This volume examines one health issue -- breast implants -- across a series of contexts often thought to be separate -- media coverage, doctor-patient interaction, doctor-doctor professional communication, support group dialogues, public relations campaigns, and more. In so doing, it provides a narrative of how communication shapes the individual perceptions of health, government, and social policy concerning health care.
At the core of the silicone breast implant controversy is the need for people to act amid uncertainty about the health risks involved. This need to weigh action in the midst of uncertain risk characterizes a large number of health issues. The attempts of patients, physicians, drug manufacturers, and others to seek and provide both information and influence makes communication central to these issues. Consequently, the questions explored in this volume will interest a diverse group of readers. This audience includes plastic surgeons in particular, physicians in general, and anyone involved with women's health issues. As the medical profession struggles with its identity amid changes in public attitudes, government regulations, and medical practices, this volume's findings concerning media portrayals of doctors and medical devices become even more important.
Finally, this study reveals how interrelated public information and private decisions are, and how closely media and interpersonal relationships fit. Tracing one medical issue across interpersonal, organizational, public relations, and mediated forums has clearly demonstrated the multiple ways those communication channels overlap and inform one another.

The study of narratives in a variety of disciplines has grown in recent years as a method of better explaining underlying concepts in their respective fields. Through the use of Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), political scientists can analyze the role narrative plays in political discourse.

The history of mass communication in Nigeria predates the 1859 publication of the country's first newspaper, but despite this history and the fact that Nigeria commands Africa's most powerful and vigorous press, gathering information on the subject has been difficult. Responding to the increased interest in the Nigerian press, Chris Ogbondah has compiled the first annotated bibliography on the nation's mass communication, listing over 450 items and covering aspects as diverse as history, censorship, broadcasting, and politics, as well as many others. Building on other partial bibliographies and essays, Ogbondah has produced the most complete single-volume compilation on the topic. The book presents its material in a single, alphabetical listing organized by author's last name. Works listed include scholarly journal articles, books, reports, and conference papers, as well as some items that are not strictly academic but were written by professional media practitioners. Each entry contains an annotation that summarizes the main point of the work, its primary thesis, the conclusion, and any research questions. Complex works with several themes, objectives, or conclusions feature more detailed commentary, and wherever possible, dates of publication or presentation have been provided. A complete cross-referenced index concludes the work, and facilitates easy searching of specific topics and categories. This reference work will be a valuable resource for courses in African studies and international communication, and will be an important addition to public, academic, and research libraries in the United States and Africa.

"Communication and Relational Maintenance" addresses the question, "How do people maintain their personal relationships?" Unlike the published works in this field that focus on relationship initiation or dissolution, this volume discusses the everyday processes used to maintain an on-going relationship. It discusses interpersonal communication, social-psychological factors relevant to maintenance, and the resolution of conflict. It focuses on everyday processes used to sustain personal relationships. It analyzes how communication skills affect relationship function. It discusses factors promoting marital stability and satisfaction. It elaborates upon the means and mechanisms for conflict resolution. It identifies dialectical approaches to the study of relationships.

Altheide's new book advances the argument set in motion some years ago with Media Logic and continued in Media Worlds in the Postjournalism Era: that in our age, information technology and the communication environments it posits have affected the private and the social spheres of all our power relationships, redefining the ground rules for social life and concepts such as freedom and justice.

Articulated through an interactionist and non-deterministic focus, An Ecology of Communication offers a distinctive perspective for understanding the impact of information technology, communication formats, and social activities in the new electronic environment. As more routines, rituals, and activities incorporate such technologies within their organizational cultures, new sorts of activities are added and previous ones are changed according to an underlying logic explored in these pages. Various chapters illustrate some of these altered and redefined organizational cultures: bureaucracy, the mass media, computer formats, war, surveillance, and testing, among others.

