Communication, Commerce and Power: The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite, 1960-2000

by Edward A. Comor

Overview

In this history of US-based direct broadcast satellite developments, the United States and other nation-states are shown to be the ultimate arbiters of their ongoing histories. In making this now unfashionable argument, Edward A. Comor directly challenges recent academic work that tends to privilege global processes over national, and argues that the contemporary world order is being shaped primarily by transnational rather than nation-state-based forces. In testing this orientation with empirical research on US foreign communication policy since 1960, Communication, Commerce and Power compels academics and policy makers to rethink commonplace assumptions about the characteristics and potentials of the contemporary and future international political economy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333688236
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	01/28/1998
Series:	International Political Economy Series
Edition description:	1998
Pages:	253
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Edward A. Comor is Assistant Professor in the School of International Service at the American University, Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Preface - List of Acronyms - Introduction - Critical Perspectives on US Foreign Communication Policy - Telesatellite Policy and DBS, 1962-84 - Foreign Communication Policy and DBS: 1962-84 - DBS and the Structure of US Policy Making - Exporting Liberalisation and the Ascendancy of Trade - Capital, Technology, and the United States in an 'Open Market' Regime - Conclusion: Communication, Culture and American Hegemony - Bibliography - Index

Editorial Reviews

'It represents a completely new approach to disciplinary scholarship within the field of international communications that can only serve to give the field greater academic weight and integrity.' - Philip M. Taylor, University of Leeds

'The book provides a thorough examination of the role played by the US in the establishment of an international regime characterised by free flow of information principles institutionalised through free trade goals...relevant not only to the academic reader interested in theoretical approaches to understand how the world order is shaped, but also to regulators and policy-makers interested in the evolution of DBS from a political economy perspective.' - Luiz Fernando Ferreira Silva, Telecommunications Policy

'Edward A. Comor's book makes an important contribution to the rethinking of world politics, transcending the conventional cleavage between comparative and international politics and focusing on culture and communications hitherto relatively neglected. He illustrates cogently the complex interplay of corporate interests linked to new technologies, and the way in which the American state restructured itself in order to shape a new international regime that would enhance the ability of corporate capital to expand on the global level. This is the kind of detailed study of a particularly strategic sector that is essential to building a broader theory of the changing global order.' - Robert W. Cox, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Social and Political Thought, York University, Ontario

From the Publisher

Assesses contemporary transformations in the international political economy through the largely untold story of US-based direct broadcast satellite developments. The US is shown to have acted as the mediator of significant contemporary international reforms including recently signed free-trade agreements on services and intellectual-property rights. Seemingly inevitable developments, such as the global information highway, are shown not to be inevitable after all, and domestic power relations are shown to constitute the essential cites through which globalization processes unfold. Concludes that the US is well positioned to assert a new form of international hegemonic dominance in the 21st century. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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