As governments, citizens and organizations have moved online there is an increasing need for academic enquiry to adapt to this new context for communication and political action. This adaptation is crucially dependent on researchers being equipped with the necessary methodological tools to extract, analyze and visualize patterns of web activity. This volume profiles the latest techniques being employed by social scientists to collect and interpret data from some of the most popular social media applications, the political parties' own online activist spaces, and the wider system of hyperlinks that structure the inter-connections between these sites. Including contributions from a range of academic disciplines including Political Science, Media and Communication Studies, Economics, and Computer Science, this study showcases a new methodological approach that has been expressly designed to capture and analyze web data in the process of investigating substantive questions.

Why are there so many nature metaphors - clouds, rivers, streams, viruses, and bugs - in the language of the internet? Why do we adorn our screens with exotic images of forests, waterfalls, animals and beaches? In Technobiophilia: Nature and Cyberspace, Sue Thomas interrogates the prevalence online of nature-derived metaphors and imagery and comes to a surprising conclusion. The root of this trend, she believes, lies in biophilia, defined by biologist E.O. Wilson as 'the innate attraction to life and lifelike processes'. In this wide-ranging transdisciplinary study she explores the strong thread of biophilia which runs through our online lives, a phenomenon she calls 'technobiophilia', or, the 'innate attraction to life and lifelike processes as they appear in technology'. The restorative qualities of biophilia can alleviate mental fatigue and enhance our capacity for directed attention, soothing our connected minds and easing our relationship with computers. Technobiophilia: Nature and Cyberspace offers new insights on what is commonly known as 'work-life balance'. It explores ways to make our peace with technology-induced anxiety and achieve a 'tech-nature balance' through practical experiments designed to enhance our digital lives indoors, outdoors, and online. The book draws on a long history of literature on nature and technology and breaks new ground as the first to link the two. Its accessible style will attract the general reader, whilst the clear definition of key terms and concepts throughout should appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates of new media and communication studies, internet studies, environmental psychology, and human-computer interaction. www.technobiophilia.com

Japan and China look back on a history of friendship as well as friction, particularly in recent decades. As the People's Republic of China's economy began to grow in the 1990s, so did its political weight within Asia and its economical relevance for Japan. Covering the years from 1989 to 2005, this book looks at Sino-Japanese relations through film and television drama in the crucial time of China's ascent to an economic superpower in opposition to Japan's own ailing economy. It provides an overview of how Japan views China through its visual media, offers explanations as to how oppositions between the two countries came to exist, and how and why certain myths about China have been conveyed. Griseldis Kirsch argues that the influence of visual media within society cannot be underestimated, nor should their value be lessened by them being perceived as part of 'popular culture'. Drawing on examples from a crucial 16 years in the history of post-war Japan and China, she explores to what extent these media were influenced by the political discourse of their time. In doing so, she adds another layer to the on-going debate on Sino-Japanese relations, bringing together disciplines such as media studies, history and area studies and thus filling a gap in existing research.

Winner of the N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature from the Electronic Literature Organization There is electronic literature that consists of works, and the authors and communities and practices around such works. This is not a book about that electronic literature. It is not a book that charts histories or genres of this emerging field, not a book setting out methods of reading and understanding. The Internet Unconscious is a book on the poetics of net writing, or more precisely on the subject of writing the net. By 'writing the net', Sandy Baldwin proposes three ways of analysis: 1) an understanding of the net as a loosely linked collocation of inscriptions, of writing practices and materials ranging from fundamental TCP/IP protocols to CAPTCHA and Facebook; 2) as a discursive field that codifies and organizes these practices and materials into text (and into textual practices of reading, archiving, etc.), and into an aesthetic institution of 'electronic literature'; and 3) as a project engaged by a subject, a commitment of the writers' body to the work of the net. The Internet Unconscious describes the poetics of the net's "becoming-literary," by employing concepts that are both technically-specific and poetically-charged, providing a coherent and persuasive theory. The incorporation and projection of sites and technical protocols produces an uncanny displacement of the writer's body onto diverse part objects, and in turn to an intense and real inhabitation of the net through writing. The fundamental poetic situation of net writing is the phenomenology of "as-if." Net writing involves construal of the world through the imaginary.

