crucial importance, since it largely determines such marketing conditions as the size of the TV audience, the general dominance of a national culture, and usually also a common or unifying language.
- When a country allows news importation it is in effect importing a piece of another country's politics.
- And because the media also deal in ideas, their influence can be unpredictable in form and strength.
- Economic interdependence becomes a key to survival in the global system, while the strategies for preserving important elements of the cultures of the societies around the world have received much less attention.
- We don’t exactly know what the cultural impact of consuming American products might be.
- The European Audiovisual Observatory attributes this phenomenon to three factors in the European member countries: The effect of deregulation; the advance of digital technology; and the overcapacity of European satellite systems.
V- What cultures do to defend cultural autonomy?
A- Quotas: - The U.S has taken the position that cultural products should be treated like any other goods traded in the market.
- The U.S has opposed the setting of quotas on film and television imports viewing such quotas as trade barriers.
- However, other countries have been successful in obtaining a cultural exception for audiovisual products in the GATT, claiming that these are expressions of national identity and should be preserved.
b- Subsidies: - The U.S also opposes the use of government subsidies provided for development of films and television programs.
- Many countries take the position that without subsidies, their audiovisual sector will totally succumb to foreign imports.
- Feigenbaum believes that subsidies offer the most promise for boosting production of cultural products, and he argues that government aid to film and television production should not have to be justified on an economic basis, for him culture is its own reward.
c- Regional Alliances including co productions: Co produced films , usually ones that combine the talents and resources of two film production companies in two countries, have several advantages.
- They have a larger domestic market, that of two or more countries.
- They have appeal across cultures, not just within a particular culture.
- They usually have wider name recognition of principle actors, director, and so on.
e- Adaptations
- For countries with smaller markets or fewer resources, film and television program production is too expensive to release many new products.
- Audiences prefer local programs.
- The compromise that has been struck to address this dilemma is increasingly popular. It amounts to buying the rights to an imported television series or film and adapting it to the local culture and language.
F- Resistance
- Some cultural groups try to resist being deluged by products from abroad by producing more products about themselves.
VI- Not all pop culture is American
- Audiences around the world still prefer their local cultures and their local culture products to those imported.
-Current trends seem to show that local production is regaining dominance in television content.
-Much of the magazines and book publishing in the United States is also owned by foreign companies.
VII- Role of journalists in production of culture
-Culture is at the core of what journalists do.
- The concept of objectivity that has been under attack for most of this century does not exist.
- News culture is also revealed in news format.
VIII- Managing Cultural Conflict
- Cultures of the world do not always get along.
- Out concern is what role the media play in preventing conflicts internationally.
- We might think that it would be able to help smooth out the differences between various cultural groupings.
- The global media might encourage cultural conflict by sending the message that we are all alike, we are all consumers, and nothing makes us unique.
- The way cultures struggle to preserve a distinctive identity, they may create more conflict with other cultural groups, rather than creating a climate for mutual cultural understanding.
IX- Hybrid Cultures and the Media
- In a melting pot, none of the different groups ever became totally assimilated.
- However, while immigrants may hold onto their cultural roots when they settle in another society, they also modify their tradition and behaviors in what has been called variously a process of hybridity or glocalization.
- As national identities decline and local identities are strengthened through resistance to globalization, new identities or hybridity also take place of the old national identities.
- The dominant culture also takes on some characteristics and traditions from the migrants to that culture.
- Roberston writes that this process of glocalisation occurs in the world's media too, he challenges the notion of media imperialism arguing that cultural messages from the U.S to other cultures are interpreted according to the local culture context, and that that U.S produced movies and programs modify their products to a global market because they need the global market to be profitable. Furthermore, that national cultural products end up being interpreted and consumed in a local way and also ideas and cultural products flow from the periphery to the center far more often than we have thought.
X- What we can conclude
- Even though the U.S is very powerful in dominating the world's culture through its movies and programs , people in their own countries have been also powerful in preserving their own cultures .
I- What is culture?
- Culture defines what it means to be a human being.
- It is all out behavior summed up, out whole life experience.
- The study of culture as a way of life draws more on social history, anthropology, ad sociology and focuses on the structures of everyday life and its forms of interactions.
- Mass media are key components in any nation's culture.
II- Culture Industries
- The term cultural industries was coined by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.
- They developed an approach to scholarship called critical theory that was based on Marxist philosophy.
- They first coined the term Cultural Industries in their work Dialectic Enlightenment in 1947.
- It was used to refer to products which were tailored for consumption by masses, and which to a great extent determine the nature of that consumption by masses, are manufactured more or less according to a plan.
- They believed that the real purpose of mass media was to provide ideological justification for the capitalistic societies where these industries developed.
- Mass culture was developed as a tool of capitalism for the social control of society, according to Adorno and Horkheimer.
- The term culture industries carries a more positive meaning today.
-UNESCO describes culture industries as important national economic resources that allow expressions of creativity to be copied and boosted by industrial processes and worldwide distribution.
- UNESCO includes publishing, music audiovisual technology, electronics, video games, and the Internet in the category of cultural industries.
a- Other Cultural Groupings
- Businesses have cultures, and each business has its own set of cultural characteristics.
- Any organization to which we belong develops a culture if it manages to survive.
- An Organization's culture is the glue that keeps people attached to it and allows members to identify with it.
- It is the set of meanings the members of the group share.
- We all belong to multiple groups, each with its own characteristic culture. These include schools, religious organizations, and civic groups.
- Each family has a culture that distinguishes it from other families; a set of traditions, a way of living and interacting.
- Many animal groupings also have cultures.
III- Transmission of Culture
We must learn the culture of those groupings before we can become an integral part of them.
- The primary symbolic system used to transmit culture is that of language.
- While the written language increased the power to transmit one culture. Thereby bringing people together, it differentiated people and nations form other cultures, thereby separating them.
- This linguistic bond in contemporary society is achieved through television. Television helps perpetuate national cultures.
- The pervasiveness of English is believed to threaten many other cultures.
IV- How the west dominates in production of culture?
- The U.S is imperialistic when it comes to cultural products, especially when it comes to films and television programs.
- There are several factors besides the economy of a nation which influences the extent of inflow of TV material. The population size is naturally crucial importance, since it largely determines such marketing conditions as the size of the TV audience, the general dominance of a national culture, and usually also a common or unifying language.
- When a country allows news importation it is in effect importing a piece of another country's politics.
- And because the media also deal in ideas, their influence can be unpredictable in form and strength.
- Economic interdependence becomes a key to survival in the global system, while the strategies for preserving important elements of the cultures of the societies around the world have received much less attention.
- We don’t exactly know what the cultural impact of consuming American products might be.
- The European Audiovisual Observatory attributes this phenomenon to three factors in the European member countries: The effect of deregulation; the advance of digital technology; and the overcapacity of European satellite systems.
V- What cultures do to defend cultural autonomy?
A- Quotas: - The U.S has taken the position that cultural products should be treated like any other goods traded in the market.
- The U.S has opposed the setting of quotas on film and television imports viewing such quotas as trade barriers.
- However, other countries have been successful in obtaining a cultural exception for audiovisual products in the GATT, claiming that these are expressions of national identity and should be preserved.
b- Subsidies: - The U.S also opposes the use of government subsidies provided for development of films and television programs.
- Many countries take the position that without subsidies, their audiovisual sector will totally succumb to foreign imports.
- Feigenbaum believes that subsidies offer the most promise for boosting production of cultural products, and he argues that government aid to film and television production should not have to be justified on an economic basis, for him culture is its own reward.
c- Regional Alliances including co productions: Co produced films , usually ones that combine the talents and resources of two film production companies in two countries, have several advantages.
