International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics - Volume 13, Issue 3, 2017

Ebooks have emerged as one of the popular means of reading, but little is known about how ebook usage by the general public and the ability of public lending libraries to serve their patrons are being constrained by various sociocultural factors such as restrictive licensing agreements that publishers demand. This study identifies the various constraints through the lens of Lessig’s four modalities to better understand how the ecosystem of ebooks that includes legal and economic conditions is affected by the modalities. In doing so, this study examines the shift towards the licensing of ebooks and the proprietary schemes of digital rights management with a particular focus on the diminishing capability of public lending libraries to advance the public interest in a democratic society. In the age of licensing, the mission of public libraries as ‘equalizing institutions’ should be upheld to the fullest.

The article focuses on the use of the open method of coordination (OMC) in the field of culture. Its aim is to explore the adequacy of the cultural OMC in achieving its specific goals. The article examines the configuration and functioning of the cultural OMC through two distinct cycles (2008−10 and 2011−14), investigating the capacity of the process to structure Member States’ cultural cooperation, to foster exchanges of best practice and to feed national and European Union (EU) cultural policies through the formulation of policy recommendations. The analysis draws on desk research and interviews carried out with the European institutions, Member States’ cultural authorities and OMC participants in the cultural field. The article demonstrates that overall the cultural OMC is well-equipped to fulfil its mission and suggests that targeted changes to its format and operation could further strengthen its potential to do so.

Political satire is a type of critique that uses humour to reflect on issues in politics and media. While most of academic research has focused on entertainment shows in the United States, this study focuses on political satire in a different context, through identifying the forms of humour (irony and sarcasm) and satire types (juvenalian and horatian) in the Republic of Macedonia. In a content analysis of satirical news outlet Koza Nostra, it has been shown that lighter, more gentle horatian satire is predominant in the outlet’s articles (N=53), while instances of less inferential sarcasm outnumber those of complex irony. These findings demonstrate that political humour in the country is careful not to alienate its audiences, which in turn could be indicative of the manner in which satirical content is cognitively processed, and suggestive of wider implications for democracy and the public sphere in post-communist Eastern European countries.

This article conceptualizes New Ecuadorian cinema as small, glocal and plurinational. It makes the case that it is a propitious time to study this emergent cinema. However, while it is a heterogeneous film scene, this article argues that it is still traversed by long-standing ethno-racial, class and regional inequalities. After inserting Ecuador’s largely unknown film history into regional trends, different spheres of production are analysed, including mestizo fictionalized narratives, activist documentaries, indigenous and community filmmaking and coastal ‘guerilla’ filmmaking. The article looks at both the accomplishments of the sector and current challenges. It proposes that more state and private funds invest in fostering plurinational and regional initiatives, and cultivating diverse makers and audiences.

A cultural approach to Carey

James W. Carey and Communication Research: Reputation at the University’s Margins, Jefferson Pooley (2016) 1st ed., New York: Peter Lang, 234 pp., ISBN: 9781433108464, h/bk, $94.95; ISBN: 9781433108471, p/bk, $52.95; ISBN: 9781433135675, e-book, $52.95, Self-archived http://www.jeffpooley.com/pubs/pooley-carey-reputation.pdf, Free

Globalization, Gender Politics, and the Media: From the West to Latin America, Carolina Matos (2016) 1st ed., Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 254 pp., ISBN: 9781498512442, h/bk, $90.00; ISBN: 9781498512459, e-book, $85.00

The Economics of the Audiovisual Industry: Financing TV, Film and Web, Mario La Torre (2014) 1st ed., UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 191 pp., ISBN: 9781137378460, h/bk, $31,00; ISBN: 9781137378477, e-book