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Copyright of Rétor is the property of Asociacion Argentina de Retorica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Humania del Sur: Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos, Africanos y Asiáticos is the property of Humania del Sur. Estudios Latinoamericanos Africanos y Asiaticos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Summary: In 2019, sociologist Manuel Castells categorically stated that liberal democracy has exhausted its historical trajectory and, quoting some verses by Octavio Paz, expressed: "Not what it could have been:/it is what it was./And what it was is dead." In this paper, we will reflect on this diagnosis based on five interrelated questions. To what extent is liberal democracy being affected by the current informational technological acceleration? Is there really a democratic crisis? What lessons can be learned from the Cambridge Analytica event? Will it be possible to manipulate feelings: hacking humans? What are the paths available for the future? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is situated within the ongoing scholarly discourse surrounding the role of social media in the evolving communication landscape. The main aim of this research is to examine the extent to which the Greek traditional media and journalists have adapted to the ethos of social media. In particular, this study conducts a comparative analysis to assess whether the Greek media and journalists have effectively embraced the communication challenges arising from advancements in social media, particularly during election cycles. The theoretical foundation rests on the network theory of power, a concept pioneered by the Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells. The empirical component presents the findings obtained through an examination of journalists' participation in political discourse on Twitter (now named X) throughout seven distinct election periods encompassing all electoral levels in Greece (presidential, national, European and regional/municipal elections, plus a referendum). The findings reveal low levels of adaptation, in contrast with western countries, where journalists and the media have embraced the online culture to a greater extent and appear to take on more prominent roles in debates. The findings provide valuable insights for journalists, politicians and the media in understanding the role of social media in political communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article author provides historical sociological analysis of changes in the system of higher education during the period from the second half of the 19th century until the 1930s in the Russian Empire and later on in the Soviet Union. By analyzing historical materials, legal acts and interpretations author also addresses two important questions of the sociology of education. First one is what role plays education in the forming of modern society. Second is how the higher education institutions in general and Universities in particular reflect the changes in the society and adjust to those changes and how state and government affect the education in general. The purpose of this article is to analyze the higher education system in Russia and its role in the life of Russian society from the second half of the 19th century to the 20s of the 20th century. As theoretical framework author uses modernization theory of Czech-British philosopher and social anthropologist, Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) and his idea of education as source of new universal high culture which forms modern societies. Another theory which is also used in the following research is the ideas of modern Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells and his ideas of the role modern universities play in Western societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the dysfunction of mainstream media in Iran after the advent of cyberspace, this article raises the question of whether a new paradigm has emerged in the field of media that has changed the requirements of media policy and planning? The premise of this study is that with the advent of cyberspace, a new paradigm has emerged in media policy-making that has affected all media, but instrumentalism is a veil to see. Information and communication technology is the new infrastructure of human society. This infrastructure does not only have a technological aspect, but its paradigmatic aspect is more obvious, and it has caused the effects that the society has received from the new media technology to not only have technical dimensions, but these effects are more extensive in terms of biological philosophy. The experience of recent years shows that most of the strategic plans of institutions and organizations in charge of media policy in Iran, especially in the field of virtual space, have failed in practice. The unsuccessful plan to replace the native platforms of social networks instead of foreign platforms is a clear example of this. The main cause of this failure is a purely technological view of the issue and neglect of the paradigm that governs and drives these media. Therefore, the necessity of this review lies in the importance of understanding the philosophy of virtual space technology. Before proceeding to import the technology, the country importing the technology should determine the paradigm context within which this technology was created. What issues are you trying to solve with it? What are the changes it creates in the heart of the society? What aspects of technology can be accepted and adapted, and how much can it be controlled and modified, and how much does it create conflict in society? The main question that this article pursues is that "virtual space has brought about paradigm changes in media planning and policy-making, and what are the effects of the new space on "media production" and "media distribution"? In this research, three library