Strömbäck, Shehata & Dimitrova follow six months of Swedish-US print coverage around the Danish Mohammad cartoon drama. Framings are specified (free speech, clashing worlds, anti-Muslim prejudice...). The NYT comes off as slightly more hawkish (if more polarised). Skews in story selection may have exacerbated events. Some (fairly predictable) distance-determined differences between the NY and Swedish coverage are suggested.
Pan-European satellite TV had an awkward wait while corporate strategies (ad spending, most directly) caught up. Chalaby covers the 80s-90s shift, focusing on advertising industry restructuring. A solid account. Key point: a lot worked in favour of trans-national broadcasters.
Cottle & Rai take on 24/7 global news. Frames rear up again: in evaluating the claims of both boosters and critics of 24/7 news we should attend to the in-coverage framing of issues as well as issues of ownership or reach. Conclusion: things are complex, and it's in the distribution of frames that a lot of political rubber meets the road.
Finally Desai revisits Anderson's thoroughly abused Imagined Communities. Anderson thought it fed 'vampires of banality' (what famous text hasn't?). Desai is more concerned that it delegitimised third-world independence movements and blunted the analyst's critical grasp of nation based political-economy (possibly, but it's more symptom than cause).