- They have a larger domestic market, that of two or more countries.
- They have appeal across cultures, not just within a particular culture.
- They usually have wider name recognition of principle actors, director, and so on.
e- Adaptations
- For countries with smaller markets or fewer resources, film and television program production is too expensive to release many new products.
- Audiences prefer local programs.
- The compromise that has been struck to address this dilemma is increasingly popular. It amounts to buying the rights to an imported television series or film and adapting it to the local culture and language.
F- Resistance
- Some cultural groups try to resist being deluged by products from abroad by producing more products about themselves.
VI- Not all pop culture is American
- Audiences around the world still prefer their local cultures and their local culture products to those imported.
-Current trends seem to show that local production is regaining dominance in television content.
-Much of the magazines and book publishing in the United States is also owned by foreign companies.
VII- Role of journalists in production of culture
-Culture is at the core of what journalists do.
- The concept of objectivity that has been under attack for most of this century does not exist.
- News culture is also revealed in news format.
VIII- Managing Cultural Conflict
- Cultures of the world do not always get along.
- Out concern is what role the media play in preventing conflicts internationally.
- We might think that it would be able to help smooth out the differences between various cultural groupings.
- The global media might encourage cultural conflict by sending the message that we are all alike, we are all consumers, and nothing makes us unique.
- The way cultures struggle to preserve a distinctive identity, they may create more conflict with other cultural groups, rather than creating a climate for mutual cultural understanding.
IX- Hybrid Cultures and the Media
- In a melting pot, none of the different groups ever became totally assimilated.
- However, while immigrants may hold onto their cultural roots when they settle in another society, they also modify their tradition and behaviors in what has been called variously a process of hybridity or glocalization.
- As national identities decline and local identities are strengthened through resistance to globalization, new identities or hybridity also take place of the old national identities.
- The dominant culture also takes on some characteristics and traditions from the migrants to that culture.
- Roberston writes that this process of glocalisation occurs in the world's media too, he challenges the notion of media imperialism arguing that cultural messages from the U.S to other cultures are interpreted according to the local culture context, and that that U.S produced movies and programs modify their products to a global market because they need the global market to be profitable. Furthermore, that national cultural products end up being interpreted and consumed in a local way and also ideas and cultural products flow from the periphery to the center far more often than we have thought.
X- What we can conclude
- Even though the U.S is very powerful in dominating the world's culture through its movies and programs , people in their own countries have been also powerful in preserving their own cultures .
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Chapter 5, outline
Communication and culture
I- What is culture?
II- Culture Industries
a- Other Cultural Groupings
III- Transmission of Culture
IV- How the west dominates in production of culture?
V- What cultures do to defend cultural autonomy?
A- Quotas
b- Subsidies
c- Regional Alliances including co productions
e- Adaptations
F- Resistance
VI- Not all pop culture is American
VII- Role of journalists in production of culture
VIII- Managing Cultural Conflict
IX- Hybrid Cultures and the Media
X- What we can conclude
I- What is culture?
II- Culture Industries
a- Other Cultural Groupings
III- Transmission of Culture
IV- How the west dominates in production of culture?
V- What cultures do to defend cultural autonomy?
A- Quotas
b- Subsidies
c- Regional Alliances including co productions
e- Adaptations
F- Resistance
VI- Not all pop culture is American
VII- Role of journalists in production of culture
VIII- Managing Cultural Conflict
IX- Hybrid Cultures and the Media
X- What we can conclude
Chapter 4, detailed outline
Global news and information flow in the internet age
I- Introduction
- The internet is universally characterized as a revolutionary medium because it has opened up an altogether new world pf information and communication.
- Apart from using the Internet as a speedy means of communication for personal and professional reason, users are turning to this multimedia, interactive medium to specify and obtain then news, information and entertainment they need from across the world.
- This need-based information consumption pattern facilitated by the Internet is radically different from the centuries-old model in which the consumer is at the end news and information selected and purveyed by traditional media gatekeepers
.
- News and information consumption patters of Internet Users are bound to show ever more reliance on this digital model as opposed to the traditional media.
II- Origin and early history of news agencies
- News and mercantile information needs of the mass market press that emerged in the first half of the 1800s provided the incentive for the creation of at least 3 of the major Western news agencies- the Associated Press, Reuters , and Agence France-Presse.
- By selling their products to many newspapers, news agencies could supply a large amount of news at less expense than a newspaper would.
- News agencies also had greater financial resources than the average news paper to invest in technical facilities such as the telegraph, to transmit the news as quickly as possible.
a- Agence France-presse
- The oldest of what were eventually to become the four major Western international news agencies.
- It was created by Frenchman Charles-Louis Havas in 1835.
- It grew out of a news distribution service, used mostly by merchants and government officials.
- Havas expanded his operations by hiring more correspondents and using the newly invented telegraph for faster delivery of news.
- In 1944, after liberation from occupying Nazi forces, the Havas Agency was given its present name, Agence France-Presse.
b- Associated press
- It grew out of the Harbor News Association, formed by 10 men representing six New York City newspapers in 1848 to pool efforts for collecting international news and to offset the prohibitive cost of transmitting news by telegraph.
-Two major changes have taken place in AP organization since 1945:
1- The U.S Supreme Court held illegal a clause in AP bylaws under which members could block the effort of a competitor in the same city to obtain AP news service by requiring election to membership, as a result AP membership was opened to all qualified U.S News papers.
2- In 1946, radio stations, for the first time, were granted associated membership in AP.
c- Reuters
- It opened 1851, by Paul Julius Reuter, a German-born immigrant.
- Reuters share ownership is now spread around the world , with the most significant holdings in Britain and the United States.
d- United press international
- It was established on July 21,1907, as the United Press Association because its founder believed there should be no restrictions on who could buy news from a news service.
- It was instrumental in freeing up news collection and dissemination worldwide by rejecting a cartel arrangement established by the other major Western news agencies in 1869.
e- ITAR-TASS
- Another of the world's largest news agencies is the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia.
- It has retained its status as the state central information agency.
III- International news agencies today
A- Associated press
-Today, it serves as source of news , photos, graphics, audio and video for more than 1 billion people every day.
- The AP news services are delivered in the form of state, national, and international wires.
- AP's international wire is available in four foreign languages: French, Spanish, German, and Dutch.
- It delivers top international and U.S news by explaining complex issues with simplicity.
b- United press international
- Leading supplier of knowledge-based products to the Internet.
- It provides up-to-date information for readers who are looking for news in a short, concise format pf 100 to 200 words.
- UPI perspectives provide readers with issue-focused reports required to make informed business or policy decisions.
- Reports are issued in the form of analysis, commentary, feature stories and special reports, and people in the news.
c- Reuters
- It dedicates the bulk of its resources to providing financial information to the global financial markets.
- Its information and news products include real-time financial data, collective investment data, numerical, textual, historical, and graphical databases, plus news services and broadcast media, websites, and consumers.
- It also uses the Internet extensively for wider distribution of information and news.
d- Agence France-presse
- AFP continues to provide a variety of services for the traditional media but has also developed a new line of services for the online sector.
- It is the only international agency to distribute in Arabic.
e- ITAR-TASS and Interfax
- ITAR-TASS is the state-owned successor to the soviet-era Tass news agency.
- It was a propaganda arm of the Soviet communist system, often providing its news service practically free to countries that were potential candidates for communism.
- ITAR-TASS's transition to an independent, objective, and reliable agency is still far from complete.
- ITAR-TASS is facing stiff competition from another Russian news agency called Interfax, which offers general and financial news services.
