Very little has been written to address the emerging trends in social software and technology. With these technologies and applications being relatively new and evolving rapidly, research is wide open in these fields. Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Trends fills this critical research need, providing an overview of the current state of Web 2.0 technologies and their impact on organizations and educational institutions. Written for academicians and practicing managers, this estimable book presents business applications as well as implementations for institutions of higher education with numerous examples of how these technologies are currently being used. Delivering authoritative insights to a rapidly evolving domain of technology application, this book is an invaluable resource for both academic libraries and for classroom instruction.

A highly original interpretation of the history of Western culture that presents a first in-depth analysis of the cultural impact of communication. Explains how the media have helped bring about economic, political, social, and intellectual progress.

Adopting the currently unfashionable theory that Western culture has improved over time, Perkinson argues that media of communication have played a pivotal role in helping to make things better. He shows how human speech, when it first emerged, enabled people both to understand better the world they inhabited and to construct political, economic, and social arrangements that improved their life chances. With the invention of writing in Sumer, and especially following the invention of the phonetic alphabet in Greece, people were able to devise even better understandings and improved arrangements. The invention of the printing press in the late 15th century led to the creation of the modern nation state, capitalism, an open society, and modern science.

According to this novel interpretation, media of communication encode the existing culture, thereby enabling people to become critical of it in ways not possible before. This criticism uncovers inadequacies, which, when eliminated, result in an improved culture. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of the history of communications and Western civilization.

What makes human communication problematic? Why can a face-to-face encounter be simple, automatic, and even mindless in one situation and still become complicated, difficult, and even vexing in the next? These are the central questions in this probing analysis of the potential and limits of communication in human relations. Working through the seemingly intractable complexities and complications that emerge from such conflicts as multiple viewpoints and divergent vantage points, this study advances the prospects of working toward optimum conditions for human interaction.

Trust in Knowledge Management and Systems in Organizations aims at tying trust to knowledge management (KM). It highlights the complexity of the invisible phenomenon of trust challenged by the global economy. Fresh insights, novel theoretical frameworks, and empirical results and ideas for future research are presented that differ from those since the 1950s. The eleven chapters (whose authors represent information studies, economics, administrative scientists, mass communications, computer science and cognitive science) explore the multidisciplinary nature of the concepts of trust and KM. The concept of trust is analyzed by presenting its extensive description in relation to knowledge and information-intensive activities and systems for understanding the dynamics of knowledge-based production at the levels of individuals, information systems, organizations, networks and society. Systems are considered from the social or the socio-technological perspective.

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.

Written by a leading scholar of public diplomacy, Boundary Spanners of Humanity introduces a pan-human vision of communication that can revolutionize how we collaborate to solve global problems. Never before has humanity enjoyed better technological capabilities for interconnection than today. Ironically, rather than benefiting from the global pool of human resources and intellectual wealth to solve shared problems, nations are experiencing public discord and global divisions. Boundary Spanners of Humanity tackles the challenge of how to enhance global collaboration by introducing three pan-human logics of human communication and public diplomacy that can transform how we view diversity in an interconnected world. R.S. Zaharna begins by asking why the very tools needed for global collaboration-communication and public diplomacy-are undermining our efforts to work together. Her research reveals how contemporary communication is based on a nineteenth-century mindset of separateness that divided people into mutually exclusive cultural and national categories. That mindset reinforces human divisions and erodes global collaboration. In a radical break from conventional models, Zaharna introduces a vision of humanity-centered public diplomacy featuring three complementary logics of communication. Zaharna's innovative approach stems from decade-long, interdisciplinary research that spans from ancient cosmologies to emerging neurobiology. She draws on a rich array of global examples from ancient and indigenous precolonial diplomacies to spontaneous online communication during the Covid-19 pandemic to provide insights into overlooked aspects of emotion, empathy, spirituality, and synchrony in how nations and people communicate in the global arena. Ambitiously conceived, this book will bring a new, global understanding of how to conduct public diplomacy for the world's boundary spanners-those who would find commonality among our many divisions-and collaborate on humanity's shared global problems.

