The book and movie, The Da Vinci Code, are a cultural phenomenon of the early 21st Century. The book occupied bestseller lists for years and Newsweek magazine deemed the 2006 film version "movie of the year" even before its release. The main storyline smeared the Roman Catholic Church with assertions of secrecy, involvement with murder, and a centuries-long practice of misogyny. It also claimed that Mary Magdalene was the progenitor of the Catholic Church, the wife of Jesus Christ, and that Jesus was not regarded as divine during his lifetime. What may be inconsequential as "fiction" grew more serious for Christian leadership when it became clear after the 2003 book release that the work was challenging the belief system of some Christian faithful. Reactivity grew on the part of Opus Dei-- a Catholic support group depicted in the novel--and various writings appeared on the World Wide Web attempting to debunk the book. The web materials formed a tapestry of information and persuasion about the Da Vinci novel and movie. In the vein of public relations, corporations, agencies and stakeholders use techniques of "impression management" to help negotiate and define perceptions of an issue gone public. The present study employs impression management as a template for understanding how "major Christian religions online" responded, and content-analyzes the messages put forth to deal with public perceptions of The Da Vinci Code. What were the characteristics of these messages? How did they compare to Church reaction toward negative popular fiction of the past, such as 1988's The Last Temptation of Christ? How effective was the Church in addressing public opinion? What could be done more fruitfully in the arena of public relations? The results indicate a generally effective information strategy was employed.

Japan's population is shrinking. Based on current trends, it will decline by an average of half a million people per year for the next forty years. The country is also getting older and the ratio of dependants to active workers is expected to approach 1:1 by around 2030. These two interdependent processes will bring great changes to Japan in the coming decades. In the twenty-first century, a historic turnaround in global demographic trends will occur. Europe and East Asia are especially vulnerable to demographic shrinkage. Germany is already shrinking, as is Russia. South Korea will begin to shrink soon and, importantly, so will China from around 2035. Overall, this is good news, but it brings with it worldwide changes to ways of living and working. Japan's rural areas have been shrinking for decades. Entire villages have vanished; some have even been "sold." Thousands of municipalities have been judged "non-viable" and merged. Thousands more private and public enterprises have collapsed, leaving colossal debts, while hundreds of thousands of older people live miserable lives in neighbourless communities. Rural shrinkage has been the unseen corollary of Japan's extraordinarily dynamic twentieth century urban expansion; indeed, Japan's postwar economic miracle has been achieved at the expense of rural retreat. Potentially disastrous is the negative-sum game that national depopulation triggers, as one community's gain becomes another's loss. Japan's Shrinking Regions in the 21st Century reveals how communities are responding positively to these emerging circumstances, delivering a message of hope and vitality to shrinking regions worldwide. Setting Japan alongside Europe, and with an epilogue describing the T hoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown of 11 March 2011, the book offers policy makers and practitioners up to date advice for community revival born of extensive collaborative fieldwork across the whole Japanese archipelago. Japan's Shrinking Regions in the 21st Century brings together the work of 18 international scholars to present the first comprehensive study of regional shrinkage under Japan's national depopulation. Interspersed throughout with numerous illustrations, the book reveals a richly textured examination of shrinkage at the local level, from which emerges the overall story of Japan's depopulation and its place within the trajectory of world development. This will be an important source for all social science collections, as well as for researchers, policy makers, students, and practitioners with interests in regional development, demography, East Asia, and post-industrial change.

Designed for both academic and lay audiences, this book identifies the characteristics of ritual and, via multiple examples, details how ritual works on the human body and brain to produce its often profound effects. These include enhancing courage, effecting healing, and generating group cohesion by enacting cultural-or individual-beliefs and values. It also shows what happens when ritual fails.

This third edition of a classic urban sociology text examines critical but often-neglected aspects of urban life from a social-psychological theoretical perspective. Symbolic interaction is among the most central theoretical paradigms in sociology and the theory that most thoroughly attends to how individuals give meaning to their world-in this case, how city dwellers interpret and respond to their daily experiences as urbanites. This thoroughly updated edition of Being Urban: A Sociology of City Life remains true to this particular theoretical angle of vision-the symbolic interactionist approach-focusing on specific topics that are relatively neglected in other urban sociology texts, and that lend themselves to the kind of social-psychological analyses that define the distinctive conceptual core of the authors' efforts. After the first two chapters supply readers with theoretical foundations of urban sociology, the next four chapters describe the various ways that individuals experience and make sense of key aspects of urban life. The final section-also composed of four chapters-addresses strategically chosen urban institutions and related processes of social change. Specific subject areas covered include sports, everyday public life, tolerance for diversity, women in cities, urban politics, and the arts. Readers will learn about how order is maintained in public urban places, understand why cities naturally breed a tolerance for diversity that may not be so easily achieved in less urban settings, and appreciate the delicate political and economic tensions between cities and their surrounding suburbs. Provides a complete analysis of the important social psychological dimensions of urban life that are often overlooked Supplies a comprehensive description of the 19th-century theoretical roots of urban sociology Enables readers to see concretely how theories are "applied" to illuminate the operation of a range of urban cultures, processes, and structures Considers a number of topics that are likely to resonate with readers personally, such as alternative approaches to the concept of "community," the daily organization of city life, and the phenomenon of urban tolerance of diversity Includes an up-to-date, new chapter on the arts and urban life

