With the developments and intersection of science and engineering, cognitive informatics has emerged as a new and intriguing field of study which investigates the natural intelligence and internal information processing mechanisms of the brain as well as the methods involved in perception and cognition. Cognitive Informatics for Revealing Human Cognition: Knowledge Manipulations in Natural Intelligence presents a comprehensive collection of research that builds a link between natural and life sciences with informatics and computer science. This book is practical for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students interested in investigating cognitive mechanisms and the human information processes.

When the controversial book, "Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications," was published in 1955, it made waves across the fields of communications, public opinion research, political science, and marketing. Written by Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld, "Personal Influence" became the canonical statement of the two-step flow of communication, which posits that mass media flow to opinion leaders, who in turn influence the behavior and opinions of people around them.

Throughout the last half of a century, "Personal Influence" has undergone rigorous critique, appeared in numerous citations, and become a key text in the history of mass communications. Why is a rereading of this text relevant now?

Upon the 50th anniversary of the publishing of "Personal Influence," the editors of this volume of "The ANNALS "believed it was an ideal time to reflect upon the book s mid-century contexts and contemporary drawing upon enrichments of the field provided by feminism, critical and cultural studies, the new historicism, and progress in the social sciences. This unique volume of "The ANNALS" crosses generational, disciplinary, and national boundaries to piece together and pull apart a historically important text and use it to shed light on the contemporary environment.

Essays in this volume analyze the personalities who played key roles in the making of "Personal Influence," their origins and social identities, the institutional organization of research in which it evolved, and the disciplinary consequences of its success. Other authors reread Katz and Lazarfeld s classic as a way to explore the relations between citizenship and consumption, the nature of media and political involvement today, and the relevance of the two-step flow paradigm for the study of contemporary audiences, social networks, and public campaigns.

A must-read for scholars, students, and professionals in the fields of communication, public opinion, political science, sociology, and marketing, this volume of "The ANNALS" dusts off a time-worn text and renews its significance in the field of mass communications with modern scholarly perspectives and contemporary methodology experience, inspiring a fresh outlook on this historical force. "

Exploring Screen Culture via Apple's Mobile Devices: Life through the Looking Glass explores the role of mobile technologies in everyday life via the extended case study of Apple's mobile operating system (iOS) for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. Via a detailed application (including numerous extended examples) of the experiences associated with Apple's iOS devices, Charles Soukup examines contemporary screen culture and how individuals navigate it via mobile technologies. Mobile devices provide a lifeline that sifts through, limits, and simplifies the complexities of rapid, vast, circulating information in postmodern culture. Particularly, simple, game-like applications with clear rules and numerical outcomes exceptionally focus, frame, and filter an overwhelming media-saturated culture. Rather than merely outlining the problems associated with a world dominated by digital screens, Exploring Screen Culture via Apple's Mobile Devices offers a means for understanding screen culture as well as viable solutions to the challenges facing contemporary social life.

This volume offers an expansive approach to interactions between Romans and those beyond the borders of Rome. The range of papers included here is wide, both in terms of subject matter and with respect to approach. That said, a number of important themes bind the essays. Who is an insider, and who the outsider? How were these categories of person, or identity, fashioned and/or recognized in antiquity? How shall we recognize them now? What are the categories, or standards, for measuring or determining inside and outside in the Roman world? And then, of course, what are the repercussions when inside and outside come into contact? What happens when the outside is in, or the inside out?

Organizations are rapidly shifting the way that individuals conceptualize, participate, and engage in work. A significant change is how organizations are coordinating, arranging, and organizing the activities of their employees for the accomplishments of organizational goals. Communication, Relationships and Practices in Virtual Work characterizes the nuanced communication, relational, and practical dynamics that characterize virtual working in contemporary organizations. This reference work addresses virtual teams, peer relationships in virtual work, mentoring, vertical mobility, diversity in the virtual workspace, productivity and the postmodern aesthetic, and the communication practices and processes of dispersed work configurations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Public venues are vital to information access across the globe, yet few formal studies exist of the complex ways people in developing countries use information technologies in public access places. Libraries, Telecentres, Cybercafes and Public Access to ICT: International Comparisons presents groundbreaking research on the new challenges and opportunities faced by public libraries, community telecentres, and cybercafes that offer public access to computers and other information and communication technologies. Written in plain language, the book presents an in-depth analysis of the spaces that serve underserved populations, bridge digital divides, and further social and economic development objectives, including employability. With examples and experiences from around the world, this book sheds light on a surprising and understudied facet of the digital revolution at a time when effective digital inclusion strategies are needed more than ever.

