This book argues that our world is inescapably mediated or specularized. It investigates human dilemmas without taking flight into cultural and political elitism and at the same time does not ignore the corporate and military agenda that is serviced by the media at great human cost. Arguments are drawn from political economy, psychoanalysis, and semiotics to describe the cultural functions of the media with respect to the state, the economy, the family, women and children and with regard to the problem of sustaining democratic public and civic institutions whose activities are wholly...

Today, practically any situation involving some kind of learning is liable to be referred to as an instance of curriculum. In this book, however, the author defines curriculum as the program or programs offered to students who enter ntar elementary school at age 5 or 6 and leave secondary school somewhere between the ages of 16 and 18. What is the curriculum? What should students be learning? Who should decide what should be taught? How are such decisions to be made? In this volume, the author examines the factors that need to be considered in finding solutions to these questions.

Intending to ground the theories of caring in education, this book expands the current discourse on caring. The work of those who have examined the ethic of caring has provided a rich and useful discussion of the topic from people who, no doubt, are caring and are committed to caring in practice. However, the representation of reallife expressions of caring within educational contexts has been missing from the literature. This books fills this void by providing a collection of current expressions of educators' and researchers' experiences as they seek to manifest caring.

This volume presents recent and unpublished research by Chinese scholars from China and the US on ways in which Chinese culture influences and intersects with communication theory and practice in China. It focuses on communication and cultural concepts as they function in Chinese society, in the media, in the workplace, and in the way people think. It includes historical analyses of Mao's political rhetoric before and during the Cultural Revolution as well as political rhetoric by Deng Xiaoping, all with a cultural emphasis.