IJoC Publishes Special Section on “Global Communication Power: Shift or Stasis”

Posted on July 20, 2016September 29, 2016 by luckusc

IJoC Publishes Special Section on “Global Communication Power: Shift or Stasis”

The landscape of global media is undergoing a creative, technological, economic, cultural, and political metamorphosis that extend the reach of dominant players while simultaneously ushering emerging and alternative players. Guest-edited by Joe F. Khalil and John D.H. Downing, the essence of the question that this Special Section on “Global Communication Power: Shift or Stasis” addresses is whether the current configurations and trends of global communication industries represent significant or superficial change. But precisely what do we mean here by “change”?

Over the past 40 or more years, both policy and research debates have, at times, raged over how “change” should be interpreted. The long-running “modernization,” “cultural imperialism,” NWICO and WSIS debates are among the most prominent examples. Terms such as “cultural hybridity,” “transnational,” “glocal,” even the foreign policy catchphrase “soft power,” have been batted backward and forward.

Two dimensions about the meaning of “change” and “power” have dominated discussion. One, the communication technology gap between the haves and have-nots (whether in nations, regions, or local neighborhoods), and the rest: Has this changed, and to what degree? Two, increasingly visible jostling for territory in global communication space on the part of emergent players (reconfiguration of state international broadcasting, small states big media producers, or ubiquity of social media tools): What does this change in the distribution of communication power?

In this Special Section of the International Journal of Communication, the interdisciplinary contributions of eight original articles, a feature, and the editorial introduction come from respected experts across the planet in their respective fields. They drill down into news, entertainment, advertising, the shift to media use via smartphone, digital “piracy,” state international TV broadcasting, TV format trade, and still further dimensions.

These papers were first presented in a research conference at Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) in February 2015, sponsored by NU-Q and the Qatar National Research Foundation.

We invite you to read these papers that published July 20, 2016 at http://ijoc.org or through the article links below. We look forward to your feedback.

Questioning Global Communication Power – Editorial Introduction
Joe F. Khalil, John D.H. Downing, Northwestern University in Qatar

The 2015 Charlie Hebdo Killings, Media Event-chains and Global Political Responses
Annabelle Sreberny, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), UK

The Changing Geographies of Pirate Transnational Audiovisual Flows
Tristan Mattelart, Université Paris 8, France

Advertising and Media in the Age of the Algorithm
John Sinclair, University of Melbourne, Australia

CCTV News and Soft Power (Feature)
John Jirik, Independent Researcher, Istanbul, Turkey

Al Jazeera’s Complex Legacy: Thresholds for an Unconventional Media Player from the Global South
Mohamed Zayani, Georgetown University in Qatar

Engaging Youth in Low- and Middle-Income Countries Through Chat Apps: Challenges and Opportunities for International News Organizations
Anne Geniets, University of Oxford, UK

Challenging U.S. Leadership in Entertainment Television? The Rise and Sale of Europe’s International TV Production Groups
Andrea Esser, Roehampton University, UK

Vacillation in Turkey’s Popular Global TV Exports: Toward a More Complex Understanding of Distribution
Sevda Alankuş, Eylem Yanardağoğlu, Kadir Has University, Turkey

The Business Push and Audience Pull in Arab Entertainment Television
Joe F. Khalil, Northwestern University in Qatar

IJoC Publishes Special Section on BRICS

Posted on June 28, 2016September 29, 2016 by luckusc

BRICS1

IJoC Publishes Special Section on BRICS

The rise of the BRICS nations is one of the most significant phenomena of the 21st century. These countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa — which represent about half of the world’s population and a substantial proportion of global economic activity, are undergoing rapid economic, social, political, technological, and cultural transitions. Concomitant to internal changes, these nations strive for international recognition, question global norms, aim to reshape global power structures as well as to revise axes of cross-cultural collaboration and economic exchange (i.e., East-West, South-South, North-South).

