After a Year of Being Locked Down
Nobody (as far as I know) has commented on how hard this year of lockdowns has been on university professors. That’s good: …
Decálogo de dictadores: cuando el poder se ejerce desde la violencia
Hace un par de meses me llamaron la atención una serie de documentales del Discovery Channel, sobre cómo todas las dictaduras más …
Goodbye “American Greatness”
Part 3 of 5 of the COVID-19 Series. Indispensable. Here was the so-called “indispensable nation,” the self-appointed saviour of the world, with …
From Hollywood to Hitler: Rethinking the Cultural Politics of Propaganda
What is propaganda? What does cinema reveal about the Third Reich and its people? What are German films about during the Third …
Der Westen und die Hongkong-Proteste – Kritik aus der chinesischen Netzgemeinde
Medien und Politik im Westen haben die Demonstrationen in Hongkong von Anfang an kritisch begleitet. Die jeweiligen Standpunkte und Aktivitäten werden auch …
Krampfhaftes Kontrastsehen: Handke, Srebrenica und der Nobelpreis
Seit die Schwedische Akademie im Oktober 2019 verkündet hat, Peter Hanke den Nobelpreis zu verleihen, reisst Kritik an dieser Entscheidung nicht ab. …
Girls, Groupies, and Grim Reapers: The Religious Politics of Mass Response
Following a week at the UN and ensuing climate change “protests” (state-sanctioned, party-approved, media-praised, university-endorsed, “protests”), in which we were yet agai…
America: Imagine an America without Her
What might world history have looked like if there had never been a United States, or if it ceased to exist before …
The WikiLeaks Case: Democracy Dies in Empire
In the avalanche of news reports that have washed over the globe since the abduction of Julian Assange, this conversation struck me …
US-manufactured Crisis in Venezuela: Creating a “Need” for Intervention
Eva Bartlett, reporting from Venezuela, is a freelance journalist with extensive experience in the Gaza Strip and Syria. See her website, In …
Top Articles of 2018
As the year winds down, Anthropology News rounds up our most popular articles of 2018. From critical reflections on the discipline and …
How “Fake News” Lost Its Meaning
Collins Dictionary named “fake news” its 2017 word of the year, an easy choice given the word’s “unprecedented usage increase” of 365 …
A Theory of Propaganda for the Social Media Age
Intertextuality and the propagation of disinformation Propaganda typically refers to manipulative techniques and misleading messages used to gain public acquiescence for a …
Die guten Menschen von Sichuan: Alles nur fake?
Eine Reihe von guten Taten beschäftigt derzeit die chinesische Netzgemeinde. Ausgelöst wurde die Diskussion von einer Reihe Fotos, die besonders vorbildliches Verhalten …
Chasing their tails
Unpacking a local cultural meme on political corruption There’s a cultural meme circulating locally about the upcoming election. It’s on the radio …
Chasing their tails
Unpacking a local cultural meme on political corruption There’s a cultural meme circulating locally about the upcoming election. It’s on the radio …
Chasing their tails
Unpacking a local cultural meme on political corruption There’s a cultural meme circulating locally about the upcoming election. It’s on the radio …
The Price of Freedom
What do the end of slavery and the European financial crisis have in common? Recently, the BBC ran a two-part documentary in …
The Price of Freedom
What do the end of slavery and the European financial crisis have in common? Recently, the BBC ran a two-part documentary in …
The Price of Freedom
What do the end of slavery and the European financial crisis have in common? Recently, the BBC ran a two-part documentary in …
Spreading Alerts in Egypt and Elsewhere
When people keep getting warnings but nothing ever happens… they just start ignoring them. One of the interesting things about living as …
Realism or Iconography? The Pentagon’s Implicit Theory of Visual Representation
The following is an extract from my chapter, “A Flickr of Militarization: Photographic Regulation, Symbolic Consecration, and the Strategic Communication of ‘Good …
The US Military as Great Chief, Father, Doctor, and Babysitter
The following is an extract from my chapter, “A Flickr of Militarization: Photographic Regulation, Symbolic Consecration, and the Strategic Communication of ‘Good …
The Visual Imperium
The following is an extract from my chapter, “A Flickr of Militarization: Photographic Regulation, Symbolic Consecration, and the Strategic Communication of ‘Good …