National Media Coverage Research Articles

Reciprocal (and Reductionist?) Newswork

This paper builds upon previous research that examines participatory forms of “reciprocal journalism” and “public communication” led by high school and college students in Miami, Florida, USA, in the fall of 2014. In this study, the students’ assessment of local and national media coverage is used to reveal greater details inherent in examining participatory methods of newswork. Collectively, students said that media coverage emphasis on local and national public officials instead of residents and community members who experience sea-level rise first-hand, combined with a lack of scientific explanation of and solutions for sea-level rise reduced the event's potential to build reciprocal relationships with younger audiences.

Further Affirmative Action Strategies for Racial and Ethnic Equality in The Jury System: The Case Study of The Eugene 'Bear' Lincoln Trial and The Native American Jury

This article examines possible applications of two affirmative action strategies in jury selection -- affirmative jury structures and affirmative peremptory inclusion -- in order to create racially mixed juries. I contend that, with the use of affirmative jury structures such as de medietate linguae jury, the Hennepin jury, and social science models, the court can effectively design three specific forms of racially mixed tribunals by requiring varying mandatory racial quotas to ensure the allocation of jury seats to racial minorities. Affirmative peremptory inclusion is a procedural jury selection strategy in voir dire to neutralize the biasing effect of race-based peremptory challenges so that a racially mixed jury is achieved through affirmatively choosing, rather than peremptorily excluding, potential jurors who share the same racial and ethnic background as the defendants. In order to illustrate the importance of affirmative jury selection structures and peremptory inclusion, this paper specifically focuses on People of the State of California v. Eugene Bear Lincoln (no. cl2632), the recent criminal trial and racially explosive case that received extensive national attention and international media coverage. The present author participated in the Lincoln trial as a defense jury consultant in assessing the extent of racial discrimination in jury selection at Mendocino County Superior Court, California. The critical analysis of the Lincoln case demonstrates that racially diverse tribunals may be the only effective and equitable solution to increase public's perceptions of trial fairness and verdict legitimacy in racially sensitive trials.

Not in the Hot Seat: The Impact of Broadcasting on Women

Not in the Hot Seat:The Impact of Broadcasting on Women Anne O’Brien (bio) The impact of broadcasting on Irish women has been transformative on some occasions. In the early 1970s media campaigns were crucial to the successes of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement (IWLM). A core tactic of the movement was to gain national media coverage for controversial campaign events, best exemplified by the contraceptive train to Belfast. Another key moment for women’s liberation happened in March 1971 when the IWLM produced an episode of Raidió Teilifís Éireann’s The Late Late Show in which it debated its manifesto for change. On the show, while introducing members of the IWLM, the program’s presenter Gay Byrne referred to a “sentence in a report from the RTÉ authority that says ‘Marian Finucane will never take The Late Late Show chair.’” Byrne saw the sentence as “supposed to be significant of the way that women are done down.” Live on air, he vacated his chair to allow Finucane to present the IWLM’s program. The episode was controversial and triggered weeks of debate on women’s issues in the letters pages of all of the national print media. The role of the media in women’s liberation was even specifically discussed on The Late Late Show by Lelia Doolan, a television producer who presented the IWLM’s views on the “education or miseducation of girls and on social conditioning with particular reference to the media” (Levine 180). Sadly, more than forty years later, much of what Doolan said about the media and Irish women still holds true, and to date no female has since occupied The Late Late Show presenter’s chair. Women in Irish media are still not treated equally in terms of onair representation or their participation as media workers. The 2010 Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), which examined data from a total of 108 countries, observed a 1:3 female-to-male ratio as the proportion of women to men as subjects of Irish news (Ross and Carter 1155). [End Page 169] Women are also a minority of employees in the print and broadcast media (National Union of Journalists). The International Women’s Media Foundation’s Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media notes that internationally, women constitute only 33 percent of the full-time journalism workforce and that they hold 27 percent of top management positions, 35 percent of senior professional positions, and 33 percent of reporter positions (Byerly 9). In Ireland only 12 percent of all decision-makers in Irish media are female (European Institute for Gender Equality [hereafter EIGE] 26). Ironically, this inequality in both representation and participation is underpinned by a popular myth of the Irish Celtic Tiger that rapid economic growth benefited Irish women as much as men and heralded a postfeminist era of equality for Irish women. As Ging notes, “Much recent debate about gender in Ireland is underpinned, both implicitly and explicitly, by the assumption that equality is a fait accompli and that feminism’s work is done” (53). When it comes to the role of Irish women in broadcasting, the postfeminist cover story of gender equality makes it difficult to argue that Irish women have not achieved fair and equal representation in Irish media. But the idea of a postfeminist Ireland is belied by evidence to the contrary—as will be detailed in this article—that documents the enduring inequality suffered by Irish women in the media. Because of the prevalence of postfeminist discourse, women’s under-representation in Irish media is quite commonly misunderstood. It is accounted for in neoliberal terms as a choice not to participate, or as a result of women’s lack of confidence, rather than as a social or systemic problem (Women On Air). Similarly, there is little if any public understanding that there are structural barriers to women’s entry into and retention in the broadcast industry. Public understanding holds that the glass ceiling has been well and truly shattered, that discrimination is a thing of the past, and that any odd persisting cases of inequality in the media workplace can be fixed with a...