This book offers a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich study of the intersections of contemporary Christianity and youth culture, focusing on evangelical engagements with punk, hip hop, surfing, and skateboarding. Ibrahim Abraham draws on interviews and fieldwork with dozens of musicians and sports enthusiasts in the USA, UK, Australia, and South Africa, and the analysis of evangelical subcultural media including music, film, and extreme sports Bibles. Evangelical Youth Culture: Alternative Music and Extreme Sports Subcultures makes innovative use of multiple theories of youth cultures and subcultures from sociology and cultural studies, and introduces the "serious leisure perspective" to the study of religion, youth, and popular culture. Engaging with the experiences of Pentecostal punks, surfing missionaries, township rappers, and skateboarding youth pastors, this book makes an original contribution to the sociology of religion, youth studies, and the study of religion and popular culture.

In this media history of the Caribbean, Alejandra Bronfman traces howtechnology, culture, and politics developed in a region that was "wired" earlierand more widely than many other parts of the Americas. Haiti, Cuba,and Jamaica acquired radio and broadcasting in the early stages of theglobal expansion of telecommunications technologies. Imperial historieshelped forge these material connections through which the United States,Great Britain, and the islands created a virtual laboratory for experiments inaudiopolitics and listening practices. As radio became an established medium worldwide, it burgeoned in theCaribbean because the region was a hub for intense foreign and domesticcommercial and military activities. Attending to everyday life, infrastructure,and sounded histories during the waxing of an American empire andthe waning of British influence in the Caribbean, Bronfman does not allowthe notion of empire to stand solely for domination. By the time of the ColdWar, broadcasting had become a ubiquitous phenomenon that renderedsound and voice central to political mobilisation in the Caribbean nationsthrowing off what remained of their imperial tethers.

This book takes a radically new approach to the well-worn topic of children's relationship with the media, avoiding the "risks and benefits" paradigm while examining very young children's interactions with film and television. Bazalgette proposes a refocus on the learning processes that children must go through in order to understand what they are watching on televisions, phones, or iPads. To demonstrate this, she offers unique insight from research done with her twin grandchildren starting from just before they were two years old, with analysis drawn from the field of embodied cognition to help identify minute behaviours and expressions as signals of emotions and thought processes. The book makes the case that all inquiry into early childhood movie-viewing should be based on the premise that learning-usually self-driven-is taking place throughout.

Image Warfare in the War on Terror provides an innovative re-examination of the war on terror. It argues that since 11 September 2001 image warfare has replaced techno-war as the dominant warfighting model. Roger suggests that it is a form of warfare in which Al Qaeda currently dominates while the West is still playing catch-up. By dealing frankly with the deployment of disturbing images generated by the 9/11 attacks - from bin Laden videos, suicide terrorism and hostage executions to prisoner abuses, Roger provides us with a new vocabulary through which these acts can be discussed and understood.

This book offers the first comprehensive assessment, from an International Relations perspective, of image warfare. Through engagement with IR, Media Studies and Visual Culture literatures, Roger introduces three new conceptual terms 'image munitions', 'counter-image munitions' and 'remediation battles'. These terms are then explored in chapters about political communications concerning Bush, Blair and bin Laden; suicides; executions and abuses.

