Why? This question drives scientific inquiry, not least in the social sciences: why war, revolution, racism and inequality? Asking and debating about 'why?', however, is not the prerogative of scholars; social actors, endowed with thought, reflection and speech, do it too. While we all dance to the beat of genes, emotions, identities and habituated norms, we occasionally stop to ask 'why?' The social sciences have been long preoccupied with the ostensibly objective 'why' while sidelining the social, intersubjective 'why?' This book focuses on the latter, analysing the social actors' search for justification in their public, political sphere. Justifications, broadly understood, are answers to why-questions given and debated by social actors. The chapters focus on public justifications. While the contributors do not submit that private encounters addressing why-questions do not matter, they choose to put public encounters addressing these questions under scrutiny. Given the ongoing telecommunications revolution, and new political practices associated with it, these public encounters become increasingly pertinent in our evolving political orders. This book originally published as a special issue in Contemporary Politics.

Much of framing scholarship focuses either exclusively on the analysis of words or of visuals. This book aims to address this gap by proposing a six-step approach to the analysis of verbal frames, visual frames and the interplay between them-an integrative framing analysis. This approach is then demonstrated through a study investigating the way words and visuals are used to frame people living with HIV/AIDS in various communication contexts: the news, public service announcements and special interest publications. This application of integrative framing analysis reveals differences between verbal frames and visual frames in the same messages, underscoring the importance of looking at these frames together. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Both international and internal migration brings new challenges to public health systems. This book aims to critically review theoretical frameworks and literature, as well as discuss new practices and lessons related to culture, migration, and health communication in different countries. It features research and applied projects conducted by scholars from various disciplines including media and communication, public health, medicine, and nursing.

What's the best way to calm the butterflies before you speak? Should you open your speech with a joke or a story? What should you do if you forget something important? How do you overcome your fear of speaking to large and small groups? Here, in an easy to access format, you'll find techniques to create and deliver a speech for every occasion, overcome pre-speech nerves, avoid tripping over your tongue, and always look and feel like a Unique and Sexy Speaker. You speak in public every day. Whether you're giving a speech, having a conversation, saying your wedding vows, teaching your kids, exhorting your sales team, or talking in your sleep, if someone is listening, you have the opportunity to influence and to inspire. Being influential and inspirational That's very sexy

As an international speaker with more than a dozen years of experience speaking to all kinds of audiences, I can say this is a truly useful collection of tips that can help any speaker rise to the next level. I've read many books for speakers, and this is the one I'd use right before I go on stage or as I fly to my next engagement to remind me of the basics and to get a good, positive outlook thanks to its bite-sized chunks of wisdom. Dan Janal, publicity/marketing/thought leader, and president of PR LEADS. PLUS.com

Secrets of a Unique & Sexy Speaker sets out the rules of speaking in clear, concise, and easy-to-follow steps that take the mystery and fear out of public speaking. This is an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to, or has to, stand before an audience to deliver a message. Rona Arato, author of The Last Train, a Holocaust Story

Lucky me I read Secrets of a Unique & Sexy Speaker before two public appearances, one in front of a hundred or so businesspeople and the other before a board of eighteen. I chose several Speaking Tips to practice and test drive. While much of the book might have you nod in recognition, if you re aware of your own ticks and have received feedback about your speaking, you will as I did benefit enormously from consistently applying these techniques to help you improve. As Marion Claire points out, speaking is a mental as well as physical sport that requires preparation to achieve greater freedom of expression. Thank you, Marion, for your thorough, practical and encouraging guidance. Agnes Mura, MA MCC, global leadership coach, www.AMIcoaches.com

There is a struggle over governance of the global information network among national governments and international organizations, corporations and NGOs, elites and civil society. The outcome will determine how we communicate, the extent of our civil liberties and human rights, the profitability of e-commerce, and the richness of cultural expression. This collection looks at the processes by which the global information policy regime is being formed - themselves in conflict - as a foundation for understanding its emergent features.

