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As we approach 100 years since the first deliberate use by a country to broadcast to audiences beyond its own borders via radio, this research describes the state of international broadcasting in t...

This research aims to examine the mediated public diplomacy efforts of the top five international broadcasters to the Arab world, namely the BBC, Aljazeera, Al-Arabiya, Russia Today, and France24 b...

This paper explores sourcing practices in three international broadcasters in Spanish: China’s CGTN Espanol, Iran’s HispanTV and Russia’s RT. Often described as counter-hegemonic, in that the world...

Established in 1982, the Voice of America (VOA) Amharic Service became one of the most popular news outlets for Ethiopians in Ethiopia and Ethiopian diaspora communities across the world. Angered b...

This study sought to determine whether RT employed frames in its reporting on international conflict that would be likely to produce frame effects supportive of Russian foreign policy. Galtung's co...

The BBC World Service, today a respected broadcaster on the global stage, had its origins in the BBC Empire Service of the 1930s. Shortwave radio broadcasts from London explicitly targeted isolated...

Many countries now operate state-funded international broadcasters, communicating directly with foreign publics to promote a variety of foreign policy goals. RT (formerly known as Russia Today) is ...

A leading criticism of American international broadcasting is that the flagship US external service Voice of America (VOA) does not consistently include quotes from US officials, or descriptions of...

This article offers an overview of the literature on international democracy promotion in relation to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It draws on the criteria of process tracing to evaluate the mechanisms, processes and episodes of democratization associated with international democracy promotion in the region. It finds that the literature lacks a clear account of how international democracy promotion relates to conditions for democratization and could pay greater attention to the role of media in either supporting or counteracting democracy promotion activities which impact democratization processes in the region.

This article presents a comparative analysis of how Chinese Central Television (CCTV ) Africa and Al Jazeera English’s current affairs talk shows, both in English, have covered the 2014-2015 West Africa Ebola outbreak from March 2014. The purpose of this study is to broaden the knowledge on the presence of the two international broadcasters that are emblematic of the so-called “media of the South”, through comparing them. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis, this research project finds that Talk Africa ( CCTV ) seems to have adopted a stabilizing role towards a panicking audience during the Ebola crisis, through reassuring the audience, pitting development against disease, providing the example of successful interventions in Nigeria, and showing the direction to a brighter future. The Inside Story ( Al Jazeera ) episodes are structured in a way that is more problem-centred, as most of the scrutinizing questions and discussions are organized around the problems such as the lack of trust from local people, shortage of trained medical personnel and the social cost of the deadly epidemic, leading to straightforward technical explanations and factual or individual observations, leaving the journalists little room to mold any ideological opposition. With Inside Story, there is a problematic under-representation of the African voice in the studio, suggesting a source hierarchy that may jeopardize its self-claimed role as being the voice of the South.

Researchers have often overlooked transnational media due to a perceived lack of outlets and audiences that are truly transnational in scope. For communication scholars who examine the European Public Sphere, the dominant paradigm currently focuses on the “Europeanization” of national public spheres. While this approach has yielded important insights, the last 20 years have seen the proliferation of transnational media outlets, two of which are based in Europe. This paper focuses on the means by which one such media outlet, France 24, constructs and maintains a public sphere that is transnational in identity and reach. This is illustrated through a framing analysis of the France 24 program, Talking Europe, where our findings indicate that pan-European broadcasters simultaneously construct audience identification with national and transnational public spheres, by presenting frames of integration, harmonization, and solidarity. Ultimately, the analysis underscores three important outcomes: (1) transnational...

Social media platforms provide world governments with the opportunity to distribute news content from their broadcast channels directly to foreign publics [Wallerstein, I. (1974). The modern world system. New York: Academic Press] World System Theory, which has successfully explained and predicted the structure of international news flow, is now being challenged. Specifically, these social platforms undermined assumptions regarding the one-way flow of information toward audiences and the exclusive institutional nature of the players in the international system. This study examines the unique case of government-sponsored news media and its international news flow. It finds that while the structure of the international news flow on Twitter exhibits a hierarchical core–periphery structure, non-institutional actors (e.g. bloggers) conformed less than institutional players (e.g. governments and news media) to that structure. This study also found that non-institutional actors assumed the role of bridgi...

