ABSTRACT Environmental journalism plays a vital role in public discourse but faces challenges in engaging audiences within a fragmented digital media landscape dominated by Big Tech companies. This study explores how data-driven storytelling, personalized news delivery, and community-centered narratives influence audience engagement and trust in environmental journalism, with a specific focus on the Amazon region. Through a series of focus groups with local audiences (including journalists, researchers, activists, and concerned citizens conducted) in partnership with the Brazilian news outlet InfoAmazonia, we analyze audience expectations and consumption habits. Findings reveal a significant asynchrony between in-depth investigative reporting and audiences’ preferences on concise, visually-driven content like interactive maps and short videos. Data visualizations are shown to enhance credibility, but digital media platforms serve as the primary, yet algorithmically limited, gateway to access news. Moreover, audiences expressed a strong demand for greater representation of local and Indigenous voices, alongside more solutions-focused narratives in news stories. This research contributes to the existing literature and practice by offering insights for news media on how to produce relevant environmental content for audiences, advocating for a hybrid journalistic approach that balances rigorous data analysis with accessible, human-centered storytelling to foster deeper engagement and trust.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine hidden ESG as a practice–visibility configuration in which enterprises implement substantive sustainability activities but remain weakly visible in formal, publicly legible ESG disclosure. Focusing on Ukrainian agriculture under conditions of institutional fragility and conflict, the authors explain why sustainability practice often fails to translate into standardized reporting and why this matters for ESG governance and EU-aligned market access. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on 53 structured qualitative interviews with agricultural enterprises across 15 Ukrainian regions, the authors use an interpretive qualitative design with descriptive quantification. Standardized items map implemented sustainability practices and internal assessment and disclosure/communication channels, while open-ended prompts elicit explanations of under-disclosure. Data were analyzed through inductive thematic coding alongside descriptive statistics to identify action–visibility configurations and interpret their drivers. Findings Many enterprises report meaningful environmental and social practices – for example, soil and input stewardship, efficiency measures and community support – yet restrict related information to fragmented compliance submissions or local audiences rather than formal ESG channels. Under-disclosure is sustained by a translation failure shaped by fragmented reporting infrastructures, limited administrative capacity, low institutional trust and perceived disclosure risk, weak/uncertain benefits of formal reporting and wartime prioritization of operational continuity and solidarity. Research limitations/implications The sample is diverse but not statistically representative. Conceptually, this study shifts attention from disclosure volume to legibility, showing how institutional fragmentation can produce low ESG visibility even when practice is substantive and clarifying the boundary with greenhushing by emphasizing constrained reporting capacity and infrastructure rather than primarily strategic silence. Practical implications For regulators and standard-setters, the findings of this study support modular, low-burden reporting pathways that convert data already produced for tax, environmental and statistical compliance into a small set of sector-relevant ESG indicators, reducing duplication and enabling comparability. For banks, buyers and donors, lightweight evidence templates (focused on a limited number of practice-based indicators) can improve screening and monitoring for sustainability-linked finance and procurement, allowing high-practice enterprises to be recognized without requiring full-scale Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive-style reporting. Social implications Improving ESG legibility can reduce the exclusion of smaller and non-listed agricultural enterprises from sustainability-linked finance, reconstruction programs and policy dialogue and can better align stakeholder decisions with real sustainability performance rather than reporting capacity. This is relevant to rural communities, employees, lenders and policymakers who rely on credible information to allocate resources and design support. Originality/value This paper reframes under-disclosure as a practice–visibility mismatch rooted in institutional conditions, showing how ESG governance can unintentionally reward reporting capacity over sustainability performance. This study provides a context-sensitive explanation of hidden ESG in a transition and conflict-affected economy and offers actionable implications for making substantive practices externally legible.