Based on a wide variety of press reports and other sources, this volume describes the rapid global spread of VCRs and cassettes, often by illegal means, into even those countries where censorship is the rule and information control has been for hundreds of years the universal practice. This book describes the growing policial uses being made of the medium in both restrictive and more democratic countries. It examines the controls instituted on VCRs and programming by governments and has found even the most severe of these to be almost totally ineffective.

Stories and storytelling are one of the primary ways that families and family members make sense of both everyday and difficult events, create a sense of individual and group identity, remember, connect generations, and establish guidelines for family behavior. With so many important functions, storytelling is a significant but still understudied communicative process for the family.

Family Storytelling focuses on the ways in which stories are told in and about family in order to provide insight into the processes, functions, and consequences of family storytelling. This collection of empirical articles illuminates various ways in which family storytelling affects and reflects the negotiation of individual and relational identity in the family, teaches important family lessons, and helps members make sense of and cope with difficulty. Each of these functions is explored through both scientific and interpretive investigations, thus showcasing the contributions that research on family storytelling from different paradigms make to our understanding of the family.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Family Communication.

This volume examines the role of political culture, or hegemonic ideology, in defining journalistic accounts of the world. Rachlin contends that a press, free from legal constraints imposed by an oppressive government, can still undermine the possibility of pluralism and the requirements of democracy if it is constrained by its own narrow vision of the world. It is this narrow vision that continues existing social relationships, instead of questioning or changing them, by inhibiting alternative realities. This volume examines the American press to see if it is so constrained and therefore a force that undermines rather than promotes democracy.

This text examines the influence of cultural values and communication styles on intercultural communication and demonstrates how training can develop intercultural communication competencies. A large number of interactions between well-educated immigrants from all continents and from more than a hundred countries, together with some including native speakers, are examined and participants' answers to questionnaires compared with their actual communicative behaviour. The author raises questions of interest to many groups: linguists, educators, business people and sociologists. Which values are most salient and enduring, and which cause clashes between cultural groups? To what extent do people retain the communication style identified with their first language and how do these different styles impact on others?

While globalization unifies the world, divisions re-emerge within it in the form of a spectacular separation between Islam and the West. How can it be that Huntington's contested idea of a clash of civilizations became such a powerful political myth through which so many people look at the world? Bottici and Challand disentangle such a process of myth-making both in the West and in Muslim majority countries, and call for a renewed critical attitude towards it. By analysing a process of elaboration of this myth that took place in academic books, arts and media, comics and Hollywood films, they show that the clash of civilizations has become a cognitive scheme through which people look at the world, a practical image on the basis of which they act on it, as well as a drama which mobilizes passions and emotions. Written in a concise and accessible way, this book is a timely and valuable contribution to the academic literature, and more generally, to the public debate. As such, it will be an important reference for scholars and students of political science, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, Middle Eastern politics and Islam.

Culture and Public Relations explores the impact of culture societal and organizational through the global lens of public relations. Structuring the volume around three themes -- culture as an environment for public relations; the culture of PR globally; and the impact of PR on culture -- the editors bring together compelling discussions on such questions as how spirituality, religion, and culture have affected public relations, and how public relations culture has been affected by the "corporate cultures" of business enterprises. Additionally, the volume provides studies on the effect of culture on public relations practice in specific countries.

With contributors from Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America, this collection offers international perspectives on a topic that is growing increasingly important in public relations study and practice. It will be required reading for scholars, researchers, and students in public relations and also has much to offer the business discipline, for those seeking to integrate culture and communication to their practices.

In recent years, China has experienced a revolution in information and communications technology (ICT), in 2003 surpassing the USA as the world's largest telephone market, and as of February 2008, the number of Chinese Internet users has become the largest in the world. At the same time, China has overtaken the USA as the world's biggest supplier of information technology goods. However, this transformation has occurred against the backdrop of a resolutely authoritarian political system and strict censorship by the Party-state. This book examines China's ICT revolution, exploring the social, cultural and political implications of China's transition to a more information-rich and communication-intensive society. The pace of the development of ICT in China has precipitated much speculation about political change and democratisation. This book explores the reality of ICT in China, showing clearly that whilst China remains a one-party state, with an ever-present and sophisticated regime of censorship, substantial social and political changes have taken place. It considers the ICT revolution in all its aspects, outlining the dominant trends, the impact on other countries of China as an ICT exporter, strategies of government censorship and use of ICT for propaganda, the implications of censorship for Chinese governance, the political implications of internet culture and blogging, and the role of domestic and foreign NGOs. Overall, this book is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand a rapidly transforming China, both today and in the years to come.

