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Business-to-Business Marketing Communications: Value and Efficiency Considerations in Recessionary Times
by Ioannis Rizomyliotis Kleopatra Konstantoulaki Ioannis KostopoulosThis book addresses the rapidly changing Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing communication landscape, in particular the shrinking of marketing budgets and the increasing demand for measurable results. Despite the rapid drop of print media usage, the authors suggest the need for increased accountability for the use of advertising media and highlight ways to boost effectiveness. The book provides a robust analysis of the current B2B environment along with a research-informed illustration of the future. Aiming to fill a gap in existing literature and offer new research findings, this study offers a comprehensive guide to assist practitioners in decision-making and a stimulating analysis of the B2B marketing communications landscape which will be of great interest to academics of marketing and communications.
Korean Englishes in Transnational Contexts
by Christopher J. Jenks Jerry Won LeeThis book challenges the dominant tendency in world Englishes scholarship to rely on the ‘nation’ as a static spatial entity and reliable analytic category. Using the transnational Korean context as a case in point, the authors analyse how the practices and ideologies of the English language reflect the complex and unexpected flows of globalisation. Examining topics such as the spoken English of South Korean youth and English education in North Korea, this interdisciplinary work gathers both established and emerging scholars from a range of language-related fields to evaluate English as a dynamic and evolving language beyond purely ‘English-speaking’ countries. This edited collection will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of world Englishes, multilingualism, second language acquisition and globalisation.
The Leader's Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills: Unlock the Creativity and Innovation in You and Your Team (3rd edition) (PDF)
by Paul SloaneLateral thinking can help you transform your ability to generate ideas, unlock the creative potential of your team and make your organization more innovative. With a lively, energetic and practical approach, The Leader's Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills will teach you dynamic, up-to-date techniques to unleash the creative energies of your people and show you how to put the techniques to work immediately. Lateral thinking can turn your organization around and make you a better leader. In The Leader's Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills, highly acclaimed author, trainer and presenter Paul Sloane demonstrates how the lateral leader develops the vision, culture and processes that transform a regular business into an innovation hothouse. This book is packed with real-life examples, practical methods and lateral thinking exercises that you can put to work today.
Business Journalism: A Critical Political Economy Approach (PDF)
by Ibrahim Seaga ShawBusiness Journalism: A Critical Political Economy Approach critically explores the failures of business journalists in striking the balance between the bottom line business model and their role in defending the public interest. Drawing on historical and political economic perspectives and analysing these in relation to critical political economic theory, the book explores failures of business journalism through the dwindling of social responsibility in the business journalist#65533;s role in holding political and corporate power to account. Ibrahim Seaga Shaw draws on a diverse range of case studies, including: investigative journalism in The Standard Oil and Enron Scandals corporate propaganda in relation to business reporting financial Journalism and the global financial crises of the late-90s and 2008 public business journalism and subprime mortgage loans, horsemeat and bent iPhone 6 scandals ethical challenges of business and journalism from developed to emerging BRICS economies business or financial journalism? Modernity vs postmodernity, macroeconomics vs microeconomics challenges of business journalism in the digital age. Business Journalism: A Critical Political Economy Approach is essential reading for students and scholars interested in understanding the historical failings and potential futures for business journalism and those wishing to develop specialist financial, economic and business reporting in today#65533;s globalised media landscape.
Media Power in Indonesia: Oligarchs, Citizens and the Digital Revolution (PDF)
by Ross TapsellIndonesia is undergoing a process of rapid change, with an affluent middle class due to hit 141 million people by 2020. While official statistics suggest that internet penetration is low, over 70 million Indonesians have a Facebook account, the fourth highest group in the world. Jakarta is the Twitter capital of the world with more tweets per minute than any other city around the globe. In the past ten years digitalisation of media content has enabled extensive concentration and conglomeration of the industry, and media owners are wealthier and more politically powerful than ever before. Digital media is a prominent place of contestation between large, powerful oligarchs, and citizens looking to bring about rapid and meaningful change. This book examines how the political agencies of both oligarchs and 'netizens' are enhanced by digitalisation, and how an increasingly divergent society is being formed. In doing so, this book enters this debate about the transformations of society and power in the digital age.
