The Curious Encounter of Telstar and STARFISH PRIME, July 1962

This talk is based on Schwoch’s book Global TV: New Media and The Cold War which examines the relationship of global television, diplomacy, and new electronic communications media. Beginning with the Allied occupation of Germany in 1946 and ending with the 1969 Apollo moon landing, this book explores major developments in global media, including the postwar absorption of the International Telecommunications Union into the United Nations and its impact on both television and international policy; the rise of psychological warfare and its relations to new electronic media of the 1950s; and the role of the Ford Foundation in shaping global communication research concepts.
James Schwoch conducts research and teaching in global media, media history, global security, international studies, ICT policy, and research methodologies. He has published five books, most recently Global TV: New Media and the Cold War, 1946-69 and is currently co-editing with Lisa Parks (UC-Santa Barbara) an anthology about satellites called Down To Earth for Rutgers University Press.

His research has been supported by, among others, the Fulbright Commission (Finland 2005, Germany 1997), the Ford Foundation
(1993-2000), the National Science Foundation (1998-2002), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (1985, 1986). During 1997-98, Schwoch was the Leonard Marks Resident Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC; he has held visiting faculty appointments in Finland on three occasions (Tampere 1994, Jyvaskyla 1996, Helsinki 2005.)

Schwoch is currently in residence at the new Northwestern campus in Doha, Qatar where he is building the curriculum and developing research projects in the broad area of global media. He continues to work with graduate students and advise dissertations on the Evanston campus during his Qatar residency.

hm 6/1/09, 6/2