bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Total Institutions
Authors: Manning Peter K.
Published: September 2017

The idea of a total institution (TI) captured what many learned observers had noted about organizations that processed people as things. The essential feature of the total institution is the effort, via regimes, tight supervision, and routinization of the movements of large groups of cohorts, to socialize inmates to the culture of the institution in part so that they might return. These are of course contradictory aims, and empirically those that confine permanently or semi‐permanently — assisted living centers (once called “old folks homes”), prisons, mental hospitals, once common specialized hospitals for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy, those that train for other purposes (boarding schools, academies, and “boot camps”), and retreats associated with religious purposes or recovery — present a range of variation in underlying functions, contradictions, and modes of entry and exit. These matters, even the basic normative grounds of compliance noted by Etzioni (1962), have not been explored as fully as they might be. This is in part because Erving Goffman's classic essay (1961), an extraordinary performance focused on changes in the inmate self, set an almost impossibly high analytic standard.
Third Way (Giddens)
Authors: Leggett Will
Published: September 2017

The Third Way was the label originally given by British sociologist Anthony Giddens (1998) to his programme for modernizing center‐left politics. It was closely associated with Bill Clinton's New Democrats in the United States and Tony Blair's New Labour in the United Kingdom. It directly attempted to use sociological theory to inform a political and governing project.
Transport and virtual technologies
Authors: Tsekeris Charalambos , Tsekeris Theodore
Published: September 2017

The rapidly growing traffic congestion, as well as the increasing complexity of trip making in contemporary metropolitan areas, has encouraged the systematic adoption of advanced virtual technologies for transmitting (real‐time) geospatial travel information to transport network users.
Technology and Interaction
Authors: Shank Daniel B.
Published: September 2017

Technology influences both how people interact with each other and who interacts with whom. Communication technologies like mobile phones, e‐mail, and video conferencing enable people to converse over great distances, yet they do not have the same characteristics of face‐to‐face interaction. Interactions limited to merely vocal, visual, or text may lose nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, tone of voice, touch, or body posture (Menchik and Tian, 2008).
Urban, Concept of
Authors: Parrillo Vincent N.
Published: September 2017

The term “urban” is derived from the Latin wordurbanus, which means “pertaining to the city.” Within sociology, however, the criteria of what constitutes a city vary. These include population size, administrative function, and economic characteristics. Historically, “urban” could be understood as referring to a spatially defined city, with all the surrounding space being rural. In the twentieth century this changed with the emergence of a third entity, the suburban. With the blurring of these lines between urban and nonurban elements, new theoretical approaches have had to be developed.
Urban Crime and Violence
Authors: DeKeseredy Walter S.
Published: September 2017

Defining crime and violence is the subject of much debate. In fact, a review of the extant social scientific literature on these topics reveals a myriad of definitions. However, here, the focus is limited to illegal interpersonal behaviors that threaten people's social, economic, and physical well‐being. More specifically, the behaviors examined here are acts such as homicide, assault, robbery, theft, and drug dealing. While these harms affect both rural and urban communities, most of them occur in large metropolitan areas characterized by concentrated poverty and racial segregation (DeKeseredy et al. 2003).
Urban Ecology
Authors: White Michael J. , Kim Ann H.
Published: September 2017

Urban ecology is the study of community structure and organization as manifest in cities and other relatively dense human settlements. Among its major topics, urban ecology is concerned with the patterns of urban community sorting and change by socioeconomic status, life cycle, and ethnicity, and with patterns of relations across systems of cities. Of particular concern is the dynamic evolution of cities and contrast in urban structure across time periods, societies, and urban scale. The notion of community is central to urban ecology; a premise of the ecological approach is that the aggregation of persons into communities has important implications for their life chances, for the behavior of groups, and for aggregate outcomes. A further aspect of community organization lies in its geographic manifestation, although a mere geographic reductionism would not accurately capture the theoretical or empirical approach of the ecological perspective.
Urban Education
Authors: Sadovnik Alan R.
Published: September 2017

Urban education has been the subject of ongoing discussions in the US, with policies aimed at urban school improvement vigorously debated over the last 40 years. Since the 1960s, as cities became increasingly poor and populated by minority groups, urban schools have reflected the problems associated with poverty. Although rural and many suburban schools have similar problems, urban schools represent the most serious challenges. A significant percentage of urban schools have been labeled in need of improvement under federal No Child Left Behind (2002) guidelines, with large city school systems having dropout rates at or above 40 percent and student achievement well below 50 percent proficiency in mathematics and reading. Despite these alarming data, there are significant numbers of high‐performing urban schools and a number of reform programs that show promise (Tractenberg et al. 2002).
Urban Poverty
Authors: Harding David J.
Published: September 2017

