Joining the debate on gender differences, this book presents a cross-section of current research in communication, language, and gender studies. The first part presents studies that ask how women and men differ on a range of communication variables and suggest reasons for these differences. The second part offers a variety of critiques of masculine cultural hegemony. The third part envisions how gender differences may be reconceptualized in order to open key cultural institutions to honor both women and men. Taken as a whole, the chapters inform one another in a creative, dialectical tension. Examining what researchers mean by gender differences and values implicit in the term is critical to understanding current trends in gender studies.

The creative citizen unbound introduces the concept of 'creative citizenship' to explore the potential of civically-minded creative individuals in the era of social media and in the context of an expanding creative economy. Contributors examine the value and nature of creative citizenship, not only in terms of its contribution to civic life and to social capital but also to various and more contested definitions of value, both economic and cultural.

When the new medium of CD-ROMs emerged, industry figures and critics alike proclaimed their virtually unlimited potential. Adapting material from well-established media like television and film, CD-ROMs have quickly transformed genres such as science fiction and horror. At the same time, the realities of actual CD-ROMs often fall short of their utopian visions.

On a Silver Platter marks a "coming of age" for CD-ROMs as a commercially and aesthetically significant medium demanding critical attention. Greg Smith brings together media scholars such as Lisa Cartwright, Henry Jenkins, Janet Murray, and Scott Bukatman to analyze how CD-ROMs offer alternatives to familiar places--to museums, to cities, and especially to classrooms. Examining specific CD-ROM titles, including, Sim City, Civilization, and Phantasmagoria, the contributors argue that CD-ROMs are complex texts worthy of close consideration, both for how they have changed our understanding of space and genre, and for how they will impact the development of future media.

By examining particular CD-ROM texts and contexts, On a Silver Platter probes this new medium for insight and understanding into the current state of multimedia and into the future of technology.

The serial killer has become an obsession ever since Jack the Ripper became a media sensation, embedding a new and horrifying type of murderer into our cultural consciousness - one who kills darkly and in the dark. All popular media - print, radio, television, and so on - have become absorbed by this new figure. This book traces its diffusion through all media and discusses what this reveals about modern society. Using the Dexter saga of novels and television programs as its basis, the book argues that a "Dexter Syndrome" has emerged whereby we no longer see a difference between real and fictional serial killers. The psychological and social reasons for this are explored by tracing pop culture texts themselves (movies, novels, etc.). Above all else, Dexter's concept of a "moral code" forms a thematic thread that allows the author to argue that our contemporary moral nihilism has produced the demand for horror and horrific characters like serial killers, who have replaced medieval demons and monsters.

Many educators have been looking for a fundamentally different approach to engage young people and encourage progress in learning. Supported by recent public policy developments, a transformation is beginning to take place in the practice of many schools. The focus of learning is shifting away from the child as an individual in a classroom detached from the surrounding neighbourhood to a learning community that embraces carers and families as well as young people and teachers. This monograph analyses the organising principles of this cultural transformation and considers how it will shape learning in schools and communities throughout the world. The book brings together key thinkers from the fields of new learning, new communities of educational practice and new forms of educational governance. Arguing for the necessary interconnectedness of pedagogy, institutions and governance, this ground-breaking book will undoubtedly shape the policy agenda in this area for years to come. >

Political campaigns are highly complex and sophisticated communication events: communication of issues, images, social reality, and persons. They are essential exercises in the creation, re-creation, and transmission of significant symbols through human communication. As voters and others involved with the campaigns attempt to make sense of the political environment, political bits of communication inform voting choices, world views, and legislative desires.

The essays in this book examine the key elements in that process throughout the 1996 presidential campaign. Each focuses on a specific area of political campaign communication: the communication functions and activities across the campaign phases from nomination conventions through the debates, political advertising, the discussion and framing of issues, images of the candidates and their wives, the role and impact of network and local news, political cartoons, and the digital/on-line arena. This text will appeal to students and scholars alike as well as to concerned citizens involved with presidential politics and political campaigns.

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.

The Internet, World Wide Web, and digital devices have fundamentally changed the way people communicate, affecting everything from business, to school, to family, to religion, to democracy. This textbook takes a well-rounded view of the evolution from media literacy to digital literacy to help students better understand the digitally filtered world in which they live. The text explores digital literacy through three lenses: * Historical: reviews snapshots of time and space to delineate how things were in order to lend context to how they are; * Cultural: explores how values and ideals are constructed and conveyed within a given cultural context - how humans absorb and share the informal rules and norms that make up a society; * Critical: illuminates how social changes - particularly rapid ones - can put certain people at a disadvantage. All three angles are helpful for better understanding the myriad ways in which our identities and relationships are being altered by technology, and what it means to be a citizen in a society that has become individualized and is in constant flux. Written in a conversational and approachable style, the text is easy to navigate, with short chapters, short paragraphs, and bullet points. Comics and images illustrate complex topics and add visual interest. The text is ideal for media literacy, digital information literacy, and technology courses that seek to integrate human impact into the mix. It is also a good starting point for anyone wanting to know more about the impact of communication technologies on our lives.

