The Media Convergence Handbook sheds new light on the complexity of media convergence and the related business challenges. Approaching the topic from a managerial, technological as well as end-consumer perspective, it acts as a reference book and educational resource in the field. Media convergence at business level may imply transforming business models and using multiplatform content production and distribution tools. However, it is shown that the implementation of convergence strategies can only succeed when expectations and aspirations of every actor involved are taken into account. Media consumers, content producers and managers face different challenges in the process of media convergence. Volume II of the Media Convergence Handbook tackles these challenges by discussing media business models, production, and users' experience and perspectives from a technological convergence viewpoint.

Deal with information and uncertainty properly and efficiently using tools emerging from generalized information theory
Uncertainty and Information: Foundations of Generalized Information Theory contains comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of results that have emerged from a research program begun by the author in the early 1990s under the name "generalized information theory" (GIT). This ongoing research program aims to develop a formal mathematical treatment of the interrelated concepts of uncertainty and information in all their varieties. In GIT, as in classical information theory, uncertainty (predictive, retrodictive, diagnostic, prescriptive, and the like) is viewed as a manifestation of information deficiency, while information is viewed as anything capable of reducing the uncertainty. A broad conceptual framework for GIT is obtained by expanding the formalized language of classical set theory to include more expressive formalized languages based on fuzzy sets of various types, and by expanding classical theory of additive measures to include more expressive non-additive measures of various types.
This landmark book examines each of several theories for dealing with particular types of uncertainty at the following four levels:
* Mathematical formalization of the conceived type of uncertainty
* Calculus for manipulating this particular type of uncertainty
* Justifiable ways of measuring the amount of uncertainty in any situation formalizable in the theory
* Methodological aspects of the theory
With extensive use of examples and illustrations to clarify complex material and demonstrate practical applications, generous historical and bibliographical notes, end-of-chapter exercises to test readers' newfound knowledge, glossaries, and an Instructor's Manual, this is an excellent graduate-level textbook, as well as an outstanding reference for researchers and practitioners who deal with the various problems involving uncertainty and information.An Instructor's Manual presenting detailed solutions to all the problems in the book is available from the Wiley editorial department.

This book provides a synthesis of recent developments in Axiomatic Design theory and its application in large complex systems. Introductory chapters provide concise tutorial materials for graduate students and new practitioners, presenting the fundamentals of Axiomatic Design and relating its key concepts to those of model-based systems engineering. A mathematical exposition of design axioms is also provided. The main body of the book, which represents a concentrated treatment of several applications, is divided into three parts covering work on: complex products; buildings; and manufacturing systems. The book shows how design work in these areas can benefit from the scientific and systematic underpinning provided by Axiomatic Design, and in so doing effectively combines the state of the art in design research with practice. All contributions were written by an international group of leading proponents of Axiomatic Design. The book concludes with a call to action motivating further research into the engineering design of large complex systems.

The United States Supreme Court famously labeled copyright "the engine of free expression" because it provides a vital economic incentive for much of the literature, commentary, music, art, and film that makes up our public discourse. Yet today's copyright law also does the opposite--it is often used to quash news reporting, political commentary, church dissent, historical scholarship, cultural critique, and artistic expression.
In Copyright's Paradox, Neil Weinstock Netanel explores the tensions between copyright law and free speech, revealing how copyright can impose unacceptable burdens on expression. Netanel provides concrete illustrations of how copyright often prevents speakers from effectively conveying their message, tracing this conflict across both traditional and digital media and considering current controversies such as the remix and copying culture rampant on YouTube and MySpace, hip-hop music and digital sampling, and the Google Book Search litigation. The author juxtaposes the dramatic expansion of copyright holders' proprietary control against the individual's newly found ability to digitally cut, paste, edit, remix, and distribute sound recordings, movies, TV programs, graphics, and texts the world over. He tests whether, in light of these developments and others, copyright still serves as a vital engine of free expression and he assesses how copyright does--and does not--burden speech. Taking First Amendment values as his lodestar, Netanel argues that copyright should be limited to how it can best promote robust debate and expressive diversity, and he presents a blueprint for how that can be accomplished.
Copyright and free speech will always stand in sometension. But there are ways in which copyright can continue to serve as an engine of free expression while leaving ample room for speakers to build on copyrighted works to convey their message, express their personal commitments, and create new art. This book shows us how.

This volume collects contributions written by different experts in honor of Prof. Jaime Munoz Masque. It covers a wide variety of research topics, from differential geometry to algebra, but particularly focuses on the geometric formulation of variational calculus; geometric mechanics and field theories; symmetries and conservation laws of differential equations, and pseudo-Riemannian geometry of homogeneous spaces. It also discusses algebraic applications to cryptography and number theory. It offers state-of-the-art contributions in the context of current research trends. The final result is a challenging panoramic view of connecting problems that initially appear distant.

