Social media platforms have emerged as an influential and popular tool in the digital era. No longer limited to just personal use, the applications of social media have expanded in recent years into the business realm. Analyzing the Strategic Role of Social Networking in Firm Growth and Productivity examines the role of social media technology in organizational settings to promote business development and growth. Highlighting a range of relevant discussions from the public and private sectors, this book is a pivotal reference source for professionals, researchers, upper-level students, and academicians.

The main gaol of this book is to discuss the place and role of video games in contemporary societies and their impact on individual relationships. It analyses how the development of video games is a sign of and a factor in the democratization of modern societies. Judit Vari explores how video games contribute to the moral and political socialization of children and teenagers. The book is structured into two parts. The first explores the methodological, ethical and epistemological implications of Games Studies, and shows how the development of an independent field of research on video games can be analyzed as a sign of democratization. The second part focuses on youth identity experimentations and how video games can contribute to the democratization of social relations. She discusses play inequalities, but also how video games are reconfiguring family and peer relationships, thereby influencing the movement of democratization of societies.

In Philosophy of Communication Inquiry: An Introduction, multidisciplinary scholar Annette M. Holba seamlessly connects philosophical traditions with the communicative experience and contemporary political, social, and cultural issues. The text reinforces the position that philosophy of communication is not an abstract concept, but rather rooted in real-life experiences. The text features a unique approach that maps the application of key concepts and theory to public moral argument. The book provides readers with a comprehensive survey of the history of the ideas and metaphors that guide philosophy of communication inquiry. The four parts of the text provide students with foundational explorations of the philosophical traditions, approaches, fundamental questions, and emergent metaphors that guide philosophy of communication inquiry. Each chapter and part conclude with a section titled "Connections, Currency, Meaning," which ties the content to its application in public moral argument. This provides students with ample opportunities for meaningful debate and discourse. Emphasizing its relevance in everyday life, Philosophy of Communication Inquiry is ideal for courses in philosophy of communication.

Liberal media bias is an established fact, and Jeff Gannon witnessed it first hand while serving "behind enemy lines" in the White House press corps. Gannon's story of how he was driven out of the White House illustrates the challenges conservative journalists face in a profession that is institutionally and genetically liberal. Part of this book is an account of what members of the Old Media, Democrats and liberal activists will do to keep conservatives out of mainstream journalism. It serves as a warning to all journalists as to what can happen when politicians and activists object to their reporting.

What they said about Jeff Gannon:

U. S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi-"must be stopped" Vice President Al Gore-"pseudo-reporter" Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin-"non-journalist using a false name" House Judiciary Chairman Rep. John Conyers-"sham journalist" Clinton senior advisor Sidney Blumenthal-"a hireling and fraud" Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)-"mouthpiece for the White House" Veteran columnist and reporter Helen Thomas-"a propagandist, a flack for the White House" MSNBC Countdown host Keith Olbermann-"fake reporter" New York Times columnist Frank Rich-"lapdog reporter" PBS host Bill Moyers-"phony journalist"

It was formidable, and it was deadly. The nazi Enigma cipher machine, or rather the code that came from it would also have remained indeterminable had an operator not made a very simple error. In this collection of several dozen papers on the machine and its implications in a variety of disciplines, ranging from history to memoir and even foreign r

A husband echoes back words that his wife said to him hours before as a way of teasing her. A parent always uses a particular word when instructing her child not to talk during naptime. A mother and family friend repeat each other's instructions as they supervise a child at a shopping mall. Our everyday conversations necessarily are made up of "old" elements of language-words, phrases, paralinguistic features, syntactic structures, speech acts, and stories-that have been used before, which we recontextualize and reshape in new and creative ways.
In Making Meanings, Creating Family, Cynthia Gordon integrates theories of intertextuality and framing in order to explore how and why family members repeat one another's words in everyday talk, as well as the interactive effects of those repetitions. Analyzing the discourse of three dual-income American families who recorded their own conversations over the course of one week, Gordon demonstrates how repetition serves as a crucial means of creating the complex, shared meanings that give each family its distinctive identity.
Making Meanings, Creating Family takes an interactional sociolinguistic approach, drawing on theories from linguistics, communication, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Its presentation and analysis of transcribed family encounters will be of interest to scholars and students of communication studies, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and psychology-especially those interested in family discourse. Its engagement with intertextuality as theory and methodology will appeal to researchers in media, literary, and cultural studies.

