In Discursive Disruption, Populist Communication and Democracy, Elena Block explores the links between declining democratic discourses, populist communication, and reflects on the communicative and moral dimensions of populism. Block proposes the concept of discursive disruption to help to identify, analyze and understand the disruptive power of populist speech, turning to the communicative styles of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez and the US's President Donald J. Trump to illustrate and support this new conceptual and analytical tool. While the mainstream political class and media traditionally sought to manage the processes of political communication, the book contends that they have now been displaced and their role has been undermined. Middle ground politics and journalism have been substituted by the adversarial rhetorical styles of populists, multiplied through multi-fragmented channels, texts and voices. With this book, Block continues her introspection in the conceptual, communicative and mediatic dimensions of populism by adding a perspective that draws on democratic and discursive theories. Discursive Disruption, Populist Communication and Democracy is ideally designed for scholars and professional communicators in political science and communication studies eager to understand the connection between weakening discourses of modern democracy and the pervasiness of confrontational styles of populist communication in contemporary political exchanges.

Introduces the basic theories and analyses the cultural construction of populism regarding radical democratic theory and empirical studies. The author builds a bridge between radical democratic and ideational approaches on populism with examples and studies that emphasise European radical right populism, alongside US, Latin American and Asian cases. The future of populism is discussed in regard to Covid-19 pandemic and Donald Trump's fall in the US presidential elections in 2020 that together with above-mentioned global megatrends and with the development of media and communication environment set conditions for the 2020s populism.

How and why does a catastrophic disaster change public discourse and social narratives? This is the first book to comprehensively investigate how Japanese newspapers, TV, documentary films, independent journalists, scientists, and intellectuals from the humanities and social sciences have critically responded to the Fukushima nuclear disaster over the last decade. In Japan, nuclear power consistently had more than 70% support in opinion polls. However, the Fukushima disaster of 2011 has caused a shift in public opinion, and the majority of the population now desires an end to nuclear power in Japan. Alternative energy and countermeasures against climate change have thus become hot-button issues in public discourse. Moreover, topics previously left undiscussed have become common talking points among journalists and intellectuals: Concealed power structural dynamics that work upon Japan's politics, bureaucracy, industry, academia, and media; Japan's peculiar, strong support for nuclear power, despite being a nation subjected to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and its latent ability to develop nuclear weapons by utilizing the plutonium generated by its power plants; and Japan's dependence on the US' nuclear umbrella. These discussions have often evolved into macro-level controversies over 'Japan' and its 'modernity'. In this book, Hidaka critically evaluates how the Fukushima disaster has shaken hegemonic public discourse and compares it to the impact of previous moments of 'disaster culture' in modern Japanese history, such as The Great Kanto Earthquake and the Pacific War. Offers vital insights into contemporary Japanese culture and social discourse for students and scholars alike.

This book explores and interrogates a diverse variety of popular and culturally relevant American science fiction films made in the first two decades of the new millennium It offers a ground-breaking investigation of the impactful role of genre cinema in the modern era The book interrogates some of the defining critical debates of the era via an in-depth analysis of a range of important films It places one of the most popular and culturally resonant American film genres broadly within its rich social, historical, industrial, and political context, Brings together an international team of authors Offering new insights and perspectives on the cinematic science fiction genre, this volume will appeal primarily to scholars and students of film, television, culture and media studies, as well as anyone interested in science fiction and speculative film

This book presents a new perspective on how Russia projects itself to the world. Distancing itself from familiar, agency-driven International Relations accounts that focus on what 'the Kremlin' is up to and why, it argues for the need to pay attention to deeper, trans-state processes over which the Kremlin exerts much less control. Especially important in this context is mediatization, defined as the process by which contemporary social and political practices adopt a media form and follow media-driven logics. In particular, the book emphasizes the logic of the feedback loop or 'recursion', showing how it drives multiple Russian performances of national belonging and nation projection in the digital era. It applies this theory to recent issues, events, and scandals that have played out in international arenas ranging from television, through theatre, film, and performance art, to warfare.

This book critically examines the role and politics of humour and the performance of power in South Asia. What does humour do and how does it manifest when lived political circumstances experience ruptures or instability? Can humour that emerges in such circumstances be viewed as a specific narrative on the nature of democracy in the region? Drawing upon essays from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, this volume discusses many crucial historical and contemporary themes, including dance-drama performances in northern India; caste and stand-up comedy in India; cartoon narratives of citizens' anxieties; civic participation through social media memes in Sri Lanka; media, politics and humorous public in Bangladesh; the politics of performance in India; and the influence of humour and satire as political commentaries. The volume explores the impact of humour in South Asian folklore, ritual performances, media and journalism, and online technologies. This topical and interdisciplinary book will be essential for scholars and researchers of cultural studies, political science, sociology and social anthropology, media and communication studies, theatre and performance studies, and South Asian studies.