Market Mediations offers a fresh way to look at consumption practices, design and branding issues through analysis based on the French and European intellectual tradition. To account for this vast system of objects and brands, the book draws on the generative trajectory of meaning stemming from the structural semiotics of Greimas obedience.

This book provides a state-of-the-art overview on the dynamics and coevolution in multi-level strategic interaction games. As such it summarizes the results of the European CONGAS project, which developed new mathematical models and tools for the analysis, prediction and control of dynamical processes in systems possessing a rich multi-level structure and a web of interwoven interactions among elements with autonomous decision-making capabilities. The framework is built around game theoretical concepts, in particular evolutionary and multi-resolution games, and includes also techniques drawn from graph theory, statistical mechanics, control and optimization theory. Specific attention is devoted to systems that are prone to intermittency and catastrophic events due to the effect of collective dynamics.

This book maps emergent global practices and discourses of mediated, spiritualized social change. Bringing together scholarly perspectives from around the world and across disciplines, the authors explore how 'spiritualities' express themselves through and with media - from television to Internet, from fashion to art murals - as socially transforming voices and practices. The very fluidity of the meaning of spirituality is part of its appeal: it can service as easily as a reference to a perceived common essence of humanness as it can work to legitimate market-based practices. While the involvement of spiritual life with social transformation is certainly not peculiar to contemporary societies, what has changed is the upsurge of media in these matters. In the specific case of religion, globalization has unleashed a cascade of unexpected and unpredictable implications, many of which are consequences of the media. The authors here show ways in which media and spiritualities are engaged around the world in efforts to restructure paradigms, institutions, beliefs and practices to affect social change. >

The study of network theory is a highly interdisciplinary field, which has emerged as a major topic of interest in various disciplines ranging from physics and mathematics, to biology and sociology. This book promotes the diverse nature of the study of complex networks by balancing the needs of students from very different backgrounds. It references the most commonly used concepts in network theory, provides examples of their applications in solving practical problems, and clear indications on how to analyse their results. In the first part of the book, students and researchers will discover the quantitative and analytical tools necessary to work with complex networks, including the most basic concepts in network and graph theory, linear and matrix algebra, as well as the physical concepts most frequently used for studying networks. They will also find instruction on some key skills such as how to proof analytic results and how to manipulate empirical network data. The bulk of the text is focused on instructing readers on the most useful tools for modern practitioners of network theory. These include degree distributions, random networks, network fragments, centrality measures, clusters and communities, communicability, and local and global properties of networks. The combination of theory, example and method that are presented in this text, should ready the student to conduct their own analysis of networks with confidence and allow teachers to select appropriate examples and problems to teach this subject in the classroom.

This text develops an approach to international political economy that focuses on culture. It examines Chilean communication scholarship as it developed under shifting political regimes and changing international political economic relations. The book explains the importance of agency and culture in the political processes of building and challenging transnational hegemony, emphasizing the role of intellectuals.

As society becomes more culturally diverse and globally connected, churches and seminaries are rapidly changing. And as the church changes, preaching must change too. Crossover Preaching proposes a way forward through conversation with the "dean of the nation's black preachers," Gardner C. Taylor, senior pastor emeritus of Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. In this richly interdisciplinary study, Jared E. Alcantara argues that an analysis of Taylor's preaching reveals an improvisational-intercultural approach that recovers his contemporary significance and equips US churches and seminary classrooms for the future. Alcantara argues that preachers and homileticians need to develop intercultural and improvisational proficiencies to reach an increasingly intercultural church. Crossover Preaching equips them with concrete practices designed to help them cultivate these competencies and thus communicate effectively in a changing world.

This monograph bridges the gap between the nonlinear predictor as a concept and as a practical tool, presenting a complete theory of the application of predictor feedback to time-invariant, uncertain systems with constant input delays and/or measurement delays. It supplies several methods for generating the necessary real-time solutions to the systems' nonlinear differential equations, which the authors refer to as approximate predictors. Predictor feedback for linear time-invariant (LTI) systems is presented in Part I to provide a solid foundation on the necessary concepts, as LTI systems pose fewer technical difficulties than nonlinear systems. Part II extends all of the concepts to nonlinear time-invariant systems. Finally, Part III explores extensions of predictor feedback to systems described by integral delay equations and to discrete-time systems. The book's core is the design of control and observer algorithms with which global stabilization, guaranteed in the previous literature with idealized (but non-implementable) predictors, is preserved with approximate predictors developed in the book. An applications-driven engineer will find a large number of explicit formulae, which are given throughout the book to assist in the application of the theory to a variety of control problems. A mathematician will find sophisticated new proof techniques, which are developed for the purpose of providing global stability guarantees for the nonlinear infinite-dimensional delay system under feedback laws employing practically implementable approximate predictors. Researchers working on global stabilization problems for time-delay systems will find this monograph to be a helpful summary of the state of the art, while graduate students in the broad field of systems and control will advance their skills in nonlinear control design and the analysis of nonlinear delay systems.

