Spotlighting case studies of manipulation practices at the onset of the Covid-19 crisis in different countries and socio-political circumstances, the authors expose context-specific discourse and argumentation strategies of 'infodemics’ (misleading information and fake news), public policy mismanagement, deceptive online and offline communication tactics, and conspiracy narratives, which end up disrupting community social cohesion. In addition to targeting manipulation-driven dissent across discourse genres through corpus-based investigations, a major strength of this volume consists in debunking manipulation while foregrounding compelling acts of counter-manipulation. The volume’s breadth of topics, depth of analytical insights and range of methodological frameworks provide unique perspectives by capturing crisis-related manipulations across a worldwide political and cultural spectrum (Austria, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States), with a focus on the scale and extent of multifaceted repercussions. Reaching beyond the boundaries of pragmatics and discourse analysis, this book should be a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners of rhetoric, argumentation, media studies, social and political sciences.

Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky and the Media, the companion book to the award-winning film, charts the life of America's most famous dissident, from his boyhood days running his uncle's newsstand in Manhattan to his current role as outspoken social critic. A complete transcript of the film is complemented by key excerpts from the writings, interviews and correspondence. Also included are exchanges between Chomsky and his critics, historical and biographical material, filmmakers' notes, a resource guide, more than 270 stills from the film and 18 "Philosopher All-Stars" Trading Cards! Mark Achbar has applied a wide range of creative abilities and technical skills to over 50 films, videos, and books. He has worked as editor, researcher and production coordinator. "A juicily subversive biographical/philosophical documentary bristling and buzzing with ideas."-Washington Post "You will see the whole sweep of the most challenging critic in modern political thought."-Boston Globe "One of our real geniuses, an excellent introduction."-Village Voice "An intellectually challenging crash course in the man's cooly contentious analysis, laying out his thoughts in a package that is clever and accessible."-Los Angeles Times Contents: The Man. Early Influences. Vietnam A Turning Point. On His Role. The Media. Thought Control in Democratic Societies. A Propaganda Model. The Gulf "War". A Case Study Cambodia & East Timor. Concision A Structural Constraint. "Sports Rap with Noam Chomsky." A Cabal of Anti-Conspiricists. Media in Media, Pennsylvania. Alternative Media. The Linguist. Basic Premises. Nim Chimsky: Chimpanzee. And the Elusive Connection to his Politics. The Social Order. On Education. Anarchism/Libertarian Socialism. Resistance & Critical Analysis. The Critics (Media-Based). William F. Buckley, Jr. "Firing Line". David Frum Journalist, Washington Post. Jeff Greenfield Producer, "Nightline". Karl E. Meyer Editorial Writer, The New York Times. Peter Worthington Editor, The Ottawa Sun. The Critics (Other Elites). Fritz Bolkestein Former Dutch Minister of Defense. Michel Foucault Philosopher. Yossi Olmert Tel Aviv University. John Silber

Since the 1930s, industrial sociologists have tried to answer the question, Why do workers not work harder? Michael Burawoy spent ten months as a machine operator in a Chicago factory trying to answer different but equally important questions: Why do workers work as hard as they do? Why do workers routinely consent to their own exploitation? Manufacturing Consent, the result of Burawoy's research, combines rich ethnographical description with an original Marxist theory of the capitalist labor process. Manufacturing Consent is unique among studies of this kind because Burawoy has been able to analyze his own experiences in relation to those of Donald Roy, who studied the same factory thirty years earlier. Burawoy traces the technical, political, and ideological changes in factory life to the transformations of the market relations of the plant (it is now part of a multinational corporation) and to broader movements, since World War II, in industrial relations.

A detailed and compelling political study of how elite forces shape mass media. Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky investigate how an underlying elite consensus structures mainstream media. Here they skilfully dissect the way in which the marketplace and the economics of publishing significantly shape the news. This book reveals how issues are framed and topics chosen, and the double standards underlying accounts of free elections, a free press, and governmental repression between Nicaragua and El Salvador; between the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the American invasion of Vietnam; between the genocide in Cambodia under a pro-American government and genocide under Pol Pot. What emerges from this ground-breaking work is an account of just how propagandistic our mass media can be, and how we can learn to read them and see their function in a radically new way.

* Our summary is short, simple and pragmatic. It allows you to have the essential ideas of a big book in less than 30 minutes. As you read this summary, you will learn that the media condition us, and that propaganda most often replaces information. You will also learn : that in our democracies, consent to political decisions is largely "manufactured", or "conditioned", by the media; that implacable censorship exists, contrary to what the dominant discourse suggests; that this censorship is much more subtle than a simple frontal and open ban, since it functions largely in the mode of self-censorship; that, for the media, there are "good" and "bad" victims, each receiving different treatment; that political elections in developing countries are also subject to manipulation in media reporting; that outright disinformation sometimes replaces information. Power and money, and they alone, select the information in our democracies that is deemed suitable for disclosure to the "good people". It is through the media, the main ones belonging to very large groups whose financial strength impresses, that this real propaganda is carried out. Their role is to send messages and symbols to the population. In doing so, the media inculcate in the mass of citizens the beliefs and behaviors that are deemed socially acceptable and desirable by the ruling elites. In this way, for individuals, integration into the wider society, with its overriding economic imperatives, becomes possible. *Buy now the summary of this book for the modest price of a cup of coffee!

Introduction: manufacturing dissent in a time of public distrust -- Don't call it a movement: the Tea Party as a mass uprising -- The Tea Party does not exist: observations on the ground in Chicago -- The counter-revolution will be televised: the Tea Party as a mediated rebellion -- Mediated populism: the Tea Party captivates public opinion -- The plot to kill grandma: the Tea Party, mass media, and health care reform -- Manufacturing dissent: fostering resistance to health care from the top down.

This book investigates one of the most characteristic and prominent features of ancient Greek literature - the scene of debate or agon, in which with varying degrees of formality characters square up to each other and engage in a contest of words. Drawing on six case studies of different kinds of narrative - epic, historiography and tragedy - and authors as diverse as Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles and Euripides, this wide-ranging study analyses each example of debate in its context according to a set of interrelated questions: who debates, when, why, and with what consequences? Based on the changing representations of debate across and within different genres, it shows the importance of debate to these key canonical genres and, in turn, the role of literature in the construction of a citizen body through the exploration, reproduction and management of dissent from authority.

No other cinematic genre more sharply illustrates the contradictions of American society - notions about social class, politics, and socio-economic ideology - than the war film. This book examines the latest cycle of war films to reveal how they mediate and negotiate the complexities of war, class, and a military-political mission largely gone bad.