The use of emotions in 2019 European Elections campaign materials

This research analyses three fundamental questions to determine how, when and by whom emotions are used in campaign materials (political propaganda). Focusing on the 2019 European elections we carry out a three-phase analysis. Firstly, we check the use of rational content against content that appeals to voters’ emotions. Secondly, we observe which of these emo tions are channelled towards the use of negative strategies and, therefore, identifying who is the object of this attack. And lastly, we determine which party families make the most use of humorous content since this resource is believed to be part of an appeal to voter’s feelings and, therefore, it is essential to know if there are differences between political groups. Considering this analytical strategy, the structure of the work begins with the contextualisation of the 2019 European elections to focus, later, on highlighting the importance of electoral campaigns as a given time when communicative activity intensifies. Once the importance of electoral campaigns has been defined the article analyses how campaign materials, in a general context of political propaganda, are one of the most powerful tools. In this sense, the analytical strategy of political parties’ campaign materials can be said to focus on the use of emotions. Data from the European Elections Monitoring Center (EEMC) has been used not only for theoretical contextualization, but throughout the whole paper.

„Sierp”, „Młot”, „Trybuna Radziecka”: tytuły polskojęzycznej prasy wydawanej w międzywojennym ZSRR

Sierp (The Sickle), Młot (The Hammer), Trybuna Radziecka (The Soviet Tribune): Titles of the Polish-Language Press Published in the Interwar USSRThis study is devoted to the titles of newspapers and magazines published in Polish in the USSR in 1918–1939. These periodicals are a reflection of a unique period – they were issued during the first decades after the 1917 revolution, under the conditions of state monopoly on information. The titles of newspapers and magazines had to conform to the single party line and ideology enforced in the USSR. The vocabulary used in the titles under scrutiny is discussed in the context of the features of Russian political propaganda at the time, as well as those of the Polish-language propaganda created on its basis. „Sierp”, „Młot”, „Trybuna Radziecka”: tytuły polskojęzycznej prasy wydawanej w międzywojennym ZSRRPrzedmiotem badania są tytuły gazet i czasopism publikowanych w języku polskim w latach 1918–1939 na terenie ZSRR. Periodyki te stanowią świadectwo szczególnej epoki – ukazywały się w pierwszych dekadach po rewolucji 1917 roku w warunkach państwowego monopolu informacyjnego. Tytuły gazet i czasopism zostały dostosowane do jednej linii politycznej i ideologicznej obowiązującej w ZSRR. Słownictwo wykorzystane w badanych tytułach prasowych zostało omówione na tle właściwości ówczesnej rosyjskiej propagandy politycznej i kształtującej się na jej wzór propagandy polskojęzycznej.

Hanoi's Diplomatic Front in Sweden: Communist Propaganda Strategies in the Vietnam War

This article offers a new perspective on the Swedish protests against the Vietnam War by placing it in its broader global Cold War context. As a case study on ‘people's diplomacy’ and ‘united front strategy’, it acknowledges the importance of Chinese and Vietnamese influences on the peace campaigns in Sweden and aims, as far as possible, to reconstruct Hanoi's motives, strategies and actions to create and direct Sweden's policy and opinion on the war. With the extremely generous political freedoms granted it by official Sweden, Hanoi was able to find new international allies as well as organise political propaganda manifestations from their Stockholm base. In the end, North Vietnam's version of the war as being about national liberation fought by a people united in their resistance to a foreign, genocidal, aggressor won a large enough share of the opinion in the West to force the American political leadership to give up the fight. Hanoi's Diplomatic Front in Sweden was one of the important battlefields behind that victory

Online Performance of Civic Participation: What Bot-like Activity in the Persian Language Twittersphere Reveals About Political Manipulation Mechanisms

In this paper, we reveal the understudied transnational dimensions of politically manipulative activity on social media. Specifically, we identify and investigate a bot-like Twitter network associated with the controversial organization of Iranian political exiles, the Mojaheddin-e Khalgh (MEK). Tracing and contextualizing the Twitter debate around women’s rights within the 2016 Iranian Parliamentary election, our analysis contributes to the scholarship on diaspora and digital media by drawing attention to the often-neglected potentials for non-state actors such as diaspora groups to make use of social media to promote political propaganda that advances militarist violence. We demonstrate how the MEK network’s “online performance of civic participation” is typical of a bot-net of weak influence inside Iran, but that the aims and extent of its influence can only be fully understood by situating it within a historical and transnational analysis of Iranian diasporic media and politics, one that takes complex US-Iran diplomacy dynamics into consideration.

