In sub-Saharan Africa, mobile technology has developed at a rapid pace and the numbers of mobile users have increased faster than those in the rest of the world. The underlying question of how mobile journalism and social media may support African citizens and contribute to social change forms the basis of this book. A qualitative content analysis provides the methodological framework to interpret the interviews with professional and citizen journalists and media experts. The results suggest that mobile and social media contribute to the plurality of journalism in Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa. Mobile and social media reporters are aware of ethical questions and journalistic standards; at the same time, they connect with local communities and adopt an advocative and subjective approach.

The monograph Social Clustering: Paradigm of Trust combines smart education strategies, social clustering and innovative educational practices. Networking and intersectoral empowerment help leaders operate the multifunctional, multicriterion, multisector approach and develop trust-based family, community, and regional and national prosperity. Aspiration for common objective; consensus on the most important priorities of the public interest; successful social partnership between the public, private, civic (NGO) sector; and scientific organizations and stakeholders help us create a modern and sustainable society. Trust-based social economy, smart education and social partnership research, and services models have been developed by university researchers together with social partners.

The volume offers an overview of the economic, political and cultural factors that influence the production of literature. By bringing together the research areas of literary criticism and book history, the volume focuses on narrative strategies, metaphors and tropes that reflect the market as a network of multi-conglomerates, authors, translators and readers. The global scope of the different contributions unites analyses of German, English, Spanish, French, Scandinavian, Indian and South African literature. The contributors attend carefully to the economic contexts of the literary production while simultaneously addressing the market's influence on content and form. Thoughts on poetological reflections of economic phenomena complement studies concerning the means of production and vice versa.

"The Age of Knowledge" emphasizes that the ongoing transformations of knowledge, both within universities and for society more generally, must be understood as a reflection of the larger changes in the constitutive social structures within which they are invariably produced, translated and reproduced. As the development of knowledge continues to be implicated in the habitual practices of the human social enterprise, visualizing these alterations requires the consideration of the social and materialistic contexts informing these transformations. This is necessary because the process of globalization has not only created new challenges for societies but has also unleashed a new political economy of knowledge within which different institutions must re-affirm their identity and place.

During the past decade, the world reached the point of becoming more urban than not, as the majority of people on the planet now live not in small towns or villages but in provincial, national, and global cities. Scholars have long been fascinated by so-called global cities, world cities, and the urban engines of the global economy. James H. Spencer argues, however, that such an emphasis misses the central fact that urbanization goes well beyond the usual suspects of New York, Tokyo, London, and Shanghai. The author charts urbanization across the Global South and North, resulting in what he describes as a planetary global urban ecosystem. This concept that challenges us to realize that in daily life, their similar physical and social ecosystems that make cities more understandable to each other than to their own rural hinterlands. Spencer s vivid case studies of Addis Ababa, Ho Chi Minh City, Honolulu, and New York draw out the commonalities of our intertwined built and social environments and how they express a shared humanity across continents and cultures."

Globalization is a phenomenon which has attracted much attention in the past, but there are still many questions that remain unanswered. This book categorizes globalization into three types: Financial Globalization, the collapse of the Cold War order and the ensuing convergence toward the capitalistic system; and the rise of the emerging nations. The globalization of capitalism has two implications. One is trust in the market economy system and support for a minimal state while another is an aspect of the Casino Capitalism as typically seen by the rampant emergence of hedge funds. This book explores both the light and shadows cast by globalization, endeavoring to identify both positive and problematic effects of the globalization process on the world economy. For this purpose we would first examine the nature and the feature of the world capitalism in relation to globalization. Then we would discuss and investigate the path along which important nations - first the developed nations (the USA, EU and Japan), followed by the emerging nations (BRICs) - have proceeded under the influence of globalization. Focusing on this phenomenon from diverse points of view, which is to be taken by the first-rank contributors in their fields, will be extraordinarily fruitful for understanding not only the world capitalism. This collection, from a selection of leading international contributors, will not only shed light on world capitalism as it is now, but will also offer pointers as to its future directions.

This book concerns with the analysis of the impact of globalization on international migration from a distinct international political economy perspective. It confronts theoretical debates from the different international political economy (IPE) approaches and elaborates on the implications of different theories in policymaking and political realms. Here, migration is examined as an integral part of the global political economy that is structurally connected to the process of globalization, although the definition of globalization itself is a subject of enquiry.

The ascent of globalisation tells the sweeping historical drama of the development of globalisation, from the Second World War to the present day. The story is told through the richly detailed accounts of eighteen remarkable men and women, describing how these architects reshaped the modern world, for better or worse. Profiling their lives, ideas and struggles reveals fresh insights into the nature of globalisation. The book also examines their legacies, shedding new light on many of the problems the world faces today: the global financial crisis, the political and economic malaise afflicting Europe, the numerous failures of the United Nations, the unchecked power of corporations and the inability of governments to cooperate on critical issues such as climate change. -- .