Over the past decades, Yorùbá movies have become a critical conduit for cultural transmission, reflecting both continuity, transformation and globalisation of Yorùbá identity. Yorùbá films increasingly blend indigenous epistemologies with modern sensibilities, creating hybrid narratives that challenge, educate, restrategise and reimagine societal norms. In spite of the recent spike in the re-emergence of cultural renaissance in Yorùbá films and Nollywood as a whole, there is a dearth of researches on the exploration of cultural hybridity in Yorùbá movies. This study investigates the cultural hybridity in Àdìrẹ, an epic Yorùbá movie with the view to presenting the ideological synergy and contrast that permeate the work. Anchored on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), this study adopts a qualitative and interpretive approaches to investigate the manifestation of cultural hybridity in Àdìrẹ. The study identified that hybridity in dressing, cushiness, philosophical ideology, and language are the forms of cultural fusions in Àdìrẹ, an intentional mechanism the filmmaker uses to gain the local and foreign audience for globalisation of Yorùbá culture and films. In spite of the locality, the filmmaker prioritises the global aesthetics rather than only local ones which in turn give massive recognition to the film and ensure globalisation. The study therefore, recommends that the filmmakers be intentional in the blending of indigenous culture and new culture to breed viable form of hybridity suitable for improved standard of living. The stakeholders and audiences should reciprocate the desires of the filmmakers with accolades when the metrics of culture are exhibited positively.

Abstract International organizations employ public diplomacy like states, yet we know little about how they strategically allocate diplomatic resources. We examine determinants of high-level visits by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to understand how this body balances principled goals with strategic constraints. We theorize that visits serve dual functions: signaling international scrutiny to repressive regimes while cultivating soft power where conditions favor human rights progress. Using original data on OHCHR delegation travel (1998-2019), we show that OHCHR visits target highly repressive states but are significantly more likely in places with a greater peacekeeping presence and democratization episodes, which we argue provide reach and create receptive local audiences, respectively. These findings suggest that OHCHR visits are jointly motivated by need and domestic political opportunities for influence. By demonstrating this international organization’s strategic use of visit diplomacy, we shed light on an understudied mechanism for advancing human rights norms.

This study examines Instagram as a central platform in the marketing strategy of DRW Skincare at Rumah Cantik Cila. In the digital era, social media has evolved beyond communication functions to become an integrated marketing instrument encompassing targeting, branding, advertising, and social media management. Employing a qualitative descriptive case study approach, this research investigates how Instagram’s features and account management practices are utilized to enhance brand awareness, expand market reach, and maintain customer engagement. Data were collected through interviews, observation, and documentation involving the business owner and a social media specialist. The findings indicate that Instagram plays a pivotal role in supporting marketing performance through professional account management and the strategic use of features such as feeds, stories, reels, live streaming, and paid advertising. These tools enable Rumah Cantik Cila to access both local and international audiences while fostering interactive relationships with customers. The study also reveals that Instagram functions as a central hub integrating social media management, diverse promotional features, and wide market reach, which collectively support the implementation of targeting, branding, and advertising strategies in a cohesive framework. Overall, Instagram contributes not only to increased sales but also to sustained brand loyalty through consistent and strategic engagement. This study highlights Instagram’s significance as an effective digital marketing platform for small businesses in the beauty industry, offering practical insights for enterprises seeking to optimize social media–based marketing strategies.

As discussed in this monograph, how diasporic novelists like Salman Rushdie and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie address multiple layers of audience for purposes of self-positioning as cultural mediators and pragmatic strategists of readership is the focus of this study. Rushdie’s novels, Midnight’s Children (1981) and The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) and Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) and Americanah (2013) are analysed using audience design theory as outlined in Bell (1984, 2001) and the micro–meso–macro framework of pragmatic, narrative and circulation levels. The findings reveal the use of code-switching, glossing, discourse markers, metafictional commentary, and paratextual framing, among other discourse strategies, in the simultaneous address to local, diasporic, and global audiences. The analysis also reveals Rushdie’s later fiction as characterised by a shift from high degrees of linguistic hybridity to cosmopolitan idioms. In contrast, Adichie’s turnaround is uncharacteristically Nigerian yet pragmatic and blogishly styled, making it relatively easy to consume. In the context of postcolonial studies, applied linguistics, and world literature pedagogy, this enables new understandings of the global novel as it relates to audience design in a novel strategy for balancing authenticity and readability.

