International Communication Gazette current issue

Community Radio in the West: A Legacy of Struggle for Survival in a State and Capitalist Controlled Media Environment

Cammaerts, B. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:02:42 PST

In this article the legacy of struggle by community radio in the West is analysed from a comparative perspective. More specifically, the focus of this article is on Western media policies towards community radio. It is argued that while many community radio discourses, theories and policies are oriented towards developing countries and emerging democracies, community radio stations in the West are often forced to operate in the margins. Case studies on the US, the UK and Belgium are presented. Some influence of distinct regulatory paradigms can be observed, but overall in each of these countries community radio stations have a legacy of struggle for their existence and survival. This exposes the need to account for the distinct nature of community radio in (Western) regulatory regimes. A common thread in the cases being presented is the difficulty involved in (local) community radio legitimating its existence on the FM-band alongside commercial and public broadcasters. Unlike these, community radio movements have little lobbying power and are usually positioned as rogue and unprofessional actors within the broadcasting community. From a democratic perspective emphasizing the importance of participation and civic culture, Western media policies urgently need to create an enabling environment for participatory community radio initiatives.

Development Communication: The State of Research in an Era of ICTs and Globalization

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:02:42 PST

/ Through the technique of meta-analysis, this study investigates the scholarly articles appearing in peer-reviewed online and offline journals that address the topic of communication and development from 1998 to 2007 to determine publication trends in the field. The research was prompted by the sense that development was moving off the research agenda of most communication scholars. This seemed surprising in the era of globalization and it was decided to examine the literature for evidence. The study finds that published studies have moved away from mass communication and toward ICTs’ role in development, that they infrequently address development in the context of globalization and often continue to embrace a modernization paradigm despite its many criticisms. In addition, International Communication Gazette was found to be the only mainstream communication journal to include a significant number of articles on development communication.

Culture and Its Influence on Advertising: Misguided Framework, Inadequate Comparative Design and Dubious Knowledge Claim

Chang, T.-K., Huh, J., McKinney, K., Sar, S., Wei, W., Schneeweis, A. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:02:42 PST

This study reports results from a content analysis of comparative advertising studies published in 11 major journals between 1975 and 2005. In the context of sociology of knowledge, the objective was to determine how we come to know what we know about the relationship between culture and advertising in cross-national settings in terms of competing theories and common methodological practices, and to propose concrete solutions to analytical problems encountered in comparative advertising research. The results show that the framework of existing studies was often misguided and the comparative design inadequate to determine the effect of culture on advertising, leaving the knowledge claim of a causal relationship dubious.

Becoming Pan-European?: Transnational Media and the European Public Sphere

Bruggemann, M., Schulz-Forberg, H. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:02:42 PST

/ Research about the European public sphere has so far mainly focused on the analysis of national media, neglecting a dimension of transnational communication, namely transnational media. These media could serve as horizontal links between the still nationally segmented public spheres and they could be platforms of a transnational European discourse. Four ideal-types of transnational media can be distinguished: (1) national media with a transnational mission , (2) international media, (3) pan-regional media and (4) global media. Within this framework the article analyses transnational media in Europe, showing that a multitude of transnational media have developed in Europe. They have acquired a small but growing and influential audience. Whether transnational media fulfil the normative demands related to the concept of a transnational public sphere remains an open question as some of these media heavily depend on government subsidies and there is a clear lack of research on the European discourses represented in these media.

The Advertising Industry in Latin America: A Comparative Study

Sinclair, J. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:02:42 PST

In the great debate about ‘cultural imperialism’ in the 1970s and 1980s, the advertising industry was singled out as a key mechanism by which the economies and societies of the ‘Third World’ countries were seen to be dominated by the rich countries of North America and Europe. Yet, relative to critical research on the other international communication industries also held to exert such dominance, notably television and news, the advertising industry as such has since been rather neglected. The research presented in this article is based on material gathered by a collaborative team of researchers reporting on the recent state of play within the constellation of interests which make up the advertising industry in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile. The article thus provides a detailed empirical account of the modes in which the advertising industry now binds these leading nations of Latin America into both economic and cultural globalization.