While a technical definition of the urban poor includes those individuals in families with incomes below the federal poverty line who live in metropolitan areas, most research on urban poverty focuses on racial and ethnic minorities living in segregated, high‐poverty neighborhoods in central cities. The study of urban poverty lies at the intersection of several sociological fields, including race and ethnicity, immigration, stratification, and urban sociology. As a predominantly problem‐oriented field, urban poverty research attempts to understand the roots of urban dilemmas such as crime and delinquency, single motherhood, unemployment, and low levels of education, often drawing theoretical concepts from other areas of sociology such as social capital, networks, and culture. The causes and consequences of spatially concentrated poverty and the intergenerational transmission of poverty are also frequent subjects of inquiry. A recurring debate in this field is whether income inadequacy causes problem behavior or whether problem behavior causes income inadequacy.
Urban Revolution
Authors: Fox Gotham Kevin
Published: September 2017

The urban revolution refers to the emergence of urban life and the concomitant transformation of human settlements from simple agrarian‐based systems to complex and hierarchical systems of manufacturing and trade. The term also refers to the present era of metropolitan or megalopolis growth, the development of exurbs, and the explosion of primate or mega‐cities. Archeologist V. Gordan Childe coined the term
urban revolution
to explain the series of stages in the development of cities that preceded the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. For Childe, the first revolution – the “Agricultural Revolution” – occurred when hunting and gathering societies mastered the skill of food production and began to live in stable and sedentary groups. The second revolution – the “Urban Revolution” – began during the fourth and third millennia
bce
in the civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Near East. The urban revolution ushered in a new era of population growth, complex urban development, and the development of such institutions as the bureaucratic state, warfare, architecture, and writing. For Henri Lefebvre (2003), the urban revolution not only signifies a long historical shift from an agricultural to an industrial to an urban world, but also refers to a shift in the internal organization of the city, from the political city of pre‐medieval times to the mercantile, then industrial, city to the present phase, where the “urban” becomes a global trend. Today, many scholars use the term urban revolution to connote profound changes in the social organization of societies, but they disagree over the conceptualization, causes, and trajectory of the change.
Urban Revolution
Authors: Gotham Kevin Fox
Published: September 2017

The phrase “urban revolution” refers to the emergence of urban life and the concomitant transformation of human settlements from simple, agrarian‐based systems to complex and hierarchical systems of manufacturing and trade. The concept also refers to the present era of metropolitan or megalopolitan growth, the development of exurbs, and the explosion of primate cities or megacities. Archeologist V. Gordan Childe (1892–1957) coined the phrase “urban revolution” to explain the series of stages in the development cities that preceded the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. For Childe, the first revolution – the agricultural revolution – occurred when hunting and gathering societies mastered the skill of food production and began to live in stable and sedentary groups. The second revolution – the urban revolution – began during the fourth and third millennia bce, in the civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Near East. The urban revolution ushered in a new era of population growth, complex urban development, and the development of such institutions as the bureaucratic state, warfare, architecture, and writing. For Henri Lefebvre (2003 [1970]), the urban revolution not only signifies a long historical transformation from an agricultural to an industrial to an urban world, but also incorporates a shift in the internal organization of the city, from the political city of pre‐medieval times to the mercantile city, then to the industrial city, and up to the present phase, where the “urban” becomes a global trend. Today many scholars use the term “urban revolution” to connote profound changes in the social organization of societies, but they disagree over the conceptualization, causes, and trajectory of the change.
Value
Authors: Beamish Rob
Published: September 2017

Value and theories of value might begin in economics but they have significant sociological importance. As with economics, two divergent conceptions of value dominate sociological thought: an objective, intrinsic, production‐centered theory versus a subjective, consumption‐focused conception of value – best represented in Marx and Simmel's works, respectively. Marx's systematic presentation of value's form and substance in
Capital
critically extended Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and other political economists’ labor theory of value, while Simmel developed the sociological importance of subjective conceptions of value that began with political economist Jacques Turgot and William Jevons and the Austrian School developed with theories of marginal utility, value, and price.
Values: Global
Authors: Sekulic Dusko
Published: September 2017

Social values are relatively abstract and generalized standards or principles of what the individuals in a society consider good and desirable. Equality, justice, and freedom are examples of such values. They are the basis for creating evaluative criteria for judging concrete social behavior as good or bad, desirable or despicable, acceptable or unacceptable. Values are the source of concrete prescription for behavior in practical situations of everyday life. Where the general value is equality, the norms of teacher impartiality or the presumption of innocence in courts are concrete norms derived from the abstract value.
Variables, Control
Authors: Sung Hung‐En
Published: September 2017

