Anti-Sorosism Reviving the "Jewish world conspiracy"

This chapter presents a Discourse-Historical Analysis (DHA) of the antisemitic conspiracy theory at the heart of 'anti-Sorosism'. Anti-Sorosism is a term used to label the global campaign against George Soros, a Jewish American philanthropist of Hungarian origin, launched by extreme-right activists (see Wodak 2020). We argue that anti-Sorosism is a modern synecdoche of the antisemitic 'Jewish world conspiracy'. In addition to extreme-right individuals and organizations, several mainstream right-wing politicians have blamed George Soros for many complex global and local phenomena such as migration, the political decisions of the EU, the COVID pandemic, and so forth. Indeed, the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has instrumentalized Soros time and again as a Feindbild [enemy image] when campaigning against the rules and regulations of the European Union as well as when justifying and legitimizing his restrictive immigration policies. In this chapter, we will first briefly trace the origins of this archetypical conspiracy theory throughout the 19th and 20th centuries up to the present. The chapter then turns to a case study examining posters produced by Hungary's governing party Fidesz. Following a summary of the DHA and contextualization of the politics of Fidesz, and its leader Viktor Orbán, we then proceed to the multimodal discourse analysis of a series of posters produced and displayed in Hungary. We conclude by arguing that conspiracy theories help to simplify complex issues and to provide clearly separated Manichean divisions of the 'innocent' and of those 'to blame'. In doing so, they help achieve a strategic political function for the Orbán government. © 2022 John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Work and illness: a disputed relationship (20th-century Spain)

El concepto de accidente de trabajo, y aún más el de enfermedad profesional, no designan realidades que se impongan invariablemente por su sola denominación. El reconocimiento de un "nexo" entre trabajo y enfermedades ha sido en todas partes mucho más tímido y dificultoso que el de los accidentes propiamente dichos. Con el objetivo puesto en los riesgos de enfermar "con ocasión o por consecuencia del trabajo", una muestra de un millar de sentencias judiciales, repartidas entre 1936 y 1983, comprueba el peso de inercias estructurales y se detiene en los signos de inflexión, en función de la evolución de la legislación de referencia, pero también de sus interpretaciones por los tribunales y de su contexto. Como expresión normalizada de hechos sociales (los riesgos del trabajo para la salud de quienes lo realizan), el "riesgo profesional" es un objeto en construcción, en un proceso más contradictorio que lineal.Alternate :The concepts of occupational accident, and especially of professional illness, do not express concrete realities that are self-evident by name alone. The recognition of a "link" between work and illnesses has always been a much more gradual, more problematic process than that linking work and accidents in the strict sense of the word. In this article, we focus on the risks of becoming ill"on the occasion of or as a consequence of work" In a review of a sample group of around 1,000 court sentences between 1936 and 1983, we analyse the influence of structural inertias, highlighting in particular the signs of change, in line with the evolution of legislation and the way it was interpreted by the courts. The changing social contextis also taken into account. As a normalized expression of social facts (the occupational health risks to which workers are exposed), the concept of "occupational hazard" is still very much under construction, in a process that is contradictory and far from linear.

From the Chinese Exclusion Act to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Historical Analysis of “Otherness” Experienced by Asian Americans in the United States

In 2020, the world witnessed the worst pandemic in more than a century that continues to impact and stigmatize minorities and immigrants disproportionately. During this time Asian Americans in the United States (US) have been subject to racist tropes, xenophobic attacks, and widespread hate crimes. The xenophobia and racism experienced by this group are not new, as demonstrated in this study. The injustices experienced by Asians in the US are embedded within the historical, social, political, and cultural structures that discriminate and are present throughout minority history. Unfortunately, scholars in the US Public Administration often underutilize a historical lens to study oppression, racism, and xenophobia. This essay provides key historical accounts of how Asian Americans experience othering while at the same time are perceived as model minorities. We will examine the history of "otherness" experienced by Asian Americans in the US from two key lenses: (1) disease and the other (2) labor and immigration policies.

