bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Globalization
Authors: Atkinson David
Published: June 2011

Globalization is one of the most vibrant, contested, and debated issues in modern international relations. The process is subject to a wide-ranging number of definitions, but most scholars and observers agree that it represents a global process of increasing economic, cultural, and political interdependence and integration, with deep historical roots. It is a process fostered by liberalized international trade and innovations in information technology and communication, which has been promoted and managed to a greater or lesser degree by international institutions, multinational corporations, national governments (especially the United States), international nongovernmental organizations, and even individuals with access to the Internet. The field is particularly subject to the vagaries of events, and as such it is a dynamic literature that is constantly in flux. Nevertheless, the basic outlines of the field are clear. Economic interdependence remains the most obvious and significant manifestation of globalization. Nevertheless, scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the myriad additional symptoms of this process; in particular, challenges to the state’s primacy, migration, global security concerns, culture, crime, the environment, and technology. It remains a controversial process that has engendered both withering critiques and staunch defenses, while other scholars debate whether the process is irresistible, irrevocable, reversible, or even whether it represents the global reality at all.
Diplomacy
Authors: Seely Christopher
Published: June 2011

States use diplomacy to resolve disputes, form alliances, negotiate treaties, strengthen economic relations, promote cultural and military exchanges, and for a variety of other purposes. Diplomacy encapsulates a broad arrangement of shifting rules, etiquette, goals, procedures, and agreements. There are international laws that govern some aspects of diplomacy, while other elements are based on tradition, pragmatism, and expediency. Nonstate actors—including but not limited to nongovernmental organizations and multinational corporations—play an increasingly important role in diplomatic relations as the tides of globalization shift the international landscape. Yet, no matter how much the international arena changes, diplomacy will always play a central role in dictating how states and other entities interact. The literature on diplomacy is broad and varied, but most of it is accessible to students of all levels, including undergraduates and experts alike. However, some of the more specialized works may require that students read an introductory textbook first in order to help them understand some of the terms and concepts.
Global Environmental Politics
Authors: Cass Loren
Published: June 2011

Global environmental politics is a relatively new field of study within international relations that focuses on issues related to the interaction of humans and the natural world. As early as the mid-19th century, scholars wrote about the role of natural resources in global security and political economy. However, much of the literature prior to the 1980s related specifically to resource extraction and development issues. It was only in the 1980s and into the 1990s that global environmental politics began to establish itself as a distinct field with its own dedicated journals and publishers, and the focus of study expanded to include global environmental problems such as ozone depletion, climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, and desertification. It has emerged as a center of interdisciplinary work that integrates research from a range of fields, including geography, economics, history, law, biology, and numerous others. The interdisciplinary approach makes it difficult to define the boundaries in this rather immense field of study. The focus in this article will be on global environmental politics research that falls primarily within the larger field of international relations. Global environmental problems present many unique challenges and have thus spawned a range of subfields of study. Global environmental problems frequently involve substantial scientific complexity and ambiguity. This fact has produced a wide-ranging scholarship on the relationships between science and policy. The very long timeframes of both the consequences of environmental problems as well as the efforts to address them create a number of governance challenges given the much shorter political timeframes of politicians and diplomats. In addition, because environmental problems typically do not respect borders, they pose challenges for international cooperation, which has thus produced a growing literature on global environmental governance. The widespread potential for massive economic, political, and ecological dislocation from the consequences of global environmental problems as well as from the potential policies to address those problems have led scholars to study global environmental politics from every paradigm within international relations as well as drawing on research in numerous other disciplines. Finally, efforts to address the consequences of environmental problems have raised controversial ethical and distributive-justice questions that have produced an important philosophical literature within global environmental politics. Global environmental politics has thus emerged as a rich and diverse area of scholarship.
Laws of War
Authors: Trenkov-Wermuth Calin
Published: June 2011