Control variables are variables included in multivariate analyses to identify spurious associations. In assessing whether
X
is associated with
Y
, it is important to examine whether the covariation between them persists after the effects of other variables on this association are removed (McClendon 2002). Here, “control” means to hold constant. A variable is controlled when its influence on the other variables in the model is held constant.
Violentization
Authors: Athens Lonnie
Published: September 2017

The theory of violentization, which has generated widespread mass media attention and even stimulated a fair amount of independent research, especially extending its explanation to genocide, is based on three main ideas: (1) violent encounters, (2) violent socialization, and (3) violent social organization and disorganization. Violent criminal acts are considered to arise from dominative encounters. For a violent dominative encounter to start, at least one of the participants in a social act must threaten to use physical force to determine who will perform the superordinate and subordinate roles during its construction. Thus, violent dominative encounters explain the interaction between a perpetrator and victim when physical force is threatened or actually used to settle the issue of dominance. There are three basic types of violent encounters:
violent engagements, violent skirmishes
, and
dominance tiffs
. Violent dominative encounters occur over a series of stages. The exact number of stages comprising each of them depends on how far the encounter between the conflicting parties proceeds. Violent dominative engagements represent completed dominative encounters and take place over five stages. During the first stage of
role claiming
, a would‐be superordinate must decide to take on that role and cast someone else in the subordinate role. The would‐be superordinate claims the dominant role by making vocal or bodily gestures signaling his superiority to his would‐be subordinate. During the
role rejection
, or second stage, would‐be subordinates must not only decide whether to reject the subordinate role imposed on them, but also whether they should resist a
ctively
or
passively
. Passive resistance requires making gestures that express neither dominance nor subservience but, instead, merely express their intention not to accede to performing the subordinate role in the social act. If they choose active resistance, they must gain the initiative by making their own dominance‐claiming gestures expressing their attitude of superiority and intention to perform the superordinate role in the social act. However, it is important to recognize that there are cases where the would‐be subordinate's mere presence in their would‐be superordinates’ domain of action challenges their effective performance of the superordinate role.
Welfare Regimes
Authors: Lessenich Stephan
Published: September 2017

Thinking in terms of regimes and regime types has become popular in comparative welfare research since the late 1980s. Originally stemming from international relations studies, the concept of regime was introduced in welfare state research by Danish sociologist Gøsta Esping‐Andersen, who adapted it in his seminal work onThe Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism(1990) for conceptualizing the institutional nexus of work and welfare in advanced capitalist societies. Building on a welfare regime's capacity to reduce the market dependency of individuals and households (decommodification), its implications for the structure of social inequality (stratification), and the relative importance of the state, markets, and the family in the production of social welfare (welfare mix), Esping‐Andersen claimed that the modern welfare state comes in three ideal typical variants: the liberal, the conservative, and the social democratic models.
Williams, Raymond (1921–1988)
Authors: Bennett Tony
Published: September 2017

Born in 1921 in Wales, Raymond Williams was educated at Cambridge and, after wartime military service and an initial academic position in Oxford's Extra‐Mural Delegacy, returned there on a permanent basis as Lecturer in English in 1961, subsequently becoming Professor of Drama in 1974.
Women in Science
Authors: Rosser Sue V.
Published: September 2017

The work of historians of science, data analysts, gender studies scholars, as well as sociologists of science informs the interdisciplinary field of women in science. Historians have elucidated the changing impact of gender and gender roles on women's lives as scientists at different historical times, different geographic locations, and in different scientific disciplines. Data gathered by national governments on the numbers and status of women in science provide a mechanism to document the numbers of women in different disciplines and the positions they hold. Relatively recently, the US National Science Foundation has recognized the role of intersectionality and its impact upon the percentages of degrees obtained by women in different STEM disciplines, the sector or institutional type of employment, unemployment rates and salaries, as well as women's daily experiences as scientists.
Women's Empowerment
Authors: Copelton Denise A.
Published: September 2017

