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Globalization, Development and the Mass Media gives a comprehensive and critical account of the theoretical changes in communication studies from the early theories of development communication through to the contemporary critiques of globalization. It ex

Arguing that the current crisis has its closest analogy in the years 1914–1945 this contribution locates the origin of the discipline in work on propaganda studies undertaken by Walter Lippmann, Edward L. Bernays and H.D. Laswell. Both ­periods witnessed huge economic shocks within a long period of economic instability and the context of a shift in influence away from one dominant world power. The ­prognosis this parallel offers is a very gloomy prospect when the global hegemon (now the USA) is challenged on all fronts, perhaps even militarily.Mass communication studies (mainstream and Frankfurt School) during this ­earlier period originated from a concern with propaganda's effects and how it had achieved undesirable social outcomes. Cultural Studies may look important from Goldsmiths and Westminster Universities but is marginal from the ­perspective of much of the USA (and the Hong Kong) mainstream academy. Attempts to ­understand new media and the collapse of mass commmunications operate in the shadow of this larger historical shift where existing social relations are tending to shape ­digital media (despite its progressive potential) into reproducing the dominant social order. Dewesternising media studies has not got very far but historical momentum rather than technology per se may be the deciding factor.

This article reviews the authoritarian regimes, and the subsequent transitions to democracy, that existed in Latin America in the last third of the 20th Century. It is argued that, unlike in other cases, the political science account of such changes, usually selfdescribed as "transitology", does indeed fit the evidence fairly well. On the other hand, such an account demonstrably fails to illuminate very important features of the experience, notably the relative lack of change in the ownership, structure and practices of the mass media, which is very strongly marked in television. The same large companies that collaborated with, and benefited from, the authoritarian regimes, are still in a dominant position. At the same time, many of the extreme social inequalities that characterise the continent have either hardly been addressed or have actually been exacerbated. It is therefore concluded that these examples are equally well or better explained by a theory that stresses the degree of social continuity between the different political orders.

The 'propaganda model' of news production in capitalist democracies elaborated by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in 1988 was met with initial hostile criticism and then more or less complete neglect. In the last five years, there has been a renewal of interest, although opinion remains seriously divided. This article adopts a sympathetic stance towards the main ideas of the model, but suggests that there are a number of ways in which in its classical iteration it is insufficiently sensitive to the nature of the pressures and constraints on news production arising from the economic and political realities of capitalist democracy. If one takes account of these complexities and modifies the model accordingly, it is possible to give a much more complete account of processes of news production and to respond effectively to the main criticisms that have been advanced against Herman and Chomsky's views. From this perspective, rather than the tendency towards uniformity predicted by the classical iteration of the model, it becomes possible to account for the real, if limited, variety of news and opinion that are observable features of mass media. It further follows from this account that the majority of ordinary journalists, far from being the more or less willing collaborators in propaganda, are potentially allies of those who wish to build a different and better world.

This article reviews the evidence about ownership of the UK national daily press, and the possibility of new entrants succeeding, in the light of concern about media concentration in European fora. It demonstrates that this market is concentrated and effectively closed and explores why this is so. The article shows that this market is stratified in ways which also display closure and concentration and demonstrates that the existing law is ineffective in preventing concentration. It concludes that the nature of the UK national daily press market results from the natural workings of the free market.

Überblick über die Besitzverhältnisse bei der überregionalen Tagespresse Großbritanniens, soweit diese bekannt sind. Untersucht werden die Erfolgschancen für neue Anbieter auf diesem Markt im Lichte der Besorgnis, die in den europäischen Gremien über Pressekonzentration herrscht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß es sich um einen sehr konzentrierten und auf äußerst effektive Weise geschlossenen Markt handelt und erklären, warum das so ist. Zeitungssterben und Konzentration sind zwingende Folgen der existierenden Marktschichtung und die bestehende Gesetzgebung ist nicht geeignet, der Konzentration vorzubeugen. Der Beitrag kommt zu dem Schluß, daß die Erscheinungsform des Marktes der überregionalen Tagespresse Großbritanniens dem natürlichen Wirken der Kräfte eines freien Marktes entspricht. (UNübers.)