This book covers an approach to conversational informatics which encompasses science and technology for understanding and augmenting conversation in the network age. A major challenge in engineering is to develop a technology for conveying not just messages but also underlying wisdom. Relevant theories and practices in cognitive linguistics and communication science, as well as techniques developed in computational linguistics and artificial intelligence, are discussed.

This book explores the concept of intercultural competence, focusing specifically on education. Intercultural competence can vary depending on the field of research or the context of application and has therefore developed over recent decades. As the world becomes increasingly global intercultural competence has become even more important but it is still not practiced satisfactorily. This book highlights views which are at odds with official and orthodox positions on intercultural competence to encourage fresh approaches to intercultural competence. It will be invaluable for researchers, practitioners and students interested in the global possibilities of education.

Highlighting an arts-based inquiry process that involves contemplation, mindful awareness, and artful writing, this book explores women's difficult experiences in teaching. It weaves a strong autobiographical thread with artifacts from several research projects with female teachers. By linking innovative approaches to research that involve visual images and poetic writing with feminist poststructuralist theories and Buddhist-inspired practices, Walsh offers new understandings about what it means to be critical in research and teaching-and also what transformation, both social and personal, might entail.

Sixteenth-century Italy witnessed the rebirth of comedy, tragedy, and tragicomedy in the pastoral mode. Traditionally, we think of comedy and tragedy as remakes of ancient models, and tragicomedy alone as the invention of the moderns. Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy suggests that all three genres were, in fact, remarkably new, if dramatists' intriguingly sympathetic portrayals of and sustained investment in women as vibrant and dynamic characters of the early modern stage are taken into account. This study examines the role of rhetoric and gender in early modern Italian drama, in itself and in order to explore its complex interrelationship with the rise of women writers and the role women played in Italian culture and society, while at the same time demonstrating just how closely intertwined history, culture, and dramatic writing are. Author Alexandra Coller focuses on the scripted/erudite plays of the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries, which, she argues, are indispensable for a balanced view of the history of drama and its place within contemporary literary and women's studies. As this book reveals, the ascendancy of comedy, tragedy, and tragicomedy in the vernacular seems to have been not only inextricably linked to but also dependent on the rise of women as prominent stage characters and, eventually, as authors in their own right.

This book explores the various choices speakers or communicators make when expressing power relations in modern societies. The volume brings together several disciplines, such as linguistics, sociology, communication studies and social psychology, to give insight into how interactants co-construct different aspects of power in their everyday life.

This unique volume offers an overview of the diversity in research on communication, including perspectives from biology, sociality, economics, norms and human development. It includes general social science and humanities approaches to communication, from systems theory to cultural theory, as well as perspectives more specifically related to communication acts, such as linguistics and cognition. The volume also features chapters on the participants and various elements in communication processes, on possible effects and on wider consequences of mediation (with technical media). The scope of the contributions is global, and the volume is relevant to both the empirical and the philosophical traditions in human sciences. Designed as a stand-alone collection to engage undergraduates as well as postgraduates and academics, this is also the first book in, and an introduction to, the De Gruyter Mouton multi-volume Handbooks of Communication Science.

The term "special population" occupies a particular purpose and has a particular role in the discourse of higher education. This book uses the term as an umbrella term for any student who tends to be underrepresented on college campuses and has a very specific set of unique needs: among others, individuals with physical and learning disabilities, international students, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ students, single parents, and first generation and other non-traditional student groups. Sometimes these "special" student groups are visible to educators; however, quite often they are hidden in plain sight, which makes it difficult for educators to work effectively and meaningfully with these student groups. This book uses the framework of critical intercultural communication pedagogy to generate a discussion about pedagogical issues surrounding students who are categorized as "special populations", focusing on culturally sensitive pedagogical methods to educate all students.

