Brics Media

Mapping BRICS Media is the first comprehensive and comparative study of the emerging media landscape in the world’s most dynamic and fastest growing markets. This pioneering collection focuses on one of the key topics in contemporary international relations - the emergence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) - a grouping that includes some of the world’s largest populations and fastest growing economies. The volume brings together leading scholars, mainly from the BRICS nations, to examine how the emergence of the BRICS media will impact on global media and communication. Contextualizing the rise of the BRICS nations within the broader shifts in global power relations, the chapters investigate the unprecedented growth of the BRICS media within a ‘multi-polar’ world, evaluating the media landscapes in the individual BRICS countries, their histories, and their journalism practices, as well as analyzing emerging inter-BRICS media relationships. Accessible and comprehensive, the book provides a critical guide to the complex debates about the impact of the ‘rise of the rest’ on the media globe and how far this poses a challenge to the Western-dominated world order and its media systems.

Bringing together distinguished scholars from BRICS nations and those with deep interest and knowledge of these emerging powers, this collection makes a significant intervention in the ongoing debates about comparative communication research and thus contributes to the further internationalization of media and communication studies. The unprecedented expansion of online media in the world’s major non-Western nations, exemplified by BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is transforming global communication. Despite their differences and divergences on key policy issues, what unites these five nations, representing more than 20 per cent of the global GDP, is the scale and scope of change in their communication environment, triggered by a multilingual, mobile Internet. The resulting networked and digitized communication ecology has reoriented international media and communication flows. Evaluating the implications of globalization of BRICS media on the reshaping of international communication, the book frames this within the contexts of theory-building on media and communication systems, soft power discourses and communication practices, including in cyberspace. Adopting a critical approach in analysing BRICS communication strategies and their effectiveness, the book assesses the role of the BRICS nations in reframing a global communication order for a ‘post-American world’. This critical volume of essays is ideal for students, teachers and researchers in journalism, media, politics, sociology, international relations, area studies and cultural studies.

Contemporary BRICS Journalism: Non-Western Media in Transition is the first comparative study of professional journalists working in BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The book presents a range of insider perspectives, offering a valuable insight into the nature of journalism in these influential economies. Contributors to this volume have conducted in-depth interviews with more than 700 journalists, from mainstream and online media, between 2012 and 2015. They present and analyse their findings here, revealing how BRICS journalism is envisioned, experienced, and practised in the twenty-first century. Compelling evidence in the form of journalists’ narratives reveals the impact of digital culture on modern reporting and the evolving dynamic between new media technology and traditional journalistic practice. Insightful comparisons are made between BRICS countries, highlighting the similarities and differences between them. Topics covered include; professionalism, ethics and ideals, community journalism, technological developments in the newsroom and the reporting of protest movements. This book’s ambitious analysis of journalistic landscapes across these non-Western nations will significantly broaden the scope of study and research in the field of journalism for students and teachers of communication, journalism, and media studies.

The transformation of the BRIC acronym from an investment term into a household name of international politics and into a semi-institutionalized political outfit (called BRICS, with a capital ‘S’), is one of the defining developments in international politics in the past decades. While the concept is now commonly used in the general public debate and international media, there has not yet been a comprehensive and scholarly analysis of the history of the BRICS term. The BRICS and the Future of Global Order, Second Edition offers a definitive reference history of the BRICS as a term and as an institution—a chronological narrative and analytical account of the BRICS concept from its inception in 2001 to the political grouping it is today. In addition, it analyzes what the rise of powers like Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa means for the future of global order. Will the BRICS countries seek to establish a parallel system with its own distinctive set of rules, institutions, and currencies of power, rejecting key tenets of liberal internationalism, are will they seek to embrace the rules and norms that define today’s Western-led order?

The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are currently at the crossroads of major structural economic and political changes. This book provides a comparative analysis of the national innovation systems of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the trends in each of their science, technology and innovation policies. It makes use of an analytical framework, the concept 'systems of innovation and competence building' developed within 'Globelics' (the Global Research Network on the Economics of Learning, Innovation and Capacity Building Systems).

Africa’s Media Image in the 21st Century is the first book in over twenty years to examine the international media’s coverage of sub-Saharan Africa. It brings together leading researchers and prominent journalists to explore representation of the continent, and the production of that image, especially by international news media. The book highlights factors that have transformed the global media system, changing whose perspectives are told and the forms of media that empower new voices. Case studies consider questions such as: how has new media changed whose views are represented? Does Chinese or diaspora media offer alternative perspectives for viewing the continent? How do foreign correspondents interact with their audiences in a social media age? What is the contemporary role of charity groups and PR firms in shaping news content? They also examine how recent high profile events and issues been covered by the international media, from the Ebola crisis, and Boko Haram to debates surrounding the "Africa Rising" narrative and neo-imperialism. The book makes a substantial contribution by moving the academic discussion beyond the traditional critiques of journalistic stereotyping, Afro-pessimism, and ‘darkest Africa’ news coverage. It explores the news outlets, international power dynamics, and technologies that shape and reshape the contemporary image of Africa and Africans in journalism and global culture.

An Introduction to Global Media for the Twenty-First Century provides a thorough introduction to the field of global media today. The book presents the key changes taking place as the global media landscape evolves, and the main theories of the field, that explain these developments. Tracing, first, the formative development of an international and global media landscape throughout the 20th century from the telegraph, television and film export, and transnational television to the Internet, the book then focuses on developments in the 21st century. This includes: the digitization of the global media and communications sector; the popularization of the Internet and digital infrastructure such as the smartphone and platforms; the emergence of global online media and services; the production and distribution of digital media content; and the exploitation of user data. Case studies illustrate key developments throughout the book. The book shows how the field is characterized by a continuity of critical concerns in relation to power, influence, and domination; media user empowerment and exploitation; and social and sustainable development and democratic conditions, as well as geopolitical shifts, in a global context.

This book examines the direction of the BRICS association. Beginning with historical analyses of the broader Global South and the fundamental composition of the BRICS countries and then moving on to present trends, The BRICS Order evaluates the variables that will influence the association’s future. While the BRICS as a forum emerged as a result of the visible fragmentation of the post-1945 world order, it itself remains dogged by issues emanating from internal divergences among member states and from external factors. The contributors interrogate the extent to which this formation of “emerging economies” is indicative of a challenge to the West, or in fact a complimentary relation. Integral to these studies – which encompass examinations of such diverse areas as governance systems, issues in bilateral relations, security threats, multilateral institution building, the transnational creation and dissemination of knowledge, and technological innovation – are patterns of convergence and divergence which render the countries not a formal alliance, but as signifiers of a multilateral future in which the West is itself to become more heterogeneous and thus become occasionally complemented depending on the vacillating consensus within the BRICS association and on the interests of the BRICS countries at different points in time.