In a society that is constantly changing and transforming, in which new aspects of reality always tend to replace older forms, traditional communities are beginning to lose both their place and the role they have played in history for a long time. Traditional Romanian values acknowledgement and promotion through modern means of mass communication, present and used on a global scale in the modern world, must become both a necessity and priority in order to confirm and preserve (...) the identity, form new generations and reintegrate our national culture into the great universal culture, to which it has always belonged to. In today’s global society we can speak of an increasing dependence of people on media systems. There is an interdependent relationship created between people and the media system as a whole or with certain parts of media. This relationship does not bear only one significance, but it also concerns the way in which media system depends more and more on the resources controlled by others. Without being the only modern means used to achieve certain goals, media facilitates their understanding, orientation and fulfilment. The consumption of a media product depends both on the context in which it is broadcast and on the product itself. The study of media in Romania must start from the Romanian realities, a country which has undergone from totalitarianism to democracy. This has also been reflected and illustrated by the way in which the Romanian media are perceived both locally and in Europe. Radio and television continue to play an important role in this process, along with other modern means of mass communication. The analysis of the Romanian audio-visual media contributes to outline an overview on the impact that media have on the society which we live in. (shrink)

This article outlines the role of globalized mass media in the perception of environmental and social threats and its reciprocal conditionality in the globalized society. It examines the reasons why the global environmental crisis will not lead to a world-wide environmental movement for change of the basic imperatives of the world economicpolitical system. Coherency between globalized mass media and wide-spreading of consumer lifestyle exists despite the fact that it deepens the devastation of environment and social conflicts. (...) Globalized mass media owned by transnational corporations are not only a part of the current global economic-political system, but also the prerequisite of its creation and existence, as well as social contradictions and conflicts. (shrink)

With the 21st century, we are witnessing the mass spread of the communication technologies and social media revolution. Interactive networks built on a global scale have led to the formation of a virtual world of reality that is connecting the whole world. With the global spread of communication networks, the question of whether social media points to a new public sphere has been raised. Social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are nowadays seen as a (...) place where political campaigns are carried out, causing the destruction of authoritarian regimes, organizing global protests and innovation culture, and discussing political, social and cultural changes. What gives social media a similar quality to the agora of Ancient Greek city-states is the characteristic of been a place where citizens come together and talk about issues that are considered to be public, eventhough in a virtual reality. This work, following the Arendtian sense, discusses whether social media really is a place where public issues are discussed, common ideas are produced and transparency prevails. In her work "The Human Condition", Arendt makes a fundamental distinction between private and public sphere based on human activities. By conceiving the activities that she describes as labour and work in relation to the private sphere, Arendt tackles the activity of action through linking it to public sphere. Arendt defines the public sphere as a sphere of freedom and a political sphere. The public sphere consists of equal people without hierarchy, who come together with their completely free will. According to Arendt, the condition for the public sphere to be possible is transparency and commonality. Firstly; it has a wide transparency in the sense that something have to be seen and heard by others, and the second is that it points to a common world that belongs to everyone, except for the part that is privately owned. Considering the public sphere in relation to the transparency not a direct transfer of things that happen in the private or intimate sphere. It is precisely related to the fact that something pertaining to the private exhibits a presence within the world of public and the fact that the private acquires a public chatacter. This does not mean that the public sphere is a sphere in which the private and intimate are directly transferred. According to Arendt, leading a private life as a whole will lead to the lack of what is necessary to be a true person. It also leads to the lack of a common world that unites and separates them. Arendt thinks that with the modern period, what belongs to the purely private and intimate sphere expands and causes the collapse of the public. The collapse of the public sphere in the modern period; It has caused both the loss of difference and interaction and the emergence of individuals who are increasingly alike, unable to think and act. In this kind of society, action has left its place to behavior, difference to standartization and thought to obedience. Arendt sees the public sphere as a sphere where public affairs are discussed, while the private sphere is a sphere where intimate and private activities take place. Arendt argues that with modern society the distinction between public and private has became indistinct , and as a third sphere, the social sphere has swallowed up both the public and the private. The social sphere has removed the distinction between the public transparency and commonality of the public and the privacy of the private sphere and activities. This study considers social media as a sphere where public issues are discussed. It also dıscusses the private sphere events and the most intimate issues. It claims that social media is not a new public sphere as it is cosidered, but it is a social sphere in which the distinction between private and public in the Arendtian sense is become indistinct. In this context, the study seeks to answer the following questions: How does the distinction between public and private spheres, which is central in Arendt's thought, look like in today’s world? Is it possible to talk about a public sphere in the modern age? Can social media be considered as a public sphere? Or is social media a sphere of freedom and a political sphere? Does social media allow discussions on public issues? Is social media a non-hierarchical nature open to the free participation of everyone, difference and plurality? (shrink)

This essay seeks to acknowledge the unsettling reality of children being intentionally maimed towards disability and disfigurement as economic commodity. The issue is easily invisibilized in modern education, and understandably so: the trauma triggered by these bloody realities can automatically disqualify the content for formal in school education as a form of “unwelcome truth”. Freire and Fanon, however, did not shy away from the horrific state of life for the oppressed and the wretched in their consideration of pedagogy. The lived (...) experience of maimed children is tragic, but it is lived experience nonetheless – acknowledged by hooks as “a way of knowing that coexists in a non-hierarchical way with other ways of knowing” (2014). In other words, this knowledge exists but is arguably not mobilized by society towards action. Critical consciousness, upheld by Freire as the key to seeing inequality to act upon it, is a goal beyond reach for the maimed children themselves. Here, we consider the extension proposed by Nicholls (2011), who discusses pedagogy of the privileged as an equally important parallel towards collaborative action against long-standing inequalities. In the context of these children having minimal access to education, we contend that privileged students must be the ones to carry forth the knowledge towards their own critical consciousness. Specifically, we explore what acknowledging children who are maimed could offer towards pedagogy, in relation to helping students to 1) minimize the act of “othering” in a global community; 2) reconsider the role of mass-media and media literacy in their critical consciousness; and 3) move away from surface-level, performative charity against societal inequalities. (shrink)

Here we analyse the legitimacy of government actions during the Covid-19 pandemic (lockdowns, social distancing, and masks) and the way they restrict individual choice and derail society by appealing to the masses. Rather than focusing on scientific research on the actual virus, we focus on the set of arguments typically provided by pro-measures individuals to show that they are based on the concepts of cognitive misery, lazy option, and problem substitution. We discuss some of the most notorious slogans and (...) provide counterarguments to show that governments, media, experts, and other institutions have been led by the inertia of a confusing problem based on arbitrary and entangled grounds. Our conclusion is that governments, media, and industry are forcing “one-liners” (slogans) upon the true minority under attack: the single individual. Only when the single individual manages to become a sufficiently strong power, consideration of personal choice is granted. (shrink)

The relationship between people and nature is one of the most important current issues of human survival. This circumstance makes it necessary to educate young people who are receptive to global challenges and ready to solve the urgent problems of our time. The purpose of the article is to analyze the experience of the environmental behavior of young people in the metropolis. The authors studied articles and monographs that contain Russian and international experience in the environmental behavior of citizens. (...) The following factors determine people’s behavior: the cognitive capabilities of people who determine the understanding and perception of nature and the value-affective component that determines the attitude towards nature. The next task of the study is surveying young people through an online survey and its analysis. The research was realized in Ekaterinburg, the administrative center of the Sverdlovsk region (Russia). The study of the current ecological situation in Ekaterinburg made it possible to conclude that the environmental problem arises not only and not simply as a problem of environmental pollution and other negative influences of human economic activity. This problem grows into transforming the spontaneous impact of society on nature into a consciously, purposefully, systematically developing harmonious interaction with it. The study results showed that, from the point of view of the youth of Ekaterinburg, the city’s ecological situation is one of the most pressing problems. Despite minor improvements over the past 3–5 years, this problem has not lost relevance, and regional authorities and city residents should be responsible for its solution. Young people know environmental practices, but they often do not apply them systematically. Ecological behavior is encouraged and discussed among friends/acquaintances. The key factors influencing the formation of environmental behavior practices are the mass media and social networks. The most popular social network for obtaining information on ecological practices among young people is Instagram, and the key persons are bloggers. This study did not reveal the influence of the socio-demographic characteristics of young people on the application of eco-behavior practices, which may indicate the need for a survey of a larger sample. (shrink)

In recent years, the growing academic field called “Data Science” has made many promises. On closer inspection, relatively few of these promises have come to fruition. A critique of Data Science from the phenomenological tradition can take many forms. This paper addresses the promise of “participation” in Data Science, taking inspiration from Paul Majkut’s 2000 work in Glimpse, “Empathy’s Impostor: Interactivity and Intersubjectivity,” and some insights from Heidegger’s "The Question Concerning Technology." The description of Data Science provided in the scholarly (...) literature includes “the study of the generalizable extraction of knowledge from data” (Dhar 2013, 64), “data stewardship and data sharing…access to data at higher volumes and more quickly, and the potential for replication and augmentation of existing research” (Hartter et al., 2013, 1), and “personal information, health status, daily activities and shopping preferences that are recorded and used to give us instant feedback and recommendations based on previous online behavior.” (Shin 2013) United States universities have begun to offer graduate programs in “data science”, anticipating the growth of this field for marketing, national security, and health industries. These universities include New York University, Columbia University, Stanford, Northwestern, and Syracuse. (shrink)

