This book represents the first systematic effort to examine (1) the factual accuracy of the claims made in an entire political advertising campaign, (2) the visuals and sound cues used in that advertising and their relationship with the tone and accuracy of ads, and (3) the impact of the accuracy of claims on what people know and how they vote in a real campaign. The research is based on several years of labor-intensive coding of the factual accuracy of every claim made in the presidential ads in the 2008 election as well as the ads for the races for the US Congress in Minnesota. We show how the accuracy of political ad claims, the visuals and sound of ads, and ad tone (particularly negativity) are related to voting behavior. We argue that understanding how the accuracy of political ad claims affects voters is now more important than ever. This research has steered clear of the normative question of what such putative gains in knowledge represent, however. Does the content of negative advertising enhance voter capacities, such as the ability to locate candidates' issue positions accurately or state reasons to like or dislike candidates based on accurate information about the candidates' traits or issue stands? Does the accuracy of the information in political advertising matter-to voting behavior or vote choice--whether turnout goes up or down? Would voting more, while knowing less that is true be sufficient in a democracy? In studying the effects of advertising tone, such questions about advertising tone have not been asked. Our book redresses this lacuna. We show that negative advertising is more likely to make inaccurate claims. We show that ads making inaccurate claims also use a larger number of visual and sound distortions, perhaps tying up more cognitive capacities while pressing their untruthful arguments. We show links between inaccurate advertising and aggregate turnout, individual turnout, and individual political knowledge. The news is not good in an age of post-factual democracies.

This edited collection brings together critical and up-to-date assessments of how mainstream American and British media cover their respective foreign policies, paying special attention to 'official enemies'. In the age of the internet and social media, the reporting and commentary on world events by mainstream Western media remains tightly bound by the way in which Western governments promote their framing. This book explores the extent to which historical and recent Western media coverage has reflected and continues to reflect the foreign policies of the United States and the United Kingdom towards ten non-Western countries: Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Palestine, Russia, Serbia, Syria, and Vietnam. Chapters analyse media coverage before, during and after war and geo-political and economic conflicts. Drawing from diverse perspectives and methods, including historical analysis, content analysis, critical discourse analysis, and critical linguistics, Journalism and Foreign Policy offers original insight into the Western media's representation of important global events and developments, as well as the key scholarly issues of propaganda and digital media, across a wide range of recent coverage. This volume is key reading for academics and students in the areas of foreign policy and international politics, international communication, media content analysis, and journalism.

This edited collection brings together critical and up-to-date assessments of how mainstream American and British media cover their respective foreign policies, paying special attention to 'official enemies'. In the age of the internet and social media, the reporting and commentary on world events by mainstream Western media remains tightly bound by the way in which Western governments promote their framing. This book explores the extent to which historical and recent Western media coverage has reflected and continues to reflect the foreign policies of the United States and the United Kingdom towards ten non-Western countries: Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Palestine, Russia, Serbia, Syria, and Vietnam. Chapters analyse media coverage before, during and after war and geo-political and economic conflicts. Drawing from diverse perspectives and methods, including historical analysis, content analysis, critical discourse analysis, and critical linguistics, Journalism and Foreign Policy offers original insight into the Western media's representation of important global events and developments, as well as the key scholarly issues of propaganda and digital media, across a wide range of recent coverage. This volume is key reading for academics and students in the areas of foreign policy and international politics, international communication, media content analysis, and journalism.

This book discusses how it is possible for journalism to exist and function in a restrictive context such as that of Iran It is based on fieldwork conducted with Iranian journalists in Iran The book brings together a range of structural, organizational, and individual processes to analyse journalistic practice in a politically restrictive setting The author develops an explanatory framework for how Iranian journalists navigate the daily "minefield" of their professional environment The book sheds light on the everyday reality of journalism in Iran, addressing factors that hinder journalists' work while also showing how journalists use a set of double game strategies to simultaneously circumvent constraints and avoid retaliation Moving beyond notions of censorship and repression that accompany discussions of journalism in such settings, the book instead focuses on how we may think of critical journalism, professionalism, and journalistic power, agency, and autonomy, in restrictive contexts Offering powerful insights into the realities of journalism in a tightly controlled environment, this book will be a key resource for scholars and students of journalism, media and communication studies, political science, sociology, Iranian studies, and Middle East studies

Currently no work which focuses exclusively on the migrant voice in cultural or literary responses to Brexit. Engages with several overlapping socio-political and cultural issues, and approaches Brexit from an ambitious and diverse range of academic disciplines and perspectives. Chapters from a variety of European countries/voices, not previously compiled into one book. Provides an important cultural account of British-European relations.

