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.

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.

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.

International online access has grown rapidly in recent years with the number of global Internet users skyrocketing. The most astounding growth, however, is taking place in developing nations. ""Linguistic and Cultural Online Communication Issues in the Global Age"" provides readers with in-depth information on the various linguistic, cultural, technological, legal, and other factors that affect interactions in online exchanges within the global age. ""Linguistic and Cultural Online Communication Issues in the Global Age"" proposes information that implements effective decisions related to the uses and designs of online media when interacting with individuals from other cultures. This comprehensive and informative title is completed by foundational knowledge needed to communicate effectively with individuals from other countries and cultures via online media.

This volume provides a comprehensive examination of the applications of communication inquiry to the solution of relevant social issues. Nationally recognized experts from a wide range of subject areas discuss ways in which communication research has been used to address social problems and identify direction for future applied communication inquiry.

Prehistoric drummers used natural acoustics to recreate natural sound. In classical Europe, orators turned the human voice into a lyrical instrument. In Buddhist temples, the icons' ears were exaggerated to represent their spiritual power. And in modern metropolises we are battered by the roar of sound that surrounds us. In the first narrative history of the subject which puts humans at its centre, and following the author's major BBC Radio 4 series Noise, acclaimed historian David Hendy describes the history of noise - which is also the history of listening. As he puts it: 'By thinking about sound and listening, I want to get closer to what it felt like to live in the past.' This unusual book reveals fascinating changes in how we have understood our fellow human beings and the world around us. For although we might see ourselves inhabiting a visual world, our lives are shaped by our need to hear and be heard.

In Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: "There is a Mystery" ..., Stephen C. Finley, Margarita Simon Guillory, and Hugh R. Page, Jr. assemble twenty groundbreaking essays that provide a rationale and parameters for Africana Esoteric Studies (AES): a new trans-disciplinary enterprise focused on the investigation of esoteric lore and practices in Africa and the African Diaspora. The goals of this new field - while akin to those of Religious Studies, Africana Studies, and Western Esoteric Studies - are focused on the impulses that give rise to Africana Esoteric Traditions (AETs) and the ways in which they can be understood as loci where issues such as race, ethnicity, and identity are engaged; and in which identity, embodiment, resistance, and meaning are negotiated.

This volume examines this rapidly growing and changing field by applying a unified framework that integrates both interpersonal and mass communication investigations into theoretical and applied issues. br br Using a systems perspective as the organizational framework, relevant issues in the communication of health care, ranging from micro to macro levels, are discussed. The contributors recognize communication as a major factor affecting health today and therefore go beyond examinations of health communication as simply a dissemination of information regarding diseases, diagnoses, and treatments to show it as a much larger and more complex field with applications to all levels and forms of communication. br br Communication and Health has as its three main objecties: br br * providing a comprehensive, detailed, and up to-date picture of health communication br br * applying an integrated, logical structure to the field br br * making a clear, strong statement regarding the state of healthcommunication and examining its future prospects br br The contributors address such issues as provider-patient communication, health care teams, health care organizations, public health campaigns, and health education, and then discuss the factors that affect the processing of health information. Also included are examinations of changes in communication use within interpersonal, small group, and organizational health care contexts as well as the use of mass media and other sources for public health campaigns and for raising public awareness of health issues on a day-to-day basis. br br i Communication and Health /i fills a void in current literature on this field by serving as both a reference forprofessionals and researchers and as a textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate level students in a multitude of courses. br

A study of intercultural, international and global media in civic discourse. The essays are organized into four sections covering: cyberspace, cybernetics and cyberpower; North American media; international and global media; and comparative studies in media.

In an original, and highly interdisciplinary, mixed method approach, Green and Janmaat identify four major traditions of social cohesion in developed societies, analyzing how these various mechanisms are withstanding the strains of the current global financial crisis.