This study sees 'mediation' as a way of understanding the relationship between internal and external conversation, which underpins how individuals are connected to society. The relationship between these aspects of conversation is crucial in allowing selves to achieve subjectively-defined 'balance' between inner and outer worlds.

With the Obama campaign universally acknowledged as the most successfully marketed presidential campaign of all time, the future of political marketing is fiercely contested, provoking a wealth of high quality scholarship from across the globe. This work provides an accessible introduction to the field, international in both content and authorship, which will set the direction of future research.

Routledge Handbook of Political Marketing contains cutting edge contributions written by academic experts and informed practitioners but will also have a cohesive structure, containing emerging areas and authors alongside established ones. The handbook addresses the practicalities as well as the broader impact of political marketing on politics including its? role in the changing relationship between political leaders, parties and voters. With each chapter providing a comparative and carefully structured discussion of a key topic, the handbook examines issues within the following broad themes:

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• Understanding the market, gathering ideas, and debate
• Product development, branding and strategy
• Internal Marketing
• Communicating and connecting with the public
• E Government Marketing - delivery, policy and leadership

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With each chapter written to a common template presenting new research and contemporary case studies, the handbook combines a succinct presentation of the latest research with an accessible and systematic format that will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners alike.

This book is intended to introduce readers to the various philosophical theories of communication by elaborating upon a number of key philosophers situated within differing perspectives. Having identified their concerns, they are then subjected to critical overview. The book is split into three sections, each focussing on specific philosophers and their ideas. The first section look at those whose work might be considered as focusing on the production of communication (Saussure, Peirce and Foucault), the next section examines those authors whose writings are more centred upon the interpretation or reading of communicative messages (Eco, Derrida and Gadamer) and the last chapters shift attention towards the effect or actions that result from communication (Austin, Grice, Searle and Habermas).

In Communication Yearbook 11 major contributions from leading scholars in a variety of communication fields are presented and then critiqued by other authorities (often representing complementary or competing schools of thought). Topics addressed and commented on include the mass media audience, the theory of mediation, effective policy for health care communication and feminist criticism of television.

The Communication Yearbook 6 publishes a survey of trends at the frontiers of communication's many sub-fields, including: interpersonal, mass, organizational and political communication, and human communication technologies.

In Communication Yearbook 11 major contributions from leading scholars in a variety of communication fields are presented and then critiqued by other authorities (often representing complementary or competing schools of thought). Topics addressed and commented on include the mass media audience, the theory of mediation, effective policy for health care communication and feminist criticism of television.

The Communication Yearbook annuals publish diverse, state-of-the-discipline literature reviews that advance knowledge and understanding of communication systems, processes, and impacts across the discipline. Sponsored by the International Communication Association, each volume provides a forum for the exchange of interdisciplinary and internationally diverse scholarship relating to communication in its many forms. This volume re-issues the yearbook from 1987.

Communication Yearbook 24, originally published in 2001 comprises essays that address the current status of theory and research in each division and interest group of the International Communication Association (ICA). It focusses on the following questions: What are the parameters of the division/interest group, and what is the relationship of the division within other groups? What are the major theories used, and what research is there to support these theories?What are the major lines of research, and what are the main issues with which scholars must cope in the twenty-first century?

The Communication Yearbook annuals publish diverse, state-of-the-discipline literature reviews that advance knowledge and understanding of communication systems, processes, and impacts across the discipline. Sponsored by the International Communication Association, each volume provides a forum for the exchange of interdisciplinary and internationally diverse scholarship relating to communication in its many forms. This volume re-issues the yearbook from 1984.