During the Gulf war, news of the conflict was virtually harnessed by the American-led alliance. Yet, when U.S. soldiers moved on Somalia without resistance, their landing was lent a surreal quality by hordes of journalists filming their every maneuver. In this age of instant communication, wars are often defined by their coverage, as with Vietnam; yet the symbiosis between warriors and journalists has a long history.

War and the Media provides a sweeping overview of how the media has covered international conflicts in this century. Devoting each of the book's twelve chapters to a particular conflict, from the world wars to Vietnam, the Falklands, the Gulf War, and the Balkans, Miles Hudson and John Stanier here trace the evolution of the often contentious and always dramatic role of the media in twentieth-century military campaigns.

Among the abundance of material available about death and dying, there is a very limited amount that deals directly with the needs of a school community when one of its members dies. In addition, a great need exists for schools to develop an organized plan for responding to the death of a student or staff member. A Student Dies, ASchool Mourns aims to fill this gap. The book not only examines and explains the grief reactions of students and school staff members and the factors that affect these reactions, it also provides a systematic guide for developing a death-related crisis response plan. This timely book is designed to be a systematic guide that incorporates a thorough analysis of grief in school, including normal and abnormal grief reactions, factors affecting these grief responses, and the differences in death beliefs and responses of students at different ages and developmental stages. It also acts as a map or step-by-step guide for establishing a death-related response plan. The liberal use of flow charts, time tables, and action plans, turns the often daunting task of creating a response plan into a relatively painless activity, stating what must be done, who should do it, and when. Extensive coverage is given to two issues in particular: youth suicide and violence/murder in the school. A Student Dies, ASchool Mourns will be a vital resource for school counselors, social workers, rehab psychologists, school administrators, teachers, clergy and anyone with an interest in death as it pertains to the school community. It will also be of use as a textbook for courses in death and dying, educational psychology, education, and educational administration.

From the arrival of the penny papers in the 1830s to the coming of radio news around 1930, the American newspaper celebrated its Golden Age and years of greatest influence on society. Born in response to a thirst for news in large eastern cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the mood of the modern metropolitan papers eventually spread throughout the nation. Douglas tells the story of the great innovators of the American press--men like Bennett, Greeley, Bryant, Dana, Pulitzer, Hearst, and Scripps. He details the development of the bond between newspapers and the citizens of a democratic republic and how the newspapers molded themselves into a distinctly American character to become an intimate part of daily life.

Technological developments in papermaking, typesetting, and printing, as well as the growth of advertising, gradually made possible huge metropolitan dailies with circulations in the hundreds of thousands. Soon journalism became a way of life for a host of publishers, editors, and reporters, including the early presence of a significant number of women. Eventually, feature sections arose, including comics, sports, puzzles, cartoons, advice columns, and sections for women and children. The hometown daily gave way to larger and impersonal newspaper chains in the early twentieth century. This comprehensive and lively account tells the story of how newspapers have influenced public opinion and how public demand has in turn affected the presentation of the news.

This book examines a writing activity that has recently fallen into disrepute. Outlining has a bad reputation among students, even though many teachers and textbooks still recommend the process. In part, the author argues, the medium is to blame. Paper and ink make the revision difficult. But if one uses an electronic outliner, the activity can be very helpful in developing a thoughtful and effective document, particularly one that spans many pages and deals with a complicated subject. Outlining Goes Electronic takes an historical approach, examining the way people developed the idea of outlining, from the classical period to the present. We see that the medium in which people worked strongly shaped their assumptions, ideas, and use of outlines. In developing a theoretical model of outlining as an activity, the author argues that a relatively new electronic tool-software that accelerates and performs the process of outlining-can give us a new perspective from which to engage previous classroom models of writing, recent writing theory, and current practice in the technical writing field.

Gring-Pemble asserts that the role of language in shaping policy options is rarely studied and poorly understood. She seeks to analyze congressional hearings and debates on welfare to understand the role of language in framing welfare policy and contemporary welfare discussions. She reviews welfare history in the United States and provides a rhetorical analysis of welfare deliberations. In the process she illustrates the significance of language and ideology in shaping American social policy outcomes.

