"This book analyzes the different ways in which media are being used for community building and it also critically interrogates the concept of community itself. The authors do that from a variety of different perspectives, ranging from fundamental philosophical questions regarding community, to the
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role of journalism, the possibilities of community building on a local, national and global level, online media communities as means of empowerment for marginalized groups, the representation of communities in the media, and the formation of learning communities. Although there is a clear dominance in focusing on the chances and possibilities opened up by the Internet, the role of more traditional media like magazines, radio and television is being examined as well. Both sides, the media representations with the identity positions they offer as well as the interpretations and meaning productions that take place by the users of the media, are taken into account to cover the full range of media as cultural tools of connectivity." (Publisher description)
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"Konfliktakteure setzen weltweit das Internet in zunehmendem Maße strategisch ein. Lokal ausgetragene Konflikte erhalten so eine neue Dimension: Die veränderte Medialisierung führt zu ihrer Ausdehnung in den globalen Cyberspace. Auf der Grundlage ethnographischer Forschungen zu den Online-Aktivit
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äten christlicher wie muslimischer Akteure im Molukkenkonflikt (1999-2002) untersucht die Studie Prozesse der Identitätskonstruktion und Gemeinschaftsbildung im Internet. Die Autorin leistet damit einen innovativen Beitrag zur Konflikt- und Internetforschung und ebnet methodisch den Weg für eine neue Cyberethnologie." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Exploring recent developments in Asian television systems in the context of the continually changing global environment, this book covers India, China, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan. Country-based analyses are preceded by contribution
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s which analyse processes at the regional level. Chapters explore how television in Asia has responded to new threats and opportunities and provide evidence against the view that global forces will destroy national and regional differences." (Publisher description)
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"This introductory text examines television and cultural identities in the context of globalization. It offers a wide-ranging exploration of the central issues of media, globalization, language, gender, ethnicity, cultural politics and identity. At the core of the book are two essential arguments: t
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hat television is a proliferating resource for the construction of cultural identity, and that cultural identity is not a fixed 'thing' but a contingent social construction to which language is key." (Publisher description)
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"Die Beiträge dieses Bandes suchen einen interdisziplinären Zugang zum Verhältnis von Fernsehen und Religion. Aus verschiedenen Fachperspektiven setzen sie sich mit der Frage auseinander, ob das Fernsehen Kommunikationsformen und Funktionen der Religion übernommen hat." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
"Video, War and the Diasporic Imagination is an incisive study of the loss and (re) construction of collective and personal identities in ethnic migrant communities. Focusing on the Croatian and Macedonian communities in Western Australia, Dona Kolar-Panov documents the social and cultural changes t
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hat affected these diasporic groups due to the fragmentation of Yugoslavia. She vividly describes the migrant audience’s daily encounter with the media images of destruction and atrocities committed in Croatia and Bosnia, and charts the implications the continuous viewing of the real and excessive violence had on the awakening of their ethno-national consciousness. The author provides a valuable and unique insight into how migrant cultures are shaped and changed through the reception and assimilation of images seen on video and television screens. Using the combination of close and powerful semiotic analysis of video texts with an informed account of social, political and historical contexts, Kolar-Panov recalls the complex relationships between ethnicity, technology and the reconstruction of identity." (Publisher description)
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"This volume is the first fully comprehensive account of film production in the Third World. Although they are usually ignored or marginalized in histories of world cinema," Third World countries now produce well over half of the world's films. Roy Armes sets out initially to place this huge output
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in a wider context, examining the forces of tradition and colonialism that have shaped the Third World--defined as those countries that have emerged from Western control but have not fully developed their economic potential or rejected the capitalist system in favor of some socialist alternative. He then considers the paradoxes of social structure and cultural life in the post-independence world, where even such basic concepts as "nation," "national culture," and "language" are problematic. The first experience of cinema for such countries has invariably been that of imported Western films, which created the audience and, in most cases, still dominate the market today. Thus, Third World film makers have had to ssert their identity against formidable outside pressures. The later sections of the book look at their output from a number of angles: in terms of the stages of overall growth and corresponding stages of cinematic development; from the point of view of regional evolution in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; and through a detailed examination of the work of some of the Third World's most striking film innovators. In addition to charting the broad outlines of filmic developments too little known in Europe and the United States, the book calls into question many of the assumptions that shape conventional film history. It stresse the role of distribution in defining and limiting production, queries simplistic notions of independent "national cinemas," and points to the need to take social and economic factors into account when considering authorship in cinema. Above all, the book celebrates the achievements of a mass of largely unknown film makers who, in difficult circumstances, have distinctively expanded our definitions of the art of cinema." (Publisher description)
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