"This book offers an in-depth view of how intricate and intractable conflicts can be and how the communicative aspects of conflict are equally challenging. The author reviews and guides readers through classic and contemporary analysis in the field
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, providing a truly interdisciplinary work. Handbook of Conflict and Peace Communication is divided into five navigable sections - Theory Development, Method Development, Traditional/Digital Media and Peace and Conflict, Case Studies, and Innovative Approaches - that help illuminate workable and innovative peace communication strategies relevant to today's conflicts. Readers will also find: informative contributions from a collection of outstanding scholars, practitioners, and activists; comprehensive explorations of past conflict communication theory in the context of contemporary theory; practical tools to navigate complex local and global conflicts; in-depth examinations of strategies of peace communication from the margins that acknowledge and elevate solutions for and from the most vulnerable." (Publisher description)
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"Imagining AI: How the World Sees Intelligent Machines is the first volume showcasing research into how different cultures around the globe envision life with artificial intelligence. AI is now a global phenomenon. Yet Hollywood narratives dominate perceptions of AI in the English-speaking West and
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beyond, and much of the technology itself is shaped by a disproportionately white, male, US-based elite. However, different cultures have been imagining intelligent machines since long before we could build them, in visions that vary greatly across religious, philosophical, literary and cinematic traditions. This book aims to spotlight these alternative visions. Imagining AI draws attention to the range and variety of visions of a future with intelligent machines and their potential significance for the research, regulation and implementation of AI. The book is structured geographically, with each chapter presenting insights into how a specific region or culture imagines intelligent machines. The contributors, leading experts from academia and the arts, explore how the encounters between local narratives, digital technologies, and mainstream Western narratives create new imaginaries and insights in different contexts across the globe. The narratives they analyse range from ancient philosophy to contemporary science fiction, and visual art to policy discourse. The book sheds new light on some of the most important themes in AI ethics, from the differences between Chinese and American visions of AI, to digital neo-colonialism. It is an essential work for anyone wishing to understand how different cultural contexts interplay with the most significant technology of our time." (Publisher description)
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"This study modelled the factors that influence fake news spreading behaviour among social media users. To gather our data, we used an online survey to sample 385 social media users in Nigeria, using a chain referral approach. Smart PLS structural
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equation modelling was used to analyse the data (SEM). We discovered that lack of mindfulness, religiosity, instant news sharing, self-expression all predicted fake news sharing behaviour of social media users. The impacts of lack of mindfulness and religiosity were found to have a greater effect on fake news sharing behaviour. Exploration was found to have a negative effect on fake news sharing. We concluded this study with some theoretical and practical implications." (Abstract)
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"This book tackles the infodemic—the rapid, widespread diffusion of false, misleading, or inaccurate information about the disease and its ramifications—triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. With a focus on four Asian societies, the book compares and analyzes the spread of COVID-19 misinformation
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and its broad impacts on the public in Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Singapore." (Publisher description)
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"Chinese idol fans have been identified among the main forces in cyber nationalist activisms in recent years, acting as the nationalist fans protecting the state as an idol in response to external political shocks. Their skills in acknowledging, in
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volving, and even reinventing the image of the state and national pride in cyber nationalist activisms do not emerge in a vacuum. This article examines how idol fans involve and reinvent the nationalist discourse in their everyday fan activities – idol promotion. We focus on the pandemic in 2020 as it provides a specific social and political context that allows us to understand better the interaction between idol fans and the state in their mundane fan activities. We construct our analysis under the computational grounded theory framework with over 6 million fan posts collected from Weibo and 11 in-depth interviews with active idol fans. Our findings show that when engaging in pandemic-related discussion, idol fans actively borrowed official discourse on nationalism and strategically responded to key political and social events in their idol promotion activities. The idol images they built are not only positive but also nationalist. Therefore, they play not only the commercial logic commonly seen in the Japanese and Korean K-pop/idol culture but also the political logic propagated by the state in China." (Abstract)
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"This book observes and analyses transnational interactions of East Asian pop culture and current cultural practices, comparing them to the production and consumption of Western popular culture and providing a theoretical discussion regarding the specific paradigm of East Asian pop culture. Drawing
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on innovative theoretical perspectives and grounded empirical research, an international team of authors consider the history of transnational flows within pop culture and then systematically address pop culture, digital technologies, and the media industry. Chapters cover the Hallyu—or Korean Wave—phenomenon, as well as Japanese and Chinese cultural industries. Throughout the book, the authors address the convergence of the once-separated practical, industrial, and business aspects of popular culture under the influence of digital culture. They further coherently synthesize a vast collection of research to examine the specific realities and practices of consumers that exist beyond regional boundaries, shared cultural identities, and historical constructs." (Publisher description)
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"International contributors assess a variety of key contexts that impact access to digital technologies, including contextual variations related to geography and infrastructure, as well as individual differences related to age, income, health and disability status. Chapters explore how variations em
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erge across the life course, illustrating the effects of digital disparities on personal wellbeing. Intervening in critical debates relating to the digital divide, this Handbook offers key insights into privacy and trust issues that affect technological usage." (Publisher description)
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"The global film industry has witnessed significant transformation in the past few years. Regions outside the US have begun to prosper while non-traditional production companies, such as Netflix have assumed a larger market share, and online movies adapted from literature have continued to gain in p
