The question of ignorance occupies a central place in anthropological theory and practice. This volume argues that the concept of ignorance has largely been pursued as the opposite of knowledge or even its obverse. Though they cover wide empirical ground - from clients of a fertility treatment center in New York to families grappling with suicide in Greenland - contributors share a commitment to understanding the concept as a productive, social practice. Ultimately, The Anthropology of Ignorance asks whether an academic commitment to knowledge can be squared with lived significance of ignorance and how taking it seriously might alter anthropological research practices.

In this book, authors mesh two philosophies about language: the whole language approach that is sweeping across reading/learning and current theory of language acquisition pervading the bilingual community. The thrust of most bilingual research is that the learner should learn in his own language using natural approaches and then learn English as a second language. Typically, much of the instruction in languages other than English have used rote methods. This book shows how one would learn using an integrated and literacy-based approach to language acquisition and development.

After the introduction of a new economic policy of 1991, India is increasingly portrayed as a big emerging market for consumer goods and for broadcasting and communications services. Policies for telecommunications, computer software and television broadcasting in India have also shifted fundamentally. The book considers communications policies in light of the role of communications in social and economic development and global patterns of trade and investment in communications and services.

Devoted to cleft palate, dysarthria, and the production and perception of foreign language speech sounds. $35.00 to individuals. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Attempts to raise awareness on a multitude of health issues may actually be counter-productive and even dangerous to solving contemporary health problems. From Awareness to Commitment in Public Health Campaigns: The Awareness Myth discusses several myths of the benefits of raising awareness. Myleea Hill and Marceline Thompson-Hayes argue that using awareness as an end-point in public health campaigns is misguided and does more harm than good. They offer a model of the current awareness culture that simply leads to an ever-increasing cycle of awareness without behavioral change or sustained participation and support for causes. Then, they demonstrates how three factors (recognition involvement, knowledge-seeking and education, and participation) intersect to create commitment to solving and alleviating health problems through various methods of communication (social media, mass communication, and interpersonal communication).

Public broadcasting has changed dramatically since its founding in 1967. The growing equation of marketplace efficiency with the public interest has, in Tom McCourt's analysis, undermined the value of public goods and services. In addition, political and cultural discourse is increasingly beset by fragmentation. Public radio provides an exemplary site to examine the prospects and problems of contemporary public life.

Beginning with a description of the events that led to the creation of National Public Radio, McCourt discusses the relationship between NPR and its affiliate stations and the ways in which struggles over funding and programming have affected public radio's agenda. He also examines how public radio incorporates the roles of public representatives into its operations and how its methods to determine the needs and interests of the public have changed across the systeM's history. The social, political, and economic pressures that have impacted the mission and practices of National Public Radio, McCourt asserts, are manifest in all areas of American life. Through extensive historical research, he examines whether American public broadcasters, as represented by NPR, have succeeded or failed to engender an enlightened, participatory democracy.

Why are some civic associations better than others at getting--and keeping--people involved in activism? From MoveOn.org to the National Rifle Association, Health Care for America Now to the Sierra Club, membership-based civic associations constantly seek to engage people in civic and political action. What makes some more effective than others?
Using in-person observations, surveys, and field experiments, this book compares organizations with strong records of engaging people in health and environmental politics to those with weaker records. To build power, civic associations need quality and quantity (or depth and breadth) of activism. They need lots of people to take action and also a cadre of leaders to develop and execute that activity. Yet, models for how to develop activists and leaders are not necessarily transparent. This book provides these models to help associations build the power they want and support a healthy democracy. In particular, the book examines organizing, mobilizing, and lone wolf models of engagement and shows how highly active associations blend mobilizing and organizing to transform their members' motivations and capacities for involvement.
This is not a simple story about the power of offline versus online organizing. Instead, it is a story about how associations can blend both online and offline strategies to build their activist base. In this compelling book, Hahrie Han explains how civic associations can invest in their members and build the capacity they need to inspire action.