This book critically examines the role and politics of humour and the performance of power in South Asia. What does humour do and how does it manifest when lived political circumstances experience ruptures or instability? Can humour that emerges in such circumstances be viewed as a specific narrative on the nature of democracy in the region? Drawing upon essays from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, this volume discusses many crucial historical and contemporary themes, including dance-drama performances in northern India; caste and stand-up comedy in India; cartoon narratives of citizens' anxieties; civic participation through social media memes in Sri Lanka; media, politics and humorous public in Bangladesh; the politics of performance in India; and the influence of humour and satire as political commentaries. The volume explores the impact of humour in South Asian folklore, ritual performances, media and journalism, and online technologies. This topical and interdisciplinary book will be essential for scholars and researchers of cultural studies, political science, sociology and social anthropology, media and communication studies, theatre and performance studies, and South Asian studies.

Politicised Cinema demonstrates how taking a collection of seemingly apolitical films and using them as an instrument for serving explicit political aims can be used as a force for good. Through an analysis of Orient: A Survey of Films Produced in Countries of Arab and Asian Culture, a film catalogue published by UNESCO and the BFI in 1959 to promote intercultural understanding between the East and the West, this book argues for the importance of studying the ways the interpretation of films can be guided to serve a specific political agenda, even when the films themselves were originally produced with very different aims in mind. The author focuses on how the catalogue positions culture and its cinematic representations as a marker of difference between the Eastern and Western worlds, and shows that even major cultural conflicts such as the Cold War and the decolonisation process can be reframed in service of UNESCO's cultural diplomatic agenda. The book explores the ways in which the catalogue of Eastern films deemed suitable for Western audiences became a weapon to fight against prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry in a politicised battle over dismantling the proclaimed link between difference and conflict. This book will be of interest to students, researchers, and academics in visual politics, cinematic international relations, cultural diplomacy, global governance, and international cultural politics, as well as film studies, Asian studies, and cultural studies. In addition, policymakers and practitioners in the fields of cultural diplomacy and cultural policy will find the empirical case study to be of use in practical work.

Provides both students and researchers with an inclusive survey of environmental communication research from around the world, featuring scholars from Africa, Latin American and Asian countries. Includes theoretical, methodological, and practical chapters for a comprehensive introduction to the field. Uniquely, each chapter brings together authors from various countries to develop a truly international overview of the issue covered in the chapter. This novel approach opens up a conversation across countries and breaks geographic and disciplinary boundaries.

Rhetoric, Media, and the Narratives of US Foreign Policy: Making Enemies studies the process of communicating threats to the US public and explores when and why the American public believes another country or regime is a threat. Through a comparative and historical study, the author focuses on how the media environment enables and constrains rhetorical strategies deployed to construct, reproduce, and change narratives about a threat. Recent literature on threat inflation, securitization, and critical security studies returned to the concept of "threat." Building on this renewed conceptual attention, this book examines why and how policy makers and other public figures, in particular the President, convince the public about a threat and will be of interest to students and academics in the disciplines of political science, international relations, foreign policy, security studies, and contemporary history.

This book provides a compelling, multi-disciplinary examination of a landmark film and media event, Joker, 2019, which was met with simultaneous celebration and derision It breaks down Joker to explore its aesthetic and ideological representations within the social and cultural context in which it was released The book brings together an international team of scholars, providing a range of perspectives on a divisive film text This book will be of interest to scholars in several areas, such as screen studies, theatre and performance studies, psychology and psychoanalysis, geography, cultural studies, and sociology

The first book to track the shift in global media orientation from cultural imperialism to transnational norms, themes, and interests, thus contributing to the development of media theory and analysis. * Looks at the phenomenon of spectacle in global media productions in the context of diversity and transnationalism, tapping into contemporary themes worldwide. Covers the convergence of media production from China, Africa, Latin America, Europe and beyond, offering a truly global glimpse of an emerging universal culture. Offers student-friendly pedagogy including concept boxes, animation companies, film and television production lists, and more, adding to the instructor's resource base for a variety of courses.

The first book to track the shift in global media orientation from cultural imperialism to transnational norms, themes, and interests, thus contributing to the development of media theory and analysis. * Looks at the phenomenon of spectacle in global media productions in the context of diversity and transnationalism, tapping into contemporary themes worldwide. Covers the convergence of media production from China, Africa, Latin America, Europe and beyond, offering a truly global glimpse of an emerging universal culture. Offers student-friendly pedagogy including concept boxes, animation companies, film and television production lists, and more, adding to the instructor's resource base for a variety of courses.

