A book on global media governance which covers both "traditional" media categories and the internet, and which seeks to examine the ways that the media industries have been reorganized by the processes of globalization is a particularly welcome addition to the literature. Global Media Governance examines the development of institutions which work to regulate the media at the global level, notably the International Telecommunication Union, the World Trade Organization, UNESCO, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

The main argument advanced by the book can be summarised as follows. Globalization has catalysed the commodification and free-market orientation of media and communications industries and has taken the responsibility for governance out of the hands of the nation-state. In moving from national to global regulation media governance has lost its public service responsibilities and duty to contribute to human development, and has become overpowered by the interests of the private sector and neo-liberal ethics. Put simply, interests sponsored by the UN system representing "balanced global development" (p. 151) have been elbowed aside by the WTO (spurred on by the more powerful western governments) to make room for market forces.

Globalization looms large in the account and yet receives little explanation, the authors announcing early on that the book "does not venture into the theoretical terrain of globalization theories" (p. xii). This might not be perceived as such a weakness if the authors did not themselves advance such a forceful, albeit one-dimensional, interpretation of globalization. They hold that globalization is little more that Western economic imperialism under another name, the project of a US-led group of developed countries designed to increase their wealth and prosperity at the expense of developing nations.

This is a melodramatic account of a world in which the globalization of trade and finance has permitted the US and the WTO to take over the institutions of global media governance in order to dominate the humanitarian forces of the UN, powerless underdeveloped nations, and the forces of civil society. This portrayal of global media governance contains a number of weaknesses. These stem in no small part from the authors' tendency to polarize the issues. The reader is left with the distinct impression that national governance = good, global governance = bad; UN = good, WTO = bad. This produces some predictable results. For example, in their eagerness to attack the negative impact of the globalization of free-market capitalism on global media governance the authors overlook the fact that in the hands of domestic political elites in underdeveloped nations media governance often serves to regulate, censor and structure media flows and promote a national identity intolerant of cultural diversity.

Similarly, the authors treat civil society as an overall force for good, never delving into its own capacity for regulation, governance and rule. Civil society is portrayed as the site of potential opposition to the dominant neo-liberal consensus, in accordance with the liberal and over-optimistic interpretation of civil society current favoured in much social science literature. The influence of civil society on global media governance remains rather circumscribed, and despite advances in recent years particularly within the UN system, civil society can only exert an ameliorating influence external to governance structures. However, working in tandem with the UN to campaign on media governance issues national and global civil society could in the future restrain the worst excesses of market-driven media governance. What is omitted from this account is that governance can take place within and through civil society. In a broad range of cultural studies and political science literature - from Gramsci to Foucault and the governmentality theorists - civil society is thought of as a site where power can be exercised and political domination reproduced.

The authors make much of the idea that the West is increasingly able to regulate global media through its selective support for international organizations, yet do not explore the implications of the insight that governance takes place in part through media regulation. In short, Global Media Governance deals only with the global instruments for the regulation of the media not governance through the media, which is potentially a much more important and complex topic. This selectivity has its roots in the usage of global governance employed by the authors. Global governance is thought of less as a series of structures for the operation of new forms of (non-state) regulation and more in terms of world-wide regulatory structures coming together from intergovernmental agreements and then usurped by powerful international interests.

The book is listed as a primer and aimed at undergraduates in media and communication studies. Students in these disciplines as well as international relations, cultural studies, politics and international law will find the sections devoted the rise and transformation of the key institutions of media governance to be particularly useful. In addition, the book provides useful summaries of many key issues stemming from the struggles to participate in and control the emerging regimes of global media governance. However, students will have to look elsewhere for an account which does justice to the complexity of the impact of globalization of the media industries, the multi-dimensional nature of global governance, and the sometimes contradictory roles of different actors in these processes.


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