This is a collection of essays that examine the construction, disgrace, and consequences of political sex scandals from various academic disciplines. From the misbehavior of President Clinton to Governor Mark Sanford's Argentinean tryst, sex scandals have become a prominent feature of American public life. This unique collection of essays explains why politicians elected for their leadership and promises of ethical behavior risk their career, and the socio-political consequences of their actions. It argues that political sex scandals are distinct from other types of sex scandals because the nature of elected office is very different from "civilian" life. The construction, disgrace, and aftermath of political sex scandals are examined from different academic angles, including the politics of place, human communication, political psychology, media, sociology, feminism, and criminology. The essays delve into the role of culture and geography on the political outcome of a scandal, the rhetoric of apologia, the psychology of risk, trends and patterns in media coverage, the impact on different organized interests, legal ramifications, and how different countries view political sex scandal. This accessible work will engage anyone studying American politics, political behavior, political communication as well as sociological issues and the role of the media.

Explores how writers, filmmakers and artists have attempted to reckon with the legacy of a devastating war The Iran-Iraq War was the longest conventional war of the 20th century. The memory of it may have faded in the wake of more recent wars in the region, but the harrowing facts remain: over one million soldiers and civilians dead, millions more permanently displaced and disabled, and an entire generation marked by prosthetic implants and teenage martyrdom. These same facts have been instrumentalized by agendas both foreign and domestic, but also aestheticized, defamiliarized, readdressed and reconciled by artists, writers, and filmmakers across an array of identities: linguistic (Arabic, Persian, Kurdish), religious (Shiite, Sunni, atheist), and political (Iranian, Iraqi, internationalist). Official discourses have unsurprisingly tried to dominate the process of production and distribution of war narratives. In doing so, they have ignored and silenced other voices. Centering on novels, films, memoirs, and poster art that gave aesthetic expression to the Iran-Iraq War, the essays gathered in this volume present multiple perspectives on the war's most complex and underrepresented narratives. These scholars do not naively claim to represent an authenticity lacking in official discourses of the war, but rather, they call into question the notion of authenticity itself. Finding, deciding upon, and creating a language that can convey any sort of truth at all-collective, national, or private-is the major preoccupation of the texts and critiques in this diverse collection.

Propaganda--so crucial to winning the battle of hearts and minds in warfare--witnessed a transformation during World War II, when film was fast becoming the most popular form of entertainment.In Film Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany, Jo Fox compares how each country exploited their national cinema for political purposes. Through an investigation of shorts and feature films, the author looks at how both political propaganda films and escapist cinema were critical in maintaining the morale of both civilians and the military and how this changed throughout the war. While both countries shared certain similarities in their wartime propaganda films - a harking back to a glorious historic past, for example - the thematic differences reveal important distinctions between cultures.This book offers new insight into the shifting pattern of morale during World War II and highlights a key moment in propaganda film history.

As technology continues to advance so does the need for understanding how this will affect us. We, as the users are subject to actions which bring into conflict the needs and characteristics of human actors, the demands of technology, and the wealth of research in End-User Interactions (EUC). Organizational and End-User Interactions: New Explorations provides a comprehensive look at studies that show a significant contribution in EUC by relating organizational and end user computing to organizational and end user performance and productivity, strategic and competitive advantage, and electronic commerce. This book touches on possible future directions of ECU, and why they are viewed as important for the future. The body of knowledge in this topic area continues to grow and with it comes a fertile ground for future exploration in the EUC domain.