This book investigates the pictorial figurations, aesthetic styles and visual tactics through which visual art and popular culture attempt to appeal to "all of us". One key figure these practices bring into play-the "everybody" (which stands for "all of us" and is sometimes a "new man" or a "new woman")-is discussed in an interdisciplinary way involving scholars from several European countries. A key aspect is how popularisation and communication practices-which can assume populist forms-operate in contemporary democracies and where their genealogies lie. A second focus is on the ambivalences of attraction, i.e. on the ways in which visual creations can evoke desire as well as hatred.

Drawing on a unique interdisciplinary perspective, integrating work from translation studies and linguistics with political science and economics, and applying it to English and French versions of the same documents, this book calls attention to stark ideological differences across versions. This book sheds light on our increasingly globalized world by demonstrating the ways in which globalized discourse undergoes processes of depoliticization and marketization, in turn producing a trickle-down effect on individuals' personal identities.

This book investigates news use patterns among five different generations in a time where digital media create a multi-choice media environment. The book introduces the EPIG Model (Engagement-Participation-Information-Generation) to study how different generational cohorts' exposure to political information is related to their political engagement and participation. The authors build on a multi-method framework to determine direct and indirect media effects across generations. The unique dataset allows for comparison of effects between legacy and social media use and helps to disentangle the influence on citizens' political involvement in nonelection as well as during political campaign times. Bringing the newly of-age Generation Z into the picture, the book presents an in-depth understanding of how a changing media environment presents different challenges and opportunities for political involvement of this, as well as older generations. Bringing the conversation around political engagement and the media up to date for the new generation, this book will be of key importance to scholars and students in the areas of media studies, communication studies, technology, political science and political communication.

Partners of the Imagination is the first in-depth study of the work of John Arden and Margaretta D'Arcy, partners in writing and cultural and political campaigns. Beginning in the 1950s, Arden and D'Arcy created a series of hugely admired plays performed at Britain's major theatres. Political activists, they worked tirelessly in the peace movement and the Northern Ireland 'Troubles', during which D'Arcy was gaoled. She is also a veteran of the Greenham Common Women's Peace camp. Their later work included Booker-listed novels, prize-winning stories, essays and radio plays, and D'Arcy founded and ran a Woman's Pirate Radio station. Raymond Williams described Arden as 'the most genuinely innovative' of the playwrights of his generation, and Chambers and Prior claimed that 'The Non-Stop Connolly Show', D'Arcy and Arden's six-play epic, 'has fair claim to being one of the finest pieces of post-war drama in the English language'. This study explores the connections between art and life, and between the responsibilities of the writer and the citizen. Importantly, it also evaluates the range of literary works (plays, poetry, novels, essays, polemics) created by these writers, both as literature and drama, and as controversialist activity in its own right. This work is a landmark examination of two hugely respected radical writers.

Investigating art practitioners' responses to violence, this book considers how artists have used art practices to rethink concepts of violence and non-violence. It explores the strategies that artists have deployed to expose physical and symbolic violence through representational, performative and interventional means. It examines how intellectual and material contexts have affected art interventions and how visual arts can open up critical spaces to explore violence without reinforcement or recuperation. Its premises are that art is not only able to contest prevailing norms about violence but that contemporary artists are consciously engaging with publics through their practice in order to do so. Contributors respond to three questions: how can political violence be understood or interpreted through art? How are publics understood or identified? How are art interventions designed to shift, challenge or respond to public perceptions of political violence and how are they constrained by them? They discuss violence in the everyday and at state level: the Watts' Rebellion and Occupy, repression in Russia, domination in Hong Kong, the violence of migration and the unfolding art activist logic of the sigma portfolio. Asking how public debates can be shaped through the visual and performing arts and setting taboos about violence to one side, the volume provides an innovative approach to a perennial issue of interest to scholars of international politics, art and cultural studies.