A systematic examination of Chinese communication scholarship and comprehensive critique of its theories and methodologies are long overdue, and in this new collection of essays by a multicultural group of scholars, both aims are achieved. Focusing on such relatively new fields as Chinese health communication and Chinese communication on the internet, the volume addresses key questions about the state and the future of its field. Both challenging and complementing the Western views of communication, it advances theories of cultural and intercultural communication while at the same time broadening our understanding of the relevance of Chinese communication studies to communication studies overall, and the ways in which this subdiscipline points the way toward a new and more complicated future. The essayists, whose origins include the United States, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, bring their many perspectives to bear on what is the most comprehensive and inclusive review of Chinese communication research literature published in English. Of great benefit to Western and Eastern communication theorists, philosophers of social science, and Asian studies scholars, Chinese Communication Theory and Research is an invaluable guide to an increasingly complex and significant field of study.

The economic analysis of the digital economy has been a rapidly developing research area for more than a decade. Through authoritative examination by leading scholars, this Handbook takes a closer look at particular industries, business practices, and policy issues associated with the digital industry. The volume offers an up-to-date account of key topics, discusses open questions, and provides guidance for future research. It offers a blend of theoretical and empirical works that are central to understanding the digital economy. The chapters are presented in four sections, corresponding with four broad themes: 1) infrastructure, standards, and platforms; 2) the transformation of selling, encompassing both the transformation of traditional selling and new, widespread application of tools such as auctions; 3) user-generated content; and 4) threats in the new digital environment. The first section covers infrastructure, standards, and various platform industries that rely heavily on recent developments in electronic data storage and transmission, including software, video games, payment systems, mobile telecommunications, and B2B commerce. The second section takes account of the reduced costs of online retailing that threatens offline retailers, widespread availability of information as it affects pricing and advertising, digital technology as it allows the widespread employment of novel price and non-price strategies (bundling, price discrimination), and auctions, as well as better tar. The third section addresses the emergent phenomenon of user-generated content on the Internet, including the functioning of social networks and open source. Finally, the fourth section discusses threats arising from digitization and the Internet, namely digital piracy, privacy and internet security concerns.

Pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, this book offers detailed insights into the empirical relationships between overall social key figures of states and cultures in the fields of information and communication technology (ICT) (digital divide/inequality), the economy, education and religion. Its goal is to bridge the 'cultural gap' between computer scientists, engineers, economists, social and political scientists by providing a mutual understanding of the essential challenges posed and opportunities offered by a global information and knowledge society. In a sense, the historically unprecedented technical advances in the field of ICT are shaping humanity at different levels and forming a hybrid (intelligent) human-technology system, a so-called global superorganism. The main innovation is the combined study of digitization and globalization in the context of growing social inequalities, collapse, and sustainable development, and how a convergence towards a kind of global culture could take place. Accordingly, the book discusses the spread of ICT, Internet Governance, the balance between the central concentration of power and the extent of decentralized power distribution, the inclusion or exclusion of people and states in global communication processes, and the capacity for global empathy or culture.

One of the realities of educational practice in the late 20th century is the increasing role of assessment, especially of children's oral and written language. While there are many issues and problems surrounding this assessment, one problem that needs to be addressed is the lack of alternative ways of assessing children's language and literacy for K-12 practitioners. There are many ways to approach the assessment of language and literacy. How one approaches the assessment of oral and written language depends, in large part, on how language is defined and on what purposes language is viewed as serving. In this book, alternative ways of assessing language are based on three different perspectives defining language and its uses: anthropological, socio-psycholinguistic, and literary. Although applying these perspectives to language is not new, only recently have educators and others taken seriously the need for assessment of language to be consistent with the perspectives of language underlying classroom instruction. Simply put, as language education (including reading, writing, and oral language) becomes increasingly based upon anthropological, socio-psycholinguistic, and literary principles, the assessment of language and literacy must also be based upon such principles. This book discusses and illustrates how to reconceptualize assessment in terms of the alternative perspectives outlined here.