Introduction. The development of legal culture and a culture of human rights in the modern world through media technologies, is acquiring special significance in connection with the processes of globalization and the spread of media in recent decades. The purpose of the article is to study the prospects for the use of media education in the formation of the legal social culture and a culture of human rights. Materials and methods. Based on a study of domestic and foreign sources, issues (...) of media education, media literacy, spiritual and moral education, the legal culture of society, the phenomenon of post-truth and ways of forming critical, creative thinking are considered. The use of general scientific, philosophical, and socio-pedagogical methods has made it possible to study media education as a dialogue of learning, stimulating the development of rational, critical thinking, focused on the search for the value foundations of intellectual and social activity. Results. The development of the field of information and communication technologies determines the principles for the formation of the content and orientation of modern education. Media education is interlinked with the development of democracy and human rights. It influences the formation of a culture of citizen participation, their active social position, civic and political culture. Media education plays a significant role in shaping the legal culture of society since critical media research and information research focuses on the analysis of power structures and structures of dominance in the media. A study of the interpretations of the concepts of "media education" and "media literacy" made it possible to show that media education focuses a person on a critical approach to media content. One of the main issues of media education is teaching a person the skills to critically study media and media technologies, which involves addressing the technological, cultural and historical specifics of specific media used at a specific time and place. Information and communication technologies have changed the way of life, work, communication, and ways of selfpresentation, the formation of values, participation in socially significant events. Therefore, a critical approach to mass media should be based on knowledge of socio-philosophical theories, ethics and research in the field of mass media. Discussion. Mass media are constructing a history of human rights, which updates the topic of the media policy of human rights, combining socio-legal, cultural and media theories. Education in the field of acquiring information perception skills, the ability to correctly understand the importance of audiovisual images, to competently handle and navigate information flows are necessary for the life of a modern person in society. (shrink)

Local and global dependencies and interactions between individuals, groups and institutions are becoming increasingly opaque and risky. This is due to increased importance of highly complex abstract systems created and supported in order to maintain of transport, communications, finance, energy, media, security infrastructure, as well as social and cultural institutions. These systems require the knowledge and skills of experts. Professionals that not only satisfy identified needs, but also create new thereby contribute the development of cultural narcissism phenomenon. The aim (...) of the book is to discuss relations of experts and mass narcissism, on the background of shaping the knowledge societies and knowledge-based economies, and moreover their transformations towards the societies and economies based on creativity and wisdom. Undertaken analysis is contribute to sociology of expertise and intervention by indicating four selected contemporary issues: dilemmas of the knowledge society development; selection between trust substitutes and its reconstruction methods; transformations of social stratification; and the choice of pathways to socio-economic development. (shrink)

In the age of iDeology - in which individual access and participation to technology is about to replace the rich texture of religion, culture, tradition and political convictions - the social impact of media discourse only magnifies. This volume is an attempt to explore the influence of ever-available communication content on the minds and behavior of a population that has made the permanent and often obsessive use of communication technology a defining element of social orientation. Unlike the many accounts that (...) focus on the remarkably redefined patterns in the context of Western society - ranging from twittering Presidents to the emerging populist movements all over Europe - this volume portrays the situation from the frequently neglected perspective of the global periphery. As opposed to simply transfer and measure perspectives taken from a Western point of view, the clear intention of this volume is to provide ample space for the sincere and explorative consideration of local characteristics and settings of the different social, cultural and political contexts and therefore contribute to providing the ground for future research. (shrink)

The mass media play a crucial role in modern societies. Media allows reaching with information’s about current events to the broad masses of recipients, they interpret it and construct their meanings, they create a community of values, organize entertainment in leisure time and mediate in mobilizing social movements. Mass communication is also related to conduct of public debate and developing public opinion awareness about social problems. The aim of this article is to bring closer look on the results (...) of empirical analysis of selected messages perceived by older people in the press, radio and television that are related to their image, problems and interests. Work outlines the expectations of senior citizens towards activities of mass media on local and national level. ** Środki komunikowania masowego odgrywają kluczową rolę w społeczeństwach nowoczesnych. Media umożliwiają docieranie informacji o bieżących wydarzeniach do szerokich rzesz odbiorców, interpretują je i konstruują ich znaczenia, wytwarzają wspólnotę wartości, organizują rozrywkę w czasie wolnym oraz pośredniczą w mobilizowaniu ruchów społecznych. Komunikacja masowa jest też związana z prowadzeniem debaty publicznej i uwrażliwianiem opinii publicznej na problemy społeczne. Celem artykułu jest przybliżenie wybranych wyników analiz empirycznych przekazów dostrzeganych przez ludzi starych w prasie, radiu i telewizji związanych z ich wizerunkiem, problemami i interesami. Praca zarysowuje również oczekiwania seniorów wobec działalności mass mediów na poziomie lokalnym i krajowym. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of the relation between political populism and mass media, and how this relation becomes problematic for democratic societies. It focuses on the fact that mass media, due to their purpose and infrastructure, can unintentionally reinforce populist messages. Research findings from communication science and political psychology are used to illustrate how, for example, a combination of mass media agenda setting and motivated reasoning can influence citizens’ political decisions and impair their political autonomy. This (...) poses a particular normative challenge for modern democracies: how to counter these populism-supporting effects within the constraints of democratic legitimacy? After showing how severely limited legal measures to curb populist media effects would be, the paper argues in favour of media competence education as a way of providing future citizens with an epistemic toolkit to navigate the media environment and strengthen their political autonomy. (shrink)

The vertiginous rise of right-wing populism, especially in its “nationalist, xenophobic and conservative form”, and some “racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic and sexist” drifts associated with this phenomenon – whether real or perceived as such – make the mainstream media play a double role. On the one hand, the mainstream media reflect the struggle for political hegemony between different vested interests; on the other hand, they engage in the fight against right-wing populism blasting both right-wing populist candidates and their voters or supporters. (...) Many mainstream journalists ask citizens to realize a “sanitary cordon”, a “wall” or a “republican front” to block far-right populism and preserve liberal democracy. Moreover, they urge people to be wary of all attempts to “dediabolize” or “normalize” some tokens of right-wing populism. The main idea of this article is that right-wing populism is more harmless than is generally believed and, if excessive, negative media coverage doesn’t baffle but feed it. Populism is essentially a latent side effect of liberal democracy. Populism rises and becomes obtrusive only if a significant part of society perceives a regime of illiberal majoritarianism instead of one of liberal democracy. Right-wing populists are chiefly frustrated “ci-devants” who feel dispossessed of their past, identity, properties, qualities, privileges or titles. Inasmuch as the causes of collective frustration are many and varied (e.g. the real or just perceived corruption of the elites, the “system”, the deep state, the relocation of jobs, immigration, national sovereignty, national identity, communitarianism, radical Islamism, the status of some traditional institutions, some chapters of official history, etc.), there will always be right-wing populists, whether they are self-declared or covert. By adopting David G. Hackett’s thesis that the media are “agents of hegemony”, we applied the critical analysis of discourse to a set of 346 media articles in order to reveal the discursive sources of power, domination, inequality and partiality. The articles appeared in The New York Times and Le Monde during the period 2016-2017, at the time when the presidential elections took place in the United States and France. The articles were selected according to the occurrence of the keywords “Donald Trump” – “populism” and “Marine Le Pen” – “populisme” within the titles. The analysis of these articles reveals a divisive discursive structure that correspond to a real political cleavage in society. It is true that populism presents a “Manichean outlook”, in which there are only friends and foes” and no compromise is possible. It is also true that mainstream media reinforce this Manichean perspective on society and make populists feel marginalized and politically disempowered. The mainstream media may appease right-wing populism if they treat its followers as legitimate and equal political actors. For this, they have to give up the narrative structures that underscore insurmountable divergences and irreconcilable interests. In a liberal democracy, mass media should chiefly play the role of mediator. They may not aim to defeat or re-educate certain categories of citizens just because they advocate “wrong” political solutions. (shrink)

Corporative global media cannot be an instrument of the culture of peace, because they have made widespread individualistic values of the consummative society. Through their symbolic power, they successfully dominate over every sphere of existence of a society: politics, economic life, social ties, national culture, human communication and private life. Traditional media could not be a factor in the promotion and development of culture of peace, simply because they are proponents of corporative economic and political interests. It (...) is in the interest of citizens to counter the activities of “rapacious capitalism” (SCHMIDT 1998), of local comprador political and economic elites, and the practice of robbery of their work; to bridle the proliferation of weapons and acts of aggression. (shrink)

