Communication and Conflict : Studies in International Relations/Jorg Becker. New Delhi, Concept, 2005, 372 p., ISBN 81-8069-172-1.

    Contents: Foreword. Introduction. 1. Third world images in West German Children's Books. 2. Disarmament in the press. 3. Publishing for rural areas in the Third World. 4. Cultural paper and the Third World. 5. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Cultural change. 6. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Transnational culture. 7. Acculturation clusters in telecommunication over time and space. 8. Video cassette recorders in Third World countries. 9. The Gulf War, culture and the media. 10. The image of Islam in the German media and among the German public. 11. Peace and communication. 12. From prejudice to dependency: conflicts on the way to a new international information order. 13. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and International Politics. 14. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and international law. 15. Transborder Data Flow (TDF) and international relations. 16. Telematics and another foreign development. 17. Euro-American conflicts in the sphere of Transborder Data Flow (TDF). 18. Scientific communication between east and west. 19. Dissimilar European Information Policy. 20. The "Latin Americanization" of the public sphere in East Europe. 21. Contradictions in the informatization of politics and society. Index.

  "Communication and Conflict is a collection of Professor Becker's 21 essays since the late 1970s, referring exclusively to the field of international politics, and specifically to cultural, media and technology policy. Becker deliberately takes a very broad approach to these topics. The range extends from a discussion of racism in European books for children and young people, to a study of the publishing community in developing countries, and goes so far as the role of the mass media in war and peace.

    The essays address also subjects such as the influence of multinational paper and cellulose manufacturers on paper pricing in the developing counties, unequal access to databases and the internet, or even a discussion of the media development in East Europe post-1989 or the role of international law in international media policy.

      All the essays highlight the tension innate in all forms of media policy, namely that between culture and economics. Fortunately, the author elects not to resolve this tension, preferring to acknowledge it as a dialectical process." (jacket)

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