Communication scholars, psychologists, sociologists, and other social scientists have long been interested in how individuals interpret the real world around them. Although some of the information we receive in our daily lives is first-hand, much of what we know about our communities, states, countries, and the world comes to us through second-hand sources. Perceptions of
The media landscape of West Asia includes countries and media systems as diverse as Turkey, with big media conglomerate holdings; Lebanon, whose media strongly influence developments in the Arab media sector, state-controlled Syrian media, partly controlled media under the Palestinian National Authority (PNA); and pro-government media in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The media market
Visual portrayals of women in the media tend to emphasize idealized standards of thinness and beauty that are beyond the reach of most women. The systematic analysis of the body type of fashion models (Silverstein et al. 1986) provide convincing evidence that women portrayed in glamorous roles in the popular media are thinner than the
The Russian Federation is a 17.1 million km2 territory, on which a population of 146 million is unevenly distributed. It has borders with 14 countries in Europe and Asia. Russia is a federal republic comprised of 88 federal administrative units subordinate to the central government. Russia is divided into seven federal regions headed by plenipotentiaries
Singapore, an island nation at the southern tip of mainland Southeast Asia, has a population of about 3.6 million made up of 77 percent Chinese, 14 percent Malays, 7 percent Indians, and 2 percent classified as others. A former British colony, the republic adopts the Westminster parliamentary system, and the government has been controlled by
Spain had in 2005 a population of 44.1 million inhabitants and was twelfth in world ranking in GDP. Just after Greece and Portugal, it became the third Mediterranean country in Europe to re-establish a democratic system in the early 1970s. The new regime after the death of the dictator General Francisco Franco in 1975 brought
Switzerland is a small, federal, non-EU-member country in the center of Europe. It has a population of 7.4 million people, about 21 percent of whom are foreigners, and four official languages, namely German (the first language of 64 percent of the population), French (20 percent), Italian (6.5 percent), and Romansh (0.5 percent). The media inflow
The Islamic Republic of Iran (population approx. 67,500,000 in 2004; adult literacy rate 77.1 percent) was established as a result of Iran’s revolution in 1979. The political system blends republican elements (i.e., regular parliamentary and presidential elections) with the idea of the “government of the Islamic jurist” (velayate faqih), developed during the 1960s and 1970s
Israel, a young democracy, established in 1948, with a 120-member unicameral parliament elected officially every four years in universal, proportional, nationwide elections, is located in the Middle East, along the eastern coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, bordered by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. It lies at the junction of three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Italy (population 58.4 million) is one of the founding members of the EU. It is a parliamentary republic; general elections are held every five years. The electoral system, formerly a mix of majoritarian rule and proportional representation, was changed to purely proportional before the general election of 2006. Governments and political parties have always displayed