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This chapter examines the role mass media plays in the maintenance of social control and policy formulation and implementation in the Trump political era. First, an historical survey of mass media theory is presented and used as an analytic lens through which to identify that mass media has long been recognized as a powerful tool of social control or disruption and in public policy formulation and implementation. Second, this chapter explores the challenges posed to society and policy when a president uses mass media to spread misinformation and disinformation. Third, this chapter identifies the divisive nature of US political attitudes in the Trump era and how social media contributes to cleavage. Fourth, this chapter explores efforts by foreign actors, particularly Russian, to spread discursive and thus social chaos through disinformation campaigns in the United States and other western democracies. This chapter concludes that mass media has been both a divisive and uniting force, although the rise of social media and its susceptibility to manipulation poses a danger to social cohesion and effective public policy formulation and implementation. These factors have contributed to civil divisiveness and lack of policy clarity.

The purpose of this conceptual chapter is to analyze the current state of the astructural bias in symbolic interactionism as it relates to three inter-related processes over time: (1) the formalization of critiques of symbolic interactionism as ahistorical, astructural, and acritical perspectives; (2) an ahistorical understanding of early expressions of the disjuncture between symbolic interactionism and more widely accepted forms of sociological theorizing; and (3) persistent and widespread inattentiveness to past and present evidence-based arguments that address the argument regarding symbolic interactionism as an astructural, ahistorical, and acritical sociological perspective. The argument frames the historical development of the astructural bias concept in an historically and socially conditioned way, from its emergence through its rejection and ultimately including conclusions about contemporary state of the astructural bias as evidenced in the symbolic interactionist literatures of the last couple of decades. The analysis and argument concludes that the contemporary result of these intertwined historical and social conditioning processes is that the astructural bias myth has been made real in practice, and that the reification of the myth of an astructural bias has had the ruinous effect of virtually eradicating a vital tradition in the interactionist perspective which extends back to the earliest formulations of the perspective. As a result, a handful of suggestions that serve to aid in reclaiming the unorthodox structuralism of symbolic interactionism and the related interactionist study of social organization are provided in the conclusion.

Ethics of governance deficiencies including weak management of the principal-agent problem by the board of directors and conflict over the strategic intent of the organisation between groups of employees such as the board of directors, top management team, and the middle-line managers working in small teams are age old problems for stock exchange listed companies. These matters continue to cause shareholders of listed companies much concern, creating tense annual general meetings and robust community debate on how to reign in blatant moments of managerial hegemony (or dominance) with agents exploiting principals, at times at great financial cost to long suffering shareholders. The role of the chairperson and the board applying agency theory is to manage these conflicts on behalf of the shareholders; however, in many instances, company directors have failed in their duties and investors have been aggrieved – the result, war in organisations. The challenge for organisations is to avoid this source of tension and war caused by emergence of managerial hegemony over the organisation and to promote sound executive stewardship and effective social exchange among the board, executive team, and middle-line managers. These challenges are discussed and solutions are developed. The importance of strategic intent as a unifying rhetorical message as a key component of an ethics of governance regime that keeps the peace and prevents war in the organisation is explained.

The rise of “strong man” politics in the Philippines brings attention to manhood narratives. Machismo remains a strong presence in the upper echelons of society, despite gender equality initiatives and a strong feminist movement. With Rodrigo Duterte portraying the “father-figure” of the nation, one questions what this type of manhood means for the Filipino family.

This study traces the construction of Filipino manhood in relation to the country’s strongest unit of the family. Utilizing a systematic review of seminal outputs on masculinity, this piece explores the definition of Filipino manhood using texts from various Filipino gender and development scholars. Sikolohiyang Pilipino or Indigenous Filipino Psychology frames the identified themes that surround the image of a Tunay na Lalaki or True Man. The labas (outer world) and loob (inner self) are then framed in relation to Filipino men’s roles. Intersections between one’s peer group, socio-economic class, and the situation in the global migration context inform the formation of one’s labas (outer self/identity). The findings indicate that Filipino manhood traits, as seen in one’s loob (inner self) contextualize one’s understanding of manhood’s construction as familial. By unearthing the nuances of manhood in the archipelago, this chapter showcases masculinities from the subaltern and purports possible ways of decolonizing “from below.”

This study is an attempt to (a) introduce Turkey as a country case with statist policy tradition and authoritarian political culture, yet, a growing importance of cross-sectoral collaboration in various policy areas, as an opportunity to conduct network research beyond advanced democracies (Chapter 1); (b) develop an integrated framework for the study of policy networks across country cases and policy settings at the sub-national level through the utilization of Network Collaborative Capacity Index (Chapter 2); (c) trace the contextual conditions that led to the formation of policy networks within the health sector from 2011 to 2015 in Turkey (Chapter 3); (d) examine those mechanisms that maximize collaboration along the structural, relational, and institutional dimensions of networks (Chapter 4); and (d) assess the cultural and structural impediments that inhibit cross-sectoral arrangements from becoming collaborative and influencing policy processes and outcomes (Chapter 5). This concluding chapter focuses on the theoretical significance as well as the practical effectiveness of the policy networks under consideration in an attempt to link the local practice of network collaboration with more general theories of governance.

Epidemiology is often described as “the basic science of public health” (Savitz, Poole & Miller, 1999; Syme & Yen, 2000). This description suggests both a close association with public health practice, and the separation of “pure” scientific knowledge from its application in the messy social world. Although the attainability of absolute objectivity is rarely claimed, epidemiologists are routinely encouraged to “persist in their efforts to substitute evidence for faith in scientific reasoning” (Stolley, 1985, p. 38) and reminded that “public health decision makers gain little from impassioned scholars who go beyond advancing and explaining the science to promoting a specific public health agenda” (Savitz et al., 1999, p. 1160). Epidemiology produces authoritative data that are transformed into evidence which informs public health. Those data are authoritative because epidemiology is regarded as a neutral scientific enterprise. Because its claims are grounded in science, epidemiological knowledge is deemed to have “a special technical status and hence is not contestable in the same way as are say, religion or ethics” (Lock, 1988, p. 6). Despite the veneer of universality afforded by its scientific pedigree, epidemiology is not a static or monolithic discipline. Epidemiological truth claims are embodied in several shifting paradigms that span the life of the discipline. Public health knowledges and practices, competing claims internal and external to epidemiology, and structural conditions (such as current political economies, material technologies, and institutions) provide important contexts in which certain kinds of epidemiological knowledge are more likely to emerge.