This book presents an evaluation framework for assessing the impact of the new media on the health care system by juxtaposing characteristics of emerging information and communication technologies (interactive, seamlessly connected, and user-driven) and health care objectives (to increase access, improve quality, and manage costs). Each chapter provides a unique set of tools and perspectives on how to harness these new media to improve individual health and the health care delivery system. This innovative volume has also stimulated the creation of a "Forum on Health and the New Media" on the World Wide Web (http: //Health.Dartmouth.edu/NewMedia/). The forum offers highlights of the book as well as links to the authors and related web sites.
The volume is divided into six sections as follows:
*The "Overview" juxtaposes characteristics of the new media (interactive, connected, and user-driven) with the three criteria for health care improvement: increased access, improved quality, and cost management. It offers a New Media and Health Care matrix of criteria for building and evaluating emerging health care systems.
*The "Delivery" -- how new media can enhance the delivery of health care -- includes chapters on: managed care, demand management and self-care, telemedicine for rural residents, and how the Internet can be used to facilitate collaboration among health researchers and providers.
*Health Information -- the life blood of health care -- addresses the potential for: extending the traditional flow of health information (from researchers to providers) to reach patients who want to share in decisions about their care; and the federal government's role in providing health information to the public.
*Health Education discusses: integrating multimedia health programming for public schools; using networked multimedia and simulation technologies and new learning theories that promise to transform public health education; and educating health providers and patients through interactive media and drama.
*Potholes Along the Highway provides a sobering balance to otherwise rather optimistic assumptions that a national information infrastructure will be forthcoming.
*The New Media: Annotated Glossary provides computing and networking technology tools for readers who are not fluent in cyberlanguage.

This is the first edited volume in the communication field to examine parent-child interaction. It creates a framework for future research in this growing area -- family communication, and more specifically, parent-child communication -- and also suggests new areas of communication research among parents and children -- cultural, work-related, taboo topics, family sex discussions, conflict, and abuse. Chapter authors provide thorough coverage of theoretical approaches, new methods, and emerging contexts including lesbian/gay parent-child relationships. In so doing, they bring a communication perspective to enduring problems of discipline, adolescent conflict, and physical child abuse.
The text highlights various methodological approaches -- both quantitative and qualitative -- including conversation analysis, grounded theory, participant-observation, and phenomenological interviewing of children. It also introduces and surveys various theoretical approaches -- general systems, developmental, cultural, and intergenerational transmission.

Televised debates between the nominees of the two major parties have become standard fare in contemporary presidential election campaigns. The authors of this important volume maintain that television has altered the very nature of presidential debates profoundly, that the demands of television have dictated the structure and formats of contemporary debates, and that the visual content of presidential debates plays an important role in the way that candidates exercise influence in televised debates. This important work employs a television perspective in examining the sponsorship, formats, nature, and impacts of presidential debates, stressing the 1960, 1976, 1980, 1984, and 1988 debates. The authors assert that in order to understand contemporary political debates, one must understand how television communicates and exercises influence in this context. Hellweg, Pfau, and Brydon integrate contemporary theory and research about the television medium and influence with extensive research on presidential debates. Specific topics include how presidential debates have evolved as a function of the participation of the broadcast industry, how debates are structured to fit the demands of the television medium, how candidates' verbal messages must be tailored to the medium, how candidates' visual messages are defined through the medium, and the persuasive effects of mediated debates. Televised Presidential Debates will be particularly useful to scholars and students of political communication, campaigns and elections, and mass media.

This collection of original papers by scholars who closely analyze the talk of the clinic features studies that were conceived with the aim of contributing to clinical practitioners' insight about how their talk works. No previous communication text has attempted to take such a practitioner-sensitive posture with its research presentations. Each chapter focuses on one or more performances that clinical practitioners -- in consort with their clients or colleagues -- must achieve with some regularity. These speech acts are consequential for effective practice and sometimes present themselves as problematic.
Rather than calling for research to be simplified or reoriented in order for practitioners to understand it, these authors interpret state-of-the-art descriptive analysis for its practical import for clinicians. Each contributor delves deeply into clinical practice and its wisdom; therefore, each is positioned to identify alternative clinical practices and techniques and to appreciate practitioners' means of performing effectively. When reflective practitioners encounter these new pieces of work, productive alterations in how their work is done can be stimulated. By reading this work, reflective practitioners will now have new ways of considering their talk and new possibilities for speaking effectively.
The volume is uniquely constructed so as to engage in dialogue with these reflective practitioners as they struggle to articulate their work. A practical wisdom-as-research trend has recently emerged in the clinical fields stimulating these practitioners to explore new and more informative ways -- communication and literary theory, ethnography, and discourse analysis -- to express what they do in clinics and hospitals. With the studies presented in this book, the editors build upon this dialectical process between practitioner and researcher, thus helping this productive conversation to continue.