II. Young activists, new movements: Contemporary Chinese queer feminism and transnational genealogies

In 2012, in response to victim-blaming statements by the Shanghai Subway System online, two young feminists appeared in Shanghai’s subway, wearing headscarves, short skirts, and metal bras, carrying signs saying ‘‘I can be flirtatious, you can’t harass,’’ as a resistance to social control of women’s bodies (Phillips, 2012). This small performance inspired a storm of national media coverage and public discussion, giving unprecedented public visibility to the issues of women’s sexual expression and sexual assault. Being part of a broader milieu of young Chinese feminists protesting through various forms of public performance arts in the past two years, the Shanghai Subway protesters, in particular, were queer feminist activists with years of involvement in lesbian communities. As young, diasporic feminist activist–scholars involved in queer feminist movements across China, Taiwan, and New York City, we reflect on the emergent ‘‘new’’ queer feminism in China today, with its amorphous cohesion and dramatic impact, as highlighted by the subway protest. Drawing on transnational feminism, we are part of this latest ‘‘new’’ response to growing global inequalities and

Kylie will be ok

This article examines scholarly works published before and after Fame Games (2000) to investigate whether the development of Australian celebrity studies was one of the things that happened to Australian cultural studies. That book, written by Graeme Turner, P. David Marshall and Frances Bonner, observed the significance of an Australian celebrity's international profile to their national media coverage. Now, in an intellectual variant, Australian celebrity scholars disproportionately use foreign stars or Australians with international profiles to illustrate their arguments, with the exigencies of academic publishing providing one explanation. The article draws inter alia on Turner's several publications in the field in an attempt to discern whether there is an Australian inflection to celebrity studies or whether Australian scholars have been so significant in the international development of this subset of cultural studies that there is neither call nor space for a distinctively Australian approach.

The Media as Social Watch in Forest Management: Indonesia Experience

In the past decades, climate change and global warming issues have been recurring in the media and public sphere. Despite the continuous calling to stop environmental destruction, deforestation continues at an alarming rate. More than a medium to transmit information, the media can play important role to influence decision making of government and other stakeholders forest management. This paper studied the case in Indonesia where the media industry is thriving and deforestation is growing. Discourse analysis on 150 forestry related articles from three online media found that there is a difference in the focus of national and local media. The national media coverage tends to discuss the problems of an issue while the local media provides solutions to those issues. To overcome this mismatch, the local and social media can create trends that would be resonated by national media. Then, the role of media as ‘social watch’ can be effective. In fulfilling such role, this paper proposes a framework of action plans in which the media can act as social watch. Within this framework, the action plans include the role of media in agenda setting, capacity building, bridging, monitoring assessment and reporting and documenting.