methods, phenomenology and thematic analysis were used, and in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 active media experts in the two fields of mass communication and virtual space, who were selected by snowball sampling. Among the theories that can guide the topic of discussion are the theories of "network society" by Manuel Castells, "participatory-democratic media" by McQuail, "alternative media" by Downing, and the theory of "the end of the social thing" from Alan Thorne that have been taken into consideration. In the findings of the research, by extracting 64 themes of the paradigm governing the virtual space, it was shown how the communication space has faced the new media grammar. The principles of the new media grammar are "overcoming the rightoriented over the task-oriented, going through the maximalist and absolutist media, multi-source media and de-publicizing the news, minimizing the media structure with the aim of agility and increasing the range and ending the domination of pyramid-shaped structures, changing the approaches of message management, the content and demand for change and response". The results of the research tell us that virtual space is the result of the accumulation and historical continuity of the biological paradigm of the reformation and its intellectual branches, especially human-centered. According to the results of this research, although virtual space and social networks cannot be considered a "paradigm case" and a complete model of communication technology, in many dimensions, media policy and planning are changing from one paradigm to another. In response to the research questions, cyberspace phenomenology has changed the fields of media "production" and "distribution" and media policy and planning in many dimensions by reproducing the biological paradigm of the reformation. The paradigmatic data governing the virtual space creates the awareness that this technology has a heavy philosophical obstacle and is the result of the accumulation and historical continuity of the biological paradigm of the Reformation and the resulting intellectual branches such as existentialism, humanism, secularism, liberalism and human rights ideas. and postmodern critics. The school ruling the virtual space can be defined as the "Social Democratic Existentialist" identity combination; a technology based on "equality, freedom and human-centeredness". This technology is supposed to create a human being who is not a prisoner of any historical, political, social and religious determinism and does not have a predetermined nature. The pluralism ruling the virtual space should not create the impression that the weight of ideology has been reduced in favor of technology. The human-centered idea that forms the basis of Western technology is a return to the humanistic thought of Protagoras who believed that "man is the measure of everything" and this idea was developed by "William Acham" and "Martin Luther" in the 14th and 16th centuries. It was reread and interpreted as "everyone is his own spiritual person" and its media expression in the virtual space can be projected as "everyone has his own media". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daniel Bell (1919–2011) and Manuel Castells (1942–) are the grand theorists of the information age. The article provides a detailed, up-to-date, comparative analysis of their writings. It begins with their methodologies, identifying numerous commonalities in their post-Marxian frameworks. The substance of their theories is then examined, where it is shown that both plausibly explain contemporary social reality in terms of the interplay of three forces: the information technology revolution, the restructuring of capitalism and the innovational role of culture. There are found to be major similarities in their accounts (the Kantian interpretation, social stratification) but also significant divergences (role of science, the fourth world, the normative content of culture). Suitably combined, Bell's and Castells's thought goes a long way towards delivering a persuasive sociological theory of the global information society. However, the article concludes by suggesting that extensive further work is needed to clarify the precise relationships between the three factors and their relative weightings in the equations required to explain recent social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his landmark trilogy, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, sociologist Manuel Castells argued that networks, information technology, and global economic flows were altering the nature of politics, power, and states. This article examines the network dynamics Castells wrote about in relation to transnational crime and illicit economic markets. The article further explores Castells's influence on the study of transnational organized crime, illicit networks, and the global illicit economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with an emerging trend in political participation: the role played by football fans in engendering activism and protest. The role of fan activism in the debate on patterns of civic and political (dis)engagement – in the age of so-called anti-politics – has been ignored by the scholarly literature thus far. As a corrective, this article examines the development of football fan activism over the last thirty years, since the creation of the English Premier League in 1992. It adopts a case study approach centred on supporters' movements since 1992. It argues that the political activism of football fans has both quantitatively and qualitatively changed over this period. Employing the sociological theory of Manuel Castells it claims that collective identities developed in resistance to the commercialisation and commodification within football have developed into more distinct 'project identities' that seek bring about more profound social change through football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)