What is legal language and where is it found? What does a forensic linguist do? How can linguistic skills help legal professionals? We are constantly surrounded by legal language, but sometimes it is almost impossible to understand. Providing extracts from real-life legal cases, this highly usable and accessible textbook brims with helpful examples and activities that will help you to navigate this area. Language and Law: * introduces useful linguistic concepts and tools * outlines the methods linguists employ to analyse legal language and language in legal situations * includes topics on such as: written legal language; threats, warnings and speech act theory; courtroom interactions and the work linguists do to help solve crimes; physical and 'spoken' signs; and the creativity of legal language

The notion that societies mediate issues through certain kinds of engagement is at the heart of the democratic project and often centres on an imagined public sphere where this takes place. But this imagined foundation of how we live collectively appears to have suffered a dramatic collapse across the world in the digital age, with many democracies apparently unable to solve problems through talk - or even to agree on who speaks, in what ways and where. In this timely and erudite collection, writers from southern Africa combine theoretical analysis with the examination of historical cases and contemporary events to demonstrate that forms of publicness are multiple, mobile and varied.

Drawing primarily on insights and materials from Africa for their capacity to speak to global developments, the authors in this volume propose new concepts and methodologies to analyse how public engagements work in society. The contributions examine charged examples from the Global South, such as the centuries old Timbuktu archive, Nelson Mandela's powerful absent presence in 1960s public life, and the contemporary debates around the 2015/2016 student activism of #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall. These cases show how issues of public discussion circulate in unpredictable ways.

Babel Unbound will be of interest to anyone looking to find alternative ways of thinking about publicness in contemporary society in order to make better sense of the cacophony of conversations in circulation.

Using Non-Textual Sources provides history students with the theoretical background and skills to interpret non-textual sources. It introduces the full range of non-textual sources used by historians and offers practical guidance on how to interpret them and incorporate them into essays and dissertations. There is coverage of the creation, production and distribution of non-textual sources; the acquisition of skills to 'read' these sources analytically; and the meaning, significance and reliability of these forms of evidence. Using Non-Textual Sources includes a section on interdisciplinary non-textual source work, outlining what historians borrow from disciplines such as art history, archaeology, geography and media studies, as well as a discussion of how to locate these resources online and elsewhere in order to use them in essays and dissertations. Case studies, such as William Hogarth's print Gin Lane (1751), the 1939 John Ford Western Stagecoach and the Hereford Mappa Mundi, are employed throughout to illustrate the functions of main source types. Photographs, cartoons, maps, artwork, audio clips, film, places and artifacts are all explored in a text that provides students with a comprehensive, cohesive and practical guide to using non-textual sources.

From the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and the fight for ratification of the Constitution in the pages of America's newspapers through the digital era of 24/7 information technologies and social media campaigns, this book tells the story of the press as a decisive and defining part of America's elections, parties, and political life. The Press In American Politics, 1787-2012 supplies a far-reaching and fast-moving historical narrative of the decisive and defining moments in U.S. politics as told through the history of America's press, beginning from the emergence of the press in American politics during the 1787 Constitutional Convention through to 21st-century campaigning that utilize "big data" and harness the power of social networking. Suitable for general readers with an interest in the history of American elections and political campaigns and students and academic scholars studying the press and American politics, the book tells the story of "the press"-collectively, some of the most familiar institutions in American news, broadcasting, and technology-as a defining part of America's elections, political parties, and political life. Author Patrick Novotny examines topics such as the expansion of the press into the Western territories and states in the early 19th century, the growing independence of the press after the Civil War, the early history of wireless communication, the emergence of radio and television as powerful media, and the daunting challenges newspapers face in the Internet era. Provides a compelling and unique perspective of American politics through the early adoptions of technology by the press, especially in the era of electronic broadcasting and information technology in the 20th century Thoroughly documents the early emergence of the uses of radio, television, and the Internet across history Offers up-to-date accounts of some of the latest campaigning for elective office in the past decade, up to and including the 2012 presidential election

