Though the progress of technology continually pushes life towards virtual existence, the last decade has witnessed a renewed focus on materiality. Radical Interface: Transdisciplinary Interventions on Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman bears witness to literary theorists', digital humanists', rhetoricians', philosophers', and designers' attention to the crafted environment, the manner in which artifacts mediate human relations, and the constitution of a world in which the boundary between humans and things has seemingly imploded. The essays reflect on questions about the extent to which we ought to view humans and nonhuman artifacts as having equal capacity for agency and life, and the ways in which technological mediation challenges the central tenets of humanism and anthropocentrism. Contemporary theories of human-object relations presage the arrival of the posthuman, which is no longer a futuristic or science-fictional concept but rather one descriptive of the present, and indeed, the past. Discussions of the posthuman already have a long history in fields like literary theory, rhetoric, and philosophy, and as advances in design and technology result in increasingly engaging artifacts that mediate more and more aspects of everyday life, it becomes necessary to engage in a systematic, interdisciplinary, critical examination of the intersection of the domains of design, technological mediation, and the posthuman. Radical Interface thus brings diverse disciplines together to foster a dialog on significant technological issues pertinent to philosophy, rhetoric, aesthetics, and science.

In this age of global communication, local identities and nation-states reassert themselves when cultural boundaries are dissolved and reconstructed. This collection of essays by noted scholars in many fields provides a wide range of theoretical approaches and empirical studies that, together, shed light on how local cultural identities resist the forces of globalization by virtue of tradition, transculturation, domestication and hybridization. Examining how people make sense of the world and their own identities as cultural and national boundaries are crossed, In Search of Boundaries transcends many traditional dichotomies between East and West and, more importantly, between tradition and modernity. Interest in the study of boundaries has grown in sociology, anthropology, geography, and other social sciences, but it has not focused on communication processes. This book fills that void with a series of wide-ranging approaches, from the critical to the liberal, the empirical to the cultural, and the Occidental to the Oriental, and makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the increasingly global nature of nationality, culture, and identity.

Empires of Entertainment integrates legal, regulatory, industrial, and political histories to chronicle the dramatic transformation within the media industries between 1980 and 1996. As film, broadcast, and cable grew from fundamentally separate industries to interconnected, synergistic components of global media conglomerates, the concepts of vertical and horizontal integration were redesigned. The parameters and boundaries of market concentration, consolidation, and government scrutiny began to shift as America's politics changed under the Reagan administration. Through the use of case studies that highlight key moments in this transformation, Jennifer Holt explores the politics of deregulation, the reinterpretation of antitrust law, and lasting modifications in the media landscape. Holt skillfully expands the conventional models and boundaries of media history. A fundamental part of her argument is that these media industries have been intertwined for decades and, as such, cannot be considered separately. Instead, film, cable and broadcast must be understood in relation to one another, as critical components of a common history. Empires of Entertainment is a unique account of deregulation and its impact on political economy, industrial strategies, and media culture at the end of the twentieth century.

"This work consists of a listing of basic reference sources in the field of medicine and allied health and a thesaurus-index providing quick access to the cited sources. . . . Recommended for medical and health sciences libraries." Choice

This handbook on Mediatization of Communication uncovers the interrelation between media changes and changes in culture and society. This is essential to understand contemporary trends and transformations. "Mediatization" characterizes changes in practices, cultures and institutions in media-saturated societies, thus denoting transformations of these societies themselves. This volume offers 31 contributions by leading media and communication scholars from the humanities and social sciences, with different approaches to mediatization of communication. The chapters span from how mediatization meets climate change and contribute to globalization to questions on life and death in mediatized settings. The book deals with mass media as well as communication with networked, digital media. The topic of this volume makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of contemporary processes of social, cultural and political changes. The handbook provides the reader with the most current state of mediatization research.

"A magnum opus in the now vast domain of discourse studies, whose history, methods, and subdomains mobody knows as well as Robert de Beugrande. No other book in the humanities and social sciences today integrates such encylopedic knowledge into a thoroughly transdisciplinary, international, intercultural, and critical program. For all advanced students of discourse, this book should be their major mentor, guide, and compendium of research." -Teun A. van Dijk, University of Amsterdam and Editor of the journals Text and Discourse and Society "Professor de Beugrande has been one of the most influential scholars in text linguistics since he helped to found it as a discipline. He commands a large panorama of knowledge and brings this learning to bear on a variety of topics, giving fresh insights and new dimensions. In his latest book, he ranges over linguistic, educational, and cultural disciplines in order to synthesize an important framework within which text and discourse can be understood in new ways." -John Sinclair, Birmingham University and Editor-in-Chief of Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary

Effective communication is the key to encouraging healthy behavior. Documenting a revolution in both theory and practice, Johns Hopkins University experts show that communication leads the way to healthy reproductive health and family planning behavior. They explain why communication makes so much difference and how communication programs can be made to work. This book presents a compilation of lessons learned by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs and its partners over 15 years of developing and implementing family planning communication projects campaigns in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Near East. An introductory essay provides an overview of family planning and communication worldwide and outlines the role of theory-based communication programs. The main part of the book presents lessons learned in the field about the process of designing and carrying out family planning communication projects. More than 60 lessons are presented, with descriptions and analysis of projects illustrating each lesson. A final essay explores the current and future challenges confronting family planning educators and other public health communicators.

