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.

Humor may surface in numerous and diverse contexts, which at the same time determine how humor works, its form, and its functions and consequences for interlocutors. Adopting a sociolinguistic and discourse analytic perspective, this study is aligned with approaches to humor exploring the variety of humorous genres, the wide range of sociopragmatic functions of humor, and the more or less dissimilar perceptions speakers may have concerning what humor is, what it means, and how it works. The chapters of this book propose a new theoretical approach to the analysis of humor by bringing context into focus. Furthermore, the study explores how we can teach about humor within a critical literacy framework creating classroom space for everyday humorous texts that are part of students' social realities, and simultaneously taking into account that humor may yield multiple, disparaging, and often conflicting interpretations. This book is intended to appeal to humor researchers from various disciplines (such as linguistics, media studies, cultural studies, literary studies, sociology, anthropology, folklore) as well as to professionals or researchers in education.

In Speaking Hatefully, David Boromisza-Habashi focuses on the use of the term "hate speech" as a window on the cultural logic of political and moral struggle in public deliberation. This empirical study of gyűloletbeszed, or "hate speech," in Hungary documents competing meanings of the term, the interpretive strategies used to generate those competing meanings, and the parallel moral systems that inspire political actors to question their opponents' interpretations. In contrast to most existing treatments of the subject, Boromisza-Habashi's argument does not rely on pre-existing definitions of "hate speech." Instead, he uses a combination of ethnographic and discourse analytic methods to map existing meanings and provide insight into the sociocultural life of those meanings in a troubled political environment.

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.

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.

This collection of essays examines the variety of ways in which communication scholarship and research contribute to the political mobilization and empowerment of citizens to act on environmental issues - environmental discourse and action in the largest sense. As seen here, the task of environmental empowerment involves a curious mixture of national and local politics, abstract principles and concrete actions, ethical frameworks and political expediency. The contributors to this volume provide a fascinating array of perspectives on how to go about this task and how "earthtalk" continues to shape and frame human perceptions and actions on environmental issues. This unique work will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, and students of political communication, public policy, and the environment.

Information is an important concept that is studied extensively across a range of disciplines, from the physical sciences to genetics to psychology to epistemology. Information continues to increase in importance, and the present age has been referred to as the "Information Age."

One may understand information in a variety of ways. For some, information is found in facts that were previously unknown. For others, a fact must have some economic value to be considered information. Other people emphasize the movement through a communication channel from one location to another when describing information. In all of these instances, information is the set of characteristics of the output of a process. Yet Information has seldom been studied in a consistent way across different disciplines.

"Information from Processes" provides a discipline-independent and precise presentation of both information and computing processes. Information concepts and phenomena are examined in an effort to understand them, given a hierarchy of information processes, where one process uses others. Research about processes and computing is applied to answer the question of what information can and cannot be produced, and to determine the nature of this information (theoretical information science). The book also presents some of the basic processes that are used in specific domains (applied information science), such as those that generate information in areas like reasoning, the evolution of informative systems, cryptography, knowledge, natural language, and the economic value of information.Written for researchers and graduate students in information science and related fields, "Information from Processes "details a unique information model independent from other concepts in computer or archival science, which is thus applicable to a wide range of domains. Combining theoretical and empirical methods as well as psychological, mathematical, philosophical, and economic techniques, Losee's book delivers a solid basis and starting point for future discussions and research about the creation and use of information."

This book discusses the effect of communication strategies in the course of China's national image building from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. The research data are collected via researcher's in-depth observation as well as focus group analysis and case study of selected Chinese radio and TV networks. On the basis of the empirical study and drawing on theories of international communication and political communication, this book also introduces an analytical framework that can be used to evaluate the effect of communication strategies in practice. Especially, the framework is applied to systematically analyze the formation and application of Chinese Communist Party's communication strategy with an aim at improving the national image and increasing its global influence. This book is of interest to graduate students and researchers who are interested in the broadcast communication in China.

This first book-length critical analysis of Kennedy's public address defines how he aroused Americans to rise to the opportunities and challenges that he defined for them. This rigorously researched study offers an in-depth analysis of the development of President Kennedy as a public speaker and a balanced view of his civil rights, foreign policy, presidential, and other types of speeches. Eight speech texts accompany the analysis. This reference and teaching tool also offers a selected chronology of major speeches along with a bibliography of important primary and secondary sources. Designed for students, teachers, and professionals in the fields of rhetoric, political communication, presidential studies, and American history.

The advent of the Information Society is marked by the explosive penetration of information technologies in all aspects of life and by a related fundamental transofmation in every form of the organization. Researchers, business people and policy makers have recognized the importance of addressing technological, economic and social impacts in conjunction. For example, the rise and fall of the dot-com hype depended a lot on the strenght of the business model, on the technological capabilities avalable to firms and on the readiness of the socity and economy at large sustain a new breed of business activity. However, it is notoriously difficult to examine the cross-impacts of social, economic and technological aspects of the Information Socity. This kind of work requires multidisciplinary work and collaboration on a wide range of skills. Social and Economic Transformation in the Digital Era addresses this challenge by assembling the latest thinking of leading researchers and policy makers. The book covers all key subject areas of the Information Society an presents innovative business models, case studies, normative theories and social explanations.

