How could the ideal of a universal brotherhood of mankind be realized in an age of nationalism, colonialism and culture wars? “With God, for fatherland and humanity?” is the first comprehensive study of masonic internationalism. It explores, with a focus on England, France, Germany, and Italy, how European masonic associations promoted or opposed…[Read more]

The “Spanish influenza” pandemic that struck Egypt in fall 1918 resulted in the death of eleven out of every one thousand people. Despite the mass suffering caused by the pandemic, it has been largely ignored by historians. I describe how the Egyptian public health service was unprepared for a major health crisis because resources were red…[Read more]

Die Debatte um die politische Differenz stellt Kontingenz und Konfliktualität als fundamentale Eigenschaften des Politischen heraus. Dies birgt ein Problem für die postfundamentalistische Demokratietheorie, die auf Augenhöhe mit dieser Debatte argumentieren will: Durch die Kontingentsetzung aller normativen Begründungen ist zunächst unklar, welc…[Read more]

Within Iran, the transformation in the Islamic legal understanding of the foreign (ajnabi) into a political concept was accelerated by the encounter with Europe during the 19th century. The classical Iranian understanding of otherness as a domain fully demarcated from the self was replaced by an internalized other, resulting in what we call here…[Read more]

In the summer of 2011, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov (1887) debuted on the Iranian stage. The director and playwright Amir-Reza Koohestani (b. 1978) created a production that was faithful to the classic status of this text while also maximizing its resonance with a contemporary Iranian audience. I explore how Koohestani achieved this b…[Read more]

In this article we trace the history of Urban Renewal in Lansing through a collaborative research project involving undergraduate students and the course instructor. Looking in fine-grain detail at the block and individual house level, the project reveals the patchwork of discrimination that African Americans faced in accessing housing in the…[Read more]

A short story about the pitfals of a new law, the General Act for the Dismantling of Normalising Power and Structures of Privilege, and, more philosophically, about the problems of institutionalizing progressive politics through law. Published in The Cabinat of Imaginary Laws, by Peter Goodrich and Thanos Zartaloudis: Returning to the map of the…[Read more]

The Hollywood Film “Personal Best” launched a debate in the early `1980s about women’s role in sports and especially questions about physicality and sexuality.

The period from 2013 to 2017 represents a watershed moment for Chinese mobile radio as several breakout shows such as Thinking Logically and the Guo Degang Comedy Show became viral topics across the country. Interestingly, this coincided with what critics in the United States have been calling a “golden age of podcasting,” fueled by such hit pod…[Read more]

The study posits a twelve pronged formulation of indices to measure the over coverage and
under coverage of the Indian states and union territories by newspapers on socio-economic,
demographical and political aspects. Union territories (UT), mainly Delhi and Chandigarh
were unjustifiably favoured on all twelve counts which clearly points out…[Read more]

This paper discusses the effect of social media on the occurrence of ‘Arab Spring’. In the
Arab world no country could claim to be truly democratic and most were autocratic coupled
with desertification (68.4 per cent of the total land area), phenomenal rise in population and
scarcity of water. Moreover, about 60 per cent of the population is…[Read more]

This paper examines the dynamics of access and exclusion in children’s Internet use, in
both private and public school spaces and interrogates the role of socioeconomic and
demographic predictors as well as the schooling system in shaping Internet habits. More
specifically, it explores the nature of Internet use by primary school children, m…[Read more]

This research work is an investigation into the reception of anti-smoking advertisements
that make use of “fear appeals”. The objective of the research is to bring audience
perceptions, interpretations and making sense processes of such advertising campaigns to
the limelight. Instead of measuring effects or effectiveness of anti-smoking mes…[Read more]

Patriotism and national unity have become favorite brand positioning propositions for
advertisers in India. The paper explores the reasons behind the popularity of these patriotic
themes that also embrace notions of nationhood, communal harmony and national unity in
commercials and public service advertisements. While these patriotic themes…[Read more]

Social media has altered the design of modern society. It has changed the way people lived
and worked. Though no profession or industry is left untouched by the communication
revolution stirred by social media, yet communication professionals bore maximum impact.
This paper analyzed the usage and perception of public relation (PR) professionals…[Read more]

This paper analyses the role of community-based media in information distribution in the
Riverside community, a cultural tourism destination in Chanthaburi, Eastern Thailand. It
has started to produce its own media, and to use social networks to promote itself to the
nation. Exploring the role of community media produced by locals will…[Read more]

Ethnicity has become a key interest of advertisers in diverse societies. Contrary to the
popular argument that ethnic identities are threatened by the intensified influence of media
and consumer culture, they have become the core sites of representation and reproduction
of ethnic identities. It is arguable that in today’s (mass) mediated s…[Read more]

This survey focuses on how the people in Sabah perceived Malaysia’s governmental public
relations practice and their perception of the government based upon it. It includes how the
different types of mass media and its content that they expose themselves to have influence
their image of the nation administration as well as its policies and i…[Read more]

The traditional lines between journalism and public relations are now intertwined and public
relations practitioners have an influential role on the content consumers see every day in
newspapers and on news broadcasts. This survey looked at video news releases and their
implications about journalists’ ethics, integrity, independence and c…[Read more]