Do Local Newspapers Mitigate the Effects of the Polarized National Rhetoric on COVID-19?

This analysis tests two distinct predictions regarding local newspapers’ coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. A public service view of local newspapers predicts that a robust local newspaper sector would mitigate the politicized national partisan rhetoric surrounding COVID-19; reducing the disparity in social-distancing behaviors between predominantly Republican and predominantly Democratic counties by increasing compliance in Republican counties. The alternative hypothesis, informed by a demand-side view of the market pressures local newspapers face, predicts that increased competition between local newspapers will increase the degree to which local newspapers amplify the rhetoric of national officials in line with the partisan composition of their community, further polarizing adherence to social-distancing behaviors across predominantly Republican versus predominantly Democratic counties. The results of this analysis offer strong support for the second hypothesis; but, an additional analysis of vaccination rates offers a more nuanced perspective than a simple public service versus demand-side dichotomy would imply.

Consuming history in a political context: Motivations of Turkish visitors of the Gallipoli Battlefields

Certain unconventional tourism activities such as visiting battlefields, old prisons, or crash sites encompass dark tourism and have become the focus of scholarly pursuit. The term was established in relation to the Gallipoli Battlefields; which has been examined mostly in the context of its importance to Australian and New Zealander national identities. As represented by numerous memorials and well-established historical narration, the Battle in Gallipoli is credited as one of the most important representations of Turkish nationality. This research aims to investigate the motivations of Turkish visitors to Gallipoli in terms of consumption experiences and to clarify empirically motivations of Turkish visitors to Gallipoli. An explorative questionnaire was directed to respondents via e-mail, and analyses were conducted with 236 valid forms. Data supports that rather than personal motivation, visiting Gallipoli reflects politically constructed meanings for Turkish visitors. Gallipoli narration is therefore eligibly expounded as national rhetoric and motivations for visiting the site are compatible with group consumption behavior.

Kulturnationalismus. Wir-Krise und Nationalstaat

Will the nation state become obsolete? Many facts support the opposite assumption that nation states will actually continue to dominate 21st century politics. However, in many Western countries images of ‘We’ and ‘Us’ in relation to the nation have become the subject of heated debates, leading eventually to a real or potential identity crisis. In this context, some are using concepts of ‘culture’ and ‘nation’ as rhetorical means of distinction, whereas others are rejecting the model of a nation state completely. Thus, both groups are becoming involved in a losing game of fighting for status. This study is based upon historical long-term investigations into four different fields of culture. It focuses on the transformation of national rhetoric, ‘we-images’ and ‘we-feelings’.

The Mayflower and the Slave Ship: Pilgrim-Puritan Origins in the Antebellum Black Imagination

This essay argues that antebellum black writers claimed America in part by reimagining a national rhetoric of Pilgrim-Puritan origins. Various connections have been drawn between the Puritans and early black writers, including a revised tradition of typological identification with Israel, captivity narratives, and, most frequently, the “black jeremiad.” In addition to these scholarly genealogies, black writers struggled more directly with their spiritual genealogies in an effort to reconcile a growing investment in American and Protestant identity with an emergent sense of black roots. Since Paul Gilroy, a growing number of scholars have examined the importance of origins for antebellum black writers in conversation with dominant Euro-American traditions, yet American Protestantism remains a minor presence in these studies. If early black studies of antiquity, biblical history, and European historiography, for example, were crucial to an emergent sense of black roots, they intertwined in complex ways with black writers’ investment in American Protestantism and its vision of history. Ultimately, black writers further radicalized abolitionists’ revolutionary Puritan genealogy as they made it their own, expanding this spiritual lineage to sanction fugitive slaves, black revolutionaries, and eventually the black troops of the American Civil War, imagined as the culmination of a sacred destiny that was both black and American, traceable to the Mayflower and the slave ship alike.

Street-level perspectives

This chapter focuses on the implementation of the Troubled Families Programme (TFP) and explores the changes that have been made to the programme at local levels. It highlights deviations from the national rhetoric and the way in which much of the aggressive, muscular rhetoric has been softened to reflect a more supportive approach towards families at both a local authority level and from individual workers. Local authorities have adapted the programme to make it work for them in a number of different ways and success has often been achieved in spite of the programme rather than because of it. The chapter explores how local authorities have subverted, negotiated, and resisted the national rhetoric in order to make the programme work and to achieve the targets set by the government.