Global Communication and World Politics: Domination, Development, and Discourse

by Majid Tehranian

This work charts a conceptual framework for understanding emerging patterns of global politics and communication. After tracing the evolution of the world system, the author then draws out its... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555877087
• ISBN13: 9781555877088
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
• Length: 212 Pages

Customer Reviews

Global dialogue for a global peace

Tehranian marshals a very large set of materials in some very interesting and inspiring pieces of writing. He skillfully examines the consequences of combined globalization and fragmentation of the world. The fragmentation of the world is obvious in former Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and some African and Asian states. However in Europe and all over the world there is global trend in regionalization and globalization of trade and communication. The most apparent of that are NAFTA, ASEAN, APEC and EU.Teharanian¡¦s proposal on global dialogue for a global system with Assembly of People and Assembly of States is reasonable. However, it will take a lot of time, relentless effort and continuing dialogue. One justification for this is in the war to peace like the civil war of Cambodia ended with the dialogue not with the fighting. The war in China in which Chinese Republic (Taiwan) and Communist China (China Mainland) seek to eliminate each other doesn¡¦t seem to have a happy ending yet. It is also true for the world at large. I think the fragmentation of the world is not necessary bad. According to Mao¡¦s theory of identity the world will gain identity through the differences between fragmentation and globalization.Tehranian argues that the latest phase of domination in world politics is ¡¥informatic imperialism¡¦, in which the control of knowledge industries and information channels are keys to power. He also reveals the fact that this powerful mean of domination is distributed unevenly among the countries in the world, only rich industrialized countries possess it. This is the fact of our world. Is there any way out? Can information be used to free people mind and help them get their voice out?The author argues that global communication offers means of ¡¥cultural and political resistance against globalist hegemonies¡¦, so there is a recognition of the contradictory nature of media transformation. On one side of the coin the control of information and media helps ¡¥informatic imperialism¡¦ to extend the power and global reach. But on another side of the same coin, the democratization of information helps to inform people and bridge the informative gap between the poor and the rich ghettos. Ong argues in his book ¡§Literacy and Orality,¡¨ that the alphabetization of Greece and proliferation of printing press democratize the literacy. In the same token the globalization of communication technology ¡§informate¡¨ the world¡¦s poor as well as the world¡¦s rich. Tehranian is aware that in order to redress the imbalance among economic, political and cultural globalization to avoid global apartheid international communication should turn from the discourse of mutual exclusive and recrimination into a dialogue for mutual engagement.As a conclusion, this book is an excellent read for student majored in International Communication, International Relation or International Politics. It can be used as a good text book for graduate level course in the fields.

Summary of this book

The New World OrderTehranian suggests five theoretical conceptual frameworks of discourse, which are Realism, Liberalism, Marxism, Communitarianism, and Postmodernism. The theme of the discourse is international relationship, and each adds some new concpets to its prior doctrines. Tehranian argues that global communication historically broadens the discourse from the five schools of thought. However, there is inequality of teledensity between undeveloped and developing countries. Tehranian suggests that theory building in international relationships require more multicultural dialogues in order to build bridges among the competing cultural constructions of world conflicts. In the new global order, Tehranian agrees with Huntington, who says that a Confucian-Islamic connection has emerged to challenge Western interests, value, and powers. China, as the biggest market in the 21st century, cannot be ignored economically in the new global order (p. 44). Tehranian suggests that the U.S. has a dual policy toward the problem of China, so that China¡¦s most-favored-nation status has became hostage to its human right record. To compete with the hegemony of the U.S., China and Russia are forming a new strategic alliance.Tehranian examines the development of the process of modernism and he suggests that the conflict among the premodern, modern, and postmodern is part of the cultural landscape of a developmentally uneven, historically schizoid contemporary world (p. 53). He concludes that the future of the world depends on how modernity can be tamed to ensure a continuing production of wealth without disastrous consequences for the global, natural, social, and cultural environments.Media policyIn the trend of globalization, it is important to examine the media policy. Tehranian argues that many dilemmas of cultural and information policies confront those who shape national media policies. He suggests that the central question how is to allow freedom of speech without encouraging hate speech. Tehranian suggests various philosophies of media policies, which are authoritarian, libertarian, communitarian, and totalitarian. Communitarian media policy, for example, regards valuing one religion or language or ethnicity over another as an important aspect of national unity. Libertarian, on the contrary, focuses on valuing free speech above politically correct speech. Hate speech is not tolerated because it seriously threatens ethnic and racial peace.Tehranian argues that the national policies are often formulated in the context of global forces and policies. The national policies are decided by a complex variety of players or stakeholders on the global scene. Global, national, and local discourses are required for major stakeholders such as states, markets, pressure groups, financial groups, civil societies and media in the national policy schema.Rethinking developmentThe main theorists after the post-World War II period respond to the rapid technological breakthroug