IV- Supplemental news agencies
- Newspapers needing more specialized fare, such as hard news exclusives, investigative reporting, political commentary, and concentrated business coverage, turn to supplemental wire services.
V- Broadcast news services
VI- Global newspapers, Magazines and Broadcasters
- Several international newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting organizations also play a significant role as purveyors of news globally.
- Three newspapers that are especially valued by opinion leaders around the world are the New York Times, The Times of London, and the Guardian, also from Britain.
VII- News flow patterns: offline and online
- The Internet offers the best hope to developing countries seeking a low-cost vehicle for news distribution and a more balanced flow of news globally.
- Although the distribution of news by a news agency to its clients via the Internet is much cheaper than via the traditional telecommunications system, a budding news agency must meet other costs and challenges before its acquires the necessary credibility as global news service.
- The financing required to hire the necessary staff and maintain news bureaus around the world is beyond the reach of most developing countries.
- There is also the issue of quality of information, for the information available on the Internet; credibility will be a source of power and influence.
- Therefore, the emerging news agencies will have a lot of catching up to do before they can compete with the established Western news agencies, and that will not be an easy task.
- The Internet has greater promise in serving as an equalizer in the skewed flow of news and information globally, another of the concerns raised by the developing world.
VIII- The outlook
- The mergence of democracy has considerably lessened the obstacles that news agencies and foreign correspondents encounter in covering news.
- Authoritarian governments in many countries continue to create several obstacles in the coverage of news, including restricted access, explicit or implicit censorship, and pressure against correspondents.
- Direct action against foreign correspondents is the most extreme and dangerous obstacle to free news coverage.
- Economic growth and the opportunities provided by the Internet should make it easier for many developing countries to expand their newsgathering and news dissemination operations.
I- Introduction
- The internet is universally characterized as a revolutionary medium because it has opened up an altogether new world pf information and communication.
- Apart from using the Internet as a speedy means of communication for personal and professional reason, users are turning to this multimedia, interactive medium to specify and obtain then news, information and entertainment they need from across the world.
- This need-based information consumption pattern facilitated by the Internet is radically different from the centuries-old model in which the consumer is at the end news and information selected and purveyed by traditional media gatekeepers
.
- News and information consumption patters of Internet Users are bound to show ever more reliance on this digital model as opposed to the traditional media.
II- Origin and early history of news agencies
- News and mercantile information needs of the mass market press that emerged in the first half of the 1800s provided the incentive for the creation of at least 3 of the major Western news agencies- the Associated Press, Reuters , and Agence France-Presse.
- By selling their products to many newspapers, news agencies could supply a large amount of news at less expense than a newspaper would.
- News agencies also had greater financial resources than the average news paper to invest in technical facilities such as the telegraph, to transmit the news as quickly as possible.
a- Agence France-presse
- The oldest of what were eventually to become the four major Western international news agencies.
- It was created by Frenchman Charles-Louis Havas in 1835.
- It grew out of a news distribution service, used mostly by merchants and government officials.
- Havas expanded his operations by hiring more correspondents and using the newly invented telegraph for faster delivery of news.
- In 1944, after liberation from occupying Nazi forces, the Havas Agency was given its present name, Agence France-Presse.
b- Associated press
- It grew out of the Harbor News Association, formed by 10 men representing six New York City newspapers in 1848 to pool efforts for collecting international news and to offset the prohibitive cost of transmitting news by telegraph.
-Two major changes have taken place in AP organization since 1945:
1- The U.S Supreme Court held illegal a clause in AP bylaws under which members could block the effort of a competitor in the same city to obtain AP news service by requiring election to membership, as a result AP membership was opened to all qualified U.S News papers.
2- In 1946, radio stations, for the first time, were granted associated membership in AP.
c- Reuters
- It opened 1851, by Paul Julius Reuter, a German-born immigrant.
- Reuters share ownership is now spread around the world , with the most significant holdings in Britain and the United States.
d- United press international
- It was established on July 21,1907, as the United Press Association because its founder believed there should be no restrictions on who could buy news from a news service.
- It was instrumental in freeing up news collection and dissemination worldwide by rejecting a cartel arrangement established by the other major Western news agencies in 1869.
e- ITAR-TASS
- Another of the world's largest news agencies is the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia.
- It has retained its status as the state central information agency.
III- International news agencies today
A- Associated press
-Today, it serves as source of news , photos, graphics, audio and video for more than 1 billion people every day.
- The AP news services are delivered in the form of state, national, and international wires.
- AP's international wire is available in four foreign languages: French, Spanish, German, and Dutch.
- It delivers top international and U.S news by explaining complex issues with simplicity.
b- United press international
- Leading supplier of knowledge-based products to the Internet.
- It provides up-to-date information for readers who are looking for news in a short, concise format pf 100 to 200 words.
- UPI perspectives provide readers with issue-focused reports required to make informed business or policy decisions.
- Reports are issued in the form of analysis, commentary, feature stories and special reports, and people in the news.
c- Reuters
- It dedicates the bulk of its resources to providing financial information to the global financial markets.
- Its information and news products include real-time financial data, collective investment data, numerical, textual, historical, and graphical databases, plus news services and broadcast media, websites, and consumers.
- It also uses the Internet extensively for wider distribution of information and news.
d- Agence France-presse
- AFP continues to provide a variety of services for the traditional media but has also developed a new line of services for the online sector.
- It is the only international agency to distribute in Arabic.
e- ITAR-TASS and Interfax
- ITAR-TASS is the state-owned successor to the soviet-era Tass news agency.
- It was a propaganda arm of the Soviet communist system, often providing its news service practically free to countries that were potential candidates for communism.
- ITAR-TASS's transition to an independent, objective, and reliable agency is still far from complete.
- ITAR-TASS is facing stiff competition from another Russian news agency called Interfax, which offers general and financial news services.
IV- Supplemental news agencies
- Newspapers needing more specialized fare, such as hard news exclusives, investigative reporting, political commentary, and concentrated business coverage, turn to supplemental wire services.
V- Broadcast news services
VI- Global newspapers, Magazines and Broadcasters
- Several international newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting organizations also play a significant role as purveyors of news globally.
- Three newspapers that are especially valued by opinion leaders around the world are the New York Times, The Times of London, and the Guardian, also from Britain.
VII- News flow patterns: offline and online
- The Internet offers the best hope to developing countries seeking a low-cost vehicle for news distribution and a more balanced flow of news globally.
- Although the distribution of news by a news agency to its clients via the Internet is much cheaper than via the traditional telecommunications system, a budding news agency must meet other costs and challenges before its acquires the necessary credibility as global news service.
- The financing required to hire the necessary staff and maintain news bureaus around the world is beyond the reach of most developing countries.
- There is also the issue of quality of information, for the information available on the Internet; credibility will be a source of power and influence.
- Therefore, the emerging news agencies will have a lot of catching up to do before they can compete with the established Western news agencies, and that will not be an easy task.
- The Internet has greater promise in serving as an equalizer in the skewed flow of news and information globally, another of the concerns raised by the developing world.
VIII- The outlook
- The mergence of democracy has considerably lessened the obstacles that news agencies and foreign correspondents encounter in covering news.
- Authoritarian governments in many countries continue to create several obstacles in the coverage of news, including restricted access, explicit or implicit censorship, and pressure against correspondents.
- Direct action against foreign correspondents is the most extreme and dangerous obstacle to free news coverage.