Technology has become ubiquitous to everyday life in modern society, and particularly in various social aspects. This has significant impacts on adolescents as they develop and make their way into adulthood. Identity, Sexuality, and Relationships among Emerging Adults in the Digital Age is a pivotal reference source for the latest research on the role of digital media and its impact on identity development, behavioral formations, and the inter-personal relationships of young adults. Featuring extensive coverage across a range of relevant perspectives and topics, such as self-comparison, virtual communities, and online dating, this book is ideally designed for academicians, researchers and professionals seeking current research on the use and impact of online social forums among progressing adults.

Is Israeli society losing touch with the rest of the world -- and with the reality of the on-going conflict with the Palestinians in the course of the Intifada? Israeli scholar Daniel Dor measures the breach between Israel's collective consciousness and international public opinion, and concludes that Israeli society has dangerously withdrawn into a sense of isolation and victimization -- in very large part because of the role played by the Israeli media during the reoccupation. Dor examines the ways in which the major Israeli media not only reported on events (or failed to do so) but played a key part in shaping opinion, setting the agenda and waging the propaganda war that accompanied the military offensives on the ground.

Originally published in Hebrew, this English-language version is revised, updated and recontextualised for non-Hebrew readers who might be less familiar with the minutiae of the Israeli media. Dor's study offers a damning indictment of the varied ways in which journalists and broadcasters abandoned any attempt at impartiality or so-called objectivity in their reportage, preferring instead to comply with an ideological imperative which in effect rules out any prospect of peace, justice or mutual understanding.

Literacy Skills for the Mass Media provides students with tools and information to better understand words, grammar, spelling, and communication. The text helps students connect the dots between strategies and concepts that foster effective communication practices in both writing and speaking. The text is divided into three sections. Section I introduces students to the basics of grammar, including types of words and their proper usage, the parts of a sentence and effective sentence structure, and how to effectively use punctuation. Section II focuses on sentence construction, providing readers with rules, tips, and strategies for creating dynamic sentences. The final section examines words, speaking to why word choice matters, how to use plurals, possessives, and contractions, common mistakes and issues, the importance of correct spelling, and more. An easy-to-use guide to good grammar and successful communication, Literacy Skills for the Mass Media is an ideal textbook for foundational courses in writing, composition, mass media, and journalism. It is also a useful tool for remedial learning and for reference purposes. The book is an excellent resource for college orientation and student success programs as well.

In the summer of 1928, William Alexander Scott began a small four-page weekly with the help of his brother Cornelius. In 1930 his Atlanta World became a semiweekly, and the following year W. A. began to implement his vision for a massive newspaper chain based out of Atlanta: the Southern Newspaper Syndicate, later dubbed the Scott Newspaper Syndicate. In April 1931 the World had become a triweekly, and its reach began drifting beyond the South. With The Grapevine of the Black South, Thomas Aiello offers the first critical history of this influential newspaper syndicate, from its roots in the 1930s through its end in the 1950s. At its heyday, more than 240 papers were associated with the Syndicate, making it one of the biggest organs of the black press during the period leading up to the classic civil rights era (1955-68). In the generation that followed, the Syndicate helped formalize knowledge among the African American population in the South. As the civil rights movement exploded throughout the region, black southerners found a collective identity in that struggle built on the commonality of the news and the subsequent interpretation of that news. Or as Gunnar Myrdal explained, the press was "the chief agency of group control. It [told] the individual how he should think and feel as an American Negro and create[d] a tremendous power of suggestion by implying that all other Negroes think and feel in this manner." It didn't create a complete homogeneity in black southern thinking, but it gave thinkers a similar set of tools from which to draw.

Media in the ubiquitous area is undergoing a tremendous change. Social media and Web 2.0 are applied in ever more diverse practices both in private and public communities and digital games and play are currently undergoing many transformations. Traditional communication and expression modalities are challenged and totally new practices are constructed in the collaborative, interactive media space. Media in the Ubiquitous Era: Ambient, Social and Gaming Media focuses on the definition of ambient and ubiquitous media from a cross-disciplinary viewpoint. This book is unique in the sense that it does not only cover the field of commerce, but also science, research, and citizens. Through a set of contributions to the MindTrek, a non-profit umbrella organization for societies working in the fields of digital media and information society, this book is a must have for anyone interested in the future of this area.