Over the past 15 years, Mogadishu – the capital city of Somalia – has undergone rapid transformation. As the state was rebuilt following its collapse in the 1990s, the city became a site of diaspora return and investment. In this paper we explore the role of telecommunications companies in the development of urban land in relation to these contemporary, contested processes. We focus on Hormuud Telecommunications Company and its affiliated companies involved in financing, construction, technical training, electricity provision and transnational money transfer. We show that telecommunication companies (telecoms), having expanded far beyond traditional ambits, are playing a central role in urban speculation in Mogadishu, aimed at both global and local audiences. As speculators, telecoms are not only involved in generating imaginaries for the future of the city, but take material and laborious steps to produce them. This is most apparent, we argue, in Darul Salaam, the new city being developed for the diaspora and local elites on the periphery of Mogadishu. Overall, we argue that telecoms engage in the performative work of both market-making and world-making, enrolling diaspora capital towards bold urban imaginaries in ways that are distinct from other economic sectors. While we focus on Somalia and its unique context, telecoms across Africa are growing in wealth and scope, necessitating empirical and conceptual engagement with their role in urban processes.

This study examines how Indonesian female audiences construct cultural proximity toward Boys’ Love (BL) media through transnational exposure rather than local cultural affiliation. Although BL has gained significant popularity in Indonesia through Asian productions, locally produced BL content does not automatically achieve cultural closeness among audiences. This research addresses the gap in cultural proximity studies by questioning the assumption that local media inherently resonates more strongly with local audiences. Using a qualitative case study approach, data were collected through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) involving two groups of Indonesian women: fans of Asian BL and non-viewers of BL. Participants were exposed to selected clips of Indonesian BL content and invited to share their interpretations, emotional responses, and evaluations. The data were analyzed thematically with cultural proximity as the primary analytical lens, supported by reception theory. The findings reveal that cultural proximity among BL audiences is shaped more by repeated exposure to transnational BL media, particularly from Thailand and Japan, than by national or cultural similarity. BL fans developed transnational taste standards related to narrative style, emotional tone, and production quality, which influenced their evaluation of Indonesian BL content. In contrast, non-viewers tended to rely on local moral and cultural frameworks when interpreting BL media. This study concludes that cultural proximity in the digital media environment is increasingly transnational and affective, suggesting the need to rethink cultural proximity beyond national boundaries in contemporary audience research.

Cultural heritage sites in several countries in the Arab Region have been weaponised to erase peoples’ histories and to re/construct narratives. Politicians have proposed profit-driven urban regeneration and neoliberal projects that have led to the destruction of peoples’ heritage as in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Destruction, often legitimised to ‘improve’ and ‘modernise’ cities, has led to the mass displacement of people and the loss of architectural identity. In the context of war, the destruction of cultural heritage has been used as a war tactic to perform power and communicate messages of dominance to local, regional and global audiences. This has been the case in countries such as Palestine, Libya, Iraq and Sudan where cultural heritage has become part of punishing communities and erasing their presence. In both ‘peace’ and war, and when the lines between them blur, we need to protect cultural heritage to celebrate the diversity of communities, and build a future that is free, just and inclusive to all. But how do we restore hope at the time of mass destruction?

ABSTRACT This article explores the international journey of the Grand Optical Gallery (1828–1854), operated by Austrian showman Thomas Karl Andorfer, with a particular focus on the unique combination of optical attractions it offered, including cosmoramas, neoramas, dioramas, and a new solar microscope. It investigates the Eurocentric perspective embedded in Andorfer’s exhibitions and the cultural impact of these shows, especially in Brazil, his first overseas destination. Drawing on historical press records, the article traces Andorfer’s itinerary from the early fairs in Italy, where he showcased his Grand Cosmorama, through the Iberian Peninsula and Brazil, culminating on Broadway, where the Grand Optical Gallery was met with acclaim. In Brazil, Eurocentrism became especially pronounced as local audiences began to demand specific iconographic adjustments to the exhibitions. This article argues that, much like panoramas, cosmoramas were entangled with imperialist discourses from their inception, fostering an imperially oriented worldview among spectators. This mindset is starkly illustrated in Brazilian newspapers, where advertisements for cosmorama shows appeared alongside slave sale notices, revealing how such spectacles were embedded in broader colonial economies. By situating cosmoramas within this context, the article analyses how they functioned as cultural commodities that reinforced colonial identities and shaped their viewers’ cultural imagination. Finally, it considers the extent to which the cosmorama, as a global phenomenon, was influenced by and responsive to local cultural contexts.

