Future directions of international communication research?
long before the arrival in office of George W. Bush and the neo-conservatives, Washington was a company town, and a small one at that ... The company is government, and the product is money and power, the two intimately related and in the Bush administration all but indistinguishable. The town's sources of information have steadily diminished over the years. Serious newspapers have disappeared, broadcast news became entertainment ... Virtually no attention is paid to information generated from non-US sources, which are considered irrelevant or hostile. The result, so far as international affairs are concerned, is that nobody knows much of anything about what really is going on. Those who do, who have worked in the field ... professional diplomats and intelligence people, experienced journalists, have increasingly been cut out of the policy making chain ... Washington people think they are informed, but they actually deal in a limited number of ideologically constructed stories about the world that rely heavily on stereotype and prejudice ... Iran's phantom weapons of mass destruction and the fantasy of quasi-spontaneous democratisation of Iraq are the two most recent examples. (10 October 2003, p.12)
Media Convergence
Convergence is an ambiguous term used by various disciplines to describe and analyse processes of change toward uniformity or union. Its application in the communications sector, often referred to as media convergence, also encompasses valuable approaches and insights to describe, characterize and understand the digital creative economy. A certain amount of fuzziness combined with the broad, multipurpose-character of convergence leads both to a general and a wide range of very specific understandings of the convergent communications sector. This sector substantially overlaps with the digital creative economy, which is also characterized by a degree of vagueness. Common sub-sectors and subjects between communications and digital creative industries such as broadcasting, publishing, advertising, music, film and games are even growing because of convergence. Beyond that, the consequences of media convergence are also discussed for other parts of creative industries, such as museums, libraries and design in particular. New digital media technology and services are considered as central drivers of creative industries. Altogether, this makes studies of media convergence, both its approaches and results, highly relevant for the understanding of the digital creative economy.
Protection of the Marine Environment: The International and National Regulation of Deep Seabed Mining Activities
This chapter provides an overview of the international and national regulatory framework pertaining to deep seabed mining activities. It begins by discussing the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the backdrop for all marine activities – be they national or international – and examines the obligations of states to protect the marine environment from the harmful effects arising from deep seabed mining. Next, the chapter examines the international regime for deep seabed mining (i.e. “activities in the Area”), explaining the “common heritage of mankind” status of the Area (i.e. the international seabed); the functions of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the international organization established to govern deep seabed mining in the Area; and the concept of state sponsorship of non-state entities (i.e. private actors) for deep seabed mining in the Area. The chapter follows with a discussion of the development of national legislation to regulate deep seabed mining, examining efforts in the Pacific region where many prospective deep-sea mining sites are located. This includes a look at the legislative regimes of several Pacific Island nations, namely, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and the Cook Islands, for whom deep seabed mining may soon become a reality – as well as New Zealand and Japan, countries with comparatively developed rule of law and legislative regimes that have undertaken or considered deep seabed mining in their national waters. Overall, the chapter critically describes and evaluates the current regulatory status in the international and national seabed areas and highlights some salient gaps that require urgent attention in order to ensure marine environmental protection and mitigate impacts on humans.