"This book explores marketing as a genuine component of religious traditions. It investigates the theme across a large historical and geographical area, and in a variety of expressions, ranging from 3rd BCE Maya stucco friezes, early Christian writings, and 9th CE Cambodian inscriptions, right down
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to modern-day propaganda and recruitment strategies adopted by the ISIS jihadi movement, Falun Gong, Muslim Varkaris, spirit mediums in India and Thailand, Thai Buddhist monasteries, and the Vatican. The book is unique in its theme and scope. The chapters were written without a single controlling agenda, but all emphasize the need to view our modern consumer society as only one among many historical conditions that have shaped religious marketing. In fact, it will become clear from reading through the chapters that marketing and propaganda are inherent in religions and their teachings. The broad scope of the book shows religious marketing as embedded in and responding to diverse cultural settings, rather than as an isolated component of utility maximization. It allows us to understand religious marketing as a large window into the mental and cultural landscapes of the studied communities. This will have an eye-opening methodological impact on an area of studies that often limits itself to a narrow view of interactions between two opposing fields: spirituality and the market." (Publisher description)
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"The study of Chinese media is a field that is growing and evolving at an exponential rate. Not only are the Chinese media a fascinating subject for analysis in their own right, but they also offer scholars and students a window to observe multi-directional flows of information, culture and communic
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ations within the contexts of globalization and regionalization. Moreover, the study of Chinese media provides an invaluable opportunity to test and refine the variety of communications theories that researchers have used to describe, analyse, compare and contrast systems of communications." (Publisher description)
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"The Global Journalist in the 21st Century systematically assesses the demographics, education, socialization, professional attitudes and working conditions of journalists in various countries around the world. This book updates the original Global Journalist (1998) volume with new data, adding more
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than a dozen countries, and provides material on comparative research about journalists that will be useful to those interested in doing their own studies. The editors put together this collection working under the assumption that journalists' backgrounds, working conditions and ideas are related to what is reported (and how it is covered) in the various news media round the world, in spite of societal and organizational constraints, and that this news coverage matters in terms of world public opinion and policies. Outstanding features include:"Coverage of 33 nations located around the globe, based on recent surveys conducted among representative samples of local journalist, comprehensive analyses by well-known media scholars from each country, a section on comparative studies of journalists and an appendix with a collection of survey questions used in various nations to question journalists" (Publisher description)
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