RuPaul’s Drag Race is viewed by many as responsible for popularizing the art of drag around the world. Remakes have appeared in diverse national settings, including Australia, Denmark, the Philippines, and the UK. Formats have been seen as evidence of growing globalization in the television industry. The concept of “glocalization,” a portmanteau term developed in the 1980s to signify the modification of products and services to suit local audiences, is a more appropriate framework through which to view TV formatting. This article considers the combination of glocalization with queer caricature (drag comic impersonation) via a regular feature of the Drag Race formula: the “Snatch Game” in which drag artists compete by impersonating celebrities. Taking RuPaul’s Drag Race UK as its main case study, it explores how Snatch Game performances evidence differing layers of “glocalization,” in its parody of figures from the local/national to the transnational.

The growing use of artificial intelligence–driven writing tools has reshaped English language production, particularly in informal digital spaces. While tools such as Grammarly are widely used to improve grammatical accuracy, their compatibility with nativized varieties of English, such as Philippine English (PhilE), remains underexplored. This study investigates how Grammarly processes the morphosyntactic features of PhilE tweets and examines the patterns that emerge across the corpus. Using a descriptive, corpus-based mixed-methods design, 160 publicly available tweets from eight Mindanao cities were drawn from the Twitter Corpus of Philippine Englishes (TCOPE) and analyzed through frequency counts and qualitative textual analysis grounded in Error Analysis and World Englishes frameworks. Findings reveal that users’ tweets often feature syntactic reduction, verb-phrase deviations, prepositional and idiomatic variations, and noun-phrase modifications, reflecting systematic, rule-governed patterns in digital discourse. Grammarly most frequently applies preposition and infinitive particle insertion, article insertion and possessive correction, preposition deletion and verb transitivity adjustment, article insertion for countable nouns, and standardization of spelling, orthography, and word segmentation. Many of these flags, however, were false positives, reflecting hyper-standardization rather than genuine errors. Overall, Grammarly frequently overcorrects nativized features of Philippine English, emphasizing Inner-Circle norms. The study underscores the need for users to critically engage with automated feedback and for developers to design tools sensitive to the systematic, rule-governed features of localized English varieties. Filipino users should consider Grammarly’s advice as guidance, not set-in-stone rules, when writing for local or digital audiences. Revision decisions should be guided by context, communicative purpose, and linguistic identity.

This article examines the role of the British Federation of Film Societies (BFFS) in the international circulation of film culture from 1960 to 2000, arguing that the Federation functioned as an infrastructural conduit for cultural diplomacy through which soft power could be generated. Drawing on newly catalogued archival materials from the recently established BFFS Archive in Sheffield, the article analyses seven case studies of film societies affiliated with the BFFS between the 1960s and 1990s, in contexts ranging from postcolonial India and post-Soviet Poland to the pre-millennium Faroe Islands, Switzerland, and London. While Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power has typically been applied to state-led cultural diplomacy, this article extends recent critiques by showing how cultural influence can emerge from the logistical and bureaucratic structures of non-governmental institutions. It proposes a four-part typology—coincidental, strategic, logistical, and negated soft power—to account for the varied ways in which the BFFS created the conditions for influence to be accrued depending on local conditions, institutional design, and audience access. In doing so, the article repositions the BFFS not as a purely domestic cultural body, but as part of a wider transnational infrastructure that linked national film cultures with international publics in often unexpected ways.

