Free Expression, Globalism, and the New Strategic Communication

This book exposes the anxieties of loss of control and missed opportunities for freedom of expression resulting from changes in technologies and geopolitics.

Monroe E. Price (Author)

9781107420939, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 December 2014

286 pages
23.4 x 15 x 1.8 cm, 0.41 kg

'… a path-breaking book that charts new territory for the enormously important issue of speech in the digital age. Price skillfully weaves together diverse examples from Iran to Somaliland and explores the motivations of a wide variety of actors beyond governments, including NGOs and religious leaders. While recognizing the diverse approaches towards the relationship between speech and society, and the different cultural and political values that underlie this relationship, the book offers compelling arguments that clearly illustrate the substantial challenges societies face to uphold values such as free expression in the digital age. It is a bold and very readable account for all those interested in understanding how actors attempt to shape information environments from the global to local level.' Nicole Stremlau, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford

Vast changes in technologies and geopolitics have produced a wholesale shift in the way states and other powerful entities think about the production and retention of popular loyalties. Strategic communication has embraced these changes as stakes increase and the techniques of information management become more pervasive. These shifts in strategic communications impact free speech as major players, in a global context, rhetorically embrace a world of transparency, all the while increasing surveillance and modes of control, turning altered media technologies and traditional media doctrines to their advantage. This book exposes the anxieties of loss of control, on the one hand, and the missed opportunities for greater freedom, on the other. 'New' strategic communication arises from the vast torrents of information that cross borders and uproot old forms of regulation. Not only states but also corporations, nongovernmental organizations, religious institutions, and others have become part of this new constellation of speakers and audiences.

1. Moving the needle, filling the streets
2. Strategic communication and the foundations of free expression
3. Narratives of legitimacy
4. Strategies of the diagnostic
5. Asymmetries and strategic communication
6. Strategies of system architecture
7. Soft power, soft war
8. Religions and strategic communication
9. Regulating NGOs in the market for loyalties
10. Strategic platforms
11. Strategic communication and satellite channels.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP]