13311

A new world information order? Communication, media, and technology in postwar liberation struggles

Ismay Milford

Kommentar

"Introducing recent scholarship on demands for a so-called new information order in the 1970s-80, this course locates the topic in a broader history of the relationship between information and liberation. With a chronological focus on the period 1945-1994 and case studies from across the world (with a particular emphasis on the African continent), we encounter anti-colonial print and broadcasting, Cold War censorship politics, satellite regulatory battles, and developmentalist discourses. In an age where ‘information’ appears to be more accessible than ever, ‘information inequality’ remains rife. Between claims of ‘fake news’ and struggles to regulate the internet, normative models of the relationship between democracy and the public sphere lack explanatory power. How did we get here? Global history scholarship has shown the extent to which the spheres of information and communication were deeply entangled with empire during the twentieth century. Technologies including printing, radio, telegraphy and satellites could perpetuate notions of cultural and racial superiority and serve as tools of oppression. Yet they also presented opportunities for resistance and, increasingly throughout the period in question, for coordinating political mobilization across national borders. Moreover, historical actors frequently envisaged alternative models for a global information order which could liberate ordinary people from the structures that appeared to dictate their position in the world. An overarching question: Is the domain of information and communication one where historians read histories of globalization and decolonization unfolding, or has it been part of the making of these histories and of the limits and disappointments of their outcomes? " Schließen

13 Termine

Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung

Do, 16:00 - 18:00 13 Termine

Do, 18.04.2024 16:00 - 18:00

Dozenten:
Dr. Ismay Milford