Dozens of books about Wikipedia are available, but they all focus on the English Wikipedia and assume an Anglo-Saxon perspective, while disregarding cultural and language variability or multi-cultural collaborative efforts. They address the impact of Wikipedia on society, processes of mass knowledge production, and the dynamics of the Wikipedia community. However, none of them focus on Wikipedia s global features. This lack of attention presents a serious problem because more than 80% of Wikipedia articles are written in languages other than English---in fact, Wikipedia includes articles in 285 languages. Global Wikipedia: International and Cross-Cultural Issues in Online Collaboration is the first book to address this gap by focusing attention on the global, multilingual, and multicultural aspects of Wikipedia. The editors showcase research on Wikipedia, exploring a wide range of international and cross-cultural issues. Online global collaboration, coordination, and conflict management are examined in this rich socio technical environment. Special emphases include .International and cross-cultural collaboration; .Intercultural synergy on Wikimedia; .Conflict and collaboration in editing international entries; .Case studies of Chinese, Finnish, French, and Greek Wikipedias; and, .Cross-cultural studies that compare more than one Wikipedia, focusing on content, structures, policies, contributions, interactions, processes, motivations, and challenges."

What kinds of industries, occupations, and organizational behaviors have been presented on prime time television? This is the first full-length volume to answer this question and summarize quantitative and qualitative studies on the portrayal of organizations, occupations and organizations behaviors on prime time television drama. The volume also offers a unique study of the demography of industries that have appeared on prime time over the last four decades of television, thus offering a historical perspective in addition to the authors' analysis of contemporary prime time programs.

This comprehensive handbook provides a unique overview of the theory, methodologies and best practices in climate change communication from around the world. It fosters the exchange of information, ideas and experience gained in the execution of successful projects and initiatives, and discusses novel methodological approaches aimed at promoting a better understanding of climate change adaptation. Addressing a gap in the literature on climate change communication and pursuing an integrated approach, the handbook documents and disseminates the wealth of experience currently available in this field. Volume 2 of the handbook provides a unique description of the theoretical basis and of some of the key facts and phenomena which help in achieving a better understanding of the basis of climate change communication, providing an essential basis for successful initiatives in this complex field.

This work is a collection of the best research reports and essays gathered globally by the editors over a three-year period. World-renowned experts from the Arab region as well as the West have authored most of the chapters. Seven sections divide the text, and each investigates compelling, timely questions for today's communication professionals. Because of its focus on communications and new media, this volume may be used at colleges and universities worldwide. It will impact numerous academic disciplines and the professional world as well. A wide range of curricula may adopt the text as supplementary reading for courses in political science, speech and rhetoric, public relations, sociology, communications, journalism, diplomacy and government.

Morreale traces the development of the documentary films produced for presidential candidates from Calvin Coolidge in 1923 to George Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992. The work provides insight into today's visually oriented presidential campaign by analyzing the production of candidates' images as the films evolve from classical to modern forms. Campaign films are usually overlooked by campaign scholars, yet they provide the fullest available visual portrait of a candidate during a campaign, they encapsulate persuasive appeals and strategies, and they illustrate Republican and Democratic candidates' different approaches to mediated communication. Morreale concludes that presidential campaign films provide a lens through which we can view both changes and continuities in American politics and culture. Recommended for scholars and students of communication, political science, and history.

An examination of the dynamics of writing review. Areas addressed include: learning to write in organizations; writing review as an opportunity for socialization; writing review as an opportunity for individuation; and implications for future research.

In this volume, leading scholars from the fields of communication, educational psychology, and international education address what is known about the strategic role of interpersonal communication in the teaching/learning process. Instruction often involves spoken communication that carries information from teacher to learner, and in these instances the teacher's skillful and strategic use of language has a measurable impact on learning outcomes. Thus, the cumulative findings of instructional communication research are instrumental in maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of both teaching and learning. Major sections of this volume include: Historical and Theoretical Foundations Instructor Characteristics and Behaviors Student Characteristics and Outcomes Pedagogy and Classroom Management Teaching and Learning Communication Across the Life-span This handbook serves researchers, professors, and graduate students by surveying the collective findings of research and experience concerning the intentional activity of teaching and learning.

The book reports on advanced theories and methods in two related engineering fields: electrical and electronic engineering, and communications engineering and computing. It highlights areas of global and growing importance, such as renewable energy, power systems, mobile communications, security and the Internet of Things (IoT). The contributions cover a number of current research issues, including smart grids, photovoltaic systems, wireless power transfer, signal processing, 4G and 5G technologies, IoT applications, mobile cloud computing and many more. Based on the proceedings of the first International Conference on Emerging Trends in Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering (ELECOM 2016), held in Voila Bagatelle, Mauritius from November 25 to 27, 2016, the book provides graduate students, researchers and professionals with a snapshot of the state-of-the-art and a source of new ideas for future research and collaborations.