Historical overview of pandemics

In this chapter, we overview historical pandemic events that are closely associated with the evolution of transportation through case studies. The selected case studies are: (a) plague (14th, 17th, and 19th centuries), (b) Spanish flu (20th century), and (c) SARS (21st century). Historical pandemics reveal the connection between the spread of pandemics and development of transportation. Much faster and reliable means of mass transportation provide a greater capacity for people to travel across the world efficiently, but this advancement of transportation also carry infectious diseases to anywhere in the world. Transportation hubs (land, river, marine, and air) across the world should also play a large role in preventing and controlling the outbreak once the disease arrives. In this chapter, lessons from history that can be utilized to cope with the current global COVID-19 pandemic are illustrated and implications for transport policies and public health are discussed.

New Data of the 1755 Earthquake and Tsunami in Lisbon, Portugal

In spite of the significant number of studies focused on the 1755 earthquake and tsunami, there are still many unknowns regarding this event in Lisbon, Portugal. Thus, in this research the authors compiled historical documents, including some that had never been analyzed, complemented with a field survey and tsunami numerical modeling at the historical civil parish of Santo Estevão, Lisbon. It was possible to identify 13 buildings, including three religious buildings and five palaces. Furthermore, the new data showed that contradicting the general idea, the earthquake caused significant damage to the selected territory because the number of households decreased by 52%. The number of residents decreased to about 51%, and in 1756, 1041 residents were still living in 297 temporary shelters. There were more than 44 dead and 1122 residents were unaccounted for. The fire did not hit the area, and the tsunami numerical model results were validated by the historical accounts and cartography, which indicate that the coastal area of the studied area was not significantly inundated by the tsunami. The consultation of historical documents that had never been analyzed by contemporary researchers provides a breakthrough in the knowledge of the event since it allowed a very detailed analysis of the disaster impact.

Media and the Dissemination of Fear: Pandemics, Wars and Political Intimidation

[...]all of the chapters are heavily documented with original data or in-depth secondary research, often from sources like newspapers and radio programs. [...]there are clear connections for the use of these contents with consequences for audiences, whether intended or unintended, of fear and political propaganda. [...]the chapter by Altheide is a reminder to readers of his argument from almost 50 years ago: the media, by its very structure, grabs audience attention and helps to stoke and promote fear.

Measuring Shifts in Attitudes Towards COVID-19 Measures in Belgium

With the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent measures in full swing, people voiced their opinions of these measures on social media. Although it remains an open problem to correctly interpret these voices and translate this to public policy, we work towards this by tracking support for corona-related measures in Belgium, a densely-populated trilingual country in Western Europe. To this end, we classify seven months' worth of Belgian COVID-related tweets using multilingual BERT and a manually labeled training set. The tweets are classified by which measure they refer to as well as by their stated opinion towards the curfew measure, for which we introduce a custom classification scheme (too strict, ok, too loose). Using this classification, we examine the change in topics discussed and views expressed over time and in reference to dates of related events such as the implementation of new measures or COVID-19 related announcements in the media. With these promising results, our contributions include (i) multiple multilingual BERT models trained on manually labeled data accompanied by (ii) historical analysis of the support for the curfew measure on Twitter and (iii) a thorough analysis of limitations and risks, together with best practices and a reference code book. © 2021 Kristen Scott, Pieter Delobelle, Bettina Berendt

Historical inclusion and exclusion: New Zealand archives as primary resources for historical research

Purpose>In response to the special issue call for papers on international sources for advertising and marketing history, this paper aims to provide information, this paper provides information on two prominent New Zealand archives: Archives New Zealand and the Alexander Turnbull Library (ATL).Design/methodology/approach>Archives New Zealand and the ATL were chosen as they are the two largest archives in New Zealand, and both have different but complementary roles – one for the preservation of government records and the other for the preservation of private collections. The history of each is provided as well as a discussion of relevant materials for marketing historians. This is followed by a discussion of the limitations of the archives with regards to their colonial contexts and potential for ignoring the “other” over the years.Findings>Archives New Zealand houses official government documents and thus occupational registrations, licences, trademarks, patents and copyright records are held, along with unique product design registration files and the complete history of health promotion in New Zealand. The ATL houses personal and thus biographically useful photographs, society records and minutes, personal letters and diaries, photos and glass plate negatives, portraits and paintings, architectural works and music.Originality/value>For researchers pursuing historical research in marketing, the archival documents offered by government archives and donated private collections from throughout the world provide invaluable resources. This paper also provides a discussion of the colonial focus on record-keeping and potential bias stemming from colonial structures of government and lack of representation of marginalised groups.

