Social Networking: Redefining Communication in the Digital Age fulfills a pressing demand in social network literature by bringing together international experts from the fields of communication, new media technologies, marketing and advertising, public relations and journalism, business, and education. In this volume contributors traces online social networking practices across national borders, cultural confines, and geographic limits. The book delves into the socioeconomic, political, cultural, and professional dimensions of social networking around the globe, and explores the similarities, distinctions, and specific characteristics of social media networks in diverse settings. The chapters offer an important contribution to the scholarly research on the uses and applications of online social networking around the world and pertain to a broad range of academic fields. Overall, the volume addresses a subject matter of keen interest to academics and practitioners alike and provides a much-needed forum for sharing innovative research practices and exchanging new ideas.

Negotiating Group Identity in the Research Process: Are You In or Are You Out? focuses on researcher identity and the role it plays in conducting research, whether as a member of the culture being studied (i.e., an insider) or as an outsider to that culture. Contributors address the problems researchers face as insiders and outsiders, the practical strategies used to overcome related obstacles, the implications of insider/outsider status for the design of the study, the value of insider and outsider perspectives, the impact of this on the findings of a study, the implications for advocating on behalf of a group being studied, and other important topics. These scholars are from within and outside the field of communication and include well-known and emerging scholars who have studied a multitude of groups using various methodological strategies.

The Communicated Stereotype: From Celebrity Vilification to Everyday Talk argues that a consequential interactional dilemma is enacted when people communicate stereotypes in everyday talk. The interactional dilemma is a result of the tension between a political correctness movement that prescribes against the communication of stereotypes and the benefits gained from communicating these in conversation. Despite the punishment and shame that befalls celebrities who communicate stereotypes, people continue to communicate stereotypes in everyday conversation often evoking little if any outrage. The Communicated Stereotype advances previous theory and research related to group categorization, stereotype maintenance and functional, discourse analytic, and critical approaches by demonstrating the process whereby the vilification of celebrities diverts attention from the everyday communication of stereotypes and emboldens people to communicate stereotypes without self-criticism. The way this interactional dilemma is handled in conversation helps to explain why stereotypes are maintained over time within a culture despite deterrents intended to dissuade people from using them. An appreciation of stereotypes as poor communication choices provides the potential for the reduction of stereotype use.

Today, students are more familiar with other cultures than ever before because of the media, Internet, local diversity, and their own travels abroad. As such, traditional intercultural communication textbooks which focus solely on the 'differences' approach aren't truly effective for today's students, nor for this field's growth. Using a social constructionist framework-which explores how culture is constructed and produced in the moments in which it is experienced-Inter/Cultural Communication provides today's students with a rich understanding of how culture and communication affect and effect each other. Inter/Cultural Communication improves upon current textbooks in four significant ways: (1) It provides a differences approach and a social constructionist approach; (2) It explores the consequences of cultural moments on immediate communication and on larger scale social issues; (3) It is descriptive, not prescriptive, of how culture is communicated; and (4) It introduces intercultural topics, rather than interpersonal topics. Weaving multiple approaches together in order to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of and appreciation for the diversity of cultural and intercultural communication, this text allows them to become more aware of their own identities and how powerful those identities can be in facilitating change-both in their own lives and in the lives of others. In addition, the book will help students deal with unfamiliar cultures and understand those with whom they come in contact when they travel, in their communities, in the workplace, in their home, and online.