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The description of the Ukraine crisis as an ‘information war’ in recently published studies seems to suggest a belief that the Russian government’s propaganda in the crisis contributed to Russia’s swift annexation of Crimea. However, studies focusing on Russia’s state-controlled media fail to explain how Russian’s narrative spread beyond the ‘Slavic world’. This study, based on quantitative and qualitative analyses of news coverage by ITAR-TASS, Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse over two years, reveals that Russian’s narratives were internationally circulated in news stories published by a western news agency. Although this by no means suggests that the western news agency was complicit in Russia’s propaganda effort, these news stories were published on the most popular online news sites, such as Yahoo News and Huffington Post. These findings highlight the vulnerability of today’s global news gathering and distribution systems, and the rapid changes in relationships between states and corporations in the media and communications industry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reviews the development of Chinese media in Africa since the launch of the going global campaign of China in 2009 to the re-orientation of its charm offensive to charm defensive approach. It looks into the influence of Chinese media organization Xinhua, as well "China Daily" newspaper and China Radio International in the African media market. Avenues for increased interaction and engagement between Chinese media outlets and local communities in Africa are highlighted.

As a consequence of the global financial crisis, many observers expected that the European Union would initiate and spur the reform of global finance. However, it turned out that the European endeavours have only been modest and unassertive so far. This contribution aims to explore this development. It argues that there are various causes of the European defeat, but that it is possible to identify some structural factors which enabled powerful political actors to defend a liberally organized financial market environment: externally, international communication and bargaining processes have been and still are structurally biased towards a liberal global financial order owing to the strong role of global financial centres and the dynamics of competitive deregulation; and internally, the emergence of a new European economy, based on financial market integration and manifold processes of financialization, has brought about fundamental changes of European capitalism as well as of societal and intergovernmental power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the extra- and cross-national journalistic partnership that emerged in 2010 when WikiLeaks, an organization of hackers, formed relationships with newspapers in Europe and the United States to release secret information to the world. It asks: How did news organizations partner with each other and with WikiLeaks? What stories did these newspapers construct out of the diplomatic cables, and what do these stories suggest about the impact of the cross- and extra-national partnership on the national outlook? The study finds that it will take a lot more than cross-national partnerships to erode the nation as journalism's unit of analysis, and argues that the nation as a unit of judgment organizes new journalistic practices in a way that allows it to defend the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this article is to examine what the geopolitics of the Arctic look like as seen from the largest Arctic state. How are narratives about the development of the region received, reworked and produced in a Russian context? We find that Russian policy actors distance themselves from discourses of Arctic conflict and geopolitical competition, and examine how this approach may serve some of Russia's key interests in the region. We further argue that the key tension in the Arctic region is not along the conflict/cooperation axis, but rather lies in the tricky process of delineating between international cooperation and national sovereignty in tackling Arctic problems. In attempting to illustrate the various voices, ideas and interests that shape Russia's policy understanding of the Arctic and its challenges and opportunities, we draw upon a media analysis and a set of qualitative interviews with representatives of the five Arctic states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used content analysis to examine the relationships among Chinese officials' openness strategies at news conferences, foreign reporters' aggressiveness, and the valence of foreign media coverage of the Chinese government. Controlling for the time period and political sensitivity of the topics of news conferences, this study found that the foreign reporters' personal evaluations of Chinese officials were negatively associated with the media coverage valence and that Chinese officials' openness strategies were positively correlated with the media coverage valence and moderated the negative association between reporters' evaluations of officials and media coverage valence. Methodological implications are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As information networks catalyse local incidents into international crises, as global events appear and disappear on multiple screens at an accelerated pace and as a war of images displaces the image of war, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand the rapidly changing nature of global violence within the confines of security studies. Phase-shifting with each media intervention from states to sub-states, local to global, public to private, organised to chaotic and virtual to real—and back again—global violence superpositions into a quantum war that requires new transdisciplinary, transnational and transmedial approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion of soft power in China can be dated back to 1992, the year Nye's Bound to lead was translated into Chinese and published in Mainland China. Chinese scholars urged that restrictions on civil society be lifted, since China's lack of voluntary associations and NGOs drastically hindered the development of citizen diplomacy that could serve as a critical agency in building up China's soft power. In recent years, China's strategic moves in building up soft power in Africa have been well documented, yet it still takes the engagement of Chinese society to eventually exercise that power. In the process of engaging the public, the media play a central role, which is what this article examines. The authors summarise various aspects of China's involvement in Africa since the turn of the century in relation to value sharing and co-identity building, then do a textual analysis of how Chinese media present Africa to their audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic considerations of African communications, media and journalism are in their embryonic stages, to the extent that they trail other strands of engagement within highly dynamic China-Africa relations. Yet, media reporting of China by Chinese, African and global media have been in flux since the inauguration of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000. Three layers of perspective on China-Africa media confluences are discernible: the re-entry of Chinese media into the African media space; China-Africa communication/media scholarship is only now beginning to gain traction; and finally, a distinction can be made between media reporting on China-Africa relations and academic/scholarly considerations. Motivated by these hypothetical perspectives, this article broadly describes and discusses four emerging trends and patterns in China-Africa media links, extrapolating trends in policy documents, recent media reporting and scholarly perspectives on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What exactly is the China-style world order that Chinese officials and intellectual elites have recently been talking about, and how ready is China for it? An examination and analysis of discourses on 'Africa Live' on CCTV Africa, the first overseas news center of China Central Television (CCTV), yields some highly noticeable features and significant themes, confirming that although China has shifted from a low-profile approach to a more assertive one, in an attempt to change the global order, its verbal challenge and sometimes harsh criticism of the American-led international system is accompanied by an obvious absence of a clear vision of what the new world order should be like. This lack of a clear vision may be due to the fact that the Chinese discourse on world order is still a work in progress, constrained by internal practices, and Africa is its testing ground for the construction of a discourse that China envisages as an alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China, in seeking greater engagement with African audiences, has dramatically boosted its potential to shape narratives in ways that can favour its image or interests abroad. Focusing on CCTV Africa, China's flagship efforts to win hearts and minds on the continent, the article explains how this strategy has been pursued not by directly offering an alternative image of China, but by advancing new ways of looking at Africa. The article offers insights into the innovations and contradictions associated with China's increased presence in African media. It examines how the concept of 'positive reporting' is making inroads in Africa, tapping into the narrative of a 'rising Africa' and challenging the Western conception of the media as watchdogs. The article also highlights how CCTV is adapting to liberal journalistic standards, embracing a more aggressive style of reporting to compete for loyalty in a market which is becoming increasingly crowded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the various linguistic uses and contradictions of the word culture in modern period. It says that the word is being used in different perspective including sociology, anthropology, and in daily living. Linguist David Block pertains the dominant use of culture in the social sciences which is said to be adopted by other linguists. German sociologist George Simmel describes the tension between substantive and processural aspects of culture as its tragedy. It mentions that technological developments and globalization have given other definition to the word. It adds that the study of international communication reminds people of its complexity and ethical issues.

The author discusses the highlights of the use of maps, geographic information and global positioning systems. The author mentions the Google maps error between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. He also discusses the geographic information which correlates in mass media. The innovation of academic library of formal government programs for maps is also presented by the author.