Misunderstandings in technology-mediated communication can be due to a lack of tone and facial expression on the part of the speaker, which provide additional context clues into the meaning of the message beyond textual representation. As technology becomes more of a ubiquitous element in our interactions with one another, further study into the ways in which language and humor are conveyed online and impact human communication is essential. Analyzing Language and Humor in Online Communication presents a compendium of research into virtual communities, online communication, social networks, and the ways that language, and humor in particular, are being conveyed and understood in these digital environments. Emphasizing examples from popular culture and contemporary media, this innovative publication fills the current void in the literature by focusing specifically on humor creation and perception in the digital age. Students, researchers, linguists, psychologists, media professionals, and sociologists will find this publication to be a unique reference source.

Grounded in cognitive, affective, and behavioral elements, speech anxiety is a serious problem for a large number of people and has been found to affect career development as well as academic performance. This book presents intervention procedures that have been developed to help people cope with anxiety associated with each of these sources.

The value of multi-disciplinary research lies in the exchange of ideas and methods across the traditional boundaries between areas of study. It could be argued that many of the advances in science and engineering take place because the ideas, methods and the tools of thought from one discipline become re-applied in another.
The topic of "the visual" has become increasingly important as advances in technology have led to multi-media and multi-modal representations, and extended the range and scope of visual representation and interpretation in our lives. Under this broad heading there are many different perspectives and approaches, from across the entire spectrum of human knolwedge and activity.
The editors and authors of this book aim to break down cross-disciplinary barriers, by bringing together people working in a wide variety of disciplines where visual representations and interpretations are exploited. Contributions come from researchers actively investigating visual representations and interpretations in a wide variety of areas, including art history, biology, clinical science, cognitive science, computer science, design, engineering, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, physics, psychology, and sociology.
The book provides a forum for wide-ranging and multi-disciplinary contributions on visual representations and interpretations.
* Contributors include researchers actively investigating visual representations and interpretations
* Content spans a wide variety of areas including but not limited to biology, sociology, and computer science
* Discusses how new technology has affected "the visual" representation of information

Computer simulations help advance climatology, astrophysics, and other scientific disciplines. They are also at the crux of several high-profile cases of science in the news. How do simulation scientists, with little or no direct observations, make decisions about what to represent? What is the nature of simulated evidence, and how do we evaluate its strength? Aimee Kendall Roundtree suggests answers in Computer Simulation, Rhetoric, and the Scientific Imagination. She interprets simulations in the sciences by uncovering the argumentative strategies that underpin the production and dissemination of simulated findings. She also explains how subjective and social influences do not diminish simulations' virtue or power to represent the real thing. Along the way, Roundtree situates computer simulations within the scientific imagination alongside paradoxes, thought experiments, and metaphors. A cogent rhetorical analysis, Computer Simulation, Rhetoric, and the Scientific Imagination engages scholars of the rhetoric of science, technology, and new and digital media, but it is also accessible to the general public interested in debates over hurricane preparedness and climate change.

Television and the Modernization Ideal in 1980s China: Dazzling the Eyes explores Chinese television history in the pivotal decade of the 1980s and explains the intellectual reception of television in China during this time. While the Chinese media has often been a topic within studies of globalization and the global political economy, scholarly attention to the history of Chinese television requires a more extensive and critical view of the interaction between television and culture. Using theories of media technology, globalization, and gender studies supplemented by Chinese periodicals including Life Out of 8 Hours, Popular TV, Popular Cinema, Modern Family, and Chinese Advertising, as well as oral history interviews, this book re-examines how Western technology was introduced to and embedded into Chinese culture. Wen compares and analyzes television dramas produced in China and imported from other nations while examining the interaction between various ideologies of Chinese society and those of the international media. Moreover, she explores how the hybridity between Western television culture and Chinese traditions were represented in popular Chinese visual media, specifically the confusions and ambitions of modernization and the negotiation between tradition and modernity, nationalism and internationalism, in the intellectual reception of television in China.

Egyptians are known among the Arabs as awlad al-nukta, Sons of the Jokes, for their ability to laugh in face of adversity. This creative weapon has been directed against socio-political targets both in times of oppression and popular upheaval, such as the 2011 Tahrir Revolution. This book looks at the literary expression of Egyptian humour in the novels of Muhammad Mustajab, Khayri Shalabi, and Hamdi Abu Julayyil, three writers who revive the comic tradition to innovate the language of contemporary fiction. Their modern tricksters, wise fools, and antiheroes play with the stereotypical traits attached to the ordinary Egyptians, while laughing at the universal contradictions of life. This ability to combine local and global culture, literary traditions and popular references, makes them a stimulating read in an intercultural perspective. Combining humour studies and literary criticism, this book examines language play and narrative creativity to understand which strategies craft Egyptian literary humour. In doing so, it sheds light on the contribution of humour to literary innovations of Egyptian fiction since the late Seventies, while adding new writers to those who are considered the masters of humour in the Arab novel.