- Economic growth and the opportunities provided by the Internet should make it easier for many developing countries to expand their newsgathering and news dissemination operations.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Chapter 4, outline
Global news and information flow in the internet age
I- Introduction
II- Origin and early history of news agencies
a- Agence France-presse
b- Associated press
c- Reuters
d- United press international
e- Itar-tass
III- International news agencies today
a- Associated press
b- United press international
c- Reuters
d- Agence France-presse
e- Itar-tass and Interfax
IV- Supplemental news agencies
V- Broadcast news services
VI- Global newspapers, Magazines and Broadcasters
VII- News flow patterns: offline and online
VIII- The outlook
I- Introduction
II- Origin and early history of news agencies
a- Agence France-presse
b- Associated press
c- Reuters
d- United press international
e- Itar-tass
III- International news agencies today
a- Associated press
b- United press international
c- Reuters
d- Agence France-presse
e- Itar-tass and Interfax
IV- Supplemental news agencies
V- Broadcast news services
VI- Global newspapers, Magazines and Broadcasters
VII- News flow patterns: offline and online
VIII- The outlook
Thursday, June 14, 2007
chapter3, detailed outline
Global Economy and International Telecommunications Networks
I-Introduction
- The global economy is not an abstraction; it affects our personal lives in several ways.
- The Global economy is closely related to global communication, because global economy requires global communication to control and coordinate global division of labor.
-Global division of labor has transformed the world and gave birth to both the global economy and global communication.
II-Premodern World
- The premodern world was different from the world today.
- The personal possessions of our predecessors were all made locally.
III-Division of Labor
-A big difference between the premodern and the modern world is the extent to which division of labor was used in the production process.
- With specialization the expertise increases.
- Division of labor crates independencies.
- The system based on division of labor requires coordination.
- Division of labor increases productivity via specialization, which in turns creates problems of coordination and control.
- The problems of created by division of labor were taken care of by managers who coordinated and controlled the activities of individual workers performing specialized tasks, however, these problems become more severe when division of labor occurs across geographical space as companies seek to capitalize on the location advantage of each place.
- Nowadays, division of labor transcends national borders.
- This would not have been possible without modern communication technologies. Therefore, global division of labor is intricately tied to modern communication technologies.
- Telecommunications technologies allow for global coordination and control, transportation technologies move raw materials and products form one corner of the world to another.
IV- Imperialism
- In the 13th century the world was multipolar, that is, they were multiple centers of power, such as China, India, and Italy , which dominated decentralized trading circuits.
- This changed during the 14th and 15th centuries during the emergence of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and British empires. These western powers transformed the world into a monopolar world.
-The development of science gave them technologically superior weaponry that overwhelmed the people of Africa, America, Asia and Australia. Therefore, although they were small countries they could conquer nations with larger populations.
- This was called the era of imperialism.
- Theses new empires were different form earlier ones in history.
- They were disjointed.
- They hardly knew anything about the nations they conquered.
- The economic relationship was different. The imperial powers were interested to gain access to raw materials for their growing industries.
- After the raw materials were processed into finished goods, the empires used the colonies as captive markets for selling their factories' output.
- They maintained control over their colonies through different means.
- Brute military power played a critical role in the creation and maintenance of empires.
- Educating the native elite in Western ways and then giving them positions of privilege in the administrative hierarchy.
- The imperial administration also hampered collaboration among native groups to prevent the emergence of united opposition to colonial rule.
- The global telegraph network that the brutish used to manage their vast Empire:
- The network was totally London-centric
- Lateral lines were rare.
V-Electronic Imperialism
1- Global Media Flows
- After WWII the United States became the center of the world.
- The main source of power of the U.S is economic rather than military.
- The U.S projects its power through economic and cultural means.
- There is a relationship of dependency between the rich and the poor countries.
- Developing nations consider the import of the U.S culture such as movies to be a new kind of invasion.
- The flow of information from the south to the north and lateral flow of information between periphery countries is small.
- Many nations called for a new world information order that would change this asymmetrical pattern and make it more balanced. But this creates problems:
- It encourages regulation of information flows by governments.
- It is difficult as the technology becomes ever more subtle to control.
2- Transborder Data Flow:
-With the improvement in transportation technologies, international trade progressively moved beyond light items with a high value to heavier commodities, however, services remained local because they required an intense amount of interaction between the service provider and the consumer.
- Modern communication changed this.
- The trade in services assumes a great importance in the global economy.
- The perspectives and interests of the United States and the developed countries are different on issues related to global economy.
- The similarity between imperialism and electronic imperialism is that they both display a strong center-periphery relation.
- The difference between the two is that the center uses more delicate means to dominate the periphery rather that brutal ones.
VI- Emerging Network Structures
- There is a U.S centric nature of global Internet.
- Network investment patterns suggest that in the future we will see the emergence of regional networks in Europe and Asia.
- However, it seems that the U.S centered structure of the global Internet is going to remain for a long time.
I-Introduction
- The global economy is not an abstraction; it affects our personal lives in several ways.
- The Global economy is closely related to global communication, because global economy requires global communication to control and coordinate global division of labor.
-Global division of labor has transformed the world and gave birth to both the global economy and global communication.
II-Premodern World
- The premodern world was different from the world today.
- The personal possessions of our predecessors were all made locally.
III-Division of Labor
-A big difference between the premodern and the modern world is the extent to which division of labor was used in the production process.
- With specialization the expertise increases.
- Division of labor crates independencies.
- The system based on division of labor requires coordination.
- Division of labor increases productivity via specialization, which in turns creates problems of coordination and control.
- The problems of created by division of labor were taken care of by managers who coordinated and controlled the activities of individual workers performing specialized tasks, however, these problems become more severe when division of labor occurs across geographical space as companies seek to capitalize on the location advantage of each place.
- Nowadays, division of labor transcends national borders.
- This would not have been possible without modern communication technologies. Therefore, global division of labor is intricately tied to modern communication technologies.
- Telecommunications technologies allow for global coordination and control, transportation technologies move raw materials and products form one corner of the world to another.
IV- Imperialism
- In the 13th century the world was multipolar, that is, they were multiple centers of power, such as China, India, and Italy , which dominated decentralized trading circuits.
- This changed during the 14th and 15th centuries during the emergence of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and British empires. These western powers transformed the world into a monopolar world.
-The development of science gave them technologically superior weaponry that overwhelmed the people of Africa, America, Asia and Australia. Therefore, although they were small countries they could conquer nations with larger populations.
- This was called the era of imperialism.
- Theses new empires were different form earlier ones in history.
- They were disjointed.
- They hardly knew anything about the nations they conquered.
- The economic relationship was different. The imperial powers were interested to gain access to raw materials for their growing industries.
- After the raw materials were processed into finished goods, the empires used the colonies as captive markets for selling their factories' output.
- They maintained control over their colonies through different means.
- Brute military power played a critical role in the creation and maintenance of empires.
- Educating the native elite in Western ways and then giving them positions of privilege in the administrative hierarchy.
- The imperial administration also hampered collaboration among native groups to prevent the emergence of united opposition to colonial rule.
- The global telegraph network that the brutish used to manage their vast Empire:
- The network was totally London-centric
- Lateral lines were rare.
V-Electronic Imperialism
1- Global Media Flows
- After WWII the United States became the center of the world.
- The main source of power of the U.S is economic rather than military.
- The U.S projects its power through economic and cultural means.
- There is a relationship of dependency between the rich and the poor countries.
- Developing nations consider the import of the U.S culture such as movies to be a new kind of invasion.
- The flow of information from the south to the north and lateral flow of information between periphery countries is small.
- Many nations called for a new world information order that would change this asymmetrical pattern and make it more balanced. But this creates problems:
- It encourages regulation of information flows by governments.
- It is difficult as the technology becomes ever more subtle to control.
