The book presents the latest research and reflects on the relationships between the media and politics, using the case study method. It delves into the interests of Polish researchers from various centres. The individual chapters focus on different types of both old and new media, including the press, books, radio and the Internet. The authors are historians, media experts and political scientists, sociologists, cultural experts, linguists and representatives of other disciplines. As a result, the research methods, hypotheses and research results present a range of perspectives.

The Global Journalist in the 21st Century systematically assesses the demographics, education, socialization, professional attitudes and working conditions of journalists in various countries around the world. This book updates the original Global Journalist (1998) volume with new data, adding more than a dozen countries, and provides material on comparative research about journalists that will be useful to those interested in doing their own studies. The editors put together this collection working under the assumption that journalists’ backgrounds, working conditions and ideas are related to what is reported (and how it is covered) in the various news media round the world, in spite of societal and organizational constraints, and that this news coverage matters in terms of world public opinion and policies. Outstanding features include: Coverage of 33 nations located around the globe, based on recent surveys conducted among representative samples of local journalists Comprehensive analyses by well-known media scholars from each country A section on comparative studies of journalists An appendix with a collection of survey questions used in various nations to question journalists As the most comprehensive and reliable source on journalists around the world, The Global Journalist will serve as the primary source for evaluating the state of journalism. As such, it promises to become a standard reference among journalism, media, and communication students and researchers around the world.

Neoliberal globalization is in deep crisis. This crisis is manifested on a global scale and embodies a number of fundamental contradictions, a central one of which is the global rise of authoritarianism and fascism. This emergent form of authoritarianism is a right-wing reaction to the problems generated by globalization supported and funded by some of the largest and most powerful corporations in their assault against social movements on the left to prevent the emergence of socialism against global capitalism. As the crisis of neoliberal global capitalism unfolds, and as we move to the brink of another economic crisis and the threat of war, global capitalism is once again resorting to authoritarianism and fascism to maintain its power. This book addresses this vital question in comparative-historical perspective and provides a series of case studies around the world that serve as a warning against the impending rise of fascism in the 21st century.

Media policy issues sit at the heart of the structure and functioning of media systems in Europe and beyond. This book brings together the work of a range of leading media policy scholars to provide inroads to a better understanding of how effective media policies can be developed to ensure a healthy communication sector that contributes to the wellbeing of individual citizens, as well as a more democratic society. Faced with a general atmosphere of disillusionment in the European project, one of the core questions tackled by the volume’s contributors is: what scope is there for European media policy that can exist beyond the national level? Uniquely, the volume’s chapters are structured around four key policy themes: media convergence; the continued role and position of public regulatory intervention in media policy; policy issues arising from the development of new electronic communication network environments; and lessons for European media policy from cases beyond the EU. In its chapters, the volume provides enriched understandings of the role and significance of policy actors, institutions, structures, instruments and processes in communication and media policy.

Irina Khmelko, Frederick Stapenhurst, and Michael L. Mezey have assembled an authoritative guide to the declining institutional capacities of legislatures around the world. Case studies represent a diverse sample of countries, ranging from newer democracies emerging from the post-communist world to more established but at times fragile democracies in Asia. Although largely focused on newer democratic systems, readers will be able to identify key factors that explain the general global trend toward the empowerment of executives at the expense of national legislatures. The cases, although different from one another, identify several factors that have explained the erosion of legislative power, including historical legacies, institutional design, economic factors, external factors, political polarization, personalization of politics, and the rise of populism. Original data and the presentation of testable theoretical propositions about the growing imbalance between executives and national legislatures moves the field in a promising new direction. Legislative Decline in the 21st Century will be of interest to students and scholars of Legislative Studies and Comparative Politics. Lessons drawn from these case studies will allow policy makers to explore new solutions that can lead to the improved quality of democracy in countries around the world.