Women's empowerment is a central concern of the women's movement. It refers to the general process through which women gain knowledge about the structures that oppress them, and seek to alter the power imbalances in society. Bookman and Morgen (1988: 4) define empowerment broadly as the “process aimed at consolidating, maintaining, or changing the nature and distribution of power in a particular cultural context” that can range from “acts of individual resistance to mass political mobilizations.” Given women's diverse experiences of inequality, women's empowerment has been partially achieved through a variety of strategies and within a number of different historical, institutional, and cultural contexts. For example, in the first wave of the women's movement in the US, women's empowerment was linked explicitly to political power in the form of voting rights. In the second wave, women's empowerment was linked to such issues as reproductive rights, workplace rights, freedom from men's violence, and furthering women's political rights and legal protections through the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Not all of these issues were successful, however, as the ERA never passed into law, violence against women continues, and reproductive rights are not shared equally by all women. Nevertheless, that large numbers of women demanded changes to the unequal institutional arrangements in politics, law, medicine, and intimate relationships illustrates the process of women's empowerment. Though the concept and process of women's empowerment is far reaching and factors into all areas of women's lives, the discussion below focuses on those areas of women's lives in which the concept of empowerment has taken center stage. These include second‐wave US feminist organizing; women, sports, and self‐defense; women's health care; and women and development.
Women's Health
Authors: Shinberg Diane S.
Published: September 2017

Women's health encompasses physical, emotional, and social health and well‐being associated with female reproductive and sexual development over the life cycle, or any medical condition more common among women. The sociology of women's health includes the study of gendered politics within medicine, medical training, doctor–patient interactions, self‐care, illness behavior, and health care utilization. Women's health can be more broadly construed to include the relationships between gender inequality (gender as a social institution) and health, even among men.
Workplace Diversity
Authors: Nkomo Stella
Published: September 2017

Since its emergence, workplace diversity has evolved from being solely focused on issues of discrimination and exclusion to efforts to understand the many different dimensions on which employees differ. This entry provides a description of this evolution and ends with a summary of current debates and research streams.
World Conflict
Authors: Fellman Gordon
Published: September 2017

Wars of the past century or so have addressed economic and political conflicts and, increasingly, ethnic and religious conflicts. The scope of war seems to be decreasing from “macrowar” to “microwar,” with terrorism and drone attacks replacing massive civilian deaths and warriors' deaths in conventional war. Drone attacks are “proactive” in promoting policy objectives of governments, so far, while terrorism seems more commonly to be “reactive,” against economic and political effects of the world economic order culminating in globalization. At the bases of this change are the structural realities of the ending of the Cold War, the downsides of globalization, social psychological realities of anger fueling “conflict structures,” and yearnings for community. Cross‐cutting all these forces and structures is the growing appeal and influence of nonviolence as an alternative method for resolving world conflicts.
Web 2.0
Authors: Burrows Roger
Published: September 2017

The term Web 2.0 was invented in 2003 by Dale Dougherty, the vice‐president of the American media company O'Reilly Media. The term first entered the public sphere in 2004 following the first in a series of conferences and other events organized by O'Reilly Media in collaboration with Media Live International. Initially the term was little more than an ill‐defined buzzword propagated by certain fractions of the new media marketing community to describe the type of business that survived the bursting of the dot.com bubble in 2001. However, in a much‐cited discussion, O'Reilly (2005) gave the concept greater analytic content by attempting to codify some of the unifying characteristics of these “successful” businesses. The key feature of them all, he argued, was that they encouraged a large‐scale shift toward user‐generated web content of various sorts. The early signs of this growth in user‐generated content came with the emergence of blogs, but these were very quickly followed by a range of other forms of contributory practice such as “tagging,” “feeds,” “commenting,” “noting,” “reviewing,” “rating,” “mashing up,” “making friends,” and so on.
Winch, Peter (1926–1997)
Authors: Sharrock William
Published: September 2017

Since coming to widespread attention with the publication of his first book,
The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy
, in 1958, Peter Winch has become something of a scapegoat, regularly taken out and beaten, for encouraging what are widely understood as very undesirable “irrational” trends in recent thought. This has kept his name in the public eye, even if it has not produced better understanding of his thought on the “social sciences,” let alone philosophy more generally. The critiques of Winch's ideas gave early expression to a rapidly growing skepticism toward the thought that sociology should follow the example of the natural sciences, though few accepted Winch's view that sociology was effectively a province of philosophy.
World Economic Forum
Authors: Tonkiss Fran
Published: September 2017

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non‐profit organization that brings together corporate and political leaders and academic, media, and civil society actors at annual meetings and regional fora. Founded in Geneva in 1971 as the European Management Forum, the organization has expanded from a European business network to a “global” institution and was renamed to reflect this aspiration in 1987. Its annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland, are the WEF's most visible activity. The WEF's objectives are imprecise, but the organization represents itself as broadly “committed to improving the state of the world.” It provides a platform for business, government, and NGO representatives jointly to “consider the major global issues of the day and to brainstorm on solutions” (
http://www.weforum.org/history
). The priorities of the WEF over time have shifted from a concern with regional economic competitiveness to global political and economic strategies. The organization itself can be seen as part of a framework of global governance that goes beyond the conventional architecture of the state system. It has also provided a focus for anti‐globalization protest and critique.
Xenophobia
Authors: Jones Paul R.
Published: September 2017

