Document details

International Image Markets: In Search of an Alternative Perspective

London; New York: Comedia (1984), 122 pp.

Series: Comedia Series, 21

Signature commbox: 10-International-E 1984

"This is the final report of the research commission "toward a Latin Audiovisual Space." The term "Audiovisual Space" marks the emergence of a new diplomatic vocabulary to indicate the rapid new developments of communication and information systems, particularly television, which demand new strategies, policies and both national and international projects. "Space" indicates geographic boundaries which in this case includes countries speaking French and Spanish or some variation thereof. The report is in four parts: 1) an analysis of the imbalance of the international flows of culture, information, and communications; 2) a linkage between culture and industry to show the main tendencies in the restructuring of the international economy which condition to a large extent the search for audiovisual space; 3) an evaluation of efforts already undertaken to find potential partners and forms of cooperation not only between countries of the North and South, but also South and South; 4) a discussion of the contradictions of reconciling the conquest of foreign markets with the value of domestic expression of national individuality. In the introduction Nicholas Garnham points out this book's relevance to Anglo Saxon reades. He says, "It deals cogently with two of the central contemporary cultural debates, the future of European audiovisual culture and the New World Information." The authors reject the simplistic view that sees the "South as Good and the North as Bad." The individual histories of each country are considered on the recognition that cultural, like economic imperialism, works through the specificities of the local power structure." (Eleanor Blum, Frances G. Wilhoit: Mass media bibliography. 3rd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990 Nr. 711)