Colin Sparks provides a challenging reassessment of the impact of the collapse of communism on the media systems of Eastern Europe. He analyzes both the changes themselves and their implications for the ways in which we think about the mass media, while also demonstrating that most of the orthodox accounts of the end of communism are seriously flawed. There are much greater continuities between the old system and the new than are captured by the theories that argue that there has been a radical and fundamental change. Instead of marking the end of critical inquiry or the end of history, as some have suggested, Sparks argues that the collapse of the communist systems demonstrates how very limited and frequently incorrect the main ways of discussing the mass media are. He concludes with a provocative discussion of the ways in which we need to modify our thinking in the light of these developments.

The effectiveness and capacity of survival of democratic regimes has been recently and widely questioned in the public and political debate. Both democratic institutions and political actors are increasingly confronted with rapid economic and societal transformations that, at least according to some observers and commentators, they not seem to be ready or equipped to manage effectively. This book evaluates and challenges recent scholarly literature on the quality of democracy. It provides a critical assessment of the current state of the studies on the subject, identifying the key questions and discussing open issues, alternative approaches, problems and future developments. Bringing together some of the most prominent and distinguished scholars who have developed and discussed the topic of the quality of democracy during the last decade, it deals with a highly relevant topic in political science and extremely sensitive subject for our democratic societies. This text will be of key interest to scholars of democracy and democratization and more broadly to comparative politics, electoral studies, political theory, power and comparative political institutions.

How can we interpret and respond to the rise of populist regimes that infringe on human rights? This incisive book analyses illiberal, repressive, and patriarchal logics of rule, identifying critical catalysts in the meteoric growth of populist agendas. Contributors scrutinise the records of authoritarian and nationalist leaders in Brazil, Hungary, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Turkey and the United States.

When electronic digital computers first appeared after World War II, they appeared as a revolutionary force. Business management, the world of work, administrative life, the nation state, and soon enough everyday life were expected to change dramatically with these machines’ use. Ever since, diverse prophecies of computing have continually emerged, through to the present day. As computing spread beyond the US and UK, such prophecies emerged from strikingly different economic, political, and cultural conditions. This volume explores how these expectations differed, assesses unexpected commonalities, and suggests ways to understand the divergences and convergences. This book examines thirteen countries, based on source material in ten different languages—the effort of an international team of scholars. In addition to analyses of debates, political changes, and popular speculations, we also show a wide range of pictorial representations of "the future with computers."

Named one of the New Yorker's Best Books of 2022 “An authoritative and intelligent portrait of the global spread of authoritarianism and its dangers...what sets [this] work apart from books like Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny and Michiko Kakutani’s The Death of Truth is its unusually comprehensive armada of facts about the international drift over the past two decades toward authoritarian leaders, whether old-style dictators like Kim Jong Un or nominally elected presidents like Vladimir Putin.” —Kirkus An urgent, thrilling, and original look at the future of democracy that illuminates one of the most important battles of our time: the future of freedom and how to contain and defeat the autocrats mushrooming around the world. In his bestselling book The End of Power, Moisés Naím examined power-diluting forces. In The Revenge of Power, Naím turns to the trends, conditions, technologies and behaviors that are contributing to the concentration of power, and to the clash between those forces that weaken power and those that strengthen it. He concentrates on the three “P”s—populism, polarization, and post-truths. All of which are as old as time, but are combined by today’s autocrats to undermine democratic life in new and frightening ways. Power has not changed. But the way people go about gaining it and using it has been transformed. The Revenge of Power is packed with alluring characters, riveting stories about power grabs and losses, and vivid examples of the tricks and tactics used by autocrats to counter the forces that are weakening their power. It connects the dots between global events and political tactics that, when taken together, show a profound and often stealthy transformation in power and politics worldwide. Using the best available data and insights taken from recent research in the social sciences, Naím reveals how, on close examination, the same set of strategies to consolidate power pop up again and again in places with vastly different political, economic, and social circumstances, and offers insights about what can be done to ensure that freedom and democracy prevail. The outcomes of these battles for power will determine if our future will be more autocratic or more democratic. Naím addresses the questions at the heart of the matter: Why is power concentrating in some places while in others it is fragmenting and degrading? And the big question: What is the future of freedom?