Religion is living culture. It continues to play a role in shaping political ideologies, institutional practices, communities of interest, ways of life and social identities. Mediating Faiths brings together scholars working across a range of fields, including cultural studies, media, sociology, anthropology, cultural theory and religious studies, in order to facilitate greater understanding of recent transformations. Contributors illustrate how religion continues to be responsive to the very latest social and cultural developments in the environments in which it exists. They raise fundamental questions concerning new media and religious expression, religious youth cultures, the links between spirituality, personal development and consumer culture, and contemporary intersections of religion, identity and politics. Together the chapters demonstrate how belief in the superempirical is negotiated relative to secular concerns in the twenty-first century.

Religion is living culture. It continues to play a role in shaping political ideologies, institutional practices, communities of interest, ways of life and social identities. Mediating Faiths brings together scholars working across a range of fields, including cultural studies, media, sociology, anthropology, cultural theory and religious studies, in order to facilitate greater understanding of recent transformations. Contributors illustrate how religion continues to be responsive to the very latest social and cultural developments in the environments in which it exists. They raise fundamental questions concerning new media and religious expression, religious youth cultures, the links between spirituality, personal development and consumer culture, and contemporary intersections of religion, identity and politics. Together the chapters demonstrate how belief in the superempirical is negotiated relative to secular concerns in the twenty-first century.

News matters. It is still the main forum for discussion of issues of public importance. It is where we come together to inform, persuade, influence, endorse or reject one another in a collaborative process of making meaning from events. But the news is changing - content, distribution channels, geographical constraints, production values, business models, regulatory approaches and cultural habits are all in flux, as new media technologies are adopted and adapted by users. However, despite having driven many of the changes themselves, established media organisations are in many cases struggling to adapt to this changed environment. News Online: Transformations and Continuities is for everyone who wants to better understand the news media of the twenty-first century. With contributions from leading international scholars who question established understandings of news in the light of change, this book charts a course through recent upheavals and ranges over a broad terrain - from the BBC to experimental videogames, from Latin American newsrooms to Northeast Asian blogs, from the crisis in US newspapers to Twitter users in Iran. Each chapter provides an insightful analysis of how popular digital communications change relations of production and consumption, in addition to the effect on cultural and political participation. News Online considers the shifting boundaries between the popular and the professional made possible by the redistribution of news functions. Graham Meikle is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Film, Media & Journalism at the University of Stirling, UK. He is the author of Interpreting News (2009) and Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet (2002). Guy Redden is a lecturer in cultural studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has previously taught at the University of Lincoln (UK) and Prince of Songkla University (Thailand). His research revolves around the relationships between culture, media and economy. Contributors Stuart Allan, Ian Bogost, Axel Bruns, Andres Canizalez, Kate Crawford, Mark Deuze, Natalie Fenton, Simon Ferrari, Leopoldina Fortunati, Gerard Goggin, Jairo Lugo, Robert McChesney, Brian McNair, An Nguyen, Bobby Schweizer, Einar Thorsen, Tamara Witschge and Xin Xin.

Questioning Performance Measurement: Metrics, Organizations and Power is the first book to interrogate the organizational turn towards performance metrics critically. Performance measurement is used to evaluate a diverse range of activities throughout the private, public and non-governmental sectors. But in an increasingly data driven world, what does it really mean to measure 'performance'? Taking a sociology of quantification perspective, this book traces the rise of performance measurement, questions its methods and objectivity, and examines the social significance of the flood of numbers through which value is represented and actors are held accountable. An illuminating read for students, scholars and practitioners across Organization Studies, Sociology, Business and Management, Public Policy and Administration.