This book reveals how Al Jazeera and its news coverage became a force for change politically, socially and culturally in the Middle East in general, and the Arab world in particular. It explores pre-Al Jazeera and post-Al Jazeera representations of humanitarian crises and identifies a potentially significant partnership between the news organizations and humanitarian actors. By tracing the evolution of the news network, the book sheds new light on how Al Jazeera effected change in the Global South. The research identifies a significant relationship between Al Jazeera's news coverage and the ability to forecast international humanitarian actions, politically and militarily. It also explores the potential for continued partnership between humanitarian actors and news organization to identify crises in their early stages. Lastly, the book examines the distinct, original lexicon developed by Al Jazeera for humanitarian affairs and shows how the network influenced international media stylebooks and changed humanitarian coverage on key global issues. A compelling examination of Al Jazeera's news operation that will be of interest to students and scholars of media studies, political communication, journalism and news reporting, international politics and the media, and Arab media.

With its focus on the popular television genre of Nordic noir, this book examines subtle and explicit manifestations of geopolitics in crime series from Scandinavia and Finland, as well as the impact of such programmes on how northern Europe is viewed around the world. Drawing on a diverse set of literature, from screen studies to critical International Relations, Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir addresses the fraught geopolitical content of Nordic television series, as well as how Nordic noir as a genre travels the globe. With empirical chapters focusing on the interlinked concepts of the body, the border, and the nation-state, this book interrogates the various ways in which northern European states grapple with challenges wrought by globalisation, neoliberalism, and climate change. Reflecting the current global fascination with all things Nordic, this text examines the light and dark sides of the region as seen through the television screen, demonstrating that series such as Occupied, Trapped, and The Bridge have much to teach us about world politics. This book will be of interest to those interested in geopolitics, national identity, and the politics of popular culture in: Scandinavian studies, media/screen studies, IR/political science, human/cultural geography, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and communication.

This book analyses the marketing techniques that terrorist organisations employ to encourage people to adopt their ideology and become devoted supporters. The book's central thesis is that due to the development of digital technologies and social media, terrorist groups are employing innovative marketing techniques and advertising strategies to foster an emotional connection with their audiences, particularly those in younger demographics. By conducting thematic and narrative analyses of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) propagandist magazines, as well as looking at the group's online communities, the book demonstrates that terrorist groups behave as commercial brands by establishing an emotional connection with their potential recruits. Specifically, groups and their potential supporters follow the logic of emotional choice. The book emphasizes that while ISIS became the first group that discovered and benefited from the power of marketing, it did not have a supernatural power and thus it is possible to find a response to it, which is particularly important now. The book eventually poses a question about whether terrorism has become the product of marketing in the same way as any mainstream consumer product is, and asks what can we do to battle the appeal of marketing-savvy terrorist groups. This book will be of interest to students of terrorism studies, radicalisation, and propaganda, communication , and security studies.

This book reflects on the rapid rise of social media across the African continent and the legal and extra-legal efforts governments have invented to try to contain it. The relentless growth of social media platforms in Africa has provided the means of resistance, self-expression, and national self-fashioning for the continent's restlessly energetic and contagiously creative youth. This has provided a profound challenge to the African "gatekeeper state", which has often responded with strategies to constrict and constrain the rhetorical luxuriance of the social media and digital sphere. Drawing on cases from across the continent, contributors explore the form and nature of social media and government censorship, often via antisocial media laws, or less overt tactics such as state cybersurveillance, spyware attacks on social media activists, or the artful deployment of the rhetoric of "fake news" as a smokescreen to muzzle critical voices. The book also reflects on the Chinese influence in African governments' clampdown on social media and the role of Israeli NSO Group Technologies, as well as the tactics and technologies which activists and users are deploying to resist or circumvent social media censorship. Drawing on a range of methodologies and disciplinary approaches, this book will be an important contribution to researchers with an interest in social media activism, digital rebellion, discursive democracy in transitional societies, censorship on the Internet, and Africa more broadly.

This volume places the spotlight on the role different media and communications systems played in informing the public about the pandemic, shaping their views about what was happening and contributing to behavioural compliances with pandemic-related restrictions. Throughout the pandemic, media coverage has played an important role in drawing attention to specific messages, influencing public risk perceptions and fear responses. Mainstream media and other electronic communication systems such as Facebook and WhatsApp have been pivotal in getting pandemic information out to the public, thereby influencing their beliefs, attitudes and behaviour and engaging them generally in the pandemic as stakeholders. In this timely volume, author Barrie Gunter considers how people reacted to this coverage and its contribution to their understanding of what was going on, including the influence of fake news and misinformation on public beliefs about the pandemic, from anti-lockdown protests to the "anti-vaxx" movement. In addition, looking at how government messaging was not always consistent or clear and how different authorities were found not always to be in harmony or compliance with the messages they put out, Gunter examines the harm done by presenting different publics with ambiguous or conflicting narratives. Drawing out important communications strategy lessons to be learned for the future, this is essential reading for students and researchers in psychology, public health and medical sciences and for policymakers who assess government strategies, responses and performance.

