This timely Research Handbook draws on a wide range of international case studies to assess the transformative impact of modern communication landscapes on political propaganda. From Brexit to Donald Trump, from presidential elections in Mexico to political rallies in India, from ‘fake news’ to Cambridge Analytica, contributors demonstrate the ways in which growing digital platforms have amplified the reach and influence of political propaganda. International contributors dissect current political contexts, with a key focus on the growth of populism, nationalism, and alt-right politics, to understand how propaganda contributes to the formation and organization of political cultures. Chapters pay close attention to recent election campaigns across Europe, Asia, and the Americas and analyse political and cultural information wars that have been fuelled by misinformation and the so-called ‘fake news’ in digital media. Bringing together pioneering empirical research into contemporary communication, campaigning, journalism, and new media in a new political age, this Research Handbook provides a critical understanding of how propaganda contributes to the modern exercise of power globally. Offering interdisciplinary perspectives on an issue at the forefront of contemporary politics, this Research Handbook is a crucial resource for both scholars and students of international politics and relations, security, communications, and media studies. Its practical insights into political campaigning and new media will also benefit policymakers, governments, and citizens in handling key challenges posed to the healthy functioning of political systems by propaganda.

'A brilliant account of Africa’s most extraordinary dictator . . . This book will become a classic.' Economist

A sparkling account of the rise and fall of Mobutu Sese Seko, the charismatic dictator who plundered his country’s wealth and indulged a passion for pink champagne, gold jewellery and chartered Concordes. Absurdity, anarchy and corruption run riot in Michela Wrong’s fascinating dissection of the Congo; a story of grim comedy amidst the apocalypse and a celebration of the sheer indestructibility of the human spirit.

Using autoethnography to examine the social construction of whiteness in Puerto Rico. Guillermo Rebollo Gil draws from artistic, activist and popular culture registers to examine the multifarious yet often subtle ways race privilege shapes and informs daily life in the Puerto Rican archipelago. Cross-disciplinary in approach, Whiteness in Puerto Rico speaks to the present political moment in a country marked by austerity, disaster capitalism and protest.

A provocative and shocking look at how western society is misunderstanding and mistreating mental illness. Perfect for fans of Empire of Pain and Dope Sick. In Britain alone, more than 20% of the adult population take a psychiatric drug in any one year. This is an increase of over 500% since 1980 and the numbers continue to grow. Yet, despite this prescription epidemic, levels of mental illness of all types have actually increased in number and severity. Using a wealth of studies, interviews with experts, and detailed analysis, Dr James Davies argues that this is because we have fundamentally mischaracterised the problem. Rather than viewing most mental distress as an understandable reaction to wider societal problems, we have embraced a medical model which situates the problem solely within the sufferer and their brain. Urgent and persuasive, Sedated systematically examines why this individualistic view of mental illness has been promoted by successive governments and big business - and why it is so misplaced and dangerous.

In spite of the intense preoccupation with individual and self in modern Western thought, the social sciences have tended to focus on groups and collectives and downplay the individual. This implicit view has also coloured the study of social life in China where both Confucian ethics and Communist policies have shaped collective structures with little room for individual agency and choice. What is actually happening, however, is a growing individualization of China - not only changing perceptions of the individual but also rising expectations for individual freedom, choice and individuality. The individual has also become a basic social category in China, and a development has begun that permeates all areas of social, economic and political life. How this process evolves in a state and society lacking two of the defining characteristics of European individualization - a culturally embedded democracy and a welfare system - is one of the questions that the volume explores. A strength of this volume is that its authors succeed in depicting the individualization process in conceptually acute and empirically sensitive terms, and as something with its own distinctively Chinese profile. That makes this book a 'must read' for all those wanting to understand present-day Chinese society, with all of its ambivalences, contingencies and contradictions.

In spite of the intense preoccupation with individual and self in modern Western thought, the social sciences have tended to focus on groups and collectives and downplay the individual. This implicit view has also coloured the study of social life in China where both Confucian ethics and Communist policies have shaped collective structures with little room for individual agency and choice. What is actually happening, however, is a growing individualization of China - not only changing perceptions of the individual but also rising expectations for individual freedom, choice and individuality. The individual has also become a basic social category in China, and a development has begun that permeates all areas of social, economic and political life. How this process evolves in a state and society lacking two of the defining characteristics of European individualization - a culturally embedded democracy and a welfare system - is one of the questions that the volume explores. A strength of this volume is that its authors succeed in depicting the individualization process in conceptually acute and empirically sensitive terms, and as something with its own distinctively Chinese profile. That makes this book a 'must read' for all those wanting to understand present-day Chinese society, with all of its ambivalences, contingencies and contradictions.