Al-Jaber, Khalid. The Credibility of Arab Broadcasting: The Case of Al Jazeera. Doha: National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage, 2004. Hard cover. 118 pages. ISBN: 99921-25-26-3. No price listed. Reviewed by Ralph D. Berenger Arab world academics are fascinated with the impact of Al Jazeera on viewing habits, and many studies …

The grizzled editor squinted at me through a haze of gray smoke from the omnipresent cigarette protruding from his thin lips. He glared at me with a mixture of chagrin and condescension after my suggestion that some day I would like to write books. The Pall Mall bobbed as he …

Camcorders have undergone major changes in the last year or two, perhaps more than at any time since their introduction in the late 1970s. These changes affect higher end professional models and even the affordable three-CCD (charged coupled device), with DV models costing only a few thousand US dollars. The …

In 1995, TBS senior editor and publisher S. Abdallah Schleifer presented two substantially similar papers at two different conferences a week apart--the Broadcast Education Association convention in Las Vegas and the 12th Annual Symposium of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS), devoted that year to "The Information Revolution in …

Rantanen, Terhi. The Global and the National: Media and Communications in Post-Communist Russia. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. 2002. ISBN 0-7425-1568-0 [paperback]. 158 pages. Reviewed by Dr Amos Owen Thomas, Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy, Griffith University, Gold Coast-Brisbane, Australia. In the very first sentence of the …

Silvia, Tony, ed. Global News Perspectives on the Information Age. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. 2001. ISBN 0-8138-0256-3. 199 pages. Reviewed by James Piecowye, College of Communication and Media Sciences, Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This second edition of Global News edited by Tony Silvia and subtitled 'Perspectives on the Information …

Green, Lelia. Technoculture: From Alphabet to Cybersex. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin. 2002. ISBN 1 86508 048 9 [paperback]. 254 pages. Reviewed by Thomas E.R. Maguire, Department of Radio, Television and Film, University of Texas at Austin, USA. Lelia Green provides a comprehensive and refreshingly non-messianic theory of culture and …

Sakr, Naomi. Satellite Realms: Transnational Television, Globalization and the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris & Co., Ltd., 2001. 266 pages. Soft cover ISBN: 1-86064-689-1. US$22.50 soft cover, US$69 hardbound. Reviewed by Dr. Ralph D. Berenger, the American University in Cairo. If Satellite Realms merely documented transnational broadcasting in the Middle East, and the …

McPhail, Thomas L. Global Communication: Theories, Stakeholders, and Trends. Paperback. Allyn and Bacon: Boston. 2002. Paperback. 272 pages. ISBN 0-205-5635-5. US$49. Reviewed by Ralph D. Berenger, the American University in Cairo. Just as media delivery systems are converging from separate mass media subtypes, so are the once-distinct, unhomogenized fields of the …

Clay Calvert. Voyeur Nation: media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 2000. 274 pages. ISBN 0-8133-6627-5. US$25. Reviewed by Dr. Ralph D. Berenger, the American University in Cairo. As transnational broadcasters rush toward privatization, calling for more democratization and transparency by more laissez-faire governments, Clay Calvert's Voyeur Nation should be thoughtfully …