Considers anew the globalization phenomenon in the media sphere. Rather than heralding globalization or warning of its dangers, this work analyzes the degree to which media globalization is really taking place.

Based on a theoretical debate of media globalization, the work discusses most major fields of media development, including foreign reporting, satellite TV, film, internet, foreign broadcasting, media and migration, media policy and media economy. As an important new contribution to timely debates, "The Myth of Media Globalization" will be essential and provocative reading for students and scholars alike.

* Introduction
1. Theory - structural transformation of the global public sphere?
1.1 System connectivity
1.2 System change
1.3 System interdependence
2. International reporting - 'No further than Columbus...'
2.1 The world-view of international reporting
2.2 The global non-dialogue of 11 September 2001
2.3 The Iraq War 2003: war reporting in the far from obsolete nation state
2.4 The myth within the myth: the 'CNN effect'
3. Satellite television - the renaissance of world regions
3.1 Cross-border media use and the triumph of the monolingual middle classes over cosmopolitan elites
3.2 Global television and the 'spiral of silence' afflicting democratisation
3.3 The regionalisation of the media in geo-linguistic areas: 'Huntington' on the small screen
3.4 The case of al-Jazeera: an 'Arab CNN'?
4. Film and programme imports - entertainment culture as the core of media globalisation
4.1 Who's afraid of Uncle Sam? Relativising American cultural hegemony
4.2 How the globalisation of entertainment culture helps permeable national cultures modernise
5. The Internet - the Information Revolution which came too late for the 'Third Wave of democratisation'
5.1 The Net as Tower of Babel
5.2 The digital divide
5.3 Virtual cosmopolitanism
5.4 The 'Zapatista effect'
6. International broadcasting - from national propaganda to global dialogue and back again
6.1 After 11 September: the new war in the ether
6.2 Interdependence gaps and attempts at reform
7. Media and immigration - ethnicity and transculturalism in the media age
7.1 Cultural exiles and bi-culturals: immigrant media use
7.2 A persistent cultural deficit: xenophobia in the age of global media
8. Media policy - why the state continues to play a role
8.1 The 'New World Information Order' in the age of globalisation: the rudiments of a pancapitalist vision