"Media Power in Central America is unique in the field, very readable, and tells an exciting story about the relationship between strong commercial media and authoritarian regimes. Rockwell and Janus provide a valuable description and analysis of the history, politics, culture, and economics of the
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print and electronic media in the six countries." (Elizabeth Fox, senior advisor with USAID and the author of Latin American Broadcasting: From Tango to Telenovela)
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"The manual is organised to follow the major phases of the monitoring process chronologically. Its first aim is to present and discuss a possible way of developing a research instrument appropriate for the content analysis of the newspaper press. References throughout the text relate the monitoring
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conducted as a part of manual preparation. The introduction provides elementary information about that research. The second section of the manual deals with the project design. Setting up a monitoring mission is a complex process, which includes methodological considerations that have to be worked out in the initial phase. Along with project objectives, it deals with the formulation of research questions, material selection, sampling and the development of coding instruments. The third section refers to organisation of the monitoring mission itself. It emphasises the importance of training, setting inter-coding reliability procedures and the pilot study. The data collection discussion concludes with control and data preparation for processing. Data processing is a focus of the fourth section. It indicates how raw data is transformed into research findings, and explains procedures of cross-referencing. Once processed, data is ready for interpreting and reporting. The final stage of the research is the report along with a finalised presentation of the major findings in an appropriate form. Its structure follows from the research purposes, and if necessary, there can be more than one report from the project." (Structure of the manual, page 13)
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"The essays collected here capture the richness of current discourse about democracy and cyberspace. Some contributors offer front-line perspectives on the impact of emerging technologies on politics, journalism, and civic experience. What happens, for example, when we increase access to information
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or expand the arena of free speech? Other contributors place our shifting understanding of citizenship in historical context, suggesting that notions of cyber-democracy and online community must grow out of older models of civic life. Still others consider the global flow of information and test our American conceptions of cyber-democracy against developments in other parts of the world. How, for example, do new media operate in Castro's Cuba, in post-apartheid South Africa, and in the context of multicultural debates on the Pacific Rim? For some contributors, the new technologies endanger our political culture; for others, they promise civic renewal." (Publisher description)
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"Drawing on first-hand research in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan and Thailand—and employing comparative examples that include Burma, Malaysia and the Philippines—Duncan McCargo examines the various influences of the media as agents of stability, restraint and change. He also analyses pressures on
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the media from a range of state, non-state and market forces, and sets out to problematize simplistic readings of issues such as media freedom, ownership, partisanship, profitability, regulation and the public interest." (Publisher description)
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"A truly international, authoritative A–Z guide to five centuries of propaganda, in both wartime and peacetime, which covers key moments, techniques, concepts, and some of the most influential propagandists in history. This fascinating survey provides a comprehensive introduction to propaganda, it
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s changing nature, its practitioners, and its impact on the past five centuries of world history. Written by leading experts, it covers the masters of the art from Joseph Goebbels to Mohandas Gandhi and examines enormously influential works of persuasion such as Uncle Tom's Cabin, techniques such as films and posters, and key concepts like black propaganda and brainwashing. Case studies reveal the role of mass persuasion during the Reformation, and wars throughout history. Regional studies cover propaganda superpowers, such as Russia, China, and the United States, as well as little-known propaganda campaigns in Southeast Asia, Ireland, and Scandinavia. The book traces the evolution of propaganda from the era of printed handbills to computer fakery, and profiles such brilliant practitioners of the art as Third Reich film director Leni Riefenstahl and 19th-century cartoonist Thomas Nast, whose works helped to bring the notorious Boss Tweed to justice." (Publisher description)
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