Many resources exist to help new doctoral investigators to understand and engage with the tenets and philosophies that underpin doctoral-level research to allow for a sample of self-as-subject research. Every day, new forms of researcher-participant data collection and analysis protocols and contributions to the respective discipline in the use of these methods are designed by doctoral researchers and other scholars for heuristic inquiry and autoethnography. Autoethnography and Heuristic Inquiry for Doctoral-Level Researchers: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an essential research publication that explores the conventions of autoethnography or heuristic research within the specific context of doctoral-level research. In contrast to similar resources, this book presents various and unique systematic methods and procedures used within current research for data collection, analysis, interpretation and representations of data, and study contributions to illustrate the varied nuances and many choices doctoral-level researchers have when their research design is founded on the principles and tenets of autoethnography or heuristic inquiry. Thus, this book is ideal for doctoral research supervisors, doctoral students, independent researchers, and academicians.

Although there are many books about research and research methods in education and the social sciences, very few focus specifically on critically reading research that has been completed by others. When reading and thinking about published research, it is useful to understand the complexity of what is involved in the process of research and how it is presented. Understanding research: an introduction to reading research aims to introduce key concepts through the use of simple language to promote better understanding, build on South African as well as international examples and case studies, and develop the conceptual knowledge and skills necessary to evaluate research carefully and critically. Understanding research is an indispensable guide for all students in the social sciences and education who want to learn more about reading and understanding research.

Brenda Laurel is best known for her work with Purple Moon, the pioneering game company she cofounded in the 1990s. Purple Moon's games were based on years of research Laurel completed in an effort to understand why computer games seemed to be of so little interest to girls. Using diverse archival sources such as trade journals, newspapers, and recorded interviews, alongside Laurel's completed games and own writings and an original interview with Laurel herself, this volume offers insight into both the early development of the games for girls movement of the 1990s and the lasting impact of Laurel's game design breakthroughs. In her work with Purple Moon, Laurel drew on her background in theatre as well as her expertise in human computer interaction and qualitative research. By relying on this interdisciplinary background, Laurel made significant contributions to our understanding of the design and development of games as a medium for emotional rehearsal and storytelling. Additionally, her dedication to research-informed design has had a longstanding impact as companies and designers increasingly rely on audience research and metrics to shape their practices. The newest in Bloomsbury's Influential Video Game Designers series, Carly Kocurek highlights the contributions of a designer whose work has had a profound impact on the development of both games for girls and empathy games.

Does the internet facilitate social and political change, or even democratization, in the Middle East? Despite existing research on this subject, there is still no consensus on the importance of social media and online platforms, or on how we are to understand their influence. This book provides empirical analysis of the day-to-day use of online platforms by activists in Egypt and Kuwait. The research evaluates the importance of online platforms for effecting change and establishes a specific framework for doing so. Egypt and Kuwait were chosen because, since the mid-2000s, they have been the most prominent Arab countries in terms of online and offline activism. In the context of Kuwait, Jon Nordenson examines the oppositional youth groups who fought for a constitutional, democratic monarchy in the emirate. In Egypt, focus surrounds the groups and organizations working against sexual violence and sexual harassment. Online Activism in the Middle East shows how and why online platforms are used by activists and identifies the crucial features of successful online campaigns. Egypt and Kuwait are revealed to be authoritarian contexts but where the challenges and possibilities faced by activists are quite different. The comparative nature of this research therefore exposes the context-specific usage of online platforms, separating this from the more general features of online activism. Nordenson demonstrates the power of online activism to create an essential 'counterpublic' that can challenge an authoritarian state and enable excluded groups to fight in ways that are far more difficult to suppress than a demonstration.

"So you're the one getting this gift? Lucky you! Someone who knows you has visited the museum. They searched out things they thought you would care about, and they took photos and left messages for you." This is the welcoming message for the Gift app, designed to create a very personal museum visit. Hybrid Museum Experiences use new technologies to augment, expand or alter the physical experience of visiting the museum. They are designed to be experienced in close relation to the physical space and exhibit. In this book we discuss three forms of hybridity in museum experiences: Incorporating the digital and the physical, creating social, yet personal and intimate experiences, and exploring ways to balance visitor participation and museum curation. This book reports on a 3-year cross-disciplinary research project in which artists, design researchers and museum professionals have collaborated to create technology-mediated experiences that merge with the museum environment.