2- Transborder Data Flow:
-With the improvement in transportation technologies, international trade progressively moved beyond light items with a high value to heavier commodities, however, services remained local because they required an intense amount of interaction between the service provider and the consumer.
- Modern communication changed this.
- The trade in services assumes a great importance in the global economy.
- The perspectives and interests of the United States and the developed countries are different on issues related to global economy.
- The similarity between imperialism and electronic imperialism is that they both display a strong center-periphery relation.
- The difference between the two is that the center uses more delicate means to dominate the periphery rather that brutal ones.
VI- Emerging Network Structures
- There is a U.S centric nature of global Internet.
- Network investment patterns suggest that in the future we will see the emergence of regional networks in Europe and Asia.
- However, it seems that the U.S centered structure of the global Internet is going to remain for a long time.
Tentative outline for research paper
Global Communication and Moroccan culture
I- Introduction: We have to have a research question.
II- Make an outline for the research paper and define our keywords: Global, local, and communication.
III- We have to decide which theory of international communication we should use. In this case it will be Globalization theory. There are different theories of globalization but we should pick up just one.
IV- Case study: Moroccan Culture
- Define Moroccan culture; which segment of the Moroccan population we are going to study.
- Choose only one type of Global Communication, for example CNN and its impact on those Moroccans.
I- Introduction: We have to have a research question.
II- Make an outline for the research paper and define our keywords: Global, local, and communication.
III- We have to decide which theory of international communication we should use. In this case it will be Globalization theory. There are different theories of globalization but we should pick up just one.
IV- Case study: Moroccan Culture
- Define Moroccan culture; which segment of the Moroccan population we are going to study.
- Choose only one type of Global Communication, for example CNN and its impact on those Moroccans.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Chapter 3, outline
Global Economy and International Telecommunications Networks
I-Introduction
II-Premodern World
III-Division of Labor
IV- Imperialism
V-Electronic Imperialism
1- Global Media Flows
2- Transborder Data Flow
VI- Emerging Network Structures
VII- Toward a New World System?
I-Introduction
II-Premodern World
III-Division of Labor
IV- Imperialism
V-Electronic Imperialism
1- Global Media Flows
2- Transborder Data Flow
VI- Emerging Network Structures
VII- Toward a New World System?
Assignment 2
I think that the point that Prime Minister Tony Bair was trying to make is that soft power is as important, not even more important, that military power for powerful nations to be able to maintain their power. Everyone is familiar with hard power. We know that military and economic might often get others to change their position. Hard power can rest on inducements ("carrots") or threats ("sticks"). But sometimes you can get the outcomes you want without tangible threats or payoffs. The indirect way to get what you want has sometimes been called "the second face of power." A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries admire its values, emulate its example; aspire to its level of prosperity and openness. This soft power —getting others to want the outcomes that you want—co-opts people rather than coerces them. Soft power rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others. In the business world, smart executives know that leadership is not just a matter of issuing commands, but also involves leading by example and attracting others to do what you want.
Political leaders have long understood the power that comes from attraction. If I can get you to want to do what I want, then I do not have to use carrots or sticks to make you do it. Soft power is a staple of daily democratic politics. The ability to establish preferences tends to be associated with intangible assets such as an attractive personality, culture, political values and institutions, and policies that are seen as legitimate or having moral authority. If a leader represents values that others want to follow, it will cost less to lead.
Some skeptics object to the idea of Soft Power because they think of power narrowly in terms of commands or active control. In their view, imitation or attraction does not add up to power. The skeptics who want to define power only as deliberate acts of command and control are ignoring the second or "structural" face of power —the ability to get the outcomes you want without having to force people to change their behavior through threats or payments. Soft power is also likely to be more important when power is dispersed. A dictator cannot be totally indifferent to the views of the people under his rule, but he can often ignore popularity when he calculates his interests. In settings where opinions matter, leaders have less leeway to adopt tactics and strike deals.
The conditions for projecting soft power have transformed dramatically in recent years. The information revolution and globalization are transforming and shrinking the world. At the beginning of the 21st century, those two forces have enhanced American power. But with time, technology will spread to other countries and peoples, and America's relative preeminence will diminish. Even more important, the information revolution is creating virtual communities and networks that cut across national borders. Political leadership becomes in part a competition for attractiveness, legitimacy, and credibility. The ability to share information—and to be believed—becomes an important source of attraction and power. To achieve these goals, many leaders throughout history have used international media. Examples would be 'SAWT AL ARAB' during Nasserism. More recently another example would be 'AL HOURRA TV'.
Finally,this political game in a global information age suggests that the relative role of soft power to hard power will likely increase. The most likely gainers in an information age will have multiple channels of communication that help to frame issues, cultural customs and ideas that are close to prevailing global norms, and credibility that is enhanced by values and policies.
Political leaders have long understood the power that comes from attraction. If I can get you to want to do what I want, then I do not have to use carrots or sticks to make you do it. Soft power is a staple of daily democratic politics. The ability to establish preferences tends to be associated with intangible assets such as an attractive personality, culture, political values and institutions, and policies that are seen as legitimate or having moral authority. If a leader represents values that others want to follow, it will cost less to lead.
Some skeptics object to the idea of Soft Power because they think of power narrowly in terms of commands or active control. In their view, imitation or attraction does not add up to power. The skeptics who want to define power only as deliberate acts of command and control are ignoring the second or "structural" face of power —the ability to get the outcomes you want without having to force people to change their behavior through threats or payments. Soft power is also likely to be more important when power is dispersed. A dictator cannot be totally indifferent to the views of the people under his rule, but he can often ignore popularity when he calculates his interests. In settings where opinions matter, leaders have less leeway to adopt tactics and strike deals.
The conditions for projecting soft power have transformed dramatically in recent years. The information revolution and globalization are transforming and shrinking the world. At the beginning of the 21st century, those two forces have enhanced American power. But with time, technology will spread to other countries and peoples, and America's relative preeminence will diminish. Even more important, the information revolution is creating virtual communities and networks that cut across national borders. Political leadership becomes in part a competition for attractiveness, legitimacy, and credibility. The ability to share information—and to be believed—becomes an important source of attraction and power. To achieve these goals, many leaders throughout history have used international media. Examples would be 'SAWT AL ARAB' during Nasserism. More recently another example would be 'AL HOURRA TV'.
Finally,this political game in a global information age suggests that the relative role of soft power to hard power will likely increase. The most likely gainers in an information age will have multiple channels of communication that help to frame issues, cultural customs and ideas that are close to prevailing global norms, and credibility that is enhanced by values and policies.
Chapter 2, Dtailed outline
Drawing a Bead on Global Communication Theories
I-Introduction
-Theorizing is a way of getting a phenomenon clearly in our sights.
-We need to attempt an explanation, a theory.
-Theorizing means careful focused thinking.
-A theory is not automatically right or mostly correct.
-Theorizing is a serious attempt to think connectedly and deeply about something.
II- Normative theories
1-Authoritarian theory; is designed to protect the established social order and its agents, setting clear and close limits to media freedom.
2- Libertarian; the press should be a free market place of ideas, in which the best will be recognized and the worst fail.
3-Soviet theory, assigned the media a role as collective agitator, propagandist and educator in the building of communism.
4-Socail responsibility theory; the media ownership and operation are a form of public trust or stewardship, rather than a unlimited private franchise.
5-Development media theory; limited resources available foe media can legitimately be allocated by government, and journalistic freedom can also be restricted.
6-Democratic participation media theory; supports the right to relevant local information, the right to answer back and the right to use the new means of communication for interaction and social action in small-scale settings of community , interest group or subculture.
III-A Different Approach I: Comparing and Contrasting Media
-At least four important issues must be considered –namely, how we understand the relation of mainstream media.