Purpose: The modern development of mass culture is characterized by the growth of the market for graphic narratives, the rapid increase in the segment of digital comics, and the active use of comics as a communication tool in various industries and disciplinary areas. The purpose of the study: to determine the media capabilities of the comics in presenting educational, cross-cultural, problematic, and ethical content of modern organizational culture. Design / Method / Approach: The review nature of the article involves (...) the use of traditional general scientific methods (description, comparison, abstraction, and specification). The interdisciplinary nature of the study actualized the comparative method in presenting the cross-cultural features of organizational/office/corporate comics. Findings: The influence of visual mass culture and the spread of interdisciplinary research tools made it possible to analyze three areas within the stated problematic: adaptive and audience-oriented comics techniques popularized their use for training and educational purposes; the possibility of comparing the typology of world comics with cross-cultural global studies (we relied on the methodology and results of the GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) project); the ability of the comics to reproduce, maintain, and spread the tradition of a particular organizational culture. Theoretical value of the study: The work has expanded: (1) the possibilities of a multidisciplinary approach to comics culture in order to clarify the interdisciplinary methodology; (2) the idea of forming and maintaining an authentic organizational culture using comics techniques; (3) the possibilities of using graphic narratives in the process of educational and professional communication. Practical value of the study: The possibilities of using comics in modern organizational culture at the level of self-presentation, training, and maintaining traditions. Originality/value of the study: A multidirectional analysis of the influence of mass culture (comics as a part of it) on the representation of everyday modern business processes is presented. Research limitations / Future research: Analyzing business processes in the language of graphic culture requires valid methods. Further research requires a larger statistical sample and improved interdisciplinary methods. -/- Мета роботи: Сучасний розвиток масової культури характеризується зростанням ринку графічних наративів, стрімким збільшенням сегмента цифрових коміксів, активним використанням коміксу як інструменту комунікації в різних галузях і дисциплінарних напрямах. Мета дослідження: визначити медійні можливості коміксу в представленні освітньо-навчального, кроскультурного та проблемно-етичного контенту сучасної організаційної культури. Дизайн / Метод / Підхід дослідження: Оглядовий характер статті передбачає залучення традиційних загальнонаукових методів (опис, порівняння, абстрагування та конкретизація). Міждисциплінарність дослідження актуалізувала компаративний метод у представленні крос-культурних особливостей організаційних/офісних/корпоративних коміксів. Результати дослідження: Вплив візуальної масової культури та поширення міждисциплінарних інструментів дослідження уможливили в межах заявленої проблематики аналіз трьох напрямів: адаптивні та аудиторноспрямовані коміксові техніки популяризували їх використання з навчальною та освітньою метою; можливість зіставлення типології світових коміксів з кроскультурними глобальними дослідженнями (ми спиралися на методику та результати проєкту GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness); можливості коміксу відтворювати, підтримувати та поширювати традицію певної організаційної культури. Теоретична цінність дослідження: Робота розширила: (1) можливості різновекторного підходу до коміксової культури з метою уточнення міждисциплінарної методики; (2) уявлення щодо формування та підтримки автентичної організаційної культури за допомогою коміксових технік; (3) можливості використання графічних наративів в процесі навчально-освітньої та професійної комунікації. Практична цінність дослідження: Можливості використання коміксу в сучасній організаційній культурі на рівні самопрезентації, навчання та підтримки традицій. Оригінальність/цінність дослідження: Презентовано різновекторний аналіз впливу масової культури (коміксової як її частини) на представлення повсякдення сучасних бізнес-процесів. Обмеження дослідження / Майбутні дослідження: Аналіз бізнес-процесів мовою графічної культури вимагає валідних методів. Подальші дослідження потребують більшої статистичної вибірки та вдосконалення міждисциплінарних методик. (shrink)

A companion volume to the best-selling Mass Media and Society. this collection provides a lively and authoritative introduction to cultural studies, written by some of the most influential scholars and researchers in the field. It offers a critical guided tour of the key debates raised by feminism, postmodernism, the politics of identity, and theories of ideology. It goes beyond a narrow definition of cultural studies in terms of the audience to consider the entire communication circuit from production to (...) consumption within a wider theoretical framework. (shrink)

In the wake of increased interventions into health and social problems arising from various behaviours in Cross River State, this paper is set to ascertain the most effective media that can be utilized for effective communication. The mass media of communication, including television, radio, newspapers and magazines, bill boards, hand bills, posters, theatre and many other social and interpersonal media of communication are available for patronage by interventionists targeting change in any society. The question however is which of (...) the media is the most viable? To determine this, a survey was conducted to sample the opinions of 140 media students from two higher institutions: the University of Calabar and the Cross River University of Technology (CRUTECH), all in Cross River State. The population of the study comprised both undergraduates and graduate students of Theatre and Media Studies and Mass Communication in both institutions. Findings reveal that out of the fourteen (14) media tools brought into limelight, radio, television, and billboards are the most patronized tools for change communication. The paper concludes and recommends that non-governmental organizations and the government can utilize radio, television, billboards and the church as the most effective media for change. (shrink)

Growth in popularity of computer games is a noticeable change in recent years. Electronic entertainment increasingly engages the wider society and reaches to new audiences by offering them satisfy of wide variety of needs and aspirations. As a mass media games not only provide entertainment, but they are also an important source of income, knowledge and social problems. Article aims to bring closer look on the common areas of games and comics. On the one hand designers and artists (...) working on games are often inspired by comic books, as well as they create their licensed adaptations and separate „interactive issues”. On the other hand more and more often we can see comics based on popular games. Study present the areas of agreement, cooperation or dependence like: technologies used to create games and comic books, use of comic books to comment events in the gaming industry and organization of exhibitions or events popularizing the works from both fields. ** W ostatnich latach dostrzegalny jest wzrost popularności gier komputerowych. Elektroniczna rozrywka angażuje uwagȩ coraz to szerszych krȩgów społecznych i dociera do nowych grup odbiorców oferuj¸a}c im zaspokojenie najrozmaitszych potrzeb i aspiracji. Jako środek masowego przekazu gry dostarczaj¸a} nie tylko rozrywki, ale stanowi¸a} też istotne źródło dochodów, wiedzy i problemów społecznych. Celem artykułu jest przybliżenie wspólnych obszarów gier i komiksu. Z jednej strony projektanci i artyści pracuj¸a}cy nad grami czȩsto czerpi¸a} inspiracjȩ z komiksów, jak również tworz¸a} ich licencjonowane adaptacje i odrȩbne, „interaktywne numery”. Z drugiej zaś coraz czȩściej publikowane s¸a} komiksy bazuj¸a}ce na popularnych grach. Opracowanie przedstawia również takie obszary porozumienia, współpracy, b¸adź zależności jak: technologie wykorzystywane przy tworzeniu gier i komiksów, zastosowanie komiksów w komentowaniu wydarzeń branży gier oraz organizowanie wystaw i imprez popularyzuj¸acych twórczość z obu dziedzin. (shrink)

With the further growth of the world population and the further intensification of the processes of interaction between countries and increasing movements of the masses of people, the role of Political Demography becomes more and more important. Issues of global ageing, migration, low fertility in developed countries (or very high fertility in some African countries), high mortality in many developing states (including deaths from AIDS); rapid change in the ethnic composition in Europe and in several other regions and many (...) other pressing issues are in the focus of this discipline. Some of these problems are analyzed in this yearbook. However, among those issues, the issue of global ageing becomes more and more pressing every year. It is sufficient to take into account the point that within two forthcoming decades a rapid global increase in the number of retirement-age persons will lead to its doubling within this fairly small historical period. The concerns about population ageing apply to both developed and many developing countries and it has turned into a global issue. In the next decades the population ageing is likely to become one of the most important processes determining the future society characteristics and directions of technological development. (shrink)

Many faith-based organizations, especially the Nigerian Baptist Convention, have deployed many means to promote peaceful coexistence in the society in an attempt to achieve Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. One such means is mediative dialogue through social media. As the world has metamorphosed digitally and social media changes communication means globally, using social media through mediative dialogue will likely improve promoting peaceful coexistence through mediative dialogue by faith-based organizations. The study examined how the (...) Convention’s pastors use social media to promote peaceful coexistence through mediative dialogue in Baptist churches within the Ibadan metropolis. The study was done through three qualitative research methods: sample surveys, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. The study focused on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Telegram. The study discovers that many Baptist pastors in Ibadan have been using at least one social media platform. The study is corroborated by reviewing other related literatures. Specific responses and reviews were also given on each of the focused social media platforms. The study is concluded by giving some recommendations to faith-based organizations generally and pastors of the Nigerian Baptist Convention specifically on how to deploy social media in the process of promoting peaceful coexistence in the society through mediative dialogue. (shrink)

The foundation of every society is the result of an arbitrary act: one of its parts takes control over the rest and (re)makes the world in its own image. Any sort of tribal, theocratic, feudal, political dimension in the history of our civilisation has indeed shaped reality according to its peculiar needs and aims, by means of a system of thought that could justify its permanence in time. The creation of artificial needs requires a distorted perception of inherent threshold (...) values; otherwise, Debord says, we wouldn't be the well-oiled cogs we're expected to be in the machinery of the system. The list of our natural needs is indeed quite short: only a few biological functions and a couple of psychophysical drives to be satisfied when necessary, such as sex and sociality. As a matter of fact, it doesn't take much for a human being to survive. Modern society can't afford to accept the concept of 'strictly necessary' though, not after its very existence became anachronistic and even threatening to a world ruled by the market-a world that needs buyers and consumers in order to survive. What Debord clearly points out is indeed the fake sense of freedom in our choices, the great lie presiding over our lives as consumers-a surrogate freedom that was bestowed upon us as yet another commodity. Even our dirtiest excesses are fed their daily fix of filth by the market; as long as our kinks imply some sort of purchase, we'll always find an industry willing to satisfy them. a use of the commodity arises that is sufficient unto itself; what this means for the consumer is an outpouring of religious zeal in honor of the commodity's sovereign freedom. waves of enthusiasm for particular products, fueled and boosted by the communications media, are propagated with lightning speed. a film sparks a fashion craze, or a magazine launches a chain of clubs that in turn spins off a line of products. the sheer fad item perfectly expresses the fact that, as the mass of commodities becomes more and more absurd, absurdity becomes a commodity in its own right... The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life. Not only is the relation to the commodity visible but it is all one sees: the world one sees is its world. Modern economic production extends its dictatorship extensively and intensively. In the least industrialized places, its reign is already attested by a few star commodities and by the imperialist domination imposed by regions which are ahead in the development of productivity. In the advanced regions, social space is invaded by a continuous superimposition of geological layers of commodities. At this point in the \"second industrial revolution,\" alienated consumption becomes for the masses a duty supplementary to alienated production. (shrink)