The “Re-Tuning” of János Arany's Life and Work in the Popular Education of the 1950s

In 1948, in the year it came to power, the Hungarian Communist Party began building its legitimacy, using the occasion of the centenary, by appropriating the legacy of the Revolution of 1848. The need for a revolutionary transformation of culture heralded the advent of the scientific materialist worldview. The popular education system, created as a channel of the cultural revolution, conveyed the findings of the various branches of science and arts, combined with the rhetoric of political propaganda, to the “working people.” Revolutionism, which the Marxist view of history elevated to prominence, soon gained ground in the interpretation of Hungarian literary history via the compilation of “progressive literary traditions.” Public educators' literary presentations in villages and cities, as well as articles and cheap publications produced in large quantities all served to promote this central principle. The author examines the representation and interpretation of János Arany's life and work in various textual and visual popular education products. Certain junctures and directions in Arany's life, used as guidelines of the presentations, were highlighted in the image of Arany mediated by filmstrips and newspaper articles to make him one of the “poets of freedom.” Publications intended for the cultural and political education of “working people” set out the way in which to relate to the poet and the framework for interpreting his writings. Through the Arany poems that popular educators employed in scientific education, the author points out the way in which textual and visual representations became carriers of added content in a given context and a possible means of the “rural class struggle.”

Contextual interpretation of COVID-19 pandemic among public space users in Ibadan Metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria: An ethnographic review

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all dimensions of lives and has become a social problem as it continues to spread widely through the continuous interactions of people in public spaces where they earn a living. Curbing the spread of COVID-19 requires restrictions in these public spaces, however, the compliance to these measures depends largely on the understanding and interpretations of COVID 19 by users of these public spaces. This study examined the contextual interpretations of public space users about COVID-19 prevention in Ibadan Metropolis, Oyo State. The study was a rapid ethnographic survey in selected public spaces (markets and commercial motor parks) in Ibadan metropolis. Data were collected through participant observation, key informant interviews (3 females; 3 males) and in-depth interviews (30) with, traders, head porters, clients/buyers and commercial vehicle drivers in these public spaces. Interviews conducted were transcribed, sorted into themes using Atlas-ti 7.5.7 and subjected to interpretive-content analysis. Findings revealed that some respondents felt COVID-19 was brought into Nigeria by rich frequent global voyagers, others felt it was through “uncultured” sexual life or wrath of God. Some also doubted the existence of the disease and many of the respondents perceived COVID-19 as a disease reported by the government or a political propaganda to siphon funds. The users of the public spaces in Ibadan Metropolis have variegated perception about the existence and severity of this rapidly spreading virus and this has grave implications for COVID-19 control in the State. Thus, regular interaction with public space users are essential for control efforts.

Fake News on the Covid-19 outbreak: a new metadata-based dataset for the analysis of Brazilian and British Twitter posts

The dissemination of fake news is a problem that has already been addressed but by no means is solved. After the manipulation made by Cambridge Analytica which was based on classifying users by their political views and targeting specific political propaganda on the Brexit campaign, the Trump election and the Bolsonaro election, there is no doubt this issue can have a real impact on society in ‘normal times’. During a pandemic, any type of fake news can be the difference between life and death when the data shared can directly hurt the people who are believing in it. Moreover, there is also a new trend of using artificial robots to disseminate such news with a special target on Twitter which can be linked with political campaigns. Thus, it is essential that we identify and understand what kind of news is selected to be 'dressed' as fake and how it is disseminated. This paper aims to investigate the dissemination of fake news related with Covid-19 in the UK and Brazil in order to understand the impact of fake news on public sector actions, social isolation and quarantine imposition. Those two case studies are well versed on the fake news dissemination. Our initial dataset of Twitter posts have focused on posts from four different cities (Natal, São Paulo, Sheffield and London) and have shown interesting pointers that will be discussed.