This book examines the use of language in face-to-face encounters between some university students and their academic counselors. It describes the role language plays in shaping institutional role identities, in accomplishing institutional tasks and activities, and in constituting associated knowledge and affective stances. It documents how the academic counselors and student clients do what they do through grammatical and interactional details. Put more generally, it investigates how certain aspects of institutional life are lived linguistically. Methodologically, this book focuses on specific lexicogrammatical forms, turns, sequences, and narrative episodes which constitute the seemingly routine, ordinary life of academic counseling. It relies on detailed transcripts from audio and video recordings of naturally occurring academic counseling activities, knowledge gained from participant observation, field notes and interview data to advance a tripartite approach to researching institutional discourse.

This book is for cybersecurity leaders across all industries and organizations. It is intended to bridge the gap between the data center and the board room. This book examines the multitude of communication challenges that CISOs are faced with every day and provides practical tools to identify your audience, tailor your message and master the art of communicating. Poor communication is one of the top reasons that CISOs fail in their roles. By taking the step to work on your communication and soft skills (the two go hand-in-hand), you will hopefully never join their ranks. This is not a "communication theory" book. It provides just enough practical skills and techniques for security leaders to get the job done. Learn fundamental communication skills and how to apply them to day-to-day challenges like communicating with your peers, your team, business leaders and the board of directors. Learn how to produce meaningful metrics and communicate before, during and after an incident. Regardless of your role in Tech, you will find something of value somewhere along the way in this book.

Concern with various matters related to humans as they communicate has led to an increase in both research and theorizing during the second half of the 20th century. As a matter of fact, so many scholars and so many disciplines have become involved in this process that it is virtually impossible to understand and appreciate all that has been accomplished so far. This book focuses on one important aspect of human sense-making -- theory building -- and strives to clarify the thesis that theories do not develop in some sort of social, intellectual, or cultural vacuum. They are necessarily the products of specific times, insights, and mindsets. Theories dealing with the "process" of communication, or communicating, are tied to socio-cultural value systems and historic factors that influence individuals in ways often inadequately understood by those who use them. The process-orientation of this book inevitably leads to an emphasis on the perceptions of human beings. Thus, the focus shifts from the subject or area called "communication" to the "act of communicating." Finally, this volume offers insight into how the process of human sense-making has evolved in those academic fields commonly identified as communication, rhetoric, speech communication or speech, within specific socio-cultural settings.

This book discusses how people go about achieving their social goals through human symbolic interaction. The editors' collective presumption is that there are more or less typical ways that people attempt to obtain desired outcomes -- be they persuasive, informative, conflictive, or the like -- through communication. Representing a first summary of research done by scholars, primarily in the communication discipline, this volume seeks to identify and understand how it is that people achieve what they want through social interaction. Under the very broad label of strategies, this research has sought to:
* identify critical social goals such as gaining compliance, generating affinity, resolving social conflict, and offering information;
* specify, for each goal, the ways, or strategies, by which people can go about achieving these goals;
* determine predictors of strategy selection -- that is, why does a person opt for one strategy over others to obtain the desired end?
The research also reflects the attention the field of communication has given to strategy issues in the past 15 years.
The chapters describe research on the ways in which people achieve different goals, and summarize existing research and theory on the attainment of social goals. Readers will gain insight into many of the issues that exist regardless of the strategy being discussed. Thus, this volume may not include chapters on topics such as ways people elicit or offer disclosure, ways people demonstrate anger, or ways people create guilt, but the issues that appear consistently throughout the various chapters should apply equally to these. Finally, the essays in this volume provide not only a summary of what has been accomplished to date, but also an initial theoretic map for future research concerning strategic interpersonal communication.

Scholarly Communications: A History from Content as King to Content as Kingmaker traces the development of scholarly communications from the creation of the first scientific journal through the wide diversity of professional information services today. Unlike any other book, this work is an authoritative history by the past President of Elsevier and current Professor at Long Island University, which examines the changing nature of scholarly communication throughout its history, including its research importance as well as its business value. It specifically covers four key themes: 1.the value of scholarly content and information at various stages of it development and use; 2.the role that technology has played on the use, importance, and value of scholarly information and research communications; 3.the changing business models affecting the system of scholarly communication from the way it is produced to how it is distributed and consumed; and 4.some of the implications of mobile, cloud, and social computing technologies on the future of scholarly communications. Attention is paid to analyzing the structural changes that the professional publishing community now faces. Regazzi examines research content as an economic good; how technology and business models have greatly affected the value of scholarly publishing; and the drivers of the future sustainability of our system of scholarly communication.

