Rhetoric, Fantasy, and the War on Terror

Rhetoric, Fantasy, and the War on Terror
Author: Vaheed Ramazani
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2020-11-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1000224600

Drawing on psychoanalytic and semiotic perspectives, this book examines discourses mediating the global War on Terror, including governmental speeches, legal documents, print and broadcast journalism, and military memoirs. The book argues that these discourses motivate, and are motivated by, a myth of imminent harm that purportedly justifies a series of "preemptive" measures such as war, torture, and targeted killing, as well as an array of intrusive domestic security procedures such as profiling and mass surveillance. Dominant themes include selective compassion in the mainstream media, the language of war and the sacrificial sublime, asymmetrical warfare and the nostalgia for total war, weaponized drones and just war theory, and the role of American exceptionalism in normalizing endless war. Scholars and students alike will take interest in this original contribution to the fields of cultural studies, psychoanalysis, media studies, rhetoric, critical international relations, and international humanitarian law and ethics.

Terrorism through the Ages

Terrorism through the Ages
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2023-08-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9004548467

What connects political violence in Classical Athens and state terrorism in the Roman republic to the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka and the modern destruction of monuments? Using 9/11 as a lens through which to examine past instances of terrorism, this book presents a wide global view of the use of terror and its impact throughout history. Contributors are: Jaime A. González-Ocaña, Aaron L. Beek, Francesco Mori, Gaius Stern, Timothy Smith, João Nisa, Ölbei Tamás, James Crossland, Paul J. Cook, Chris Millington, Vineeth Mathoor, Dmitry Shlapentokh, Kalinga Tudor Silva, Cserkits Michael, Katty Cristina Lima Sá, Tatiana Konrad, Daniel Leach, Paul J. Cook, Mark Briskey, Silke Zoller, Elizabeth L. Miller, and William V. Hudon.

Newswork and Precarity

Newswork and Precarity
Author: Kalyani Chadha
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2021-12-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1000535045

This edited collection brings together leading scholars from around the world to discuss the consequences and implications of precarious labor conditions within the modern news industry. In 14 original chapters, contributors address global concerns in journalism across all platforms, based on the assumption that unstable employment conditions affect the extent to which journalists can continue to play their historically crucial role in sustaining democracies. Topics discussed include work conditions for freelancers and entrepreneurial journalists as well as the risks facing conflict reporters, precarity in media start-ups, unionization and other collective efforts, policies regulating journalistic labor around the world, and the impact of hedge fund money on newswork. Drawing on case studies and data from South America, Africa, the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe, the book highlights how media outlets are forcing newsworkers to work harder for less money, and few countries are proactive in alleviating the precarity of journalists. Newswork and Precarity is a valuable addition to an important still-emerging area in journalism studies that will be of interest to both professionals and scholars of journalism, media studies, sociology, and labor history.

Spectacular Rhetorics

Spectacular Rhetorics
Author: Wendy Hesford
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2011-08-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0822349515

Scrutinizes spectacular rhetoric, the use of visual images and imagery to construct certain bodies, populations, and nations as victims and incorporate them into human rights discourses geared toward Westerners.

Hate Speech and Polarization in Participatory Society

Hate Speech and Polarization in Participatory Society
Author: Marta Pérez-Escolar
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2021-09-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1000462889

This timely volume offers a comprehensive and rigorous overview of the role of communication in the construction of hate speech and polarization in the online and offline arena. Delving into the meanings, implications, contexts and effects of extreme speech and gated communities in the media landscape, the chapters analyse misleading metaphors and rhetoric via focused case studies to understand how we can overcome the risks and threats stemming from the past decade’s defining communicative phenomena. The book brings together an international team of experts, enabling a broad, multidisciplinary approach that examines hate speech, dislike, polarization and enclave deliberation as cross axes that influence offline and digital conversations. The diverse case studies herein offer insights into international news media, television drama and social media in a range of contexts, suggesting an academic frame of reference for examining this emerging phenomenon within the field of communication studies. Offering thoughtful and much-needed analysis, this collection will be of great interest to scholars and students working in communication studies, media studies, journalism, sociology, political science, political communication and cultural industries.

Law, Text, Terror

Law, Text, Terror
Author: Ian Ward
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2009-04-16
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0521519578

Ian Ward places contemporary political and jurisprudential responses to terrorism within a broader literary, cultural and historical context.

Tweeting Brexit

Tweeting Brexit
Author: Maja Šimunjak
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2022-05-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000584968

Tweeting Brexit presents the most thorough examination of the role that the most political social network, Twitter, played in creating, negotiating, and challenging Brexit narratives during the process of UK’s exiting of the European Union. Working with multiple methods, from digital media analysis to interviews, and a wide variety of data, the book offers scrutiny of Brexit-related tweets and discourses they promote and gives voice to key actors – UK citizens, political and media actors – to explain why and how they’ve used Twitter to talk about Brexit and with what outcomes. In doing so, the author engages with, and enhances, a range of theoretical discussions central to our understanding of the role of social media in politics, from permanent campaigning on social media to social media journalism. With a reach far beyond the central Brexit case study, the book discusses new trends and practices in political communication and contextualises them with references to empirical evidence. The book is key reading for all students and researchers in digital media and politics, digital methods, and related areas, as well as anyone interested in developing their understanding of the role that Twitter plays in political communications.

Knowledge Resistance in High-Choice Information Environments

Knowledge Resistance in High-Choice Information Environments
Author: Jesper Strömbäck
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2022-05-23
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1000599167

This book offers a truly interdisciplinary exploration of our patterns of engagement with politics, news, and information in current high-choice information environments. Putting forth the notion that high-choice information environments may contribute to increasing misperceptions and knowledge resistance rather than greater public knowledge, the book offers insights into the processes that influence the supply of misinformation and factors influencing how and why people expose themselves to and process information that may support or contradict their beliefs and attitudes. A team of authors from across a range of disciplines address the phenomena of knowledge resistance and its causes and consequences at the macro- as well as the micro-level. The chapters take a philosophical look at the notion of knowledge resistance, before moving on to discuss issues such as misinformation and fake news, psychological mechanisms such as motivated reasoning in processes of selective exposure and attention, how people respond to evidence and fact-checking, the role of political partisanship, political polarization over factual beliefs, and how knowledge resistance might be counteracted. This book will have a broad appeal to scholars and students interested in knowledge resistance, primarily within philosophy, psychology, media and communication, and political science, as well as journalists and policymakers. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.