This brilliant new book by one of Europe's leading social thinkers throws light on the global power games being played out between global business, nation states and movements rooted in civil society. Beck offers an illuminating account of the changing nature of power in the global age and assesses the influence of the ever-expanding counter-powers.

The author puts forward the provocative thesis that in an age of global crises and risks, a politics of "golden handcuffs" - the creation of a dense network of transnational interdependencies - is exactly what is needed in order to regain national autonomy, not least in relation to a highly mobile world economy. It is imperative that the maxim of nation-based realpolitik - that national interests have necessarily to be pursued by national means - be replaced by the maxim of cosmopolitan realpolitik. The more cosmopolitan our political structures and activities, Beck suggests, the more successful they will be in promoting national interests, and the greater our individual power in this global age will be.

The world s most popular sport, soccer is a global and cultural phenomenon. The television audience for the 2010 World Cup included nearly half of the world s population, with viewers in nearly every country. As a reflection of soccer s significance, the sport impacts countless aspects of the world s culture, from politics and religion to business and the arts. In The World through Soccer: The Cultural Impact of a Global Sport, Tamir Bar-On utilizes soccer to provide insights into worldwide politics, religion, ethics, marketing, business, leadership, philosophy, and the arts. Bar-On examines the ways in which soccer influences and reflects these aspects of society, and vice versa. Each chapter features representative players, providing specific examples of how soccer comments on and informs our lives. These players selected from a wide array of eras, countries, and backgrounds include Diego Maradona, Pele, Hugo Sanchez, Cha Bum-Kun, Roger Milla, Jose Luis Chilavert, Zinedine Zidane, Paolo Maldini, Cristiano Ronaldo, Xavi, Neymar, Clint Dempsey, Mia Hamm, and many others. Employing a unique lens to view a variety of topics, The World through Soccer reveals the sport s profound cultural impact. Combining philosophical, popular, and academic insights about our world, this book is aimed at both soccer fans and academics, offering readers a new perspective into a sport that affects millions."

At the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics, a global audience of nearly one billion viewers were treated to the unprecedented sight of James Bond meeting Queen Elizabeth II. Shortly after, the 'Queen' hurled herself out of a helicopter, her Union Jack parachute guiding her down to the Olympic Stadium. What it is about moments such as these that define both a particular idea of Britishness and a particular type of British film comedy? How has British cinema exploited parody as a means of negotiating its sense of identity? How does this function within a globalized marketplace and in the face of dominant Hollywood cinema? Beyond a Joke explores the myriad ways British film culture has used forms of parody, from the 1960s to the present day. It provides a contextual and textual analysis of a range of works that, while popular, have only rarely been the subject of serious academic attention - from Morecambe and Wise to Shaun of the Dead to the London 2012 Olympics' opening ceremony. Combining the methodologies both of film history and film theory, Beyond a Joke locates parody within specific industrial and cultural moments, while also looking in detail at the aesthetics of parody as a mode. Ultimately, such works are shown to be a form of culturally specific film or televisual product for exporting to the global market, in which 'Britishness', shaped in self-mocking and ironic terms, becomes the selling point. Written in an accessible style and illustrated throughout with a diverse range of examples, Beyond a Joke is the first book to explore parody within a specifically British context and makes an invaluable contribution to the scholarship on both British and global film culture.

Presenting an ethnographic account of the emergence and application of critical political alternatives in the Global South, this book analyses the opportunities and challenges of decolonizing and transforming a modern, hierarchical and globally-immersed nation-state on the basis of indigenous terminologies. Alternative development paradigms that represent values including justice, pluralism, democracy and a sustainable relationship to nature tend to emerge in response to - and often opposed to - the neoliberal globalization. Through a focus on the empirical case of the notion of Vivir Bien ('Living Well') as a critical cultural and ecological paradigm, Ranta demonstrates how indigeneity - indigenous peoples' discourses, cultural ideas and worldviews - has become such a denominator in the construction of local political and policy alternatives. More widely, the author seeks to map conditions for, and the challenges of, radical political projects that aim to counteract neoliberal globalization and Western hegemony in defining development. This book will appeal to critical academic scholars, development practitioners and social activists aiming to come to grips with the complexity of processes of progressive social change in our contemporary global world.

This book draws on the thought of Baudrillard to explore the effects of globalisation and tourism in a Thai context. Arguing that tourism does not necessarily erode local culture but that local culture can in fact be recreated through globalisation and tourism, the author employs studies of the Damnoen Saduk and Pattaya floating markets, showing them to be simulations of Thai culture that undergo changes of form, cultural content and activity, through various stages of representation. With a focus on the themes of the circulation of value and signs, the play of differences and orders of simulacra, this volume examines the extent to which Baudrillard's theory can apply in a non-western context and in relation to tourism. A study of consumption, tourism and the relations between the global and the local, Globalisation, Tourism and Simulacra will appeal to scholars of sociology and geography with interests tourism, globalisation and social theory.

