Seward, Robert (Allen) 1942-

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SEWARD, Robert (Allen) 1942-

PERSONAL: Born June 7, 1942, in Oakland, CA; son of Odis L. and Marcia C. (Potter) Seward. Education: San Francisco State University, B.A., 1965; postgraduate work at the University of Stockholm, 1967; University of Oregon, Ph.D., 1979.

ADDRESSES: Office—Faculty of International Studies, Meiji Gakuin University, 1518 Kamikurata-cho, Totuska-ku, Yokohama 244-8539, Japan; fax: 81-45-863-2265.

CAREER: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, assistant professor, 1977-80; Wharton School, Philadelphia, PA, associate director of analysis center, 1980-82; Courant Institute, New York University, New York, NY, sponsored research administrator, 1982-87; Meiji Gakuin University, Yokohama, Japan, professor of international studies, 1987—.

WRITINGS:

Radio Happy Isles: Media and Politics at Play in the Pacific, University of Hawaii Press (Honolulu, HI), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: In Radio Happy Isles: Media and Politics at Play in the Pacific, Robert Seward presents an anecdotal account of the influence of radio in the Pacific Islands. Avoiding a dry, factual, theoretical analysis, Seward prefers instead to focus on the social aspects of radio. Much more influential than other mediums, radio has played an important role in the culture of the Pacific.

Seward particularly focuses on PACNEWS, the news service in the Pacific—how it came to be, and the opportunity it presents listeners to knowing what is happening in their own region of the world. Lissant Bolton, in the Journal of Pacific History, wrote that the book "is valuable, both in providing a broad account of the development of radio in the region, and in drawing attention to the impact that the medium, and especially the news it communicates, is having on the Pacific."