John Downey - Böcker

Information and communication technologies are said to be transforming urban life dramatically and bringing about rapid economic and cultural globalization. This book explores the many fascinating and urgent issues involved by relating advanced theoretical debates to practical matters of communication with cultural policy. It maps out a range of `optimistic' and `pessimistic' scenarios with special regard to various forms of inequality, particularly class, gender and geopolitical. Topics discussed include urban planning, virtual cities and actual cities, economic and political policy, and critical social analysis of current trends that are of momentous consequence. The book concludes that it is necessary to bring together a number of differently informing approaches, cultural, economic, political and technological, to make sense of a field of dynamic and contradictory forces.

Information and communication technologies are said to be transforming urban life dramatically and bringing about rapid economic and cultural globalization. This book explores the many fascinating and urgent issues involved by relating advanced theoretical debates to practical matters of communication with cultural policy. It maps out a range of `optimistic' and `pessimistic' scenarios with special regard to various forms of inequality, particularly class, gender and geopolitical. Topics discussed include urban planning, virtual cities and actual cities, economic and political policy, and critical social analysis of current trends that are of momentous consequence. The book concludes that it is necessary to bring together a number of differently informing approaches, cultural, economic, political and technological, to make sense of a field of dynamic and contradictory forces.

Appearing more than twenty years after the revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe, this book could not have come at a more appropriate time; a time to take stock not only of the changes but also the continuities in media systems of the region since 1989. To what extent are media institutions still controlled by political forces? To what extent are media markets operating in Central and Eastern Europe? Do media systems in Central and Eastern Europe resemble media systems in other parts of Europe? The answers to these questions are not the same for each country in the region. Their experience is not homogeneous. An international line up of distinguished experts and emerging scholars methodically examine the different economic, political, cultural, and transnational factors affecting developments in media systems across Central and Eastern Europe. Whereas earlier works in the media system tradition have, in the main, adopted the political framework of comparative politics, the authors argue that media systems are also cultural and economic institutions and there are other critical variables that might explain certain outcomes better. Topics discussed range from political economy to gender inequality to the study of ethno-cultural diversity. This unmatched volume gives you the unique opportunity to study the growing field of comparative media analysis across Eastern and Western Europe. A valuable resource that goes beyond the field of media and cultural analysis which media scholars as well as to area specialists should not go without!