1,454 research outputs found

    Information, communication, and infrastructure: how citizen activists use information technology to transform American party politics

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    Communication infrastructure underlies all group interaction in an extended republic, yet the role of its evolution in the development of American political parties remains relatively unexplored. Rather than examine how attributes of this infrastructure might act as variables shaping organization and behavior, traditional models of party development assume it to be a neutral element of the larger context within which partisan actors operate. The model developed here brings the evolution of infrastructure into the foreground, exploring its role in shaping American political parties over time. The most widely accepted models of parties locate the source of change with the actors who create and control party institutions, but by viewing control itself as a potential variable, the model developed here is able to isolate how infrastructure development itself alters power relations over time. The central contention of this work is that changes to the nation's communication and information infrastructures alter the opportunities and constraints for political action, driving the evolution of parties over time. As new infrastructures are deployed, the patterns of partisan interaction throughout society change, opening windows of opportunity during which party leadership is more likely to change hands. Particularly important are decentralizing infrastructural changes, which can provide previously marginalized actors with the tools necessary to challenge their exclusion from party activity. Citizen involvement in party politics is thus demonstrated to vary with both the nature of the available infrastructure and the content that infrastructure carries. This new infrastructure-driven model of change is tested through an examination of party development in two eras: 1790-1835, between the expansion of the post office and the development of the telegraph; and 2000-2012, when the Internet first became an important infrastructure for organizing party activity. The model is found to be quite useful in explaining the evolution of party conflict in both eras, highlighting similarities that demonstrate how the decentralization of communication infrastructure creates opportunities for political outsiders to drive change

    The Courts:Criminal Trials as Strategic Arenas

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    In this chapter we analyze cases where social movement activists are prosecuted in the courts for protest actions. The courthouse is a significant arena for social movement strategy, a symbolic site for the arbitration of collective disputes, the legitimization of political action, and the production of social meaning; the court is “one of society’s most sacred institutions since its role in defining, interpreting and enforcing the law puts it in close proximity to the moral basis of society” (Antonio, 1972, p.291-2). The outcomes of trials depend on the organization of the criminal justice system but also the responses and strategies of multiple other players, inside and outside the court, including social movement activists, allies and supporters. In common with the other chapters in this volume, our argument here is about “breaking down the state”, about thinking through the relationships of power and agency which define the interactions between state and non-state players. We seek to go beyond conceptualizations of state-movement relationships which might cast criminal trials merely as “state repression”, setting out the architecture of the court as an arena for political interaction and tactical choice, identifying the players who act within it, and arguing that more attention be given to the courts in analyses of protest action

    Disasters that Matter: Gifts of Life in the Arena of International Diplomacy

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    This article examines the bodily donations made by Greeks, Turks and Cypriots to the victims of two devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Greece (1999), as well as to a Greek and a Turkish Cypriot boy, both suffering from leukemia (2000). Considering the age old discourse of amity and enmity shared by the citizens of the three nation states, I ask what made them see these hardly rare events as exceptionally important, and rush to offer each other their blood and body organs. Politicians and journalists of the time presented these corporeal responses as "civil society's demand for brotherly rapprochement," thus underscoring the anthropological insight that contemporary identity politics is increasingly "medicalized". Taking into consideration both the medical regimes of truth that made these donations possible, and the painful political experiences lived and remembered by Greeks, Turks and Cypriots to this day, I argue that the conciliation these donors performed revealed the suspense of their faith in the reconciliatory future rather than their acceptance of restorative notions such as brotherhood and rapprochement. Stated otherwise, these donors, being familiar with the euphemistic and the conditional hence pending nature of such political conciliations, dared the Derridian impossible: without endangering the principle of sharing, they opened their bodies to alterity, to their foe's bodies, and hence entertained the possibility of non-predetermined, thus unexpected even incongruous events of memory.&nbsp

    The Write Stuff: U.S. Serial Print Culture from Conservatives out to Neo-Nazis

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    Insufficient scholarly attention has been devoted to alternative or "oppositional" serials from the political right, even though a number of scholars have used these materials as primary sources for studies in several academic disciplines. This overview reviews some of the terms used to describe these serials, explores the development of distinct post???WWII right-wing ideologies, and proposes that these serials usefully can be analyzed through a sociological lens as movement literature that both reflects and shapes different sectors through frames and narratives. How oppositional serials can play a role in constructing rhetorical pipelines and echo chambers to take movement grievances and push them into mainstream political policy initiatives is explored. The sectors defined and examined are the secular right, religious right, and xenophobic right. Examples from each sector are provided, with selected periodicals highlighted in detail.published or submitted for publicatio

    The battle of hearts and minds : an analysis of the Iraq War discourse in politics and newspapers