The laws of war are a set of rules that aim to regulate the acceptable reasons for going to war (jus ad bellum), the conduct of hostilities during a war (jus in bello), and the aftermath of a war and the transition from war to peace (jus post bellum). They are a part of public international law, and they derive from states’ desire to regulate the use of force, to prevent unnecessary suffering and destruction during a conflict, and to create a just and sustainable peace after a conflict. The laws that regulate the conduct of hostilities, also referred to as international humanitarian law, stem from two branches of law: the law of The Hague, which addresses the various types of weapons and their permissible uses, as well as the behavior of combatants during hostilities; and the law of Geneva, which deals with the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war, including the wounded, civilians, prisoners of war, and medical and religious personnel. Some of the underlying principles of the laws of war, also referred to as the laws of armed conflict in a broader sense, are that the wanton destruction of human life and property is prohibited, that protracted conflicts are not desirable, and that hostilities must swiftly come to an end once the political objectives that began a conflict are achieved. Combatants and civilians must be protected from unnecessary hardship or suffering, and if they fall into the hands of the enemy, key human rights provisions will apply to them. And the perpetrators of serious human rights violations must be held accountable. The laws of war are distinct from but may cover similar issue areas as a belligerent state’s national laws, which may also place legal limits on the potential justification for going to war or the conduct of that state during a war.
Sovereignty
Authors: Hägel Peter
Published: June 2011

The concept of sovereignty designates a form of rule that is intrinsically entwined with the emergence and existence of the modern states system. It relates to states and comprises a set of norms that address an internal (final authority), an external (nonintervention/autonomy), and an intersubjective (recognition) dimension. Individual states’ sovereignty is, however, always a question of degree that varies enormously across countries and over time. As it shapes world order, sovereignty becomes a fundamental political institution, codified in international law. One of sovereignty’s key purposes is the peaceful coexistence of states with different internal political systems. Neglected as a subject of serious analysis in international relations during the Cold War, questions about sovereignty’s continuing relevance in a globalizing world have spurred numerous studies since the 1990s. The major international relations theories have developed accounts of how sovereignty evolves, and the implications of universal human rights, disintegrating states, and globalization are being thoroughly examined. Major change might come with the growth of private and supranational authority structures, but an end of sovereignty seems nowhere near.
The United Nations
Authors: Keylor William
Published: June 2011

The United Nations (UN) organization that was created at the end of World War II was the product of a firm commitment by the victorious powers in that conflict to establish an international mechanism for the prevention of another deadly and destructive world war. The founders of the UN were intent on learning from the flaws and missteps of its predecessor, the League of Nations, which had been established at the end of World War I but failed to prevent the outbreak of another global conflict. Since the UN’s inception, scholars have subjected the charter, procedures, and policies of the international organization to a searching examination. All agree that the UN has failed to live up to the lavishly optimistic expectations of its founders. But there is substantial scholarly disagreement about the effectiveness of the organization as well as the policies that it has pursued and programs it has initiated in response to a succession of global crises. The literature addressing the subject of the UN is vast: it comprises general works aimed at the educated public that assess the organization’s record of achievement, highly technical analyses of the operation and outcome of specific UN programs and initiatives, and scholarly studies that analyze functional aspects such as voting patterns in the Security Council and the General Assembly. The UN itself issues a wide range of reports on its activities in order to disseminate information about the work that it does across the globe. Nongovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations Association in the United States, actively promote the UN cause by calling attention to its successes. Critics of the organization have published exposés of its flaws and failures. Undergraduates and graduate students should be aware of the controversial nature of some of the scholarship on this subject.
International Relations Theory
Authors: Cristol Jonathan
Published: June 2011

International relations (IR) theory is difficult to define. It is often taught as a theory that seeks both to explain past state behavior and to predict future state behavior. However, even that definition is contested by many theorists. Traditional IR theories can generally be categorized by their focus either on humans, states, or on the state system as the primary source of conflict. Any bibliography of international relations theory is bound to create controversy among its readers. Why did the author choose one theory and not the other? Why did the author choose one source and not the other? Indeed, a wide variety of permutations would be perfectly valid to provide the researcher with an adequate annotated bibliography, so why were these particular entries chosen? This article identifies Realism, Liberalism, and Constructivism as the three major branches of IR theory. These three branches have replaced the earlier realism-idealism dichotomy. The “English School” could be considered part of any of the aforementioned three branches, and its placement in the IR theory world is the subject of some debate. It has therefore been given its own section and is not included in any of the other sections. Critical IR theory and Feminist IR theory are often considered part of constructivism; however, there is much debate over whether they constitute their own branches, and so they are included in this article (as well as in their own entries in the OBO series), though the sources are somewhat different. Post–Cold War IR Theory is given its own heading because there are a number of theories that were proposed in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War that are still widely taught and discussed in the field. Perhaps the most controversial inclusion is that of Neoconservatism. Though it is quite possible to mount a case for it to be considered a theory of US foreign policy, it is theoretically distinct from other IR theories (the belief in bandwagoning instead of balancing). The final three sections are included to show how political theory has influenced IR theory, and how history and foreign policy have influenced IR theory (and vice versa). The included sections and citations represent both the mainstream of IR theory and those nonmainstream theories that have just started to break into the mainstream of IR theory. This article provides a starting point for both the beginning and the serious scholar of international relations theory.
Academic Theories of International Relations Since 1945
Authors: Rengger Nick
Published: June 2011

