The furore over Mahmoud Ahmajinedad’s apparent success in last months Iranian presidential elections tells us a few important things about how the dominant media feels democratic deficiencies, alleged or otherwise, should be reported.
According to the Irish Times Iran’s “suffocating theocracy”1 sustained a crisis of legitimacy “after it lost the trust of millions of Iranians”2 following [...]

Income is not a determinator of class, and to think of class in such terms is to miss the point that class is a social relation, not a category. Income, however, can be used as an indicator of class relations, as wage levels are usually, although not always, related to the types of positions people [...]

[This is an edited version of an article which first appeared in Football Studies 11, 1 (2008). The article itself is based on a paper which was presented at the 2005 Irish Sport History Conference.]
In 1955 the Irish political, cultural, and religious establishment found itself challenged by an unusual and reluctant opponent: The Football [...]

This analysis of our interview with Harry Browne is not a critique of his journalism but rather of the coercive effect on him of the professional, corporate media environment as it seemed evident during the interview. We contend all mainstream journalists are unavoidably affected by this phenomenon - even those who are conscious of it.
These [...]

Maybe I’m getting paranoid but I can’t help feeling that we’re being primed to blame the incoming Obama administration if our inflow of foreign investment starts drying up, resulting in massive dislocations in our economy.  Robert Shapiro, an influential advisor to the new President, has suggested that Ireland wean itself off foreign direct investment (FDI).  [...]

I remember watching the race riots on television news - Watts, Harlem, Hough and Newark.  I remember my first lesson from the Bible as taught me by my mother - a Christian fundamentalist daughter of a poor Southern farmer: that the first sin, the worst sin, is to discriminate against anyone on account they look [...]

Everybody altogether - let’s help Shane Coleman. In his opinion piece in the Sunday Tribune yesterday Shane took us all to task for being selfish, greedy and indifferent to the economic crisis upon us. So far, not very insightful. But it’s when he attempted to justify his opinion with ‘facts’ that he floundered completely. We [...]

Mission accomplished! Unfortunately, the euphoria is short-lived as we return to the dismal news coming out of our own economy: unemployment rising to over 260,000 with the increase in October nearly equaling the entire rise in 2007; service business activity contracting at an alarming rate; the EU Commission opening excessive debt procedure against the [...]

If I were a Fianna Fail Minister I would be embarrassed to go abroad to meet my peer group. I’d put a bag over my head. I’d put on an accent and pretend I was a county supervisor from Winnemucca, Nevada. I’d do anything to cover up the fact that I was [...]

Si! Is Mohamed el-Hutt, the proud and once-mighty king of Morocco, sat with one of his smoking hookahs, played by Mariah Carrie, American songbird and daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Booby Fischer. His real name, of course, is Mohamed the Sixth, but nobody is allowed to call him that to his face because they have [...]