The study of social influence has been central to social psychology since its inception. In fact, research on social influence began all the way back to the late 1800s, predating the term 'social psychology' as we know it today. And while the area's influence continued through the beginning of social psychology's golden age, by the mid-1980s, interest declined while interest in social cognition increased. Today, however, the pendulum is swinging back, and is evident from the growing interest in non-cognitive, motivational accounts of the field. Edited by Stephen G. Harkins, Kipling D. Williams, and Jerry M. Burger, The Oxford Handbook of Social Influence is a landmark contribution to the resurging interest in social influence, restoring this important field to its once preeminent position within social psychology. In this volume, Harkins, Williams, and Burger lead a team of leading scholars as they explore a variety of topics within social influence, seamlessly incorporating a range of analyses (including intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intragroup), and examine critical theories and the role of social influence in applied settings today. The Oxford Handbook of Social Influence contributes to emerging interest in social influence in a variety of ways. Chapters cover classic topics in the context of what has been learned since the original research was conducted, while other contributions showcase how integrations and elaborations that initially advanced our understanding of social influence processes are now within reach. Additional chapters also reveal the gaps in social influence literature, and go on to suggest future lines of research and exploration.

Youth Work Process and Practice provides an overview of the central concerns in youth work today, exploring what youth work actually consists in and developing an authentic theoretical framework for practice. This accessible textbook places the role of the curriculum and idea of practice as a process at the centre of youth work. Exploring important aspects of practice - such as empowerment, participation and choice, group work, experiential learning and the importance of relationship building - Jon Ord explains how the idea of curriculum can be used to communicate, legitimate and develop youth worth practice, as well as help to articulate its value and importance. The book includes a detailed and up-to-date analysis of the policy climate, looks at the implications of its focus on measurability and outcomes and discusses the impact of devolution in the UK on youth work practice. It contrasts dominant contemporary perspectives of youth and youth culture and argues that, rather than competing, 'informal' and 'social' education are twin aspects of an educational practice which must emphasises both individual development and wider social change. Youth Work Process and Practice is an essential read for all students of youth and community work and will also be an important reference for practising youth workers.

This valuable contribution to the debate about the relation of religion to the modern city fills an important gap in the historiography of early nineteenth-century religious life. It is a pioneering study of local churches in the urban environment. Based on extensive archival research of churches in Manchester and London in the years 1810-60, it considers the work and thought of ministers who held to a high Calvinistic form of theology. Exploration of this little studied and often derided grouping reveals that their role in the religious and social life of these cities was highly active and responsive, and merits serious reappraisal.

This book comprehensively examines religious faith in China from the perspective of cultural philosophy and cultural history. It explores the social, political, cultural and spiritual meanings of religions, tracing their historical development and related paradigm shifts. It also analyzes the characteristics of the country's local religions and the process of indigenization of world religions, and describes the peaceful co-existence and harmonious confluence of multiple religions in Chinese spiritual life, revealing the vibrant and diverse colors of its religious culture. Examining these religions' social and cultural functions in contemporary Chinese society, the book demonstrates the rich and complex intertwinement of religious faith, cultural spirit and national disposition among the Chinese people.

This book addresses the complicated question of how markets and consumption create the possibilities for cross-cultural exchanges and the multicultural pleasures of omnivorous consumption, whilst at the same time building new boundaries and distinctions, paving the way for new exploitative relationships, and initiating novel modes of status and capital accumulation. The contributors identify that the divide between the economic and ethical dimensions of globalisation has never seemed in sharper relief. With the workings of global markets at odds with fostering cosmopolitan social change, this collection addresses the question of whether we should assume that market logics and consumptive practices conflict with cosmopolitan agendas. It also explores whether the imperatives of economic globalisation and individual consumption practices are opposed to cosmopolitan prospects for global solidarities. Cosmopolitanism, Markets and Consumption will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including in the social sciences, businesses and marketing studies.

Operators of assisted living facilities interpret aging in place very differently than residents do. This difference in interpretation must be taken into account by regulators, policymakers, and operators so that they may reconsider assisted living's place along the traditional continuum of care.

With the growing number of assisted living facilities opening across the United States, it is essential for scholars and practitioners to understand residents' experiences in these environments. The author examines the ideals versus the realities of assisted living and the aging in place/continuum of care debate surrounding assisted living.