The longevity of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio, Texas, suggests that it is possible for a social change organization to simultaneously address racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, imperialism, environmental justice, and peace-and to succeed. Activism, Alliance Building, and the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center uses ethnographic research to provide an instructive case study of the importance and challenges of confronting injustice in all of its manifestations. Through building and maintaining alliances, deploying language strategically, and using artistic expression as a central organizing mechanism, The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center demonstrates the power of multi-issue organizing and intersectional/coalitional consciousness. Interweaving artistic programming with its social justice agenda, in particular, offers Esperanza a unique forum for creative and political expression, institutional collaborations, and interpersonal relationships, which promote consciousness raising, mobilization, and social change. This study will appeal to scholars of communication, Chicana feminism, and ethnography.

As Chiasson and his contributors illustrate, trials are media events that can have long-reaching significance. They can, and have, changed the way people think, how institutions function, and have shaped public opinions. While this collection on ten trials is about withcraft, slavery, religion, and radicalism, it is, in many ways, the story of America. Trials are the stuff of news. Those rare moments when justice, or a reasonable facsimile, is meted out. And what offers up more high drama, or melodrama, than a highly publicized trial? Most news events enjoy short life spans. They happen; they are reported; they are quickly forgotten. As Chiasson and his contributors make clear, a trial often is a lingering, living thing that builds in tension. It is, every once in a long while, a modern Shakespearean drama with a twist: The audience becomes members of the cast because, every once in a long while, society finds itself the defendant. Trials can have lasting importance beyond how the public perceives them. A trial can have long-reaching significance if it changes the way people think, or how institutions function, or shapes public opinion. Ten such American trials covering a span of 307 years are covered here. In each, the sociological underpinnings of events often has greater significance than either the crime or the trial. The ten trials included are the Salem witch trials, the Amistad trial, the Sioux Indian Uprising trials, the Ed Johnson/Sheriff Shipp trial, the Big Bill Haywood trial, the Ossian Sweet trial, the Clay Shaw trial, the Manuel Noriega trial, and the Matthew Shepard trial. While the book is about ten crimes, the subsequent trials, and the media coverage of each, it is also a book about witchcraft, about religion, slavery, and radicalism. It paints portraits of a racist America, a capitalistic America, an anarchist America. It relates compelling tales of compassion, greed, stupidity, and hate beginning in 17th-century colonial times and ending in present-day America. In many ways, it is the story of America.

This inaugural edited collection for the Communicating Responsible Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion series presents new critical discourse alongside cutting-edge practical work at the crossroads of PR, CSR, and DEI. The collection explores the active promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a public relations responsibility and provides new avenues for critiquing the ways in which power operates through public relations work and theory building. Featuring contributions from leading scholars from across the PR, CSR, and DEI fields, Public Relations for Social Responsibility explores key issues including the legal and economic frameworks thwarting authentic social responsibility and DEI, the unique social responsibility style of women and people of color managing organizations, and expanding the social responsibility critique to include non-human stakeholders and the environment. Chapters illuminate international and industrial contexts at the intersection of PR, CSR and DEI, including historical perspective on DEI roadblocks in the U.S., PR in the time of COVID-19 crises, organizational bullying, DEI, AI and PR ethics, animals as stakeholders, inclusion as CSR component, CEO activism on the African continent, and PR's responsibility in transforming society. The collection will introduce new conceptual and practical approaches highly relevant to scholars of Communication, Management and Corporate Social Responsibility in a global context.

