Back
Global Media Governance Book Launched in Geneva
3 Mar 2003
Global Media Governance - A Beginner's Guide
A Press Conference was held on 25 February 2003 at the International Conference Centre in Geneva to launch UNRISD's new book titled Global Media Governance: A Beginner's Guide. One of the authors, Seán Ó Siochrú, Director of Nexus Research in Dublin, Ireland, presented the book to the media.
Global Media Governance - A Beginner's Guide is about media governance at a global level and the key influencing forces and elements. Governance encompasses regulation, and questions addressed include: Why do we regulate the various media at all? What currently are the major forms of global regulation, and how do they work? Who participates in, and who benefits from, media regulatory and governance structures? And what are the trends?
People interested in the media and their progressively rising influence over so many dimensions of society will sooner or later find themselves confronted with these questions. This book is intended as an aid to such an interested reader. It does not pretend to answer all the questions, but it does at least raise most of the key ones and points in directions where more complete ones can be found.
This book is divided into three parts.
Part 1 explores the overarching issues of governance and globalization in the context of media industry and media convergence. Its three chapters set the scene for the rest of the book in three areas: media regulation and the forms it takes at the national level; governance in general and how it has emerged at an international level; and the main trends and dynamics driving the media themselves.
Part II provides an overview, in five successive chapters, of key institutions of media global governance. It is primarily descriptive rather than judgemental, and reviews their history, describes their functions and structures, and analyses their central dynamics as they relate to the media.
Part III synthesises, summarizes, and looks to the future. In three chapters, it provides an overview from several perspectives of current global regulatory mechanisms that impact on the media; it looks at the governance of these instruments, focusing especially on their adequacy in terms of democratic principles; and it describes two realistic but contrasting scenarios for the future.
Sean O Siochru is co-founder and director of Nexus Research in Dublin. Bruce Girard is a media worker and researcher at the Delft University of Technology. Amy Mahan is a researcher at Delft University of Technology.
Global Media Governance - A Beginner's Guide is co-published with Rowman and Littlefield under their series Concepts in Critical Media Studies. ISBN 0-7425-1566-4
For orders and information, please contact the publisher: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706, USA.
Information compiled by Nicolas M. L. Bovay, UNRISD Information Officer. All questions regarding this title should be addressed to him.