The end of apartheid brought South Africa into the global media environment. Outside companies invested in the nation's newspapers while South African conglomerates pursued lucrative tech ventures and communication markets around the world. Many observers viewed the rapid development of South African media as a roadmap from authoritarianism to global modernity.Herman Wasserman analyzes the debates surrounding South Africa's new media presence against the backdrop of rapidly changin...

This book discusses the growing media engagement between China and Africa from the point of view of both these regions. The rapid increase in Sino-African contact has led to many controversies and debates in the media, often represented in simplistic terms and stereotypes that call for more in-depth scholarly analysis. Not only have the relationship between Africa and China made headlines in the media, but the media itself has also become increasingly central in the exchanges of capital an...

This book investigates the role of media and communication in processes of democratization in different political and cultural contexts. Struggles for democratic change are periods of intense contest over the transformation of citizenship and the reconfiguration of political power. These democratization conflicts are played out within an increasingly complex media ecology where traditional modes of communication merge with new digital networks, thus bringing about multiple platforms for jo...

This timely book presents a multifaceted look at war, media, and propaganda from international perspectives. Focusing on the media's role in global conflicts, prominent authors, journalists, scholars, and researchers provide an insightful overview of the impact of globalization on media practices. They examine the processes behind media coverage of war, sophisticated propaganda techniques, the dynamics of public opinion, and the effects on human affairs and communication. As the book moves...

How can an "ethics of listening" guide the media to contribute to the deepening of democracy in Africa? In Africa, the media plays a significant role in conflict management and resolution. Which conflicts the media report, which are ignored, and how conflicts are represented can have a profound impact on the outcomes. While the media can in some cases ensure the stability of African democracy, critics have pointed out that in other cases, the media actually increases tensi...

A timely and incisive exploration of disinformation and its impact in the Global SouthIn Disinformation in the Global South, media and communications scholars Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales deliver a unique and geographically diverse collection of perspectives on the phenomenon of disinformation as it manifests in the Global South. In many parts of the Global South, coordinated political disinformation campaigns, rumor, and propaganda have long b...

A global analysis of the vastly popular instant messaging serviceKnown by the popular nickname “ZapZap” in Brazil and synonymous with the Internet across Africa and South Asia, WhatsApp has emerged as a major means of communication for millions of people around the world. Unlike social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, WhatsApp offers a closed, encrypted communication architecture that ostensibly limits the reach and exposure of shared content.Wh...

Chapters 2, 3, 5 and 6 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.Community media in South Africa play a crucial role in providing platforms to foster community engagement and address relevant issues. Post-apartheid media reforms established enabling conditions for the sector so marginalised groups could take up a greater role as citizens. Through empirical, analytical and theoretical in...

This book suggests a new explanation for why international peace interventions often fail to reach their full potential. Based on several years of ethnographic research in conflict zones around the world, it demonstrates that everyday elements - such as the expatriates' social habits and usual approaches to understanding their areas of operation - strongly influence peacebuilding effectiveness. Individuals from all over the world and all walks of life share numerous practices, habits, and ...

In The Great Brain Race, former U.S. News & World Report education editor Ben Wildavsky presents the first popular account of how international competition for the brightest minds is transforming the world of higher education--and why this revolution should be welcomed, not feared. Every year, nearly three million international students study outside of their home countries, a 40 percent increase since 1999. Newly created or expanded universities in China, India, and Saudi Ar...

A bold and thought-provoking look at the future of U.S.-China relations, and how their coming power struggle will reshape the competitive playing field for nations around the worldThe Cold War seemingly ended in a decisive victory for the West. But now, Noah Feldman argues, we are entering an era of renewed global struggle: the era of Cool War. Just as the Cold War matched the planet’s reigning superpowers in a contest for geopolitical supremacy, so this new age wi...

For decades, liberal democracy has been extolled as the best system of governance to have emerged out of the long experience of history. Today, such a confident assertion is far from self-evident. Democracy, in crisis across the West, must prove itself.In the West today, the authors argue, we no longer live in "industrial democracies," but "consumer democracies" in which the governing ethos has ended up drowning households and governments in debt and resulted in paralyzing partisan...