The annual Freedom of the Press, which tracks trends in media freedom worldwide, appears for the first time as an expanded book. Covering 192 countries, the survey provides numerical ratings of the level of press freedom in each country. The Freedom House survey team also assesses the legal environment for the media, political pressures that influence reporting, and economic factors that affect access to information. Essays include a 25-year retrospective of press freedom and a timely analysis of the upcoming World Summits on the Information Society (2003 and 2005). Academics in several disciplines, governments, the news media, and the World Bank employ Freedom of the Press as a standard reference.

American democracy owes much to the rights guaranteed to individuals in the U.S. Constitution and specifically in its first 10 amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. Each book in the new six-volume American Rights set provides the history of a specific right or rights, from the right to vote to the right to bear arms. The volumes begin with brief colonial history, discussing the war fought by American Revolutionaries to gain independence from Great Britain - and their opportunity to decide what rights every American should possess. Coverage also includes later and ongoing struggles by groups such as women and people of color to gain these rights - both in law and in practice. Students will learn to appreciate the value of these rights by reading of the battles fought to secure them and, in some cases, by learning of their relative rarity around the world. Graphs, maps, photographs, and box features enhance the lively and accessible narrative, calling out important details and bringing this exciting material to life. Providing a wealth of information, American Rights is a thought-provoking, must-have set perfect for the young readers of today.

Freedom House's annual press freedom survey has tracked trends in media freedom worldwide since 1980. Covering 194 countries and territories, Freedom of the Press 2006 provides comparative rankings and examines the legal environment for the media, political pressures that influence reporting, and economic factors that affect access to information. The survey is the most authoritative assessment of media freedom around the world. Its findings are widely utilized by policymakers, scholars, press freedom advocates, journalists, and international institutions.

What are the media's responsibilities? To whom are they accountable? Are they increasingly growing out of control? In the 21st century, our mass media are becoming more powerful and more difficult to hold to account, and attempts at control to prevent harm or make media more responsible are often viewed as infringements of market and media freedom. In this study, Denis McQuail identifies problematic trends and issues and outlines the principles underlying media regulation and accountability.

The civil rights movement in the United States drew strength from supporters of human rights worldwide. Once U.S. policy makers--influenced by international pressure, the courage of ordinary American citizens, and a desire for global leadership--had signed such documents as the United Nations charter, domestic calls for change could be based squarely on the moral authority of doctrines the United States endorsed abroad. This is one of the many fascinating links between racial politics and international affairs explored in Window on Freedom. Broad in chronological scope and topical diversity, the ten original essays presented here demonstrate how the roots of U.S. foreign policy have been embedded in social, economic, and cultural factors of domestic as well as foreign origin. They argue persuasively that the campaign to realize full civil rights for racial and ethnic minorities in America is best understood in the context of competitive international relations. The contributors are Carol Anderson, Donald R. Culverson, Mary L. Dudziak, Cary Fraser, Gerald Horne, Michael Krenn, Paul Gordon Lauren, Thomas Noer, Lorena Oropeza, and Brenda Gayle Plummer.

Since its development shaped by the turmoil of the World Wars and suspicion of new technologies such as film and radio, political communication has become a hybrid field largely devoted to connecting the dots among political rhetoric, politicians and leaders, voters' opinions, and media exposure to better understand how any one aspect can affect the others. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication Kate Kenski and Kathleen Hall Jamieson bring together leading scholars, including founders of the field of political communication Elihu Katz, Jay Blumler, Doris Graber, Max McCombs, and Thomas Paterson,to review the major findings about subjects ranging from the effects of political advertising and debates and understandings and misunderstandings of agenda setting, framing, and cultivation to the changing contours of social media use in politics and the functions of the press in a democratic system. The essays in this volume reveal that political communication is a hybrid field with complex ancestry, permeable boundaries, and interests that overlap with those of related fields such as political sociology, public opinion, rhetoric, neuroscience, and the new hybrid on the quad, media psychology. This comprehensive review of the political communication literature is an indispensible reference for scholars and students interested in the study of how, why, when, and with what effect humans make sense of symbolic exchanges about sharing and shared power. The sixty-two chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication contain an overview of past scholarship while providing critical reflection of its relevance in a changing media landscape and offering agendas for future research and innovation.

Minnesota Rag takes the reader on a tour of the underside of a dark period in Minnesota's past, one filled with crooked public officials, vengeful gangsters, and yellow journalists. Featuring notorious characters such as Jay M. Near, racist and antilabor publisher of Minneapolis's Saturday Press, pioneering newsman Fred W. Friendly weaves the tale of a court case that molded our understanding of freedom of the press and set a precedent for the publication of the Pentagon Papers.