This book provides a wide-ranging theoretical and empirical overview of the disparate achievements and shortcomings of global communication.

This exceptionally ambitious and systematic project takes a critical perspective on the globalization of communication. Uniquely, it sets media globalization alongside a plethora of other globalized forms of communication, ranging from the individual to groups, civil society groupings, commercial enterprises and political formations. The result is a sophisticated and impressive overview of globalized communication across various facets, assessing the phenomena for the extent to which they live up to the much-hyped claims of globalization's potential to create a globally interdependent society. The setbacks of globalization, such as right-wing populism and religious fundamentalism, can only be understood if the shortcomings of global communication are taken more seriously.

Covering all types of cross-border global communication in media, political and economic systems, civil societies, social media and lifeworlds of the individual, this unique book is invaluable for students and researchers in media, communication, globalization and related areas.

Kai Hafez is a Chair Professor of International and Comparative Media and Communication Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany. His research specializations are global and political communication, media and democracy and Islamic-Western relations. He is the author of The Myth of Media Globalizationa and The Political Dimensions of Foreign Reporting (2 vols, in German), the editor of Arab Media - Power and Weakness, Mass Media, Politics and Society in the Middle East, Islam and the West in the Mass Media: Fragmented Images in a Globalizing World, Media Ethics in the Dialogue of Cultures: Journalistic Self-Regulation in Europe, the Arab World, and Muslim Asia and the co-editor of Media and Transformation in Germany and Indonesia: Asymmetrical Comparisons and Perspectives.

Anne Grüne is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany. Her research specializations are globalization and social communication, comparative communication cultures and global popular culture. She is the author of Formatted World Culture? On the Theory and Practice of Global Entertainment Television (in German) and co-editor of Media and Transformation in Germany and Indonesia: Asymmetrical Comparisons and Perspectives.