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Banana Republicans
''Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning America Into a One-Party State'' is a book by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber of the Center for Media and Democracy. It was published in 2004. In the book, Rampton and Stauber argue that a right-wing political machine, in the form of the Republican Party and its functionaries in the media, lobbying establishment and electoral system, is undermining dissent and squelching pluralistic politics in the United States. In writing ''Banana Republicans'', Rampton and Stauber experimented with collaborative research, inviting Disinfopedia users to contribute their own research and analysis while the book was being written. References {{reflist External links ''Banana Republicans'' website''Banana Republicans''at SourceWatch The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org. Hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sheldon Rampton
Sheldon Rampton (born August 4, 1957) is an American editor and author. He was editor of ''PR Watch'', and is the author of several books that criticize the public relations industry and what he sees as other forms of corporate and government propaganda. Education Rampton was born in Long Beach, California. At the age of one, his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where his father worked as a musician. Raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), he spent two years in Japan as a Latter-day Saint missionary from 1976 to 1978. Upon returning to the United States, however, he left the LDS Church, influenced in part by Mormon feminist Sonia Johnson. Career Upon graduation in 1982, Rampton worked as a newspaper reporter before becoming a peace activist. During the 1980s and 1990s, he worked closely with the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua (WCCN), which opposed the Reagan administration's military interventions in Central America and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mass Media
Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises both Internet and mobile mass communication. Internet media comprise such services as email, social media sites, websites, and Internet-based radio and television. Many other mass media outlets have an additional presence on the web, by such means as linking to or running TV ads online, or distributing QR codes in outdoor or print media to direct mobile users to a website. In this way, they can use the easy accessibility and outreach capabilities the Internet affords, as thereby easily broadcast information throughout many different regions of the world simultaneously and cost-efficiently. Outdoor media transmit information via such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2004 Non-fiction Books
4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest composite number, its proper divisors being and . Four is the sum and product of two with itself: 2 + 2 = 4 = 2 x 2, the only number b such that a + a = b = a x a, which also makes four the smallest squared prime number p^. In Knuth's up-arrow notation, , and so forth, for any number of up arrows. By consequence, four is the only square one more than a prime number, specifically three. The sum of the first four prime numbers two + three + five + seven is the only sum of four consecutive prime numbers that yields an odd prime number, seventeen, which is the fourth super-prime. Four lies between the first proper pair of twin primes, three and five, which are the first two Fermat primes, like seventeen, which is the third. On the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SourceWatch
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org. History CMD was founded in 1993 by progressive writer John Stauber in Madison, Wisconsin. Lisa Graves is the former president of CMD. Author Sheldon Rampton was formerly an editor of PR Watch. In a report released on April 6, 2006, CMD listed information on 77 television stations that had broadcast video news releases (VNRs) in the prior 10 months. CMD said that in each case the television station actively disguised the VNR content to make it appear to be its own reporting, and that in more than one-third of the cases, the stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety. In August 2006, the Federal Communications Commission mailed formal letters to the owners of the 77 television stations, asking for information regarding agreements between the stations and the creators of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disinfopedia
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org. History CMD was founded in 1993 by progressive writer John Stauber in Madison, Wisconsin. Lisa Graves is the former president of CMD. Author Sheldon Rampton was formerly an editor of PR Watch. In a report released on April 6, 2006, CMD listed information on 77 television stations that had broadcast video news releases (VNRs) in the prior 10 months. CMD said that in each case the television station actively disguised the VNR content to make it appear to be its own reporting, and that in more than one-third of the cases, the stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety. In August 2006, the Federal Communications Commission mailed formal letters to the owners of the 77 television stations, asking for information regarding agreements between the stations and the creators of VN ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pluralism (political Theory)
Classical pluralism is the view that politics and decision-making are located mostly in the framework of government, but that many non-governmental groups use their resources to exert influence. The central question for classical pluralism is how power and influence are distributed in a political process. Groups of individuals try to maximize their interests. Lines of conflict are multiple and shifting as power is a continuous bargaining process between competing groups. There may be inequalities but they tend to be distributed and evened out by the various forms and distributions of resources throughout a population. Any change under this view will be slow and incremental, as groups have different interests and may act as "veto groups" to destroy legislation. The existence of diverse and competing interests is the basis for a democratic equilibrium, and is crucial for the obtaining of goals by individuals. A polyarchy—a situation of open competition for electoral support wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electoral System
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, non-profit organisations and informal organisations. These rules govern all aspects of the voting process: when elections occur, who is allowed to vote, who can stand as a candidate, how ballots are marked and cast, how the ballots are counted, how votes translate into the election outcome, limits on campaign spending, and other factors that can affect the result. Political electoral systems are defined by constitutions and electoral laws, are typically conducted by election commissions, and can use multiple types of elections for different offices. Some electoral systems elect a single winner to a unique position, such as prime minister, president or governor, while others elect multiple winners, such as me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lobbying
In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which usually involves direct, face-to-face contact, is done by many types of people, associations and organized groups, including individuals in the private sector, corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or advocacy groups (interest groups). Lobbyists may be among a legislator's constituencies, meaning a voter or bloc of voters within their electoral district; they may engage in lobbying as a business. Professional lobbyists are people whose business is trying to influence legislation, regulation, or other government decisions, actions, or policies on behalf of a group or individual who hires them. Individuals and nonprofit organizations can also lobby as an act of volunteering or as a small part of their normal job. Gov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Republican Party
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP ("Grand Old Party"), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. The GOP was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists who opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed for the potential expansion of chattel slavery into the western territories. Since Ronald Reagan's presidency in the 1980s, conservatism has been the dominant ideology of the GOP. It has been the main political rival of the Democratic Party since the mid-1850s. The Republican Party's intellectual predecessor is considered to be Northern members of the Whig Party, with Republican presidents Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison all being Whigs before switching to the party, from which they were elected. The collapse of the Whigs, which had previously been one of the two major parties in the country, strengthened the party's electoral success. Upon its founding, it supported classical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Stauber
John Stauber is an American progressive writer. Stauber has co-authored five books about government propaganda, private interests and the public relations industry. His work includes one book about how industry manipulates science ('' Trust Us, We're Experts''), one about the history and current scope of the public relations industry (''Toxic Sludge is Good for You''), and one about mad cow disease (''Mad Cow USA''), which predicted the surfacing of the disease within the United States. In July 2003, Stauber and Sheldon Rampton wrote ''Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq'', which argued that the Bush administration deceived the American public into supporting the war. In 2004, the two co-authored '' Banana Republicans,'' which argued that the Republican Party is turning the U.S. into a one-party state. The book argues that the far-right and its functionaries in the media, lobbying establishment and electoral system are undermining dissent a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Center For Media And Democracy
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org. History CMD was founded in 1993 by progressive writer John Stauber in Madison, Wisconsin. Lisa Graves is the former president of CMD. Author Sheldon Rampton was formerly an editor of PR Watch. In a report released on April 6, 2006, CMD listed information on 77 television stations that had broadcast video news releases (VNRs) in the prior 10 months. CMD said that in each case the television station actively disguised the VNR content to make it appear to be its own reporting, and that in more than one-third of the cases, the stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety. In August 2006, the Federal Communications Commission mailed formal letters to the owners of the 77 television stations, asking for information regarding agreements between the stations and the creators of VNR ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's '' Physics'' is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
