"This is something of a benchmark volume on the subject of publishing and book development in Africa (and in some other developing countries). It contains the proceedings, and reflects the thinking and the deliberations that emerged from a seminar on“Understanding the Educational Book Industry”,
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which was organized by the World Bank in Washington, DC in September 1997. Participants included representatives of publishing houses and book trade associations from both industrial and developing countries, as well as donor representatives with a strong interest in strengthening publishing capacity in Africa and in other parts of the world. The objective of the seminar was to offer World Bank Group staff from education, finance, and private sector development networks with a better understanding of the nature of educational publishing, including the linkages between government textbook policies, the publishing industry, and Bank-financed textbook operations. It also provided an opportunity for some participants to voice their current grievances about the World Bank’s textbook procurement procedures and bidding systems. The book contains over 30 papers which are grouped under four major themes: “Policies for the Long-Term Provision of Educational Materials’” “Finance and Book Trade Issues”, “Procurement, Protection, and Copyright”, and “The Role of Publishing Partnerships”, together with a section on “The Publishing Industry in the Twenty-First Century”. Contributions include papers reporting about the publishing industries in various countries of Africa, in Central and South America, the Caribbean, as well as in Eastern Europe. A record of the discussions that took place follows each section." (Hans M. Zell, Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3d ed. 2008, nr. 1885)
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"In Bad Language, Naked Ladies, and Other Threats to the Nation, Anne Rubenstein examines how comic books—which were overwhelmingly popular but extremely controversial in post-revolutionary Mexico—played an important role in the development of a stable, legitimate state. Studying the relationshi
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p of the Mexican state to its civil society from the 1930s to the 1970s through comic books and their producers, readers, and censors, Rubenstein shows how these thrilling tales of adventure—and the debates over them—reveal much about Mexico’s cultural nationalism and government attempts to direct, if not control, social change. Since their first appearance in 1934, comic books enjoyed wide readership, often serving as a practical guide to life in booming new cities. Conservative protest against the so-called immorality of these publications, of mass media generally, and of Mexican modernity itself, however, led the Mexican government to establish a censorship office that, while having little impact on the content of comic books, succeeded in directing conservative ire away from government policies and toward the Mexican media. Bad Language, Naked Ladies, and Other Threats to the Nation examines the complex dynamics of the politics of censorship occasioned by Mexican comic books, including the conservative political campaigns against them, government and industrial responses to such campaigns, and the publishers’ championing of Mexican nationalism and their efforts to preserve their publishing empires through informal influence over government policies. Rubenstein’s analysis suggests a new Mexican history after the revolution, one in which negotiation over cultural questions replaced open conflict and mass-media narrative helped ensure political stability." (Publisher description)
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"Fox has analysed the patterns of foreign and domestic conflict and accommodation that followed the creation and development of the broadcasting industries in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The book is well organised and Fox's style is compelling. Her work o
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ffers a fresh perspective for understanding broadcasting in Latin America. She identifies two clear trends in the countries studied. In those under non-democratic regimes, the media developed in a highly monopolistic fashion, while in those under democratic regimes, commerical broadcasting was subject to regulation in the public interest and grew within a more competitive context. Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela are cases where the media developed in a highly monopolisitc fashion because there was domestic authoritarian rule. In the cases of Peru and Argentina, there was no accommodation between the media and the state, therefore the media, although commercially operated, failed to develop a monopolistic structure. Likewise, in Colombia the state parcelled out the media among different forces, while in Chile the television channels were placed under the administration of universities. In Uruguay, there was competition among different media groups, none of which was directly linked to the state. The book is able to present an alternative to theories of international relations - which usually minimise differences among countries and overplay economic interests - and focus on the domestic developments that took place within each individual nation." (Media Development, issue 1998-1)
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