Students of media, journalism, and social issues classes will use this book to identify the ten most controversial issues facing the media profession today. Topics include the ever-increasing monopolistic control of the media by conglomerates, tabloid journalism and its impact on the news and plagiarism. Foerstel presents the history of each controversy, important media personalities, and relevant legislation. Students can examine the current status of the controversy and apply critical thinking skills to make predictions on possible future outcomes.

From the paparazzi to Internet censorship, Foerstel highlights significant controversy in modern journalism and the media, specifically noting recent public outcry over the press' abuse of the private lives of celebrities, including the death of Princess Diana, and problems with plagiarism and the excessive use of anonymous sources. Perhaps the most controversial of all media subjects--the battle over First Amendment rights on the electronic frontier of the Internet--is discussed in depth. With the detail Foerstel offers, students receive an up-to-date look at the struggle between those who advocate censorship of material they deem harmful to minors and those who defend intellectual freedom.

How have disabled Americans been portrayed by the media through the years and how are images and the role of the handicapped changing? Jack Nelson and a series of experts in communication and the disabled offer an easy-to-read overview of key issues, continuing problems, new opportunities, and new technological tools. Professionals and teachers in communication, along with experts and general readers interested in public policy and social issues, will find this short study, with its illustrations, descriptions and lists of organizations and its bibliographical materials, a handy reference.

This book is a key resource on the foundations of Marxist Internet and Digital Media Studies. It presents 16 contributions that show how Marx's analyses of capitalism, the commodity, class, labour, work, exploitation, surplus-value, dialectics, crises, ideology, class struggles, and communism help us to understand the Internet and social media in 21st century digital capitalism.

Consuming Reality examines TV's response to the increasing pressure to brand content in a post-advertising era. June Deery's comprehensive analysis of the commercial practices found in popular reality programming reveals links to larger trends such as the sentimental dissemination of capitalist and nationalist ideologies, the professionalization of social relationships (including conceptions of self), and the mainstreaming of PR techniques in everyday life. Examining topics such as reality formats as pseudo-events, product placement, donorship, TV-web branding, making over homes/bodies as properties, consumer identity and pathology, Disney, and the American Dream, this book engages in a comprehensive examination of RTV's advertising and promotional strategies, as well as the commodification of viewers, of TV participants, of ideologies, dreams, and ideas.

Media Framing of the Muslim World examines and explains how news about Islam and the Muslim world is produced and consumed, and how it impacts on relations between Islam and the West. The authors cover key issues in this relationship including the reporting on war and conflict, terrorism, asylum seekers and the Arab Spring.

Since the 1990s, the screening of sex on American, British and Asian television screens has become increasingly prolific. Considering not only the specificities of selected sexualised images in relation to popular series, this study also concerns itself with the ramifications of TV sex as well as discussing the various techniques that are used by TV producers/programme makers to establish the cultural worth of their texts in series such as "Shameless, The Tudors" and "True Blood."

The contributions draw attention to shifting representations of sex on television away from the authoritarian state and patriarchal order, toward a more democratic form of representation. As a significant and under-represented aspect of contemporary television studies, this is the first full-length academic collection to consider the wide-ranging representations of sex in society on contemporary television.

"Public Service Media and Policy in Europe" provides an in-depth account of EU policies in the area of public service broadcasting, focusing mainly on the application of the European State aid rules. The book discusses when, how and with what impact the European Commission deals with public service broadcasting. There is an element of fear towards the intervention of the European Commission, and a worry that it is overly focused on economic goals to the detriment of public interest objectives. More specifically, the fear exists that 'Europe' might hamper the evolution from public service broadcasting to public service media and introduce harmonized European rules for public service broadcasting. Private media companies have lobbied extensively against the expansion of public broadcasters' tasks and for a European straitjacket in this regard. Karen Donders evaluates whether the European Commission has indeed satisfied private sector interests by marginalising public broadcasters, or whether it has in fact contributed to the emergence of a public service media project.

Peter B. Orlik is also the author of Career Perspectives in Electronic Media. For more information visit http://store.blackwell-professional.com/9780813824772.html Exploring Electronic Media: Chronicles and Challenges is a concise and insightful textbook covering the dynamics of contemporary electronic media. Rapidly evolving technologies have expanded this field exponentially, creating a wealth of information that is often hard to put into perspective. Taking an approach that balances media history with contemporary analysis, Exploring Electronic Media is as practically useful as it is instructionally informative. * Written by leading authors who collectively bring a wealth of not only teaching, but also multifaceted industry experience to the subject * Covers the historical influences and contemporary issues in programming, technology, regulation and the business of media * Features chapter reviews and discussion questions, as well as an introductory chapter that orients the reader to the broad electronic media landscape * Explores the fundamentals for understanding human communication as an underpinning to the study of media communication systems * Considers the future and great potential in this ever-changing field.