This entry discusses the dominant academic theories of international relations (IR) from World War II onward. The focus is on theories that have largely developed within a formal academic setting, though there is no suggestion that these theories have no purchase or effect outside the academy. Some very clearly do. The chief claim is that theoretical debate, almost from the beginning of the field as a self-conscious area of study, has been a mixture of methodological and more general philosophical concerns—both ontological and epistemological. For the heuristic purposes of this section, however, these two areas are separated. After a brief overview, and a brief discussion of the most influential journals and textbooks, the bibliography concentrates first on the major ontological debates that have shaped academic IR theory since 1945, before moving on to consider the methodological debates, and then finally looking at the major substantive theoretical approaches to IR within the academy, not in terms of an approach-by-approach framework, but rather through major theoretical debates.
Alliances
Authors: Seely Christopher
Published: June 2011

Rulers and national leaders have used political alliances for many different reasons. Military alliances may serve as a deterrent against opponents because of the threat of multifront wars. Groups of nations have also come together to form multistate alliance networks during armed conflicts in order to counter perceived threats. Some famous examples of these networks include the Holy Alliance against Napoleon; the Triple Alliance and its rival, the Triple Entente, during World War I; and the Axis powers against the Grand Alliance during World War II. Alliances may also serve economic, political, or strategic interests. For example, many leaders have forged alliances in order to expand their empires through tribal networks and colonial patronage. Aside from their usefulness in both war and peacetime, alliances may also have negative aspects. An alliance can limit the diplomatic freedom of a country. Lesser powers may use their alliance as diplomatic leverage or as an excuse to act irresponsibly because of their guaranteed protection from more powerful allies. Great powers may also use their alliance to coerce or limit the actions of their less powerful allies.
Intervention and Use of Force
Authors: Silverstone Scott A.
Published: June 2011

Intervention is commonly defined as interference in the territory or domestic affairs of another state with military force, typically in a way that compromises a sovereign government’s control over its own territory and population. The meaning and importance of “sovereignty” as the key concept defining the global political order has made intervention a controversial and debated subject for the past several hundred years. The concept of sovereignty is typically traced back to the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648 and established a political order of territorially defined states that had exclusive control over their own political affairs and populations. In the following centuries, international legal scholars further developed the noninterference principle, which, by prohibiting meddling in the internal affairs of other states, was intended to reduce conflict and cultivate order in an already violence-prone system. This objective was formally codified in the Charter of the United Nations, which explicitly prohibits interference in the domestic affairs of member states. Despite the importance of sovereignty and noninterference in international theory and law, many scholars point out that these principles have never been given absolute respect in practice. Since the end of the Cold War, an increasing number of scholars, political leaders, and activists have argued that sovereignty should not stand in the way of international intervention meant to protect victims of gross human-rights violations. A number of cases illustrate this new normative claim and the controversy this position has generated, such as the 1992 Somalia intervention, the Bosnian civil war, the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and the 1999 Kosovo war. The literature on intervention reflects these key themes, with authors arguing over the meaning and continuing importance of sovereignty and the noninterference principle, whether the international community has a right or obligation to respond to humanitarian abuses, whether intervention can actually make a positive contribution to peace and stability at acceptable costs, and how intervention can be made more effective for those military and civilian practitioners engaged in actual interventions. There has been a strong surge of attention in this last question since the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, as the United States found itself with a much more complicated political, social, and military challenge than first anticipated when American leaders decided to intervene in those countries.
Constructivism
Authors: Cristol Jonathan
Published: June 2011

