Business & Economics

Media reform plays an increasingly important role in the struggle for social justice. As battles are fought over the future of investigative journalism, media ownership, spectrum management, speech rights, broadband access, network neutrality, the surveillance apparatus, and digital literacy, what effective strategies can be used in the pursuit of effective media reform?

Prepared by thirty-three scholars and activists from more than twenty-five countries, Strategies for Media Reform focuses on theorizing media democratization and evaluating specific projects for media reform. This edited collection of articles offers readers the opportunity to reflect on the prospects for and challenges facing campaigns for media reform and gathers significant examples of theory, advocacy, and activism from multinational perspectives.

Media reform plays an increasingly important role in the struggle for social justice. As battles are fought over the future of investigative journalism, media ownership, spectrum management, speech rights, broadband access, network neutrality, the surveillance apparatus, and digital literacy, what effective strategies can be used in the pursuit of effective media reform?

Prepared by thirty-three scholars and activists from more than twenty-five countries, Strategies for Media Reform focuses on theorizing media democratization and evaluating specific projects for media reform. This edited collection of articles offers readers the opportunity to reflect on the prospects for and challenges facing campaigns for media reform and gathers significant examples of theory, advocacy, and activism from multinational perspectives.

In this updated and expanded edition of the acclaimed Economics and Financing of Media Companies, leading economist and media specialist Robert G. Picard employs business concepts and analyses to explore the operations and activities of media firms and the forces and issues affecting them.

Picard has added new examples and new data, and he covers such emerging areas as the economics of digital media. Using contemporary examples from American and global media companies, the book contains a wealth of information, including useful charts and tables, important for both those who work in and study media industries. It goes beyond simplistic explanations to show how various internal and external forces direct and constrain decisions in media firms and the implications of the forces on the type of media and content offered today.

In this updated and expanded edition of the acclaimed Economics and Financing of Media Companies, leading economist and media specialist Robert G. Picard employs business concepts and analyses to explore the operations and activities of media firms and the forces and issues affecting them.

Picard has added new examples and new data, and he covers such emerging areas as the economics of digital media. Using contemporary examples from American and global media companies, the book contains a wealth of information, including useful charts and tables, important for both those who work in and study media industries. It goes beyond simplistic explanations to show how various internal and external forces direct and constrain decisions in media firms and the implications of the forces on the type of media and content offered today.

This selection of essays, articles, lectures, and other writings by Erik Barnouw, dean of American media scholars, chronicles “the phenomenon of old media giving way to new, and then being replaced by them, as the ghosts of old media rise in new forms.” In Media Lost and Found, the sixteenth century will introduce us to early stirrings of photography, as well as the rise of “black lists,” which have a too-familiar ring within our own lifetime.

The collection begins with an article on documentary film pioneer Robert Flaherty. Barnouw then moves to a discussion of his Dutch heritage and its role in Western civilization. This is followed by fascinating accounts of ingenious pioneers of camera obscura and magic lantern phantasmagoria, precursors of the magic of motion pictures. There are lively accounts of Barnouw’s own experiences, an informative brief history of communications breakthroughs, and an examination of the foibles of media censorship. The final articles discuss the importance of Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray and cinematographer Boris Kaufman, brother of Soviet filmmakers Djiga Vertov and Mikhail Kaufman.

In his writing and in his life, Erik Barnouw has been consistently elegant, self-deprecating, affectionate, and redolent of great depths, encouraging us to look for and foster them in our own lives.

For almost forty years, DeeDee Halleck has been involved in a variety of projects that involve media making by “non-professionals.” Her goal has been to develop a critical sense of the potential and limitations of mediated communication through practical exercises that generate a sense of both individual and non-hierarchical group power over the various apparati of media and electronic technology. Hand-Held Visions is a collection of essays, presentations, and lectures that she has written throughout this process.

Halleck starts with a discussion of her own development as a teacher, producer, and an active participant in the struggle for media democracy. She gives the reader a historical first-person perspective on the community-based media movement and a sense of the determination and resolve that have enabled often fragile and much embattled organizations and individuals to survive in a climate dominated by global media corporations that are in direct opposition to their work.

For almost forty years, DeeDee Halleck has been involved in a variety of projects that involve media making by “non-professionals.” Her goal has been to develop a critical sense of the potential and limitations of mediated communication through practical exercises that generate a sense of both individual and non-hierarchical group power over the various apparati of media and electronic technology. Hand-Held Visions is a collection of essays, presentations, and lectures that she has written throughout this process.

Halleck starts with a discussion of her own development as a teacher, producer, and an active participant in the struggle for media democracy. She gives the reader a historical first-person perspective on the community-based media movement and a sense of the determination and resolve that have enabled often fragile and much embattled organizations and individuals to survive in a climate dominated by global media corporations that are in direct opposition to their work.

This selection of essays, articles, lectures, and other writings by Erik Barnouw, dean of American media scholars, chronicles “the phenomenon of old media giving way to new, and then being replaced by them, as the ghosts of old media rise in new forms.” In Media Lost and Found, the sixteenth century will introduce us to early stirrings of photography, as well as the rise of “black lists,” which have a too-familiar ring within our own lifetime.

The collection begins with an article on documentary film pioneer Robert Flaherty. Barnouw then moves to a discussion of his Dutch heritage and its role in Western civilization. This is followed by fascinating accounts of ingenious pioneers of camera obscura and magic lantern phantasmagoria, precursors of the magic of motion pictures. There are lively accounts of Barnouw’s own experiences, an informative brief history of communications breakthroughs, and an examination of the foibles of media censorship. The final articles discuss the importance of Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray and cinematographer Boris Kaufman, brother of Soviet filmmakers Djiga Vertov and Mikhail Kaufman.

In his writing and in his life, Erik Barnouw has been consistently elegant, self-deprecating, affectionate, and redolent of great depths, encouraging us to look for and foster them in our own lives.