Nowadays, mass-media represents a support for the Church in his process of communication with his believers. The liturgical and also the dogmatic message can reach easiest to the one who are far from the ecclesiastical and liturgical communion. In this case, we can say that the Church is very present in the life of the people and also much implicated in the modern society. For the Christians the communications (having here the mass-media channels) become communion because it (...) represents the mission of the Church in the process of teaching and confessing the truth of the Gospel. We can say that the Church must use the modern channels of communication in media because she has the possibility and power to transform them after the words of the Holy Scriptures. In this regard, in the periodic and religious newspapers from our country, besides the period in which they appeared or the area in which they were distributed, there were published pages of great interest for the believers, written both by great theologians of the Church and also by the cultural personalities with love for the Christian values and faith. At the same time, alongside the theological issues, there existed also memorable pages about the architectural monuments and about the priests and believers which confessed the Orthodox faith in different periods of the history of the Church. (shrink)

For more than a decade, an aura of discontentment has challenged existing models and theories that have established the structures in various fields of human endeavours such as philosophy, architecture, political science, media, literature, arts and the humanities in general. For instance, the architectural design of what was hitherto referred to as modern building has at least a sitting room (parlour), a kitchen, a bathroom and a toilet as well as two or more number of bedrooms depending on the size (...) of the family, including the master's bedroom. This design was a view that transcended from the old traditional caves and all manner of living spaces that were devised by the early man. The modern concept arose out of man's need to assume a better living status based on his new initiatives. In the field of media and communication, the period of technological evolvement and development that brought about the coinage of descriptive terms such as 'electronic age' and now 'computer age', was preceded by a 'stone age' where the means of communication was prototypical of that archaic society. Though nothing has changed tremendously in interpersonal communication, there are modern means of interpersonal communication made possible by the advent of the telephone. Prior to the advent of this modern technology, interpersonal communication was only made possible in a face-to-face situation or mere errand. Mass Communication in early traditional societies was done with the use of smoke or town-criers who were employed to go round the communities with their gongs to make announcements. This means of communication hardly made it possible for ideas or information to be shared among people who resided in different parts of the world, unlike today. (shrink)

Objective: This main aim of the study is to explore COVID-19 pandemic problems from the perspective of public health-clinical care ethics through online mediareports in Turkey. Method: This research was designed as a descriptive and qualitative study that assesses COVID-19 through online media reports on critics between the periods of March 11, 2020 and April 2 2020 as a quantitative as number of reports and qualitative study, across Turkey. Reports were from Turkish Medical Association websites which included newspaper reports. Study (...) data were presented as statistically and qualitative data case and headlines. No ethical or ofTicial permission was sought as the study was conducted through open access internet news sites. Results: This online reports analysis retrieved about 6723 articles about the COVID-19. According to study data, information about COVID-19 were themed as follows: general deTiciencies in taking action and isolation, lack of isolation, passengers and transport vehicles not quarantined ; insufTicient diagnostic tests, decision to test after healthcare professionals become infected, lack of equipment, lack of evaluation outbreak countries [Table 2]. Conclusion and Suggestions: COVID-19 is a pandemic and is a global public health problem that concerns every individual and needs to be handled carefully. This requires a multi-faceted preparation and education. In this context, healthcare professionals should be well trained in this aspect and have all the necessary equipment throughout the process. Additionally, it should work systematically with the cooperation of all health organizations, the Ministry of Health, local governments and of course the media, in order to inform society, fairly distribute the resources and to implement the safety measures effectively. BrieTly, lack of transparency, insufTicient information, limited resources, lack of public health protection measures such as partial quarantine decision, partial implementation of the scientiTic board's re c ommenda ti on s fo r e c on omi c rea s on s, and contradiction of the explanations are revealed as serious ethical problems. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to localize Herman and Chomsky’s analysis of the commercial media and use this concept to fit in the Philippine media climate. Through the propaganda model, they introduced the five interrelated media filters which made possible the “manufacture of consent.” By consent, Herman and Chomsky meant that the mass communication media can be a powerful tool to manufacture ideology and to influence a wider public to believe in a capitalistic propaganda. Thus, they call their theory (...) the “propaganda model” referring to the capitalist media structure and its underlying political function. Herman and Chomsky’s analysis has been centered upon the US media, however, they also believed that the model is also true in other parts of the world as the media conglomeration is also found all around the globe. In the Philippines, media conglomeration is not an alien concept especially in the presence of a giant media outlet, such as, ABS-CBN. In this essay, the authors claim that the propaganda model is also observed even in the less obvious corporate media in the country, disguised as an independent media entity but like a chameleon, it camouflages into an invisible creature leaving predators without any clue. Hence, the reason to analyze and scrutinize a highly reputable news organization in the country, namely, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) in relation to their portrayal of the Duterte presidency. (shrink)

Drawing on Adorno and Horkheimer's oft-quoted 1944 essay, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” Bernard Stiegler’s The Age of Disruption affirms that the Frankfurt School duo scrupulously envisaged a “new kind of barbarism,” or an inversion of modernity’s Enlightenment project illustrated by our contemporary political semblance. Surveying the critical social fissures that index contemporary Western civil society—from 9/11 to the 2002 Nanterre massacre and the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting—Stiegler diagnoses that our epoch is plagued by the “absence (...) of epoch,” whereby computational capitalism and algorithmic governmentality have extirpated the “transcendental imagination” underlying vital primordial narcissism. In short, these are symptoms a world increasingly “going mad,” in a thousand ways, possible because we are the bearers of “a negative protention of a becoming without future,” yet “we prefer not to say so: we do not want to know about it.”. (shrink)

Bad philosophy is responsible for the climate and nature crises, and other global problems too that threaten our future. That sounds mad, but it is true. A philosophy of science, or of theatre or life is a view about what are, or ought to be, the aims and methods of science, theatre or life. It is in this entirely legitimate sense of “philosophy” that bad philosophy is responsible for the crises we face. First, and in a blatantly obvious way, (...) those institutions, organizations, corporations, businesses, endeavours, and activities of humanity that cause the crises and global problems we face, do so because of the aims they pursue (profit perhaps, or power, or heat and light for homes), and the methods adopted in pursuit of those aims – the philosophy in other words, built into the institution, organization, business, human activities, or whatever it may be. It is the philosophy of these institutions, organizations and activities that we need to change to put a stop to, or at least lessen the severity of, the crises we face, the global problems that confront us, above all the climate and nature crises. One institution has an especially crucial role in this respect: our universities. They are dominated in a multitude of ways by a particularly disastrous philosophy, a philosophy of inquiry which may be called knowledge-inquiry. This holds that the basic aim of the university is to acquire and apply knowledge. First, knowledge is to be acquired; once acquired, it can be applied to help solve social problems. But this philosophy of knowledge-inquiry is an intellectual disaster. As a result, universities are, in devastating and almost entirely unrecognized ways, humanitarian disasters too. Judged from the standpoint of helping to promote human welfare, the university shaped by the philosophy of knowledge-inquiry violates THREE of the four most elementary rules of rational problem solving conceivable in a wholesale, structural fashion, and it is this gross, wholesale, structural irrationality of the university, unnoticed by all but a few scientists and scholars, that is in part responsible for the creation of our grave global problems, and our current incapacity to learn how to solve them. The pursuit of knowledge, conducted in universities, within the framework of knowledge-inquiry over the decades and centuries, has produced much of great benefit to humanity. It has made the modern world possible. It has led to modern power production, modern industry and armaments, modern agriculture, modern hygiene and medicine, modern travel and communications, and the internet. But these very successes have also created many of our most serious current global problems: the climate crisis; the destruction of natural habitats, the catastrophic loss of wild life, and impending mass extinction of species (the nature crisis); the lethal character of modern war; the impact on the natural world of the rapid growth of the human population; the menace posed by nuclear weapons; pollution of earth, sea and air; threats to democracy caused in part by the internet and social media. All these grave global problems have been made possible by modern science and technology, pursued largely in universities within the framework of knowledge-inquiry. Nevertheless, it is not science and technology as such that are the problem, but science pursued in a way that is dissociated from a more fundamental task of the university to help humanity resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways, so that progress may be made to a better world. Science and technology, pursued within the framework of knowledge-inquiry, create for some of us the power to act, but not the power to act wisely – not the power to learn how to resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways. For that, we need our institutions of learning, above all our universities, to take as their primary task to help humanity learn how to do it. In order to do that, the philosophy of inquiry put into practice by universities needs to be dramatically transformed. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in the overall aims and methods of academic inquiry – a revolution in the philosophy of the university, all around the world, wherever possible, so that the basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom, construed to be the capacity, active endeavour, and perhaps desire, to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, wisdom in this sense including knowledge, understanding and technological know-how, but much else besides, methods being dramatically modified too so as to help achieve the new academic aim. The basic task of the university would be, not to solve problems of knowledge, but rather to help people in the social world beyond the university to resolve conflicts and problems of living so that what is of value in life may be realized by everyone, insofar as that is possible. The pursuit of knowledge would be vital, but not intellectually fundamental. The intellectual and institutional revolution we so urgently need in our universities would affect every discipline and aspect of the university; it would dramatically affect both research and education, and the whole way the university is related to the rest of the social world. The revolution, from knowledge-inquiry to wisdom-inquiry would dramatically enhance the intellectual integrity and rationality of natural science, social inquiry, the humanities and technology, the character of these disciplines and the relationships they have with one another. University education throughout the university would be dramatically improved. And academic inquiry as a whole would do what, on the whole, it fails to do at present: it would help humanity resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational and, as a result, increasingly successful ways, progress at last being made to a genuinely good, civilized world – a world in which there is peace, justice, liberal democracy, individual freedom, education, reasonable equality, sustainable prosperity and worthwhile opportunities in life, all of these for everyone, insofar as this is possible. Why, it may be asked, has academic philosophy not noticed that we urgently need to transform the current bad philosophy of inquiry of knowledge-inquiry into the far more intellectually rigorous and humanly valuable philosophy of wisdom-inquiry, so that we can begin to do what so far we have failed to do so lamentably: learn how to avoid impending disasters, and even make progress to a better world, something that seems at present almost unthinkable given the horrors of war, poverty, political enslavement of the 20th century, and the horrors of this century so far too? The answer is that academic philosophy is in a particularly pitiful state, as philosophers themselves, are just beginning to realize and lament. That is why academic philosophers are blind to the intellectual and humanitarian disaster of the bad philosophy that dominates universities today, and inconceivable to them to them that they might have, as a disciplinary task, to ensure academic inquiry implements a good philosophy of inquiry, and advocate and argue for change if it does not. Once upon a time, in Europe at least, philosophy was an intellectual power in the world. In the 17th century it created modern science which massively increased and improved our knowledge and understanding of the world, which in turn led to the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, and the modern world. Philosophy was once so intellectually powerful and influential that it changed the course of history. But philosophy also made in the past three disastrous intellectual blunders: the post-Cartesian blunder, the post-Newtonian blunder, and the Enlightenment blunder. Never acknowledged and corrected by subsequent philosophy right down to the present, these unrecognized intellectual blunders rendered academic philosophy the esoteric, pathetic, and powerless discipline it is today, so that throughout the last century and, so far, throughout this one, academic philosophy has remained blind to the intellectual disaster of knowledge-inquiry, and thus failed entirely to take up its proper disciplinary task of warning fellow academics of the structural irrationality of the philosophy that prevails in the university, and of proposing what steps need to be taken to put things right. Instead of performing such an urgently needed philosophical task, so-called analytic philosophy was reduced to analysing the meaning of words. Since then, there has been hardly any discernible improvement, even if analysis of concepts no longer dominates the scene. Bad academic philosophy is indeed responsible for intellectual and humanitarian failures of the university. What the three past intellectual blunders of philosophy are, why their persistence so dramatically reduces academic philosophy to a triviality, and why, furthermore, this results in the failure of scientists and scholars to see what is so blatantly bad about the philosophy prevailing in universities around the world – the failure to see what so urgently needs to be done to put right what has been wrong for so long: all this is made clear in this book. A new kind of philosophy emerges during the course of the argument, critical fundamentalism, which has as its task to keep alive imaginative and critical – that is rational – thinking about our fundamental problem: How can our human world, the world we experience and live in – the world of living things, people, consciousness, free will, meaning and value – how can all of this exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? That problem encompasses all others of life, science and thought. Critical fundamentalism tries to improve answers to aspects of this problem; but it also seeks to encourage everyone to think about the problem, from time to time, and think about how it interacts, in both directions, with more urgent particular and specialized problems of life and thought. Critical fundamentalism sets out to help improve bad philosophy wherever it is to be found: in social, political, commercial, legal, financial, and international life; and especially in academia, in institutions of learning, so that they become devoted to enhancing the capacity of people to learn how to achieve what is of genuine value in this brief life of a few decades if we are fortunate. Critical fundamentalism does everything it can to bring about the revolution in our universities we so urgently need. If taken up by mainstream philosophy, it might really have an impact, and begin to transform universities for the better, in both intellectual and humanitarian terms, and thus, enable humanity to learn how, after the grim failures and horrors of the last century and this one, to make progress to a better world. -/- . (shrink)

