Echoes of Populism and Terrorism in Libya’s Online News Reporting

This article focuses on news reporting in Libya, assessing both official and citizen journalism. Special attention is paid to online resources, primarily spontaneous posts written in Arabic. Social media shows the emergence of citizen journalism together with so-called User-generated Content. Both have proved capable of creating legitimacy. Political inclinations, including Islamic ideology and its religious claims, are presented, supported, or criticized by ordinary citizens who post their comments and opinions on the web. Official press and news agencies have their social media profiles as well, sharing the same online space with nonprofessionals. Monitoring and analysis of reporting show that there is no relevant difference in journalistic models; nor do concerns between professionals and nonprofessionals vary. Libya appears today to be a mosaic of different interests: one that is interconnected and in conflict at the same time. These interests are vying to establish new supremacies in the country. Journalism in its various typologies faces pressure from the abovementioned interests, so it is negatively affected by rhetoric in both reporting and commentary. These preliminary arguments lead us to the core topics of populism – for which a definition is suggested – and reporting about terrorism in Libya. Against this background, we analyze news flows, sources, and other issues. I conclude with a brief review of the main issues, the characteristics of the Arabic narrative discourse, and the emerging Arabic lexico

The spoken Omani Arabic of ‘Ibrī : A “Crossing Point” in Gulf dialects

‘Ibrī is located half-way in between Mascat and Dubai, and is very close to the Emirates border. This proximity facilitates young male citizens that look for job opportunities in the rich Emirates. Effectively, it is easy to find an occupation beyond the border: in Dubai, for the business sector; in Buraymi or Al-‘Ain for administration or health sector related professions (health sector for female nurses too); in various locations across the Emirates if serving as military or police staff (airport and border police includes female staff too). ‘Ibrī speakers, the majority of whom come back home after work, have daily contacts with their Gulf neighbours. This style of life makes the speech of ‘Ibrī inhabitants critical for developing two levels of analysis: 1-features of the ‘Ibrī Spoken Arabic, in the general frame of Omani Arabic; 2-tracks of contamination among Gulf variants, due to both recent and historically motivated ‘contacts and changes.’ Several pairs of variables must be taken into account: social, referring to badawiyy or ḥaḍariyy; geographical, referring to the inner part of the country, or to west/east and north/south sides. In principle, the area of ‘Ibri should be “ḥaḍariyy of the north”. Nevertheless, we find elements that go beyond this classification. Phonology, for example, shows a series of combinatorial possibilities that hardly fit a schematic and annotated classification; then, we may also find the gahwah syndrome in occasional ‘Ibri speeches. According to what emerged from my collection of data in the city, I offer here a general morpho-phonological description of the local register. I also provide unpublished Omani texts, composed by teachers of “dialect”, with examples of syntax and lexicon. I intend to demonstrate how strong is the mismatching between political and linguistic borders in the Gulf area

The time benefits of young adult home stayers in France and Italy: a new perspective on the transition to adulthood?

This article analyses how two co-residing generations contribute to the housework workload in Italy and France during the early 2000s. It studies the intergenerational exchange of time between young adults and their parents by indirectly comparing the level of domestic comfort enjoyed by young people in the two closely neighbouring countries. A focus on the reasons for staying in the parental home provides an explanation for the tendency of young Italian adults to prolong their stay in the family nest. The results of time-use surveys suggest that young Italians (especially young men) may benefit more than their French counterparts in co-residing with their parents. Beyond the compositional or structural effects, they perform fewer domestic tasks than their French counterparts, a result that is related to different cultural practices

Teachers as the Gravediggers of Neoliberalism: Promoting Dialectical Individualism from the Ruins of the Neoliberal State

Neoliberalism will not die naturally, it must be killed through relentless criticism. However, as criticism of neoliberalism expands, scholars must not reify the term. Scholars must begin to disentangle the historical antecedents that comprise neoliberalism in order to expose it for the sham that it is. Perhaps the biggest sham of neoliberalism is its call for individual freedom. Specifically, by paying attention to the more revolutionary conceptions of individualism contained in some strands of Eighteenth century liberalism, the contradictions of neoliberalism can be exposed. If education, and society in general, is to move past neoliberalism, neoliberalism cannot simply be discarded or wished away, rather, it must be dialectically negated by superseding its unjust elements and retaining and transforming any of its more revolutionary elements to lay a new foundation for education in a post-neoliberal world. Drawing off this dialectical negation of neoliberalism, this paper argues for a new conception of individualism called dialectical individualism. This is not a return to some idealized form of liberalism however, but a new phase in human history with a new conception of individualism. The dialectical movement should not be seen as the product of some otherworldly force, but rather, it should be viewed as centered in the individual and driven by volunteerism in the context of the historical situation. Students can be taught to be dialectical in their actual school work, by writing challenging papers, by writing vision statements, and by partaking in collaborative assignments, and through their understanding of history and the present.Educatio