Although definition can vary, to be a Furry, a person identifies with an animal as part of their personality; this can be on a mystical/religious level or a psychological level. In modern Western society having a spirit animal or animal identity can sometimes be framed as social deviance rather than religious or totemic diversity. Jessica Ruth Austin investigates how Furries use the online space to create a 'Furry identity'. She argues that for highly identified Furries, posthumanism is an appropriate framework to use. For less identified Furries, who are more akin to fans, fan studies literature is used to conceptualise their identity construction. This book argues that the Furries are not a homogenous group and with varying levels of identification within the fandom, so shows that negative media representations of the Furry Fandom have wrongly pathologized the Furries as deviants as opposed to fans.

Co-creativity has become a significant cultural and economic phenomenon. Media consumers have become media producers. This book offers a rich description and analysis of the emerging participatory, co-creative relationships within the videogames industry. Banks discusses the challenges of incorporating these co-creative relationships into the development process. Drawing on a decade of research within the industry, the book gives us valuable insight into the continually changing and growing world of video games.

Electronic Iran introduces the concept of the Iranian Internet, a framework that captures interlinked, transnational networks of virtual and offline spaces. Taking her cues from early Internet ethnographies that stress the importance of treating the Internet as both a site and product of cultural production, accounts in media studies that highlight the continuities between old and new media, and a range of works that have made critical interventions in the field of Iranian studies, Niki Akhavan traces key developments and confronts conventional wisdom about digital media in general, and contemporary Iranian culture and politics in particular. Akhavan focuses largely on the years between 1998 and 2012 to reveal a diverse and combative virtual landscape where both geographically and ideologically dispersed individuals and groups deployed Internet technologies to variously construct, defend, and challenge narratives of Iranian national identity, society, and politics. While it tempers celebratory claims that have dominated assessments of the Iranian Internet, Electronic Iran is ultimately optimistic in its outlook. As it exposes and assesses overlooked aspects of the Iranian Internet, the book sketches a more complete map of its dynamic landscape, and suggests that the transformative powers of digital media can only be developed and understood if attention is paid to both the specificities of new technologies as well as the local and transnational contexts in which they appear.

Information communication technologies (ICT) have long been important in supporting doctoral study. Though ICTs have been integrated into educational practices at all levels, there is little understanding of how effective these technologies are in supporting resource development for students and researchers in academic institutions. Enhancing the Role of ICT in Doctoral Research Processes is a collection of innovative research that identifies the ways that doctoral supervisors and students perceive the role of ICTs within the doctoral research process and supports the development of guidelines to enhance ICT skills within these programs. While highlighting topics including professional development, online learning, and ICT management, this book is ideally designed for academicians, researchers, and professionals seeking current research on ICT use for doctoral research.

Analysis of improvisation as a compositional practice in the Commedia dell'Arte and related traditions from the Renaissance to the 21st century. Domenic Pietropaolo takes textual material from the stage traditions of Italy, France, Germany and England, and covers comedic drama, dance, pantomime and dramatic theory, and more. He shines a light onto 'the signs of improvised communication'. The book is comprehensive in its analysis of improvised dramatic art across theatrical genres, and is multimodal in looking at the spoken word, gestural and non-verbal signs. The book focusses on dramatic text as well as: - The semiotics of stage discourse, including semantic, syntactic and pragmatic aspects of sign production - The physical and material conditions of sign-production including biomechanical limitations of masks and costumes. Semiotics and Pragmatics of Stage Improvisation is the product of an entire career spent researching the semiotics of the stage and it is essential reading for semioticians and students of performance arts.