From theme parks and museums to zoos and aquariums, attractions draw millions of visitors each year. Regardless of type, they all share one common denominator - they are intended to provide visitors with memorable experiences. This book offers information about how to promote and market tourism attractions for maximum results. It looks at different approaches, strategies, tools, and techniques marketers can use when promoting their organizations to the public. Topics include advertising and marketing; media relations; social media marketing; sales promotion and merchandising; special events; guest relations and customer service; employee relations; crisis communications; and social responsibility and sustainability. In addition, it includes a variety of examples from attractions that have implemented successful promotion and marketing activities. Whether in the form of a news story, television commercial, brochure, website, Facebook posting, or special event, promotion and marketing have the potential to show customers the possibilities that await them. This book addresses the many different ways to reach this potential. It explains how to make the most of promotion and marketing to bring people into an attraction and keep them coming back for more. Attracting Attention offers valuable information for practitioners and for students enrolled in tourism, hospitality management, marketing, and communications programs. It is a handy resource for those working for attractions and tourism-related organizations.

Fracking and the Rhetoric of Place investigates the rhetorical strategies of speakers at public hearings on hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in order to understand how places shape and are shaped by citizens as they engage in their democracy. As an important argumentative resource in environmental controversy, the rhetoric of place helps citizens situate themselves within local contexts and raise their voices in times of social conflict. Justin Mando uses rhetorical analysis, discourse analysis, and corpus analysis to offer scholars of place-based rhetoric and environmental communication a heuristic approach to studying their own sites. This approach reveals that place-based arguments are a ubiquitous rhetorical resource in the dispute over hydraulic fracturing that shapes how the issue is perceived. Pro-frackers and anti-frackers use rhetoric of place in striking ways that reveal their values, motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. Place functions as an interface of potential common ground that connects the local to the global, what is here to what is there. Scholars and students of rhetoric, communication, and environmental studies will find this book particularly interesting.

Intercultural Health Communication brings together the fields of health and intercultural research in new work from leading communication scholars. This book is based on two premises: neither health nor culture is a neutral concept. The authors of this collection employ critical, qualitative, and interpretive research methodologies in order to engage the political and intersectional nature of health and culture simultaneously. Changing notions of healthy behaviors (or ill health) are not just a matter of knowledge; they live inside discourses about the body, aesthetics, science, and the world. We see this book as an important step towards developing a more transnational view of health communication. Intercultural Health Communication ties together the critical public health with critical intercultural communication. Through these connections, the authors engage the health research in, amongst others: HIV, cancer, trauma, celiac disease, radioactive pollution, food politics, and prenatal care. Intercultural Health Communication emerges from a broad need to address connections and challenges to incorporating health communication with intercultural communication approaches. After compiling this book, we see ready connections to public health, global studies, gender and sexuality studies and ethnic studies. In this day and age, nation states have to be considered within the broader frameworks of globalization, transnationalism and global health. We recognize that the contemporary health issues require an understanding of culture as integral towards eliminating health disparities.

This lively and engaging text introduces readers to the core interpersonal and organizational skills needed to effectively collaborate on group projects in the classroom and the workplace. Group projects are critical in preparing students for the realities of today's workplace, but many college students despise group work-often because they have not been prepared with the necessary skills to effectively collaborate. This guide teaches core collaboration skills such as active listening, interviewing, empathy, and conflict resolution. It examines the research and theory behind these skills, and provides tangible ways to practice these skills both alone and in groups. This guide can be used a supplementary text for any courses involving group projects, and will also be of interest to professionals in communication, business, and many other fields.

