Kategoria BISAC: Language Arts & Disciplines >> Communication Studies

In this timely new book, Carolyn Smith develops a methodology for the study and criticism of presidential press conferences. Moving away from the traditional method of studying the presidential rhetoric of prepared speeches, Smith proposes methods of criticism for the quasi-spontaneous environment of the press conference where the control of messages is divided between the president and the press. The book offers a detailed critical assessment of Ronald Reagan's relationship with reporters during his eight years in office. From this assessment, Smith develops her approach to press...

In this timely new book, Carolyn Smith develops a methodology for the study and criticism of presidential press conferences. Moving away from the traditional method of studying the presidential rhetoric of prepared speeches, Smith proposes methods of criticism for the quasi-spontaneous environment of the press conference where the control of messages is divided between the president and the press. The book offers a detailed critical assessment of Ronald Reagan's relationship with reporters during his eight years in office. From this assessment, Smith develops her approach to press...

Analyses of political dialogue have traditionally concentrated on structures of government or social movements, drawing clear boundaries between the individual and the state. In its examination of the marginal fringe groups struggling to secure power, "Postmodern Political Communication" broadens our conception of political behavior and places new emphasis on the generation and invention of politics. This volume's contributors examine the discourse of deviant, oppressed, and powerless groups from the point of view of empowerment; that is, how do such outsider groups engage the center and...

In this examination of Greek press, radio and television, authors Zaharopoulos and Paraschos describe media which have been tremendously politicized, partisan, and dominated by foreign programming. As the political and economic face of Greece and Europe changes, the Greek media has been thrown into anarchy.

Greece today is at a critical stage of transition from a traditional, developing nation to a more western-oriented, modern society. The media have mirrored Greece's struggle, and as important tools of political, socioeconomic, and cultural power, they have been at the forefront of...

This impassioned critique of contemporary mass culture argues that the media, particularly television as the spearhead of electronic communications technology, contributes to the pervasive demoralization of the American public. By stimulating the public with an endless stream of enticing, essentially unattainable illusions, the media produce what William K. Shrader calls the experiential bind, a phenomenon rooted in the incongruity between the two juxtaposed realms of vicarious and firsthand experience. The internalized bind causes a chronically irritated self-ideal discrepancy, producing...

Although governmental commissions are not the only available source of nonpartisan investigation and policy advice, their prestige, scale of operation, and national importance establish the commission as a unique political body. This volume provides both general discussions of commission communication and specific analyses of commissions.

Part One considers definitional and functional issues inherent in commission studies, and takes up such concerns as the constraints under which these entities operate. Part Two is devoted to case studies of historically, politically, or socially...

Remote control tuning encourages a form of interactive television using a technology already available in 80 percent of American households. Editors Walker and Bellamy have compiled the first book of state-of-the-art research on a topic of growing interest to media researchers, practitioners, and students. Chapter authors combine survey measurements with recorded observations of viewing behavior, an analysis of the program sources accessed during grazing, experimental studies of remote control use, and historical and critical analyses. Specific topics include: the history of the remote...

Conville has assembled a collection of essays that share a consideration of structure as it manifests itself in human communication. Personal stories, accounts of events, narratives, diaries, and unstructured interviews are ever more widely appreciated today as valid data for understanding human cognition and human interaction. Some chapters present solutions to the problem of how to analyze such materials and how to conceptualize them as data. Other chapters argue for the inevitability of structure in communication study. Still other chapters demonstrate structure in human communication....

What makes human communication problematic? Why can a face-to-face encounter be simple, automatic, and even mindless in one situation and still become complicated, difficult, and even vexing in the next? These are the central questions in this probing analysis of the potential and limits of communication in human relations. Working through the seemingly intractable complexities and complications that emerge from such conflicts as multiple viewpoints and divergent vantage points, this study advances the prospects of working toward optimum conditions for human interaction.

From attempting to inform us about current events to entertaining us with imagined worlds, the media has a primary influence upon how we conceive the world, ourselves, and others. Consequently, the moral complexities, dilemmas, and duties that arise in relation to journalism and the media are difficult to negotiate. Critically developing a philosophical approach to conceptualizing the aim of journalism; the nature of good, impartial reporting; and moral restrictions concerning lies, deceit, violence, and censorship, this book argues for substantive positions concerning what we should,...

The start of the 1990s saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany into one new nation that would be a formidable economic force around the world. But to many Americans educated by the news and entertainment media, the image of Germany remained a holdover from World War II and the Holocaust. When the American media were not presenting an outdated, jackbooted view of Germany, they were portraying it as a country epitomizing the world's Communist/Capitalist struggle. For three decades the American news and entertainment media presented the image of Germany as being a...

Fifty years ago, the political whistle-stop tour was thus named because trains blew their whistles twice when making unscheduled stops in backwater towns. Like its distant cousin, the "electronic" whistle-stop brings the candidate's message directly to the people, but with one outstanding difference: the new whistle-stop offers politicians an accuracy, efficiency, and success at voter persuasian unimaginable to by earlier whistle-stoppers such as Harry Truman.

As Selnow shows, American political campaigns have an extraordinary affinity for electronic devices. They have seized upon...

This book defines and analyzes the content, structure, and values of three predominant types of public discourse, which are labeled Doublespeak, Salespeak, and Sensationspeak. These media messages are examined to determine how they are constructed and how they influence individuals, ideology, and culture. Discussions are illustrated with a diverse range of examples from popular culture, magazines, Internet sites, politics, television, and film. Fox argues that the Information Age has replaced actual reality with representations of reality. He states that electronic media dominates our...

Michael Suman has brought together wide-ranging viewpoints of media advocates, media lawyers, academics, and entertainment industry representatives who examine the important public policy issue of how advocacy groups affect the entertainment industry.

In the first part of the book, representatives from media advocacy groups, including Action for Children's Television and Population Communications International, look at their efforts to utilize the media for policy purposes. In the second part, attorneys specializing in communications look at the ways advocacy groups have been aided as...

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Spindle's reference chronicles the professional career of one of the world's most loved performers, Julie Andrews. An all-in-one resource, the volume presents a comprehensive and accurate profile of the people, projects, artistic highs and lows, and general influences that propelled the actress into the public eye beginning in the late 1950s. Spindle examines each of her 16 films and provides a detailed commentary on factors influencing her short reign as a box office superstar in the mid-1960s and the fact that she has retained her fame and celebrity status long after ceasing to be a...

In the minds of today's audiences, George Burns was a solo act. But in the history of show business, he will long be remembered for his work with Gracie Allen. Few performers have enjoyed so much popular and critical acclaim. Together they enjoyed phenomenal success in vaudeville, radio, television, and film. Although they were celebrities, the two performers enjoyed a life remarkably free of scandal. After the death of Allen in 1964, Burns made commercials, a music video, and an exercise video. He wrote books and won numerous awards, and his nightclub and convention appearances did not...