ABSTRACT Firms proactively maintain social legitimacy by demonstrating accountability to external audiences, especially those in close geographic proximity. However, existing literature provides limited insights into how local audiences' attention reshapes corporate green innovation activities. Using an internal dataset, we find that local public attention significantly promotes green innovation, suggesting that geographic proximity enhances corporate oversight and accountability. We identify risk perception and reputation enhancement as the primary channels. To establish the causality, we leverage the first‐time inclusion of a firm's ultimate controller in the Hurun Rich List as an exogenous shock. Additionally, we employ the cumulative number of cities included in the “Broadband China” initiative as an instrumental variable, confirming the robustness of our results. Further analysis reveals that firms strategically focus on green innovation projects that deliver quicker and more tangible environmental benefits, allowing local residents to perceive improvements more immediately. Our findings highlight that local communities, as direct beneficiaries of firms' energy‐saving and emission‐reduction efforts, can act as a catalyst for corporate green innovation, thereby offering new policy insights for fostering green innovation.

This study investigates how Indonesian women’s fiction constructs and negotiates discourses on gender, power, and resistance across textual, visual, and digital domains. It seeks to demonstrate how literature functions as discourse, not only as artistic representation, but also as an ideological and multimodal site of feminist resistance. Drawing on Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), this study examines a purposive corpus of novels by Ayu Utami, Intan Paramaditha, Leila Chudori, and Djenar Maesa Ayu. The data sources include primary texts, digital reception (Goodreads reviews, TikTok/BookTok content, online media articles), and visual paratexts (book covers, posters, promotional materials). Analytical procedures combine textual critical discourse analysis (CDA), corpus-assisted keyword analysis, and multimodal analysis of visual and digital materials. The analysis reveals a dual movement in Indonesian women’s fiction: the reproduction of patriarchal ideologies through metaphors of purity, obligation, and morality and the articulation of feminist counter-discourses through bodily agency, fragmented narratives, and intertextual mobility. Digital reception amplifies these dynamics, with global readers celebrating empowerment and local audiences expressing moral contestation. Visual and digital paratexts further encode resistance through fragmented typography, empowering slogans, and participatory hashtags, thereby positioning the novels within global feminist networks. This study expands CDA by integrating literary texts, visual paratexts, and digital reception into a hybrid analytical framework. It contributes to Feminist CDA by demonstrating how resistance is constructed multimodally and digitally and updates paratext theory for the platform era. This research highlights Indonesian women’s fiction as a significant contributor to global feminist discourse, situating Global South literature as an epistemic site of discursive transformation.

This article reconsiders the origins and early dissemination of the seguidillas boleras by examining their possible presence in Vicente Martín y Soler’s Una cosa rara (Vienna, 1786). Although often understood as stereotyped musical markers of “Spanishness” in late eighteenth-century European opera, the seguidillas included in Martín y Soler’s works have not been systematically evaluated in relation to contemporary Spanish practices. A key piece of evidence – a 1790 Diario de Madrid review referring to the seguidillas boleras sung in La cosa rara during its Madrid performances – suggests that local audiences identified in this Viennese finale a fashionable genre that had only recently gained prominence on the city’s stages. Through a historical and analytical reassessment of the earliest documented seguidillas boleras in Madrid’s theatre repertoire, this study explores how this new variant emerged within commercial and aesthetic dynamics of the 1780s, shaped by short theatrical forms, dance innovation, and evolving notions of national identity. By contextualizing Martín y Soler’s final years in Spain and his direct exposure to these practices before departing in 1777, the article investigates whether he could have incorporated early bolera features into Una cosa rara – and whether such features might have circulated in Vienna prior to their consolidation in Madrid. Ultimately, this work offers a preliminary but significant contribution to understanding the transnational construction of Spanish musical identity at the end of the eighteenth century.

ABSTRACT This article explores the paradoxes of Soviet visual propaganda in the Russian rural North, using a 1965 incident in the Vologda region as a starting point. It highlights the tension between centrally issued policies and blueprints of visual propaganda, and the harsh rural realities that clashed with utopian socialist aspirations. The authors draw on regional and central Russian archives to examine how rural ideology workers dealt with this tension, and investigate the ways in which propaganda was shaped by geography, infrastructure, and local audiences. The article concludes that efforts to visually mark remote areas as Soviet often emphasised, rather than erased, the dissonance between ideology and everyday life.