Constructivist theory emerged in the mid-1990s as a serious challenge to the dominant realist and liberal theoretical paradigms. The theory was not popularized until Wendt 1992 (cited under Alexander Wendt) (a direct challenge to neorealism) and Katzenstein 1996 (cited under Identity) made it a staple of international relations (IR) syllabi around the world. The theory’s relatively recent arrival on the scene makes a constructivist canon somewhat harder to identify and makes the inclusion or exclusion of particular sources in this article a potentially much greater source of contention than in the articles on realism and liberalism. Constructivist theory emphasizes the meanings that are assigned to material objects, rather than the mere existence of the objects themselves. For example, a nuclear weapon in the United Kingdom and a nuclear weapon in North Korea may be materially identical (though, so far, they are not) but they possess radically different meanings for the United States. The belief that reality is socially constructed leads constructivists to place a greater role on norm development, identity, and ideational power than the other major theoretical paradigms. Indeed, norms, identity, and ideas are key factors in constructivist theory. The relationship between “Critical Theory of International Relations” or “Feminist Theories of International Relations”and constructivist IR theory is contested. However, for better or worse, the mainstream of the field situates both within a constructivist paradigm, as they share certain key features that are common to constructivism and are distinct from realism and liberalism. In addition, it could be argued that the “English School” belongs in this section. However, the placement of the English School in a solely realist, liberal, or constructivist framework could be considered quite controversial, as it has elements of all three paradigms. Therefore, the section on the English School is contained in the International Relations Theory article, and more extensively in the International Society article.
Battle
Authors: Nolan Cathal
Published: June 2011

Traditionally, much literature on war details battles and campaigns. Quality varies from compilations of précis to full-length books on “decisive battles.” Much of this work is overly heroic and largely uncritical, but some is deeply scholarly. Accurate battle and operational history is extremely hard to write, especially about wars distant in time. It is also hard to read and understand, and it requires intimate knowledge of topography, not to mention an appreciation of logistics, leadership, command and control, and tactics that frequently change depending on the time and place and what army is involved. Traditional histories were often overly reliant on a few eyewitnesses or took the “top-down” approach dictated by heavy reliance on commanders’ memoirs. Thus, they too often were concerned primarily with military reputations, critical tactical decisions made or not made by commanders which putatively turned the tides of whole campaigns and even wars. From the 19th century, war diaries and letters home by more educated men sprinkled among a generally and more commonly illiterate soldiery enriched battle and campaign reconstructions, but still emphasized command decisions in battle reconstructions. Indeed, they amplified that bias by leaving out the common soldiers’ experiences, recollections, and perspectives. Modern accounts often benefit from the necessary collaborative writing by teams of historians or military professionals working from a multitude of sources on enormous battles of the 20th century, or extending this methodology back to earlier times. Eyewitness oral histories, interviews, and detailed after-action reports have become key sources in writing battle and campaign history, in addition to “official histories” and ever-wider publication of battle memoirs by even very low-level participants in modern wars. Battle study today nearly always includes “bottom-up” social and cultural issues, better reflecting the “face of battle” as it has been and continues to be experienced by ordinary soldiers.
Strategic Air Power
Authors: Hughes Robert Gerald
Published: June 2011

Strategic air power is one of the means by which a military strategy employs aerial platforms to bypass the battlefield to achieve decisive political results in conflict. Most obviously, this has involved the coercion of an enemy nation-state by seeking to destroy its economic ability to wage war (as opposed to eliminating its armed forces). In Clauzwitzian terms, this represents a fundamental shift in identifying the enemy’s “center of gravity.” Debates over whether air power can achieve strategic goals date from the very first applications of it. The use of strategic air power requires systematic organization (e.g., RAF Bomber Command; the US Strategic Air Command) and, in addition to the use of strategic bomber aircraft, can be used in conjunction with missiles or tactical aircraft against targets selected to diminish the war-making capacity of the enemy. One of the aims for using strategic air power is enemy demoralization—that is, the racking up of punishment to the extent that the will of the enemy to resist is broken. The theory of strategic heavy bombing began to be developed during the aftermath of World War I. By the time of World War II, opponents of strategic air power made frequent reference to “terror bombing” as shorthand for its use. Of course, this term is dismissed by proponents of the use of strategic air power for the manner in which it delineates between other aspects of war (often equally unpleasant) and the targeting of civilians/war-making capacity. The use of strategic air power has been limited since World War II for a number of reasons. Not least among these is the relative scarcity of major wars as well as the inability of the vast majority of modern nation-states to devote sufficient resources to seek any decision in conflict via strategic air power. The United States is a notable exception here and it employed strategic air power in Vietnam in 1972, against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and in Kosovo in 1999.
Evidence-Based Public Health Practice
Authors: Ramirez Gilbert
Published: June 2011