1) Political Power: Dictatorship (communism) equaled repression and censorship, in the name of justice.
- In dictatorships the state has control over the media
- The control over communication did not work at the end.
- A dual-level public real developed.
2) Economic Crisis: In dictatorships the media remains silent about the decline in the living standards and stagnation in productivity, and asserted that the capitalist countries were suffering from acute and irremediable economic problems.
3) Dramatic Social Transitions: It is wrong to assume that a media system is permanent or normal and that transition is inherent in media. Media transitions occur along with social transitions.
IV- A Different Approach II: Globalization and Media
-Different explanations of globalization;
1-Sometimes signifies structural economic changes.
2-It is also applied to cultural and media processes.
3-More or less, it means Americanization.
4- Hybridity: a merging of different perspectives and values to form a new blended culture.
V- A different Approach III: Small-scale Alternative Media
- Samizdat: The tern refers to the hand circulated pamphlets, poems, essays and plays.
- It began to emerge in Soviet Russia and later in other Soviet bloc Countries since the 60's.
- They contained widely varied messages, religious, nationalist, reformist, ecological and attacking Soviet politics.
- The term samizdat literally means self-published, in contradiction to state-published that is, approved by the Soviet regime as safe.
VI- Conclusions
-It is not only by studying media in just the United States or Britain, the currently dominant nations in media research publication, we can succeed in "drawing a bead" on media.
I-Introduction
-Theorizing is a way of getting a phenomenon clearly in our sights.
-We need to attempt an explanation, a theory.
-Theorizing means careful focused thinking.
-A theory is not automatically right or mostly correct.
-Theorizing is a serious attempt to think connectedly and deeply about something.
II- Normative theories
1-Authoritarian theory; is designed to protect the established social order and its agents, setting clear and close limits to media freedom.
2- Libertarian; the press should be a free market place of ideas, in which the best will be recognized and the worst fail.
3-Soviet theory, assigned the media a role as collective agitator, propagandist and educator in the building of communism.
4-Socail responsibility theory; the media ownership and operation are a form of public trust or stewardship, rather than a unlimited private franchise.
5-Development media theory; limited resources available foe media can legitimately be allocated by government, and journalistic freedom can also be restricted.
6-Democratic participation media theory; supports the right to relevant local information, the right to answer back and the right to use the new means of communication for interaction and social action in small-scale settings of community , interest group or subculture.
III-A Different Approach I: Comparing and Contrasting Media
-At least four important issues must be considered –namely, how we understand the relation of mainstream media.
1) Political Power: Dictatorship (communism) equaled repression and censorship, in the name of justice.
- In dictatorships the state has control over the media
- The control over communication did not work at the end.
- A dual-level public real developed.
2) Economic Crisis: In dictatorships the media remains silent about the decline in the living standards and stagnation in productivity, and asserted that the capitalist countries were suffering from acute and irremediable economic problems.
3) Dramatic Social Transitions: It is wrong to assume that a media system is permanent or normal and that transition is inherent in media. Media transitions occur along with social transitions.
IV- A Different Approach II: Globalization and Media
-Different explanations of globalization;
1-Sometimes signifies structural economic changes.
2-It is also applied to cultural and media processes.
3-More or less, it means Americanization.
4- Hybridity: a merging of different perspectives and values to form a new blended culture.
V- A different Approach III: Small-scale Alternative Media
- Samizdat: The tern refers to the hand circulated pamphlets, poems, essays and plays.
- It began to emerge in Soviet Russia and later in other Soviet bloc Countries since the 60's.
- They contained widely varied messages, religious, nationalist, reformist, ecological and attacking Soviet politics.
- The term samizdat literally means self-published, in contradiction to state-published that is, approved by the Soviet regime as safe.
VI- Conclusions
-It is not only by studying media in just the United States or Britain, the currently dominant nations in media research publication, we can succeed in "drawing a bead" on media.
Assignment 1
3-Comment
Mapmaking was an integral part of communication in history. Humans have been making maps since the Stone Age. In fact, mapmaking predated written language by several millennia. Maps were widely considered to be valuable keys to unlocking unknown worlds and enabled exploration and discovery.
Maps are important in history for several reasons which include economic and religious reasons. The information on most ancient maps reflected the mapmaker's cultural and religious orientations. For example, religious belief systems were directly reflected in many medieval European maps. Furthermore, the fact that maps were closely guarded and considered to be state secrets showed that they held valuable information like, mapping military areas.
Maps served many purposes in ancient times, including maritime navigation, religious pilgrimages, and military and administrative uses. They were also used instead as intellectual tools. Nowadays, maps are still used for the same purposes; however the technology is far more advanced. These days, people make maps online using tools like Google Maps API, and Google Earth.
However, some Arab regimes have banned the website like in Bahrain, Jordan and Morocco. The Bahraini government banned the website Google Earth for 3 days last year during the run-up to parliamentary elections; when bogglers used it to highlight the vast palaces of the Sunni aristocracy versus the slums in which much of the Shiite majority resides. Furthermore, more recently Bahraini bogglers have been intensely following the 'Bandar Gate', a scandal driven by revelations of regime plans to fix the 2006 parliamentary elections, and have produced a map of the city using Google Earth revealing vast appropriations for the royal family. These instances of online activism led the Bahraini government to briefly ban Mahmood's Den blog within the city. As for the Moroccan case, in March 2006, Morocco had blocked access to many blogging sites, such as Live Journal. Reporters without borders says that Morocco now censors all political websites advocating Western Sahara 's independence and Google Earth has also been added to the list of censored websites in Morocco.
4-Discuss
From this quotes, I think that Allen Palmer is trying to say that there are several factors, the most important of which is the evolution of technology that contributed to the development of international communication. And that cultural and social transition is explained only in some degree by technology. However, he is trying to draw our attention to the fact that technology has not always been used with good intentions. In other words, transparency remains an important issue. Technology can sometimes serve the evil purposes of some people. It is not always used in the right way. Sometimes, it doesn't serve the welfare of the public as it was meant to be. For example, new technology is redefining what is possible in telecommunications. It is doing so with a speed that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The telecommunication industry today offers options to customer and benefits to society beyond the scale of anything we have seen before. But an important question to ask is, whether communications technology delivers real progress for people around the world or not. Therefore, technology is only a tool to better reach people , if used badly it can permanently disconnect them. It is a double-edged sword. Finally, I think that what is our author, Allen Palmer, is trying to say here is that by putting in mind the past experience, the international community can organize global communication on an innovative foundation that is able to encounter the challenges of our times and that would be compatible with their nature.
Mapmaking was an integral part of communication in history. Humans have been making maps since the Stone Age. In fact, mapmaking predated written language by several millennia. Maps were widely considered to be valuable keys to unlocking unknown worlds and enabled exploration and discovery.
Maps are important in history for several reasons which include economic and religious reasons. The information on most ancient maps reflected the mapmaker's cultural and religious orientations. For example, religious belief systems were directly reflected in many medieval European maps. Furthermore, the fact that maps were closely guarded and considered to be state secrets showed that they held valuable information like, mapping military areas.
Maps served many purposes in ancient times, including maritime navigation, religious pilgrimages, and military and administrative uses. They were also used instead as intellectual tools. Nowadays, maps are still used for the same purposes; however the technology is far more advanced. These days, people make maps online using tools like Google Maps API, and Google Earth.