The purpose of this study is to reflect on the meaningful emotional interactions that the author, who is also a Korean min-hwa (Korean traditional art form) artist, shared with a different culture while holding a solo exhibition in Puerto Rico. Furthermore, it explores this experience helped the author broaden his sense of ethical awareness. By blending symbolic motifs found in min-hwa with various elements of Puerto Rican culture, the artworks presented in the exhibition convey a sincere wish to offer blessings and wishes for happiness, prosperity and peace to the people of Puerto Rico. These feelings originate from a genuine and pure place and are not controlled by human will. Throughout the whole process of creating the different artworks mentioned in this study, the author worked with an attitude of gyeong (敬). Always making a deliberate effort to have deep respect, attentiveness and not to be clouded by bias or prejudice. By practicing gyeong, the author was also able to recognize and appreciate the essence of the various cultural elements he encountered. It was with this mindset that he sought to approach Puerto Rican culture in its most authentic form. Remembering to not let his own assumptions distort his own interpretation. In order to achieve this, the author spent about six months learning how Puerto Ricans view their own history and culture, with help from a small community of Puerto Ricans living in Korea. For him, practicing gyeong was really about doing the right thing, showing respect for another culture’s stories and emotions, and staying true to his original goal of offering sincere, wholehearted blessings through his artwork. Throughout the whole process, the sense of pure blessing embedded in the various artworks was able to gae-hwa (開花), or “bloom,” as it came into contact with the emotions of the local audience, blossoming into feelings of comfort and trust. This study seeks to document the author’s meaningful cultural exchange experience and to demonstrate how, through personal reflection, artistic practice can foster an ethical awareness that naturally expresses genuine blessings toward others.

Kazakh opera is an original phenomenon in the history of musical art, which arose as a result of the dynamic interaction of the national musical heritage of Kazakhstan with Russian and Western European opera traditions. Starting from the earliest works such as Kyz Zhibek by E. Brusilovsky, Abai by A. Zhubanov and L. Khamidi and Birzhan-Sara by M. Tulebaev, Kazakh composers sought to integrate folklore elements into the academic opera form. This synthesis included not only direct quoting of folk songs, but also a reinterpretation of the Kazakh intonation system within the framework of opera dramaturgy. The influence of Russian opera, especially with regard to the use of folklore material as a dramatic basis, and the borrowing of Western European forms, including the bel canto vocal technique, played a decisive role in shaping the national style. A distinctive feature of this process is the introduction of symphonic thinking into Kazakh opera. Drawing inspiration from Russian composers who expanded the scale and depth of the opera through symphonic development, Kazakh composers combined this structural approach with national melodic and rhythmic features. This combination has made Kazakh opera more accessible to both local, Russian and international audiences. The expressive potential of this genre has been further expanded due to the psychological depth of the arias, where the music goes beyond simple accompaniment and becomes an independent dramatic element. The bel canto technique, adapted to the phonetic, harmonic and declamatory features of the Kazakh language, contributed to the emergence of a national opera style combining European technical skill with the plasticity and emotional richness of the Kazakh melody. In the context of globalization, Kazakh opera serves as an example of cultural hybridity, where traditions are not eroded, but are revived in dialogue with world artistic practices. Modern productions demonstrate the genre’s continued ability to preserve its cultural identity while simultaneously seeking renewal and international recognition, ensuring its relevance in the cultural arena of the 21st century.

ABSTRACT This article suggests that the phenomenal rise of Taiwan’s top television presenter, Jacky Wu, challenges Western analytical models of celebrity. Wu’s humour and spontaneous style revolutionised the format of Taiwan’s variety shows, while his vulgar and gendered performances, often played out in exchanges with female co-hosts, drew significant public attention. His embrace of tai, or localised culture, resonated strongly with local audiences, further boosting his appeal. His growing fan base in mainland China extended his influence beyond Taiwan and reinforced his prominence in the island’s entertainment industry. Wu’s career shows how celebrity must be theorised with attention to cultural specificity and local tastes, not just through Western paradigms. His story illustrates that celebrity is not a fixed entity but a fluctuating assemblage of affect, labour, media, morality and cultural context. The tensions he embodies – local authenticity and external trends, personal branding and public scandal, ageing and reinvention, and celebrity as performance and as production – decentre Anglo-American analytical models of celebrity and demonstrate the localised and entrepreneurial aspects of celebrity in Asia.