Special Event Logistics Geopolitical Event Bangkok

Special event logistics covers a broad area from concerts, trade fairs, to public gatherings and beyond. This qualitative research is looking at special event logistics from a technical logistics management standpoint. The paper focuses on the logistics issues of the geopolitical events of the so called Shut down of Bangkok in 2014. The paper does not address the political issues surrounding the events and takes a neutral position only focusing on the technical logistics elements of the special event. Geopolitical special events are different as they involve thousands of volunteers at various levels of engagement over a more or less undetermined period of time with very fluid dynamics of the event. The emotions of the volunteers and participants are running high as it involves political and ideological viewpoints and therefore provides a high tension high pressure environment with a great level of uncertainty and risk. Supply chain risk management (SCRM) takes on a new meaning in the context of special events. Security is a major issue which goes beyond normal SCRM and business continuity planning. There needs to be access and crowd control as well as VIP and critical infrastructure protection. The logistics issues that need to be addressed include: site selection and preparation down to site dissolution, various sorts and types of assets and supplies from numerous and often daily varying sources need to be mobilized and demobilized. Infrastructure has to be provided and in some cases created including public utilities such as electricity, water, sewer, phone, fax, internet and mobile telephones, cable, wireless networks, satellite up and down links, to ATM machines which have to be brought to the site. Food and beverages (F&B) services range from drinking water to feeding thousands to special diets for vegetarians, Buddhist monks and Muslim participants. Storage on-site and off-site involves coldsupply chain (CSC) as well as perishable items and bulk items ranging from less than a truck load (LTL) to large bulk shipments. Audio visual (AV) services and multi-media needs to be covered both on a close circuit (CCTV) network for the site as well as national and international news and media coverage. There are also the demand planning and transportation issue, goods and people have to be transported to and from and in between often multiple venues which adds to the complexity.

Media coverage and issue visibility: State legislative responses to school bullying

Dealing with the schoolyard bully is an age-old problem; however, legislators have only recently tackled it at the state level. This study examines the adoption of anti-bullying policies from the policy diffusion and innovation perspective with an emphasis on the role of print media coverage. The study contributes to the policy diffusion literature by examining both national and local media coverage as conduits for diffusion and adds to the expanding views of the diffusion process beyond the traditional geographic proximity argument. Further, it provides the first examination of an emerging policy area important to education policy scholars. The findings show issue saliency via national media coverage drives policy adoption beyond any geographic proximity.

Exploring New Frontiers of Agenda Building During the 2012 US Presidential Election Pre-Convention Period

Grounded in an agenda-building theoretical perspective, this study explored in depth the relationships between political campaign information subsidies and elite national news media coverage. Specifically, this investigation examined three levels of agenda-building linkages (object, attribute, and network connections) simultaneously during the 2012 US Presidential Election pre-convention period between Barack Obama (Democrat) and Mitt Romney (Republican). A total of 2655 campaign information subsidies and 345 news stories were content analyzed. The results suggest solid support for all three levels of agenda building. Our findings indicate the strongest linkages were at the third level for stakeholder network associations and at the second level for substantive issue frames. Campaign blog posts, press releases, and issue platforms were the most effective agenda-building tools at this phase of the election campaign. The theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

The never-ending problem named female migrant workers: A critical discourse analysis of Indonesian media

Abstract The Indonesian media seems to confirm the endless suffering of Indonesian migrant workers (IMWs). In June 2011, Ruyati Binti Satubi’s execution in Saudi Arabia was put in the spotlight by widespread national media coverage. The government seemed to ignore the problem, but it is more striking as to how the execution was also ignored by high-ranking female officials. Study of women’s voices and gender bias in the news coverage is important since most victims are female migrant workers (FMW). It focuses on how Ruyati’s execution was framed in three national newspapers. Interviews were conducted with a journalist, a female migrant worker, a media observer, a political observer and a feminist blogger. This study concludes that: Fewer female voices are represented by the media; IMWs are powerless; Indonesia’s foreign diplomacy and internal bureaucracy are weak; and female politicians’ awareness of migrant workers’ problems was an individual position rather than a gender movement.

Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City by Natalie Hopkinson

Reviewed by: Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City by Natalie Hopkinson Alisha Lola Jones (bio) Hopkinson, Natalie. Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2012. “Taxation without representation” is a slogan Washingtonians have adopted to convey their disenfranchised political status. Although they are tax-paying citizens, Washing-tonians do not have voting representation in the U.S. Congress and Senate. This lack of power is noticeable because Washington, DC, has long been characterized as a “Chocolate City” with predominately black residents. Such racially tinged exclusion is dissonant in a twenty-first century United States. Especially with the re-election of the nation’s first African American President Barack Hussein Obama, DC’s most prominent and powerful black resident. President Obama’s ascent to office would suggest the beginning of a new era in which racism no longer exists. Scholars such as Kip Lornell and Charles Stephenson have previously noted that DC’s black population has demonstrated ingenuity in reclaiming the public sphere through outlets such as live go-go music performances. There are, however, persistent systemic structures with which Washingtonians contend in order to realize their full citizenship. Natalie Hopkinson engages these discourses as a scholar and journalist for the Washington Post. This is the lens through which she writes, as the foremost voice for go-go culture in national media coverage. In Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City, Natalie Hopkinson considers the current constituency’s use of go-go music performance as a vehicle through which history is transmitted and socio-politics is negotiated. While DC’s black majority declines, receding to the suburbs and acquiescing to gentrification, native practitioners and scholars clamor to document and preserve its rich cultural legacy. Among unique DC symbols such as mambo sauce, go-go music remains a DC treasure that strongly signifies Washingtonians’ musical landmarking of the nation’s capital. The late South Carolina migrant Chuck Brown is held as the Godfather of go-go music, which is a percussive funk music that surfaced in DC, straddling the late-1960s to mid-1970s. It emerged on the heels of DC’s most devastating uprisings. Brown mixed elements of jazz, gospel, and Latin music, in a musically expansive manner, to keep people on the dance floor and the party going and going. While other rhythm section instruments are used in the bands, go-go is characterized by a core percussion combination of congas, cowbells, and rototoms. Throughout Hopkinson’s nine chapters in Go-Go Live, she examines practices in what I conceive of as a political economy of musical homage. A political economy of musical homage accounts for the ways in which participants negotiate the web of remembrance, representation, and border crossing in the live music industry, particularly in contested and surveilled black urban settings. Go-go music’s homage is performed through musicians’ definitive custom of doing go-go beat covers of Top 10 pop and hip hop hits. Moreover, [End Page 452] tributes to deceased participants are fashioned through participants’ customized raiment. They wear t-shirts with photographs of loved ones to remember the visage and dates of those killed in go-go networks. Reverence is also given, when lead talkers of the band (similar to a rapper in hip hop) acknowledge attendees in the crowd and those who paved the way. In fact, it is the recorded shout outs to fans that are the most prized commodity for go-go patrons. Hopkinson likened the recordings to oral time capsules. People purchase the recordings to hear their name, as they relive the love shown to them while grooving to the go-go beat. Homage is also demonstrated through Hopkinson’s ethnography of participants representing when they respond to a lead talker’s call to the crowd, such as “Hey! Tell me, where y’all from?” Responding to the call with one’s neighborhood, county, “crew,” school, street, city, church (in the case of gospel go-go), and state signifies multiple levels of migration. Hopkinson accounts for go-go musicians’ and music’s mobility in its “liveness,” when she asserts that...

Mass Media in Nile Politics: The Reporter Coverage of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

The ‘Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam’ project, started in 2011 on Blue Nile (Abay) trans-boundary River with tense political confrontation with Egypt, has received sizeable national and international media coverage in a manner of introducing customers and depicting vital and selected details about the project Nevertheless, it remains understudied, if not neglected, issue in media research. This article examines The Reporter, private owned national circulation newspaper, salient frames pertain to the dam project and how these frames reflect Ethiopian government dominant perspectives on Nile politics. To this end, a longitudinal qualitative content analysis of articles in thereporterethiopia.com dated between 09th March 2013 and 15th March 2014 was conducted. The findings reveal that six dominant frames emerged inductively from the data that rendered certain aspects of the dam construction more salient than others. These are ‘Development’; ‘National Image’; ‘Right’; ‘Victimhood’; ‘Mutual benefit’; and ‘War’ frames. Ecological and environment issues and nearby communities’ livelihood and resettlement concerns caused by the project have been marginalized. Risks of flood and landslide received extremely diminutive media coverage. The article argues that The Reporter newspaper, mostly using official sources, engaged in cautious and selective framing weighting certain aspect of the GERD more salient while excluding others so as to promote a particular interpretation to the project that is consistent with its editorial agenda in corollary with Ethiopian government interest and perspective on Nile politics.

Experience of a National Campaign for Hand Trauma Prevention in France

In France, hand injuries are the number one cause of all accidents referred to our hospital casualty departments. Their human and economic consequences are very serious. Two thirds of these accidents arise during everyday living activities and a third of them happen at work. The specific prevention of hand injuries in each of these domains has not been sufficiently developed. The authors present the national prevention campaign recently set up by the FESUM. The campaign took place in the form of events held in different towns in France. Each event, lasting from a minimum of 2 days to 10 days maximum, included press conferences, prevention workshops specific to hand injuries, theatrical animation for youngsters, conferences for the general public, meetings in industrial or training college environments, photography and video exhibitions, and the publication of pamphlets and posters. These manifestations were carried out in partnership with the association APAVC and the voluntary involvement of surgeons from the FESUM hand centres in each town visited. Over a period of 2 years, 22 large or medium-sized towns were able to hold these campaign events. By this means, thousands of people - adults, schoolchildren or young, professional apprentices - were made aware of hand injuries and how to prevent them. We were able to reinforce the broadcasting of simple prevention messages launched by the campaign, particularly with regard to wearing gloves for all manual activities, with the help of heavy local, regional and national media coverage. This campaign was the first widespread action of its kind, aimed specifically at the prevention of hand injuries. Furthermore, it was a way of strengthening the credibility of the FESUM hand emergency centres with the health authorities and to promote the services available to patients.

