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Dichotomies in media and communication theory
No full textThis innovative textbook explores media and communication theory, and its intersections with social and political theory, through the prism of eight core dichotomies – communication/media, private/public, production/reception, material/symbolic, mainstream/alternative, abundance/scarcity, control/freedom, and virtual/real – revealing their complex interrelationships and significance in understanding contemporary media and communication landscapes. Students will gain a nuanced understanding of media and communication theories by examining both sides of each dichotomy and their dynamic interplay. The book historicizes each concept pair, illustrates them with past and present examples, and demonstrates how competing paradigms often complement rather than contradict each other. This approach helps readers grasp theoretical complexity, recognize the democratic importance of media and communication, and develop critical thinking skills through engaging case studies and discussion questions in each chapter. This textbook is designed for undergraduate and postgraduate students taking media and communication theory courses. Instructors teaching critical media and communication theory will find the dichotomy-based approach particularly valuable for helping students navigate complex theoretical debates and understand the field's intellectual development. It will also be useful supplementary reading for specific topics within broader media studies programs
Beyond incrementalism: can the politics of abundance work for the United Kingdom?
Get PDFThe abundance agenda offers an important provocation to progressives, asking them to think big about the possibilities for growth and economic renewal. Developed in the context of the United States, abundance economics is also attracting some attention in UK policy circles, given the government's top-line commitment to growth, and the threat posed by the scarcity politics of the populist right. But while the abundance critique of the status quo is a powerful one, its policy prescriptions may not translate straightforwardly to the UK. Enacting economic reforms in the name of abundance may also rely on a mode of emergency politics that trades off democratic accountability for efficiency. The question for Labour is not only whether they believe that abundance is the right economic strategy, but how they can turn it into a viable political programme that takes public consent seriously, based on a narrative that invites the public to support the trade-offs it involves
Communist education systems had a surprisingly positive impact on public health
Get PDFWhat impact did communist education systems have on people’s health? Joan Costa-Font and Anna Nicinska find evidence Soviet-style education systems produced clear health benefits due to their emphasis on physical education, preventive health and gender-equal participation in sports
The benefits of neurodiversity in business
Get PDFNeurodivergent individuals often bring unique strengths to business, such as creativity and the ability to handle varied tasks; however, they still face significant barriers. Dr Dorottya Sallai highlights the case of auticon, an IT consulting firm, that is transforming lives and perceptions by seeing success in employing exclusively autistic adults
The personal characteristics that affect trust in government: a global analysis across regions
No full textThis paper examines the personal characteristics that determine the extent of Trust in Government, using over 400,000 observations from 97 countries provided by surveys held during the years 1990-2023. These survey data reveal how persons’ individual characteristics influence such trust. Most of these relationships are intuitive, for example that people who are satisfied, secured, immigrants, elderly and female, tend to trust government more. On the other hand, those in employment and living in cities tend to have lower trust, for reasons that we explain. Perhaps our main finding, and the key result of the paper, is that those who obtain their news primarily from traditional sources, i.e. newspapers and television, tend to trust government more, while those who have their main source of information from social media trust government less. We also study whether the geographical location of the respondent influences their Trust in Government. What we find is that the effect of these personal characteristics is remarkably common, wherever the respondent is located, unlike the response to other external economic and geopolitical factors which tend often to vary between one region and another
Re-politicising merger policy: regulating foreign takeovers in Britain and Italy
