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Browsing by Author Shelton A. Gunaratne

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  • Emerging global divides in media and communication theory: European universalism versus non-Western reactions

    • Authors: Shelton A. Gunaratne (2009)

  • What Wallerstein described as European universalism dominated media and communication theory until the end of the twentieth century. The three-tier divide of the global economic system (center, semi-periphery, and periphery) explicated in world-system analysis was equally applicable to the global academic/scholar-ship structure. The non-traditional fields of study, such as media and (mass) communication, inherited the full flavor of European universalism because they originated in the academic institutions of the center countries. The turn of the century saw a dramatic reaction to the Euro-American rhetoric of power. Organized groups of scholars have begun to question the presumption...
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  • Understanding systems theory: transition from equilibrium to entropy

    • Authors: Shelton A. Gunaratne (2008)

  • What we call systems theory is more a metatheory than a monolithic theory. It has provided a set of common signposts for all systems theorists to follow. This paper, written from the perspective of communications scholarship, examines the transition of systems theory from the age of equilibrium to the age of entropy during the middle of the twentieth century, and then to the age of emergence at the end of the century. It distinguishes between the old equilibrium-based systems theory and the entropy-based systems theory, as well as the ‘new’ emergence-centered social systems theory. It asserts the existence of close similarities between the fundamental concepts of systems theory and As...