The Political Power of Social Media Revisited

This paper revisits an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine titled “The Political Power of Social Media” (Shirky, 2011) in light of the explosion in the use of social media for political purposes subsequent to its publication. It examines how social media have exerted and will continue to exert power to effect political and social change, focusing on five specific functions – raising community awareness, framing issues, engaging with mass media, stimulating and organizing protest, and obtaining resources

50 years of Galtung and Ruge : reflections on their model of news values and its relevance for the study of journalism and communication today

In 1965, Galtung and Ruge initiated a rich strand of academic research on the notion of news values and the practice of gatekeeping in a context of international news reporting. Since its publication, many scholars have criticized, revisited, and put their findings to the test, often leading to somehow conflicting conclusions. In general, some studies tend to confirm their findings while others have uttered methodological concerns or came up with new or additional sets of news factors, hence arguing for a further specification of the model. In recent years, scholars also pointed towards the increasing impact of digital media on journalistic practices of news selection. Likewise, new perspectives on global journalism were introduced into the debate. In this article, we bring together these different perspectives in order to inform a broad discussion on Galtung and Ruge’s legacy for the field of communication sciences in general and studies on journalism and international news selection in particular. We first assess how Galtung and Ruge’s hypotheses hold up in an era of unlimited data. Second, we reflect on the need to integrate changing societal and cultural contexts of news selection, production and reception to understand news values today. Third, with contemporary journalistic practices and research in mind, we suggest an agenda for the study of news values in an era of global journalism

The commodification of security in the risk society

Expanding on the works of Beck and others on the growing business of risk, this paper examines the role of private industry in the creation, management and perpetuation of the world risk society. It observes that the replacement of the concept of security with risk over the past decades has permitted private firms to identify a growing range of unknown and unknown-unknown dangers which cannot be eliminated and require continuous risk management. Using the discourse of risk and its strategies of commercialized, individualized and reactive risk management, the private risk industry has thus contributed to the rise of a world risk society in which the demand for security can never be satisfied and so guarantees continuous profits

Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited - Input, Output and Throughput

Whether their analytic frameworks focus on institutional form and practices or on its interactive construction, scholars have analyzed the EU’s democratic legitimacy mainly in terms of the trade-offs between the output effectiveness of EU’s policies outcomes for the people and the input participation by and representation of the people. Missing is theorization of the throughput efficiency, accountability, transparency, and openness to consultation with the people of the EU’s internal governance processes. The paper argues that adding this analytic category facilitates assessment of these legitimizing mechanisms’ interdependencies and facilitates consideration of reforms that could turn this democratic trilemma into a virtuous circle.democracy; legitimacy; Europeanization; Europeanization

Cuban Exceptionalism Revisited

The end of Cuban exceptionalism has been much announced since 1989, but a decade and a half later state socialism on the island is still enduring. Transition studies have been criti-cized for focusing on success stories. Exploring the deviant case of Cuba’s “non-transition” from a comparative social science perspective can shed light on the peculiarities of this case and, more importantly, test the general assumptions underlying post-1989 expecta-tions of regime change in Cuba. Theories of path dependence and cumulative causation are particularly helpful when attempting to link Cuban current political exceptionalism with a more long-term historic perspective. Moreover, they suggest that interpretations of Cuba as simply a “belated” case of “third wave” democratization may prove erroneous, even when the health of Fidel Castro finally falters.Cuba, comparative politics, exceptionalism, socialism, transition

