A critique of the capacity of Strauss’ grounded theory for prediction, change, and control in organisational strategy via a grounded theorisation of leisure and cultural strategy

In this paper we critique grounded theory’s ability to fulfil its aim of offering a practical vehicle for prediction, change, and control as stipulated in grounded theory’s original formulation by Glaser and Strauss, and later developed by Strauss. We do this through a case study approach, whereby we develop a grounded theory of leisure and cultural strategy within a local authority, and critically reflect on the process of grounded theorisation, together with its implications for generating practical tools in that most practical of academic fields; organisational strategy. We demonstrate that despite generating good grounded theory on leisure and cultural strategy, here termed “navigational translation,” that offers sociological insight, its claim to offer practical tools is inappropriate to the strategy field

News, Agenda Building, and Intelligence Agencies: A Systematic Review of the Field from the Discipline of Journalism, Media, and Communications

Reflecting on Edward Snowden�s whistle-blowing revelations regarding indiscriminate online and telephone surveillance and social media manipulation by signals intelligence agencies, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, this article highlights the hitherto limited nature of public knowledge of, and internationally uneven concern regarding, intelligence agencies� contemporary techniques of communications surveillance and manipulative agenda building. While noting that the interdisciplinary field of intelligence studies has started to theorize intelligence agencies� agenda-building activities, also observable is a remarkable lacuna from the discipline of Journalism, Media, and Communications. A systematic review of all research articles (up until December 2014) from the archives of sixteen journals in the discipline of Journalism, Media, and Communications confirms this lack of attention. Only 0.1 percent of the discipline�s articles are centrally on the field of the press, intelligence agencies, and agenda-building processes, even when these are broadly defined. Patterns within this tiny field are delineated, comprising intelligence agencies� techniques of, and success in, manipulating different agenda-building nodes involving the press, journalists� practices and challenges in dealing with intelligence, the public�s role in press-related agenda building on intelligence issues, and methodological patterns and issues in examining this field. The systematic review contextualizes and situates the six research articles comprising this Special Issue

Veillant Panoptic Assemblage: Mutual Watching and Resistance to Mass Surveillance after Snowden

The Snowden leaks indicate the extent, nature, and means of contemporary mass digital surveillance of citizens by their intelligence agencies and the role of public oversight mechanisms in holding intelligence agencies to account. As such, they form a rich case study on the interactions of "veillance" (mutual watching) involving citizens, journalists, intelligence agencies and corporations. While Surveillance Studies, Intelligence Studies and Journalism Studies have little to say on surveillance of citizens' data by intelligence agencies (and complicit surveillant corporations), they offer insights into the role of citizens and the press in holding power, and specifically the political-intelligence elite, to account. Attention to such public oversight mechanisms facilitates critical interrogation of issues of surveillant power, resistance and intelligence accountability. It directs attention to the veillant panoptic assemblage (an arrangement of profoundly unequal mutual watching, where citizens' watching of self and others is, through corporate channels of data flow, fed back into state surveillance of citizens). Finally, it enables evaluation of post-Snowden steps taken towards achieving an equiveillant panoptic assemblage (where, alongside state and corporate surveillance of citizens, the intelligence-power elite, to ensure its accountability, faces robust scrutiny and action from wider civil society)

Media agenda-building battles between Greenpeace and Shell : a rhetorical and discursive approach

The empirical focus of this research comprises the UK television news battles between Greenpeace (a highly media-aware International Non-Governmental Organisation (INGO)), and the oil company Shell (a multinational corporation (MNC)). Specifically, two such media battles are examined, both receiving international attention and intense media publicity during 1995:- The battle between Royal Dutch/Shell, particularly, its subsidiary Shell-UK, and Greenpeace over the deep-sea disposal of the Brent Spar oil platform;- The battle between Royal Dutch/Shell's Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC) (hereafter referred to as Shell-Nigeria), and Greenpeace (amongst others) over environmental pollution in Ogoniland, Nigeria.These two battles were chosen mainly because they share the same main protagonists - Greenpeace and Shell - providing rich material for a number of interesting questions regarding media agenda-building