MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

By Herbert S. Dordick and Georgette Wang

The Information Society: A Retrospective View offers a comprehensive exploration of the evolution and impact of information and communication technologies on our world. From the early days of the internet to the current era of social media and artificial intelligence, this book delves into the complex interplay between technology, society, and culture. Readers will gain valuable insights into how the information age has shaped our lives, transformed industries, and redefined the way we connect and communicate. Engaging and thought-provoking, this retrospective provides a compelling overview of the key developments that have defined the information society as we know it today.

London. Sage. 1993. 174p.

By J.C. Both, M.C. Mouguia and M.E. de Bruijn.

In this report we elaborate on the historical dimensions of young people’s enrolment and use in armed groups or armed forces in the Central African Republic (CAR). While this phenomenon, also understood as the enlistment and use of child soldiers, is often seen as a recent phenomenon, the report aims to show that children and adolescents have historically been involved in self-defence groups or were forcefully recruited in what is currently the territory of CAR. In the past, they were not called child soldiers; they may not even have always been seen as children due to different cultural definitions of childhood. However, the phenomenon is not new as will be shown in this report.

Leiden: African Studies Centre, 2020. 81p.

Edited by Marta Pérez-Escolar and José Manuel Noguera-Vivo.

This timely volume offers a comprehensive and rigorous overview of the role of communication in the construction of hate speech and polarization in the online and offline arena. Delving into the meanings, implications, contexts and effects of extreme speech and gated communities in the media landscape, the chapters analyse misleading metaphors and rhetoric via focused case studies to understand how we can overcome the risks and threats stemming from the past decade’s defining communicative phenomena. The book brings together an international team of experts, enabling a broad, multidisciplinary approach that examines hate speech, dislike, polarization and enclave deliberation as cross axes that influence offline and digital conversations. The diverse case studies herein offer insights into international news media, television drama and social media in a range of contexts, suggesting an academic frame of reference for examining this emerging phenomenon within the field of communication studies.

London; New York: Routledge, 2022. 279p.

By Shakuntala Banaji and Ramnath Bhat.

Using expert interviews and focus groups, this book investigates the theoretical and practical intersection of misinformation and social media hate in contemporary societies. Social Media and Hate argues that these phenomena, and the extreme violence and discrimination they initiate against targeted groups, are connected to the socio-political contexts, values and behaviours of users of social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, ShareChat, Instagram and WhatsApp. The argument moves from a theoretical discussion of the practices and consequences of sectarian hatred, through a methodological evaluation of quantitative and qualitative studies on this topic, to four qualitative case studies of social media hate, and its effects on groups, individuals and wider politics in India, Brazil, Myanmar and the UK. The technical, ideological and networked similarities and connections between social media hate against people of African and Asian descent, indigenous communities, Muslims, Dalits, dissenters, feminists, LGBTQIA communities, Rohingya and immigrants across the four contexts is highlighted, stressing the need for an equally systematic political response. London;

New York: Routledge, 2022. 140p.