International Communication

This entry provides an overview of the theory and research that comprise the literature of international communication. The field is also referred to as global communication.

The nature of the field of international communication is not without controversy. Hamid Mowlana argues that it is not a discipline per se, because it is influenced by communication technologies and a social institution also covered by other fields, notably economics, international relations, political science, and sociology. Topics such as journalism, communication and development, technology transfer, nationalism, imperialism, global data flow, and globalism are some of the principal matters studied by researchers.

As a field, international communication in large part began with Western, largely U.S. mass media scholarship, interested in persuasion and propaganda studies. These topics have ...

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