In this article, we borrow from microeconomic theory of market interventions to conceptualize international broadcasting as a form of information intervention. Using Price's market for loyalties model, we explore the US's Middle East Broadcasting Network and Qatar's Al-Jazeera Network, identifying how both governments are using new and traditional information technologies to compete for influence, and highlighting both effective and ineffective strategies.

Given the potential importance of television in divided societies, it is surprising that the near-universal availability of Ireland's national station, RTE, in the north-eastern corner of Ireland has only recently been achieved. This was facilitated by the new political arrangements in Northern Ireland and by the final switch-off of analogue television signals across the UK and Republic of Ireland. Why was progress on this issue so slow? Did television have a role to play in promoting tolerance and mutual understanding between the people of Ireland? The issue has played out against the backdrop of the turbulent politics of Northern Ireland and wider Anglo-Irish relations, international broadcasting regulation as well as commercial and rights considerations. This article charts the changing political, legal and technical circumstances that now allow widespread free access to RTE television in Northern Ireland after a seemingly interminable period of gestation. This marks the achievement of a long-h...

This article examines the war of ideas under conditions of asymmetric conflict, focusing on how advantages are achieved through the pioneering use of techniques not available to the other side, and how weaknesses are turned into strengths. Deploying an analysis based on competitive entry into markets for loyalties, the article categorizes the ways groups excluded from national debates can break through and substantially change the distribution of allegiances in a target audience. Four cases are considered: (1) a weak player struggles to enter a marketplace in which entry is strongly regulated; (2) a strong external player seeks to enter or alter a weakly regulated marketplace; (3) a strong state uses asymmetric techniques against another strong state; and (4) weak players struggle to enter a weakly regulated marketplace.

The traditional model of public diplomacy through broadcast media is being fundamentally disturbed by a significant increase in the number of nations committed to international broadcasting and the diffusing effect of digital media. Australia has been committed to international broadcasting for over 70 years and through Radio Australia and Australia Network television engages with some 46 nations in the Asia Pacific. But in the context of diverse audience expectations, values and traditions, how effective is this engagement? The Confucian and Islamic values of much of Asia and the Melanesian and Polynesian ethos of much of the Pacific contrasts with views of the world from Melbourne and Sydney. Principal considerations in the practice of Soft Power are the notions of attraction and persuasion. Australia has had modest success as a Soft Power practitioner. In this lecture Murray Green provides a roadmap for Australia's media engagement in the Asia Pacific in the light of current thinking about pub...

Overseas broadcasting during the Hungarian uprising indicated a new phase in the relationship between the media and the international events they report. Mapping the course of the uprising for Hungarian and global audiences alike, the western radios occupied multiple broadcast, diplomatic, and cultural terrains. The anti-communist rhetoric of their output allied to their perceived influence on listeners behind the Iron Curtain made the Hungarian uprising a cause celebre of international broadcasting: one that revealed both the strategic significance of cold war radio as well as the limits of its use as a tactical weapon.

The U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, also known as the Smith-Mundt Act, is a mostly unknown and widely misunderstood piece of legislation. Revised multiple times, the law bans domestic dissemination of Voice of America and other U.S. international broadcast content in the United States. Presenting government-supported international broadcasting as an example of public diplomacy, this article discusses the long-term misrepresentation of Smith-Mundt's original intent and highlights the consequences of the continuing ban. The article considers prospects for ending the ban and emphasizes potential opportunities presented by its elimination, concluding that ending the ban might eliminate incongruity between American foreign policy goals of democracy promotion and the reality of banned domestic content. Repeal of the ban may also result in unexpected remedies for challenges facing the American media industry and the American public's desire for international news. The United States governm...

