International Media Communication in a Global Age. Guy J. Golan, Thomas J. Johnson, and Wayne Wanta, eds. New York and London: Routledge, 2010. 480 pp.
Negotiating in the Press: American Journalism and Diplomacy, 1918-1919. Joseph R. Hayden. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. 320 pp.
These texts present two opposite but equally important foci of research in the growing field of international communication—the edited collection takes a macro view, tackling news flow theories, international journalism, and strategic communication in a globalized world, while the monograph delves in depth on a very narrow episode, the peace negotiations after World War I. Both introduce fruitful research avenues about concerns as different as the role of the news media in diplomacy and strategies for global branding. While two of the three parts of Golan, Johnson, and Wanta’s volume are valuable enough that the book could be used as textbook in an introductory class on international communication, Hayden’s work is most helpful as a spur to further research on the important issues it raises.