Born in Cape Town, South Africa. Left there in 1958, moved to London, England, and then to Canada in 1960. Moved to Houston in 1979. He completed his Ph.D.(History) at the University of Pennsylvania and is currently a professor of communication at the University of Houston. Garth Jowett's book, FILM:THE DEMOCRATIC ART (Little, Brown, 1976) is widely acknowledged as one of the most significant contributions to the emergence of the study of motion pictures as a social and cultural factor in American life. His later book, written with co-authors Ian Jarvie, and Kathryn Fuller, CHILDREN AND THE MOVIES: MEDIA INFLUENCE AND THE PAYNE FUND STUDIES (Cambridge University Press, 1996) is considered to be the definitive examination of the Payne Fund Studies and their important place in American cinema history. Jowett and co-author Victoria O'Donnell's book, PROPAGANDA AND PERSUASION (4th ed. Sage Publications, 2006) has been a widely used text for nearly twenty-five years, and has helped to develop the emerging field of propaganda studies. He has published widely in the fields of film history, popular culture and propaganda.
