A. Quick – World Press Encyclopedia (Second edition)

Автор: A. Quick
Название книги: World Press Encyclopedia (Second edition)
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Журналистика
Страницы: 656+643
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

This comprehensive survey of press and electronic media now covers nearly 200 countries. Arranged alphabetically by country, entries begin with an overview of the background, economic framework and general characteristics of each country's press. Entries then cover the number and type of media, press laws, censorship issues, state-press relations, news agencies, electronic news media, education and training in journalism and much more. This new edition offers articles on 20 new countries and a focus on new media, including cable and Internet.

INTRODUCTION
The second edition of the World Press Encyclopedia
is a magisterial survey of the state of the press at the
beginning of the twenty-first century. The two decades
since the first edition was published have been turbulent
and momentous in world history. It will be remembered
for the collapse of the Soviet Union; the rapid spread of
world communications, including the Internet and the
computer; and the dominance of the United States as a
superpower. Globalization is now accepted as the wave
of the future, but it is marked by two contradictory
trends: the marginalization of non-Western cultures on
the one hand and the growth of nationalism and separatist
tendencies on the other. The threat of terrorism on a global
scale is a new phenomenon that bodes ill for the future.
The second edition of World Press thus deals with a
world far different from the one described in the first.
Like the world it reflects and reports on, the press
has gone through several mutations. As the principal carrier
of information in a troubled world, the press has
entrenched itself as a powerful and pervasive institution
with a host of roles and functions. For the first three centuries
of its existence beginning in the seventeenth century,
it was locked into its traditional role as a purveyor
of information: it reported and occasionally commented
on the events of the day. Beginning in the twentieth century,
it expanded its functions in several directions: on
the one hand it became a partisan platform for various
ideologies of the day; on the other hand it assumed the
mantles of an educator, watchdog, moderator of national
debates, advisor, chronicler, promoter of new ideas, setter
of national agendas, investigator, national bulletin
board, and propaganda machine. In this transformation, it
was aided by technology, which enabled it to collect,
print, and broadcast news faster than ever before.
World Press Encyclopedia uses the term “press” in
its broadest sense—a dispenser of information. It encompasses
not only the print media (including magazines and
other periodicals) but also what is known as the electronic
media (including television, radio, and Internet publications).
It also covers the profession of journalism, journalism
education, censorship, political communications,
advertising, and freedom of the press. The word “press”
has been retained in the title rather than more nebulous
words, such as “media” and “information,” because the
print media remains the mother lode of all methods of
communication. Even the most cynical futurist does not
foresee the complete displacement of the print media by
electronic media in the near future.