Each of us is highly skilled at designing our turns at talk, and meshing them with those of the people around us. Conversation Analysis (CA) is the study of just how that is done, and how the choreography of conversation brings off the business we conduct with each other.
Conversation Analysis is beginning to have a strong record not only of understanding interaction, but also of seeing how it might be changed. This volume collects together some of the most exciting developments in CA as it is applied to intervention programs in medical communication, speech therapy, mediation, welfare interviewing, surveying, telephone helplines, and other insitutional encounters. The contributors explain the difficulties and the benefits of applying CA in the real world, and with working with external agencies like government institutions, charities, and the medical establishment.

What signals are you sending when you share the gospel? The importance of signs for communicating truth has been recognized throughout the ages. Crystal L. Downing traces this awareness from biblical texts, through figures from church history like John Wycliffe and William Tyndale, to more recent writers Samuel Taylor Coleridge and C. S. Lewis. In the nineteenth century, this legacy of interest in the activity of signs brought about a new field of academic study. In this book, Downing puts the discipline of semiotics within reach for beginners through analysis of the movement's key theorists, Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Sanders Peirce, Mikhail Bakhtin and others. She then draws out the implications for effective communication of the gospel of Jesus Christ within our shifting cultural landscape. Her fundamental thesis is that "Failure to understand how signs work--as effects of the cultures we seek to affect--inevitably undermines not just our political and moral agendas but, worse, the gospel of Jesus Christ." Writing with humor, clarity and flare, Downing lucidly explains the sophisticated thinking of leaders in semiotics for nonexperts. Of value to all those interested in communication in any context, this work will be of special interest to students majoring in communications or English or to students in evangelism and preaching courses at the undergraduate and graduate level.

This book presents background information on the current literary theory known as reader response and examines ways in which response and the teaching of literature has been researched and the findings of that research. It effectively demonstrates the diverse manner in which theoretical principles can be examined using a number of different frameworks. It investigates new theoretical perspectives on reader-response theory as well as demonstrating how empirical, qualitative, and ethnographic research has investigated current theory. Each chapter on research response to literature integrates classroom vignettes and actual student responses, in order to offer the classroom teacher as well as the reading and literature research new information about the manner in which children and older students interact with the literature. This volume will be particularly informative to college personnel and graduate students interested in theories and research focusing on response to literature and the teaching of literature. This text is useful as both a reference for researchers and teachers and a supplemental text for graduate students.

This book is an indispensable "cutting edge" book for students and researchers of journalism studies seeking a text that illustrates and applies a range of linguistic and discourse-analytic approaches to the analysis of journalism. While the form, function and politics of the language of journalism have attracted scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines, too often this analysis has reduced the work of journalists to text-characteristics alone. In contrast, this collection is united by the principle that journalistic discourse is always socially situated and the result of a series of processes - produced by journalists in accordance with particular production techniques and in specific institutional settings - and as such, analysis requires more than the methods offered by linguists. The contributors to this book draw on a range of the most prominent theoretical and methodological approaches to media discourse - including Conversation Analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis, the APPRAISAL framework, Multi-modal Analysis and Rhetoric - in making sense of the language of newspapers (national, local and minority press), television and online journalism. Written in an engaging style by distinguished academic authorities, this book provides a state-of-the-art review of the subject. This book was published as a special issue of Journalism Studies.

Communication in its most basic form--the sending of signals and exchange of messages within and between organisms--is the heart of evolution. From the earliest life-forms to "Homo sapiens," the great chain of communication drives the evolutionary process and is the indispensable component of human culture.
That is the central message of this unique perspective on both the biological evolution of life and the human development of culture. The book explores the totality of communication processes that create and sustain biological equilibrium and social stability. The authors argue that this ubiquitous connectivity is the elemental unity of life.
Introducing a new subdiscipline--evolutionary communication--the authors analyze the core domains of life--sheer survival, sex, culture, morality, religion, and technological change--as communications phenomena. What emerges from their analysis is a brilliant interpretation of life interconnected through communication from the basic molecular level to the most sophisticated manifestations of culture.
Challenging the boundaries of conventional approaches to cultural analysis, this is an original and engaging view of evolution and an encouraging prognosis for our collective future.