The 2010 South African World Cup launched African football onto the global stage and its footballers are increasingly present at the best clubs in the world, yet it is rare to find compelling scholarship on the subject of African football. This book brings some of the top scholars on African football together to produce a collection that covers the diverse regions of the continent and diverse football topics. Focussing on aspects of identity, it spans issues of race, radicalization and self-identification, exploring the imagined continuation of war in support of a Nigerian club, the use of songs in support of a club and an ethnic community, and the effects of transnational broadcasting on supporter identification with football in Africa. This collection provides a valuable contribution to debates about African sport and identity and also contains an interview with one of Africa's first migrant footballers, Paul Bonga Bonga.

"Advertising in the Age of Persuasion "documents and analyzes the implementation of the American strategy of consumerism during the 1940s and 1950s, and its ongoing ramifications. Beginning with World War II, and girded by the Cold War, American advertisers, brand name corporations, and representatives of the federal government institutionalized a system of consumer capitalism which they called free enterprise. In their system, government and business worked together to create consumer republics, democracies based on the mass consumption of brand name goods using advertising across all major media to sell products and distribute information. Many of the free enterprise evangelists believed it represented the fulfillment of America's god-ordained mission. They envisioned an American lead global consumer order supported by advertising based media where the brand took precedence over the corporation that owned it; and advertising, propaganda and public relations were considered the same thing. To support this system, they created a network and process for disseminating persuasive information that survives into the 21st Century.

The start of the 1990s saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany into one new nation that would be a formidable economic force around the world. But to many Americans educated by the news and entertainment media, the image of Germany remained a holdover from World War II and the Holocaust. When the American media were not presenting an outdated, jackbooted view of Germany, they were portraying it as a country epitomizing the world's Communist/Capitalist struggle. For three decades the American news and entertainment media presented the image of Germany as being a country hopelessly divided. Now they were faced with a new country and a new set of images to deal with just as Germany exerts itself more powerfully than ever on the world economic scene.

How much attention has this new Germany received in the American media, and how accurate are the new portrayals? Have the media images changed during the 1990s and, if so, how much and in what direction? Willis examines these issues as well as the status of international news in the American media. The result is a book of great interest to scholars, researchers, and students involved with the mass media, contemporary affairs, and European Studies.

This book highlights both the diversity of perspectives and approaches to Arctic research and the inherent interdisciplinary nature of studying and understanding this incomparable region. The chapters are divided into four liberally-defined sections to provide space for dynamic interpretation and dialogue in search of sustainable solutions to the issues facing the Arctic. From governance to technology, scientific research to social systems, human health to economic development, the authors discuss fundamental questions while looking toward the Arctic's future. Whether the reader is well-versed in the history and complexity of Arctic policy or looking for an insightful introduction to the vast world of Arctic research, everyone will find answers that lead to new questions and even more discoveries in these pages, laying the foundation for tomorrow's discussion on the future of the Arctic. The Arctic's unique geographic and political characteristics pose questions for the international community, indigenous peoples, and economic interests not easily answered through traditional concepts. To that end, the Arctic Summer College has been engaging leading professionals, students, scholars, and policy makers from across the globe to exchange ideas and support further investigation into the Arctic. A joint venture between Ecologic Institute US and Ecologic Institute Berlin (Germany), the College participates at the annual Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland, and continues to be at the forefront of international collaboration in this critical area of economic, political, environmental, and humanitarian development.

This book focuses on how everyday media such as Facebook, iTunes and Google can be understood in new ways for the 21st century through ideas of convergence. Key chapters explore the development of the internet, the rise of social media and the new opportunities for audiences to create, collaborate upon and share their own media.

Designing Problem-Driven Instruction with Online Social Media has the capacity to transform an educator s teaching style by presenting innovative ways to empower problem-based instruction with online social media. Knowing that not all instructors are comfortable in this area, this book provides clear, systematic design approaches for instructors who may be hesitant to explore unchartered waters and offers practical examples of how successful implementations can happen. Furthermore, it is a reference for instructors who need to solve issues that occur when developing a class utilizing problem-driven instruction with online social media. With the recent exponential growth of Twitter and Facebook, the potential for social media as an educational venue brings an urgent call for researchers to increase their concentration in this area to investigate further the educational possibilities of this format. These factors combined illustrate the mission of this book that is to enable instructors in the areas of instructional design, multimedia, information science, technology, and distance learning to have an evidence-based resource for this underexplored niche in instruction.