As a public diplomacy tool, transnational journalism (principally broadcasting) has long had appeal to governments. It is a relatively efficient and inexpensive way to reach potentially vast audiences throughout the world with messages that presumably possess added credibility when wrapped in the trappings of journalism. Non-state actors, including media organizations themselves, may conduct their own versions of public diplomacy. New communication technologies have led to an expanded number of players in this field and to an even larger audience, which has gradually become more sophisticated and less credulous. Broadcasters are no longer just broadcasters. The most creative among them use Internet-based media to enhance their reach and influence. For purveyors of public diplomacy to earn and maintain the trust of the publics they seek to reach requires an adherence to established principles of journalism, more specifically those of foreign correspondence. If this occurs, a new genre of international repo...

This article is an examination of the current state of U.S. broadcasting to Iran. It also gives an overview of the structure of U.S. international broadcasting. The author illustrates how under the Bush administration, Radio Farda and Voice of America Persian TV were held accountable for helping to destabilize the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, critics, including those in the Pentagon and a number of congressional members, doubted the capacity of Radio Farda, in particular, to carry out such a purpose because of its entertainment focus. Contrary to self-professed declarations of independence and free and objective journalism, the author argues that the U.S. government uses strict editorial control to restrict its broadcasting entities within the boundaries of its foreign policy objectives.

More than any other single individual, Sydney W. Head created the modern academic field of electronic media teaching and research. Although many others wrote earlier textbooks or undertook important research, Head's (1956) Broadcasting in America provided a broader and lasting scholarly basis for the analysis of radio and television's development and impact. It appeared in the midst of his 1955 to 1957 term as the first president of the new Association for Professional Broadcasting Education (APBE), predecessor of today's Broadcast Education Association (BEA). His landmark book, which went through nine editions over 4 decades, was later joined by Head's other pathbreaking books in broadcast programming and international broadcasting. An Active Life Sydney Warren Head, the elder of two sons of Albert and Catherine Riley Head, was born in London on October 9, 1913. The family emigrated to the United States in 1920, and Head grew up and attended schools in Springville (outside of Sacramento) and then Palo Alto, California, where he graduated from high school. For 2 years he attended what is now San Jose State University. For a time during the depression of the 1930s, Head worked (first on a road crew and then as a fire lookout) in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal agency providing outdoor employment for young men. A family friend financed his further education, and Head took both his undergraduate (1936) and master's (1937) degrees in theater at Stanford University. He began his long fascination with acting with the newly founded Palo Alto Community Theatre in 1933 and became lifelong friends with the director and his musician and choreographer wife. His M.A. thesis offered a textual history of Shakespeare's Henry IV (comparing the Quarto of 1600 with the Folio of 1623). After serving as technical director of the University of Colorado's theater in 1937-1938, Head took up duties teaching English, speech, and drama at the University of Miami in 1938, where he soon developed the school's first courses in radio broadcasting. Deciding to pursue an academic career, he began working toward a Ph.D. in theater and broadcasting at the University of Iowa in 1941-1942, but further study was interrupted by the coming of war. Beginning in the fall of 1942, Head was trained as an Army enlisted signals intelligence specialist, based in Washington, DC. As he already understood German, he studied Serbo-Croatian and Japanese, eventually doing top-secret traffic analysis of enemy radio communications. In April 1945 he shipped out from Seattle to Honolulu on a ghastly troopship voyage (his vivid description of this trip survives). Later that year Head returned to his theatrical experience, serving as a director and actor with the Maurice Evans "soldier show" unit into early 1946, when he left the Army as a staff sergeant. Head returned to the University of Miami to found one of the country's first freestanding departments of broadcasting in 1946, serving as well as director of broadcasting and film services for the university. He managed to find time to continue with some acting on the side. His teaching duties helped to focus his doctoral work and in 1952 he was granted his Ph.D. in mass communications at New York University, with a dissertation (under the supervision of Professor Charles A. Siepmann) on "Television and Social Norms: An Analysis of the Social Content of a Sample of Television Dramas." An article drawn from it--his first broadcasting-related publication--appeared in The Quarterly of Film, Radio, and Television (Head, 1954). Head continued his administrative and teaching duties at the University of Miami until 1960 when he was named to head a National Association of Educational Broadcasters (NAEB) three-man team studying the role and potential of educational radio services in the Sudan from 1961 to 1963, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Under a series of different grants and agencies (including a Fulbright award), Head remained in Africa for the rest of the decade, spending most of his time in Ethiopia, with some periods in Somalia, the Sudan, and Ghana. …