Stagnation of a “Miracle”:Botswana’s Governance Record Revisited

Botswana has been dubbed an “African miracle.” The country has been praised not only for maintaining a multiparty system and high growth rates since independence but also for its good governance record. In contrast to other African countries, the extent of neopatrimonialism, which runs counter to good governance, is said to be low. This article aims to a) precisely assess Botswana’s neopatrimonial profile and b) put forward explanations for the comparatively low level of neopatrimonialism and for the recent “stagnation of a miracle.” The paper finds that there have always been neopatrimonial tendencies in Botswana, though they have been largely overlooked by mainstream analyses. The crucial difference is the limited nature of these tendencies relative to other African countries. This can be attributed to the independence period, characterized by the homogeneity of political, economic, and administrative interests in safeguarding private property rights through a “strong” rational-legal state, that is, by limiting neopatrimonialism. Financed by massive revenues stemming from diamonds, the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), and the Bank of Botswana, the government of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) was able to secure its reign through the provision of public goods and limited neopatrimonial exchange relations. However, due to decreasing electoral dominance and elite cohesion, the ruling party is now reverting to some neopatrimonial and authoritarian means in order to safeguard its rule.neopatrimonialism, corruption, governance, institutions, interests, development, Botswana

The Democratization of Social Media A Critical Perspective in Technology

Social Media is part of contemporary technology that is the contentious subject matter within the society. It is paradoxical when social media should provide techniques and objects that serve human being in a positive way, but at the same time, it can dehumanize human being such as alienation. The main problem is because the lack of impact of public policy, which does not involve society in the democratic sphere. The article is about the possibility of democratization social media in the discourse of philosophy of technology. I refer to Andrew Feenberg’s Critical Theory of Technology (CTT) for opening discourse and criticizing social media. Social Media should be changed by the critical view to analyze the internal contradictions in technocracy, which view social media merely as an instrument and value-free. In the other hand, CTT will lead into the discourse of instrumentalization theory, technological rationality, technical code and democratization of social media. I conclude this article by applying CTT to delineate extant approach and consideration of democratization of social media in Indonesian through critical thinking participation and emotional education in the public sphere

Inequality and identity in contemporary processes of labour market restructuring

Contemporary processes of labour market restructuring have resulted in increasing social and spacial inequalities in the United Kingdom. While the well discussed-issues of class, race and gender continue to be correlated to inequality, the decline in manufacturing jobs and rise in low-level service work has brought a new reality of identity-correlation. To remain employed, workers must increasingly transcend their geography and current job role; presenting an identity that is appealing to employers. Thus, in today's labour market with its increasing economic polarisation, previously strong social and work identities are now challenged by the logic of capital

Dissemination of management into politics: Michael Porter and the political uses of management consulting

The article contributes to the literature on management dissemination by looking at how management fashions are diffused into and circulated in politics. The ideas of management have been increasingly disseminated into the realm of politics during recent decades. To illustrate how this takes place, this article examines the spread of Michael Porter’s ideas on national politics. Porter’s work is considered a management fashion that has been skilfully packaged; a new form of the 20th-century tradition of state-led social engineering which takes the form of management fashion-style packaging. For this he is seen as a global guru in national politics, and this development is regarded as a new form of consultocracy in the realm of democracies. In consultocracy, the ideas of management consulting are often adopted into politics as a common justifying rationality of power for the political elites. Thus we call for further research on the underlying dynamics of the power involved as management fashions are disseminated into the realm of politics

Coded Language: The History, the Message, and 2016

How do politicians, particularly presidential candidates, talk about race without talking about race? Since the 1960s, race baiting in American politics has gone increasingly underground into the realm of coded language and dog-whistle rhetoric; that was until 2016 when the election of Donald Trump brought much of this conversation from the covert and into the over. The old codes were not gone, but they seemingly meant less. Through an examination of campaign ads and convention speeches from the elections of 1968, 1988, and 2008, this paper explores the history of coded language to provide a partial explanation of what made President Trump\u27s rhetoric so powerful. This paper incorporates two intermediate theses to illustrate its ultimate thesis. First, that as times change race baiting language must also change in order to incite the greatest following from backlash voters. Second, that this language must occur alongside social turmoil and anxiety amongst the backlash electorate. These two theses come together to generate an ultimate thesis that Trump took years of coded practices, broke many of them, and played to backlash voters fears of outsiders, particularly Muslims and Latinos