The Internet Revolution in the Sciences and Humanities takes a new look at C.P. Snow's distinction between the two cultures, a distinction that provides the driving force for a book that contends that the Internet revolution has sown the seeds for transformative changes in both the sciences and the humanities. It is because of this common situation that the humanities can learn from the sciences, as well as the sciences from the humanities, in matters central to both: generating, evaluating, and communicating knowledge on the Internet. In a succession of chapters, the authors deal with the state of the art in web-based journal articles and books, web sites, peer review, and post-publication review. In the final chapter, they address the obstacles the academy and scientific organizations face in taking full advantage of the Internet: outmoded tenure and promotion procedures, the cost of open access, and restrictive patent and copyright law. They also argue that overcoming these obstacles does not require revolutionary institutional change. In their view, change must be incremental, making use of the powers and prerogatives scientific and academic organizations already have.

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.

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 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

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.

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.

Online support groups are considered highly valuable in addition to traditional health care services, but we know very little about how people actually join such a group. This book offers a microanalysis of an online support group on eating disorders, specifically the communication through textual messages between newcomers and regular members and members' nicknames. The study uses an ethnomethodological and conversation analytical approach to show that members of online support groups treat the group as a community in which their illness-identity is highly relevant. It appears that members invoke community norms regarding legitimacy for newcomers: Newcomers are expected to admit that they are ill, but this is a very difficult step for those who have not yet fully adopted the "sick role" (Parsons, 1951). In the field of eating disorders, it is particularly difficult for people that tend to "pro-ana," i.e. the glamorization of eating disorders. The insecurity and anxiety that newcomers display as they enter the online group could probably be relieved when a special entry subforum would be installed in which they can take time and space to actually recognize that they are ill.

From "Shane to Kill Bill: Rethinking the Western" is an original and compelling critical history of the American Western film.
Provides an insightful overview of the American Western genre
Covers the entire history of the Western, from 1939 to the present
Analyses Westerns as products of a genre, as well as expressions of political and social desires
Deepens an audience's understanding of the genre's most important works, including "Shane, Stagecoach," "The Searchers, Unforgiven," and "Kill Bill"
Contains numerous illustrations of the films and issues discussed.

The first part of this new book concentrates on the office automation phenomenon. Chapter 1 sketches some of its disappointments and sets the stage for the chapters to follow. In Chapter 2, the author argues that images of organization incorporate what has been called a worldview and are thus inevitably relativistic in their orientation. This allows the author to criticize some common assumptions about the nature of organization, but it equally introduces a theme that is central to his theory, and that will be picked up again in a later chapter. Chapter 3 gets to the heart of his criticism of conventional theories of communication process, and in doing so allows the author to demonstrate the feet of clay of one of the sacred cows of our time: the concept of office work as information processing. The second part is concerned with theory and its implications. Chapter 4 describes the event of communication, in microcosm. Chapter 5 is an attempt to give this perception a more systematic presentation. Chapter 6 tries to understand the problem of operationalizing the theory, as a means to understanding, and studying the dynamics of conversation and of communication mediated through texts. Chapter 7 explores one implication of the theory, namely, the maintenance of requisite variety, within a conversational system. Chapter 8 concludes the presentation by a consideration of some of the implications of the theory for the conduct of research.

This collection focuses on the multi-layered links between international events and identity discourses. With a unique line-up of international scholars, this book offers a diverse range of exciting case studies, including sports competitions, music festivals, exhibitions, fashion shows and royal celebrations.

In Ripples of Hope, Robert M. Press tells the stories of mothers, students, teachers, journalists, attorneys, and many others who courageously stood up for freedom and human rights against repressive rulers " and who helped bring about change through primarily nonviolent means. Global in application and focusing on Kenya, Liberia and Sierra Leone, this tribute to the strength of the human spirit also breaks new ground in social movement theories, showing how people on their own or in small groups can make a difference.

What is a "good life" and how can it be achieved? In this volume, communication scholars and media experts explore these fundamental questions about human existence and aspiration in terms of what a "good life" might look like in a contemporary, mediatized society. While in many ways a mediatized society brings us closer to some version of the "good life", it also leads us away from it. The affordances of new technologies seem to have shifted, for many, from an opportunity to an obligation. Rather than choosing when and where to be connected to these larger networks of information and acquaintances, we feel we must be permanently available, thus losing the luxury of controlling our time and attention. This volume illuminates the complexity of our modern era, exploring how society can leverage exciting new opportunities whilst recognizing the complex challenges we face in a time of constant change. It helps us understand how we have come to this point and where we may be going so that we may study the opportunities and the dangers, the chances and the risks, that digital media pose in our quest for some version of "the good life".

Cyberspace, Social Conflict, and Humanity: A Framework for Collapsing Disciplinary Barriers to Ethical Technology examines how our increasingly connected and digitized world is shaping our social experiences and interactions globally. It offers a new approach to human versus machine debate and builds the case for strategic collaboration between academia, industry, and governments who are committed to the humane advancement of knowledge and innovation. The text demonstrates how data and information can be used for or against any person, group, or a nation; the implication of cyber anxiety for states and nations; and how lack of ethical framework for the advancement of technology can lead to harmful results. It focuses on questions related to technological influence on society, individual privacy, cybercrimes and espionage, the battle over economy of attention and online engagement. By offering the latest case studies and examples, it offers ways to recognize and minimize the biases, misinformation, or disinformation within political and social context. Cyberspace, Social Conflict, and Humanity is ideal for courses in conflict resolution, social sciences, humanities, engineering, programming and multidisciplinary studies looking to the future of technology and society.