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Information may well be an asset, but the sheer volume of what we have to navigate makes it challenging to determine those elements which are relevant to us. The credibility of news media outlets as our gatekeepers and first form of resistance to polluted information is increasingly questioned. Scientific research indicates that the quality of news offerings from news media outlets would benefit by triangulating news stories with a more diverse set of offerings and, in the process, build journalists' trust or otherwise in the sources of these offerings. Without the network effects of the Internet, false or incorrect information probably would not be such a successful phenomenon. Public opinion is quick to portray social or mainstream media platforms as guilty parties but tends to ignore the equally detrimental ramifications of their exploitation of social capital. A more reflective approach is required. This essay suggests that it is in our interest to reboot our societal consciousness and explore the underlying cybernetical dimensions, even if these appear to be confrontational for interested stakeholders in our current misinformation crisis.

Electronic mail (EMS) is a new and increasingly common mechanism for communication. How computer‐mediated communication affects human behavior has become the focus of research and of commentary in the popular press. An etiquette or rules of conduct when using EMS appears to be needed. Suggestions are offered based on experience utilizing an electronic mail system for intra‐organizational communication in the Carnegie‐Mellon University Libraries.

Congress has spilled a good deal of ink in an attempt to support survivors of sexual assault and to prevent sexual violence from occuring. Legislation has been passed to address and prevent sexual assault in the military environment, higher education, and even within various government agencies. However, Congress has had a long and sordid history of burying incidents of sexual assault within its own halls. Prior to the #Metoo movement, Congress had a rather lackluster bill that provided minimal protection for those who were harassed or assaulted by a member of Congress and rarely held anyone accused accountable for their actions. In fact, the original Congressional Accountability Act included a fund that was used to pay off those who came forward with allegations of sexual harassment or assault against a member of Congress. This chapter follows the legislative history of Congress with regard to the response to and prevention of sexual assault and its shocking lack of oversight of its own members who were frequently committing the same assaults that they were legislating against in other areas. The chapter also highlights the brave work of survivors of assault during their time in Congress, and the work of the #MeTooCongress movement, including current members of Congress, who helped to bring more accountability to Congress as a result of their efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to provide rich, qualitative insights around internal communication in strategic communication agencies, addressing the evolutions in expectations and best practices for agency leadership through COVID-19.

Qualitative interview study with 18 US-based leaders of public relations and advertising agencies to examine their experiences of leading and managing strategic communication teams during COVID-19.

Synthesized findings around changes in leadership values and important facets of ongoing internal crisis communication led to the development of the following five categories—Improvisation and Flexibility, Transparency and Trust, Ownership and Embodiment, Care and Empathy, Relationships and Resilience.

Using a high-value sample, the study is the first (to the best of the authors' knowledge) to focus on the crucial context of agencies and internal communication around COVID-19; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); and other pandemic-era challenges. It provides theoretical implications around ongoing, internal crisis communication and practical implications for agency leaders in crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of belonging and wellbeing among temporary migrant agricultural workers (TMAWs) in a rural setting in the interior of British Columbia, Canada.

A qualitative narrative approach informed by participatory action research principles was employed. In total, 12 migrant workers participated in two to four one-on-one interviews and/or focus group conversations.

The analysis revealed an over-arching theme of Marginal Living encompassing stories of always on the outside, mechanisms of isolation and exclusion; struggling for the basics, realities of worrying about daily bare necessities; and “nothing but a worker’s,” experiences of being reduced only to one’s labor. These storied experiences each impacted workers’ wellbeing and typically limited their ability to feel a sense of belonging. Yet, workers exerted agency and resilience through storied experiences of “one family and for those who come next.” Their efforts contributed to building a sense of community through mutual support and advocacy.

Very few studies have focused on the day-to-day experiences of this population and its influence on their sense of belonging and wellbeing. This study is also the first to examine this topic within this particular region (the rural BC interior). These findings can provide a starting point for improved program planning to address challenges faced by TMAWs in rural Western Canada. Further, they expand the understanding of concepts such as partial citizenship and structural exclusion as they apply in the day-to-day realities of migrant workers in rural BC.

The Spanish lycanthrope arrived successfully to Spanish screens with The Mark of the Wolfman (Eguiluz, 1968), introducing iconic actor and scriptwriter Paul Naschy as werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. This persona would be later developed in more depth in The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman (Klimovsky, 1970) and Curse of the Devil (Aured, 1972). Furthermore, Daninsky’s construction responded to the historical repressive context of Francoist Spain, and the strong ideal of masculinity imposed and promoted under the fascist regime (Pulido, 2012).

After a long hiatus in the horror genre, the more recent film Game of Werewolves (Martínez Moreno, 2011) revisits the figure of the Spanish lycanthrope by introducing two different sets of characters embodying two different types of masculinity and, more significantly, by linking the strong, traditional male identity to the myth of the werewolf, paying homage to Waldemar Daninsky.

Thus, through the film’s historically contextualized textual analysis, the chapter seeks to study the myth of the werewolf in twenty-first-century Spain, in relation to the changes in the masculine identity and the historical context to which it refers, exploring the struggle of men to move from the traditional male identity imposed during the dictatorship to a more progressive one.

This paper aims to present a visually documented brand history of Winchester Repeating Arms through a cultural analysis of iconic Western images featuring its lever action rifles.

The study applies visual culture perspectives and methods to the research and writing of brand history. Iconic Western images featuring Winchester rifles have been selected, examined, and used as points of departure for gathering and interpreting additional data about the brand. The primary sources consist chiefly of photographs from the nineteenth century and films and television shows from the twentieth century. Most visual source materials were obtained from the US Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and the Internet Movie Firearms Database. These have been augmented by written sources.

Within a few years of the launch of the Winchester brand in 1866, visual images outside company control associated its repeating rifles with the settlement of the American West and with the colorful people involved. Some of these images were reproduced in books and others sold to consumers in the form of cartes de visite, cabinet cards and stereographs made from albumen prints. Starting in the 1880s, the live Wild West shows of William F. Cody and his stars entertained audiences with a heroic narrative of the period that included numerous Winchesters. During the twentieth century and into the present, Winchesters have been featured in motion pictures and television series with Western themes.

Historical research is an ongoing process. The discovery of new primary data, both written and visual, may lead to a revised interpretation of the selected images.

Based largely on images as primary data sources, this study approaches brand history from the perspective of visual culture theory and data. The research shows how brands acquire meaning not just from the companies that own them but also from consumers, the media and other producers of popular culture.

Historically, Panama has always been “a place of transit.” While technically the isthmus formed part of Colombia in the nineteenth century, it was linked geopolitically to the United States soon after the California gold rush, beginning in the late 1840s. The first attempt at building a canal ended in failure in 1893 when disease and poor management forced Ferdinand de Lesseps to abandon the project. The U.S. undertaking to build the canal could only begin after Panama declared itself free and broke away from Colombia in 1903, with the support of the United States.

“When James Boswell returned from a tour of Corsica in 1765 he wrote: ‘It is indeed amazing that an island so considerable, and in which such noble things have been doing, should be so imperfectly known.’ The same might be said today of Puerto Rico.” Thus began Millard Hansen and Henry Wells in the foreword to their 1953 look at Puerto Rico's democratic development. Four decades later, the same could again be said about the island.