Media Globalization and the Discovery Channel Networks [Hardcover]

This book is about the relationship between media and globalization, explored through the unique study of the global expansion of Discovery Communications, spearheaded by the Discovery Channel, one of the worlds largest providers of factual television programming and media content. The book argues that the study of Discovery's relationship with globalization provides both a specific and a more general practical and theoretical understanding of how the processes of increased linking and interweaving of media and communications unfold and develop, as well as some of the consequences of this.

Introduction: Global Media Phenomena 1. Discovery and a Globalizing Televisual Culture 2. The Rise of Discovery: Politics, Economics and Technology 3. Going Global: The Branding of Discovery 4. Discovery and the Globalization of Programming 5. Global/Regional/Local: Discoverys Programme Strategy in Europe 6. Global Programming and Universal Interest 7. Negotiating the Global and the Local: A Threefold Theoretical Paradigm 8. Discovery, the Global Public Sphere and Infotainment 9. Discovery and Media Globalization: A Double Relationship

...The strongest aspect of this book is its excellent, specific history of Discovery channel's rise. This is good, solid empirical work the kind of which academics oftentimes call for but rarely undertake...Overall, this book is an excellent, specific case study of the rise of Discovery. It spells out the specifics of globalizing television better than any other recent book. It can be of particular use to students in classes on globalization and television.
--Global Media Journal, Spring 2012

Ole J. Mjos is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Norway.