Legal semiotics emphasizes the contingency and fluidity of legal concepts and stresses the existence of overlapping, competing and coexisting legal discourses. In response to new problems, changing power structures, changing societal norms and new faces of injustice established doctrines are reconsidered, reformulated and partly replaced by competing doctrines and hypotheses. Given the relative indeterminacy of law, it is no surprise that the problem of interpretation has always been one of the focal points of attention for legal semiotics. Who has the power to define words and concepts? Who can successfully assume the power to speak on behalf of the legal community? Which methods are used to justify the power to define?

This book discusses the questions mentioned above from three, related perspectives:

• Legal theory (Part I). This part discusses how more traditional approaches have dealt with the problem of legal interpretation and indeterminacy, questions the methods applied in traditional legal theory and offers new theoretical tools to understand the problem of legal interpretation.

• Judicial reasoning (Part II). The insights discussed in Part I are refined using legal semiotics, speech act theory and rhetorics and applied to the legal reasoning of courts and tribunals either in common law and civil law traditions.

• Application of law in politics and diplomatic practice (Part III). Traditionally, the study of legal reasoning has focussed on the application of law by courts and tribunals. However, legal reasoning also takes place outside the courtroom and takes up in the politicaland diplomatic arena. Who is included and excluded by particular conceptions of law? How does law deal with the phenomenon of interculturality?

"Combining theoretical inspiration with a keen interest in case law, this volume will appeal to scholars and students of legal theory, jurisprudence, legal anthropology, postcolonial studies, indeed to anyone whoa (TM)s interested in problems of interpretation in legal and political theory and practice. It should also come in very handy in the classroom." Ronnie Lippens, Professor of Criminology, Keele University

This study presents an historical account of the expansion of United States interests in Latin American communications in the first half of this cntury. Particular emphasis is placed on how United States shortwave broadcasting was used as a vehicle for the penetration and dominance of Latin American mass communication systems. This penetration is analyzed in relation to the overall context of the goals and activities of the Good Neighbor Policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Conversely, with the development of shortwave broadcasting as a tool of foreign policy, there arose the need to restructure the traditional relations between the broadcasting industry and government. This study describes the process by which the American broadcasting industry came to accept government control and dominance in the field of international broadcasting. Finally, this study attempts to show how such an historical account as this can be used to eluciate the notion of media imperialism.

Offers a deeper understanding of the need for effective cross-cultural communication and cultural awareness by those engaged in working in the international environment. This area is of increasing importance in the diverse and multicultural world where such effectiveness plays a major part in achieving competitive advantage. The emergence of India and China as future economic giants and the increasing influence of globalization have led to greater emphasis on the cultural dimensions of international business, diplomacy and international relations. This volume identifies the barriers to effective cross-cultural communication and suggests practical strategies to overcome them. Key aspects of this include the identification of the skills and competencies required for success, the personnel selection methods and the options for pre-departure cultural training. The authors provide practical examples from their own experience in over 60 countries and from discussion with professional colleagues and international students.

Despite educational efforts, the majority of Americans are still under the misconception that they are not at risk from HIV/AIDS infection. In addition, the federal government only spends 2% of the total designated federal AIDS funding toward prevention. Thus, information in respect to AIDS and health communication in any comprehensive nature is almost nonexistent.; This book aims to rectify the situation by presenting detailed analysis and actions necessary to confront the AIDS pandemic on every level of the communication realm. Contributors are experienced researchers, educators, government officials, and physicians. They examine the issue from a number of standpoints, including: communication, adolescent medicine, public administration, psychology, journalism, audiology, speech and language pathology, neurological surgery, preventive medicine and public health.

This book attempts to provide an understanding of current thought and enquiry in the study of popular culture and communication media. The popular sentiments and impulses underlying neo-Gramscian cultural studies and its postmodernist variants are explored and criticized sympathetically. An uncritical and exclusively consumptionist trend of analysis is identified and shown to be an unsatisfactory means of accounting for the complex material conditions and mediations that shape ordinary people's pleasures and opportunities for personal and political expression. Through consideration of the work of Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall and "the Birmingham School", John Fiske, youth subcultural analysis, popular television study, and issues generally concerned with public communication (including advertising, arts and broadcasting policies, children's television, tabloid journalism, feminism and pornography, the Rushdie affair, and the collapse of communism) the author sets out a distinctive case for recovering critical analysis of popular culture in a rapidly changing, conflict ridden world.

