Uma história feita a manu militari?

Este artigo parte da constatação da falta de reflexão sobre a história da área acadêmica para discutir o contexto em que se desenvolve o campo da Comunicação na América Latina. Registra a instrumentalização política da mídia na Guerra Fria a partir da Sociedade Interamericana de Imprensa, ao mesmo tempo em que é forjada a Mass Communications Research nos Estados Unidos como instrumento de guerra psicológica. Aponta inconsistências na história dominante a respeito dos forefathers da disciplina. Observa a articulação do Ciespal com os golpes militares dos anos 1960 no continente. A partir dessas constatações, propõe que apenas uma história social do conhecimento pode oferecer estrutura conceitual e lastro histórico a quem queira compreender o percurso de institucionalização do campo.

TED talks as listening activities in the ESP classroom

The paper aims at showing how a well-known website ‘TED talks’ is used for creating listening activities in the ESP classroom in order to achieve the main goal which is to develop active listeners. It is needed when one is talking to another person (interactive listening) or when listening to a talk or a lecture (one-way listening). (Christine C. M. Goh 2012) . Listening tasks discussed in the paper are designed for students of social and political sciences. The syllabus of the faculty includes several disciplines such as Psychology, Politics, International Relations, Human Geography, Mass Communications. The paper presents how ‘TED talks’ might be used for creating listening activities using ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ strategies (Harlan Mills and Niklaus Wirth developed the top-down approach for software development field). In addition, the paper shows how the activities are conducted and what are the results of the performance. ESP listening might be considered as different from ESL listening since each discipline, listed above, has its own specific technical and specialized terms. However, methods of working on listening skills are similar and consists of stages which give opportunity to accomplish the task easily. Since Students who get ESP training are supposed to have experience in doing ESL course, they have motivation to be involved in the process and high interest in order to enrich skills for their professional development.

Foundations of Theory in PRC History: Mass Communications Research, Political Culture, and the Values Paradigm

This article describes the US origins of the field of PRC history. It argues that research on PRC history is widely derived from an approach to knowledge that predates area studies: the theory that societies can be controlled and changed through the transformation of human cognition—referred to as “public opinion,” “values,” “culture,” “political culture,” “tradition,” or “belief”—by nonviolent means. The author calls this approach to knowledge the values paradigm. A separate, but related argument is that this paradigm has proven more important than the availability or content of new sources in determining how PRC history has been written. The aim behind these arguments is twofold: to highlight the intellectual debt (or burden) that links PRC history, via area studies, to policy science; and to elucidate other ways of guiding research in place of the increasingly exhausted values paradigm–based approach. The conclusions they lead to are that historical and social scientific explanations of political change in China have become intellectually dependent on the abstraction of mass consciousness, and that this abstraction has been used to obscure the endemic violence of Maoism.

Responding to Disinformation

This chapter elaborates on challenges and emerging best practices for state regulation of electoral disinformation throughout the electoral cycle. It is based on research for three studies during 2018–2020: into election cybersecurity for the Commonwealth; on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to regulate disinformation for the European Parliament; and for UNESCO, the United Nations body responsible for education. The research covers more than half the world’s nations, and substantially more than half that population, and in 2019 the two largest democratic elections in history: India’s general election and the European Parliamentary elections. Regulating digital dominance in electoral disinformation presents specific challenges in three very distinctive fields: election law, media law, and mass communications regulation, and targeted online advertising, including data protection law. Implementing best practices against electoral disinformation will require action by EMBs, data protection agencies, communications and media regulators, parliamentary authorities, and ministries of justice and equivalent Neither effective implementation, nor a disinterested assessment of best practice, can be guaranteed. Electoral laws are—like much history—written by the winners, often immediately after their victory. Legal frameworks need to be updated as a response to disinformation challenges discovered during electoral processes, as well as encompassing international best practice. Our ten recommendations for policymakers take account of these imperatives and uncertainties.

Fashion in Postmodern Political Communication

The goal of this article is to try to reach theoretical comprehension of the political fashion phenomenon. Conceptualization of fashion as an effect of mass communication allows one to see in it not only a phenomenon of pop culture but also an immanent side, and at the same time the main social, psychological and mental risk of the progress, – the accelerating humanity evolution. The article shows how modern values – novelty priority, truth accessibility, individualism, – and mass communications progress maximize the potential and danger of mass mental enthusiasm in political sphere. The author substantiates the following conclusion: political fashion in the communication mental context of postmodern appears to be the manifestation and factor the increasing crisis of social structure.

Evaluation of the guess project results (global student entrepreneurship survey) in the context of the influence of primary career experience on graduate choice (international aspect)

The purpose of the article is to evaluate the results of the GUESSS project in the context of building career plans for students. The GUESSS project explores the entrepreneurial spirit of students globally and spans 54 countries around the world. The materials of the project are used to carry out scientific works and publications in the world’s leading journals. Entrepreneurship has become an important part of the learning process. The development of students’ entrepreneurial skills is of great importance at the present stage. OECD countries take into account and develop their youth entrepreneurship programs based on projects like GUESSS. Current labor market trends are destroying utopian models of “well-paid” jobs in a global competitive environment. Digitalization, the economy of smart cities, sustainable development and shared consumption, new trends in healthcare, retail, mass communications and tourism create new opportunities for the development of private entrepreneurship. In the study of the career preferences of students from different countries, one can consider the general tendencies characteristic of modern youth. The article assesses the career preferences of five different countries that are very different in terms of GDP, demographic and socio-cultural characteristics. The assessment of changes in the career preferences of students immediately after graduation and five years after gaining career experience is carried out.

Poison Parasite Counter: Turning Duplicitous Mass Communications Into Self-Negating Memory-Retrieval Cues

Disinformation in politics, advertising, and mass communications has proliferated in recent years. Few counterargumentation strategies have proven effective at undermining a deceptive message over time. This article introduces the Poison Parasite Counter (PPC), a cognitive-science-based strategy for durably countering deceptive communications. The PPC involves inserting a strong (poisonous) counter-message, just once, into a close replica of a deceptive rival’s original communication. In parasitic fashion, the original communication then “hosts” the counter-message, which is recalled on each reexposure to the original communication. The strategy harnesses associative memory to turn the original communication into a retrieval cue for a negating counter-message. Seven experiments ( N = 3,679 adults) show that the PPC lastingly undermines a duplicitous rival’s original communication, influencing judgments of communicator honesty and favorability as well as real political donations.

Degrading Bodies in Pandemic Times: Politicizing Cruelty During the COVID-19 and Obesity Crises

Mass communications frame fatness and COVID-19 as a dual threat. This discourse furthers well-established tendencies to degrade bodies labelled overweight or obese, positioning them as deficient and requiring correction. Empirically, this article draws from an online US right-wing news media platform, Campus Reform, including readers’ comments (n = 135) on an article denouncing professors working in fat studies during the COVID-19 lockdown. This status degradation ceremony—backed by ‘big money’ that funds campus culture wars—not only targeted fat people but also academic disciplines, expertise, universities and social justice agenda. Analytically, this study draws from ethnomethodology and literature on media and bodyweight, meddling or health fascism, weaponized stigma and the politics of cruelty. Going beyond the flesh and a particular case study, it also challenges the ways in which cruelty enacted towards those deemed fat (especially women) can spiral into corrosive nationalist discourse in pandemic times.