Evidence-based public health (EBPH) practice is the informed use of evidence to guide practice decisions across the range of public health arenas. Because the nature of evidence that is relevant to the health of populations is often fraught with research challenges different from the evidence relevant to the health of individuals, the term “evidence-informed public health practice” might more accurately describe the activity that is reported in this bibliography. Growing out of the evidence-based medicine movement, as well as evidence-based strategies in other disciplines such as education, evidence-based public health practice is at best in its infancy. This bibliography of select works attempts to provide a concise but broad listing of references that would be useful toward the advancement and growth of evidence-based approaches at the public health practice level of operation. That is to say, while advances have been made in improving the quality and reporting of public health research, the translation of research into effective public health practice is a journey in progress. Similarly, there is increasing recognition of the evolution of public health research toward more policy and practice relevance.
Audience Fragmentation
Authors: Tewksbury David
Published: June 2011

Fragmentation is a broad term used to describe the transition of a population from one comprised of few large audiences for any one media product to another comprised of more numerous smaller audiences. In general, the number of people in the population attending to products need not change. Rather, fragmentation is assumed to result from a substantial increase in the number of options from which people can choose. It is often assumed that fragmentation involves the creation of audiences that are less internally heterogeneous as they become smaller, but that is not necessarily the case. Indeed, the level of homogeneity of the audience prompts a need for additional terms. Segmentation can be used to describe fragmented audiences that are internally homogenous. Media producers typically find such audiences desirable for the purposes of grouping people for advertisers. As a result, market segmentation is often a term used to describe media outlet strategy. Media outlets are able to segment the audience when (1) they specialize their products to meet the demands of the desired audience and (2) people specialize their outlet and content selection purposefully. Some observers have decided that successful segmentation of a populace results in polarization, the division of people into like-minded groups who share similar knowledge, opinion, or value profiles.
Argumentation
Authors: Innocenti Beth
Published: June 2011

Two broad divisions characterize orientations to studies of argumentation by communication scholars and scholars in other disciplines. First, communication scholars perform descriptive and normative studies of argumentation, as well as studies that attempt to integrate these two perspectives. Descriptive studies typically employ qualitative and social-scientific research methods and may analyze argumentation both in laboratory and in real-world settings. Normative studies typically employ humanistic research methods and analyze argumentation in the public communication. Second, scholars may view argumentation as more of an epistemological activity—one that generates knowledge or justifies belief—or as more of a practical activity that is designed to achieve a variety of outcomes, such as persuasion, consideration of a proposal, or acceptance of a premise. Various basic questions are addressed by argumentation research: How should we define “argumentation”? How should we analyze it? How should we evaluate it?
Ethnography of Communication
Authors: Carbaugh Donal
Published: June 2011

The ethnography of communication was initially proposed as a program of research in 1962 by Dell Hymes. Since then it has developed into a comprehensive philosophy, theory, and methodology for systematically investigating communication practice. The guiding questions ask about the culturally distinctive means of communication and their meanings to the participants who use them. On the one hand, ethnographers of communication ask what means or media of communication people use in contexts. These may include words, images, and sounds; specific channels, including oral, print, electronic, face-to-face, and the Internet; or any combination thereof. A related question asks what the meanings of these means of communication are for the people who use them. The basic philosophy is an investigative one that explores the particularity and diversity of communication practices in social contexts; the theory provides a range of concepts for understanding sociocultural lives as a complex system of communication practices; the methodology includes stringent criteria for generating various types of data based upon observational field research, various types of interviewing, and archival data, among other sources; methods for analyzing data include rigorous attention to descriptive, interpretive, and comparative procedures, each with its own set of techniques. A key and essential aspect of this type of research is interpretive inquiry that focuses analysts’ attention on the participants’ meanings of the communication they produce.
Selective Exposure
Authors: Brosius Hans-Bernd , Peter Christina
Published: June 2011

