Setting the Agenda describes the mass media’s significant and sometimes controversial role in determining which topics are at the centre of public attention and action. Although Walter Lippman captured the essence of the media’s powerful influence early in the last century with his phrase, “the world outside and the pictures in our heads,” a detailed, empirical elaboration of this agenda-setting role of the mass media did not begin until the final quarter of the 20th century. In this comprehensive book, Maxwell McCombs, one of the founding fathers of agenda-setting tradition of research, synthesizes the hundreds of scientific studies carried out on this central role of the mass media in the shaping of public opinion. Across the world, the mass media strongly influences what the pictures of public affairs "in our heads" are about. The mass media also influences the very details of those pictures. In addition to describing this media influence on what we think about and how we think about it, Setting the Agenda also discusses the sources of these media agendas, the psychological explanation for their impact on the public agenda, and the subsequent consequences for attitudes, opinions and behaviour. This important and perspicacious new book will prove invaluable to students of media communications and politics, as well as those interested in the role of mass media in shaping and directing public opinion.

Although there are important differences between the two Presidents, not the least of which is Bush's high proportion of small-scale, old ideas, the two share a pronounced tendency to look backward for inspiration rather than forward.--from the Preface

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is comprised of the policies, protocols and practices enacted by a wide range of actors inspired by, or under the auspices, of the UN Security Council resolutions adopted under the title of ‘women and peace and security’. Since the adoption of the first resolution in 2000, resolution 1325, there have been nine others, each of which elaborates or extends aspects of the original resolution. This book provides a forward-looking collection of scholarship on the WPS agenda in two halves. The first half of the book presents a series of essays that each provide a glimpse of the rich and insightful research on WPS being undertaken in and about different contexts, to demonstrate the importance of centring the "local" as a site of knowledge production in the WPS agenda. The essays presented in the second half of the book also engage questions of knowledge production, documenting the exploratory methods in use in WPS scholarship, and highlighting those topics engaged at the hinterlands of what is a broad field – topics that gesture at the future of research in this area. The chapters in this book were originally published as special issues of the International Feminist Journal of Politics.

The narrative turn has recently influenced theories, methods, and research design within the field of international relations. Its goal is, in part, to show how stories about international events and issues emerge and develop, and how these stories influence the uptake and limitations of global policy solutions around the world. Through the lens of narrative, this book examines the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, adopted by the United Nations Security Council twenty years ago. The agenda seeks to increase the participation of women in conflict prevention efforts and to protect the rights of women during conflict and peacebuilding. Those involved in the creation of the WPS agenda, including its strategies, guidelines, and protocols, tend to assume that implementation is the most critical element of it. But what can the stories about the agenda's emergence tell us about its limits and possibilities? Laura J. Shepherd examines WPS as a policy agenda that has been realized in and through the stories that have been told about it, focusing on the world of WPS work at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. She argues that to understand the implementation of the agenda we need to also understand the narration of the agenda's beginnings, its ongoing unfolding, and its plural futures. These stories outline the agenda's priorities and delimit its possibilities--as well as communicate and constitute its triumphs and disasters. As the book shows, much energy and resources are expended in efforts to reduce or resolve the agenda to a singular, essential thing--with singular, essential meaning. There is no true WPS agenda that practitioners, activists, and policymakers can apprehend and use as their guide; there is only a messy and contested space for political interventions of different kinds. Shepherd shows that the narratives of the WPS agenda incorporate plural logics but that this plurality cannot--should not--be used as an alibi for limited engagement or strategic inaction. Those seeking to realize the WPS agenda might need to live with the irreconcilable, the irresolvable, and the ambiguous.

This is the first book devoted to examining why some issues proposed by aggrieved individuals or groups are denied access to policy agendas. The book contains case studies that look at the policy process from the perspective of the strategies opponents often use to ensure agenda denial--strategies usually motivated by perceived threats to widely held world views and identities.

With a strong comparative framework, this book examines fourteen countries with parliamentary or semi-presidential systems of government to provide a detailed investigation into the mechanisms by which governments determine the agendas of their parliaments.

The Mezonic Agenda deals with some of the most pressing topics in technology and computer security today including: reverse engineering, cryptography, buffer overflows, and steganography. The book tells the tale of criminal hackers attempting to compromise the results of a presidential election for their own gain. The accompanying CD contains real, working versions of all the applications described in the fictional narrative of the book. Computer users, programmers, IT professionals, and policy makers need to be made aware of the risks involved with deploying new technologies and see how attackers can leverage these technologies for their own purposes. While the story in The Mezonic Agenda is fictional, the technologies, exploits, and hacking techniques are all very real.* The first cyber-thriller" that allows the reader to "hack along" using the accompanying CD which contains working versions of all the applications described in the book. * To be published in October 2004 when interest in the American Presidential election will be at its highest. * Provides IT professionals with the most advanced, timely, and accurate information available on security exploits in a fascinating, fictional narrative.

This open access handbook analyses the role of development cooperation in achieving the 2030 Agenda in a global context of 'contested cooperation'. Development actors, including governments providing aid or South-South Cooperation, developing countries, and non-governmental actors (civil society, philanthropy, and businesses) constantly challenge underlying narratives and norms of development. The book explores how reconciling these differences fosters achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Sachin Chaturvedi is Director General at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), a New Delhi, India-based think tank. Heiner Janus is a researcher in the Inter- and Transnational Cooperation programme at the German Development Institute. Stephan Klingebiel is Chair of the Inter- and Transnational Cooperation programme at the German Development Institute and Senior Lecturer at the University of Marburg, Germany. Xiaoyun Li is Chair Professor at China Agricultural University and Honorary Dean of the China Institute for South-South Cooperation in Agriculture. Prof. Li is the Chair of the Network of Southern Think Tanks and Chair of the China International Development Research Network. André de Mello e Souza is a researcher at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), a Brazilian governmental think tank. Elizabeth Sidiropoulos is Chief Executive of the South African Institute of International Affairs. She has co-edited Development Cooperation and Emerging Powers: New Partners or Old Patterns (2012) and Institutional Architecture and Development: Responses from Emerging Powers (2015). Dorothea Wehrmann is a researcher in the Inter- and Transnational Cooperation programme at the German Development Institute.

Is a dreamed life achievable without a plan? In Life without Agenda Is Uncertain, Pastor David Chambo explains how its dangerous to live without programming the world within and around us. An agenda is very imperative for every human being who wants to excel on this lifes journey. There are a few things to consider and to evaluate in order to make our dreamed life achievable, such as the following: Identifying your passion and purpose Timing your entire life endeavors Do not fast forward your journey Flexibility and open spirit Do not practice procrastination The agenda enables us to live in certainty and precision of our actions. In addition, the presence of an agenda in our lives will save us from disastrous influence and anxiety. But dont begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? (Luke 14:28, NLT).