Derived from the Greek words
xeno
, meaning “foreigner,” “stranger,” or “guest,” and
phobia
, meaning fear, xenophobia literally refers to a phobic attitude toward foreigners. However, “phobia” in this context is not meant in the clinical sense but rather refers to a part of the network of racist ideologies predicated on discriminatory discourse and practice. Xenophobia is thus a term that describes fear or prejudice with respect to something or someone perceived as “foreign” or “other.” As such, xenophobia is an exclusionary logic whose focus is primarily cultural, being directed toward those artifacts or cultural expressions considered somehow “different.” As with all discriminatory ideologies, xenophobia constructs a hierarchical order of people and cultures.
Yanagita, Kunio (1875–1962)
Authors: Kuwayama Takami
Published: September 2017

Kunio Yanagita is widely regarded as the founder of Japanese folklore studies or folkloristics. His influence transcended disciplinary boundaries and was felt in many other fields, including sociology and anthropology. Even today, he continues to be discussed, both inside and outside academic circles. Although little known outside East Asia, Yanagita is indisputably one of the intellectual giants of the modern world.
Z
apatistas –
EZLN
(Zapatista National Liberation Army)
Authors: Dellacioppa Kara
Published: September 2017

The EZLN is an indigenous, peasant‐based social movement and guerrilla organization located in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. After a decade of clandestine organizing, the Zapatistas rose up in arms against the Mexican government and army on January 1, 1994, declaring their opposition to the Mexican government's incorporation into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the historical neglect of Mexico's indigenous peoples, and the lack of democracy in Mexico. The EZLN has roots in the National Liberation Front (FLN), a clandestine guerrilla movement with socialist principles that has its own origins in the student protest movement of 1968. The EZLN is also influenced by indigenous, peasant, labor, and catechist organizations that emerged in Chiapas in the 1970s, during a period of political awakening for indigenous people in the region.
Advertising, Emotions in
Authors: Reichert Tom
Published: September 2017

Emotions are fundamental to the human experience, so it is not surprising that advertisers employ emotional appeals to evoke specific feelings in consumers. Today's commercials, print ads, and Internet interstitials generate a range of emotional reactions from humor and elation to shame and disgust, from arousal and fear to sorrow and pity (→ Excitation and Arousal).
Advertising, Endorsement in
Authors: Lafferty Barbara A.
Published: September 2017

In the fields of consumer research, communications, and → Persuasion, few concepts have been studied more over the decades than that of endorsers in advertisements. An endorser can broadly be defined as any individual who appears in an advertisement as a spokesperson for that product. The endorser can be a well‐known actor, athlete, or any other person with celebrity status (→ Celebrity Culture; Stars), or another perceived expert such as a doctor, a scientist, or even the CEO of a firm. Using credible or celebrity endorsers to promote the product is a popular advertising technique used worldwide to attract → attention to the ad, enhance the persuasiveness of the message, increase recall of the ad, and make the brand stand apart from competitive products.
Aesthetics
Authors: Messaris Paul
Published: September 2017

In the context of communication studies, aesthetic theory may be defined as the attempt to understand people's enjoyment of certain forms of communication – such as stories, movies, music, dance – that are apparently attended to for their own sake, despite their lack of any ostensible instrumental value. Although this type of enjoyment can be considered an inherent feature of human biology (Dissanayake 1992), the specific experiences that give rise to it differ widely among the cultures of the world (→ Intercultural and Intergroup Communication). Simply put, the study of aesthetics seeks to answer two basic questions: what do people like or dislike about such experiences – and why?
Africa: Media Systems
Authors: Mano Winston
Published: September 2017

This entry concentrates on media systems in countries of Sub‐Saharan Africa. The Sub‐Saharan media system was born in the colonial era. Following the partition of Africa in Berlin in 1884, the colonial era saw the establishment of mass media systems that initially served minority white settlers located in the emerging urban centers. Both early print and broadcasting frameworks were affected by the different policies and approaches of the colonial powers. The use of European languages, state‐biased ownership systems, and limited media freedom are among colonial media attributes that continue today. The national media systems and countries discussed as part of this region are anything but homogeneous because Sub‐Saharan Africa is huge and diverse. It covers 42 mainland countries and 6 island nations located south of the Sahara desert. Although the penetration of communication media has picked up in the past 50 years, only radio comes near to being described as a “mass medium.”
Aging and Cognitive Processing
Authors: Morgan Melanie
Published: September 2017