Folklore has often been seen as an independent element, specific to a certain time and space, forgetting that it does not belong only to a territory, but is present in universal culture. Clearly, when analyzing Romanian culture, we must start from the fact that local folklore is an essential component of national culture. The study of popular culture should not be profoundly affected by new trends in modern research or by new mass media, but rather should be combined to (...) modernize the discourse of folklore in order to achieve the desired results. Starting from the beginnings of the history of the Romanian people, passing through the modern era and reaching the contemporary period, the folk tradition and the Orthodox Christianity constituted some of the basic pillars of our affirmation all over the world. In this sense, the concern for the Romanian faith and tradition is permanently combined in the old and new preoccupations of the Orthodox spirituality. (shrink)

A wide variety of sources, including the Huntington literature and popular mass media, show that Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” idea actually has very little value in understanding the current global political context. The central assumption of Huntington’s view, that cultural kinship ties influence loyalties and agreements on a global scale, has little to do with the daily lives of American citizens and little to do with the decisions made by the current presidential administration. The mass media (...) evidence from the United States shows that the most important “kinship” ties are not religious or cultural, but economic. The argument involves a deeper analysis of the current trend towards religious programs on American television, a timeline of events relating to the Halliburton – Cheney relationship, and views expressed by members of the United States military in Stars and Stripes. (shrink)

"Kapitał społeczny ludzi starych na przykładzie mieszkańców miasta Białystok" to książka oparta na analizach teoretycznych i empirycznych, która przedstawia problem diagnozowania i używania kapitału społecznego ludzi starych w procesach rozwoju lokalnego i regionalnego. Kwestia ta jest istotna ze względu na zagrożenia i wyzwania związane z procesem szybkiego starzenia się społeczeństwa polskiego na początku XXI wieku. Opracowanie stanowi próbę sformułowania odpowiedzi na pytania: jaki jest stan kapitału społecznego ludzi starych mieszkających w Białymstoku, jakim ulega przemianom i jakie jest jego zróżnicowanie? Ludzie (...) starzy są tu postrzegani jako kategoria społeczna, czyli zbiór osób podobnych do siebie pod względem społecznie istotnych cech (takich jak wiek, posiadane role społeczne i świadomość korzystania ze świadczeń społecznych), którzy są świadomi tego podobieństwa i swojej odrębności od innych. Przyjmuje się ponadto, iż osoby takie przekroczyły 60. rok życia. Zakłada się też, że w zasobach ludzkich skumulowany jest kapitał ludzki, społeczny i kulturowy. Kapitał społeczny jest tu ujmowany szeroko jako potencjał współdziałania osadzony w powiązaniach międzyludzkich i normach społecznych, który może przynosić korzyści osobom, grupom i społeczeństwom. W części teoretycznej przedstawiono informacje o starości jako etapie w życiu jednostki, wyjaśniono pojęcie ludzi starych, omówiono społeczne teorie starzenia się, historyczne czynniki oddziaływające na położenie kategorii społecznej ludzi starych, zmiany ich miejsca w społeczeństwie polskim w trakcie transformacji ustrojowej i na początku XXI wieku, możliwe konsekwencje wzrostu długości życia w warunkach demokracji i kapitalizmu oraz charakterystykę problemu starzenia się ludności Białegostoku jako miasta pogranicza. Zaprezentowano też różnorodne koncepcje kapitału społecznego, sfery jego oddziaływania na rozwój społeczno-gospodarczy, jego stan w Polsce oraz wytyczne do strategicznego budowania jego zasobów. Przybliżono również wybrane informacje o aktywności ludzi starych w życiu publicznym, społecznym i gospodarczym jako kluczowych cechach ich kapitału społecznego. Porządkując różne stanowiska teoretyczne, wyniki badań i dane statystyczne, dążono do powiązania wielu rozproszonych źródeł w przekonaniu, iż jest to istotne w celu określenia i zagospodarowania zasobów kapitału społecznego seniorów, jak również niwelacji opóźnienia polskiej socjologii w zakresie badań nad ludźmi starymi. Pomimo, iż za podstawową perspektywę teoretyczną publikacji uznana została koncepcja kapitału P. Bourdieu, autor bierze również pod uwagę propozycje badawcze J.S. Colemana, R.D. Putnama, F. Fukuyamy, A. Giddensa, P. Sztompki i A. Sadowskiego. Drugi rozdział zawiera określenie ram metodologicznych badań przeprowadzonych na potrzeby tej publikacji. Omówiono przyjęte założenia badawcze oraz przybliżono sposób i przebieg realizacji badań. Przede wszystkim zdecydowano się na korzystanie z metody jakościowej i zastosowanie techniki wywiadu swobodnego ukierunkowanego. Uznano, iż podmiotowy kontakt z ludźmi starymi umożliwi dokładniejsze rozpoznanie kontekstu, w którym znajdują się zasoby ich kapitału społecznego. Jest to ważne, gdyż przenoszenie na rodzimy grunt opracowanych za granicą interpretacji działań ludzi starych i rozwiązań aktywizujących, może okazać się nieskuteczne lub wywołać negatywne efekty zewnętrzne. Ponadto w literaturze przedmiotu zwraca się uwagę na niedostatek badań gerontologicznych zgodnych z paradygmatem interpretatywnym. Badaniu poddano 26 respondentów w wieku od 60 do 89 lat żyjących w mieście Białystok związanych z jedną z dwóch różnych instytucji: Domem Pomocy Społecznej i Uniwersytetem Trzeciego Wieku. Poprzez porównywanie osób znajdujących się na dwóch biegunach aktywności społecznej możliwe było dostrzeżenie podobieństw i różnic w ich wyposażeniu kapitałowym, a zarazem w osiągniętych w ciągu życia pozycjach w strukturze klasowej i zasobach służących pomyślnej starości6. W trzecim rozdziale przedstawiona została część wyników analiz empirycznych. Przybliżono tu sposób, w jaki ludzie starzy myślą o podobnych sobie przodkach i osobach współczesnych, a także czynniki, w zależności od których zmienia się ich pozycja społeczna w mieście oraz problemy społeczne, jakie uznają za najważniejsze dla ludzi starych. Analizie poddano opinie o ich czasie wolnym, szansach i barierach aktywności ekonomicznej. Wyróżniono typy kapitału społecznego ludzi starych w zależności od instytucji, z którymi są związani oraz podejścia do postrzegania i wykorzystywania zróżnicowania wewnętrznego seniorów. Omówiono wizerunek seniorów w środkach masowego przekazu. Publikacja nie zawiera ścisłego zakończenia. W ostatnim rozdziale wskazano jedynie na główne wnioski płynące z badań oraz na potencjalne dalsze kierunki analiz. Uzupełnienie tego podejścia stanowią zamieszczone w aneksie zestawienia oddolnych technik budowania kapitału społecznego oraz podstawowych cech Miast Przyjaznych Starszemu Wiekowi. Z opracowania tego z pewnością będą mogli skorzystać nie tylko naukowcy zajmujący się tematyką ludzi starych, ale i pracownicy socjalni, politycy, pracodawcy, przedstawiciele mediów i organizacji pozarządowych oraz obywatele Białegostoku i innych miast. ** "Social Capital of Old People on the Example of Bialystok Residents" is a book based on theoretical and empirical study, which presents an issue of diagnosing and using of old people social capital in the local and regional development processes. This issue is significant because of the threats and challenges associated with process of rapid ageing of Polish society at the beginning of 21st century. Publication, in particular, is an attempt to give answers to the following questions: what is the state of old people social capital in Bialystok, what transformations it undergoes and how is it differentiated? In this study old people are viewed as a social category, which is a set of people similar to each other in terms of socially significant features (such as age, possessed social roles and awareness of received social benefits), who are aware of these similarities and differences between each other. Moreover, it is assumed, that such persons exceeded the 60 years of age. It is also assumed that human, social and cultural capital is accumulated in the human resources. Social capital is recognized here broadly as a potential for collaboration embedded in interpersonal relationships and social norms that may benefit individuals, groups and societies. The book consists of three chapters. The first, which is the theoretical part of work, includes information about: old age as a stage of individual life and explanation of the old people notion. It discusses social theories of ageing, historical factors affecting on the social position of old people category, changes in their place in Polish society during the system transformation and in the early 21st century. It describes the possible consequences of increased life expectancy for democracy and capitalism - including the concepts of society for all ages, silver economy. It also features ageing population issue, as well as social policy towards the elderly and old age in Bialystok as the borderland city. A variety of social capital concepts were presented; the spheres of its influence on socio-economic development, its status in Poland and guidelines for strategic building of its resources. Selected information on the activity of old people in public, social and economic life as key features of their social capital was brought closer. Putting various theoretical positions, results of research and statistical data in order was aimed to link many dispersed sources considering that it is relevant to identify and develop seniors' social capital resources, as well as leveling the delay of Polish sociology research on the elderly. Fundamental theoretical perspective of publication is the concept of capital according to P. Bourdieu. However, the proposals of J.S. Coleman, R.D. Putnam, F. Fukuyama, A. Giddens, P. Sztompka and A. Sadowski were also used. The second chapter contains a methodological framework for the purposes of study. Research assumptions, method and course of implementation of studies were discussed. The study is based on the qualitative method and the application of in-depth interview techniques. It was considered that the personal contact with old people will be more accurate than other research techniques to identify the context in which they social capital resources can be found. It is important because the transfer of developed abroad activating solutions and interpretations of old people actions may be ineffective or have negative external effects in the Polish context. Moreover, in the Polish science literature attention is paid to scarcity of gerontological research in accordance with the interpretive paradigm. Study involved 26 respondents aged 60 to 89 years living in Bialystok associated with one of two different institutions: nursing home for the elderly and University of the Third Age. By comparing the persons on two extremes of social activity it was possible to see similarities and differences in their capital equipment, and also in achievements of the life positions in the class structure and resources aimed at successful ageing. The third chapter presents the empirical analysis of the research results. This part outlines the way in which old people think about their ancestors and contemporary people. It also shows factors according to changes in their social position in the city, social issues which they consider most important for old people, their opinions about leisure time, opportunities and barriers of economic activity and types of old people social capital depending on the institution with which they are associated. Approach to the perception and use of internal disparities of seniors were also discussed. The analysis additionally contains the evaluation of senior citizens image in the polish mass media. This publication does not contain a strict ending. It only identifies the main conclusions of the research and potential directions of future analysis. Above all, older people could improve their position not by demanding increases in social benefits from which major parts are often taken away by their family members, but by highlighting their human, social and cultural capital. It is necessary to create favorable conditions for social and professional life of old people and their cooperation with members of local communities. Important role in this regard is played by institutions implementing three tasks: stimulating senior citizens' desire to satisfy previously unrealized needs; creating relationships between them so that they can solve their own problems and work for the others; and providing legal, social and vocational guidance. Stimulating cooperation between existing public, commercial and non-governmental sector organizations may serve to achieve these goals. The dissemination of bottom-up techniques of social capital building and checklist of essential features of Age-friendly Cities may also be important. -/- . (shrink)

