The triumph of image over reality and reason is the theme of this book. New communication technologies have made possible the transportation of images and words in real time to hundreds of millions of people around the world. We thought we witnessed the Gulf War as we sat, mesmerized by the imagery. But the studies from the many countries assembled for this book suggest that it was not the war in the Persian Gulf that we witnessed but rather imagery orchestrated to convey a sense of triumph and thus to achieve results that reality and reason could never have achieved.The book offers...

In August 1981, Music Televisionnow popularly known as MTVwas launched. Within a matter of years it revitalized a struggling record industry; made the careers of leading pop stars like Madonna, Boy George, Cyndi Lauper, and Duran Duran; infiltrated traditional network television and the movie industry; revolutionized the advertising industry; and stimulated purchases in several markets, most notably fashion apparel. The reach of MTV has proven long and profitable. In this book, Jack Banks examines the historical development of music video as a commodity and analyzes the existing structures...

Many governments are pursuing with relentless vigor a neoconservative/transnational corporate program of globalization, privatization, deregulation, cutbacks to social programs, and downsizing of the public sector. Countries are forming into giant free trade blocs. Increasingly they lack the will and desire to resist encroachments of world superculture. Furthermore, they encourage heightened commoditization of information and knowledge, for instance through stiffer intellectual property laws, through Information Highway initiatives, and through provisions in bilateral and multilateral trade...

Launching into a complete analysis of copyright law in our capitalistic and hegemonistic political system, Ronald Bettig uncovers the power of the wealthy few to expand their fortunes through the ownership and manipulation of intellectual property. Beginning with a critical interpretation of copyright history in the United States, Bettig goes on to explore such crucial issues as the videocassette recorder and the control of copyrights, the invention of cable television and the first challenge to the filmed entertainment copyright system, the politics and economics of intellectual property as...