As some countries discontinue or cut back on the use of international broadcasting, the United States continues to develop and use its international radio broadcast resources such as Radio Sawa, taking advantage of new technology and programming formats. By applying systems theory to the framework of facilitative communication, this article illuminates the U.S. government's use of Radio Sawa and the overall nature of U.S. government broadcasting efforts to reach young Middle East audiences. The research shows that Radio Sawa does not operate in a vacuum but is affected by many systemic influences, including the U.S. government, intermediaries such as the Broadcasting Board of Governors and Middle East Television Network, a complex audience, and environmental forces such as technology, political events, and economics.

For most of the 20th century, international broadcasting was characterized by state-run broadcasts carried over shortwave radio. Such broadcasting was at the core of the Cold War and World War II, as well as the decade leading up to World War II. After the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the geopolitical context that had structured international broadcasting for so long dissolved, allowing for the possibility of significant changes in international broadcasting. One of these changes since the end of the Cold War is the development of Web radio. The year 1995 marks the point when broadcasting over the Web began in earnest. Included in this movement were a number of the primary broadcasters who had been, and still were, active in international shortwave broadcasting. Then, in 2001, after gradually reducing shortwave output to North America, Australia, and New Zealand, the BBC World Service terminated official shortwave broadcasts to these areas. In place of shortwave, listeners were directed to rece...

How does one win media wars? A member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors since its inception proposes seven pillars of a strategy to make international broadcasting, a previously overlooked dimension of foreign conflict resolution, more effective.

This article tracks how the US is adapting its public diplomacy architecture to suit the needs of the information age. The areas of public diplomacy used to influence foreign target audiences are media diplomacy, public information, internal broadcasting, education and cultural programs, and political action. The agencies involved are the State Department, the International Broadcasting Bureau and the National Endowment for Democracy. Key features are the use being made of the Internet as a major tool for information dissemination and interactive communication between US public diplomacy practitioners and their target publics and the 'deep coalitions' being fostered with civil society actors to shape the norms and values of the post Cold War. This strategy is described by Arquilla and Ronfeldt as 'noopolitik' as opposed to state-centred realpolitik. Noopolitik emphasises the shaping and sharing of ideas, values, norms, laws, and ethics though soft power and is recognised by its authors as being very simil...

Distance education is expanding rapidly and has special relevance for gerontology with its adaptability to different settings, its learner-centered convenience, its cost-effectiveness, and its appeal to nontraditional students. We evaluated the national and international use of Growing Old in a New Age, the first telecourse and public broadcasting series on gerontology. Overall results indicate that the telecourse is an effective instructional tool across higher education, community agencies, non-profit organizations, and international broadcasting settings. We discuss the incorporation of suggestions for change from the study into the ongoing development of the telecourse and suggest ways that interactivity and emerging online technology can be integrated in distance learning to produce a more effective instructional approach. Developing a model for integrating the strengths of in-class, online, and telecourse elements may prove more useful than debating their relative merits. Future directions for resea...

John Zondlo. Discovering Dxing! How to hear distant AM, FM & TV stations (2nd ed.). Reynoldsburg, OH: Universal Radio Research, 1998. Chris Weigant. Careers as a Disc Jockey. New York: Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 1998. Michele Hilmes. Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922–1952. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Robert J. Brown. Manipulating the Ether: The Power of Broadcast Radio in Thirties America. Jefferson, NC, 1998. Tony Jones, editor. International Broadcasting Services, Ltd. Passport to Web Radio (2nd ed.). Penn's Park, PA: IBS North America, 1998. Joanna R. Lynch & Greg Gillispie. Process and Practice of Radio Programming. Lanham: University Press of America Inc., 1998. Tim Crook. International Radio Journalism: History, Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 1998. Michael B. Kassel. America's Favorite Radio Station: WKRP in Cincinnati. Bowling Green, OH: Popular Culture Press, 1993. Robert L. Hilliard and Michael C. Keith. Waves of Rancor: Tuning in the Radical Right. Armon...