In this absorbing book, Bruce J. Evensen analyzes the role of the mass media, public opinion, and the Zionists in the evolution of America's Palestine policy during the Truman administration. Taking issue with recent revisionist historians who argue that Truman had little difficulty manipulating public opinion, Evensen claims that the press and an aroused public opinion successfully frustrated the President's course on Palestine and elicited his support of the United Nations' partition of Jewish and Arab states and Truman's early recognition of Israel. Evensen emphasizes the development of a conventional wisdom that placed the Middle East at the center of U.S. strategic planning and saw limiting Soviet penetration as a primary goal. Within this context, he shows a divided Truman administration, which was uncertain how to act on the Jewish state. Reluctantly, the administration initially supported the UN's vote to partition the region; then, as Palestine erupted into violence, it attempted to abandon this decision. Interpreting the President's action as a gutless appeasement of the Arabs and an indication of his fear of the Soviets, the media, reflecting the public's Cold War fears, confronted the administration's policy in the Middle East and frustrated the President's effort to abandon the partition scheme. The media's role in reflecting and shaping competing visions of reality, which became the conventional wisdom of policy making, is a key part of this study.

During the past decade, blogging has not only grown, but it has also become a truly international phenomenon: about two thirds of all blogs are written in a language other than English. Blogging in the Global Society: Cultural, Political and Geographical Aspects provides a comprehensive view of blogging as a global practice. Bloggers have created a new virtual world a blogosphere populated with opinion leaders and information purveyors, political pundits and activists, human and animal rights defenders and abusers, corruption fighters and truth seekers, as well as professionals, marketers, advertisers, journalists, celebrities, artists, academics, and bored consumers of all sorts. This book provides a cross-disciplinary analysis of the social, cultural, and political factors affecting blogging practices, tracing the diffusion of blogging as a global communication innovation, uncovering particularities and patterns of adoption in different cultures and geographical regions, and shedding light on trends in the global blogosphere.

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.

The dominant cultural script is that the Baby Boomers have 'had it all', thereby depriving younger generations of the opportunity to create a life for themselves. Bristow provides a critical account of this discourse by locating the problematisation of the Baby Boomers within a wider ambivalence about the legacy of the Sixties.

This text provides for the first time in book form an exploration of the communicative aspects of the darker side of family life, ranging from, for example, severe acts of violence to more subtle forms of conflict. In addition to offering a working definition of the concept of the "dark side" in the family context, the authors propose the Darkness Model of Family Communication that integrates relevant literature in new and significant ways. Researchers, teachers and advanced students alike will benefit from the holistic and theoretical approach to the topic advanced through this volume. Readers are also encouraged to process the material by reviewing discussion questions and the case study of the Moore family at the end of each chapter.

Chapter topics include: an overview of the "dark side" of family communicationindividual influences on the darkness of family communicationthe dark side of dyadic family lifefamilial interaction structure and the dark sidedark family communication in a context of darkness - socio-cultural influences on family lifeconcluding reflections on the study of dark family communication

"The Dark Side of Family Communication" offers an integrative understanding of the dark side of family communication and a theoretical mechanism for understanding related scholarship. It will be essential reading for all students and scholars of family communication.

The first and most thoroughly developed audience-oriented argumentation text has been updated to its 8th edition: Argumentation and Critical Decision Making presents argumentation as a cooperative, communicative process. This text examines the general principles of argument in a rigorous yet readable manner and then applies those principles to different spheres of life -- law, science, religion, business, government, and politics -- to explore how conventions of argument change when applied to these real-world arenas. Focusing on the dynamics of decision making and using real-life examples to illustrate principles, Argumentation and Critical Decision Making aims to help readers develop practical argumentation skills within the world of their daily lives.

The Craft of Quoting helps student-writers develop the ability to use quotes in such a way that their readers "hear" and "feel" what the speaker is saying and understand its relevance to the topic at hand. Students will learn how to write quotes with style, clarity, and consistency. The book provides clear guidelines for mechanical correctness, appropriate attribution, and paraphrasing. The use of paragraph breaks for stylistic purposes is also addressed. In addition, The Craft of Quoting sets out twelve "quote-nots" that help students avoid the common pitfalls of using quotes in written work, as well as nine essential quote patterns that enhance efficacy and impact. The Craft of Quoting also addresses the importance of ethics in writing, especially as these relate to plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Practical and concise, The Craft of Quoting is ideally suited to journalism students whose reporting involves interviewing sources. It is also an excellent tool for second-tier writing classes in which students explore other people's thoughts and feelings in their work.

This volume provides a novel and relational sociological approach to the study of EU civil society. It focuses on the interactions and interrelations between civil society actors and the forms of capital that structure the fields and sub-fields of EU civil society, through new and important empirical studies on organized EU civil society.

Advances in Group Processes publishes theoretical analyses, reviews, and theory based empirical chapters on group phenomena. The series adopts a broad conception of "group processes." This includes work on groups ranging from the very small to the very large, and on classic and contemporary topics such as status, power, exchange, justice, influence, decision-making, intergroup relations and social networks. Previous contributors have included scholars from diverse fields including sociology, psychology, political science, philosophy, computer science, mathematics and organizational behaviour. This volume contains papers presented at the 25th anniversary of the Annual Group Processes Conference.