Foreshadowing September 11th

It proved that women and men of goodwill, coming from different ideological perspectives but engaging in sincere dialogue, could in fact agree on some essential principles for human decency and cultural diversity. - Majid Tehranian, "Global Communication & World Politics"This narrative provides infinite challenge to me. One that requires more than the few days reflection I managed while drafting a commentary to it for a class. How is it possible to provide salient comment on a text, which is essentially a compilation of seven separate academic papers - each published in its own right between 1982 and 1999? Daunting as it seems I set to the task.Three points of interest will be the focus of this review.First, this book is written from a non-Western perspective. Recently, I watched the film Gandhi. I had seen this movie before but, this time, I watched with new eyes. Gandhi also had a non-Western perspective. And, while I could not understand fully his experience, or that of his India, I could see Gandhi as a spiritual leader to his people. His beliefs in non-violent resistance in order to secure an India independent of British rule and representative of the hundreds of millions of Indian people were powerful, and likely quite threatening to the Indian elite who proposed to replace the British rulers with their own. Tehranian approaches the ideas of international relations today with passion and a repertoire of ideas that are no less controversial than I would imagine Gandhi's were in his time. Tehranian challenges the Western definition of globalization and the hyperbole and negativism of the media. He proposes that we find some form of balance between the rich and the poor. He argues for just treatment of and serious attention to vulnerable and oppressed civilizations. With sympathy, he presents the historical battle between Islam and the West, recognizing the fear with motivated the Christians tried and acknowledging a legacy of misunderstanding that added fuel to a prejudicial fire. Contemplating the issue today, Tehranian presents a coin. For Islam, exposure to the West now means heads (external domination) or tails (internal decay). To fight the West means heads (external defense) or tails (internal reform). After reading this text, I no longer see us and them. Those divisions simply do not exist. Hence, my first observation of this book is that it should have been more widely read prior to September. Perhaps its perspective may have helped to shape the perspectives of others. That it is crafted from a non-Western perspective is probably a key source of its value.Second, I particularly liked the repeated theme of communication and its role in history. While reading this book a picture emerged. Communication is the thread in a complex fabric of international relations and global development. Modernization, the ultimate goal of progress, may not be the ultimate end, at least from a global perspective. Tehranian addresses

A Must Read -- Destined to revise Huntington's Clash

Majid Tehranian's Global Communication and World Politics: Domination, Development, and Discourse is an ambitious attempt to map the new world order which has arisen since the fall of the Soviet union and to forecast the direction the world might be taking into the next century. The book enlists highly plausible theories and convincing evidence to support an illuminating model of what is possible as the new millennium is thrust upon us. There is a tremendous need for a book such as Global Communication. Competing volumes such as Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, John B. Thompson's Media and Modernity, and William Greider's One World, Ready or Not simply do not do justice to the complexity that has arisen since the cold war divided the world into three camps. Huntington's Clash asks us to replace the 1960's view of world politics as the ideological conflict between eastern communist nations and western free market capitalism with another equally comfortable dichotomy --the clash of the Platonic western civilizations with Confucian and Islamic eastern civilizations. Edward Said and others have pointed out that Huntington's idea is not original . Said traces the idea and wording to an article by Bernard Lewis on Muslim Rage which appeared in the September 1990 Atlantic Monthly. Most agree Huntington has gotten too much mileage out of his simplifying assumption. Thompson's Media and Modernity shows a much greater appreciation for "the complex interaction" of four types of power, military power, symbolic power, political power, and economic power in the world arena. Unfortunately, Thompson fails to note the dominance of economic power in today's world. Thompson deals with the media and communication aspects of globalization but largely ignores the economic and structural (international relations) aspects. William Greider's One World, Ready or Not deals with economic aspects of globalization while ignoring largely the socio-political aspects. In truth Dr. Tehranian's book abstracts away from some of the complexities of the real world in order to build illuminating models of reality ; however, unlike Huntington, Thompson, and Greider he does not cast new light by repackaging the old dichotomies of Marx and Hegel. Unlike Fukuyama, he does not pronounce "the end of History." Fond of illuminating alliterations such as domination, development and discourse, Tehranian also makes use of endless explanatory matrices such as the chart "Seven Modernizations and Democratizations: Tsunamis in Human History," to help us get our bearings in time and space.. A supporter of Tehranian's work Richard Falk insists that Tehranian maps (rather than reports) the global situation. Falk likens the book to a "new cartography of conflict and