This article is a modified and developed version of a chapter from Social Class in Contemporary Japan: Structures, Socialization and Strategies, edited by Ishida Hiroshi and David H. Slater, Routledge, 2009. For a brief outline of the book’s arguments, please see <japanfocus.org/data/Social_Class_5.htm>. Introduction: The “New Working Class” of Urban Japan Tomo was a first-year […]
Subjects Archives: Media
Media, Communications, and Literature
Colored Revolutions in Colored Lenses: A Comparative Analysis of U.S. and Russian Press Coverage of Political Movements in Ukraine, Belarus, and Uzbekistan
This study compared The New York Times‘ and The Moscow Times‘ coverage of the political movements in three former Soviet republics. Data analysis revealed a clear pro-movement pattern in The New York Times’ reporting. The U.S. newspaper used more pro-movement sources than pro-incumbent sources. Overall, The New York Times depicted the protesters favorably and […]
To Build Up a Transnational Network of Struggles and Resistance: Within and against the Global University
Open and Collective Proposal: To Build a Transnational Network Since its beginning, edu-factory has tried to be a place of political discussion and communication, a site of the free circulation of knowledge and networking at the global level. In the “double crisis” (i.e., the global economic crisis and the crisis of the university in […]
Stone Hammered to Gravel
The office workers did not know, plodding through 1963 and Marshall Square station in Johannesburg, that you would dart down the street between them, thinking the police would never fire into the crowd. Sargeant Kleingeld did not know, as you escaped his fumbling hands and the pistol on his hip, that he would one […]
Make Bologna History!
Celebrating Bologna? We don’t think so. International Call for Participation On March 11 and 12, 2010, the education ministers of 46 European countries will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Bologna process in Vienna and Budapest. Given the current situation in many European universities and the ongoing protests for the freedom of education, this […]
Media Battles in Latin America Not about “Free Speech”
For at least a month now in Ecuador there has been a battle over regulation of the media. It has been in the front pages of the newspapers most of the time, and a leading daily, El Comercio, referred to the fight as one for “defense of human rights and the free practice of journalism.” […]
Bend It Like Iran (with Hooman Majd)
“The Iranians have always figured out how to beat the system. . . . Even Iranians who are opposed to this government, even Iranians who are opposed to the Islamic Republic, don’t really wanna return to being a client state of the United States.” — Hooman Majd
No Guantanamos at Home or Abroad
Monday, January 18th, 2010 6 to 7 pm, across from the Metropolitan Correctional Complex (MCC) 150 Park Row and Pearl Street, NYC On January 18th, as our nation commemorates Martin Luther King Day, for the slain civil rights leader who peacefully spoke out against war, racism, and injustice, members of THAW (Theater Artists Against […]
To Shoot an Elephant
“This is an embedded film. We decided to be ’embedded within the ambulances’ opening an imaginary dialogue with those journalists who embed themselves within armies.” — Alberto Arce
Dennis Vincent Brutus, 1924-2009
World-renowned political organizer and one of Africa’s most celebrated poets, Dennis Brutus, died early on December 26 in Cape Town, in his sleep, aged 85. Even in his last days, Brutus was fully engaged, advocating social protest against those responsible for climate change, and promoting reparations to black South Africans from corporations that benefited from […]
Iran’s Independence and the Nuclear Dispute
The nuclear dispute between Iran and the United States is heating up. Iran made its proposal on December 12, having been in negotiation with the US and other powers since October 1. Iran proposed exchanging 400 kilograms of its 3.5 percent enriched uranium for an equivalent amount of 20 percent enriched uranium to be used […]
Manchester: Back to No Future
Manchester: Looking for the Light through the Pouring Rain, by Kevin Cummins, is a book of photographs of Manchester’s music scene over the last thirty years, with weighty prose by the likes of Paul Morley and Stuart Maconie, participants and witnesses all. It was published in autumn 2009 in London by Faber. The photos […]
Faridabad and Gurgaon: Workers’ Action, Leftwing Media
Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Its December 2009 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. The establishment media is for most the source of our daily information. Even if we manage to be continually conscious of the embedded commercial and class bias, the […]
The Zinn Education Project
Dear Rethinking Schools friends, We’re pleased to announce our latest “publication,” The Zinn Education Project: Teaching a People’s History — www.zinnedproject.org — a new website with free downloadable teaching activities. The Zinn Education Project: Teaching a People’s History is a collaboration between Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change, supported by an anonymous donor (a […]
Bassidji: Talking to the Other Side
A young boy sits on rusted tank tracks in the desert bordering Iran and Iraq. His head is bowed, and he’s sobbing. A few yards away, a dozen bearded men gather around a Shiite cleric. The men weep as the cleric recounts the story of a fearless martyr killed during the Iran-Iraq war. He […]
The Crisis of Identity in the Postcolonial State
Farzana Shaikh. Making Sense of Pakistan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. ix + 274 pp. $24.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-14962-4. Farzana Shaikh offers a scholarly and erudite study of the competition to define and establish a “national” identity for Pakistan. The author argues that contested visions of the religious nature of the postcolonial state […]
An Open Letter to the UN Climate Change Gathering in Copenhagen
Allow me to make a few points about the current international negotiations which are likely to make a huge impact on the future of the planet. At the heart of the issue is the trade off that has to be made between those who want to continue on a path of exploitation and the protesters […]
Native Orientalists at the Daily Times
“The more a ruling class is able to assimilate the foremost minds of the ruled class, the more stable and dangerous becomes its rule.” — Karl Marx A few days back, I received a ‘Dear friends’ email from Mr. Najam Sethi, ex editor-in-chief of Daily Times, Pakistan, announcing that he, together with several of his […]
Israel: Arab Women Workers Need Not Apply
Discrimination, not culture, keeps families in poverty. Israel’s finance minister was accused last week of trying to deflect attention from discriminatory policies keeping many of the country’s Arab families in poverty by blaming their economic troubles on what he described as Arab society’s opposition to women working. A recent report from Israel’s National Insurance Institute […]
Thanksgiving, Public Education, and Criminalization
At 4:30am on November 26, a couple thousand people started ferrying from San Francisco to Alcatraz Island, to witness and participate in the annual Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Gathering. This year, it commemorated the 40th anniversary of the occupation of Alcatraz, an event which brought renewed energy and visibility to Indigenous Peoples movements. As the rising […]