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    The most controversial and divisive political issue in Britain in the last decade was the decision to go to war in Iraq. The legitimisation and justification for making this decision was argued through a carefully considered discourse constructed by Prime Minister Tony Blair and his associates. A key role in mediating and manifesting the discourse of Blair was played out by the media. If Blair was to succeed in a legitimisation of war he was in need of an acceptance of the important implications of his discourse. Accordingly, this thesis not only explores the discourse of Blair, but also its relation and acceptance in the discourse of British newspapers. The theoretical approach is two-fold, taking both the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and metaphor theory. Although theoretically different, both frameworks share a similar aim, namely to uncover the ideological implications of language and discourse. The analysis suggests that Blair’s careful construction of an Iraq discourse was central in framing the newspaper debate before the start of the war. Thus, newspapers largely accepted the important themes in the government discourse. While the events of the war did have implications on how the Iraq discourse was continued, the analyses of the discourse of both government rhetoric and the newspapers a year after the war started, show that many of the familiar characteristics of the discourse of Iraq were maintained

    Strategic Culture as the Basis for Military Adaptive Capacity: Overcoming battlefield technological surprises

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    The ability of a military to respond to environmental changes rather than rigidly adhere to previously defined concepts of operation is paramount to overcoming unforeseen battlefield technological challenges. A force with the greater capacity for learning and adaptation will possess significant advantages in overcoming unforeseen challenges. However, it is unclear as to what determines the flexibility or adaptive capacity of a military during military engagements. To address this issue, this study focuses on intra- war adaptation as a product of a military’s strategic culture in overcoming enemy technological surprises. The work demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between strategic culture and adaptability that ultimately determines how effectively a force will respond to unforeseen battlefield challenges. For this reason, strategic culture is indispensable in explaining why militaries may continue to act in ways that are incongruous with prevailing operational circumstances while others are adept at responding to Clausewitzian fog and friction

    Dabiq: A study of the usage of terrorist-produced publications in framing and selective moral disengagement

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    Dabiq, the official English language publication of ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has been widely circulated online, and has gained a relatively large audience. The study discusses the ways in which the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) uses their official publication, Dabiq, to promote its objectives and to spread terror. In this study, a content analysis is conducted to examine terrorist rhetoric in the magazine and its mediation for the sake of fulfilling the group’s objectives. The study uses two main theories: the theory of framing analyzing how ISIS frames itself, its supporters and its opponents, and the theory of selective moral disengagement, analyzing the mechanisms ISIS uses through Dabiq to morally disengage their soldiers and supporters, thus allowing them to commit more violent acts without exercising their moral agency or feeling empathetic towards their victims. The content analysis was conducted on the whole Dabiq population (15 issues, containing 206 articles). The findings show that ISIS attempts to frame itself as a caliphate and a state, and a gateway to heaven, and its fighters and supporters as moral agents, and fighters for God, as opposed to the framing of their opponents and victims, which were framed as enemies of God. The interesting finding was that all supporters and fighters of ISIS are very strategically framed as part of the in-group, while all opponents and victims are framed as part of the out-group. On the other hand, when analyzing the rhetoric of the magazine from the perspective of the theory of selective moral disengagement, the findings suggest that all 7 mechanisms of moral disengagement are very significantly present in the rhetoric of the magazine, with the most used mechanism in the magazine, moral justification, being present in 97% of the total population of the magazine, and least mechanism used, dehumanization of victims, being present in 41% of the total population of the magazine. Through the study, it was found that ISIS attempts to assemble a united political identity for itself and its followers by means of framing the in-group and out-group, and morally disengaging its in-group to keep it loyal, supportive and active towards achieving its cause and purpose, and to have it enforce its attitudes of rejection and vicious behavior towards the out-group

    (De)Legitimizing Surveillance Revelations through the Media Lenses: Critical Discourse Analysis of the British Newspapers on the 2013 NSA Disclosures

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    This research interprets and explains how and why the British newspapers such as The Guardian, the Daily Mail, and The Independent, have (de)legitimized the NSA Snowden revelations of 2013. The study uses critical discourse analysis to understand what media framing techniques are used by the media sources and how can they be explained by looking at the core ideologies and news values of the newspapers. The corpus used for the analysis includes ninety articles in total, consisting of thirty per newspaper. The frames are identified using Entman’s (1993; 2005) definitions of media framing. They are then explained using the (de)legitimisation techniques by Van Leuuwen and Wodak (1999) in a comparative manner. The analysis reveals that The Guardian focuses on deligitimising surveillance and justifying their decision to cooperate with Edward Snowden on the basis of legality, public interest, morality, and power abuse. The Daily Mail legitimises surveillance using arguments concerning security, counterterrorism, and citizen protection while concentrating on Snowden’s personal life, love, lifestyle and character. The Independent follows an informative narrative to raise awareness about the scandal through a politically autonomous stance. It allows the readership to shape their opinion on the subject by presenting them with contra and pro surveillance arguments. &nbsp

    Radical Possibilities: Independent Media Production and Contemporary Reproductive Justice Activism

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    With the relentless attacks on healthcare access in 2011 and 2012, abortion-rights activists are looking to alternative strategies of mobilizing support. How can non-mainstream modes of reproductive justice organizing expand our ideas of art-making, protest, and resistance? Situated within specific historical and political legacies of independent feminist media-making, these activists work with diverse tools, mediums, and technologies to create their art. Alongside their projects, these activists strive to create reproductive justice communities of hope and strength, with a focus on community-oriented, grassroots, and localized protest methods
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