This paper discusses the changing temporal contexts of overseas news in Australia's colonial press. The history of overseas news - its timeliness, periodicity and its forms - is enmeshed in international communication history and, specifically, in the history of Australia's changing time/space relations with the rest of the world as new technologies, particularly the telegraph, became available. From the point of view of editors and publishers, these changing relations presented major challenges of time management. More broadly, these changing relations (often thought of as involving time/space compression) progressively altered the temporality of colonial engagement, both imaginary and real, with the rest of the world as knowledge of the 'new' came to be increasingly shared within common timeframes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalistic practice and professionalism across the globe are characterized by certain universals as well as unique particularities. In most post-colonial societies, the ethical philosophies and professional ethos of journalists reflect the tension between the commitment to integrity and social responsibility, shared by journalists worldwide, and the contextual interpretation and application of these principles. This article examines the ethics and ethos of development journalism as a philosophically, culturally, and historically evolving professional ideology. It surveys the ethical landscape of development journalists and shows how development journalists balance the dialectic of a universalist ethical philosophy and a relativistic professional ethos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crucial interaction between humanitarian agencies and the media has been researched in the past but today it continues to evolve and change - and not for the better. This article, drawing on accounts from communications managers working inside the world's major aid agencies (Red Cross, Oxfam, Save the Children, World Vision, CARE and Médecins sans Frontières), examines how communication strategies designed to raise awareness, funds and support have assimilated to today's pervasive "media logic". In the increasingly crowded and competitive field of humanitarian agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) now seek to "brand" themselves in the media; they purposefully use celebrities and produce regionalized and personalized "media packages" to court media attention; and they reflexively expend time and resources warding off increased risks of mediated scandals. In such ways, aid agencies have become increasingly embroiled in the practices and predilections of the global media and can find their organizational integrity impugned and communication aims compromised. These developments imperil the very ethics and project of global humanitarianism that aid agencies historically have done so much to promote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time in history, religion is being discussed for what it truly is - dominant ideology of the most dangerous kind propelled by myth and ritual that is backed by enormous institutional force. In the case of Islam, the ultimate goal is nothing less than a totalizing global hegemony that aims to impose the religion on everyone - the 'ummah'. Terrorism is but the most visible, ragged, sharp edge of a much larger and ultimately more dangerous movement. The hegemony of Western - especially American-Anglo - power and interests has long been recognized and properly criticized. And for now, the policies and rhetoric of George W. Bush and Tony Blair have undermined any remaining moral authority the West might offer. The modern world has been stuck in recent years with the wrong messengers to respond to the Islamists' ambitions. However, what's been dubbed 'TVIII' is about more than simply TV: it encompasses television and the Internet, together with the culture industries and personal communications technologies, all of which can work together to create 'communicational space' where competing hegemonies become much more transparent than ever before. This paper explores why the undetermined, open spaces of global communication offer the greatest hope for a long-term reduction of threats posed by any variety of global power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way video images are edited together to frame stories have historically evolved through news routines from linear to nonlinear (digital) editing contributing, in part, to the globalization of television news. The tape editing process, specifically in Western television newsroom cultures—such as those found in Germany, Britain, and the United States—have historically exhibited different news routines that have seldom been discussed. This research documents the distinctions in one aspect of the news routine: the practices of global newsroom videotape editors and their role in framing news stories. Across borders there were differences in story construction, the shared professional language of the newsroom, the actual story construction routines, the newsroom culture of story construction, and in the historical foundations from which each system developed. Despite the fact that the global newsrooms visited in this study have subsequently shifted to digital editing functions, differences in the routines of tape editors remain and can be linked to their national identity. These differences are most obviously revealed in discussion over the use of sound in the framing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roles of intelligence, communications and signals in crisis decision-making routinely are mentioned in passing but rarely assessed in detail. This study examines these issues in three international crises: the great eastern question, 1877–78, Chanak, 1922 and Munich, 1938, and briefly compares these findings to two others, July 1914 and Cuba, 1962. It demonstrates that intelligence, communications and signals are more problematical in crises than is generally believed. This study challenges the conventional view that crises are essentially something to manage. Instead, it argues, crises are explosive, unpredictable and high in risk, dominated by emotion, factionalization, communication failures, missed signals and unintended consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the development of international networking by Slavic and East European librarians and information specialists, beginning with the 1974 First International Conference on Soviet and East European Studies (Banff, Canada). At first limited to librarians and information specialists from North America and Western Europe, with the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the level of international cooperation among librarians and information specialists dealing with Slavic and Eastern European materials greatly increased. The Tallinn conference of librarians and information specialists was the fifth such quinquennial meeting held since 1980. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Assesses the factors for the minimal media coverage allotted to the activities of the Commonwealth by Great Britain's media. Commonwealth's role in political transformation; Absence of prominent figures in Commonwealth's conferences; Impact of superpower rapprochement and the end of the Cold War; Commonwealth's untapped potentials; Doubts on the Commonwealth's commitment to causes.