The body of work on aging and information processing has consistently indicated that, generally, cognitive performance deteriorates with age (Park & Minear 2004). Measures of speed, reasoning, and working memory all indicate a negative trend for age. Although these findings may seem bleak, there are some domains that remain intact. For instance, knowledge seems to continue to accumulate well into old age.
Appraisal Theory
Authors: Nerb Josef
Published: September 2017

The evening news on TV presents extensive coverage of an oil spill just off the Spanish coast. The audience sees the sinking of an oil tanker in a severe storm, learns that it has leaked tens of thousands of tons of heavy fuel oil, and watches pictures of birds fighting a hopeless fight for survival as their feathers are agglutinated. It will be mentioned that at the moment the cause of the accident is still obscure. To analyze the effects of this media coverage on the audience it will be crucial to know what kind of cognitive processes and emotional reactions are likely to occur (→ Emotions, Media Effects on; Information Processing). For example, the identification of a clearly responsible human agent is likely to elicit anger and anger‐congruent cognitions, whereas the recognition that matters were out of anyone's control more often leads to predominantly sad reactions.Appraisal theories of emotionsoffer a more complete and systematic linkage between such cognitive evaluations of a situation and emotional reactions.
Arab Satellite TV News
Authors: Kraidy Marwan M.
Published: September 2017

Arab → satellite television emerged in the context of the 1991 Gulf War. Since then, the evolution of the industry has evinced two changes of direction. First, there was a shift, in the 1990s, from officially sanctioned national broadcasting systems to a process of regional media integration (→ West Asia: Media Systems; Egypt: Media System; North Africa: Media Systems; Communication Law and Policy: Middle East). The second shift occurred around 2000, toward specialization and niche markets. The years 1991, 1996, and 2003 witnessed industry milestones. First, politically connected Saudi entrepreneurs launched the Middle East Broadcasting System (MBC) in London, and the Egyptian government launched the Egyptian Satellite Channel (ESC) in 1991. Then came the launch of
Al Jazeera
and the initiation of satellite operations by Lebanese broadcasters LBC and Future TV in 1996. In 2003,
Al Arabiya
went on the air as a Saudi‐financed rival to Al Jazeera. As of 2007, there were more than 250 Arabic‐language, transnational satellite television channels.
Archiving of Internet Content
Authors: Schneider Steve , Foot Kirsten
Published: September 2017

Communication scholars interested in new media are increasingly archiving content of the → Internet or “web content,” and studying web archives to examine retrospectively content produced and distributed on the web, and the behavior of those producing, sharing, and using the world wide web. Although web archiving has been actively pursued since the mid‐1990s, new media scholars have more recently begun to find web archives helpful as they seek to understand developments related to the web in a variety of ways. These may involve adapting traditional methods of social research such as content analysis (→ Content Analysis, Qualitative; Content Analysis, Quantitative), ethnography (→ Ethnography of Communication), focus groups, → Surveys, and experiments (→ Experimental Design) or developing methods such as network ethnography (→ Network Analysis), hyperlink analysis, and other approaches to structural or phenomenological analyses of the web (→ Online Research).
Argumentative Discourse
Authors: Ellis Donald G.
Published: September 2017

The concept of argument has a long history in communication. An argument is a concluding statement that claims legitimacy on the basis of reason. But argumentative discourse is a form of interaction in which the individuals maintain incompatible positions. More specifically, argumentative discourse directs attention to the arguments of naïve social actors engaged in intersubjective social interaction rather than the nature and structure of abstract arguments (Willard 1989).
Audience Research
Authors: Webster James G.
Published: September 2017

Audience research is a broad term that, in principle, denotes the systematic study of any → audience for any purpose. In practice, the term usually connotes efforts to describe and analyze patterns of media consumption, often for some commercial or administrative purpose. Such research became commonplace in the early twentieth century as new forms of mass media were introduced (e.g., film and radio) and those media became increasingly intertwined with the business of advertising and marketing. Contemporary audience research uses a wide range of theories and methods, which can be organized using the familiar labels of theoretical vs applied, quantitative vs qualitative, and, somewhat less conventionally, syndicated vs custom research.
Audience Segmentation
Authors: Weber René
Published: September 2017

“Audience segmentation” or “audience fragmentation” is a phenomenon that describes the process of partitioning mass audiences into smaller and smaller segments. It is considered as an inevitable outcome of competition in media markets (→ Competition in Media Systems). Hence, audience segmentation is expected to be stronger in high‐ rather than in low‐competition media environments (→ Audience).
Automaticity
Authors: Wyer Robert S.
Published: September 2017

