This study examines how ISIS integrated territorial governance with digital communication strategies to project and symbolically extend state-like authority beyond the territories it physically controlled. Drawing on Meyrowitz’s concept of No Sense of Place, Horton and Wohl’s theory of parasocial interaction, and the complementary perspectives of Agenda-Setting and Cultivation Analysis, the article investigates how ISIS employed visual communication to construct narratives of legitimacy, belonging, authority, and collective identity across networked media environments. using qualitative visual analysis of archived ISIS media materials, the study identifies recurring representations of militaristic power, governance, domestic normalcy, religious legitimacy, and gamified aesthetics to construct a coherent symbolic vision of the caliphate for geographically dispersed audiences. The findings suggest that digital communicaiton enabled authority to transcend territorial boundaries, mediated representations encouragedperceptions of familiarity and identification; recurring narratives foregrounded particular understandings of legitimacy and obligation; and repeated visual patterns contributed to the construction of an internally coherent mediated reality. The article argues that the concept of virtual statehood should not be understood as a substitute for territorial governance but rather as its communicative extension through networked media. Although ISIS’s territorial caliphate collapsed, the communicative logics evident in its propaganda remain relevant for understanding contemporary forms of digitally mediated extremism. The study concludes by emphasizing the importance of examining how evolving communication infrastructures shape the projection of ideological authority across transnational digital environments.
This study examines the determinants of housewives’ participation in household waste management through a community-based circular economy perspective in Cibinong District, Indonesia. Recognising women’s central role in domestic waste practices, the research aims to identify key psychological, economic, and institutional factors shaping participation intention and to develop an empirically grounded empowerment model supported by local governance. This study adopted a convergent mixed-methods design. Quantitative data were collected through a structured survey of 200 household members primarily responsible for household waste management (190 women and 10 men), while qualitative data were obtained through FGDs and analysed thematically. Survey respondents and FGD participants were selected purposively using component-specific inclusion criteria. The survey data were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling–Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) to examine the relationships between environmental consciousness, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, economic motivation, government support, and intention to engage in waste management. The results indicate that environmental consciousness is the most influential direct predictor of intention, whereas perceived behavioural control exerts a stronger effect than attitudes and subjective norms. This suggests that participation is primarily shaped by the perceived feasibility of waste-management practices within everyday household routines. Government support plays a critical enabling role by strengthening the translation of environmental consciousness into intention. Economic motivation contributes indirectly by reinforcing environmental awareness rather than operating as a purely transactional incentive. The qualitative themes corroborated these results by highlighting the importance of accessible facilities, practical guidance, economic opportunities, and sustained government support, while showing that awareness and social encouragement alone did not ensure regular participation. By integrating the Theory of Planned Behaviour with circular economy and institutional perspectives, this study offers a nuanced explanation of community-based waste management participation and provides practical insights for policies aimed at women-centred environmental empowerment.
This study examines South Africa’s 2025 G20 presidency as a case of emerging global leadership from the African continent, focusing on the challenge posed by the resurgence of unilateralism in global governance. As the first African country to chair the G20, South Africa’s presidency provides an opportunity to reassess leadership beyond dominance, emphasizing legitimacy, inclusivity, and delivery. Using a mixed-methods qualitative design, the study applies quantitative content analysis to G20 communiqués, official speeches, policy documents, and media coverage. The study employs four analytical tools: the Excellence Framing Index, the Inclusion Signaling Index, the Governance Delivery Index, and the Narrative Alignment Gap. Together, these indices assess how leadership is framed, how African priorities are projected, how policy outcomes are delivered, and how domestic reforms align with international advocacy. The findings reveal that leadership strategies grounded in dialogue, coalition-building, and incremental policy delivery enhance legitimacy and reputational standing in multilateral institutions. South Africa’s presidency illustrates how African states can reposition themselves as credible contributors to global governance in a multipolar order, bridging Global South priorities with broader multilateral reform agendas.
Virtual idols have rapidly gained worldwide popularity among young people and have become a significant marketing tool for promoting brands and expanding market reach. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this study conducted in-depth interviews to explore motivations, engagement behavior, and consumption patterns underlying Generation Z’s virtual idol fandom. The findings reveal that virtual idol fandom is shaped by both intrinsic and attribute-driven motivations. Within the fandom, engagement with and consumption of virtual idols are driven by overlapping motivational pathways combining emotional involvement, relational control, technology fascination, and community participation. Where community participation is involved, virtual idol fandom extends beyond individual engagement into a socio-technical ecosystem shaped by user agency, platform affordances, and regulatory oversight. At the same time, virtual idol fans seek emotional involvement while pursuing a ‘secure distance’ that preserves psychological boundaries and relational control. This study develops an SDT-informed interpretive framework that reconfigures diverse motivations within contemporary virtual idol fandom. By mapping distinct fan-as-consumer profiles, this study offers practical implications for the scalability of digital persona-led industries and insights for brands seeking to leverage the visibility and influence of virtual idols for targeted promotion among young consumers, enhanced brand value creation, and sustainable expansion in global markets.
This study examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the performance of Morocco’s manufacturing sector over the period 1998–2019. While FDI is widely considered a catalyst for industrial development, its effects remain heterogeneous and highly dependent on sectoral and institutional conditions. Using the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach and Toda–Yamamoto causality analysis, this paper investigates both the short- and long-run relationships between manufacturing FDI and industrial value added. The results reveal a differentiated temporal effect. In the short run, manufacturing FDI exerts mixed effects on industrial performance, with positive immediate impacts followed by negative lagged effects, suggesting adjustment costs and competitive pressures on domestic firms. However, the long-run estimates confirm the existence of a stable and positive cointegration relationship between manufacturing FDI and industrial value added. The findings further indicate that export capacity and institutional quality significantly strengthen the positive contribution of FDI, whereas the technology gap and exchange rate volatility constrain industrial performance. The causality analysis identifies unidirectional causality running from manufacturing FDI to industrial value added, exports and exchange rate dynamics, alongside bidirectional relationships between exports and industrial growth as well as between institutional quality and the exchange rate. Overall, the study highlights that the developmental impact of FDI in Morocco depends not only on the volume of inflows but also on the quality of institutions, absorptive capacity and export-oriented industrial integration. These findings provide important policy implications for enhancing Morocco’s industrial competitiveness and maximising the long-term benefits of manufacturing-oriented FDI.