Over the last three years I have been fortunate to teach an unusual class, one that provides an academic background in ethical and social and political theory using the medium of comedy. I have taught the class at two schools, a private liberal arts college in western Pennsylvania and a public regional state university in southern Georgia. While the schools vary widely in a number of ways, there are characteristics that the students share: the school in Pennsylvania had a large (...) population of students raised in a middle class industrial context, and the school in Georgia had a majority of students from middle-to-lower class agricultural backgrounds. Because of recent collapses in the economy of the tool and dye industry in the Great Lakes region, and the ongoing concerns for development in rural and urban areas of the southeastern United States, both groups of students were in similarly dire economic and working conditions. All faced the distinct possibility that they would not do as well in life as their parents. Most of the students grew up with television and film and had a love of comedy when they arrived at college. -/- Entertainment and mass media contributed to the students' mindset and the lens through which they viewed and interpreted their lived experience. Comedic mass media in the form of television sitcoms and films were common choices for inexpensive entertainment, in their childhood, in their past, in their homes, and now in their college dorms and apartments. In asking students to connect their own history with cultural trends depicted in comedy in film and television, even through the history of television, gave the students a familiar venue to critically consider their own intellectual growth and development and that of American society as a whole. -/- Many of them were familiar with the internet, and enjoyed the internet as a source of information about celebrities as well as the history and episodes of their favorite television shows and films. Students are rediscovering and discovering television programs that their professors may have watched as children, with the availability of a wide range of comedy television programs available on cable, especially TVLand, Comedy Central and Nick-at-Night. -/- In this article I will elaborate on the value of comedy as a teaching tool for philosophers and professors. I will provide a number of examples, showing how comedy can provide fertile examples of ethical theory at work, and I will show how comedy can be used to clarify cultural norms and values. Finally, I will discuss the political activism and student empowerment involved in teaching Philosophy, Comedy and Film in southern Georgia. (shrink)

Blanchot often evoked the silence required for literary writing, a silence which he says must “be imposed” on a pre-existing and indistinct murmur of language. Likewise, he evokes this murmur itself as an originary ground of all speech, including literary speech. Less often recognized are the ways in which he also locates this murmur in the realm of public speech and everyday language, the rumor of speech spoken by no one and by everyone, a realm which he in turn links (...) with the exigencies of publication and publicity that bear on the literary work within modern societies marked by mass media and technically mediated communication. Blanchot himself thus points to an unexpected convergence, in these sonic images of impersonal murmuring flows of language, between literary language per se, and a language that is traditionally considered inauthentic, empty, superficial, a chattering nullity. This essay attempts to press on this border by showing Blanchot’s anxious, and probably futile, attempts to maintain the distinction he so profoundly and rigorously effaces. As literature is threatened by the indistinction of language from which it originates, it reveals an unexpected convergence with the leveling modes of language marked by mass media and by technicity in general. (shrink)

Linden Lab studies massive online game "Second Life" unexpectedly gained worldwide fame after a few years after release. To the surprise of many game has met with great interest, despite the lack of promotional campaigns. It can be assumed that the reason why "second life" reached a wider audience was a special type of offered entertainment. Network game proved to be no longer a game that was known so far, but an example of a mass media, whose central element (...) is a dynamic virtual world which is an extension of our "first" reality. "Second Life" has the potential, which is challenging the widely shared rules could shake the foundations of the social world. This program is currently the most advanced example of a virtual economy. Unlike many other massive online games and their predecessors, this game is entirely based on the principles of virtual property ownership, as well as rules of conduct virtual business and service, and finally also the consumption of goods. Users of the game, just like the person providing the data in the framework of social networking sites maintained in the mainstream of Web 2.0, user-generated content constituting the virtual world, which can trade content with others linden virtual dolars that can be exchanged to real U.S. dollars. The increase in popularity of "Second Life" brings to mind the vision of the possibility of creating a better place to live for many people. Closer analysis of this phenomenon does not allow for such statements. In the following instances will be presented: information about the growth of the global market for online games and its consequences, the distinguishing features of "Second Life" from traditional online games, virtual elements of the impact of economics on social life, the concept of entertainment as a job stream properties Games 2.0 and contentious issues, which produces "second life". ** Masowa gra on-line "Second Life" studia Linden Lab nieoczekiwanie zdobyła sławȩ na całym świecie po kilku latach od premiery. Ku zaskoczeniu wielu tytuł spotkał siȩ z ogromnym zainteresowaniem mimo braku akcji promocyjnych. Można przypuszczać, że powodem dla którego "drugie życie" dotarło do szerszego grona odbiorców był szczególny typ zaoferowanej formy rozrywki. Sieciowa gra okazała siȩ nie być już gr¸a} jak¸a} znano do tej pory, lecz przykładem środka masowego przekazu, którego centralnym elementem jest dynamiczny wirtualny świat stanowi¸a}cy przedłużenie naszej, "pierwszej", rzeczywistości. "Second Life" kryje w sobie potencjał, który podważaj¸a}c podzielane powszechnie reguły może wstrz¸a}sn¸a}ć posadami świata społecznego. Program ten jest obecnie najbardziej zaawansowanym przykładem wirtualnej gospodarki. W odróżnieniu od wielu innych masowych gier on-line i ich poprzedniczek pozycja ta w całości opiera siȩ na zasadach posiadania wirtualnej własności, jak też regułach prowadzenia wirtualnej działalności gospodarczej i usługowej, i wreszcie takiej też konsumpcji dóbr. Użytkownicy gry, podobnie jak osoby udostȩpniaj¸a}ce dane w ramach internetowych serwisów społecznościowych utrzymanych w nurcie Web 2.0, generuj¸a} treści tworz¸a}ce wirtualny świat, treści którymi mog¸a} handlować z innymi pobieraj¸a}c za nie opłaty w wirtualnych dolarach lindeńskich wymiennych na realne dolary amerykańskie. Wzrost popularności "Second Life" przywodzi na myśl wizjȩ możliwości stworzenia lepszego miejsca do życia dla wielu ludzi. Bliższa analiza tego zjawiska nie pozwala już na takie stwierdzenia. W dalszej czȩści wyst¸apienia przedstawione zostan¸a: informacje o wzroście globalnego rynku gier on-line i jego konsekwencjach, cechy odróżniaj¸ace "Second Life" od tradycyjnych gier sieciowych, elementy wpływu wirtualnej gospodarki na życie społeczne, pojȩcie rozrywki jako pracy, właściwości nurtu Games 2.0 oraz sporne kwestie, jakie wywołuje "drugie życie". (shrink)

