From networks to fields to figurations to discourses, relational ideas have become common in social science, and a distinct relational sociology has emerged over the past decade and a half. But so far, this paradigm shift has raised as many questions as it answers. Just what are 'relations', precisely? How do we observe and measure them? How does relational thinking change what we already know about society? What new questions does it invite us to ask? This volume and its companion volume Applying Relational Sociology: Networks, Relations, and Society bring together, for the first time, the leading experts and up-and-coming scholars in the field to address fundamental questions about what relational sociology is and how it works.

Diane Stone addresses the network alliances or partnerships of international organisations with knowledge organisations and networks. Moving beyond more common studies of industrial public-private partnerships, she addresses how, and why, international organisations and global policy actors need to incorporate ideas, expertise and scientific opinion into their 'global programmes'. Rather than assuming that the encouragement for 'evidence-informed policy' in global and regional institutions of governance is an indisputable public good, she queries the influence of expert actors in the growing number of part-private or semi-public policy networks.

This edited volume argues that producers of analysis need to shift from producing static, narrative products to much more dynamic, digitally-based platforms in order to remain competitive and relevant.

Within a comparative, theoretical and global network, this volume focuses on the impact of information technologies on the prospects for democratic development. It deals with the hopes as well as the fears for democracy and development that have emerged out of the current technological revolution in information and communication. The volume argues that information technologies have historically played a dual and paradoxical role in political formations. Generally, the Big Media (the national press, broadcasting and mainframe computers) have served the centralizing forces, while the Small Media (the alternative press, small scale audio-video production and transmission facilities and increasingly personal computing networking) have provided the channel for community resistance and mobilization. The volume argues that the new information technologies, like the old, should be viewed neither as technologies of freedom nor of tyranny but primarily as technologies of power that lock into existing or emerging techno-structures of power.

Providing perspectives on women's issues and the communication process, this book contends that communications is at important crossroads because of, rather than in spite of, women. They challenge that women's language, reality, orientations, and experiences are different from those of men. A further challenge makes the case for breaking the hold and subsequent control by traditional mass media on women's issues.

This work focuses on communication and how humans talk about things. It also explores how we conceive of, understand, and think about communication.

The introduction of new technologies exerts a profound influence on our ways of thinking about current businesses and issues. They quickly make obsolete the products and services that these businesses provide. Nowhere has this been more evident in the early 1990s and the decades before than in the information industries, the focus of this book.

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.

Culture and Technology in the New Europe presents the insights of an international group of academic researchers and media practitioners who examine the impact of technology on East Central Europe, South-Eastern Europe, the Newly Independent States and the Russian Federation. Drawing from the expertise of authors from and working in the region, the book addresses concerns that the New Europe faces at the eve of the Third Millennium and a decade after the fall of communist rule. Such concerns include access to information and communication technology and the culturally-specific discourses articulated through media and technology. While the book focuses on information and communication reforms, and the development of a participatory democracy are examined. The book is distinguished by diverse studies ranging from the problems of Cyber Hate from and about the New Europe, to online activism in war-torn Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia, to how digital media art articulates new cultural and creative freedoms once silenced by the Soviet regime. Finally, the book looks to the future of media, technology and communication in the New Europe, particularly the gaps between post-socialist nations and those more technologically advantaged, and how these gaps can be narrowed or eradicated in the Third Millennium.

Friendship is an essential part of human experience, involving ideas of love and morality as well as material and pragmatic concerns. Making and having friends is a central aspect of everyday life in all human societies. Yet friendship is often considered of secondary significance in comparison to domains such as kinship, economics and politics. How important are friends in different cultural contexts? What would a study of society viewed through the lens of friendship look like? Does friendship affect the shape of society as much as society moulds friendship? Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Europe, this volume offers answers to these questions and examines the ideology and practice of friendship as it is embedded in wider social contexts and transformations.

In this book, Surma develops a critical cosmopolitan orientation to public and professional writing. Combining threads from ethical, political, communication, sociological, feminist, rhetorical and discourse theories, she examines the influences and impacts of writing in a range of contexts - government, corporate, organizational and community. Case-study examples illustrate the ways in which writing may be mobilized to strengthen our connections with others, and to reflect on how writing practices might entrench or transform our positions as both citizens of the world and members of situated communities.

With the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity that is a feature of European societies today, pluralism is experienced in new and challenging ways. In many places, an urban cosmopolitan mix sits side by side with group-based expressions of faith and culture. The debate about the types of 'acceptance' that these situations require tend to follow new patterns. Increasing openness and respect for some may rest upon a reinforced intolerance towards others. This complicates and challenges our understanding of what it means for societies to be accepting, tolerant or respectful of cultural diversity in its various forms. This volume seeks to meet this challenge with perspectives that consider new dynamics towards tolerance, intolerance and respect.

Examining the role of memory in the transition from totalitarian to democratic systems, this book makes an important contribution to memory studies. It explores memory as a medium of and impediment to change, looking at memory's biological, cultural, narrative and socio-psychological dimensions.

Journalism is under ever-increasing pressure, due in large part to the phenomenon of media convergence. Not only does media convergence redefine the tasks of journalists and newsrooms, it also re-shapes the business environments of media companies. In this book, international media practitioners and researchers describe and analyze the relationships between media convergence and advertising, public relations, social media and other areas of communication posing a challenge to journalism.

