This book identifies the history, conventions, and uses of security discourses, and argues that such language and media frames distort information and mislead the public, misidentify the focus of concern, and omit narratives able to recognize the causes and solutions to humanitarian crises. What has been identified as a crisis at the border is better understood as an on-going crisis of violence, building over decades, that has forced migrants from their homes in the countries of the Northern Triangle. Authors Robin Andersen and Adrian Bergmann look back to U.S. military policies in the region and connect this legacy to the cross-border development of transnational gangs, government corruption, and on-going violence that often targets environmental and legal defenders. They argue that the discourses of demonization and securitization only help perpetuate brutality in both Central America and the United States, especially in the desert borderlands of the southwest. They offer ways in which stories of migrants can be reframed within the language of justice, empathy, and humanitarianism. A compelling examination of language, media, and politics, this book is both highly contemporary and widely applicable, perfect for students and scholars of global media, political communications, and their many intersections.

The third edition of U.S. and Latin American Relations offers detailed theoretical and historical analyses essential for understanding contemporary US-Latin American relations. Utilizing four different theories (realism, liberal institutionalism, dependency, and autonomy) as a framework, the text provides a succinct history of relations from Latin American independence through the Covid-19 era before then examining critical contemporary issues such as immigration, human rights, and challenges to US hegemony. Engaging pedagogical features such as timelines, research questions, and annotated resources appear throughout the text, along with relevant excerpts from primary source documents. The third edition features a new chapter on the role of extrahemispheric actors such as China and Russia, as well as a significantly revised chapter on citizen insecurity that examines crime, drug trafficking, and climate change. Instructor resources include a test bank, lecture slides, and discussion questions.

New ethnographic data leads to insights into the widespread yet understudied phenomenon of criminal extortion in Latin America.

As the United States grapples with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the nation’s living legacy of systemic racism, and partisan threats to the foundations of democracy, the integrity of news and Project Censored's survey of underreported news stories has never been more important. This 2022 edition of Project Censored's State of the Free Press offers a comprehensive survey of the most important but underreported news stories of 2021 and a comparative analysis of the current state of corporate and independent news media, and its effect on democracy. The establishment media sustains a decrepit post-truth era, as examined the lowlight features: "Junk Food News"-frivolous stories that distract the public from actual news-and-"News Abuse"-important stories covered in ways that undermine public understanding. The alternative media provokes a burgeoning critical media literacy age, as evaluated in the highlight feature: "Media Democracy in Action"-relevant stories responsibly reported on by independent organizations. Finally, in an homage to the history of the annual report, the editors reinstate the "Déjà vu News" feature-revisited stories from previous editions. State of the Free Press 2022 endows readers with the critical thinking and media literacy skills required to hold the corporate media to account for distorting or censoring news coverage, and thus, to revitalize our democracy. State of the Free Press 2022 is a joint production of The Censored Press and Seven Stories Press.

The new and improved "Censored," detailing the top censored stories and media analysis of 2020. Our nation's oldest news-monitoring group, Project Censored, refreshes its longstanding yearbook series, Censored, with State of the Free Press 2021. This edition offers a more succinct and comprehensive survey of the most important but underreported news stories of 2020; in addition to a comparative analysis of the current state of corporate and independent news media, and its effect on democracy. The establishment media sustains a decrepit post-truth era, as examined the lowlight features: "Junk Food News"-frivolous stories that distract the public from actual news-and-"News Abuse"-important stories covered in ways that undermine public understanding. The alternative media provokes a burgeoning critical media literacy age, as evaluated in the highlight feature: "Media Democracy in Action"-relevant stories responsibly reported on by independent organizations. Finally, in an homage to the history of the annual report, the editors reinstate the "Déjà vu News" feature-revisited stories from previous editions. State of the Free Press 2021 endows readers with the critical thinking and media literacy skills required to hold the corporate media to account for distorting or censoring news coverage, and thus, to revitalize our democracy.

