The aim of this paper is to present the Frankfurt School's critique of mass culture. The authors particularly seek to demonstrate that critical theory provides a specific interpretation of Marxist philosophy, reinterprets some of its central economic and political notions such as production, distribution, fetishization, consumption and also attempts to illuminate the place and the role of culture industry within global culture. As a conclusion it is argued that the Frankfurt School's approach, while it is still useful to social science programs, tends to be overlooked by social theorists.
The article links the prospect of theoretical research on the culture of the unemployed with the achievements of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, including the theory of fields (le champ), which is one of the key categories of his theory. A reflexive analysis of P. Bourdieu's theoretical concepts is helpful to explain the reasons for marginalization and exclusion on the example of long-term unemployment. Theoretical analysis showed that the reasons for marginalization lie not only in the entities subject to marginalization, but also are conditioned by general social changes, the social structure of a given country. Bourdieu's analyses are a good basis for programming public policy, the aim of which is to limit the social and economic effects of permanent unemployment.
Strategies are usually long-term plans. However, many problems appear if they are considered essential issues of social life and economic security, especially considering the need to make choices concerning conditions of limited resources. Another issue is the dilemma of achieving individual goals in the conditions of global interdependencies. One of the key requirements of nation-states is to ensure energy security; therefore, governments are strongly focused on establishing a stable, enduring, and useful energy strategy. Therefore, the point of importance is factors that will be able to ensure energy efficiency, economic stability, security, and in parallel, sustainable developmentboth on the national and global levels. Drawing from the above, this study investigates the reasons for the indispensability to carry out an energy market systemic reform in Poland with consideration of economic argumentation. The theories of economic growth, especially of endogenous kind, is taken into consideration. It is also argued that to achieve sustainable economic growth and social development in the long run, it would be reasonable to simultaneously concentrate on human capital and technologies. More advantages will be gained through intergovernmental cooperation, within regional groups such as the Visegrad Group and at the supranational EU level. This conviction is motivated by the principles of public choice theory.
The purpose of this article is to analyze the "madman theory", a name coined by U.S. President Richard Nixon, in the rhetoric of russian war, especially after the events of 24th February 2022. According to the given theory, the leader cultivates the image of madness in order to lend credibility to his threats to use nuclear weapons and make his enemies think twice before they adopt any decision. With the russian invasion of Ukraine, the theory of the madman has been rediscovered and is again being used to explain the increasingly unpredictable behavior of russian President Vladimir Putin, who on February 27, 2022, ordered his defense minister and chief of general staff to initiate special combat tasks by nuclear deterrence units. This behavior by Putin is reminiscent of what has been described as the madman theory of foreign policy – giving the sense that someone is capable of anything if they cannot bring the war to an end the way they want.
An introduction to cultural representations of disabled people's sexuality
In the following article, I outline some of the issues and problems that one may encounter while attempting to analyse the pop/cultural representations of disabled people's sexuality. Towards this end, I employ a variety of methodological and theoretical tools, such as e.g. cultural model of disability/cultural analysis, critical theory, elements of ethnographical research and crip theory. Keywords: sexuality, disability, culture, representations, film, cultural artefacts
The synergies between rapid information technology (IT) development and the shifting paradigms of economic transactions have led to the emergence of digital entrepreneurship. This study aims to investigate potential precursors affecting the intention of final-year business students to engage in digital entrepreneurship. This research was examining the IT acceptance among the business students by employing two tailored technology acceptance models based on the theory of planned behavior and theory of reasoned action models. A sample of 302 respondents were analyzed using SPSS and Smart-PLS. The results revealed that fresh graduates' intentions to engage in digital entrepreneurship were significantly influenced by their own attitudes towards IT. The study also reaffirmed that the dimensions of I. Ajzen's theory of planned behavior model, including attitude towards IT, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, subjective norms except perceived risk have a "direct effect" on undergraduates' interest in an Internet-based business model. Although the results have contributed to filling the paucity of the empirical research in digital entrepreneurship, particularly in the Asian region, the availability of information technology, government resources and support to affect digital usage and behavior are not to be underestimated.
The article presents methodological theories, application of which, when adopting the political and legal research perspective, makes it possible to analyse the impact of comitology on the shape of law adopted in the European Union. The author assumes that in consideration of equally complex decision-making centers as comitology committees, whose structural element is their location between two levels – the Community and the national level, it is impossible to limit to only one research method. The purpose of the article is an attempt to demonstrate that the most reasonable approach to comitology research is to use institutional and legal analysis, which is based on theoretical assumptions combining political and legal sciences and to supplement it to explain phenomena occurring within the comitology committees by applying the assumptions of the theory PAT (Principal–Agent Theory), the Scharpf's theory of legitimacy of power, Wessels's fusion theory and analysis of empirical data. This approach is designed to enable the examination of normative acts, in which legal basis of functioning of the comitology institutions (i.e. the EU founding treaties, comitology regulations and judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union), as well as to highlight a number of issues relevant to the practical aspect of the functioning of comitology committees.