Guest editorial: International sources for advertising and marketing history

Discussion following the presentation focused on two main points: learning about the availability of archival sources can help researchers improve the rigour of their work through access to primary sources;and learning about archival sources can inspire additional research topics. [...]this special issue was born. A version of the LAC conference paper by Campbell, Griffin and Elliott is included in this special issue. Since the call for papers for this special issue was issued, the world has had to learn to cope with the impact of the Covid-19 virus. Since at least the mid-1990s, many official and personal records have been “born-digital”.

The Anti-Bureaucratic Ghost in China's Bureaucratic Machine

The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) ideology, rooted in its foundational struggles, explicitly denounces “bureaucratism” (guanliaozhuyi) as an intrinsic ailment of bureaucracy. Yet while the revolutionary Party has blasted bureaucratism, its revolutionary regime has had to find a way to coexist with bureaucracy, which is a requisite for effective governance. An anti-bureaucratic ghost thus dwells in the machinery of China's bureaucratic state. We analyse the CCP's anti-bureaucratism through two steps. First, we perform a historical analysis of the Party's anti-bureaucratic ideology, teasing out its substance and emphasizing its roots in and departures from European Marxism and Leninism. Second, we trace both the continuity and evolution in the Party's anti-bureaucratic rhetoric, taking an interactive approach that combines close reading with computational analysis of the entire corpus of the People's Daily (1947–2020). We find striking endurance as well as subtle shifts in the substance of the CCP's anti-bureaucratic ideology. We show that bureaucratism is an umbrella term that expresses the revolutionary Party's anxiety about losing its popular legitimacy. Yet the substance of the Party's concern evolved from commandism and revisionism under Mao, to corruption and formalism during reform. The Party's ongoing critiques of bureaucratism and formalism unfold in parallel fashion with its efforts to standardize, regularize and institutionalize the state.

Aging Narratives Over 210 Years (1810-2019).

OBJECTIVES: The World Health Organization launched a recent global campaign to combat ageism, citing its ubiquity and insidious threat to health. The historical context that promoted this pernicious threat is understudied, and such studies lay the critical foundation for designing societal-level campaigns to combat it. We analyzed the trend and content of aging narratives over 210 years across multiple genres-newspaper, magazines, fiction, nonfiction books-and modeled the predictors of the observed trend. METHOD: A 600-million-word dataset was created from the Corpus of Historical American English and the Corpus of Contemporary American English to form the largest structured historical corpus with over 150,000 texts from multiple genres. Computational linguistics and statistical techniques were applied to study the trend, content, and predictors of aging narratives. RESULTS: Aging narratives have become more negative, in a linear fashion (p = .003), over 210 years. There are distinct shifts: From uplifting narratives of heroism and kinship in the 1800s to darker tones of illness, death, and burden in the 1900s across newspapers, magazines, and nonfiction books. Fiction defied this trend by portraying older adults positively through romantic courtship and war heroism. Significant predictors of ageism over 210 years are the medicalization of aging, loss of status, warmth, competence, and social ostracism. DISCUSSION: Though it is unrealistic to reverse the course of ageism, its declining trajectory can be ameliorated. Our unprecedented study lay the groundwork for a societal-level campaign to tackle ageism. The need to act is more pressing given the Covid-19 pandemic where older adults are constantly portrayed as vulnerable.

What do studies in wild mammals tell us about human emerging viral diseases in Mexico?

Multiple species of viruses circulate in wild mammals, some of them potentially causing zoonosis. Most of the suspected viral zoonotic diseases affecting human patients remain unidentified with regard to their aetiological agent. The aim of this study is to summarize the state of knowledge of the viral richness associated with wild mammals in Mexico throughout 1900-2018 and their relationship with human cases. We compiled two databases, one of them containing all available published studies on potentially zoonotic viruses in wild mammals and another with human cases related to zoonotic viruses. The database on wild mammals covers the period of 1900-2018; the human case database spans 2000-2013. We calculated the richness of viral potential zoonotic agents and evaluated their geographical distribution. We found 262 records of 42 potential zoonotic viral species associated with 92 wild mammal species in 28 states across Mexico. Records of human viral cases were only found in 29 states, which did not overlap with the reports in wild mammals. We detected 25.6% (42/164) of viral zoonotic agents reported worldwide. This analysis opens a relevant topic of discussion for public health attention.