Automaticity in information processing is best conceptualized in terms of its antithesis. “Deliberative” processing involves the comprehension and use of information for a particular purpose (e.g., to make a judgment or decision, to communicate to others, etc.). This processing is conscious and intentional; it requires some degree of cognitive or motor effort, and it is volitional. In contrast, behavior is automatic if it does
not
have one or more of these characteristics. That is, it is unintentional
or
it is performed unconsciously without awareness
or
it is effortless
or
it is unable to be controlled. Although these criteria are not independent, a behavior is often characterized as automatic if it meets any one of them (→ Cognition; Information Processing; Mindlessness and Automaticity).
Activist Public Relations
Authors: Demetrious Kristin
Published: September 2017

Activist public relations (PR) is a focused view of communication activity by politicized third sector groups such as social collectives, community action groups, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to foster their public legitimacy as voices for social change. In particular this aspect of PR describes practices that draw on principles, strategies, and tactics, such as promotion, to form public opinion and thus strengthen cases put to the state and business sectors as well as to the citizenry. This voice consists of activists employing strategies, tactics, and especially worldviews to challenge dominant positions (→ Communication and Social Change: Research Methods; Public Relations; Planned Social Change through Communication).
Cable Television
Authors: Mullen Megan
Published: September 2017

The term “cable television” typically refers to a form of subscription‐based multichannel program delivery that relies on cables or wires. At first, cable television existed almost exclusively to extend the reach of broadcast signals, but more recently it has also delivered an array of additional program services – primarily satellite networks such as MTV (Music Television), HBO (Home Box Office), and → CNN (Cable News Network; → Satellite Television; Television Networks).
Cable Television
Authors: Mullen Megan
Published: September 2017

The term “cable television” typically refers to a form of subscription‐based multichannel program delivery that relies on cables or wires. At first, cable television existed almost exclusively to extend the reach of broadcast signals, but more recently it has also delivered an array of additional program services – primarily satellite networks such as MTV (Music Television), HBO (Home Box Office), and → CNN (Cable News Network; → Satellite Television; Television Networks).
Case Studies
Authors: Hepp Andreas
Published: September 2017

While the term “case study” (or “case method”) is widespread in social methodology and media research, it is nevertheless a complex concept. McCartney (1970, 30) defines a case study as “a descriptive report analyzing a social unit as a whole (e.g. individual, family, organization, etc.) in qualitative terms.” With a different focus but in a comparable manner, Robert K. Yin defines a case study as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin 1994, 13).
Censorship, History of
Authors: Jansen Sue Curry
Published: September 2017

The English word “censorship” is derived from the root
cense
from the Latin
censure
: to estimate, rate, assess, judge. Censor was a title given to two magistrates in ancient Rome who were responsible for administering the census, and supervising public morals. When the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire, the church assumed primary responsibility for → censorship.
CNN
Authors: Volkmer Ingrid
Published: September 2017

Cable News Network (CNN) has become an icon of the globalized news world (→ News; Television News). CNN's rise as one of the most prominent global news organizations is based on a successful strategic integration of three key spheres of → journalism: (1) an innovative approach to internationalization (→ International News Reporting); (2) the invention of unique presentation styles, such as “breaking news”; and (3) a continuous implementation of state‐of‐the‐art technologies in order to reach clearly defined target audience segments (→ News Production and Technology).
Collective Memory and the Media
Authors: Hoskins Andrew
Published: September 2017

Memory, according to the Greeks, is the precondition of human thought (Samuel 1994). For psychologists, memory is also seen as a fundamental condition of consciousness. Not surprisingly, psychologists have constructed a variety of complex models of individual → memory. However, memories also require distinct social and communicative frameworks, patterned ways of framing the flow of remembered actions, images, sounds, smells, sensations, and impressions. Without social frameworks to anchor and sustain memories, they would soon falter and fade. This idea is central to the contribution of the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945) who advanced the study of memory beyond the individual and the interests of psychology at the time through his notion of “collective memory.” He believed that for individual memory to thrive it was reliant upon continuous support from “frameworks of social memory” (1992, 182).
Comforting Communication
Authors: Burleson Brant R. , Holmstrom Amanda J.
Published: September 2017

Comforting communication encompasses the verbal and nonverbal messages that people use when trying to reduce others' emotional anguish. Thus, comforting represents a strategic communication activity that has the primary goal of alleviating another's emotional distress; it may also aim to enhance the other's self‐esteem, facilitate the other's coping, and assist the other's problem‐solving in a troublesome situation. Comforting is a form of behavioral empathy (→ Empathy Theory) or social support (→ Social Support in Interpersonal Communication) and is usually studied as a communicative activity carried out by laypersons in everyday situations; however, professionals (teachers, pastors, nurses, counselors, therapists) and para‐professionals (bartenders, hairdressers) also engage in comforting communication.
Commercialization: Impact on Media Content
Authors: Fortunato John A.
Published: September 2017