This important text synthesizes the state of knowledge related to thinking and technology and provides strategies for helping young people cultivate thinking skills required to navigate the new digital landscape. The rise of technology has resulted in new ways of searching and communicating information among youth, often creating information "overload". We do not know how the new technologies will affect the ways young people learn and think. There are plenty of warnings about the dangers of information technology, but there is also enormous potential for technology to aid human thinking, which this book explores from an open-minded perspective. Coverage Includes: - An up to date review of the literature on thinking skills in general, and in relation to technology.- Practical guidelines for thinking with technology.- A scholarly review of the characteristics of the digital generation.- A discussion of the various steps involved in the thinking process.- A historical context of the Information Age and the transition from oral history, to printing press, to the Internet. Thinking Skills for the Digital Generation: The Development of Thinking and Learning in the Age of Information is an invaluable reference for educators and research professionals particularly interested in educational technology, and improving thinking and problem-solving skills.

During the 1950s in Sweden, companies aiming for international markets demanded new theories and methods of communication. Ideas regarding cybernetics, systems analysis, new accounting practices, and budgetary principles as well as theories of information, communication, marketing, public relations, and organization were discussed at conferences and seminars and in courses, articles, and books. At the same time, new technologies were introduced that changed corporate communication, from loose-leaf accounting systems to mechanical and electronic business machines, from written texts and oral presentations to slide shows, audio tapes, films, television, and flannelgraphs. By looking at a vast array of objects and relations related to uses of media technologies in Swedish industry from the end of World War II to the breakthrough of television, this book shows what happened in the glitches between mass communication and interaction, and how Swedish industry after the war worked to disrupt established understandings of communication.

American Education in Popular Media explores how popular media has represented schooling in the United States over the course of the twentieth century. Terzian and Ryan examine prevalent portrayals of students and professional educators while addressing contested purposes of schooling in American society.

From reality television to celebrity gossip magazines, today's technologies have enabled a vast number of personal narratives that document our existence and that of others. Multiple academic disciplines now define the self as fluid and entirely changeable: little more than a performance that is chosen according to the situation. While news journalists still pursue the authentic narrative, advertising and politics might be accused of exploiting the narrative tendency, and across media the personal and public become increasingly merged. Real Lives, Celebrity Stories collects research from published and experienced professionals, practitioners and scholars who discuss narratives of real people across cultures and history and in multiple media. It uses narrative theory to interrogate the processes by which we create, promote and consume these stories of real people, and the ways in which we construct our own stories of self. By bringing together different disciplines it offers a theory of the production(s) of self in public spaces such as music, literature, fanfic, television, cinema, comics, news media, journalism, and politics.

This volume brings together a range of different specialists in the arts and cultural industries, as well as international academics and public intellectuals, to explore how media and communication practices for social change are currently being reconfigured in both conceptual and rhetorical terms.

This volume brings together original analyses about how the Middle East is depicted on U.S. television news. It analyzes some of the most intensely reported news stories of the past decade. Its revealing studies also show how broadcasting on Middle Ease issues has changed in recent years. These studies offer important and provocative findings regarding crucual issues in Middle East coverage.

The Global Dynamics of News is an attempt to locate the study of news-perhaps the genre best epitomizing the process of media globalization-within contemporary debate about news flow, transnational media-cultures and globalization. This book seeks to fill a considerable gap in the literature on international communication and transnational media studies, which have focused on issues of media culture, especially popular culture while leaving news underexplored. This book is the first of its kind, bringing together both theoretical essays and case studies that are informed by historical and contemporary debates about issues of media flow and media imperialism specifically, and those of media globalization generally.