Whether members of the family are headed to school or work, smartphones accompany family members throughout the day. The growing sophistication of mobile communication has unleashed a proliferation of apps, channels, and platforms that link parents to their children and the key institutions in their lives. While parents may feel empowered by their ability to provide their children assistance with a click on their smartphone, they may also feel pressured and overwhelmed by this need to always be on call for their children. This book focuses on the phenomenon of transcendent parenting, where parents actively use technology to go beyond traditional, physical practices of parenting. In drawing on the experiences of intensely digitally-connected families in Singapore to tell a global story, Sun Sun Lim argues how transcendent parenting can embody and convey, intentionally or not, the parenting priorities in these households. Chapters outline how parents exploit mobile connectivity to transcend the physical distance between themselves and their children, the online and offline social interaction environments, and the timelessness of seemingly ceaseless parenting. Transcendent Parenting further explores how mobile communication allows parents to be more involved than ever in their children's lives, leaving readers to question whether or not parents have become too involved as a result. With its clear discussions of the effects of transcendent parenting on parents' wellbeing and children's personal development, Transcendent Parenting will appeal to a broad audience of readers, from scholars, educators and policy makers to parents and young people across the globe.

The Poetics of Failure in Ancient Greece offers an innovative approach to archaic and classical Greek literature by focusing on an original and rather unexplored topic. Through close readings of epic, lyric, and tragic poetry, the book engages into a thorough discourse on error, loss, and inadequacy as a personal and collective experience. Stamatia Dova revisits key passages from the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, Pindar's epinician odes, Euripides' Herakles, and other texts to identify a poetics of failure that encompasses gods, heroes, athletes, and citizens alike. From Odysseus' shortcomings as a captain in the Odyssey to the defeat of anonymous wrestlers at the 460 B.C.E. Olympics in Pindar, this study examines failure from a mythological, literary, and historical perspective. Mindful of ancient Greek society's emphasis on honor and shame, Dova's in-depth analysis also sheds light on cultural responses to failure as well as on its preservation in societal memory, as in the case of Phrynichos' The Fall of Miletos in 493 B.C.E. Athens. Engaging for both scholars and students, this book is key reading for those interested in how ancient Greek literary paradigms tried to answer the question of how and why we fail.

Trust in Contemporary Society, by well-known trust researchers, deals with conceptual, theoretical and social interaction analyses, historical data on societies, national surveys or cross-national comparative studies, and methodological issues related to trust. The authors are from a variety of disciplines: psychology, sociology, political science, organizational studies, history, and philosophy, and from Britain, the United States, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Australia, Germany, and Japan. They bring their vast knowledge from different historical and cultural backgrounds to illuminate contemporary issues of trust and distrust. The socio-cultural perspective of trust is important and increasingly acknowledged as central to trust research. Accordingly, future directions for comparative trust research are also discussed. Contributors include: Jack Barbalet, John Brehm, Geoffrey Hosking, Robert Marsh, Barbara A. Misztal, Guido Moellering, Bart Nooteboom, Ken J. Rotenberg, Jiri Safr, Masamichi Sasaki, Meg Savel, Marketa Sedlackova, Joerg Sydow, Piotr Sztompka.

This work describes and analyzes the authors' study of collaborative technical writing in an institutional setting - that of a group of nurses composing the writing of a hospital-based nursing project. This study seeks to provide the context for the authors to draw conclusions on: writing in a collaborative group; the role of discourse in constructing the social dynamics of community groups; and on institutional authorship for virtual audiences.

This book examines trends that affect citizen's privacy, now that computer files with information on credit and overall financial status are easily accessible, and not always accurate. The unregulated use of individuals' computer files is a serious challenge to the values that underlie this country's social political well-being. The book discusses the need for balance between the privacy interests of individuals and the financial interests of large institutions, who may benefit from these files in locating those trying to cheat the system. It also examines the problem of protecting personal privacy, and what can be done at government levels.

* The book is a unique contribution to an emerging interdisciplinary and international field, with no English-language competitors in its focus and genre. * The interdisciplinary nature of the topic will provide insight for a variety of fields and courses, such as linguistics, translation studies, intercultural communication, psychology, and business communication, with potential appeal for research groups, NGOs, and working professionals beyond student readerships. * Intercultural communication is a growing field for which this handbook offers a definitive theoretical grounding point in an important sub-field.