The book is a brief journey through centuries and jurisdictions and expands on examples of enactment practices of states that support, challenge or even reject communication during pending litigations. England, as the main representative of a jurisdiction, suggests communication solutions potentially different than the practice in the United States where litigation communication first time occurred. Accordingly, the author offers a comprehensive analysis and detailed historical narrative of the positions of various jurisdictions in relation to communication in the legal process. As a kind of applied legal history, the book provides an exploration of historical events that were significant in a legal communication context and addresses their implications for modern enactments. The account looks at the history of regulations to allow a better understanding of the strict rules that have often been cited over the years support or restrict communication in the legal process. The author provides the reader with proper contexts on different judicial and communication considerations, as well as the collaboration of legal and public relations experts, in a particular form of crisis and reputation management, in the litigation process. As such, this book is an attempt to present an accurate and thoughtful account of the theory and history of litigation communication, which is directly relevant in various debates such as the work on the meaning and context of the Contempt of Court Act in England or the American First and Sixth Amendments in different centuries.

Science communication, as a multidisciplinary field, has developed remarkably in recent years. It is now a distinct and exceedingly dynamic science that melds theoretical approaches with practical experience. Formerly well-established theoretical models now seem out of step with the social reality of the sciences, and the previously clear-cut delineations and interacting domains between cultural fields have blurred. Communicating Science in Social Contexts examines that shift, which itself depicts a profound recomposition of knowledge fields, activities and dissemination practices, and the value accorded to science and technology.

Communicating Science in Social Contexts is the product of long-term effort that would not have been possible without the research and expertise of the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Network and the editors. For nearly 20 years, this informal, international network has been organizing events and forums for discussion of the public communication of science.

While many analyses have examined disinformation in recent election campaigns, misuse of 'big data' such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and manipulation by bots and algorithms, most have blamed a few bad actors. This incisive analysis presents evidence of deeper and broader corruption of the public sphere, which the author refers to as post-communication. With extensive evidence, Jim Macnamara argues that we are all responsible for the slide towards a post-truth society. This analysis looks beyond high profile individuals such as Donald Trump, Russian trolls, and even 'Big Tech' to argue that the professionalized communication industries of advertising, PR, political and government communication, and journalism, driven by clickbait and aided by a lack of critical media literacy, have systematically contributed to disinformation, deception, and manipulation. When combined with powerful new communication technologies, artificial intelligence, and lack of regulation, this has led to a 'perfect data storm'. Accordingly, Macnamara proposes that there is no single solution. Rather, he identifies a range of strategies for communication professionals, industry associations, media organizations and platforms, educators, legislators, regulators, and citizens to challenge post-communication and post-truth.

This volume is aimed at all those who wonder about the mechanisms and effects of the disclosure of knowledge. Whether they have a professional interest in understanding these processes generally, or they wish to conduct targeted investigations in the PCST field, it will be useful to anyone involved in science communication, including researchers, academics, students, journalists, science museum staff, scientists high public profiles, and information officers in scientific institutions.

Television news range among the most extensively investigated topics in communication studies. The book contributes to television news research by focusing on whether and how news viewers who watch the same news program form similar or different interpretations. The author develops a novel concept of interpretation based on cognitive complexity research. He strongly argues that qualitative and quantitative research methods work best if they complement one another.

This book focuses on the unexplored context of contemporary Swedish comic strips as sites of innovative linguistic practices, where humor is derived from language play and creativity, often drawing from English and other European languages as well as social and regional dialects of Swedish. The overall purpose of the book is to highlight linguistic playfulness in Swedish comic strips, as an example of practices as yet unobserved and unaccounted for in theories of linguistic humor as applied to comics scholarship. The book familiarizes the reader with the Swedish language and linguistic culture as well as contemporary Swedish comic strips, with chapters focusing on specific strategies of language play and linguistic humor, such as mocking Swedish dialects and Swedish-accented foreign language usage, invoking English language popular culture, swearing in multiple languages, and turn-final code-switching to English to signal the punchline. The book will appeal to readers interested in humor, comics, or how linguistic innovation, language play, and language contact each can further the modern development of language, exemplified by the case of Swedish.