Covering print, photography, film, radio, television, and new media, this textbook instructs readers on how to take a critical approach to media and interpret the information overload that is disseminated via mass communication. This fourth edition of Keys to Interpreting Media Messages supplies a critical and qualitative approach to media literacy analysis. Now updated with conceptual changes, current examples, updated references, and coverage of new developments in media- particularly in digital, interactive forms-this book addresses all forms of information disseminated via mass communication. Organized into three sections, the book first presents a theoretical framework for the critical analysis of media text that covers the definition of media literacy as well as fundamental principles and concepts. Part II focuses on the application of this methodological framework to the analysis of advertising, journalism, American political communications, and interactive media. Part III considers specific mass media issues, such as violence in the media, media and children, and global communications, and discusses outcomes of having a media-literate population. Supplies clear explanation of media literacy theory and guidance on interpreting modern mass media from leading scholars Represents a highly effective tool for achieving a key aspect of media literacy: enabling students to decipher information and independently reach opinions and positions without relying on the pervasive influence of the media Provides critical examination of controversial, current topics such as violence in the media and the intersections of media and social change

From the perspectives of positive psychology and positive communication, superheroes are often depicted as possessing virtues and serving as inspirational exemplars. However, many of the virtues enumerated as characterizing the superhero (e.g., courage, teamwork, creativity) could just as easily be applied to heroes of other genres. To understand what is unique to the superhero genre, How Superheroes Model Community: Philosophically, Communicatively, Relationally looks not only to the virtues that animate them, but also to the underlying moral framework that gives meaning to those virtues. The key to understanding their character is that often they save strangers, and they do so in the public sphere. The superhero's moral framework, therefore, must encompass both the motivation to act to benefit others rather than themselves (especially people to whom they have no relational obligation) and to preserve the public sphere against those who would disrupt it. Given such a framework, Nathan Miczo argues that superheroes are not, and could not, be loners. They constantly form team-ups, super teams, alliances, partnerships, take on mentorship roles, and create sidekicks. Social constructionist approaches in the communication field argue that communication, in part, works to shape and create our social reality. Through this lens, Miczo proposes that superheroes maintain themselves as a community through the communicative practices they engage in.

What is a medium? If Nietzsche was right in claiming that "our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts," that media help us "think," and if different media allow for different ways of thinking, then the "body" of the respective medium in question, its materiality, shapes and influences the range and direction of how media make us think. Shouldn't we consequently speak of informed matter and of materialized information? Launching Bloomsbury's Thinking Media series, Media Matter introduces readers to the nascent field of media-philosophy. Contributors urge readers to re-adjust their ideas of Media Studies, by both extending the understanding of "medium" in such a way as to include a concept of materiality that also includes "non-human" transmitters (elements such as water, earth, fire, air) and by understanding media not only in the context of cultural or discursive systems or apparatuses, relays, transistors, hardware or "discourse networks," but more inclusively, in terms of a "media ecology." Beginning with more general essays on media and then focusing on particular themes (neuroplasticity, photography, sculpture and music), especially in relation to film, Herzogenrath and contributors redefine the concept of "medium" in order to think through media, rather than about them.

The spread of the Internet is remaking marriage markets, altering the process of courtship and the geographic trajectory of intimacy in the 21st century. For some Latin American women and U.S. men, the advent of the cybermarriage industry offers new opportunities for re-making themselves and their futures, overthrowing the common narrative of trafficking and exploitation. In this engaging, stimulating virtual ethnography, Felicity Amaya Schaeffer follows couples' romantic interludes at "Vacation Romance Tours," in chat rooms, and interviews married couples in the United States in order to understand the commercialization of intimacy. While attending to the interplay between the everyday and the virtual, Love and Empire contextualizes personal desires within the changing global economic and political shifts across the Americas. By examining current immigration policies and the use of Mexican and Colombian women as erotic icons of the nation in the global marketplace, she forges new relations between intimate imaginaries and state policy in the making of new markets, finding that women's erotic self-fashioning is the form through which women become ideal citizens, of both their home countries and in the United States. Through these little-explored, highly mediated romantic exchanges, Love and Empire unveils a fresh perspective on the continually evolving relationship between the U.S. and Latin America.