The most common image of Europe in the eyes of foreigners is one of the perfect and beautiful old country, filled with art, culture, and technology. The most common image Sicily in the touristic guide is that of an island full of beauties and history, which is true but is just one part of the story. The ancient island from one century to the other is passed in the hands of many dominators: the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Germans, the French and so on. All we have now is a rich cultural and historical heritage that belong to
Author: idareteam
The CHANs part 2: dogs whistles for sale
What are dog whistles, and what does a dog-training tool have to do with politics and the media? Generally speaking, these whistles emit an ultrasound that can only be heard by, well… dogs, but the use of “dog-whistle politics” usually refers to the use of some words or euphemisms that can be only “caught” and understood by those who know how to recognize them and are aware of their meaning. Let us see some classic examples of dog whistles; the use of expressions such as “international bankers” or “international elites” may fall deaf to the ears of those who
Samajhdari, the community radio of the women
Nepal is a little rocky state embedded in the Mountain in the border between China and India. Well known for the historical city of Kathmandu. Aside from this, the condition of women in Nepal is one of the most dramatic in the world: marginalized, underestimated, bent to a patriarchal family environment that often brings them into a spiral of violence and sexual exploitation. A context where women do not really have the possibility or the power to have independence and control over their lives is also likely to be affected by high rates of violence against women. As a consequence,
Community Radio, a tool to reduce inequalities and pursue social justice
Before the advent of television and then on the internet, the first mass communication system was the radio. The first mass-media that lives until today because of its unique characteristics advent of new technologies and integrated with them. A voice through the air is not invading as it can fit in our rooms without interrupting other possible activities. But, it can immediately catch our attention when we hear a particular topic or song. Radio was the first medium to give the news to the citizens, in particular during the wars time. Coming to be a social ritual and a powerful divulgation
Many shaded of blackface
Do you recognize this scene? Probably not… so let me introduce you to the 1915 American movie “The Birth of a Nation”. The first movie screened inside the White House presents the story about two families which their friendship was affected by the Civil War because both families were fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln’s assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. Well, for sure a sensitive topic back in time and exploring the thematic through mute cinema can be considered a progressive shot… or not. Let us
Doxxing
The term “doxxing” comes from the expression “dropping dox” as in “document dropping”, which was a revenge tactic used by internet users that maliciously release someone’s private information. What does doxing entail? Why it is bad and why has it slowly turned into a powerful online weapon? Doxxing has been around a long time on the internet, as long as it has been existing. It refers to the search for and publication of private personal information of people. It can be any kind of personal info; names, telephone numbers, addresses, or bank account numbers of virtually anyone, from anonymous internet
Memes general introduction
Memes are the most popular internet content nowadays. How many of them do we laugh after every day scrolling our Facebook or Instagram feed? For those who are not familiar with the term, the meme is defined as cultural information that is transmitted from person to person in the form of an image with text, or just text and that is usually repeated, some times with little modifications, through the internet. The word meme appears for the first time in the 1976 book “The selfish gene” from the scientists Richard Dawkins that, speaking about genetics defined the meme as “a
Memes from subculture to political weapons
As like we have seen before, in recent years memes turned to be a bigger phenomenon than they were in first place. Not only complex jokes for nerds, but part of communication strategies of big companies to increment their profits with lower economical effort. But the power of this instrument is not just confined to regular advertisement, political analysts and communication strategist in fact have learnt how much useful they can be to promote a candidate or an idea. It’s not a case that now quite every political party in the western world, has its shitposting facebook and instagram page. Not only,
Citizen journalism
“Do not hate the media, become the media” Citizen journalism is a phenomenon that is older as of the story of the web form itself. As a premise, citizen journalism means journalism created by non-professional writers, which usually using the web as the platform to easily spread their articles, create their own news not depending on any editorial line, than their own political sentiment of the day or the life. Nowadays the way that citizens journalism is structuring is a little bit different from the past when little websites were created ad-hoc to share thoughts or scoops, and it is built more
The upcoming challenge of climate migrants
When we talk about global warming, one of the problems we often omit to talk about is the topic of climate migrants. Global warming is affecting human life in many ways, and one of the most important consequences is going to be the displacement of millions of people. According to the last report of the World Bank, global warming will raise up more than 143 million climate migrants by 2050. What is a climate migrant? A climate migrant is a person who is forced to leave his own house because of unsustainable weather conditions: dry and sterile lands, high levels of
The propaganda model
Published in 1988, Chomsky and Herman’s book– Manufacturing Consent: The political economy of the mass media, is more up to date than ever. In the volume, the authors theorize that U.S. mass media and communication apparatuses “are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions and self-censorship, and without overt coercion”. “Like other approaches within the critical-Marxist tradition, it is concerned with exploring the relationship between ideology, communicative power and social class interest”[1], or in short, the propaganda model of communication. It represents a “general theory of the Free
Populism in the MENA region: old and new
Following up to my last article and as I am currently living in Jordan, I wanted to do some research and study on the populist phenomenon, and its application in the MENA region; How have they emerged and mutated through the years, and who are, and have been, the main public figures. I have never really stopped to think about populism outside of Western politics. Nowadays and, at least, in my social circle, the word “populism” usually invokes images of right wings politicians parading their conservative policies. Anti-immigration, Islamophobia, homophobic tendencies represented by a wide array of politicians across the continent, from the
Live long and prosper: star trek’s approach to positive peace
Is there a society where conflicts are always managed in a peaceful way, where humans can live without the struggle for food and water, where diversity is not feared but it is always looked with interest. Discover the universe it is their main target, basic needs are within everyone’s reach, money does not measure the value of a person because there’s none. Gender role is abolished, women and men seat together as equals, racism it is not even considered by humanity that embraced space travels and has to face diversity in outer space. Meeting new species and civilizations requires an open