No industry exists without a product or service to offer to customers. For mass media organizations the product they offer is their content. The primary business of the mass media is to produce content – fill the broadcast hours, the print pages, the Internet site. Because of limits of time and space, selection of content is a necessary function. Mass media organizations have to make difficult decisions in evaluating their story options and determining which content to provide to an audience. Some stories never become “content” and are not exposed to a mass audience.
Communication as an Academic Field: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Rim
Authors: McKenna Bernard
Published: September 2017

The communication discipline in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong is strong and diverse. Although regional research clearly emerged from a strong US and British tradition, it has matured. This maturity is evident not only in the region's contribution to evolving communication research, but also in identifying and analyzing significant trends as the region's rapidly developing economies and changing political circumstances impact on technology use and cultural mores.
Communication as an Academic Field: South Asia
Authors: Thomas Pradip Ninan
Published: September 2017

The South Asian region comprises Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. Given the relatively undeveloped nature of communication as an academic discipline in most of South Asia with the exception of India, the major focus of this article will be on the scenario in India.
Communication: History of the Idea
Authors: Durham Peters John
Published: September 2017

The word “communication” is descended from the Latin noun
communicatio
, which meant a sharing or imparting. From the root
communis
(common, public), it has no relation to terms such as
union
or
unity
, but rather is linked to the Latin
munus
(duty, gift), and thus has relatives in such terms as
common
,
immune
,
mad
,
mean
,
meaning
,
municipal
,
mutual
, and German terms such as
Gemeinschaft
(community) and
Meinung
(opinion). Its root senses have to do with change, exchange, and goods possessed by more than one person; the Latin verb
communicare
means to make common (→ Communication: Definitions and Concepts).
Community Structure Model
Authors: Pollock John C.
Published: September 2017

The community structure model explores links among community characteristics, media content, and effects of exposure to media content from a system perspective. Focusing on macro‐constructs associated with media content and media effects, the community structure approach rejects the perspective that all studies of media and audiences can be reduced to the individual level of psychological phenomena. “Structure” refers to community – typically city‐level – demographics or other aggregate measures of community identity, membership, participation, production, consumption, or access, ranging from income or education to health‐care access (e.g., number of physicians per 100,000 population or percent municipal spending on health‐care; → Exposure to Communication Content; Media Effects; Community Integration; Community Media).
Community Structure Model
Authors: Pollock John C.
Published: September 2017

The community structure model explores links among community characteristics, media content, and effects of exposure to media content from a system perspective. Focusing on macro‐constructs associated with media content and media effects, the community structure approach rejects the perspective that all studies of media and audiences can be reduced to the individual level of psychological phenomena. “Structure” refers to community – typically city‐level – demographics or other aggregate measures of community identity, membership, participation, production, consumption, access, or inequality, ranging from income, education, or health‐care access (e.g., number of physicians per 100,000 population or percent municipal spending on health‐care) to unemployment or poverty levels; → Exposure to Communication Content; Media Effects; Community Integration; Community Media).
Concentration in Media Systems
Authors: Mastrini Guillermo , Becerra Martin
Published: September 2017

Concentration of ownership in the media sector presents important problems for the cultural industries. First, concentration creates dominant positions for some players, which can affect the necessary pluralism of ideas in a society (→ Plurality). From another point of view, there are strong pressures to allow strong players in a given market because of the growing trend toward globalization in cultural markets (→ Globalization Theories). The digitization of the whole field of cultural production and technological convergence processes have also stimulated concentration (→ Competition in Media Systems; Media Conglomerates).
Conflict Resolution
Authors: Holzinger Katharina
Published: September 2017

Conflict resolution, in general, deals with ways of eliminating, terminating, or settling all kinds of conflict. Conflict can be broadly defined as a state of opposition, incompatibility, contradiction, or disharmony of statements, beliefs, goals, interests, or values among or within individual or collective actors, and the observable processes of dealing with these differences. The notion of conflict thus has two aspects: (1) the “state of opposition,” which can be established and analyzed without any reference to the behavior of the parties; for example, opposing interests or contradictory claims of the parties to a conflict, and (2) the actual “conflict behavior” of the parties; for example, physical force or verbal dispute. The first aspect relates to the causes or motives behind the conflict; the second to observable action. Conflict behavior may take two forms: physical action, as in the use of force, and communicative action, as in arguments or disputes.