Japan is an advanced industrialized country whose GNP/GDP is the second largest in the world. Its population is 127 million, which is the ninth largest in the world. The political system is a parliamentary democracy with the emperor as the state figurehead. The literacy rate is nearly 100 percent, and the per-capita income is about
Malaysia is a federation of 13 states covering an area of 329,750 square km. A parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy, Malaysia shares a border in common with five of the 10 ASEAN countries, namely Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, and the Philippines. It has a population of 26.6 million, comprising the three major ethnic
Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1810, and in 1822 it became a republic. Of the history prior to the 1910 revolution, the war between Mexico and the United States in the mid-nineteenth century needs to be mentioned, in which the former lost almost half of its territory – this became a permanent source
Despite its open borders and its central location between big European countries, the Netherlands (with a population of 16.3 million) has its own tradition with respect to both press and broadcasting, a tradition that is closely related to the country’s overall sociopolitical structure during most of the twentieth century. In the early years of the
The Republic of Poland is one of the largest countries in central Europe, and in size of population (38.7 million people) ranks eighth in Europe. Of that population, 98 percent are of Polish ethnic origin, and over 90 percent are Roman Catholics. Politics in Poland takes place in the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic
Situated in southwestern Europe, Portugal covers an area of 92,152 sq km and has a population of 10.6 million (2006 estimate). The two biggest cities are Lisbon, the capital, and Oporto. The official language is Portuguese. The literacy rate is 93 percent, and 94 percent of the population are Roman Catholic. In 2005, the country’s
For centuries, China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences. But in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, China was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists, under chairman Mao Zedong, founded the People’s Republic of
With an area of 1.14 million square kilometers, Colombia is the fourth largest country in Latin America. The population is 45 million. Geographical conditions impede the infrastructural development as well as the opening up of an efficient system of communication. For several decades, a violent conflict has been going on in Colombia. As a consequence
A system is an assemblage of individual elements that together constitute a whole, with each component interacting with the others and with the outer world. Using this approach, a media system may be seen as consisting of different publishing entities, such as news agencies, the press, or television, which relate to each other. To give
With nearly 111,000 square kilometers Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean Sea. It is located only 180 kilometers off Florida on the American continent. Since 1976 the República de Cuba has been subdivided into 14 provinces of almost equal size and one special municipality (Isla de la Juventud). The total population is 11.3