The arrival of the participatory web 2.0 has been hailed by many as a media revolution, bringing with it new tools and possibilities for direct political action. Through specialised online platforms, mainstream social media or blogs, citizens in many countries are increasingly seeking to have their voices heard online, whether it is to lobby, to support or to complain about their elected representatives. Politicians, too, are adopting "new media" in specific ways, though they are often cri...

Hailed by many as a game-changer in political communication, Twitter has made its way into election campaigns all around the world. The European Parliamentary elections, taking place simultaneously in 28 countries, give us a unique comparative vision of the way the tool is used by candidates in different national contexts. This volume is the fruit of a research project bringing together scholars from 6 countries, specialised in communication science, media studies, linguistics and computer...

This book analyzes the controversy surrounding imperialism associated with capitalist development. The last dozen years passed under the shadow of two momentous events: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan conducted in the framework of the broader «war on terror», and the economic crisis. They occurred against the backdrop of global economic integration, but also against the contradictions in its development. Those events and processes are explained in the theory of contemporary capitalist imp...

As evidenced by the election of celebrity and reality television star Donald Trump, popular culture has played a vital role in the conceptualisation of political leadership. This revised edition of The American President in Film and Television explores the complex relationship between the construction of fictional presidents on screen and the political cultures from which they emerged. How have our popular cultural fantasies of presidential leadership contributed to the c...

Let's suppose you have a really ambitious goal in life - you want to kill your community! You want to drive away people, eliminate jobs, undermine businesses, and you won't quit until the whole place is in ruins. Here is the perfect manual, filled with proven ideas, taht every town wrecker needs to make his dreams come true!

The Hill Times: Best Books of 2017What if it is not our political system that is broken, but our understanding of it?Everybody thinks that it’s the system that’s broken in politics; but what if it’s not the system that’s broken but rather our understanding of it? What if everyone’s proposals to make the system “more democratic” only wind up making things worse, and weaken our systems of accountability so much as to make them meaningless? What if it...

An outspoken centrist, Senator Snowe stunned Washington in February 2012 when she announced she would not seek a fourth term and offered a sharp rebuke to the Senate, citing the dispiriting gridlock and polarization. After serving in the legislative branch at the state and federal levels for 40 years, including 18 years in the U.S. Senate, she explained that Washington wasn’t solving the big problems anymore.In this timely call to action, she explores the roots of her belief in pri...

This book analyzes when and how Poland implemented public diplomacy. The author explains it as a form of external political communication of governments conducted in cooperation with non-state actors to position the country internationally. The Polish case illustrates how a mid-size country in Europe attempts to impact the public opinion formation abroad while implementing soft power tools. Since 2004, when Poland joined the EU, the country has used public diplomacy to inform the world abo...

Journalists are in the daily business of making the unseen visible, of connecting us to the world beyond our direct experience. In doing this, objectivity becomes a pivotal issue, and a highly debated topic both in academia and everyday life. The first systematic approach to the issue of objectivity was initiated by the discipline of «mass media sociology»: this approach, which was at its peak between 1970 and 1980 in the United States, proposed a completely scientific, «mathematical» solu...

This collection of essays offers a critical analysis of neoliberal transformation as it has unfolded in Sweden, long regarded as exemplary in terms of social welfare, equality and an inclusive multicultural democracy. The book presents a multidisciplinary exposition on Sweden, seen in a wider European perspective. It addresses changing frameworks of citizenship, welfare and democracy, migration and asylum, urban segregation and labour market segmentation and processes of securitization. It...

The past two decades of politics in Washington have seen increased partisanship, prolonged stalemates, and numerous scandals. For today's teenagers and young adults, years of ineffective and inefficient political leadership have completely eroded any sense that politicians or government have the ability to do good or effect positive change. Worse, the mean-spirited, dysfunctional political system that has come to characterize American politics has turned young people off to the idea of run...

Around the developing world, political leaders face a dilemma: the very information and communication technologies that boost economic fortunes also undermine power structures. Globally, one in ten internet users is a Muslim living in a populous Muslim community. In these countries, young people are developing political identities online, and digital technologies are helping civil society build systems of political communication independent of the state and beyond easy manipulation by cult...