In modern politics as well as in historical times, character attacks abound. Words and images, like symbolic and psychological weapons, have sullied or destroyed numerous reputations. People mobilize significant material and psychological resources to defend themselves against such attacks. How does character assassination "work," and when does it not? Why do many targets fall so easily when they are under character attack? How can one prevent attacks and defend against them? The Routledge Handbook of Character Assassination and Reputation Management offers the first comprehensive examination of character assassination. Moving beyond studying corporate reputation management and how public figures enact and maintain their reputation, this lively volume offers a framework and cases to help understand, critically analyze, and effectively defend against such attacks. Written by an international and interdisciplinary team of experts, the book begins with a theoretical introduction and extensive description of the "five pillars" of character assassination: (1) the attacker, (2) the target, (3) the media, (4) the public, and (5) the context. The remaining chapters present engaging case studies suitable for class discussion. These include: Roman emperors; Reformation propaganda; the Founding Fathers; defamation in US politics; women politicians; autocratic regimes; European leaders; celebrities; nations; Internet campaigns. This handbook will prove invaluable to undergraduate and postgraduate students in communication, political science, history, sociology, and psychology departments. It will also help researchers become independent, critical, and informed thinkers capable of avoiding the pressure and manipulations of the media.

This lively book offers the first comprehensive examination of character assassination. In modern politics as well as in historical times, character attacks abound. Words and images, like psychological weapons, have sullied or destroyed numerous individual reputations. How does character assassination "work" and when or why does it not? Are character attacks getting worse in the age of social media? Why do many people fail when they are under character attack? How should they prevent attacks and defend against them? Moving beyond discussions about corporate reputation management and public relations canons, Character Assassination and Reputation Management is designed to help understand, critically analyze, and effectively defend against such attacks. Written by an international and interdisciplinary team of experts, the book begins with a discussion of theoretical and applied features of the "five pillars" of character assassination: (1) the attacker, (2) the target, (3) the media, (4) the audience, and (5) the context. The remaining chapters present engaging in-depth discussions and case studies suitable for homework and class discussion. These cases include: Historic figures Leaders from modern times Women in politics U.S. presidents World leaders Political autocrats Democratic leaders Scientists Celebrities Featuring an extensive glossary of key terms, critical thinking exercises, and summaries to encourage problem-based learning, Character Assassination and Reputation Management will prove invaluable to the undergraduate and postgraduate students in communication, political science, global affairs, history, sociology, and psychology departments.

Heroes, villains, victims, and minions are more important than ever before in our politics and culture. In the era of television, Twitter, and Facebook, groups and individuals constantly battle over their reputations. One of the best ways to gain power is to persuade others that you are competent, courageous, and benevolent, while your opponents are none of these. Thus, character work consists of more than simple claims of fact; societies build their solidarity and policies out of admiration for heroes but also outrage over villains. Recent political analysis has ignored the great characters of the past in favor of frames, heuristics, codes, and identities. In Public Characters, James M. Jasper, Michael P. Young, and Elke Zuern argue that character, reputation, and images matter in politics, and social life more generally, as they help mobilize people and their passions. First, they focus on the political construction of openly constructed and debated public characters to show how we can allocate praise and blame, identify social problems, cement identities and allegiances, develop policies, and articulate our moral intuitions through them. The authors demonstrate the nuances of characters and their interactions across a range of sources-including Shakespeare, Game of Thrones, Renaissance sculpture, modern comic books, Alexander the Great, and Bernie Madoff-all the while showing how public characters are used in political rhetoric. Finally, they complicate these characters by considering their transformations: when victims manage to become heroes and the way traditional moral characters have evolved over time to correspond with what different cultures admire, detest, or pity. This rich, detailed, and wide-ranging analysis of personal images and reputation marks a timely and crucial contribution for sociologists and political scientists concerned with the cultural dimensions of political life.

The growing amount of false and misleading information on the internet has generated new concerns and quests for research regarding the study of deception and deception detection. Innovative methods that involve catching these fraudulent scams are constantly being perfected, but more material addressing these concerns is needed. The Handbook of Research on Deception, Fake News, and Misinformation Online provides broad perspectives, practices, and case studies on online deception. It also offers deception-detection methods on how to address the challenges of the various aspects of deceptive online communication and cyber fraud. While highlighting topics such as behavior analysis, cyber terrorism, and network security, this publication explores various aspects of deceptive behavior and deceptive communication on social media, as well as new methods examining the concepts of fake news and misinformation, character assassination, and political deception. This book is ideally designed for academicians, students, researchers, media specialists, and professionals involved in media and communications, cyber security, psychology, forensic linguistics, and information technology.

Presents cocreational perspectives on current international practices and theories relevant to strategic communication The Handbook of Strategic Communication brings together work from leading scholars and practitioners in the field to explore the many practical, national and cultural differences in modern approaches to strategic communication. Designed to provide a coherent understanding of strategic communication across various subfields, this authoritative volume familiarizes practitioners, researchers, and advanced students with an inclusive range of international practices, current theories, and contemporary debates and issues in this dynamic, multidisciplinary field. This Handbook covers an expansive range of strategic communication models, theories, and applications, comprising two dozen in-depth chapters written by international scholars and practitioners. In-depth essays discuss the three core areas of strategic communication—public relations, marketing communication, and health communication—and their many subfields, such as political communication, issues management, crisis and risk communication, environmental and science communication, public diplomacy, disaster management, strategic communication for social movements and religious communities, and many others. This timely volume: Challenges common assumptions about the narrowness of strategic communication Highlights ongoing efforts to unify the understanding and practice of strategic communication across a range of subfields Discusses models and theories applied to diverse areas such as conflict resolution, research and evaluation, tobacco control, climate change, and counter terrorism strategic communication Examines current research and models of strategic communication, such as the application of the CAUSE Model to climate change communication Explores strategic communication approaches in various international contexts, including patient-oriented healthcare in Russia, road and tunnel safety in Norway, public sector communication in Turkey, and ethical conflict resolution in Guatemala The Handbook of Strategic Communication is an indispensable resource for practitioners, researchers, scholars, and students involved in any aspect of strategic communication across its many subfields.

This book introduces Root Narrative Theory, a new approach for narrative analysis, decoding moral politics, and for building respect and understanding in conditions of radical disagreement. This theory of moral politics bridges emotion and reason, and, rather than relying on what people say, it helps both the analyst and the practitioner to focus on what people mean in a language that parties to the conflict understand. Based on a simple idea—the legacy effects of abuses of power—the book argues that conflicts only endure and escalate where there is a clash of interpretations about the history of institutional power. Providing theoretically complex but easy-to-use tools, this book offers a completely new way to think about storytelling, the effects of abusive power on interpretation, the relationship between power and conceptions of justice, and the origins and substance of ultimate values. By locating the source of radical disagreement in story structures and political history rather than in biological or cognitive systems, Root Narrative Theory bridges the divides between reason and emotion, realism and idealism, without losing sight of the inescapable human element at work in the world’s most devastating conflicts. This book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, peace studies and International Relations, as well as to practitioners of conflict resolution.

This is a guide to the main developments in the history of British and Irish literature, charting some of the main features of literary language development and highlighting key language topics.