This book presents the consolidated acoustic data for all phones in Standard Colloquial Bengali (SCB), commonly known as Bangla, a Bengali language used by 350 million people in India, Bangladesh, and the Bengali diaspora. The book analyzes the real speech of selected native speakers of the Bangla dialect to ensure that a proper acoustical database is available for the development of speech technologies. The acoustic data presented consists of averages and their normal spread, represented by the standard deviations of necessary acoustic parameters including e.g. formant information for multiple native speakers of both sexes. The study employs two important speech technologies:(1) text to speech synthesis (TTS) and (2) automatic speech recognition (ASR). The procedures, particularly those related to the use of technologies, are described in sufficient detail to enable researchers to use them to create technical acoustic databases for any other Indian dialect. The book offers a unique resource for scientists and industrial practitioners who are interested in the acoustic analysis and processing of Indian dialects to develop similar dialect databases of their own.

The phenomenon of the small world, as in two new acquaintances discovering that they have an acquaintance in common, is of great scientific interest. The samll world phenomenon appears to be a fundamental property of social structure and function. Understanding it, its origin, and its implications can shed light on problems in sociology, sociometrics, political science, social psychology, and anthropology. This volume brings together much of what is understood about the small world problem, and the chapters indicate the quality, vitality, and scope of this area.

The Red Scare at the FCC started when James Lawrence Fly led the agency in many important decisions that were inspired by the New Deal. These decisions outraged both the broadcasting industry and politically conservative legislators, causing them to accuse the FCC of Communist sympathies. This book analyzes the political transition taken by the FCC that turned it into an agency that fully participated in the Red Scare of the 1950s.

This book analyzes many significant FCC cases and policies that have never been considered within the context of New Deal policymaking or its impact. This work is the first to look into the impact of the Red Scare on an executive agency. Its combination of new archival and behind-the- scenes information makes this book a great addition to the growing body of research on media history and regulation.

How to increase your visibility and maximize your success through powerful, proven communication techniques How can you make the media work for you? How can you master interviews so that your points are the ones an audience remembers? How can you give presentations that do not just convey information but also promote you as a leader? How can you develop listening habits that will substantially enhance the entire communication process? What are the challenges and opportunities of public personhood inside and outside the workplace? Power Communications: Positioning Yourself for High Visibility teaches people-from corporate CEOs to civic leaders to designated spokespersons-how to enhance their positioning and maximize their success. Chapter by chapter, the reader learns how to master public visibility in the workplace, the professional arena, and the community. The reader gleans ways to create proper perceptions in the minds of the public and the media. The book also details how high-profile people can lead others by mastering the total power communications process-effective presentation of message, constructive listening, and executive or community action. In addition to learning how to create and maintain positive public personhood, the reader also learns specific methods and channels for dispersing important messages. This book focuses on proactive techniques that address the full spectrum of needs and issues that go into establishing and sustaining a public identity. Power Communications is an irreplaceable resource for corporate executives, top and middle management, elected officials, heads of organizations, governmental representatives, official spokespersons, and public relations and marketing professionals. To many people, communicating itself creates a daunting challenge. Power Communications helps its readers turn challenges into exciting opportunities.

This book describes current practices in science communication, from citizen science to Twitter storms, and celebrates this diversity through case studies and examples. However, the authors also reflect on how scholars and practitioners can gain better insight into science communication through new analytical methods and perspectives. From science PR to the role of embodiment and materiality, some aspects of science communication have been under-studied. How can we better notice these? Science Communication provides a new synthesis for Science Communication Studies. It uses the historical literature of the field, new empirical data, and interdisciplinary thought to argue that the frames which are typically used to think about science communication often omit important features of how it is imagined and practised. It is essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners of science education, science and technology studies, museum studies, and media and communication studies.

Whether politically, socially, economically, or psychologically, postmodern institutions attempt to influence their environments through the use of rhetoric in their public relations campaigns. As corporations increasingly dominate the public discourse we experience daily, it becomes increasingly important to understand how that discourse operates, and to become more informed creators and consumers of institutional rhetoric.

This volume examines the theoretical bases and practical effects of a variety of public relations campaigns. The contributors demonstrate that rhetorical inquiry is a viable and underrated approach to explaining the influence of public relations campaigns. Cases analyzed in the book range from those of national scope (e.g., Mobil Oil's Observations campaign of the 1970s and 1980s), to studies of targeted influence (e.g., corporate recruitment videos), to cases of internal relations (e.g., issues management during corporate mergers), to studies of local situations (e.g., the anatomy of a local ballot issue campaign). While the various contributors employ a broad range of rhetorical methods and analysis, the discussions remain approachable and understandable for students and professionals alike.

Social networks have emerged as a major trend in computing and social paradigms in the past few years. The social network model helps to inform the study of community behavior, allowing qualitative and quantitative assessments of how people communicate and the rules that govern communication. Social Networking and Community Behavior Modeling: Qualitative and Quantitative Measures provides a clear and consolidated view of current social network models. This work explores new methods for modeling, characterizing, and constructing social networks. Chapters contained in this book study critical security issues confronting social networking, the emergence of new mobile social networking devices and applications, network robustness, and how social networks impact the business aspects of organizations.