The advent of international satellite television broadcasting, including the satellite‐to‐cable services which are now proliferating in several countries of the world, represents a qualitative leap in the nature of broadcasting. Satellite distribution is a literally ‘international’ medium in which signals can not only spill across neighbouring borders, but reach audiences spread over entire world regions and even link diasporic communities on different continents. The concerns raised by various countries about national sovereignty and their attempts to control reception are well‐known, but dishes and cable systems have flourished, and international and regional services are leasing new transponder capacity faster than operators can get their satellites into orbit. In this new satellite business, language and culture are emerging as powerful forces in making and breaking world‐regional markets. Thus, in contrast to the large degree of regional integration in Latin America, thanks to its linguistic and cult...

This historiography study of international syndication strategies in the Americas, focusing on Mexican broadcasting, traces and analyzes the development of Mexican broadcasting and its powerful influence on the history of Spanish‐language television in the U.S. The successful international syndication strategy of Mexican media magnate Emilio Azcarraga Vidaurreta strongly influenced Spanish‐language television both in the U.S. and in Mexico. Azcarraga Vidaurreta's syndication strategy was merely an extension of his Mexican broadcasting plan, which he introduced in the 1920s. This same strategy is used today by such media giants as Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch.

In this article, I examine the economic environment that will shape future efforts to deliver television news to multinational audiences in a common format. I distinguish international, multinational, and global television and assess the development of these three categories. On the basis of data from the television business press, supplemented by a selection of interviews with executives involved in international broadcasting, I conclude that the new technological and regulatory environment of the 1980s has, in complicated ways, served to strengthen national broadcast systems rather than simply to unify separate markets.

This paper looks at the role of India’s national broadcaster, Doordarshan, in reporting on the war in Iraq. It looks at the channel–s strategy in terms of logistics and presentation, and discusses the significance of its perspective and contribution to the arena of international broadcasting.

Within the South Pacific Island Nations (SPINs) isolation is a fact of life. Thus Pacific islanders are heavily dependent on overseas media, particularly the news and information transmissions of t...

Dr. Browne is a long‐time member of the speech‐communication faculty at the University of Minnesota, and has often contributed to the Journal in the past, usually on foreign and international broadcasting topics.

Some portion of the international broadcasting of many governments consists of responses to criticisms by political adversaries. The regime of the Republic of South Africa has long been the object of verbal attack, particularly since 1948 when the National party came to power, extending and formally institutionalizing the policies of apartheid. This study explored the rhetorical strategies recently employed by the South African government in its radio broadcasts responding to worldwide condemnation of its domestic and international policies.

Hans Brack's The Evolution of the EBU through its Statutes from 1950 to 1976 (Geneva: European Broadcasting Union, 1976-25 Swiss francs, or about $7.00, paper) A Guide to Research Materials on Thailand and Laos (Asia Library Services, P.O. Box C Auburn, N.Y. 13021, 1977—$10.00, paper) David M. Abshire's International Broadcasting: A New Dimension of Western Diplomacy (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1976—$3.00, paper) Heinz-Dietrich Fischer, Klaus Detlef R. Breuer and Hans-Wolfgang Wolter. Die Presseraete der Welt. Struktur, Finanzbasis und Spruchpraxis von Medien-Sdbstkontrolleinrichtungen im internationalen Vergleich (The World's Press Councils. Structures, Financial Basis and Jurisdiction of Institutions of Media Self-control) M. Koetterheinrich, Y. Neveling, Y. Paetzold and H. Schmidt (eds). Rundfunkpolitische Kontroversen. Zum 80. Geburtstag von Fritz Eberhard (Controversies in broadcast policy. "Festschrift" for Fritz Eberhard on the occasion of his 80th birthday) Winfried Schulz. Die Kons...