This book explores the transition from the era of internationalization into the era of globalization of Japan by focusing on language and identity as its central themes. By taking an interdisciplinary approach covering education, cultural studies, linguistics and policy-making, the chapters in this book raise certain questions of what constitutes contemporary Japanese culture, Japanese identity and multilingualism and what they mean to local people, including those who do not reside in Japan but are engaged with Japan in some way within the global community. Topics include the role of technology in the spread of Japanese language and culture, hybrid language use in an urban context, the Japanese language as a lingua franca in China, and the identity construction of heritage Japanese language speakers in Australia. The authors do not limit themselves to examining only the Japanese language or the Japanese national/cultural identity, but also explore multilingual practices and multiple/fluid identities in "a transitional Japan." Overall, the book responds to the basic need for better accounts of language and identity of Japan, particularly in the context of increased migration and mobility.

"Globalization and the Environment" critically explores the actors, politics and processes that govern the relationship between globalization and the environment. Taking key aspects of globalisation in turn - trade, production and finance - the book highlights the relations of power at work that determine whether globalization is managed in a sustainable way and on whose behalf. Each chapter looks in turn at the political ecology of these central pillars of the global economy, reviewing evidence of its impact on diverse ecologies and societies, its governance - the political structures, institutions and policy making processes in place to manage this relationship - and finally efforts to contest and challenge these prevailing approaches.The book makes sense of the relationship between globalisation and the environment using a range of theoretical tools from different disciplines. This helps to place the debate about the compatibility between globalisation and sustainability in an explicitly political and historical context in which it is possible to appreciate the 'nature' of interests and power relations that privilege some ways of responding to environmental problems over others in a context of globalisation.

Scarce attention has been paid to the dimension of sound and its essential role in constructing image, culture, and identity in Chinese film and media. China in the Mix fills a critical void with the first book on the sound, languages, scenery, media, and culture in post-Socialist China. In this study, Ying Xiao explores fascinating topics, including appropriations of popular folklore in the Chinese new wave of the 1980s; Chinese rock 'n' roll and youth cinema in fin de siecle China; the political-economic impact of free market imperatives and Hollywood pictures on Chinese film industry and filmmaking in the late twentieth century; the reception and adaptation of hip hop; and the emerging role of Internet popular culture and social media in the early twenty-first century. Xiao examines the articulations and representations of mass culture andeveryday life, concentrating on their aural/oral manifestations in contemporary Chinese cinema and in a wide spectrum of media and cultural productions. China in the Mix offers the first comprehensive investigation of Chinese film, expressions, and culture from a unique, cohesiveacoustic angle and through the prism of global media-cultural exchange. It shows how the complex, evolving uses of sound (popular music, voice-over, silence, noise, and audio mixing) in film and media reflect and engage the important cultural and socio-historical shifts in contemporary China and in the increasingly networked world. Xiao offers an innovative new conception of Chinese film and media and their audiovisual registers in the historiographical frame of China amid the global landscape.

The contributors to this volume examine the actual workings and on-the-ground effects of contemporary political economic shifts in the Global South, and implications for reconfiguring social networks, conceptions and practices of governance, and burgeoning social movements. How do various groups in the Global South respond to and manage chronic states of insecurity and precarity concomitant with contemporary globalization processes? While drawing on diverse ethnographic viewpoints in the Philippines, the authors analyze the impact of these processes through the conceptual framework of "emergent sociality," a purported connectedness among individuals fostered through interactions, copresence, and conviviality within a community over a long duration. In so doing, the case studies in this volume suggest, illuminate, and debate insecurities that may be commonly shared among populations in the Philippines and throughout the Global South. This anthology will be of great interest to students and scholars of cultural anthropology, globalization and Philippines society.

For many years, political leaders and analysts have debated the impacts of China's rise on the stability of the existing international system. International observers have also debated whether China would be a status quo power or a revisionist power, and whether China would observe the rules and regulations of international institutions and regimes. China Joins Global Governance: Cooperation and Contentions, edited by Mingjiang Li, provides an insightful contribution to our understanding of these issues through a specific angle: China's role in global governance. The contributors to this volume address such questions as, how has China dealt with major global institutions and regimes? How has China helped address various global challenges? How is China's rise changing the international approach to global governance? The contributors cover a broad range of issues, including China's vision and strategy in global multilateralism, China's role in global economic/financial/trade governance, China's policy towards the global environment and international development, and China's approaches to various global security issues such as nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. China Joins Global Governance is an essential text in understanding the future trajectory of China's international policy.