When we abandon the neoliberal fiction that one is independent on the grounds that it is a-historic and antisocial, we realize that everyone is dependent and interdependent. In a media-driven society the self-identity of the individual is formed within the framework of the culture-ideology of consumerism from early childhood. As a result, both the environmental and social destruction have intensified. In the global era, or in the era of the global environmental crisis, self-identity as a precondition for (...) environmentally sustainable care of the self should be based on the culture-ideology of human rights and responsibilities, and on conscious self-limitation which realizes that one’s prosperity and security cannot come at the expense of others. Care of the self is about ensuring the habitability of the global environment as the primary interest of each individual. (shrink)

Understanding the relationship between experts and laypeople is crucial for understanding today’s world of post-truth and the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy. The emergence of post-truth has been linked to various phenomena such as a flawed social and mass media ecosystem, poor citizen education, and the manipulation tactics of powerful interest groups. The paper argues that the problem is, however, more profound. The underlying issue is laypeople’s inevitable epistemic dependence on experts. The latter is part and parcel of the (...) “risk society” in which people question the scientific consensus and thus are able to manipulate the facts. It is a powerful weapon in the hands of illiberal democrats, though liberal democrats can make no use of it. The latter downplay the problem of citizens’ epistemic deficits and of the epistemic asymmetries between them. The third and fourth generations of deliberative democrats are a perfect example. The paper argues that the concepts of interactional expertise and epistemic dependence explain why understanding between experts and laypeople is impossible. The said phenomena undermine liberalism’s unrealistic assumptions concerning citizens’ decision-making competence. (shrink)

This dissertation compares the notions of homo rationalis in Philosophy and homo oeconomicus in Economics. Particularly, in Part I, we claim that both notions are close methodological substitutes. Accordingly, we show that the constraints involved in the notion of economic rationality apply to the philosophical notion of rationality. On these premises, we explore the links between the notions of Kantian and Humean rationality in Philosophy and the constructivist and ecological approaches to rationality in economics, respectively. Particularly, we show that the (...) constraints involved in both approaches to rationality in economics apply to the notions of Kantian and Humean rationality. That is why we introduce the notion of minimal global rationality. In a nutshell, the latter links one’s rationality to one’s ability to make good use of their cognitive apparatus to process contextual variables. On this basis, in Part II, we present two empirical tests showing that minimal global rationality is at work in philosophical experiments because systematic manipulations of contextual variables predictably affect philosophical judgment in the Trolley Problem and in some Knobe-like vignettes. In the first case, the manipulation of the information provided to subjects predictably causes inconsistent judgments. More precisely, subjects’ response to information shocks predictably causes them to issue inconsistent judgments. Instead, in the second case, our experimental results reveal that the Knobe Effect activates only if the perpetrator of an action is likely to be perceived as evil and unfriendly. Besides, when the Knobe-like vignettes include probabilistic outcomes, the Knobe Effect does not activate or is reduced in magnitude. For these reasons, we maintain that the availability heuristic bias arguably affects one’s judgment in Knobe-like experiment settings. Eventually, in Part III, we survey the general implications of the findings presented in Part II. First and foremost, we show that when manned social media algorithms produce wide-ranging availability cascades, agents predictably respond to those cascades by herding around biased claims. Interestingly, we find that the exposure to similarly redundant online content makes new social groups emerge unhindered. That is why populists and conspiracy theorists obtain such a large follow-up online. Secondly, we find that manned social media algorithms can exploit the flaws of minimal global rationality at a faster pace than humans. Yet, given that latter algorithms cannot do so on their own, we argue that the Turing Test is still an open game. Specifically, we argue so because state-of-the-art technology can request a service to be supplied (e.g., Google Duplex) but cannot operate direct sales. This constraint of state-of-the-art technology is linked to its inability to exploit the flaws of global minimal rationality as well as humans can. Importantly, we show that if algorithms were able to do so, the involved sociopolitical risk would be high. Therefore, we argue that only some form of regulation over state-of-the-art technology can prevent and reduce such sociopolitical risks. -/- In case you want a copy of this dissertation, please email me. (shrink)

This peer-reviewed paper intervenes in debates relating to overarching themes that impact upon mass media studies, communication theory and theories of cognition more generally. In particular, the paper discusses issues involving how our ordinary psychological thinking relates to norms of rationality (and how these latter are conceived). In essence, I argue against a dominant approach taken by Christopher Peacocke, that rationality can be grounded in the possession of certain concepts. The article makes a new contribution to the field by (...) arguing against the dominant approach on two grounds: (a) it fails to distinguish between true and false normative commitments; (b) it is empirically unsound. In response, I briefly offer suggestions towards an alternative, and psychologically tractable, account of rational commitment. Presentations of earlier drafts of the paper were given at a seminar at the Centre for Study of Mind and Nature, Oslo, as well as the conference of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology. (shrink)

The life of man has been influenced greatly by modern Mass Media in the 21st century. Such Media include the radio, television, newspaper, magazines, billboards, internet, cable networks, mobile phones, pamphlets, handbills among others. They have greatly enhanced the instant or rapid transfer of information, opinion and ideas. These have influenced man positively and negatively in all aspects of life, ranging from physical, educational, moral, economic to spiritual and religious. Hence this write up has been conceived to explore and (...) highlight the role of the mass media in church development in the 215 century. The mass media is very influential in human life. This is because it enhances rapid communication of news, information, ideas and opinions which affect and influence human life positively and negatively. This two edged influence is also applicable in the religious life of man. The mass media has been used to communicate and influence the growth and development of religious organizations, such as churches. On the other hand, the media in some cases, has contributed to some problems in the church through its abuse and misuse, such as the communication of false doctrines, propaganda and inciting of members to rebel against church authorities. This paper attempts to highlight both the positive and negative roles of the mass media in church development, in addition to suggesting ways of improvement. (shrink)

With the advent of the 21st century, the way characters and identities interact under the influence of dominant powers has brought a new world into existence, a world dubbed by Manuel Castells as the ‘Fourth World’. Within the Castellsian theoretical matrix of the Fourth World and politics of identity, the present study seeks to investigate the true nature of the futuristic world Margaret Atwood has created in the MaddAddam trilogy. The trilogy literarily reflects a global crisis that ultimately leads (...) to dystopia and the destruction of the human race: what remains of humanity is a small group of survivors who must struggle to conserve what remains of humanity. Identity as the main determining factor in the Fourth World represents personal and public privileges, characteristics, and means of differentiating oneself from others. The Fourth World and its political peculiarities reflect contemporary powers, i.e. the power of the network society, network communication and media. Humankind, in this wheel, is just a toy in the hands of an intelligence broker. What exactly happens to human and semi-human characters in Atwood’s trilogy is the result of Fourth World structures and values, and how they shape and reconstruct identities to lead the world toward fabricated truths and values, and terminate in dystopia. (shrink)

Skip to content 1000-Word Philosophy -/- 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology -/- While accusing the mass media of manipulation, we are nevertheless forced to use the knowledge gleaned from the mass media. Analyzing information wars, we must understand the nature of the mass media phenomenon. Having created a second reality that modern man faces every second, the mass media develop dependence on their means and forms of information presentation. The solution to this problem, according to Luhmann, (...) cannot be reduced to exposing some kind of puppeteer in the background, pulling the strings, as much as sociologists and political scientists would not like. According to Luhmann, here we are dealing with the consequences of the differentiation of modern society. In his opinion, this influence can be traced and subjected to theoretical reflection. It is about what one could say about the "own meaning" and "own behavior" of modern society. The concept of "mass media", according to Luhmann, covers all public organizations and enterprises that use technical means to disseminate messages, if mass products are made by them for yet undefined addressees. (shrink)

Media's role towards women is becoming the growing concern of the feminist writers, basically regarding participation, performances and portrayal of women. Because different circumstances relating to media's role towards portraying the fair sex have opened up a new angle by leaps and bounds to think precisely about it.