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opularity. How have these trends shaped the global film industry? This book answers this question by analysing an increasingly globalised business through a global lens. Development of the Global Film Industry examines the recent history and current state of the business in all parts of the world. While many existing studies focus on the internal workings of the industry such as production, distribution, and screening, this study takes a 'big picture' view encompassing the transnational integration of the cultural and entertainment industry as a whole, and paying more attention to the coordinated development of the film industry in the light of influence from literature, television, animation, games and other sectors." (Publisher description)
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"Myanmar Media in Transition: Legacies, Challenges and Change is the first volume to overview the country’s contemporary media landscape, providing a critical assessment of the sector during the complex and controversial political transition. Moving beyond the focus on journalism and freedom of th
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e press that characterizes many media-focused volumes, Myanmar Media in Transition also explores developments in fiction, filmmaking, social movement media and social media. Documenting changes from both academic and practitioner perspectives, the twenty-one chapters reinforce the volume’s theoretical arguments by providing on-the-ground, factual and experiential data intended to open useful dialogue between key stakeholders in the media, government and civil society sectors. Providing an overview of media studies in the country, Myanmar Media in Transition addresses current challenges, such as the use of social media in spreading hate speech and the shifting boundaries of free expression, by placing them within Myanmar’s broader historic social, political and economic context." (Publisher description)
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"Social Media and Crisis Communication provides a unique and timely contribution to the field of crisis communication by addressing how social media are influencing the practice of crisis communication. The book, with a collection of chapters contributed by leading communication researchers, covers
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the current and emerging interplay of social media and crisis communication, recent theories and frameworks, overviews of dominant research streams, applications in specific crisis areas, and future directions. Both the theoretical and the practical are discussed, providing a volume that appeals to both academic-minded readers as well as professionals at the managerial, decision-making level. The audience includes public relations and corporate communication scholars, graduate students studying social media and crisis communication, researchers, crisis managers working in communication departments, and business leaders who make strategic business communication planning. No other volume has provided the overarching synthesis of information regarding the field of crisis communication and social media that this book contains. Incorporated in this volume is the recent Social-mediated Crisis Communication Model developed by the editors and their co-authors, which serves as a framework for crisis and issues management in a rapidly evolving media landscape." (Publisher description)
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"This edited volume, which elaborates on the idea and concept of sustainable journalism, is the result of a perceived lack of integral research approaches to journalism and sustainable development. Thirty years ago, in 1987, the Brundtland Report pointed out economic growth, social equality and envi
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ronmental protection as the three main pillars of a sustainable development. These pillars are intertwined, interdependent, and need to be reconciled. However, usually, scholars interested in the business crisis of the media industry tend to leave the social and environmental dimensions of journalism aside, and vice versa. What Is Sustainable Journalism? is the first book that discusses and examines the economic, social and environmental challenges of professional journalism simultaneously. This unique book and fresh contribution to the discussion of the future of journalism assembles international expertise in all three fields, arguing for the necessity of integral research perspectives and for sustainable journalism as the key to long-term survival of professional journalism." (Publisher description)
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"While the importance of the role of storytelling can hardly be overestimated, the impact of digitalization on this role is more ambivalent. In this second book-length publication of the programme Media and Education in the Digital Age – MEDA, the authors take a critical stance towards the alleged
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emancipative affordances of digital storytelling in education. The collection is inspired by the effort of making professional educators aware of the risks of the digital turn in educational storytelling but also of the opportunities and the conditions for critical engagements. Based on their research and field experience, fifteen scholars discuss in nine chapters these risks and opportunities, providing ideas, evidence, references and inspiration to educators and researchers." (Publisher description)
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"This is a book about free speech narratives. Stories about how imagination and rational thinking in wildly different cultures capture, imagine, and conceptualize what freedom of speech means. 1989 and 2011 are only two recent (in historic perspective) turning points when freedom of speech and freed
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om of the press emerged, or at least powerful efforts were made to support its emergence, although disheartening backlashes followed in several countries. This book also tells many other free speech narratives that emerged, or evolved outside the frames of 1989 and 2011, also with several troublesome repercussions. The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the year of largely velvet revolutions (in the words of Vaclav Havel), brought freedom of speech to Central Europe and Eastern Europe. It also increased the hope that freedom of speech and democracy can prevail in more and more countries on the earth. This book examines, in some historic perspective, to what extent this hope has become reality since and prior to 1989, also in light of the Arab revolutions of 2011." (Introduction, page 1)
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"Prepared by a group of experts within the CROP network, this book was a state-of-the-art report on poverty and poverty research in different regions in 1996. As such, it was unique and the first volume ever to cover poverty studies worldwide, and to present the rich variety of concepts, hypotheses
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and data used in different disciplines in different cultural settings. The book contains a great number of ideas and reflections on poverty manifestations, poverty research and poverty strategies, of great value for researchers and policy-makers alike. As such, it is a baseline for ongoing and future research, and a major contribution to setting up the agenda for poverty research in the new millennium." (https://www.crop.org/Publications)
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