Divided by military force for decades, many Cypriots have lost their zeal for unification – but more than a few are still hopeful.
Rohingya Muslim women who fled Myanmar for Bangladesh stretch their arms out to collect aid distributed by relief agencies in this September 2017 photo. A campaign of killings, rape and arson attacks by security forces and Buddhist-aligned mobs have sent more than 850,000 of the country’s 1.3 million Rohingya fleeing.
(AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)
Facebook is unwittingly helping fuel a genocide against the Rohingya people in Myanmar. Does Cuba’s internet model provide lessons to manage social media amid political chaos?
It’s time to build trust.
Arthimedes/Shutterstock.com
Barbara Romzek, American University School of Public Affairs and Aram Sinnreich, American University School of Communication
Social media companies arose from libertarian, free-market origins but must embrace social benefits and democracy to survive.
ISIS has been using fantastical propaganda on social media that describes the Islamic State as a land that is full of happiness to recruit supporters.
shutterstock.com
ISIS may have lost most of their territory, but it’s important to be aware that ISIS can still utilise the Internet and social media to recruit people and to spread their fantastical propaganda.
Will the arrival and popularity of Oculus Go and other VR systems make us think differently about alternative realities and so-called alternative facts?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially dismissed as “crazy” the warnings that Russia had been using Facebook to spread propaganda in the 2016 U.S. election. He has since apologized and introduced plans and tools aimed at fighting false information on the platform. In this file photo, he delivers the commencement address at Harvard University in May.
(AP Photo/Steven Senne)
In a fight for the global flow of information, social media firms must be regulated. Their billions of dollars in revenue put their financial interests in conflict with truth and democracy.
Governor George Wallace stands defiant in an attempt to block the integration of the University of Alabama, June 11, 1963.
Warren K. Leffler, U.S. News & World Report Magazine via Wikimedia Commons
Forty years after the apartheid regime clamped down on the free press, South Africa’s media continues to face threats, albeit in more subtle forms than in the past.
Demonstrators protest against the decision by the South African Broadcasting Corporation to stop airing violent protest scenes.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
As South Africa marks Media Freedom Day, it’s clear that its battle isn’t over. Attacks on journalists continue –through physical intimidation and there’s also the threat of new laws.
‘The Dictator’ (2012) by Sacha Baron-Cohen plays on the fact that kitsch is used by dictators and fundamentalists to redefine our world.
Zennie Abraham/Flickr
In the midst of the country’s struggle for independence, India’s film industry became a messenger and ally in the global fight against Britain’s enemies
Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard is removed from the entrance to City Park in New Orleans.
REUTERS/Cheryl Gerber
A scholar of southern politics finds inspiration in an unexpected place.
A flag with a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin waves over the Moscow crowd during the Vesna (Spring) festival in March commemorating the Crimean annexation.
(AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)
Vladimir Putin fomented so-called Ukrainophobia leading up to his annexation of Crimea. Ukrainians, on the other hand, held positive views of their neighbours prior to annexation.
Is public relations simply a more insidious form of fake news?
Nick Lehr/The Conversation via www.shutterstock.com
Russia has seized upon loopholes in lobbying laws, hiring PR firms to influence American public opinion and policy in ways that advance Russia’s strategic interests.
In ‘Big Huggin,’ players control the action by giving affection to a teddy bear controller.
Game by Lindsay Grace; Photo by Stacey Stormes
Lindsay Grace, American University School of Communication
Readers read, viewers watch and players do. That level of engagement gives games real power to influence people both within and outside the play itself.
In the Name of the People attracts a massive weekly audience in China.
BBC
Global Scholar at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC and Hopkins P Breazeale Professor, Manship School of Mass Communications, Louisiana State University