Blackwell Reference Online

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Herbert I. Schiller is one of the founding figures of the political economy of communication tradition (→ Political Economy of the Media ). Schiller was born in 1919 and died in 2000. Beginning with his book Mass communication and American empire (1969) and ending with his posthumously published Living in the number one country (2000), he had an impact on several generations of scholars, policymakers, media practitioners, and media activists. His work provided a principal inspiration for the global movement to create a → new world information and communication order (NWICO) . Schiller was also a leading figure in the → International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) , the scholarly association most strongly identified with international and political economic research (→ International Communication ). Schiller's first book attracted widespread attention because it was one of the first sustained research accounts of the role communication media played in the expansion of postwar American power. Broadening the concept of media to include such fundamental “resources” as control over both the electromagnetic spectrum and the geosynchronous satellite orbit, Schiller managed to inject communication into the then hotly debated concern over the confluence of military and industrial power in the United States (→ Media Economics ). Specifically, he described ... log in or subscribe to read full text