Music, the Moving Image and Ireland, 1897-2017 constitutes the first comprehensive study of music for screen productions from or relating to the island. It identifies and interprets tendencies over the first 120 years of a field comprising the relatively distinct yet often overlapping areas of Irish-themed and Irish-produced film. Dividing into three parts, the book first explores accompaniments and scores for 20th-century Irish-themed narrative features that resulted in significant contributions by many Hollywood, British, continental European and, to a lesser extent, Irish composers; along with the input of many orchestras and other musicians. Its second part is framed by a consideration of various cultural, political and economic developments in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland from the 1920s (including the Troubles of 1968-1998).

This book argues that while the US president makes foreign policy decisions based largely on political pressures, it is concentrated interests that shape the incentive structures in which he and other top officials operate. The author identifies three groups most likely to be influential: government contractors, the national security bureaucracy, and foreign governments. This book shows that the public choice perspective is superior to a theory of grand strategy in explaining the most important aspects of American foreign policy, including the war on terror, policy toward China, and the distribution of US forces abroad. Arguing that American leaders are selected to respond to public opinion, not necessarily according to their ability to formulate and execute long-terms plans, the author shows how mass attitudes are easily malleable in the domain of foreign affairs due to ignorance with regard to the topic, the secrecy that surrounds national security issues, the inherent complexity of the issues involved, and most importantly, clear cases of concentrated interests. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of American Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis and Global Governance.

Continuing a R&L tradition now entering its fourth decade, this book provides the most comprehensive and authoritative account of the national 2020 election, including the presidential nomination process and general election, and congressional and state elections. Andrew E. Busch and John J. Pitney Jr. revisit the campaigns and results through the short lens of politics today and the long lens of American political history. With its keen insights into the issues and events that drove the 2020 elections, Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics will be an invaluable resource for students and all political observers seeking to understand a historic election that will continue to resonate throughout American politics for many years to come.

Continuing a R&L tradition now entering its fourth decade, this book provides the most comprehensive and authoritative account of the national 2020 election, including the presidential nomination process and general election, and congressional and state elections. Andrew E. Busch and John J. Pitney Jr. revisit the campaigns and results through the short lens of politics today and the long lens of American political history. With its keen insights into the issues and events that drove the 2020 elections, Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics will be an invaluable resource for students and all political observers seeking to understand a historic election that will continue to resonate throughout American politics for many years to come.

This book focuses on what is arguably the most devastating phenomenon in the history of modern civilization, the COVID-19 pandemic. It shows how, on the one hand, the pandemic has exposed governments the world over to deal with a major health crisis; and, on the other, efforts by the ruling forces to enforce surveillance on people and disciplining them by maneuvering cutting-edge digital technology in the name of security and safety. Second, it explores how the mainstream versions of crisis communication and risk communication face huge challenges during a pandemic. Finally, it analyses how the pandemic propels an extraordinary expansion of infodemic - rapid spread of excessive quantities of misinformation and disinformation of the fake and false variety - and how social media in particular becomes its main tool in causing subversion of the prevalent information order. Engaging, comprehensive and accessible, this book will be of immense importance to scholars and researchers of politics, especially governance and political communication, communication studies, and public health management. It will be vital for public policy professionals, experts in thinktanks, career bureaucrats, and non-governmental organizations.

This book focuses on what is arguably the most devastating phenomenon in the history of modern civilization, the COVID-19 pandemic. It shows how, on the one hand, the pandemic has exposed governments the world over to deal with a major health crisis; and, on the other, efforts by the ruling forces to enforce surveillance on people and disciplining them by maneuvering cutting-edge digital technology in the name of security and safety. Second, it explores how the mainstream versions of crisis communication and risk communication face huge challenges during a pandemic. Finally, it analyses how the pandemic propels an extraordinary expansion of infodemic - rapid spread of excessive quantities of misinformation and disinformation of the fake and false variety - and how social media in particular becomes its main tool in causing subversion of the prevalent information order. Engaging, comprehensive and accessible, this book will be of immense importance to scholars and researchers of politics, especially governance and political communication, communication studies, and public health management. It will be vital for public policy professionals, experts in thinktanks, career bureaucrats, and non-governmental organizations.

Up close, Inauguration Day 2021 looked like any other-the chief justice of the US Supreme Court administering the oath of office to the new president on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. But pull the lens back and this was anything but a typical election and transition of power. In A Return to Normalcy?, Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and J. Miles Coleman bring together respected journalists, analysts, and scholars to examine every facet of the stunning 2020 election and its aftermath, and how these events will impact American politics moving forward. In frank, accessible prose, each author offers insight that goes beyond the headlines and dives into the underlying forces and shifts that drove the election from its earliest developments to its chaotic conclusion. A Return to Normalcy? will be an indispensable read for political junkies and all students of American politics.