Transformative Practice in Critical Media Literacy brings together a diverse selection of essays to examine the knowledge production crisis in higher education and the role that news media and technology play in this process. This text highlights the importance of radical pedagogy and critical media literacy to fight back and reclaim higher education as the battleground for democracy and the embodiment of citizenship. Using a global and social justice lens, it explores the transformative potential of critical media literacy in higher education. It also provides real examples of current critical media literacy practices around the globe and of successful experiences inside classrooms. In an era of fake news, this text fulfils the yearning for critical media literacy to permeate higher education by drawing together practitioners and scholars speaking to journalism students, teacher candidates, and to students, scholars, and activists across a variety of spaces in higher education. This book will be a key resource for scholars, students, policymakers, community members and activists interested in education, politics, youth studies, critical theory, intersectionality, social justice and peace studies, activism, critical media literacy, communication, or media studies.

This book reveals how Al Jazeera and its news coverage became a force for change politically, socially and culturally in the Middle East in general, and the Arab world in particular. It explores pre-Al Jazeera and post-Al Jazeera representations of humanitarian crises and identifies a potentially significant partnership between the news organizations and humanitarian actors. By tracing the evolution of the news network, the book sheds new light on how Al Jazeera effected change in the Global South. The research identifies a significant relationship between Al Jazeera’s news coverage and the ability to forecast international humanitarian actions, politically and militarily. It also explores the potential for continued partnership between humanitarian actors and news organization to identify crises in their early stages. Lastly, the book examines the distinct, original lexicon developed by Al Jazeera for humanitarian affairs and shows how the network influenced international media stylebooks and changed humanitarian coverage on key global issues. A compelling examination of Al Jazeera’s news operation that will be of interest to students and scholars of media studies, political communication, journalism and news reporting, international politics and the media, and Arab media.

Four stories of resilience, mutual aid, and radical rebellion that will transform how we understand the Great Depression Drawing on little-known stories of working people, What Can We Learn from the Great Depression? amplifies voices that have been long omitted from standard histories of the Depression era. In four tales, Professor Dana Frank explores how ordinary working people in the US turned to collective action to meet the crisis of the Great Depression and what we can learn from them today. Readers are introduced to * the 7 daring Black women who worked as wet nurses and staged a sit-down strike to demand better pay and an end to racial discrimination * the groups who used mutual aid, cooperatives, eviction protests, and demands for government relief to meet their basic needs * the million Mexican and Mexican American repatriados who were erased from mainstream historical memory, while (often fictitious) white “Dust Bowl migrants” became enshrined * the Black Legion, a white supremacist fascist organization that saw racism, antisemitism, anti-Catholicism, and fascism as the cure to the Depression While capitalism crashed during the Great Depression, racism did not and was, in fact, wielded by some to blame and oppress their neighbors. Patriarchy persisted, too, undermining the power of social movements and justifying women’s marginalization within them. For other ordinary people, collective action gave them the means to survive and fight against such hostilities. What resulted were powerful new forms of horizontal reciprocity and solidarity that allowed people to provide each other with the bread, beans, and comradeship of daily life. The New Deal, when it arrived, provided vital resources to many, but others were cut off from its full benefits, especially if they were women or people of color. What Can We Learn from the Great Depression? shows us how we might look to the past to think about how we can shape the future of our own failed economy. These lessons can also help us imagine and build movements to challenge such an economy—and to transform the state as a whole—in service to the common good without replicating racism and patriarchy.

Refugees on the Move highlights and explores the profound complexities of the current refugee issue by focusing specifically on Syrian refugees in Turkey and other European countries and responses from the host countries involved. It examines the causes of the movement of refugee populations, the difficulties they face during their journeys, the daily challenges and obstacles they experience, and host governments’ attempts to manage and overcome the so-called “refugee crisis.”

This book focuses on the diverse tapestry of families in contemporary U.S. culture. Each chapter explores a different kind of family and examines their specific communication behaviors. We live in times of increasing diversity that complicate our understandings of ourselves as well as others who may be quite different from us. These complexities also impact our definition of "family" in addition to our interpretation of family communication behaviors. This book provides an examination of family communication practices in families that are underrepresented in the research of the discipline, and underserved in U.S. culture: immigrant families; family members in interracial relationships; LGBTQ families; low-income Latinx families; families with an incarcerated parent; and families headed by grandparents. The book is an initial effort to expand the lens of family communication scholarship to focus on "families on the margins". Through a variety of, sometimes unique, methods including textual analysis, in-depth interviews, and analysis of art projects collected at a Pride festival, each chapter in this collection adds to our knowledge of how we define family and how families communicate in the 21st century. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of the Journal of Family Communication.