However, some Arab regimes have banned the website like in Bahrain, Jordan and Morocco. The Bahraini government banned the website Google Earth for 3 days last year during the run-up to parliamentary elections; when bogglers used it to highlight the vast palaces of the Sunni aristocracy versus the slums in which much of the Shiite majority resides. Furthermore, more recently Bahraini bogglers have been intensely following the 'Bandar Gate', a scandal driven by revelations of regime plans to fix the 2006 parliamentary elections, and have produced a map of the city using Google Earth revealing vast appropriations for the royal family. These instances of online activism led the Bahraini government to briefly ban Mahmood's Den blog within the city. As for the Moroccan case, in March 2006, Morocco had blocked access to many blogging sites, such as Live Journal. Reporters without borders says that Morocco now censors all political websites advocating Western Sahara 's independence and Google Earth has also been added to the list of censored websites in Morocco.
4-Discuss
From this quotes, I think that Allen Palmer is trying to say that there are several factors, the most important of which is the evolution of technology that contributed to the development of international communication. And that cultural and social transition is explained only in some degree by technology. However, he is trying to draw our attention to the fact that technology has not always been used with good intentions. In other words, transparency remains an important issue. Technology can sometimes serve the evil purposes of some people. It is not always used in the right way. Sometimes, it doesn't serve the welfare of the public as it was meant to be. For example, new technology is redefining what is possible in telecommunications. It is doing so with a speed that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The telecommunication industry today offers options to customer and benefits to society beyond the scale of anything we have seen before. But an important question to ask is, whether communications technology delivers real progress for people around the world or not. Therefore, technology is only a tool to better reach people , if used badly it can permanently disconnect them. It is a double-edged sword. Finally, I think that what is our author, Allen Palmer, is trying to say here is that by putting in mind the past experience, the international community can organize global communication on an innovative foundation that is able to encounter the challenges of our times and that would be compatible with their nature.
Chapter 1, detailed outline
Following the Historical Path of Global Communication
I- Geographical Space: A Barrier to Communication
-There is a difference between International and National communication .While the National communication is limited in scope to the national level, the International communication is widespread.
-Information (communication) is everywhere but this type of communication is perspective.
-Moroccan case: even if the Moroccan Magazine TelQuel targets Moroccan abroad, it is still considered a national magazine.
-In order to target an International audience you should publish in English.
-Herald Tribune is an example of International Communication.
-Today, people are trying to change the flow of information form the South to North.
A)
a -Communication has evolved, transforming the world communication.
1 -With faster and more far-reaching communication, important social and political developments occurred because of technology, each interacting and expanding the potential outcome of the other.
b- Cultures created the conditions for communication across great distances.
1- Migrant populations turned to agriculture and commerce, with trade routes extending outward to distant and unfamiliar lands.
2-During the "age of discovery" explorers traveled to the edge of the known world.
3 -Military conquests and religious crusades often resulted in the intermingling of cultures and ideas.
4 -The printing press and telegraph challenged the barriers of space and time.
B-
a- Geography of space:
- Geography was a limitation to communication in the past.
- Nowadays there is no distance because of the flow of information.
-The idea of locality was destroyed by the idea of nationalization.
-The geography of space is destroyed.
b- Geography of experience
c- Spaces of flow.
II- Geography and the Mythical world
1 -Ancient people struggled to control the unexplained events of their lives.
2 -Until relatively recently in history, the vast world beyond one's immediate reach was grasped through magical or metaphysical images.
3 - As a product of fear and imagination, these mythical ideas among ancient cultures were richly symbolic and were accompanied by expression in art, science, language and ritual.
III-Ancient Encounters of Societies and Cultures
1-When Greek and Arab philosophers and mathematicians sought to rise above mythical beliefs and to construct rational models of knowledge; they saw the world as measurable, even suggesting the use of coordinates to divide geographical space.
IV- Global Explorers: Migrants, Holy people, Merchants
-Traders and travelers are informal networks of communication.
- Trade and culture are also means of communication.
V- Mapmakers in the Medieval World
–Mapmaking was an integral part of communication history.
-The information on ancient maps reflected the mapmaker's cultural and religious orientations.
-Maps served several purposes: maritime navigation, religious pilgrimages, and military and administrative uses.
-Maps are important in history for several reasons which include religious, economic reasons.
-Maps were widely considered to be valuable keys to unlocking unknown worlds.
-Maps are still used for the same purposes but the technology is different.
VI-Inventors: Signals and Semaphores
1-Most information technologies were solutions to tangible and immediate problems.
2-The earliest known communication use of a simple signal system over distances employed fires and beacons.
3- Interest in signaling systems among the Greeks was based on potential military purposes.
4- The French, Spanish, and Venetian navies used flag-signaling from their ships.
VII- The Printing Press, Literacy, and the Knowledge Explosion
1- The spread of literacy in Europe after the development of the printing press.
a) The printing press encouraged the practice of reading among common people and the reformation of medieval European institutions, religions, and governments.
b) Books and other printed material eventually sparked social and political changes that gave rise to popular political consciousness and public opinion.
C) New literacy introduced new kinds of social relationships and networks among both learned and common people.
VIII-Scientists and International networks
1- The changing role of international science brought changes in relations between nations.
a) They intermingled both their shared interests and differences through the means of technology.
IX-The International Electric Revolution
1-The scientific innovations of the 19th century launched the world on a path to electrification of industry and commerce.
X-Summary: Global Immediacy and Transparency
1- Communication as a catalyst for many changes in human relationships.
a) Redefinition of space and time.
b) Increasing immediacy and transparency.
XI- The Era of News Agencies
- They collect information and send then to consumers. Examples of consumers are Aljazeera and New York Times.
- Example of news agencies is Reuters and The French Agency.
XII- The Rise of Reuters
- Reuters Factors: The relationship Between Communication and Capital.
-There is a strong link between Information, communication, trade and the colonialism.
- There is strong link between information and industry.
-Printing was behind the social transitions in Europe.
-There is a link between the flow of information and the rise of power of Empires especial the British Empire.
- Businesses rely on pipelines of information.
I- Geographical Space: A Barrier to Communication
-There is a difference between International and National communication .While the National communication is limited in scope to the national level, the International communication is widespread.
-Information (communication) is everywhere but this type of communication is perspective.
-Moroccan case: even if the Moroccan Magazine TelQuel targets Moroccan abroad, it is still considered a national magazine.
-In order to target an International audience you should publish in English.
-Herald Tribune is an example of International Communication.
-Today, people are trying to change the flow of information form the South to North.
A)
a -Communication has evolved, transforming the world communication.
1 -With faster and more far-reaching communication, important social and political developments occurred because of technology, each interacting and expanding the potential outcome of the other.
b- Cultures created the conditions for communication across great distances.
1- Migrant populations turned to agriculture and commerce, with trade routes extending outward to distant and unfamiliar lands.
2-During the "age of discovery" explorers traveled to the edge of the known world.
3 -Military conquests and religious crusades often resulted in the intermingling of cultures and ideas.
4 -The printing press and telegraph challenged the barriers of space and time.
B-
a- Geography of space:
- Geography was a limitation to communication in the past.
- Nowadays there is no distance because of the flow of information.
-The idea of locality was destroyed by the idea of nationalization.
-The geography of space is destroyed.
b- Geography of experience
c- Spaces of flow.
II- Geography and the Mythical world
1 -Ancient people struggled to control the unexplained events of their lives.
2 -Until relatively recently in history, the vast world beyond one's immediate reach was grasped through magical or metaphysical images.
3 - As a product of fear and imagination, these mythical ideas among ancient cultures were richly symbolic and were accompanied by expression in art, science, language and ritual.
III-Ancient Encounters of Societies and Cultures
1-When Greek and Arab philosophers and mathematicians sought to rise above mythical beliefs and to construct rational models of knowledge; they saw the world as measurable, even suggesting the use of coordinates to divide geographical space.