No full textThe literature on de-politicisation has emphasized the declining role of national politicians in policymaking, particularly in the realm of economic governance. Competition policy–including with regard to cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CBMAs)–is often cited as a prime example of de-politicisation, due to the delegation of decision-making powers to independent authorities. However, recent global developments, including within Europe, suggest a reversal towards ‘institutional re-politicisation’, whereby elected politicians have reasserted authority over CBMAs. This article examines this shift through a comparative study of the United Kingdom and Italy, employing process-tracing to analyse key episodes. It investigates which coalitions have driven institutional re-politicisation and the arguments used to legitimise it. The findings show that re-politicisation was initiated by a diverse coalition of right-wing and centre-left politicians, trade unions, and producer associations, who invoked shared concerns about national identity, heritage, and cultural significance. The shift began prior to widely cited factors such as rising concerns over China or the Covid-19 pandemic, and the coalition has continued to widen re-politicisation in recent years. Overall, the cases show how a broad coalition sharing identity-based claims can re-politicise policymaking, even within the traditionally de-politicised domains of competition policy and economic governance
Ten years of relational power: the long-run effects of teaching negotiation skills to adolescent girls
No full textWe evaluate the effects of teaching negotiation skills to adolescent girls in economically vulnerable compounds in Lusaka, Zambia ten years later. Treated participants complete 0.23 more years of education. Consistent with greater relational empowerment, they also begin sexual activity later, have smaller age gaps with their husbands, and express less traditional gender attitudes. Using a surrogate approach, social benefits and costs from increased education alone suggest the intervention generated 6.6 dollars for every dollar spent and had a very high marginal value of public funds of 9.0
Towards the development and implementation of hospital-based health technology assessment (HB-HTA) in Poland: achievements of an exploratory HB-HTA project from 2019–2022
No full textA comprehensive project exploring the implementation of hospital-based health technology assessment (HB-HTA) was conducted in Poland from 2019 to 2022. This initiative aimed to identify entities that could initiate and manage HB-HTA in the Polish context, including hospitals, the Province Office where was the creation of a new organizational unit the Regional Investment Evaluation Center – was recommended, the national HTA agency, the National Health Fund (the public payer), and the Ministry of Health. Despite the well-structured delineation of roles and stakeholders in the proposed HB-HTA model, its operationalization within the aforementioned institutions has not been realized. Challenges to the implementation of the model include a lack of suitably qualified personnel and a lack of commitment from key stakeholders. However, the late involvement of the national HTA agency and the Ministry of Health, as well as ongoing training and research initiatives in HB-HTA, indicate a growing interest in exploring its benefits. Finally, a central government body (Ministry of Health) will be responsible for coordinating HB-HTA in Poland. This could improve the overall HTA capacity and increase the likelihood of future implementation of HB-HTA in Poland
Protest and incumbent support: evidence from a natural experiment in Ghana
No full textHow do protests shape incumbent support in lower-income democracies? Protests serve an accountability function by informing voters about government performance, but can also polarise opinion around pre-existing social and political identities. Leveraging an anti-government demonstration in Ghana that intersected an original survey in the field, we find that respondents interviewed immediately after the protest are more trusting and approving of the President. This effect is robust across multiple bandwidths, specifications, and placebo tests, and is driven by those who voted for the ruling party at the previous election. Our findings are consistent with theories of social identity and group threat, where supporters of an unpopular administration rally to their in-group’s defence. By contrast, the protest does nothing to shift opposition voters’ strongly negative prior beliefs. We show how anti-government protests can sometimes bolster incumbent support, extending the study of partisanship and identity politics to an understudied democratic context
The kids are Alt right? Age, authoritarian attitudes and far-right support in Europe
No full textThe traditional image of a far-right voter as ‘pale, male and stale’ is changing. The attention has shifted to younger people who are said to be less supportive of (liberal) democracy and now also more likely to vote for the far-right. But evidence has been mixed when it comes to how age is associated with attitudes towards liberal democracy and support for far-right parties. In this paper, we rely on unique cross-national data from the European Parliament elections, the European Elections Study (EES) 2024, to shed light on this relationship. We find that young people are not only less supportive of liberal democracy, they were also more likely to vote for far-right parties in the 2024 European Parliament elections. In each age group, we observe a correlation between lack of support for liberal democratic norms and voting for the far right, but only when the far right is in government. These findings thus suggest that the younger generation may not be a bulwark against democratic backsliding