This collection explores the communicative dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana, redressing the absence of perspectives from Africa and the Global South in pandemic discourses and highlighting the importance of considering the impact of local contexts in global crises. The volume critically reflects on the significance of communicative dimensions, understood here as the effects of communication on bidirectional flows between senders and receivers, on many different aspects of the coronavirus pandemic. Grounded in transnational and interdisciplinary perspectives and drawing on data from the Ghanian experience, the book showcases how important it is for local factors to be taken into account by governments, medical professionals, social commentators, and everyday people in communicating during a pandemic, when local cultures, histories, and infrastructures all play a role in shaping communication and the dissemination of knowledge. Chapter examines such topics as the role of metaphor, the use of social media in disinformation, and the range of strategies and channels employed by stakeholders. This volume centers the pandemic experience in a Global South context, demonstrating the importance of a greater focus on local contexts in understanding communication in a time of pandemic. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in intercultural communication, crisis communication, health communication, discourse analysis, and African studies.

This edited collection compares and analyses the most prominent political communicative responses to the outbreak and global spread of the COVID-19 strain of coronavirus within 27 nations across five continents and two supranational organisations: the EU and the WHO. The book encompasses the various governments’ communication of the crisis, the role played by opposition and the vibrancy of the information environment within each nation. The chapters analyse the communication drawing on theoretical perspectives drawn from the fields of crisis communication, political communication and political psychology. In doing so the book develops a framework to assess the extent to which state communication followed the key indicators of effective communication encapsulated in the principles of: being first; being right; being credible; expressing empathy; promoting action; and showing respect. The book also examines how communication circulated within the mass and social media environments and what impact differences in spokespersons, messages and the broader context has on the success of implementing measures likely to reduce the spread of the virus. Cumulatively, the authors develop a global analysis of the responses and how these are shaped by their specific contexts and by the flow of information, while offering lessons for future political crisis communication. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of politics, communication and public relations, specifically on courses and modules relating to current affairs, crisis communication and strategic communication, as well as practitioners working in the field of health crisis communication. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched www.knowledgeunlatched.org

"This book highlights the struggles administrators, teachers/faculty, and students faced as they were required to switch to online education during the global COVID-19 health crisis with the aim of providing Information to help institutions be better prepared for online education or remote learning in the future"--

A collection of case studies from nonwestern countries that offers an analysis of the significant role culture plays in crisis communication Culture and Crisis Communication presents an examination of how politics, culture, religion, and other social issues affect crisis communication and management in nonwestern countries. From intense human tragedy to the follies of the rich, the chapters examine how companies, organizations, news outlets, health organizations, technical experts, politicians, and local communities communicate in crisis situations. Taking a wider view than a single country’s perspective, the text contains a cross-cultural and cross-country approach. In addition, the case studies offer valuable lessons that organizations that wish to operate or are operating in those cultures can adopt in preparing and managing crises. The book highlights recent crisis events such as Syria’s civil war, missing Malaysia Flight MH370, andJapan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster. Each of the case studies examines how culture impacts communication and responses to crises. Authoritative, insightful, and instructive, this important resource: Analyzes how nonwestern cultures respond to crises Covers the role of culture in crisis communication in recent news events Includes contributions from 18 international authors who provide insight on nonwestern culture and crisis communication Written for communication professionals, academics, and students, Culture and Crisis Communication presents an insightful introduction to the topic of culture and crisis communication and then delves into illustrative case studies that explore intra-cultural and trans-boundary crisis communication.

This collection explores the critical decolonial practices of applied linguistics researchers from Latin America and the Latin American diaspora, shedding light on the processes of epistemological decolonization and moving from a monolingual to a multilingual stance. The volume brings together participants from an AILA 2021 symposium, in which researchers reflected on applied linguistics in Latin America, and on the ways in which it brought concerns around social justice, the legacy of coloniality, and the role of monolingual English in education to the fore. Each chapter is composed of four parts: an autobiographical section written both in Spanish or Portuguese and in English followed by a reflection on the epistemological differences between versions; a discussion in English of the research project; a critical reflection on the epistemic practices and critical pedagogies enacted in the project; and the author(s)’ understanding of the concept of decolonization and recommendations for further decolonizing the monolingual mindset of language teachers and learners. At once linguistic, epistemological, and political, the collection aims to diversify the concept of decoloniality itself and showcase other ways in which decolonial thought can be implemented in language education. This book will be of interest to scholars in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language education.

