ABSTRACT
With the proliferation of academic texts on global culture, communication scholars have turned a critical eye to previous and emerging research. Debate about globalization-its appropriate definitions, theoretical underpinnings and practical impact-has not only “fed a boom in academic publishing during the 1990s” (Sreberny-Mohammadi et al. 1997: x), but has allowed scholars to redress some of the perceived shortcomings in the field of global communication. Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi (1997), for example, critiques the narrow and “reductionist” view of cultural imperialism that emphasizes the North-South flow of Western media and cultural industries at the expense of social and symbolic practices (such as map making, missionary activity, education and tourism). Peter Golding and Phil Harris extend this critique, arguing for the need to get beyond the “unduly limited dialogues of media research” to join “the wider conversation of international analysis” (Golding and Harris 1997: 9).
