Citizens At The Gates

Drawing insights from nearly a decade of mixed-method research, Stephen R. Barnard analyzes Twitter’s role in the transformation of American journalism. As the work of media professionals grows increasingly hybrid, Twitter has become an essential space where information is shared, reporting methods tested, and power contested. In addition to spelling opportunity for citizen media activism, the normalization of digital communication adds new channels of influence for traditional thought leaders, posing notable challenges for the future of journalism and democracy. In his analyses of Twitter practices around newsworthy events—including the Boston Marathon bombing, protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and the election of Donald Trump—Barnard brings together conceptual and theoretical lenses from multiple academic disciplines, bridging sociology, journalism, communication, media studies, science and technology studies, and political science.

This book uses an innovative interdisciplinary approach to explain how communication is a necessary condition for diplomacy in a digital and relationship-driven world. Divided into three parts, it highlights the importance of communication strategies and processes in contemporary society and in current global socio-political events in general, particularly within the field of diplomacy. The first part discusses the main theoretical debates that shaped the central concepts of the project, while the second part of the book presents further practical approaches and examples of diplomatic practice. Lastly, the third part focuses on pedagogical and methodological approaches, which can be useful in diplomacy and communication classes and for the implementation of a European curriculum. This interdisciplinary book will appeal to students, researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners from various disciplines, including international relations, political science, business, and communication.

The Middle English romance of Richard Coeur de Lion transforms the historical Richard I of England—a Frenchman by upbringing, who spent only four months of his reign in England and who once joked that he would sell London to finance his Crusade if he could only find a buyer—into an aggressively English king. This act of historical revision involves the invention of several fantastic elements that give Richard the superhuman force necessary to unite the English nation and elevate it above all others. Springing from a supernatural birth and endowed with exceptional strength and an insatiable and transgressive appetite, Richard embodies a vision of triumphant Englishness that humiliates and decimates England’s foes, whether they be French, German, or Muslim. Katherine Terrell’s faithful but poetic new modern English translation is fully annotated. Appendices include materials on cannibalism, the Crusades, and English national myths.

Governments make too little use of the skills and experience of citizens. New tools—what Beth Simone Noveck calls technologies of expertise—are making it possible to match citizen expertise to the demand for it in government. She offers a vision of participatory democracy rooted not in voting or crowdsourcing but in people’s knowledge and know-how.

In this clear-eyed, candid, and ultimately reassuring