The basic assumption in the study of selective exposure is that people expose themselves to external stimuli in a selective way. When referred to the area of mass communication, this means that people choose certain types of media content and avoid other types. Although this fact may sound rather trivial, it is important in understanding the effects of mass communication because it is our common understanding that people can only be influenced by media messages to which they actually expose themselves. Therefore, the selective exposure concept emphasizes the active role of the individual in the selection of media content. Research into this phenomenon is undertaken in the fields of both psychology and communication studies. Basically, there are two major trends in this research. Most studies focus on factors that lead to selective exposure or that mediate this process, whereas other studies deal with the consequences of selective exposure to information processing. The selection processes have also been examined in different contexts, such as in political or online communication.
Communication Law
Authors: Henderson Jennifer
Published: June 2011

Communication Law encompasses the collection of legal and regulatory decisions related to individual and media expression. In the United States, communication law most directly deals with issues regarding First Amendment protections of speech and press. It is most often approached through topical analysis based on the source of regulation or target of litigation.
Social Interaction
Authors: Manusov Valerie
Published: June 2011

The study of social interaction involves the careful assessment of the practices of everyday communicating between people in various (usually) real-life contexts, such as doctor-patient visits, organizations, and human-computer communication. Scholars who center their work in this area tend to be in one of two research lines: qualitative researchers who focus on the intricacies of language and nonverbal communication (i.e., commonly, those who align themselves with the area called language and social interaction) and scholars who use a variety of methods, but particularly social science approaches, to assess the constructs and patterns involved when people interact with one another. These research avenues can be very different from one another, and are sometimes seen as incompatible, but together allow the reader to witness the complexity of human engagement. They also stem from different traditions, most notably sociological, following symbolic interactionism; psychological, with a particular focus on cognitive and emotion-based processes that people bring with them to their interactions; and linguistic, with a concern for language practices and the consequences of such practices. The citations in this article focus on the key theories and methods that span these contexts of study.
Reasoned Action Frameworks
Authors: Yzer Marco , Southwell Brian
Published: June 2011

Reasoned action frameworks, which include the Theory of Reasoned Action and its extensions, the widely used Theory of Planned Behavior and the more recent Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction, describe that intention to perform a behavior follows reasonably (but not necessarily rationally) from specific beliefs that people hold about the behavior and that people act on their intentions when they have the required skills and when situational factors do not impede behavioral performance. Reasoned action research has two broad foci. A first seeks to advance theoretical understanding of human social behavior as based on expectancy beliefs about consequences of behavioral performance. A second applies reasoned action research to development or evaluation of interventions that seek to modify a specific behavior in a particular population. The relevance of the reasoned action approach for communication scholars lies in its direct applicability to a wide range of important communication questions, including the explanation of communication as a socially relevant behavior and intra-individual processes to explain how exposure to information leads to behavior change. Although reasoned action propositions embed belief-based processes in a multilevel system of influence, the individual is nonetheless the primary level of analysis. The range of citations included in this bibliography addresses the decades-long time frame during which scholars have explicitly employed core reasoned action concepts. Beyond the introductory works, the examples presented here are illustrative rather than exhaustive, by necessity, as few other behavioral theories have generated more citations in communication research.
Entertainment
Authors: Bilandzic Helena
Published: June 2011

Entertainment formats, as trivial as they may seem to an educated audience, are used by millions of audience members during a substantial portion of the day, and in many ways they affect the audience’s feelings, beliefs and behaviors. The goals of entertainment research are (1) to critically observe and explain effects of entertaining media consumption; (2) to investigate ways in which entertainment can be used as a means to teach and convey facts (through news, documentaries, reenactment films, educational series about history, cultures, science, etc.), as well as to familiarize audiences with norms and values and help distribute prosocial messages. To achieve these goals, explaining the entertainment experience itself has been the focus of research activities. In some scholarly work, but especially in non-academic contexts, the term “entertainment” denotes a certain type of content that is commercially produced to entertain audiences. Used in this sense, entertainment is a content category for movies, television series, books, computer games, and magazines, to name just a few. However, it is more common in academic research to use the term “entertainment” for the evaluation and experience seen from the audience’s perspective; investigating audience experiences is clearly dominant in today’s entertainment research. Broadly, the term “entertainment” is used to characterize positive dispositions toward media content and pleasurable experiences with such content. “Entertainment” and “enjoyment” are often used synonymously, as both refer to positive appraisals of content and/or experience. If they are distinguished, it is often by emphasizing the association of entertainment with escape and relaxation, and with a certain type of content (for example, entertainment seems to be an inappropriate term for news or documentaries). Finally, using entertaining media has consequences beyond positive experiences during exposure: it may result in effects such as knowledge gain or attitude change.
Stereotypes
Authors: Hummert Mary Lee
Published: June 2011

