This book deals with the social, cultural and especially political significance of media by shifting from the usual focus on the public sphere and publics and paying attention to populations. It describes key moments where populations of different sorts have been subject to formative and diverse projects of governing, in which communication has been key. It brings together governmentality studies with the study of media practices and communication technologies. Chapters consider print culture and the new political technology of individuals; digital economies as places where populations are formed, known and managed as productive resources; workplaces, schools, clinics and homes as sites of governmental objectives; and how to appropriately link communication technologies and practices with politics. Through these chapters Philip Dearman, Cathy Greenfield and Peter Williams demonstrate the value of considering communication in terms of the government of populations.

Mental Health among Higher Education Faculty, Administrators, and Graduate Studentsaddresses how many academics who experience mental distress or mental illness are afraid to speak out because of cultural stigma and fears of career repercussions. Many academics' reluctance to publicly disclose their struggles complicates attempts to understand their experiences through research or popular media, or to develop targeted mental health resources and institutional policies. This volume builds on the existing studies in this greatly under-researched area of mental health among faculty, administrators, and graduate students in higher education. The chapters' research findings will help institutions communicate about mental health in culturally-competent and person-centered ways; create work environments conducive to mental well-being; and support their academic employees who have mental health challenges. This book argues that discussions of health and wellness, equity, workload expectations and productivity, and campus diversity must also cover chronic illness and disability, which include mental health and mental illness.

The advance of ICTs in the human services has generated many concerns, including a proposition that professional autonomy is necessarily compromised. Database systems, and the associated managerialist scrutiny, enable a 'dehumanising' intrusion into the worker/client relations that constitute social casework. ICTs and Professional Autonomy responds to this concern by tracing the historically developed shift from the rituals of self-reflection attached to process recording through to the risk management calculations associated with desktop recording. Dearman's conclusion, based on a post-structuralist analytics of power and knowledge, is that autonomy is not simply a matter of principled freedom from managerial power but rather a disposition to act, which in turn is an outcome of different forms of engagement with changing techniques of representation. As recording practices have shifted, from a profound reliance on process and self-reflection to an abbreviated keying of 'relevant information', so too has the nature of real relations between professional labour and management, and so too has the capacity of professional social workers for 'self-mastery'.