Organizations rely on annual reports to communicate their value and create a sense of corporate community. Assessment of these communications is integral in determining the amount of relevant information disclosed. Global Perspectives on Frameworks for Integrated Reporting: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a critical scholarly resource that examines the characteristics of communications released by organizations, and evaluates the compliance with the model proposed. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics such as corporate citizenship, country-specific indicators, and modeling relations, this book is geared toward academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on the application of integrated reporting models in relevant organizations.

For every person who reads this text on the printed page, many more will read it on a computer screen or mobile device. It's a situation that we increasingly take for granted in our digital era, and while it is indicative of the novelty of twenty-first-century capitalism, it is also the key to understanding its driving force: the relentless impulse to commodify our lives in every aspect. Ursula Huws ties together disparate economic, cultural, and political phenomena of the last few decades to form a provocative narrative about the shape of the global capitalist economy at present. She examines the way that advanced information and communications technology has opened up new fields of capital accumulation: in culture and the arts, in the privatization of public services, and in the commodification of human sociality by way of mobile devices and social networking. These trends are in turn accompanied by the dramatic restructuring of work arrangements, opening the way for new contradictions and new forms of labor solidarity and struggle around the planet. Labor in the Global Digital Economy is a forceful critique of our dizzying contemporary moment, one that goes beyond notions of mere connectedness or free-flowing information to illuminate the entrenched mechanisms of exploitation and control at the core of capitalism.

"Find it hard to extract and utilise valuable knowledge from the ever-increasing data deluge?" If so, this book will help, as it explores pattern recognition technology and its concomitant role in extracting useful information to build technical and business models to gain competitive industrial advantage.
*Based on first-hand experience in the practice of pattern recognition technology and its development and deployment for profitable application in Industry.
Phiroz Bhagat is often referred to as the pioneer of neural net and pattern recognition technology, and is uniquely qualified to write this book. He brings more than two decades of experience in the "real-world" application of cutting-edge technology for competitive advantage in industry.

Two wave fronts are upon us today: we are being bombarded by an enormous amount of data, and we are confronted by continually increasing technical and business advances.

Ideally, the endless stream of data should be one of our major assets. However, this potential asset often tends to overwhelm rather than enrich. Competitive advantage depends on our ability to extract and utilize nuggets of valuable knowledge and insight from this data deluge. The challenges that need to be overcome include the under-utilization of available data due to competing priorities, and the separate and somewhat disparate existing data systems that have difficulty interacting with each other.

Conventional approaches to formulating models are becoming progressively more expensive in time and effort. To impart a competitive edge, engineering science in the 21st century needs to augment traditional modelling processes by auto-classifying and self-organizing data; developing models directly from operating experience, and then optimizing the results to provide effective strategies and operating decisions. This approach has wide applicability; in areas ranging from manufacturing processes, product performance and scientific research, to financial and business fields.

This monograph explores pattern recognition technology, and its concomitant role in extracting useful knowledge to build technical and business models directly from data, and in optimizing the results derived from these models within the context of delivering competitive industrial advantage. It is not intended to serve as a comprehensive reference source on the subject. Rather, it is based on first-hand experience in the practice of this technology: its development and deployment for profitable application in industry.

The technical topics covered in the monograph will focus on the triad of technological areas that constitute the contemporary workhorses of successful industrial application of pattern recognition. These are: systems for self-organising data; data-driven modelling; and genetic algorithms as robust optimizers.
"Find it hard to extract and utilise valuable knowledge from the ever-increasing data deluge?" If so, this book will help, as it explores pattern recognition technology and its concomitant role in extracting useful information to build technical and business models to gain competitive industrial advantage.
Based on first-hand experience in the practice of pattern recognition technology and its development and deployment for profitable application in Industry.
Phiroz Bhagat is often referred to as the pioneer of neural net and pattern recognition technology, and is uniquely qualified to write this book. He brings more than two decades of experience in the "real-world" application of cutting-edge technology for competitive advantage in industry.