The study of the relationship between stereotypes and communication is strongly interdisciplinary, involving not only communication scholars from many areas (interpersonal, discourse, organizational, mass media, computer-mediated communication, and so forth) but also social psychologists, sociolinguists, psycholinguists, and political scientists. In particular, the attention to stereotypes by communication scholars and to communication by social psychologists has helped advance scientific knowledge of the influence of stereotypes as cognitions on communicative behaviors—even at the level of word choice—and the equally strong influence of communication in all its forms on the construction and persistence of stereotypes. The research from both communication and psychological approaches has primarily applied social-scientific theories and methods to the study of stereotypes and communication, providing critical insights into stereotyping as an interpersonal communication process in which the influence of stereotypical beliefs is often implicit, that is, outside the conscious awareness of communicators. Media scholars have added to these insights by highlighting the ways mass media reflect and perpetuate social stereotypes. Discourse scholars have contributed yet another important layer of knowledge, showing how writers and speakers subtly implicate and instantiate stereotypes in text and talk. All of these approaches—interpersonal communication and psychology, discourse, and mass media—have considered the effects of communicative stereotyping on individuals and societies, strategies to reduce negative outcomes, and communication as a resource to lessen stereotyping.
Deliberation
Authors: Xenos Michael A.
Published: June 2011

“Deliberative democracy” refers to democratic processes based on thorough consideration and discussion of issues from a variety of perspectives. Although voting and other ways of tallying opinions are often part of deliberation, it seeks to go beyond the mere aggregation of preferences through processes of collective discussion. Scholarly interest in deliberative democracy is highly interdisciplinary, with major strands of work found in political theory and philosophy, as well as in social scientific disciplines such as political science, social psychology, and sociology. With its focus on discussion and the exchange of reasoned arguments, however, it should be no surprise that deliberation has drawn significant attention from communication scholars, particularly those focused on political communication. These scholars regularly find insight in work on deliberation that originates in other fields and make their own contributions in return. Following broader scholarly interest in the topic, communication researchers have explored deliberation in a number of formats. These “modes” of deliberation include Deliberative Polls, deliberation among candidates and voters during campaigns, and deliberation in small groups, public forums, and town hall meetings, as well as informal deliberation that takes place in mass media, online, and in everyday political discussions among citizens. Within and across these modes, research on deliberative democracy typically addresses substantive questions surrounding the potential effects of deliberation on the quality of opinions held by its participants, and their likelihood of future political and civic engagement.
Persuasion and Social Influence
Authors: Jensen Jakob , Carcioppolo Nicholas
Published: June 2011

Researchers have long been interested in identifying factors that might explain the success or failure of persuasive attempts. Academic study of persuasion dates back to at least ancient Greece, as Aristotle (among others) wrote about the persuasive power of various message features. This early research evolved into a field of inquiry known as rhetorical studies or rhetoric, which focuses on determining the available methods of persuasion in any situation. Social scientific study of persuasion, the focus of the present bibliography, developed in the early 1900s. This line of inquiry was initiated by experimentalists interested in message effects, a program that received additional financial support from the US military during World War I and World War II. Driven by researchers from a variety of fields, the social scientific study of persuasion is now a foundational component of advertising, marketing, psychology, communication, and public health (just to name a few). Despite the context of study, contemporary research in this domain focuses on both theory building as well as application of that theory.
Communication Campaigns
Authors: Rice Ronald , Atkin Charles K.
Published: June 2011

Public communication campaigns encompass strategies for producing effects on the knowledge, attitudes, and behavior of large populations across a variety of domains, including political, pro-social, environmental, and health outcomes. Public communication campaigns can be broadly defined as purposive attempts to inform, persuade, or motivate behavior changes in a relatively well-defined and large audience, generally for noncommercial benefits to the individuals and/or society at large, typically within a given time period, by means of organized communication activities involving mass and online/interactive media, and often complemented by interpersonal support. The following sections provide selected annotated citations (books, book chapters, articles, and websites) in the general order of the stages involved in developing and implementing communication campaigns: General Overviews (texts, reviews, and guides), Journals, Theory, Social Marketing, Design (messages, media, and audiences), New Media, Formative Evaluation, Implementation (planning and managing), Campaign Issues (Community, Media Advocacy), Health (health issues), HIV/AIDS, Nutrition (including obesity), Drugs (drugs and alcohol), Smoking, Human Rights, Environment, and Evaluation.
Interactivity
Authors: Xenos Michael A.
Published: June 2011