While the author presents the results of a detailed, comprehensive anthropological study, she also addresses policy issues which are of concern on the national level. The book combines academic and applied approaches to create an ethnographic fieldwork investigation relevant to housing and health care policies for the elderly in the United States.

Essays, based on five years of survey research in Iowa and case study examples from across the United States, examine the implications of telecommunications technologies for rural community development. Supported by data from five years of survey and case study research, telecommunications adoption and use is explored in nine sectors of the rural community to determine the influence these organizations and institutions have on telecommunications development within the broader rural community. These sectors include local government, economic development, business, newspapers, library services, health care, university extension to communities, and farming. Also considered are the factors that promote and retard telecommunications development, particularly the impact of telecommunications policy, the availability of state-of-the-art infrastructure and service, and the involvement of telephone companies in local community development. Using a community development framework, this work discusses the physical, financial, human and social capitals necessary for holistic community development and the significance of critical mass, the roles of internal and external networks, as well as vertical and horizontal linkages, and the importance of visionary leadership and the championing of telecommunications.

Social Science and telecommunications scholars will appreciate the interdisciplinary approach these case studies represent. In addition, this research is intended to assist local leaders, community service providers, businesses, community officials, and state policy makers in capturing the potential benefits of innovative telecommunications technologies for local economic development, while avoiding potential problems and pitfalls. Essays are organized in three sections. The first presents theory, policy, and issues within a community development framework. The second discusses perspectives and actions of community sectors in their adoption and use of telecommunications. The third examines what occurs within an organization as it implements a new telecommunications system. Charts and graphs enhance the text and a glossary of terms is provided.

This book, uncovers the lived experiences of street-frequenting young people in Fiji. Typically viewed as 'out of place', these young people disturb what it means to be young and Fijian. Despite their marginal existence, they through their activities demonstrate the need to belong. The book adopts a critical postmodern perspective to explore this reality and propose ways of engaging with street-frequenting young people. Candidly written, Street-Frequenting Young People in Fiji identifies issues that provoke the conscience of Fijian hierarchy and its leaders. It will appeal to students and scholars across a range of disciplines- including sociology, childhood and youth studies, and social work- as well as practitioners and policy analysts.

This book showcases recent work about reading and books in sociology and the humanities across the globe. From different standpoints and within the broad perspectives within the cultural sociology of reading, the eighteen chapters examine a range of reading practices, genres, types of texts, and reading spaces. They cover the Anglophone area of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia; the transnational, multilingual space constituted by the readership of the Colombian novel One Hundred Years of Solitude; nineteenth-century Chile; twentieth-century Czech Republic; twentieth century Swahili readings in East Africa; contemporary Iran; and China during the cultural revolution and the post-Mao period. The chapters contribute to current debates about the valuation of literature and the role of cultural intermediaries; the iconic properties of textual objects and of the practice of reading itself; how reading supports personal, social and political reflection; bookstores as spaces for sociability and the interplay of high and commercial cultures; the political uses of reading for nation-building and propaganda, and the dangers and gratifications of reading under repression. In line with the cultural sociology of reading's focus on meaning, materiality and emotion, this book explores the existential, ethical and political consequences of reading in specific locations and historical moments.

This book examines the process of population aging in China and its unique features, considers the social progress implied in China becoming a society with an aging population, and assesses the tremendous risks and challenges involved. Based on the development of pension security systems around the world, the book studies the status quo and future requirements of the Chinese pension security system from the perspectives of capital, service and spirit, and puts forwards a three-pillar pension security system that is in conformity with China's current situation - and reflects the developmental trend that, in future, social security will likely transform from material security into comprehensive security. In addition, the book analyzes the Chinese pension security system. While integrating international perspectives, its main focus is on statistical analysis, combining theory with practice, and qualitative with quantitative analysis. As such, the book not only offers a "wi ndow" for the world on the status and evolution of China's pension security system, but also an opportunity for international academic dialogues.

This book examines the close relationship between the portrayal of foreigners and the delineation of culture and identity in antebellum American writing. Both literary and historical in its approach, this study shows how, in a period marked by extensive immigration, heated debates on national and racial traits, during a flowering in American letters, encouraged responses from American authors to outsiders that not only contain precious insights into nineteenth-century America's self-construction but also serve to illuminate our own time's multicultural societies. The authors under consideration are alternately canonical (Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville), recently rediscovered (Kirkland), or simply neglected (Arthur). The texts analyzed cover such different genres as diaries, letters, newspapers, manuals, novels, stories, and poems.