An accessible and engaging textbook which has been tailored to the author's own Language, Society and Power module so each edition is refined by student feedback. Virtually all English Langauge and Linguistics degrees around the world have a Language and Society/Sociolinguistics module and most are core courses. This is the ideal textbook for both undergraduate students of linguistics as well as those not studying linguistics full-time but who are interested in the study of language and society. Packed with pedagogical features such as activity boxes, chapter summaries, and further reading. Also accompanied by a companion website with updated features such as a 'who's who' of Twitter, links to blogs, and further discussion questions. This makes it the complete package for students of language and society Includes an 'applied' chapter on projects which has been designed to help students understand what sociolinguists do and how they conduct research, intended to help students conduct their own research in turn.

From video games that allow us to participate in Mafia-style violence, to newspaper reports about the latest terrorist atrocity, from detective novels that fill our bedside cabinets, to Hollywood's beloved legal dramas - the mass media is saturated with stories about crime, justice and disorder. Together they create a cultural landscape of crime that is distinctly at odds with reality, as criminologists are apt to complain. Crime and the Media attempts to make sense of this cultural landscape and its relationship with broader social trends and public attitudes. Through focussed, critical discussions about crime in the media - taking on crime news and fictional representations of cops, courts, and corrections - the text equips students with an understanding of the key theoretical concepts and methodological tools that are required to undertake media analysis. With questions for discussion, exercises and workshop sessions, as well as techniques for analysing crime in a range of media formats, the book makes an invaluable contribution to crime and media courses, and to the social sciences in general.

This book focuses on recent technical advancements and state-of-the art technologies for analyzing characteristic features and probabilistic modelling of complex social networks and decentralized online network architectures. Such research results in applications related to surveillance and privacy, fraud analysis, cyber forensics, propaganda campaigns, as well as for online social networks such as Facebook. The text illustrates the benefits of using advanced social network analysis methods through application case studies based on practical test results from synthetic and real-world data. This book will appeal to researchers and students working in these areas.

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 11-volume collection contains titles originally published between 1931 and 1992. It examines the genre of comedy, from its roots in ancient Greece, through the centuries, to the relatively modern stand-up variety. The individual titles include the theory of comedy; perspectives on women and comedy; comedy in film; European comedy; Restoration comedy and more. This set will be a valuable resource for those students interested in comedy in both literature and drama.

For twenty-five years, Charlotte Curtis was a society/women's reporter and editor and an op-ed editor at the New York Times. As the first woman section editor at the Times, Curtis was a pioneering journalist and one of the first nationwide to change the nature and content of the women's pages from fluffy wedding announcements and recipes to the more newsy, issue-oriented stories that characterize them today. In this riveting biography, Marilyn Greenwald describes how a woman reporter from Columbus, Ohio, broke into the ranks of the male-dominated upper echelon at the New York Times. It documents what she did to succeed and what she had to sacrifice. Charlotte Curtis paved the way for the journalists who followed her. A Woman of the Times offers a chronicle of her hard-won journey as she invents her own brand of feminism during the 1960s and 1970s. In the telling of this remarkable woman's life is the story, as well, of a critical era in the nation's social history.

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.

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.

What does the Frankfurt School have to say about the creative industries? Does the spread of Google prove we now live in an information society? How is Madonna an example of postmodernism? How new is new media? Does the power of Facebook mean we're all media makers now?

This groundbreaking volume part reader, part textbook - helps you to engage thoroughly with some of the major voices that have come to define the landscape of theory in media studies, from the public sphere to postmodernism, from mass communication theory to media effects, from production to reception and beyond. But much more than this, by providing assistance and questions directly alongside the readings, it crucially helps you develop the skills necessary to become a critical, informed and analytical reader.

Each reading is supported on the facing page by author annotations which provide comments, dissect the arguments, explain key ideas and terminology, make references to other relevant material, and pose questions that emerge from the text.

Key features:

• Opening chapters: What is theory? and What is reading? bring alive the importance of both as key parts of media scholarship
• Pre-reading: substantial Introductory sections set each text and its author in context and show the relevance of the reading to contemporary culture
• Post-reading: Reflection sections summarise each reading s key points and suggests further areas to explore and think about
• 4 types of annotations help you engage with the reading context, content, structure, and writing style . as well as questions to provoke further thought
• Split into 4 sections Reading theory, Key thinkers and schools, Approaches and Media Theory in context

New to the second edition:

• New chapters on "New Media," and "Audiences as Producers"

Reading Media Theory" will assist you in developing close-reading and analytic skills. It will also increase your ability to outline key theories and debates, assess different case studies critically, link theoretical approaches to a particular historical context, and to structure and present an argument. As such, it will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, the sociology of the media, popular culture and other related subjects."

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.

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.

This Critical Theory and Contemporary Society volume offers an original analysis of the role of the digital in today's society. It rearticulates critical theory by engaging it with the challenges of the digital revolution to show how the digital is changing the ways in which we lead our politics, societies, economies, media, and even private lives. In particular, the work examines how the enlightenment values embedded within the culture and materiality of digital technology can be used to explain the changes that are occurring across society. Critical Theory and the Digital draws from the critical concepts developed by critical theorists to demonstrate how the digital needs to be understood within a dialectic of potentially democratizing and totalizing technical power. By relating critical theory to aspects of a code-based digital world and the political economy that it leads to, the book introduces the importance of the digital code in the contemporary world to researchers in the field of politics, sociology, globalization and media studies.

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.