Ion Trewin's The Professions: Journalism (North Pomfret, Vt.: David & Charles, 1976—$9.95) Charles Husband (ed.) White Media and Black Britain: A Critical Look at the Role of the Media in Race Relations Today (London: Arrow Books, Ltd., 1975—about $3.50, paper) Peter Douglas' Television Today (London: Osprey Publishing, 1975—about $9.00) Louis L. Snyder's Encyclopedia of the Third Reich (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976—$24.95) Leo Bogart's Premises for Propaganda: The United States Information Agency's Operating Assumptions in the ColdWar (New York: Free Press, 1976—$12.95) Marcellus S. Snow's International Commercial Satellite Communications: Economic and Political Issues of the First Decade of Intelsat (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1976—$16.50) Charles Sherman and Donald Browne (eds) Broadcast Monographs No. 2: Issues in International Broadcasting (BEA, 1771 N. St. NW, Washington D.C. 20036—$5.00, with a $4.00 price to BEA members, paper) Access: Technology and Access to Communications Media by B.R. W...

Direct broadcasting satellites are sometimes seen as a means to solve problems of congestion and interference in international broadcasting. Problems suggest that DBS‐audio cannot be employed for several decades. Technological problems include lack of emphasis on radio receiver development, trends toward higher fidelity, lack of adequate power supplies in many countries, and high development costs. Political problems include fears of transborder communication, domestic priorities for use of potential frequencies, and claims of ideological aggression. Economic problems include the cost of creating a suitable transmission system, worldwide economic difficulties, and consumer preferences for audio systems.

The use of acronyms is one of the marks of 20th century politically literate man, much as his analog of a century before might be expected to know and use enough Greek and Latin to construct (at the least) epigrams on the characters and characteristics of the day. There are a number of writers (including this editor) who delight in constructing acronyms that are at best descriptive, usually “cute,” and at worst scatological. However, most acronyms develop because it is easier to use initials than the whole name for some organization or institution. This is particularly true of the field of international broadcasting, where it also is possible for confusion to develop because of the varying names for a given organization in various languages. The following list is not exhaustive, and if readers of the Journalwish to contribute additional “initials” in this field, they should send them to the Editor. Dr. Charles E. Sherman is assistant professor and Mr. F. Kim Hodgson is a graduate student in the radio‐tele...

Although there are numerous international organizations of a technical nature in the field of communications that have managed to remain remarkably apolitical for many years (the International Telecommunications Union and the Universal Postal Union both had their genesis more than a century ago), it is obviously unrealistic to expect a regional association of sovereign nations organized for a specific technical purpose not to reflect the strains and pressures of the larger international political arena. European broadcasting is no exception, and few today are aware of the sometimes violent changes in broadcasting associations that followed the rise and fall of Hitler and the developments of the “cold war” between eastern and western Europe. In the following article, the metamorphosis of the continent‐wide International Broadcasting Union into the Soviet‐bloc International Radio and Television Organization and the west‐Europe European Broadcasting Union is explored in detail. Dr. Charles E. Sherman is Asso...

Unlike a telephone or telgraph cable, a broadcast, once sent out over the air, can only be “stopped” at the receiving end. If the potential listeners have radio receiving sets able to pick up the broadcast, it can only be stopped by causing such radio interference as to make it difficult or impossible to listen to the original broadcast. Over the years, several nations have assumed the large cost of producing such interference, or “jamming,” so as to prevent their citizens from listening to the broadcasts of other nations. An expensive and often inefficient technique, jamming was then believed preferable to allowing unrestricted and uncensored international communication by radio. Mr. Ranjan Borra, who was associated with All India Radio and with the Voice of America for several years and is currently on the staff of the Library of Congress describes both the background and some of the encouraging recent developments in the field of jamming and other impediments to international broadcasting.