“Do They See Nothing Wrong with This?”: Bullying, Bystander Complicity, and the Role of Homophobic Bias in the Tyler Clementi Case

Despite intense national and international media coverage, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the role of the many bystanders in the bullying and suicide of Rutgers University student, Tyler Clementi. This article examines the case as an exemplar for careful review of the discrepancy between academic literature and popular understanding of the role of bystanders in bullying processes, integrating research on bystander effect, bullying, and homophobia. The case reveals a process in which bystanders come to disavow their complicity by either denying the harm done or scapegoating the bully after the fact. Both processes may inhibit future educational efforts and bystander interventions. Implications for clinical social work practice in schools, university settings, and communities are discussed.

Sport is king1: an investigation into local media coverage of women's sport in the UK East Midlands

There has been a recent interest in research into national media coverage of female sport, particularly single events, but ongoing sporting activities by women are rarely reported. This paper attempts to examine this subject at the local level, looking in general at women's sport and in particular at women's football in the East Midlands region of the UK. Quantitative methods were used to survey local newspapers and radio stations, and interviews were carried out with a range of people relevant to the field of study. The topic of sports media is framed here with reference to research into masculinities, and a socialist feminist approach is used to address problems. The data showed that there was a significant and ongoing imbalance in the amount of coverage and even some signs of a decline in women's football reporting in spite of a national resurgence of the sport itself. The authors try to account for this and suggest further areas of future study.

Factors Inducing National Media Coverage for Tourism in Rural versus Urban Areas: The Role of Public Relations

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between media coverage patterns of rural and urban tourist spaces in Israel, the characteristics of these spaces, and the way in which public relations (PR) are conducted to promote rural tourism in those areas. Using geographical distance, population size and type of tourist products for the spatial variables, PR financial budgets and PR practice types for the PR variables, the study examines their relative importance for rural versus urban tourism promotion. Results show that ongoing professional PR is crucial for the success of rural destinations in receiving large and positive national media coverage.

Here today, gone tomorrow: The issue attention cycle and national print media coverage of prescription drug financing in Canada

Canada is the only developed country that has established universal coverage for hospital care and physician services that excludes medically necessary prescription drugs. Lack of public interest in expanding universal coverage to prescription medicines may be one critical factor in explaining this policy puzzle. Historical levels and patterns of attention to financing issues in the media may have implications for public awareness and support for such major health reform. We thus examined the quantity, context, and patterns of coverage of public drug financing in national print media in Canada from 1990 to 2010. We conducted a time series analysis of monthly newspaper article counts to quantify trends in coverage and analyzed article content by applying Down's theory of the “issue-attention cycle” of political attention. We found that baseline coverage of this issue was low throughout the past twenty years with few cycles of increased attention, initiated by focusing events related to general health reform. Issue-attention cycles were driven by coverage of proposed policy solutions simultaneously accompanied by lower levels of coverage of policy problems and barriers to change, before fading rapidly from attention. The observed patterns of media coverage and the intrinsic characteristics of this policy issue suggest that any momentum for reform (or lack thereof) is likely to be driven by elite members of the policy community rather than by way of public engagement. This has implications for the probability of reform and which options may be considered or eventually implemented, as policies developed within elite policy communities may tend to reflect niche interests rather than being reflective of principled policy goals.

Polls and Elections: Still Part of the Conversation: Iowa and New Hampshire's Say within the Invisible Primary

We propose that the extant literature has underestimated the central roles of Iowa and New Hampshire within the invisible primary and, thus, party nominations. Since candidates and the news media focus disproportionately on these states early in the nomination season, impressions of candidate performance within these states have a disproportionate influence on the invisible primary long before their actual outcomes are observed. Using a Bayesian vector autoregression we find that polls within Iowa and New Hampshire have a more consistent influence on candidates' levels of national news media coverage and national polling than vice versa. We also find that campaign contributions are as responsive to early state polls as they are to national forces or campaign activities. Although these findings do not dispute that candidates need a broad basis of national support to win a party's nomination, they explain why candidates continue to campaign early and intensely in these first-in-the-nation contests.

