In 2009, a bipartisan Knight Commission found that while the broadband age is enabling an info. and commun. renaissance, local communities in particular are being unevenly served with critical info. about local issues. Soon after the Knight Commission delivered its findings, the FCC initiated a working group to identify crosscurrent and trend, and make recommendations on how the info. needs of communities can be met in a broadband world. This report by the FCC Working Group on the Info. Needs of Communities addresses the rapidly changing media landscape in a broadband age. Contents: Media Landscape; The Policy and Regulatory Landscape; Recommendations. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand report.

This books draws a comparative balance of twenty years' international media assistance in the five countries of the Western Balkans. The central question was what happens to imported models when they are transposed onto the newly evolving media systems of transitional societies. Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia undertook a range of media reforms to conform with accession requirements of the European Union and the standards of the Council of Europe, among others. The essays explore the nexus between the democratic transformation of the media and international media assistance. The cross-national analysis concludes that the effects of international assistance are highly constrained by the local context. From today's vantage point it becomes obvious, that scaling media assistance does not necessarily improve outcomes. The experiences in the region suggest that imported solutions have not been very cognitive in all aspects of local conditions but international strategies tent to be rather schematic and lacked strategic approaches to promote media policy stability, credible media reform and implementation. The book offers valuable insights into the nature and effects of media assistance and the strategies deployed by international aid agencies, local political forces, media professionals, civil society organizations and other actors.