The International Media Handbook

Although information about the countries in the world and also about their media can be accessed more and more easily through the Internet, this does not satisfy the need for reliable, topical and expertly-construed information on the respective media systems. The high demand for the International Media Handbook shows that this need is much rather increasing among researchers and scholars as well as in journalism and politics, especially with regard to comparably-structured data on different countries.

The new edition of International Media Handbook, published in July 2009, responds to this demand with a combination of general analyses and country-specific contributions, which are exceptional in their coverage (79 articles spanning all continents) and their content range covering all relevant media worldwide

As usual, the new edition of the IMH provides comprehensive information on the most important current developments in the areas of print media, broadcasting and online services worldwide. With across-the-board contributions, general surveys and analyses, part A presents transnational and general lines of development, more closely examining individual aspects of legal and economical developments and the growth of offerings in the areas of print media, broadcasting and online services.

In parts B and C (Media in Europe, Media outside of Europe) the developments of media in individual states are described, now extending the reporting to countries as yet not covered, above all in Africa and Asia. Articles have been added on Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Laos, Lebanon, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Peru.

The authors of the individual reports are experts from the respective countries or persons knowledgeable about the respective national media systems. For each of the three areas print media, broadcasting and online, they describe legal and historical groundings, organisation and financing of providers, offerings and usage and recent developments. Their articles are complemented by an analysis on the status of developments in convergent media, with their consequences for the three areas named, as it cites contact addresses for the most important media institutions and agencies, references to literature and pertinent links to further information.

In order to improve the comparability of particular country information, the new edition seeks to include standardised tables in the individual reports – an endeavour which has in practice run into difficulties due to the very disparate conditions of this data. As other comparative surveys have shown, the available information on media systems in countries differs in each case so much so that standardisation is very limited. Even in highly developed countries, e.g. USA or France, some data are not available or not being published. In some places, the Handbook benefits from the fact that the experts and authors of the articles have access to non-public data sources.

Not least due to the new structure, which increases the user value of the Handbook, there has been a hiatus between the release of the last Handbook and the new edition. A work so elaborate and substantial, with over 1,300 pages, requires an extended production process as well as a lot of patience and effort from the authors. The articles of this new edition were written in 2007/2008 and in most cases updated in the beginning of 2009.

However, the temporal gap in the publishing sequence also results from the discussion about the future publication of the Handbook, as well as the funding of the related work and resources  needed; this has not yet been concluded. As the Nomos-Verlag only carries the cost of production as well as a portion of the authors’ fees and costs for translation, the major load of conceptual and, above all, editorial work rests with the Hans Bredow Institute in financial terms as well. This service is, however, no longer tenable for the Institute alone, thus new ways of fund raising, attracting sponsorships and also the possibility of a pure English-language publication have been, and are still being, considered and pursued.

A concept is currently being developed in order to make the information that is published on over 1300 pages available in English through an Open Access platform. Besides financial issues legal and technical questions have to be clarified.