This Special Section “Building the BRICS: Media, Nation Branding and Global Citizenship”examines media and communicative practices among the BRICS countries to assess how they have negotiated social, economic, political and cultural transitions in recent decades. The essays in this Special Section address three contemporary concerns. The first is the idea of nation branding, which we argue is a rich approach to considering the multifaceted process of how national and cultural identities are undergoing transformation and being communicated in these countries. Thinking about these transformations from the perspective of nation branding allows for greater understanding of the intersection of politics, society and economics. Indeed, the weight of marked economic growth and increased international attention has exerted influence on how individuals of these nations see themselves and are seen. This leads to a second issue of global citizenship — or, how people belong to and participate in the global community. A third point concerns the notion of building, which allows for thinking broadly about the outcomes of transformations that have involved multiple stakeholders and phases. Thus, the articles highlight the tensions and negotiations taking place to define national identities and new international alliances not as a well-defined strategic program but as a dynamic process.

We invite you read these nine articles that published in IJoC on June 28, 2016:

Building the BRICS: Media, Nation Branding and Global Citizenship – Introduction
Hongmei Li, Leslie L. Marsh

Toward a Common Standard for Aid Transparency: Discourses of Global Citizenship Surrounding the BRICS
James Pamment, Karin Wilkins

Strategizing for Creative Industries in China: Contradictions and Tension in Nation Branding
Anthony Fung

Branding Brazil Through Cultural Policy: Rio de Janeiro as a Creative, Audiovisual City
Leslie L. Marsh

Voters Against Public Opinion: The Press and Democracy in Brazil and South Africa
Afonso de Albuquerque

Global Partners or International Spies? A Comparative Analysis of the Russian Media’s Coverage of the Law on “Foreign Agents”
Anna Popkova

Getting in the Game? A Rising India and the Question of Global Sport
Erika Polson, Erin Whiteside

The Global as the Postcolonial: Desire, Identity, and Liminality in Indian Rock
Sangeet Kumar

Road to India—A Brazilian Love Story: BRICS, Migration, and Cultural Flows in Brazil’s Caminho das Indias
Swapnil Rai, Joseph Straubhaar

IJoC Publishes Special Section on “Media Genealogy”

Posted on June 27, 2016September 29, 2016 by luckusc

Media Genealogy

IJoC Publishes Special Section on “Media Genealogy”

Media and communications technologies have increasingly been recognized as central sites and components of contemporary political struggles. Understanding this centrality requires engaging with history to contextualize their emergence and ground the problematics that drove their development and use. The most recent trend in media history — often termed “media archaeology” is too often cut off from contemporary political relevance in a quest to offer rigorous and materialist technical analyses. We ask, “How can media archaeology be politicized?”

Just as Michel Foucault adapted his method of historical investigation from archaeology to genealogy to directly engage the political struggles of the 1970s — specifically the prisoners’ rights and LGBT movements — we suggest that a methodological reorientation in media history needs to take place. Media Genealogy and the Politics of Archaeology, a Special Section of theInternational Journal of Communication, maintains that the field of media archaeology, and media history more generally, needs methodological redirection in order to adequately address issues of power and politics. Media Genealogy investigates how media are imagined as solutions to political, economic, and social problems. And in a related way, it asks how individuals turn to media technologies as a means for personal transformation.

This Special Section, guest-edited by Jeremy Packer and Alex Monea, offers interviews with six contemporary thinkers working at the intersection of media, epistemology, and power who utilize different frameworks and platforms for engaging contemporary politics. Interviews were chosen to directly engage the concerns of media genealogy, namely, what is the relationship between doing media history and engaging with contemporary political struggles.

This Special Section features six interviews and an introductory essay.

Media Genealogy: Technological and Historical Engagements of Power — Introduction
Alexander Monea, Jeremy Packer

Jeremy Packer, University of Toronto interviews Peter Galison, Harvard University

Alex Monea, George Mason University interviews Paul Edwards, University of Michigan

Kate Maddalena, University of North Carolina interviews Chris Russill, Carleton University

Eddie Lohmeyer, North Carolina State University interviews Orit Halpern, Concordia University

Jay Kirby, North Carolina State University interviews Lori Emerson, University of Colorado

Sylvia IV, North Carolina State University interviews Mark Andrejevic, Pomona College

ITID Publishes CPRsouth Special Issue

Posted on June 11, 2016September 29, 2016 by luckusc

cpr south

ITID Publishes CPRsouth Special Issue

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are increasingly pervasive across the globe and are recognized as critical tools for modern economic development. Yet, beyond the recognition of the positive impact of ICTs on economic growth, there is a need to assess how governments and enterprises, particularly in developing countries, can effectively use ICTs to meet broader socioeconomic objectives and particular poverty-reduction strategies.

In the Global South, and in Africa particularly, the absence of public-interest research in the areas of ICT policy and regulation in universities, as well as a lack of think tanks, means there is little independent participation in public-policy processes, even where public consultations take place. Public policy is a result often entirely reliant on foreign experts appointed by governments, multilateral agencies, or aid agencies without local knowledge or with vested interests in particular policy outcomes. While the key elements of an integrated national ICT policy framework are now well-known in a Northern hemisphere context, a simple transposition of “best practice” often results in the adoption of inappropriate policies or inadequate implementation of good policy at the country level in the Global South.

Although the articles in this Special Issue on CPRsouth (Communication Policy Research South) — guest-edited by Alison Gillwald — examine vastly different ICT challenges from diverse perspectives from a range of countries, what is common to all of them is the context of predominantly prepaid mobile communications services that have driven connectivity, particularly for those previously marginalized from communication services in the Global South. Different as their subjects are, each article examines how the deployment of new services, apps, improved methodologies, or governance frameworks could contribute to greater inclusion through more locally appropriate, evidence-based policy and more effective regulation to enhance well-being, livelihoods, democracy, and economic participation. They all address the conference theme of What works, why and how do we know?

We invite you to read this collection of articles that just published on June 10, 2016 at http://itidjournal.org

From Research to Policy Influence
Alison Gillwald

M-money as Conduit for Conditional Cash Transfers in the Philippines
Erwin A. Alampay, Charlie Cabotaje

Policy and Regulatory Challenges Posed by Emerging Pricing Strategies
Enrico Calandro, Chenai Chair

Toward Digital Inclusion: Understanding the Literacy Effect on Adoption and Use of Mobile Phones and the Internet in Africa
Mariama Deen-Swarray

Digital Contradictions in Bangladesh: Encouragement and Deterrence of Citizen Engagement via ICTs
Faheem Hussain, Mashiat Mostafa

The Potential of Mobile Network Big Data as a Tool in Colombo’s Transportation and Urban Planning
Sriganesh Lokanathan, Gabriiel E. Kreindler, N.H. Nisana de Silva, Yuhei Miyauchi, Dedunu Dhananjaya, Rohan Samarajiva

Reimagining How to Govern the Internet (book review)
Indra De Lanerolle

IJoC Publishes 20 Articles in May

Posted on May 31, 2016September 29, 2016 by luckusc

IJoC Publishes 20 Articles in May

The International Journal of Communication (IJoC) has published the following 20 papers in MAY which we’re delighted to share with you. Please click on the article title below to access the manuscript that may be of interest to you.

ARTICLES

Communication Asset Mapping: An Ecological Field Application Toward Building Healthy Communities
George Villanueva, Garrett M. Broad, Carmen Gonzalez, Sandra Ball-Rokeach, Sheila Murphy

Transnational Family Communication as a Driver of Technology Adoption
Carmen Gonzalez, Vikki S. Katz

Leftward Shift, Media Change? Ideology and Politics in Spanish Online-Only Newspapers after the 15-M Movement
Aurora Labio, Antonio Pineda

To Tweet or Not To Tweet: Factors Affecting the Intensity of Twitter Usage in Japan and the Online and Offline Sociocultural Norms
Shaojung Sharon Wang

Starlets, Subscribers and Beneficiaries: Disney, Latino Children and Television Labor
Christopher Chavez, Aleah Kiley

Misperceptions as Political Conflict: Using Schattschneider’s Conflict Theory to Understand Rumor Dynamics
Jill A. Edy, Erin Risley-Baird

Selective Exposure in the Context of Political Advertising: A Behavioral Approach Using Eye-Tracking Methodology
Franziska Marquart, Jörg Matthes, Elisabeth Rapp

“Biased” Systematic and Heuristic Processing of Politicians’ Messages: Effects of Source Favorability and Political Interest on Attitude Judgment
Sungeun Chung, Moniza Waheed

Image Versus Text: How Newspaper Reports Affect Evaluations of Political Candidates
Hajo Boomgaarden, Mark Boukes, Aurora Iorgoveanu

On Migrant Workers’ Social Status in Taiwan: A Critical Analysis of Mainstream News Discourse
Hsin-I Cheng

Increased Efforts by Modern States to Improve their Reputations for Enforcing Women’s Human Rights
Kara Alaimo