Comments on the responsibilities of journalism to the state. Impact of the growth on the availability of books and pamphlets to the middle-class audience on the New World Information Order; Journalists who were known to have lent their talents to further the interests of the state; Arguments concerning the control of news broadcasting; Reason behind the successful international movement aimed at press freedom.

Discusses the role of the United Nations in the new world information order. Purpose of the UN; Activities of the UN; Consequences of the involvement of the UN in all dimensions of interstate conduct.

Discusses the need to decolonize information to give way to a new world information and communication order as of 1982. Colonial legacy; Nature and problems of communication; Government ownership of the media.

Discusses the new world information order (NWIO) as of 1982. Advocates of a new international information order; Background of the United Nations and the genesis of the NWIO; Present news flow of the world.

Introduces a series of articles on the new world information order.

The article focuses on the Committee on World Press Freedom mission of 1945 to support international freedom of the press on postwar era conducted by American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) along with the U.S. States Department and the U.S. Army. It mentions that three delegates, which were assigned by ASNE president, John S Knight, were Wilbur Forrest of "New York Herald Tribune," Carl W. Ackerman of "New York Times," and Ralph Emerson McGill of "Atlanta Constitution." It states that ASNE delegation believed that freedom of the press should be prevented away from any strains of totalitarianism. Furthermore, during the time of mission, Roosevelt administration was already holding a negotiation with the United Nations with topics that also concern freedom.

The article focuses on the function of the hometown radio stations during the year of World War II. It mentions five useful roles of radio stations during the emergency which includes keeping the public informed, encouraging civil defense, and participating in the war effort. It states that the substantial contribution of local radio stations was in the consistency of programs and campaigns by advocating national unity, developing community participation, and providing listeners with patriotism. It adds that radio industry has created a unique and effective style of programs to cope with the perceived needs of the people by giving all its resources.

Focuses on the criticisms against the literature on international news flow and coverage research. Development of theoretical foundations; Problems on research concepts and methodological approaches; Identification of theoretical linkages as factors contributing to the limitations of research tradition.

Much of the complexity in complex emergencies stems from complexes within institutions themselves. This article argues that in the absence of a new world order multiple conflicts are emerging within nation-state boundaries. Such conflicts are difficult to resolve given problems of national sovereignty, and there is a growing role of the media in determining which emergencies get the coverage and attendant political and financial attention. Fiscal constraints and market competition between the many institutions involved in the emergency industry make attaining the required levels of institutional cooperation difficult. As conflicts drain funds away from development, the challenge of facilitating the transition from complex emergency to sustainable development becomes that much more difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information about the book "Global Media Governance: A Beginner's Guide," by Sean O. Siochru, Bruce Girard, and Amy Mahan. The authors of the book manage to maintain their balance between these two goals, institutional as well as political analysis. They are progressive and critical while bringing to bear appropriate evidence to support their interpretations. The arguments they put forward stay close to the evidence they present. To make their point, the authors identify three phases of the evolution of global governance, from the early logic of the industrial revolution, through the rise of the United Nations system and the emergence of new actors and issues such as the new international information order, to the current period where the traditional rules and regulations are under assault as a trade rationale replaces earlier normative assumptions about how international information and communications technology should be governed. They remind the reader of the traditional and modern reasons for regulating media, both as an industry or sector and as a special contributor to social, political, and cultural life.