Dieser Band vereint die bedeutendsten Ansatze zur Ritualforschung und macht die wichtigsten Beitrage aus dem Forschungsgebiet "Ritual Studies" zum ersten Mal in deutscher Sprache und in einem Band zuganglich. Uber zwanzig Artikel werden in zwei Kategorien aufgeteilt: "Allgemeine Ritualtheorien" und "Konkrete Studien zum Ritual in Kultur und Gesellschaft." Im allgemeinen Teil finden sich neben Klassikern der Ritualforschung wie Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner, Mary Douglas und Erving Goffman auch neuere Autoren wie z.B. der amerikanische Soziologe Albert Bergesen mit seiner Theorie der "Rituellen Ordnung" (ein Originalbeitrag zu diesem Band), Catherine Bell mit der epistemologischen Theorie der "Ritualkonstruktion," Caroline Humphrey und James Laidlaw mit der Theorie der "Rituellen Einstellung" und die umfassende Analyse des Rituals von Jan Platvoet. Im zweiten Teil finden sich Artikel uber rituelles Handeln in verschiedenen Bereichen von Kultur und Gesellschaft sowie Politik, Psychotherapie, Kunst, Sport, Medien, Literatur, Theater, Recht und Feminismus. Die Herausgeber stellen den Artikeln eine umfassende Einfuhrung in das Gebiet der Ritualforschung voran. Das Buch ist als Handbuch der Ritualforschung fur Fachleute und als Basistext fur alle, die das Phanomen des Rituals in Religion, Kultur und Gesellschaft naher kennenlernen wollen, konzipiert."

Die Autorinnen und Autoren setzen sich interdisziplinar mit unterschiedlichen Aspekten innovativer Wirtschaftskommunikation auseinander. Sie stellen Fallstudien und Losungskonzepte zu folgenden Themenbereichen vor: Kommunikationsmanagement, Kommunikationsstrategien, integrierte Kommunikation, Methodeneinsatz in der Kommunikation, Diversity Management, Textanalyse und Theorieentwicklung in der Kommunikation.

The information age has brought about a growing conflict between proponents of a data-driven society on the one side and demands for protection of individual freedom, autonomy, and dignity by means of privacy on the other. The causes of this conflict are rooted in the modern Western opposition of individual and society and a self-understanding of the human as an autonomous rational subject with an inalienable right to informational self-determination. Andrea Belliger and David J. Krieger propose a theory of information as a common good and redefine the individual as an informational self who exists in networks made up of both humans and nonhumans. Privacy is replaced by publicy and issues of data use and data protection are described in terms of governance instead of government.

What are organizations? Where do they come from? How are they transformed and adapted to new situations? In the digital age and in the global network society, traditional theories of the organization can no longer answer these questions. Based on actor-network theory, this book explains organizations as flexible, open networks in which both human and non-human actors enter into socio-technical assemblies by constantly negotiating and re-negotiating programs of action. Organizations are not macro social structures or autonomous systems operating behind the backs of individuals. Instead, they are scalable actor-networks guided by network norms of connectivity, flow, communication, participation, authenticity, and flexibility.

After postmodern critique has deconstructed, decentered, and displaced order and identity on all levels, we are faced with the Humpty Dumpty question of how to put the pieces back together again. This book brings together the seldom associated discourses of hermeneutics, actor-network theory, and new media in order to formulate a theory of a global network society. Hermeneutics re-opens the question of unity in a fragmented world. Actor-network theory reinterprets the construction of meaning as networking. New media studies show how networking is done. Networks arise, are maintained, and are transformed by communicative actions that are governed by network norms that make up a social operating system. The social operating system offers an alternative to the imperatives of algorithmic logic, functionality, and systemic closure that dominate present day solutions to problems of over-complexity in all areas. The world of meaning constructed by the social operating system is a mixed reality in which filters and layers replace the physical restraints of space and time as parameters of knowing and acting. Society and nature, humans and non-humans come together in a socio-sphere consisting of hybrid, heterogeneous actor-networks. This book proposes reinterpreting hermeneutics as networking and networking as guided by a social operating system whose norms are based on new media. There emerges a theory for a global network society described by different concepts than those typical of Western modernity.