This book offers a philosophical analysis of what it is to be a human being in all her aspects. It analyses what is meant by the self and the I and how this feeling of a self or an I is connected to the brain. It studies specific cases of brain disorders, based on the idea that in order to understand the common, one has to study the specific. The book shows how the self is thought of as a three-fold emergent self, comprising a relationship between an objective neural segment, a subjective neural segment and a subjective transcendent segment. It explains that the self in the world tackles philosophical problems such as the problem of free will, the problem of evil, the problem of human uniqueness and empathy. It demonstrates how the problem of time also has its place here. For many people, the world includes ultimate reality; hence the book provides an analysis and evaluation of different relationships between human beings and Ultimate Reality (God). The book presents an answer to the philosophical problem of how one could understand divine action in the world.

Can White parents teach their Black children African American culture and history? Can they impart to them the survival skills necessary to survive in the racially stratified United States? Concerns over racial identity have been at the center of controversies over transracial adoption since the 1970s, as questions continually arise about whether White parents are capable of instilling a positive sense of African American identity in their Black children.

" An] empathetic study of meanings of cross-racial adoption to adoptees"
"--Law and Politics Book Review, Vol. 11, No. 11, Nov. 2001"

Through in-depth interviews with adult transracial adoptees, as well as with social workers in adoption agencies, Sandra Patton, herself an adoptee, explores the social construction of race, identity, gender, and family and the ways in which these interact with public policy about adoption. Patton offers a compelling overview of the issues at stake in transracial adoption. She discusses recent changes in adoption and social welfare policy which prohibit consideration of race in the placement of children, as well as public policy definitions of "bad mothers" which can foster coerced aspects of adoption, to show how the lives of transracial adoptees have been shaped by the policies of the U.S. child welfare system.

Neither an argument for nor against the practice of transracial adoption, BirthMarks seeks to counter the dominant public view of this practice as a panacea to the so-called "epidemic" of illegitimacy and the misfortune of infertility among the middle class with a more nuanced view that gives voice to those directly involved, shedding light on the ways in which Black and multiracial adoptees articulate their own identity experiences.

A new class is emerging in the wake of the information economy and is altering American culture. Instead of arguing about values in aesthetic taste or morality, this book sheds new light on the culture wars by examining the social sources of recent cultural developments. Both opponents and defenders of the current cultural scene have neglected the class factors in culture generally and in present society. If the new class is added to our picture of American society, its input into the cultural marketplace helps to explain present trends in postmodernism, mixtures of high and low culture, and other recent developments.

Both opponents and defenders of the cultural scene have neglected the class factors in culture generally and in present society. Instead of arguing about values in aesthetic taste or morality, this book offers a new perspective on the culture wars by inquiring into the social sources of the argument. When a new class is seen to have emerged in the wake of the information economy, its effects on cultural taste and style will help to explain both their strengths and weaknesses.

The book's message is that much of the heat generated in the culture wars may be lowered and clarification obtained by observing a principle in social and aesthetic matters: every class has its culture. When the social functions of both high and popular cultures are acknowledged, it becomes possible to criticize current offerings for their effectiveness or limitations in fulfilling those functions. If the new class is added to our picture of American society, its input into the cultural marketplace helps to explain present trends in postmodernism, mixtures of high and low culture, and other recent developments.

The Last Choice establishes that preemptive suicide in advanced age can be rational: that it can make good sense to evade age-related personal diminishment even at the cost of good time left. Criteria are provided to help determine whether soundly reasoned, cogently motivated,and prudently timed self-destruction can be in one's interests late in life. In our time suicide and assisted suicide are being increasingly tolerated as ways to escape unendurable mental or physical suffering, but it isn't widely accepted that suicide may be a rational choice before the onset of such suffering. This book's basic claim is that it can be rational to choose to die sooner as oneself than to survive as a lessened other: that judicious appropriation of one's own inevitable death can be an identity-affirming act and a fitting end to life. Discussion of preemptive suicide goes beyond contributing to current widespread debate about assisted suicide. It is a matter tightly interrelated with other right to die questions and one bound to become a national issue. If there are good arguments for escaping intolerable situations caused by age-related deteriorative conditions, most of those arguments will equally support avoidance of those conditions. If assisted suicide becomes more generally acknowledged and accepted, preemptive suicide will almost certainly follow. It is crucial, then, to examine whether preemptive suicide constitutes a rational option for reflective aging individuals.

Youth Mediations and Affective Relations explores dynamic and expansive possibilities of young people's affective lives as they engage with diverse social media in prolific and specific ways. It addresses the situated embodied and emotional experiences of young people as they actively use media in order to forge communities, play imaginatively, protest injustice, experiment with their identities, make media or explore friendships. Furthermore, it explores the relational and contextual dimensions of their everyday interactions. Against static knowledge and moral panics that abstract youth from the complex and changing worlds in which they grapple with digital media, this book hones in on the layered textures of youth experiences to consider how today's youth think and feel in subtle and unexpected ways.