Political Science Commons^™

Democracy, Citizen Participation And Peace Economics In Kenya: Interrogating The Social Change Processes, Elias O. Opongo

The Journal of Social Encounters

While to a large extent many Africans come out to vote, in most cases, electoral periods have turned out to be the most significant threats to the stability of a country. This article interrogates the extent to which democratic practice in Kenya is meeting people’s expectation and whether it contributes to the economic wellbeing and peace stability of the country. The research applied a cross-sectional research design and interviewed 102 respondents from 6 counties: Nairobi (capital city), Kisumu (western region), Uasin Gichu (Rift Valley region), Mombasa (coastal region), Turkana (northern region) and Kwale (coastal region). The study shows that most …

Unconventional Avenues For Public Participation: A Case Study From Rural Egypt, Hassan Hussein

The Journal of Social Encounters

When traditional avenues for learning and participation become inaccessible for less-advantaged people to learn and participate, people tend to develop other unconventional avenues to learn and participate in decisions that affect their lives. There are two distinct research approaches in the study of political participation. One approach, which had been historically predominant, focuses on individual characteristics such as education level, income and class, and the other, social network approach focuses on the influence of context and social networks in the political socialization and mobilization of men and women in democracies and authoritarian polities. This paper fits into the second approach …

À La Carte Cable: A Regulatory Solution To The Misinformation Subsidy, Christopher R. Terry, Eliezer J. Silberberg, Stephen Schmitz, John Stack, Eve Sando

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Although “fake news” is as old as mass media itself, concerns over disinformation have reached a fever pitch in our current media environment. Online media outlets’ heavy reliance on user-generated content has altered the traditional gatekeeping functions and professional standards associated with traditional news organizations. The idea of objectivity-focused informational content has primarily been substituted for a realist acceptance of the power and popularity of opinion-driven “news.” This shift is starkly visible now: mainstream news media outlets knowingly spread hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and the like.

This current state of affairs is not some freak accident. The Supreme Court’s First Amendment …

Archiving Feminist Truth In Trump’S Wake Of Lies, Julie Shayne

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This article is about an assignment I do in one of my Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies social movement classes. I revised the assignment the first time teaching the class after Trump lost the 2020 election. For the assignment, students work in groups to research local feminist and gender justice organizations and deposit all of their original materials – recordings, photos, flyers, etc. – into a digital, open access archive I co-created several years ago with librarians and staff on my campus. In 2021 I had my students do the “post-Trump” edition where they researched local organizations about how their …