This book presents the findings, applications, and theoretical underpinnings of a unique leadership communication model: motivating language theory. Drawing from management, social science, and communication theories, motivating language theory demonstrates how leader-to-follower speech improves employee and organizational well-being and drives positive workplace outcomes (such as employee performance, retention, and job satisfaction) in a wide array of settings. It presents an integrated model based on empirical findings and theoretical developments from the past three decades to explore the three dimensions of motivating language: direction giving language, empathetic language, and meaning-making language. It will be a comprehensive source for its empirical relationships, generalizability, theoretical basis, and future directions for research and practice.

Gesture has held a crucial role in cinema since its inception. In the absence of spoken words, early cinema frequently exploited the communicative potential of the gestures of actors. As this book demonstrates, gesture has continued to assume immense importance in film to the present day. This innovative book features essays by leading international scholars working in the fields of cinema, cultural and gender studies, examining modern and contemporary films from a variety of theoretical perspectives. This volume also includes contributions from an esteemed actor, and a world renowned psychologist working in the field of gesture, enabling a pioneering interdisciplinary dialogue around this exciting, emerging field of study. Drawing on philosophy, psychoanalysis and psychology, the essays think through gesture in film from a range of new angles, pointing out both its literal and abstract manifestations. Gesture is analysed in relation to animal/human relations, trauma and testimony, sexual difference, ethics and communitarian politics, through examples from both narrative and documentary cinema. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal for Cultural Research.

This book offers a comprehensive account of the nature and development of political communication in Africa. In light of the growing number of African states now turning towards democratic rule, as well as the growing utilization of information technologies in Africa, the contributors examine topics such as: the role of social media in politics, strategic political communication, political philosophy and political communication, Habermas in Africa, gender and political communication, image dilemma in Africa, and issues in political communication research in Africa, and identify the frontiers for future research on political communication in Africa.

Of all the things we do and say, most will never be repeated or reproduced. Once in a while, however, an idea or a practice generates a chain of transmission that covers more distance through space and time than any individual person ever could. What makes such transmission chains possible? For two centuries, the dominant view (from psychology to anthropology) was that humans owe their cultural prosperity to their powers of imitation. In this view, modern cultures exist because the people who carry them are gifted at remembering, storing and reproducing information. How Traditions Live and Die proposes an alternative to this standard view. What makes traditions live is not a general-purpose imitation capacity. Cultural transmission is partial, selective, often unfaithful. Some traditions live on in spite of this, because they tap into widespread and basic cognitive preferences. These attractive traditions spread, not by being better retained or more accurately transferred, but because they are transmitted over and over. This theory is used to shed light on various puzzles of cultural change (from the distribution of bird songs to the staying power of children's rhymes) and to explain the special relation that links the human species to its cultures. Morin combines recent work in cognitive anthropology with new advances in quantitative cultural history, to map and predict the diffusion of traditions. This book is both an introduction and an accessible alternative to contemporary theories of cultural evolution.

Social media such as instant messaging (IM), social networking sites (SNS), blogs and microblogs are an integral part of adolescents' lives in China. Anecdotal evidence reported in the news has suggested that the increasing popularity of social media could make adolescents more vulnerable to being addicted. This exploratory study proposes the concept of "social media addiction" and examines (a) whether social media addiction exists among adolescents in urban China and, if so, who the addicts are, what their symptoms are and to what extent they are addicted; (b) whether sociopsychological traits (e.g., need for affiliation, impression management, narcissism and leisure boredom) can predict social media addiction among adolescents; (c) what gratifications are obtained by adolescents from their use of social media and whether these gratifications can predict social media addiction and (d) to what degree social media addiction influences adolescents' academic performance and social capital.

