"Since September 11, 2001, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many television viewers in the United States have become familiar with Al Jazeera as offering an alternative take on events from that presented by mainstream U.S. media, as well as disseminating anti-American invective. Westerners have
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tended toward simplistic views of Arab newspapers, radio, and television, assuming that they are all under government control and that freedom of press is non-existent. William A. Rugh, a long time observer of the Arab mass media, offers a more nuanced picture of the Arab press as it relates to the political situation in the Arab world today. Although governmental influence over the media is stronger in the Middle East than in Europe or the United States, Rugh argues that there is more diversity in the Arab media than most people in the West realize. In reality, the Arab media are coming to reflect the diversity and wide range of opinions of those within the Arab world itself. In particular, the advent of privately owned Arab satellite television in the 1990s has led to significant liberalization of the media throughout the region. Rugh concludes that a democracy of ideas and voices is slowly growing in the Arab world, and he remains guardedly optimistic about the positive role the Arab media can play in processes of democratization and nation-building." (Publisher description)
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"In these two volumes, readers will find comparative, in-depth essays on the press systems of 232 countries and/or territories. World Press Encyclopedia (WPE) is unique and valuable to users because, in addition to essays on each country’s press system, WPE also contains custommade graphs and stat
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istical tables, as well as regional maps, useful appendices, and an extensive index. This comprehensive, authoritative source of information allows for easy comparison between essays with a standard format or set of “rubrics” used whenever possible (see section titled “Essay Components”). Each essay also features basic data information—such as official country name, literacy rate, language(s), and number of daily newspapers—clearly marked with headings at the beginning of each entry. Additionally, WPE’s contributors include scholars, professionals, and educators from across the United States and around the world; each essay has a byline. Although this is the second edition, WPE has been completely reconceptualized and 100 percent revised from the first edition, which was published in 1982." (Introduction)
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"Radio has played a pivotal role in situations of conflict, crisis, change and development on the African continent. Local radio stations are as important as international broadcasters being both the barometers and agents of change. This text examines African radio broadcast cultures." (Publisher de
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scription)
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"In 1999, Sudan's Arabic periodical press observes its hundredth anniversary. A century before, and one year after the collapse of the Mahdist state (1881–98), the British-dominated “Anglo-Egyptian“ regime (1898–1956) launched an official Arabic-English gazette. Four years later, Lebanese jo
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urnalists founded the region's first independent Arabic newspaper, catering to an audience of Egyptians and Lebanese employed by the new government. These expatriates sparked an interest in journalism among educated Northern Sudanese men, who within a few years of the newspaper's debut were avidly subscribing and contributing to journals." (Abstract)
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"From outbreaks of the flesh eating viruses Ebola and Strep A, to death camps in Bosnia and massacres in Rwanda, the media seem to careen from one trauma to another, in a breathless tour of poverty, disease and death. First we're horrified, but each time they turn up the pitch, show us one image mor
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e hideous than the next, it gets harder and harder to feel. Meet compassion fatigue--a modern syndrome, Susan Moeller argues, that results from formulaic media coverage, sensationalized language and overly Americanized metaphors. In her impassioned new book, Compassion Fatigue, Moeller warns that the American media threatens our ability to understand the world around us. Why do the media cover the world in the way that they do? Are they simply following the marketplace demand for tabloid-style international news? Or are they creating an audience that as seen too much--or too little--to care? Through a series of case studies of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse--disease, famine, death and war--Moeller investigates how newspapers, newsmagazines and television have covered international crises over the last two decades, identifying the ruts into which the media have fallen and revealing why. Throughout, we hear from industry insiders who tell of the chilling effect of the mega- media mergers, the tyranny of the bottom-line hunt for profits, and the decline of the American attention span as they struggle to both tell and sell a story. But Moeller is insistent that the media need not, and should not, be run like any other business. The media have a special responsibility to the public, and when they abdicate this responsibility and the public lapses into a compassion fatigue stupor, we become a public at great danger to ourselves." (Publisher description)
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"Annotated listings of over 4,600 libraries, publishers, booksellers, magazines and periodicals, and major newspapers throughout Africa." (commbox)
"Diese Studie präsentiert eine empirische Analyse des lokalen Bildungsfernsehsystems in der sudanesischen Provinz Gezira, das in den siebziger Jahren mit deutscher Entwicklungshilfe eingeführt und gefördert wurde [...] Auf der Grundlage seiner Erkenntnisse aus dem Sudan argumentiert der Autor, da
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ss das Potenzial des Fernsehens zur Förderung und Beschleunigung der ländlichen Entwicklung in den am wenigsten entwickelten Ländern wahrscheinlich geringer ist als allgemein angenommen. Der Import komplexer und teurer westlicher Fernsehtechnik scheint daher keine erfolgversprechende Strategie zur Lösung der Kommunikationsprobleme der am wenigsten entwickelten Länder zu sein. Das sudanesische Beispiel zeigt außerdem, dass die verfrühte Einführung und Verbreitung des Fernsehens eine Reihe negativer Folgen haben kann, da sie knappe Ressourcen aus anderen Bereichen wie der Presse und dem Bildungssystem abzieht und zu einer wachsenden technischen und finanziellen Abhängigkeit von ausländischen Geberinstitutionen und dem Weltmarkt für Fernsehhard- und -software führen kann.“ (Zusammenfassung, Seite 216)
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"The editors attempt to provide "comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information, in both English and French, on libraries, publishers and the retail book trade, research institutions with publishing programs, book industry and literary associations, major periodicals and newspapers, government a
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s well as commercial printers, throughout Africa, South Africa excepted for the last name group." In all, 4,621 institutions and organizations are represented. Data varies according to the type of organization or institution and completeness and accuracy also vary because, the editors tell us, 45 percent of addresses failed to update their entries or retum the questionnaire. These cases are indicated with a dagger or asterisk. Even so, it provides a formidable amount of information. Librarians proved the best respondents; consequently data about libraries is more likely to be the most complete. Arrangement is alphabetical by country. Appendixes include a subject index to special libraries and to periodicals and magazines, and listings of book clubs, awards and principal dealers in African books in Europe and the U.S. Text is in English and French." (Eleanor Blum, Frances G. Wilhoit: Mass media bibliography. 3rd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990 Nr. 1127)
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"Against a background of the historical, religious, geographical, climatic, political, economic and linguistic factors that make radio and television unique as they affect its development, Boyd discusses broadcasting in the Arab League countries - Egypt, the Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Jordon, North Yeme
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n, South Yemen, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia (omitting Somalia and Mauritania). Egypt and Saudi Arabia are covered in more detail than the other countries. The bulk of the book is taken up with these individual descriptions; an introduction discusses Arab broadcasting in general - its developments, trends and constraints - and concluding sections are concerned with international radio broadcasting in Arabic and with problems within Arab broadcasting. There is a bibliography of printed sources of various kinds and a listing of the author's personal communications. Index." (Eleanor Blum, Frances G. Wilhoit: Mass media bibliography. 3rd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990 Nr. 522)
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