This book provides a critical assessment of progress towards the Information Society. Drawing upon unique empirical data, this book lays the foundation for more useful theories of the process of change, and more effective strategies and policies for increasing the benefits from the Information Society. The authors provide insights into the social, economic, and political forces that are structuring the pathway to the Information Society-and its consequences for business and individuals in their everyday lives.

This book considers what is at stake for professionals whose work increasingly involves communicating in linguistically and culturally diverse contexts, and argues for the need to better understand the crucial role of languages and cultures in the modern workplace. With a focus on the experience of multilingual professionals, the author's position is that such professionals, exemplified by those who have relocated internationally, deploy their unique linguistic, cultural and intercultural repertoires in their work. This book examines the ways in which professionals interpret and manage their experience of working within and across languages and cultures in ways that create affordances for them, their professional practice, and those who depend on their knowledge and expertise. It will be relevant to undergraduate and postgraduate students undertaking studies in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, intercultural education and professional communication in any discipline.

The 1980s witnessed a rapid growth of communication technology and an immense expansion of new media around the globe. The development of new information and communication technologies has emphasized again the importance of economic, social, political, and cultural institutions associated with the definitions of new technologies. Many of the traditional conceptions of the relation of the media to democracy were predicated upon a certain perception of communication technology and the major contemporary debates related to democratization have to do, again, with the deployment of technologies. How do all these developments affect society? How is the communications explosion related to democracy? What are the implications for the social functions of communications, people's activities, consciousness and values, media ownership and control, both nationally and internationally? These are some of the questions discussed in this volume.

In today's digital age, online and mobile advertising are of growing importance, with advertising no longer bound to the traditional media industry. Although the advertising industry still has broader access to the different measures and channels, users and consumers today have more possibilities to publish, get informed or communicate - to "co-create" -, and to reach a bigger audience. There is a good chance thus that users and consumers are better informed about the objectives and persuasive tricks of the advertising industry than ever before. At the same time, advertisers can inform about products and services without the limitations of time and place faced by traditional mass media. But will there really be a time when advertisers and consumers have equal power, or does tracking users online and offline lead to a situation where advertisers have more information about the consumers than ever before? The volume discusses these questions and related issues.

Wenshan Jia demonstrates that a true liberation of Chinese civic discourse can start with a focus on indigenous cultural practices, such as face practices--the understanding that every human face offers a distinct cultural grammar for acting, speaking, and feeling. Chinese character and identity, the author argues, are primarily functions of communication, and as such, these practices are of enormous consequence to the necessary reconstruction of Chinese identity in the changing socioeconomic context of the 21st century. In this way, Jia finds a middle ground between the advocacy of complete Westernization and radical Chinese nationalism: as a pragmatic alternative, communication is key. Never before has facework research been approached so systematically from the standpoint of its relationship to character and identity. Jia's work substantially advances the literature on Chinese communication and presents a unique perspective on its relationship to social transformation. This new paradigm of facework--including analytical methods such as Circular Questioning in addition to major case studies--challenges traditional views while pointing the way toward a new and valuable social-constructionist view.

This volume focuses on the use of dialogue journals in classrooms with students from diverse language and cultural backgrounds whose proficiency with spoken and written English is limited. The companion volume to Dialogue Journal Communication (Ablex, 1988), it carefully describes, from a teacher's experience, how dialogue journal writing can be effectively implemented in the multilingual classroom, with practical tips for starting and maintaining the practice, exploiting the benefits, and avoiding the pitfalls. It presents a model of researchers working in close collaboration with teachers and shows the development in the journals of individual students, with extended examples of student and teacher writing so that teachers can see research results that are not hopelessly extracted from the context in which they were produced. At the same time, it has a strong research orientation.

The Ethics and Rhetoric of Invasion Ecology provides an introduction to the controversial treatment and ongoing violence routinely utilized against non-native species. Drawing from the tradition of critical animal scholars, Stanescu and Cummings have assembled a group of advocates who argue for a different kind of relationship with foreign species. Where contemporary approaches often emphasize the need to eradicate ecological invaders in order to preserve delicate habitats, the essays in this volume aim to reformulate the debate by arguing for an alternative approach that advances the possibility of an ethics of co-habitation.