This study employed quantitative questionnaire surveys among adolescents as the main research method, supplemented by qualitative pre-survey focus groups among adolescents and post-survey in-depth interviews among parents and teachers. Questionnaire surveys were conducted based on a multi-stage cluster sampling of seven middle schools in five urban Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Xiamen. The final sample consisted of 1,549 adolescents, of whom 90% had used social media. Using Young's classic definition of Internet addiction, 15.6% of participants were classified as social media addicts. The addicted adolescents were often self-absorbed, bored with their leisure time, and good at using manipulation through social media for impression management. Addicts experienced four major social media addiction symptoms: preoccupation, adverse consequences, alleviation of negative emotions and loss of interest in social activities.

The seven social media gratifications identified in this study can be categorized into social, information and entertainment gratifications. Among these, entertainment gratifications had the most power to predict social media addiction, while information gratifications were the least likely to lead to addiction. Furthermore, these gratifications were found to be powerful mediators between the adolescents' sociopsychological traits and social media addiction. Finally, the results also indicated that social media addiction and its symptoms had a significant negative impact on adolescents' academic performance and social capital.

This 19th volume in the series discusses a variety of topics in the field of symbolic interaction.

This book examines the origins of Ireland in its first independent incarnation, the Irish Free State (1922-1937). It explores how contemporary public relations and propaganda techniques were used to construct an identity for this new state - a state which after enduring seven years of insurrection and civil war, became one of the most stable democracies in Europe. This stability, the book argues, was constructed not solely through policies enacted by governments, but through the construction of a Gaelic, Catholic and Celtic national identity. By shifting the perspective to how nation building was communicated, it weaves an interdisciplinary narrative that initiates a new understanding of nation building - providing insights of increasing relevance in current world events. Avoiding a simplistic cause and effect history of public relations, the book examines the uses and effects of early public relations from a political and societal perspective and suggests that while governments were only modestly successful in their varied propaganda efforts, cumulatively they facilitated a transition from violence to peace. This will be of interest to researchers and advanced students with an interest in public relations, propaganda studies, nation building and Irish studies.

Genre, Gender, Race, and World Cinema is an innovative anthology that introduces the study of film theory using the four topics of genre, gender, race, and world cinema, to encourage critical discussion. * A major anthology geared towards course use, which covers key concepts in film studies through analysis of important films from American, Asian, European and African cinema * Combines formal, historical, cultural, and theoretical approaches to study * Analyzes how film represents and influences individual and societal constructs of identity * Uses selected readings to introduce inter-textual relations between the readings and the films they discuss * Contains section introductions that map the themes and histories of each topic, and raise theoretical issues specific to each

This 21st volume in the series discusses a variety of topics in the field of symbolic interaction. It is divided into three parts, which address: remembering Anselm Strauss; the pragmatic heritage; and, reading self, media and culture.

The Internet, World Wide Web, and digital devices have fundamentally changed the way people communicate, affecting everything from business, to school, to family, to religion, to democracy. This textbook takes a well-rounded view of the evolution from media literacy to digital literacy to help students better understand the digitally filtered world in which they live. The text explores digital literacy through three lenses: * Historical: reviews snapshots of time and space to delineate how things were in order to lend context to how they are; * Cultural: explores how values and ideals are constructed and conveyed within a given cultural context - how humans absorb and share the informal rules and norms that make up a society; * Critical: illuminates how social changes - particularly rapid ones - can put certain people at a disadvantage. All three angles are helpful for better understanding the myriad ways in which our identities and relationships are being altered by technology, and what it means to be a citizen in a society that has become individualized and is in constant flux. Written in a conversational and approachable style, the text is easy to navigate, with short chapters, short paragraphs, and bullet points. Comics and images illustrate complex topics and add visual interest. The text is ideal for media literacy, digital information literacy, and technology courses that seek to integrate human impact into the mix. It is also a good starting point for anyone wanting to know more about the impact of communication technologies on our lives.

This book explores communication between humans and robots. Using a range of communication theories, it highlights how each theory provides a different perspective on the communication that occurs. The analysis of human interactions with a variety of forms of robot suggests new ways to perceive what communication, and being a communicator, entails.

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.