Prevention through appropriate behavior is the best weapon available to fight further spread of HIV infection. However, individuals take necessary actions to prevent diseases such as AIDS only when they are properly informed and they feel motivated to respond to the information they possess. In order to achieve a clearer understanding of these two facets of the prevention process, this book examines the interplay of the messages individuals receive about AIDS at the public level and the messages exchanged between individuals at the interpersonal level. The specific purpose of the book is to provide a theoretical and conceptual foundation for understanding the pragmatic concerns related to the AIDS crisis in the United States and other parts of the world. The book represents the first systematic examination of how theory informs our understanding of AIDS and communication processes. Contributors explore the issues from a variety of theoretical and conceptual viewpoints. Their goal is to stimulate thought which will lead to the pragmatic application of the ideas presented. The chapters focus on four general communication concerns: * interpersonal interaction as it relates to choices individuals make about safer sex practices, * theory and practice of public campaigns about AIDS, * intercultural issues, and * critical and descriptive approaches for understanding news coverage of AIDS.

Among the violent acts perpetrated by radical Islamist groups in Europe, the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris has been one of those that has challenged established categories of public debate the most. Through a multifaceted and detailed analysis of the public discourse around the Charlie Hebdo episode in France, Germany, Italy, and the UK, Discursive Turns and Critical Junctures offers an in-depth analysis of how political groups and religious organizations have reacted to the event, which claims they have made in the public sphere, and how they have justified such claims. Drawing on newspaper sources and discourse analysis, the authors navigate the complexities caused by political violence. They develop a threefold comparison that considers how the debate differs across countries; how it evolved over time; and how it varies when one looks at mainstream media compared to social movement arenas. Based on a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative analyses, the volume pays particular attention to radical left, radical right and religious actors and to issues related to migration and integration, secularism and cultural diversity, security and civil rights. In particular, they focus on the way in which transformative events act as critical junctures within different public spheres. Starting from the nefarious attacks on January 2015, this highly relevant, theoretically compelling, and methodologically sophisticated study of public debates in Europe adds substantially to the growing body of research into critical junctures as discursive turning points and gives insights into into a number of debates ranging including citizenship and political violence.

The design and functioning of an information system improve to the extent that the system can handle the questions people ask. Surprisingly, however, researchers in the cognitive, computer, and information sciences have not thoroughly examined the multitude of relationships between information systems and questions -- both question asking and answering. The purpose of this book is to explicitly examine these relationships. Chapter contributors believe that questions play a central role in the analysis, design, and use of different kinds of natural or artificial information systems such as human cognition, social interaction, communication networks, and intelligent tutoring systems. Their efforts show that data structures and representations need to be organized around the questioning mechanisms in order to achieve a quick retrieval of relevant useful information.

The title of Donald Blohowiak's engrossing and highly informative new book reflects the often strained relationship between two of America's most powerful institutions: the news media and business. The author gives an insider's look at why the tensions exist and what business people can do to understand them, to ease them, and to get the upper hand when dealing with the media. Aimed primarily at the business community and the media advisors who serve it, this book demystifies the news process and presents sound, practical advice.

Every day, the human awakes to a new world, a new dawn and a new cascade of nonverbal communication. It may be the pleasant scent of a rose, the soft touch of a loved one, the sight of sun rays on a bedroom floor or the excited chatter of a child. Whatever form it takes, your environment and all who inhabit it send nonverbal signals all day long - even while they sleep. The Routledge Dictionary of Nonverbal Communication celebrates this communication, examining a very wide selection of nonverbal behaviors, actions and signals to provide the reader with an informed insight on the world around them and its messages. Compiled in the form of a dictionary, the book is presented as a series of chapters with alphabetical entries, ranging from attractiveness to zeitgeist. The book aims to provide the reader with a clear understanding of some of the relevant discourse on particular topics while also making it practical and easy to read. It draws on a wide selection of discourse from fields such as neuroscience, psychology, anthropology and psychiatry. The dictionary will be an essential companion for anyone wishing to understand nonverbal communication. It will also be especially useful for those working in the field of nonverbal communication.