How do precarious workers employed in call-centres, universities, the fashion industry and many other labour markets organise, struggle and communicate to become recognised, influential political subjects? "Media Practices and Protest Politics; How Precarious Workers Mobilise" reveals the process by which individuals at the margins of the labour market and excluded from the welfare state communicate and struggle outside the realm of institutional politics to gain recognition in the political sphere. In this important and thought provoking work Alice Mattoni suggests an all-encompassing approach to understanding grassroots political communication in contemporary societies. Using original examples from precarious workers mobilizations in Italy she explores a range of activist media practices and compares different categories of media technologies, organizations and outlets from the printed press to web application and from mainstream to alternative media. Explaining how activists perceive and understand the media environment in which they are embedded the book discusses how they must interact with a diverse range of media professionals and technologies and considers how mainstream, radical left-wing and alternative media represent protests. Media Practices and Protest Politics offers important insights for understanding mechanisms and patterns of visibility in struggles for recognition and redistribution in post-democratic societies and provides a valuable contribution to the field of political communication and social movement studies.

Social Progress and the Authoritarian Challenge to Democracy examines the authoritarian challenge to present-day democracy through a framing of social progress theory and the idea of the social contract. Building on the author's previous work, this book discusses whether social progress is linear and on a continual upward trajectory to human betterment, or if there are peaks and troughs along the way. More importantly, it questions that, if social progress exists, is it compatible with social and environmental sustainability? At the outset the book introduces the concepts of social contract theory and the idea of human social progress, long considered to be settled conditions, now ripe for further examination. Each chapter carefully analyses the contemporary struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, using examples from the USA as a foundation to discuss and compare democracies from around the world encountering the pressures of rising authoritarianism, including anti-immigration, xenophobia and anti-institutionalism. It argues that if the climate crisis is to be urgently addressed as required, the rise in authoritarian thinking, with its focus on maintaining power and the creation of individual wealth, presents a challenge to both our societal foundations and environmental sustainability. Highlighting and analysing topics of critical importance to today's society, this book will have widespread appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students throughout the social sciences including sociology, political science, philosophy, environmental sustainability and development studies.

This book analyses the arrival of emerging and traditional information and technology for public and economic use in Latin America. It focuses on the governmental, economic and security issues and the study of the complex relationship between citizens and government. The book is divided into three parts: * 'Digital data and privacy, prospects and barriers' centers on the debates among the right of privacy and the loss of intimacy in the Internet, * 'Homeland security and human rights' focuses on how novel technologies such as drones and autonomous weapons systems reconfigure the strategies of police authorities and organized crime, * 'Labor Markets, digital media and emerging technologies' emphasize the legal, economic and social perils and challenges caused by the increased presence of social media, blockchain-based applications, artificial intelligence and automation technologies in the Latin American economy. This first volume in a two volume set will be important reading for scholars and students of governance in Latin American, the protection of human rights and the use of technology to combat crime and the new advances of digital economy in the region.

This book offers the first systematic study of how the 'Anthropocene' is reported in mass media globally, drawing parallels between the use (or misuse) of the term and the media's attitude towards the associated issues of climate change and global warming. Identifying the potential dangers of the Anthropocene provides a useful path into a variety of issues that are often ignored, misrepresented, or sidelined by the media. These dangers are widely discussed in the social sciences, environmental humanities, and creative arts, and this book includes chapters on how the contributions of these disciplines are reported by the media. Our results suggest that the natural science and mass media establishments, and the business and political interests which underpin them, tend to lean towards optimistic reassurance (the 'good' Anthropocene), rather than pessimistic alarmist stories, in reporting the Anthropocene. In this volume, contributors explore how dangerous this 'neutralizing' of the Anthropocene is in undermining serious global action in the face of the potential existential risks confronting humanity. The book presents results from media in more than 100 countries in all major languages across the globe. It covers the reporting of key environmental issues, such as the impact of climate change and global warming on oceans, forests, soil, biodiversity, and the biosphere. We offer explanations for differences and similarities in how the media report the Anthropocene in different regions of the world. In doing so, the book argues that, though it is still controversial, the idea of the Anthropocene helps to concentrate minds and behaviour in confronting ongoing ecological (and Coronavirus) crises. The Anthropocene in Global Media will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental studies, media and communication studies, and the environmental humanities, and all those who are concerned about the survival of humans on planet Earth.