Most everyday users understand interactivity as the extent to which a communication medium enables responses (typically immediate) to user input. This can come in many forms, such as in an interpersonal exchange (for example, chat), or a change in digital content (as when one comments on a blog post and thus changes the content of the website). Indeed, as the section Conceptualization illustrates, scholars continue to argue over the precise definition, forms, and functions of interactivity. For many, the potentials for interactivity represent the most significant aspects of the revolutionary changes that technological development has brought to human communication in recent years. Whereas other aspects of digital media merely alter the cost structure of familiar communication forms (for example, making one-to-one and one-to-many forms of communication faster and cheaper), as Cover 2006 points out interactivity fundamentally challenges traditional understandings of the very nature of mediated communication. Due to the relatively short history of interactive communication forms, and the nature of interactivity (as a subdimension of the much larger topic of digital media in general), significant works that address this topic directly most often appear as papers and journal articles. Nevertheless, this body of literature is vibrant, containing various strands. Some deal with cross-cutting issues that relate to a variety of conceptual and theoretical questions dealing with interactivity. These are covered in sections devoted to Conceptualization, Theory, Method, Cognitive and Affective Engagement, and Youth. In addition to these, one may also find research on interactivity in specific contexts. Research on these more specific topics is discussed in sections on Advertising, Marketing, and Corporate Communication, Journalism, News Consumption, and Politics.
Journalism
Authors: Carlson Matt
Published: June 2011

The study of journalism is complicated by questions of just what journalism is. Journalism can be viewed as a profession employing thousands of workers, a practice with a set of rules and expectations, and a product that we also call news. Scholars have been exploring these phenomena through a variety of methods and theoretical approaches over the past century. The interest in journalism as a particular form of media work stems from the close association between news and democratic governance. Self-governing societies too large to communicate face-to-face require a mechanism for citizens to gather information about public life. This task has been largely divorced from the state, creating an independent voice outside the government to inform citizens about what that government is—or is not—doing. This conception of news underlies research on a variety of topics ranging from legal policies to sourcing routines. But journalism research extends beyond the political to the cultural. Journalism creates a commonly consumed text that continuously tells us about how the world works, who is important, and what is right or wrong. This focus has given rise to an interest in narratives, myths and collective memory. As a whole, these issues all remain central as journalists and journalism researchers seek to make sense of how changes in technologies are altering this thing we call journalism.
Media Economics
Authors: Beam Randal
Published: June 2011

Scholarship on media economics applies economic principles and theories to the study of organizations and industries engaged in communication. The traditional mass media—newspapers, television, film, magazines, books, and radio—have been the focus of much of the scholarship that media economists have produced. But the field also encompasses telecommunications and digital communications, along with associated industries such as advertising. Scholarship draws from microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, and much of it is informed by political-economic perspectives. Often the goal of media economists is to explain how economic forces shape media content, such as news and entertainment. Research has identified the structure of markets and the conduct of media organizations as two important factors that influence content. Ownership of media organizations and government regulation are other important domains of study.
Hegemony
Authors: Calabrese Andrew , Briziarelli Marco
Published: June 2011

The term “hegemony” refers to a socially determined category that describes mechanisms and dynamics associated with power, and which is grounded in historically situated social practice. Hegemony accounts for the social power of one class over the others as a combination of leadership and domination. However, such power is never completely attained, since hegemony also accounts for the unresolved tension between dominant and alternative ideologies. Like many other important concepts used to describe aspects of the modern condition, hegemony represents a key point of departure, passage, and arrival for much of contemporary social and political theory. The concept has been used since the time of the ancient Greek polis, but contemporary accounts of hegemony most often rely on the thought of one of the 20th century’s most influential social philosophers: Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci’s imprint is so strong that it remains either explicitly referenced or implicitly inscribed in nearly all contemporary analyses that employ the idea of hegemony, which is evident below.