International Communications: Continuity and Change.

• Author: Gregg, Donna

International Communications: Continuity and Change, Daya Kishan Thussu, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2000, 342 pages.

In International Communication: Continuity and Change, Daya Kishan Thussu presents a comprehensive and thoroughly readable overview of the significant global impact of communication from ancient times to the Internet era. The book describes major technological, political, cultural, and commercial breakthroughs and trends, and explains how each has helped to make the world a smaller place.

Thussu, who holds a doctorate in international relations from the Jawaharal Nehru University in New Delhi and served as associate editor of a London-based international news agency and a senior lecturer in journalism and mass communication at several British universities, views his topic from the perspective of an international journalist and multicultural scholar. Moreover, he strives for an objective approach, advocating neither the policy agenda of multinational communications conglomerates with roots in Western democracies, nor the perspective and media aspirations of the developing world.

While acknowledging the demonstrated potential of modern communication technology to effect revolutionary change in all corners of the globe, the book also recognizes certain enduring cultural and economic forces that have influenced the cross-border exchange of information and ideas for centuries. Like New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman's recent best seller, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thussu's book sees the tension between technological progress (the lexus) and deep rooted cultural tradition (the olive tree) at work in the era of post-Cold War globalization. But while Friedman focuses on globalization in general, Thussu considers the lexus/olive tree paradox in the narrower context of communication.

To set the stage for the book's theme of continuity, Thussu traces the development of long-distance communication from ancient times--"a line of shouting men positioned on the heights" passing news from one end of the Persian Empire to the other--through the advent of the printing press, the telegraph, and early radio communication. The focus goes beyond the history of the means of communication, however, to consider historical uses of communication from the development of the popular entertainment media to political propaganda.

After providing historical background, the book moves to a more conceptual plane and prepares the...