This book examines the visual-sexual turn in social media discourses in the field of online activism with a particular focus on the extraordinary protest years of 2018-2020. Presenting a socially engaged theory of "tit-for-tat media" and including case-studies on activist movements such as the Euro-American alt-right, the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, and revolutionary artists in China, this study reveals how visual cultures, including gendered or sexualized imagery, are utilized to influence public perception. By presenting in-depth explorations of online ethnography, interviews with activists and studies of the political histories and urban protests-environments, the volume uncovers how local artists, netizens and citizens are using media and digital imagery in contemporary activism. Covering a broad spectrum of social media content, from hyper-cute manga and cartoons to satirical pornography and sexualized hate-speech, it will be of huge interest to students and scholars of media and communication studies, political communication, sexuality and gender studies.

This book examines the visual-sexual turn in social media discourses in the field of online activism with a particular focus on the extraordinary protest years of 2018-2020. Presenting a socially engaged theory of "tit-for-tat media" and including case-studies on activist movements such as the Euro-American alt-right, the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, and revolutionary artists in China, this study reveals how visual cultures, including gendered or sexualized imagery, are utilized to influence public perception. By presenting in-depth explorations of online ethnography, interviews with activists and studies of the political histories and urban protests-environments, the volume uncovers how local artists, netizens and citizens are using media and digital imagery in contemporary activism. Covering a broad spectrum of social media content, from hyper-cute manga and cartoons to satirical pornography and sexualized hate-speech, it will be of huge interest to students and scholars of media and communication studies, political communication, sexuality and gender studies.

An international collection of essays by leading academics, artists, writers, and curators examining ways in which the global tragedies of our century are being negotiated in current theatre practice Includes discussion on how dramaturgy and performance today have tackled specific forms of crisis that seem inherent to the 21st century Includes essays, provocations, interviews, original works, and diaries by theatre artists

An international collection of essays by leading academics, artists, writers, and curators examining ways in which the global tragedies of our century are being negotiated in current theatre practice Includes discussion on how dramaturgy and performance today have tackled specific forms of crisis that seem inherent to the 21st century Includes essays, provocations, interviews, original works, and diaries by theatre artists

This book provides a comparative analysis and a systemic categorization of the Populist Radical Left Parties (PRLPs) in Western Europe. Institutional and socio-economic aspects have transformed the political culture of many modern democracies, leading to the creation of radical left-wing parties who, by combining a strongly populist political offer with the historical demands of the traditional left wing, are capable of electoral success. This book analyzes a range of different Populist Radical Left Parties (PRLPs) in Western Europe through in-depth case studies. The author uses statutes, internal documents, programs, election results, membership data, and international political literature combined with interviews with executives and national secretaries to describe and interpret the main features of PRLPs, their paths of formation and political transformation. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of political science and political sociology, media studies and anyone interested in trying to better understand European populism and the distinctions among its different forms.

This volume places the spotlight on the role different media and communications systems played in informing the public about the pandemic, shaping their views about what was happening and contributing to behavioural compliances with pandemic-related restrictions. Throughout the pandemic, media coverage has played an important role in drawing attention to specific messages, influencing public risk perceptions and fear responses. Mainstream media and other electronic communication systems such as Facebook and WhatsApp have been pivotal in getting pandemic information out to the public, thereby influencing their beliefs, attitudes and behaviour and engaging them generally in the pandemic as stakeholders. In this timely volume, author Barrie Gunter considers how people reacted to this coverage and its contribution to their understanding of what was going on, including the influence of fake news and misinformation on public beliefs about the pandemic, from anti-lockdown protests to the "anti-vaxx" movement. In addition, looking at how government messaging was not always consistent or clear and how different authorities were found not always to be in harmony or compliance with the messages they put out, Gunter examines the harm done by presenting different publics with ambiguous or conflicting narratives. Drawing out important communications strategy lessons to be learned for the future, this is essential reading for students and researchers in psychology, public health and medical sciences and for policymakers who assess government strategies, responses and performance.