This book shows how objects can create new linguistic and cultural orders, spotlighting the ways in which everyday collections help make the world anew by rearranging its materiality and how multilingual speakers make meanings without words. Adopting an innovative approach to intercultural research drawing on work from visual and multisensorial ethnography, Ros i Solé critically reflects on what we know as interculturality by going beyond the verbal and the more-than-human to understand languages and cultures. This book expands the meaning of interculturality by seeing it as the result of the relations between people, places, and materiality. Using everyday multilingual artefacts such as clothes, cookie-cutters, LPs, books, and pens, it presents a new semiotic multilingual landscape where the intercultural is closely connected to the ground, and it is felt, rehearsed, and re-enacted through the stories and the memories contained in multilingual objects. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in intercultural communication, multilingualism, language education, and applied linguistics.

This book explores the process of identity (re)construction among mixed-heritage children within the context of globalization through the lens of its intersection with Korean society. The volume illustrates how these multicultural children mediate hybrid social spaces and examines their personal approaches toward translating, resisting, and transforming the entanglements engendered in those spaces. By tracing the trajectories of their identity (re)formations over several years, the book details the paths these youths have taken to navigate diverse contact zones and cope with institutional regulatory mechanisms. It highlights that, in the face of prevailing social stigma, they actively involve themselves in political action in their day-to-day lives: they redefine what it means to be Korean and/but multicultural, challenge simplistic membership boundaries, and develop unique strategies to resist and subsist. These efforts to question the essentialist logic of authenticity demonstrate that these youths, situated at the convergence of globalization, migration, inequality, and political power, represent a challenge to both national and global orders. Arguing that ecological perspectives need to direct greater attention toward the political as well as the posthumanist dimensions of language, culture, and identity, this book is key reading for scholars in applied linguistics, intercultural communication, and Asian studies.

This volume explores current understandings of the global meaning of faith and suffering in the context of COVID-19 and interrogates responses to the pandemic that have emerged from World Christianity. It includes chapters by a range of international contributors approached from a variety of angles within Global Christian theology. They provide reflections and analyses focused on the question of God, human suffering, structural injustice, the role of the church and Christian praxis in the milieu of COVID-19, where misery and dying is a daily routine. This book will be of interest to scholars of Missiology, World Christianity, biblical/public/contextual theology and various Contemporary Christian studies.

Language has emerged as both a powerful bridge and a formidable barrier in the realm of public health communication. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a significant challenge faced by minority and indigenous communities, particularly in regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. It's a challenge deeply rooted in the historical use of colonial languages—English, French, and Spanish—to disseminate critical health information. For many, this has translated into a linguistic exclusion, depriving them of access to essential resources and a voice in matters of national interest. This issue transcends mere communication; it touches upon the fundamental rights of individuals to participate in their own healthcare decisions and influences their sense of belonging and citizenship. Public Health Communication Challenges to Minority and Indigenous Communities proposes a solution with a transformative potential. This groundbreaking edited volume invites scholars from diverse fields to contribute their research, shedding light on the linguistic dimensions of public health communication during the COVID-19 era. By investigating the impact of language on various aspects of society, from medical information to education, this book seeks to synthesize the wealth of sociolinguistic research into an accessible framework. It's an invitation to explore the role of language in shaping our perceptions of citizenship, belonging, and empowerment.

The Culture of AIDS in Africa presents 30 chapters offering a multifaceted, nuanced, and deeply affective portrait of the relationship between HIV/AIDS and the arts in Africa, including source material such as song lyrics and interviews.