The impact of globalisation is increasingly evident through both mass migration and the social, political, and economic changes that have produced new and growing social divides. The increased mobility and the opening of national borders that have arisen as part of these changes has also meant a rise in the diversification of migration (superdiversity) in all its forms. The multi-sited flows of people have also led to the flow of knowledge, culture, and languages. English - as a global language - has taken on a prominent role in the neoliberal discourses of commodification, value and distinction, and the role of language in the reproduction of social inequalities. This edited volume explores a range of issues related to the role of language. In particular, it addresses competency in English and multilingualism, both of which facilitate success for skilled migrants in the workplace and enable them to contribute to development efforts in their home communities. In more general terms, the book looks at the communicative competencies and language resources which skilled migrants require in order to engage productively in professional and development endeavours. It examines the notion that English is the linguistic capital for skilled migration, given its global status in higher education, development, and professional communication. This book was originally published as a special issue of Globalisation, Societies and Education.

This edited book explores the impact of globalisation on the relationship between religion and politics, religion and nation, religion and nationalism, and the impact that transnationalism has on religious groups. In a post-Westphalian and transnational world, with increased international communication and transportation, a plethora of new religious recompositions religions now take part in a network society that cuts across borders. This collection, through its analysis of historical and contemporary case studies, explores the growth of both national and transnational religious movements and their dealings with the various versions of modernity that they encounter. It considers trends of religious revitalisation and secularisation, and processes of nationalism and transnationalism through the prism of the theory of multiple modernities, acknowledging both its pluralist world view but also the argument that its definition of modernity is often so inclusive as to lose coherence. Providing a cutting edge take on 21st century religion and globalization, this volume is a key read for all scholars of religion, secularisation and transnationalism.

Based on contributions from international experts, this volume provides an up-to-date account of globalization's influences on individual life courses in nine different modern societies, and of cross-nationally varying political strategies to mediate this influence.

For decades, scholars and journalists have hailed the enormous potential of Brazil, which has for the last twenty years been one of the world's largest economies. But its promise has too often been curtailed by dictatorship, racism, poverty, and violence. Offering an interdisciplinary approach to the critical issues facing Brazil, the contributors to this volume analyze the democratization of the country's media, its potentiality as a nuclear power, the spread of neo-Protestantism, the development of popular culture, the global impact of Brazilian agribusiness, and the implementation of sustainable economic development, especially in the Amazon. Grouped with Russia, India, China, and South Africa (the other socalled BRICS countries) as one of the world's emerging economies, Brazil is unique in the Western hemisphere and on the global stage. The wide-ranging contributors also examine the exportation of Brazilian trends, institutions, culture, and religion through the accelerating processes of globalization. Emergent Brazil is a comprehensive and timely collection of essays that explore major Brazilian domestic concerns from the country's turbulent history to its restless present.

In this fully updated and revised new edition, this challenging work further develops a radical theory of the new world order to argue that as the globalization of power intensifies, so too do globalized forms of resistance. Leading political scientist Stephen Gill explains this dialectic of power and resistance involving governance, political economy and civilization with reference to struggles as far-reaching as US supremacy, the power of capital, market civilization, new constitutionalism, neo-liberalism and disciplinary and surveillance power.
Because of increasing inequality, massive social dislocations, cultural conflict and economic crisis associated with disciplinary neo-liberalism and market civilization, challenges from left and right to capitalist globalization have become manifest. The politics of globalization will hinge upon the balance of forces between the old and the new, between dominant and subordinate power and thus with challenges associated with new forms of political agency linked to 'transformative resistance'. In two new chapters, Gill also analyzes the nature of, and struggles over, key legal and constitutional transformations associated with the emerging world order and explores alternative scenarios and social forces to reflect on the new forms of political struggle that will shape global politics for the foreseeable future.
This work is essential reading for all those concerned with globalization, global political economy and international studies.

"Palgrave Advances in Global Governance is an authoritative collection devoted to clarifying established understandings of global governance as a distinct form of political activity. Ranging across the actors, arenas, means and purposes of global governance, this incisive collection brings order and clarity to a burgeoning literature"--Provided by publisher.

This edited collection interrogates the diversity of transnational migration experiences in the Asia-Pacific through the lens of digital ethnography in order to explore the transformative effects digital media plays in these experiences. While there has been work on the various ways in which internet communication technologies (ICTs) particularly mobile communication allows for various forms of connectivity between individuals and groups in this age of hyper (transnational) mobility, there is a scarcity on the way digital media presents challenges, creates agency and alters relationships within the broad umbrella of the transnational migration experience. The authors in this collection- who come from diverse disciplinary backgrounds across social, cultural, education and communication research - present cutting edge cross and trans disciplinary analyses of transnational migration where digital media becomes a creative, if not fundamental avenue, for migrants to develop new strategies for dealing with their cross-border mobilities.