The last two decades have witnessed an ever growing partisan divide in US politics over climate change and global warming. Significant elements in the Republican Party became openly hostile to the scientific evidence and, following the election of George W. Bush, legislative action at the federal level effectively ground to a halt. This opened up space at the state and local level to develop climate change policies with cities such as Chicago, San Francisco and New York implementing a number of initiatives that brought real and substantive developments. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 seemed to open new possibilities for federal and global leadership once more and whilst the Obama administration has been criticised for a somewhat contradictory approach to the issue at times, there were nonetheless a number of substantive policy developments. Through a substantive and detailed analysis of the politics of climate change, this book places the evolution of US climate policy within broader debates on the nature of politics in the US and argues that there exists a latent potential, often obscured by the complexities of its political system, for America to act as a world leader on the issue. This work will appeal particularly to students and scholars in American Politics, but will also prove useful to those in the fields of general Politics, climate change, sustainability, and environmental studies.

As a consequence of the rapid diffusion of online media, the conditions for political communication, and research concerning it have radically changed. Is empirical communication research capable of consistently describing and explaining the changes in political communication in the online world both from a theoretical and methodological perspective? In this book, Gerhard Vowe, Philipp Henn, and a group of leading international experts in the field of communication studies guide the reader through the complexities of political communication, and evaluate whether and to what extent existing theoretical approaches and research designs are relevant to the online world. In the first part of the book, nine chapters offer researchers the opportunity to test the basic assumptions of prominent theories in the field, to specify them in terms of the conditions of political communication in the online world and to modify them in view of the systematically gained experiences. The second methodological section tests the variations of content analysis, surveys, expert interviews and network analyses in an online environment and documents how successful these methods of empirical analysis have proven to be in political communication. Written accessibly and contributing to key debates on political communication, this bookshelf essential presents an indispensable account of the necessary tools needed to allow researchers decide which approach and method is better suited to answer their online problem.

This book offers an in-depth investigation of the emergence and spread of social mobilizations that transcend ethnicity in societies violently divided along ethno-national lines. Using Bosnia Herzegovina as a case study, the book explores episodes of mobilization which have superseded ethno-nationalist cleavages. Bosnia Herzegovina emerged from the 1992-95 war brutally impoverished and deeply ethnically divided, representing a critical and strategic case for the examination and understanding of the dynamics of mobilization in such divided societies. Despite difficult circumstances for civic-based collective action, social mobilizations in the country have grown in size, number and intensity in recent years. Marked by citizen demand for accountable governance, responsive urbanism, and access to basic human rights, these protests have been driven by economic, social and political problems which cut across religious and ethnic divides. Examining the variation in spatial and social scale of contention, the book investigates movements' formation, their organizational structures and networking strategies and advances research on divided societies and social movements. This volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of Southeastern Europe and those examining political dissent, social movements and mobilization in divided societies, as well as practitioners in civil society, grassroots groups and political activists.

Necrogeopolitics: On Death and Death-Making in International Relations brings together a diverse array of critical IR scholars, political theorists, critical security studies researchers, and critical geographers to provide a series of interventions on the topic of death and death-making in global politics. Contrary to most existing scholarship, this volume does not place the emphasis on traditional sources or large-scale configurations of power/force leading to death in IR. Instead, it details, theorizes, and challenges more mundane, perhaps banal, and often ordinary modalities of violence perpetrated against human lives and bodies, and often contributing to horrific instances of death and destruction. Concepts such as "slow death," "soft killing," "superfluous bodies," or "extra/ordinary" destruction/disappearance are brought to the fore by prominent voices in these fields alongside more junior creative thinkers to rethink the politics of life and death in the global polity away from dominant IR or political theory paradigms about power, force, and violence. The volume features chapters that offer thought-provoking reconsiderations of key concepts, theories, and practices about death and death-making along with other chapters that seek to challenge some of these concepts, theories, or practices in settings that include the Palestinian territories, Brazilian cities, displaced population flows from the Middle East, sites of immigration policing in North America, and spaces of welfare politics in Scandinavian states.

This book provides a comprehensive interpretation of the multiple manifestations of populism using Italy, the only country amongst consolidated constitutional democracies in which populist political forces have been in government on various occasions since the early 1990s, as the starting point and benchmark. Populism is a complex, multi-faceted political phenomenon which redefines many of the essential characteristics of democracy; participation, representation, and political conflict. This book considers contemporary versions of populism that pose a real challenge to representative and constitutional democracy. Contributors provide an integrative interpretation of populism and analyse its principal historical, social and politico-legal variables to provide a multi-dimensional reflection on the concept of populism, comprehensive analysis of the populist phenomenon and a theoretical and comparative perspective on the diverse political experiences of populism. Based on conceptual and interdisciplinary reflections from expert authors, this book will be of great interest to scholars and post-graduate students of cultural studies, European studies, political sociology, political science, comparative politics, political philosophy, and political theory with an interest in a comparative and interdisciplinary theory of populism and its manifestations.