This unique book systematically examines the interplay among foreign policymakers, the press, and public opinion in the process of China policy decision making from 1950 to 1984. Readers will benefit from the findings that, through 35 years of Sino-American relations, the press helps perpetuate the illusion that has existed in the public mind since 1950. The comprehensive analysis allows readers to understand hoe the press shapes and is shaped by foreign policy decisions.

This book develops original results regarding singular dynamic systems following two different paths. The first consists of generalizing results from classical state-space cases to linear descriptor systems, such as dilated linear matrix inequality (LMI) characterizations for descriptor systems and performance control under regulation constraints. The second is a new path, which considers descriptor systems as a powerful tool for conceiving new control laws, understanding and deciphering some controller's architecture and even homogenizing different-existing-ways of obtaining some new and/or known results for state-space systems. The book also highlights the comprehensive control problem for descriptor systems as an example of using the descriptor framework in order to transform a non-standard control problem into a classic stabilization control problem. In another section, an accurate solution is derived for the sensitivity constrained linear optimal control also using the descriptor framework. The book is intended for graduate and postgraduate students, as well as researchers in the field of systems and control theory.

This highly original, thought-provoking book - written by a pioneer of communication studies - is the first to analyze the post 9/11 world in terms of global media and popular culture.
Written in an engaging and candid manner by a leading expert in this field
Argues that cross-cultural understanding can only be achieved by harnessing the power of global media, popular culture, information technology, and personal communications technologies
Examines the global trend of using film, video, music, and TV "on-demand" as the framework through which we experience all cultural activity
Draws inspiration from the work of a range of theorists, from Charles Darwin to Anthony Giddens
Candidly interrogates the very latest developments in world affairs, especially the roles of fundamentalist religious ideology, media globalization, and individualism, whose complex relationships have yet to be explained by social scientists

In the 1860s and 1870s, the United States government forced most western Native Americans to settle on reservations. These ever-shrinking pieces of land were meant to relocate, contain, and separate these Native peoples, isolating them from one another and from the white populations coursing through the plains. We Do Not Want the Gates Closed Between Us tells the story of how Native Americans resisted this effort by building vast intertribal networks of communication, threaded together by letter writing and off-reservation visiting. Faced with the consequences of U.S. colonialism - the constraints, population loss, and destitution - Native Americans, far from passively accepting their fate, mobilized to control their own sources of information, spread and reinforce ideas, and collectively discuss and mount resistance against onerous government policies. Justin Gage traces these efforts, drawing on extensive new evidence, including more than one hundred letters written by nineteenth-century Native Americans. His work shows how Lakotas, Cheyennes, Utes, Shoshones, Kiowas, and dozens of other western tribal nations shrewdly used the U.S. government's repressive education system and mechanisms of American settler colonialism, notably the railroads and the Postal Service, to achieve their own ends. Thus Natives used literacy, a primary tool of assimilation for U.S. policymakers, to decolonize their lives much earlier than historians have noted. Whereas previous histories have assumed that the Ghost Dance itself was responsible for the creation of brand-new networks among western tribes, this book suggests that the intertribal networks formed in the 1870s and 1880s actually facilitated the rapid dissemination of the Ghost Dance in 1889 and 1890. Documenting the evolution and operation of intertribal networking, Gage demonstrates its effectiveness - and recognizes for the first time how, through Native activism, long-distance, intercultural communication persisted in the colonized American West.

The papers collected in this volume focus on new perspectives on individuals, society, and science, specifically in the field of socio-economic systems. The book is the result of a scientific collaboration among experts from "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi (Romania), "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy), "University of Defence" of Brno (Czech Republic), and "Pablo de Olavide" University of Sevilla (Spain). The heterogeneity of the contributions presented in this volume reflects the variety and complexity of social phenomena. The book is divided in four Sections as follows. The first Section deals with recent trends in social decisions. Specifically, it aims to understand which are the driving forces of social decisions. The second Section focuses on the social and public sphere. Indeed, it is oriented on recent developments in social systems and control. Trends in quantitative theories and models are described in Section 3, where many new formal, mathematical-statistical tools for modelling complex social phenomena are presented. Finally, Section 4 shows integrative theories and models; particularly, it deals with the ethical, cultural and political approaches to social science, the pedagogical methods, and the relationship between literature, politics, religion and society. The book is addressed to sociologists, philosophers, mathematicians, statisticians, people interested in ethics, and specialists in the fields of communication, social, and political sciences.