Over the last thirty years, once staunchly film history scholars such as Thomas Elsaesser, Jane Gaines, Siegfried Zielinski, André Gaudreault and Benoît Turquety (to name just a few) have abandoned history for historiography and film studies for media archaeology. Considering the heightened attention given to kulturtechnik (Siegert), the database as a dominant symbolic metaphor,1 and the decentered networked tenants of the postmodern global present, cinema is taking on the characteristics of new media, existing in increasingly intertextual space. Thus, the (...) term “post-cinema” has been co-opted as a viable intermediary that accounts for new media conditions, as cinema is no longer emblematic of our cultural climate. It was once presaged in 1992 that “[t]he end of the cinema truly sounds the death knell of the ultimate metaphysical adventure of Dasein. In the twilight of post-cinema, of which we are seeing the beginning, human quasi-existence, now stripped of any metaphysical hypostasis and deprived of any theological model, will have to seek its proper generic consistency elsewhere.” Accordingly, we are no longer “moviegoing animals” who seek images of ourselves among a collective in the dark but, rather, users interfacing within a network of moving images. By locating post-cinema within the semblance of social media, we are allocated a newfound series of theoretical interventions, the most marked of which is that of media archeology vis-à-vis dialectical materialism. This is a lens through which Brian Winston has recently deftly decried Virtual Reality’s “empathy machine” utopic illusionism, bolstered by Chris Milk and a slew of neurohumanities researchers, steadily maintaining that the fundamental myth of “technologies of seeing” is in disguising “their artifice, their cultural formation and their ideological import.” However, this approach, which illuminates the bifurcation between Max Horkheimer/Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, neglects what Benjamin identified as occurring to the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility—a shift from a technology’s “cult value,” associated with the unique work, to its “exhibition value,” associated with the social act of viewing as part of a mass. Speaking to this divarication, Benjamin Barber, in Strong Democracy, foresaw new media’s two-fold potential—as they are organized and networked, new media and communications technologies possess the possibility to both energize citizen information and political participation but, simultaneously, to supplement the deterioration of public debate. As evinced by Mark Adrejevic’s concept of Infoglut, this two-pronged possibility has only been exacerbated by the interlocking relationship between the advent of a “glut” of information, post-truth politics, the demise of symbolic efficiency, and a renewed focus on the role of affect and emotion as “alternative modalities for thinking about the role of communication in a post-referential era.” Manuel Castells qualifies Barber’s pessimism, noting that the Internet can “be an appropriate platform for informed, interactive politics, stimulating political participation.. […] beyond the closed doors of political institutions,” but that the Internet, like any technology, “is shaped by its uses and users.” Thus, if there exists a positive correlation between exposure to post-cinema media artifacts and political participation, then I seek to explore the revelatory political possibilities of “exhibition value” by way of a particular “post-cinema” case study: the Marxist-Leninist Turkish hacktivist group Redhack’s YouTube-circulated documentary RED! (2013), a project that demanded—by way of the moving-image—to galvanize cyberprotest and democratize a “hacktivist commons. (shrink)

Il saggio intende ricollocare gli studi di Jürgen Habermas sui mutamenti di struttura della sfera pubblica politica nel campo disciplinare della political communication research al fine di indicare operativamente quali elementi fattuali potrebbero confermare la validità del modello normativo deliberativo. Dopo aver introdotto gli esigenti principi pragmatici che improntano l’approccio funzionalista dello studioso tedesco, vengono si-stematizzate le sue riflessioni sull’indipendenza dei media dai sotto-sistemi economici e politico-amministrativi e sugli effetti della comunicazione mediale sul pubblico, considerando la struttura delle relazioni e (...) la qualità dell’informazione. Da ultimo, verrà presentata la tesi – oggi divenuta ancor più controversa – che la concezione deliberativa sia in grado di mantenere una “grandezza controfattuale” grazie al ruolo-guida della “stampa di qualità” e all’impegno degli intellettuali “veri”. (shrink)

This thesis explores the party system and political parties in the post-communist Albania. The overarching question of the thesis is what kind of party system has developed and what is the structure and organization of the Albanian political parties. The study analyses the period 1991-2013, that is the period between the first and the last general elections. I argue and test that the Albanian party system is stable and that the Albanian political parties are mass clientelist parties with deep (...) territorial penetration. The members of the parties have ceased to paly their traditional roles of the era of mass party and their attachment tot he party is not ideological but aims to ensure material benefits in return for the support provided to the party in elections times. As parties don't have many tools at hand they use their organizational structure to stabilize electorate, which explains the low level of electoral volatility in Albania and as consequence the stability of the party system. The thesis ahs an institutional embedded and a historically structured framework according to which party strategies are shaped by both the institutional context and the historical setting in which parties are created and operate. Following this line of reasoning, the weak societal roots of parties do not allow for party identification or voter alignment; the early access to public funding reduces the incentives of parties to create strong links with the members and society to collect financial resources and; in line with the features of the patrimonial communism which is characterized by clientelism and nepotism, the Albanian political parties develop the same relationships between the higher echelons of the party and the lower strata of the party structure. On the other hand the lack of media access in the early phase of organization and the need to stabilize the electorate, encourage the Albanian political parties to seek a deep territorial penetration which results in the creation of mass clientelist parties. In order to test the hypothesis I have undertaken three steps: a) the analyses of the Effective Number of Parties and Electoral Volatility; b) the internal distribution of power, the role of the membership and the relationship of the organization with society and; c) the identification of financial resources of the political parties. (shrink)

The thrust of this paper is to assess the efficacy of establishing African Global Media channel to strike a balance in communication between Africa and the rest of the world. This paper is a reaction to the imbalance in communication flow as engineered by the global media. Global media has contributed greatly to cultural domination in Africa by Europe and the Western world. These channels of communication such as), Cable News Network (CNN), British Broadcasting Corporation (BBQ, DeutseWelle (...) Television (DWTV) including a host of other transnational print media, transmit programmes with cultural values from Europe and America to Africa. Consequently local African media and their attempts to preserve African culture are frustrated. This paper therefore recommends African governments' committed investment in local industrialization, re-structuring information and communication industries to serve African developmental purposes and the establishment of a unified African Global Media Channels. (shrink)

Common mental health disorders are rising globally, creating a strain on public healthcare systems. This has led to a renewed interest in the role that digital technologies may have for improving mental health outcomes. One result of this interest is the development and use of artificial intelligence for assessing, diagnosing, and treating mental health issues, which we refer to as ‘digital psychiatry’. This article focuses on the increasing use of digital psychiatry outside of clinical settings, in the following sectors: education, (...) employment, financial services, social media, and the digital well-being industry. We analyse the ethical risks of deploying digital psychiatry in these sectors, emphasising key problems and opportunities for public health, and offer recommendations for protecting and promoting public health and well-being in information societies. (shrink)

The technological revolution and appropriation of internet tools began to reshape the material basis of society and the urban space in collaborative, grassroots, leaderless, and participatory actions. The protest squares’ representation on Television screens and mainstream media has been broad. Various health, governmental, societal, and urban challenges have marked the advent of the Covid-19 virus. Inequalities have become more salient as poor people and minorities are more affected by the virus. Social distancing makes the typical forms of protest impossible (...) to carry out. Under social distancing, some state-led policies took advantage of social media to focus on the Covid-19 pandemic to silence social and political activities, censor criticism, and control the press. However, during the pandemic era, the movements for social justice have been particularly active, focusing on defending workers’ rights, mutual aid and solidarity, monitoring policymakers, and popular education. These progressive movements combined concrete practices and experiences to confront the reactionary, capitalist, and governmental actors that sought to shape and envision the world. Through different case studies of protest movements during the pandemic in Europe, the UK, and Asia, this paper argues that at the time of rising racial, social, and economic inequalities, the social activities adapted to the circumstances determined by the social distancing and the impossibility of people gathering in physical spaces. Subsequently, the people in different countries had various individual and collective responses to the support of health workers, systemic inequalities, loss of jobs, and other societal and financial challenges imposed by the governments. It means that, rather than disappearing, the social movements have adapted to the unexpected situations during the pandemic outbreak. The pandemic broke the new digital global wave of protests in this sense. (shrink)

The thrust of this paper is to access the efficacy of establishing African Global Media channel to strike a balance in communication between Africa and the rest of the world. This paper is a reaction to the imbalance in communication flow as engineered by the global media. Global media has contributed greatly to cultural domination in Africa by Europe and the Western World. These channels of communication such as, Cable News Network (CNN), British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Deutse (...) Welle Television (DWTV) including a host of other transnational print media, transmit programmes with cultural values from Europe and America to Africa. Consequently local African media and their attempts to preserve African Culture are frustrated. This paper therefore recommends African governments' committed investment in local industrialization, restructuring information and communication industries to serve African development purposes and the establishment of a unified African Global Media Channels. (shrink)

The thesis introduces and criticizes the discourse on technology, with a specific reference to the concept of AI. The discourse on AI is particularly saturated with reified metaphors which drive connotations and delimit understandings of technology in society. To better analyse the discourse on AI, the thesis proposes the concept of “Expected AI”, a composite signifier filled with historical and sociocultural connotations, and numerous referent objects. Relying on cultural semiotics, science and technology studies, and a diverse selection of heuristic (...) concepts, the thesis delves beneath the surface of AI discourse and demonstrates the hidden political, social, cultural, and ecological dangers of AI. The entanglement of the discourse(s) with (science) fiction, folklore, myth, and religion impacts how AI is perceived and received, as well as the expectations to AI-enabled technologies now and in the future. The thesis also proposes a more ethical and comprehensive ontological model for AI systems. The model describes AI systems as complex figurations, considering their socio-material organisation, global economic-material becoming, and impact on the environment, social institutions, and the semiosphere. The dissertation argues that AI should be understood not just as an object or sociotechnical system, but as its entire product chain encompassing people and cultures, as well as the used resources and impact (both material-ecological and semiotic) on a planetary scale. (shrink)