Promoting new practices to increase access to and retention in addiction treatment: An analysis of five communication channels

Addiction treatment programs adopt evidence-based practices slowly, in part because adopting a new practice is a process, not an event. Using different communication channels may have a different effect at different points in the process. This paper reports the effectiveness of five communication channels in getting substance abuse treatment programs to adopt new business practices. In this study, national trade media coverage produced the greatest interest among programs and the greatest number of decisions to adopt. Conference presentations produced fewer decisions to adopt than national media, but were the most effective channel when compared to the number of programs they reached. Peers were the greatest influence in moving clinic staff from the decision to adopt to implementation. These findings give preliminary evidence for using different communication channels at different times during an effort to promote the adoption of best practices.

Over There: Living with the U.S. Military Empire from World War Two to the Present (review)

Reviewed by: Over There: Living with the U.S. Military Empire from World War Two to the Present Sabine Frühstück Over There: Living with the U.S. Military Empire from World War Two to the Present. Edited by Maria Höhn and Seungsook Moon. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2010. 480 pp. $99.95 (cloth); $29.95 (paper). The historiography of the military is a strange field. To some it is the last scholarly enclave of male and masculine fantasies of heroism in need of continuous reiteration. To others it is battle minutiae in disguise. Second only to cookbooks, its popularity is greatest among (overwhelmingly male) Anglo-American readers. Most historians look at military historiography with some measure of disdain and/or ignorance.c In contrast to military history, military sociology/ethnography is a small field populated by a dozen or so (mostly female and feminist) scholars. Such feminist scholarship on military matters deals primarily with the victims of military establishments and wars. While in some ways treading in the footsteps of Cynthia Enloe's pathbreaking scholarshipc on the numerous and varied mechanisms and modes of militarization, Over There quite uniquely engages an in-between heretofore almost entirely alien to scholarly inquiry: the volume focuses on the moments when and places where the U.S. military and foreign local populations encounter one another professionally, politically, romantically, and sexually within and around American military installations abroad. The volume is disturbingly timely for a number of reasons. First, since the Cold War, the bulk of U.S. military power—90 percent of its troops—has been anchored in Germany, South Korea, and Japan, with about 65,000 troops in Japan and Korea and an equal number stationed in Germany in 2005. Second, military bases fall between all the scholarly cracks, as neither American international relations specialists nor area specialists of the countries concerned perceive such extraterritorial military installations to fall within their purview. Third, about twenty years after the more or less formally declared end of the Cold [End Page 478] War, the United States maintains military bases in 150 countries, a fact that is largely marginalized in national media coverage on America's sprawling military reach, which is focused firmly on the troops or their loved ones at home and particularly their heroism and willingness to sacrifice and how the troops represent those qualities that are best about America. The authors find three very different models of power relations between the U.S. military and host societies: West Germany, with the most egalitarian arrangement; South Korea, with the most unequal one; and Japan (and Okinawa), roughly in the middle of the continuum. As the authors convincingly show, the shape of these power relations matter a great deal for U.S. military interactions with civilian societies, be it in terms of gender, race, or regime—that is, whether they take place within the context of a democratic society, as in West Germany, or a society governed by a repressive military dictatorship, as, until recently, in South Korea. The twelve chapters of the book are organized in four parts: "Monitored Liaisons: Local Women and GIs in the Making of Empire," "Civilian Entanglements with the Empire: American and Foreign Women Abroad and at Home," "Talking Back to the Empire: Local Men and Women," and "The Empire under Siege: Racial Crisis, Abuse, and Violence." The two editors, Maria Höhn, a historian of Germany, and Seungsook Moon, a sociologist of Korea, each have written four of the twelve chapters, complemented by chapters written by two historians and one anthropologist of Japan (Michiko Takeuchi, Christopher Nelson, and Chris Ames), one U.S. historian (Donna Alvah), one women and gender studies specialist (Robin Riley), and one anthropologist and former member of U.S. Army Special Forces (Jeff Bennett). Collectively, the authors highlight the "uneven social costs that are imposed on host communities, the unintended consequences of imperial expansions, and the eruptions of disorder and violence" (p.11). The question of the sociopolitical impact of a large foreign military presence, particularly when composed primarily of single young men, constitutes a subcurrent throughout the volume and is directly addressed in some chapters. Several fascinating contributions by...