IV- Global Explorers: Migrants, Holy people, Merchants
-Traders and travelers are informal networks of communication.
- Trade and culture are also means of communication.
V- Mapmakers in the Medieval World
–Mapmaking was an integral part of communication history.
-The information on ancient maps reflected the mapmaker's cultural and religious orientations.
-Maps served several purposes: maritime navigation, religious pilgrimages, and military and administrative uses.
-Maps are important in history for several reasons which include religious, economic reasons.
-Maps were widely considered to be valuable keys to unlocking unknown worlds.
-Maps are still used for the same purposes but the technology is different.
VI-Inventors: Signals and Semaphores
1-Most information technologies were solutions to tangible and immediate problems.
2-The earliest known communication use of a simple signal system over distances employed fires and beacons.
3- Interest in signaling systems among the Greeks was based on potential military purposes.
4- The French, Spanish, and Venetian navies used flag-signaling from their ships.
VII- The Printing Press, Literacy, and the Knowledge Explosion
1- The spread of literacy in Europe after the development of the printing press.
a) The printing press encouraged the practice of reading among common people and the reformation of medieval European institutions, religions, and governments.
b) Books and other printed material eventually sparked social and political changes that gave rise to popular political consciousness and public opinion.
C) New literacy introduced new kinds of social relationships and networks among both learned and common people.
VIII-Scientists and International networks
1- The changing role of international science brought changes in relations between nations.
a) They intermingled both their shared interests and differences through the means of technology.
IX-The International Electric Revolution
1-The scientific innovations of the 19th century launched the world on a path to electrification of industry and commerce.
X-Summary: Global Immediacy and Transparency
1- Communication as a catalyst for many changes in human relationships.
a) Redefinition of space and time.
b) Increasing immediacy and transparency.
XI- The Era of News Agencies
- They collect information and send then to consumers. Examples of consumers are Aljazeera and New York Times.
- Example of news agencies is Reuters and The French Agency.
XII- The Rise of Reuters
- Reuters Factors: The relationship Between Communication and Capital.
-There is a strong link between Information, communication, trade and the colonialism.
- There is strong link between information and industry.
-Printing was behind the social transitions in Europe.
-There is a link between the flow of information and the rise of power of Empires especial the British Empire.
- Businesses rely on pipelines of information.
Chapter 1, Outline
Following the Historical Path of Global Communication
I- Geographical Space: A Barrier to Communication
A-Communication has evolved, transforming the world communication.
1 -With faster and more far-reaching communication, important social and political developments occurred because of technology, each interacting and expanding the potential outcome of the other.
b- Cultures created the conditions for communication across great distances.
1- Migrant populations turned to agriculture and commerce, with trade routes extending outward to distant and unfamiliar lands.
2-During the "age of discovery" explorers traveled to the edge of the known world.
3 -Military conquests and religious crusades often resulted in the intermingling of cultures and ideas.
4 -The printing press and telegraph challenged the barriers of space and time.
II- Geography and the Mythical world
1 -Ancient people struggled to control the unexplained events of their lives.
2 -Until relatively recently in history, the vast world beyond one's immediate reach was grasped through magical or metaphysical images.
3 - As a product of fear and imagination, these mythical ideas among ancient cultures were richly symbolic and were accompanied by expression in art, science, language and ritual.
III-Ancient Encounters of Societies and Cultures
1-When Greek and Arab philosophers and mathematicians sought to rise above mythical beliefs and to construct rational models of knowledge; they saw the world as measurable, even suggesting the use of coordinates to divide geographical space.
IV- Global Explorers: Migrants, Holy people, Merchants
V- Mapmakers in the Medieval World
1 –Mapmaking was an integral part of communication history.
2-The information on ancient maps, reflected the mapmaker's cultural and religious orientations.
3-Maps served several purposes: maritime navigation, religious pilgrimages, and military and administrative uses.
VI-Inventors: Signals and Semaphores
1-Most information technologies were solutions to tangible and immediate problems.
2-The earliest known communication use of a simple signal system over distances employed fires and beacons.
3- Interest in signaling systems among the Greeks was based on potential military purposes.
4- The French, Spanish, and Venetian navies used flag-signaling from their ships.
VII- The Printing Press, Literacy, and the Knowledge Explosion
1- The spread of literacy in Europe after the development of the printing press.
a) The printing press encouraged the practice of reading among common people and the reformation of medieval European institutions, religions, and governments.
b) Books and other printed material eventually sparked social and political changes that gave rise to popular political consciousness and public opinion.
C) New literacy introduced new kinds of social relationships and networks among both learned and common people.
VIII-Scientists and International networks
1- The changing role of international science brought changes in relations between nations.
a) They intermingled both their shared interests and differences through the means of technology.
IX-The International Electric Revolution
1-The scientific innovations of the 19th century launched the world on a path to electrification of industry and commerce.
X-Summary: Global Immediacy and Transparency
1- Communication as a catalyst for many changes in human relationships.
a) Redefinition of space and time.
b) Increasing immediacy and transparency.
I- Geographical Space: A Barrier to Communication
A-Communication has evolved, transforming the world communication.
1 -With faster and more far-reaching communication, important social and political developments occurred because of technology, each interacting and expanding the potential outcome of the other.
b- Cultures created the conditions for communication across great distances.
1- Migrant populations turned to agriculture and commerce, with trade routes extending outward to distant and unfamiliar lands.
2-During the "age of discovery" explorers traveled to the edge of the known world.
3 -Military conquests and religious crusades often resulted in the intermingling of cultures and ideas.
4 -The printing press and telegraph challenged the barriers of space and time.
II- Geography and the Mythical world
1 -Ancient people struggled to control the unexplained events of their lives.
2 -Until relatively recently in history, the vast world beyond one's immediate reach was grasped through magical or metaphysical images.
3 - As a product of fear and imagination, these mythical ideas among ancient cultures were richly symbolic and were accompanied by expression in art, science, language and ritual.
III-Ancient Encounters of Societies and Cultures
1-When Greek and Arab philosophers and mathematicians sought to rise above mythical beliefs and to construct rational models of knowledge; they saw the world as measurable, even suggesting the use of coordinates to divide geographical space.
IV- Global Explorers: Migrants, Holy people, Merchants
V- Mapmakers in the Medieval World
1 –Mapmaking was an integral part of communication history.
2-The information on ancient maps, reflected the mapmaker's cultural and religious orientations.
3-Maps served several purposes: maritime navigation, religious pilgrimages, and military and administrative uses.
VI-Inventors: Signals and Semaphores
1-Most information technologies were solutions to tangible and immediate problems.
2-The earliest known communication use of a simple signal system over distances employed fires and beacons.
3- Interest in signaling systems among the Greeks was based on potential military purposes.
4- The French, Spanish, and Venetian navies used flag-signaling from their ships.
VII- The Printing Press, Literacy, and the Knowledge Explosion
1- The spread of literacy in Europe after the development of the printing press.
a) The printing press encouraged the practice of reading among common people and the reformation of medieval European institutions, religions, and governments.
b) Books and other printed material eventually sparked social and political changes that gave rise to popular political consciousness and public opinion.
C) New literacy introduced new kinds of social relationships and networks among both learned and common people.
VIII-Scientists and International networks
1- The changing role of international science brought changes in relations between nations.
a) They intermingled both their shared interests and differences through the means of technology.
IX-The International Electric Revolution
1-The scientific innovations of the 19th century launched the world on a path to electrification of industry and commerce.
X-Summary: Global Immediacy and Transparency
1- Communication as a catalyst for many changes in human relationships.
a) Redefinition of space and time.
b) Increasing immediacy and transparency.
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