From a private nature walk to an engrossing novel, humans spend a vast amount of time engaged in solitary activities. However, despite the fact that individual activities are a prevalent part of everyday life, most scholarly research has been devoted to social interaction rather than solitary action. Ira Cohen's Solitary Action fills this intellectual void, identifying and discussing four basic forms of individual action: peripatetics, engrossments, regimens, and reflexives. Cohen explores the differences and similarities among the forms, specifically delving into the structural contrast between behaviors with rigid constraints, such as the game of solitaire, and behaviors which require creativity and spontaneity, such as a solo jazz improvisation. Lucid and relatable, Solitary Action links its arguments with examples from literature, personal narrative, and daily life, shedding light upon the understated significance of individual activities. The book concludes with a discussion of extensive retreats into solitude for religious, aesthetic, and self-restorative experiences, including examples from Thomas Merton and Henry David Thoreau. Ultimately, Cohen's findings promise to inspire new inquiries into the nature of social behavior by opening a new domain of everyday activities to the attention previously reserved for social interaction.

Brands and logos are all around us - from the clothes we wear and the objects we buy, to the advertisements which cover our cities and the celebrities created by the media. We regard the brand as a new phenomenon, something born with the consumer society, but branding was born with civilization, its earliest examples dating to the Roman Empire.Branding is now a growing industry, applied not only to commodities but to charities, cities, the worlds of sport and entertainment, even government initiatives. Such is the ubiquity and power of branding that it is increasingly taken as a sign of the commodification of everyday life and the rapacity of corporate power. Examining the brand in history, the growth of national and global brands, the changing approaches of the branding industry and the exploration of new spaces for advertising, The Rise of Brands analyses exactly how brands develop and operate in contemporary society.

We live in a multilingual, transforming society in which language plays a dynamic and central role. We use it everyday for communication and it is not possible to imagine life without it - it is generally recognised as a mark of what makes us human. But how often do we think about exactly what language is and how we actually use it? Language, society and communication introduces established and new linguistic concepts and theories, and links these to contemporary issues in society and the media, including new social media, with a particular focus on southern Africa. Language, society and communication explores how language is intricately bound up with issues of power, status and identity. It explores the tension between the diverse nature of everyday language practices, on the one hand, and the societal pressures towards managing and containing this diversity, on the other. It also demonstrates the relevance of linguistic study (e.g. phonology and syntax) to real world problems (e.g. analysis of a child's acquisition of language), within a southern African context. Study questions and case studies, which relate the theoretical ideas discussed to current research, are provided at the end of each chapter. Language, society and communication is aimed at undergraduate students studying linguistics, language and communication, and related fields such as language education.

This publication is a record of the sessions presented during the annual conference of the South Central Association for Language Learning Technology (SOCALLT) held at the University of Colorado in Boulder on April 13-14, 2002. All authors are current members of the organization. The articles of these proceedings focus on a variety of issues dealing with the integration of technology into the foreign language curriculum, the role of technology in the teaching and learning process, language media development, professional development, and language center management.

O'Shaughnessy, Henneberg, and their contributors examine how the theory and practice of marketing has been and can be applied to politics. Particular attention was paid to the theory of political marketing, with conceptual definitions developed to better facilitate communication between marketing professionals and political science researchers. Political marketing is about the making and unmaking of governments in a democracy. Despite its growing importance, the marketing academic profession has shown very little interest in the political ramificaitons of their discipline, while political scientists often come to political marketing with the view that it is cosmetic, if not trivial. O'Shaughnessy, Henneberg, and their contributors examine how the theory and practice of marketing has been and can be applied to politics. As they show, elections are a persuasion task writ large, most especially with the demise of inherited class loyalties. Following elections, governments can employ marketing techniques to build support for their actions, while opposition parties can press the government and its supporters through similar marketing approaches. Of particular interest to scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with politics, political communication, and the making of public policy.

Cartoons, as a form of humour and entertainment, are a social product which are revealing of different social and political practices that prevail in a society, humourised and satirised by the cartoonist. This book advances research on cartoons and humour in the Saudi context. It contributes to the growing multimodal research on non-interactional humour in the media that benefits from traditional theories of verbal humour. The study analyses the interaction between visual and verbal modes, highlighting the multimodal manifestations of the rhetorical devices frequently employed to create humour in English-language cartoons collected from the Saudi media. The multimodal analysis shows that the frequent rhetorical devices such as allusions, parody, metaphor, metonymy, juxtaposition, and exaggeration take a form which is woven between the visual and verbal modes, and which makes the production of humorous and satirical effect more unique and interesting. The analysis of the cartoons across various thematic categories further offers a window into contemporary Saudi society.