Hudson: Broadcast Journalism (PDF)
by Gary Hudson Sarah RowlandsThis exciting and comprehensive text takes students, trainees and professionals into the world of the modern-day newsroom, covering both key techniques and theory in detail. The second edition has been revised and updated to include all the technical, regulatory and theoretical advances in recent broadcast custom and practice and is influenced by newsrooms around the country. Main features: Complete coverage of all the key skills: news gathering, interviewing, writing and story-telling, live/location-reporting, online, editing, graphics and presentation. Expert advice and contributions from leading broadcast journalists from the BBC, ITV and Sky News. The Essential Guide, a section on how to get a job, the law and an up-to-date glossary of broadcasting terms. Workshops and Exercises, which provides the opportunity to practise key skills. Case Study, A Closer Look and Thinkpiece boxes help put the theory into context. Remember and Tip boxes summarise key concepts and offer guidance. A DVD demonstrating filming techniques and editing ideas. New for the second edition: Greater emphasis on online elements of broadcast journalism and the role of social media in news gathering. A focus on the interactive nature of the contemporary news process - how to find user-generated content, empower audiences and engage listeners and viewers. The key skills required for students taking the new NCTJ Broadcast Journalism exams. Ideal for students on journalism courses at all levels, this text is also useful for professionals and trainees working in broadcast, print and other media, and those looking at broadcast journalism in the wider context of media studies.
Media Globalization And Digital Journalism In Malaysia: A Hierarchy Of Influences On Network Newswork In Glocal Spheres (PDF)
by Amira Sariyati Binti FirdausThe media ecology within which conventional mainstream journalism currently operates has undergone major transformations since the advent of social media. These transformations arise from the disruption brought upon by the emergence of networked, interactive platforms and user-driven online applications including social media, blogs and alternative citizen news sites. This book analyses networked forms of journalistic production at traditional news organizations and their conventional news channels. Focusing on case studies from Malaysia, it examines current transformations to the norms, practices and values of conventional news production. Drawing upon a recent global-comparative turn in journalism studies and parallel efforts to de-Westernize communication theory, this book suggests an innovative #65533;glocal#65533; comparative approach to analyse #65533;network newswork#65533; among global, transnational, and local news organizations, including Al Jazeera and Bernama TV, located within the same geographical locality, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This author uses an empirically-grounded conceptual framework for exploring and understanding recent transformations that user-driven networked resources bring to professional journalists#65533; daily work of producing news. Discussing the implications of network newswork on the wider global journalistic sphere, the book elucidates a tiered model of networked sources and expounds upon journalism#65533;s deepening of the digital divide in its inadvertent muting of the voices of non-networked communities that are switched off from the global news sphere and its network society. A fresh perspective on the analysis of globalization in the media and a useful guide for gaining access into media organizations and securing cooperation of organizational members for research, this book will be of interest to researchers in the field of Asian Media and Communication Studies, Journalism Studies, Political Communication and Sociology of Journalism.
Migration And New Media: Transnational Families And Polymedia (PDF)
by Mirca Madianou Daniel MillerHow do parents and children care for each other when they are separated because of migration? The way in which transnational families maintain long-distance relationships has been revolutionised by the emergence of new media such as email, instant messaging, social networking sites, webcam and texting. A migrant mother can now call and text her left-behind children several times a day, peruse social networking sites and leave the webcam for 12 hours achieving a sense of co-presence. Drawing on a long-term ethnographic study of prolonged separation between migrant mothers and their children who remain in the Philippines, this book develops groundbreaking theory for understanding both new media and the nature of mediated relationships. It brings together the perspectives of both the mothers and children and shows how the very nature of family relationships is changing. New media, understood as an emerging environment of polymedia, have become integral to the way family relationships are enacted and experienced. The theory of polymedia extends beyond the poignant case study and is developed as a major contribution for understanding the interconnections between digital media and interpersonal relationships.
Power And Diversity In Public Relations (PDF)
by Lee EdwardsPower, Diversity and Public Relations addresses the lack of diversity in PR by revealing the ways in which power operates within the occupation to construct archetypal practitioner identities, occupational belonging and exclusion. It explores the ways in which the field is normatively constructed through discourse, and examines how the experiences of practitioners whose ethnicity and class differ from the 'typical' PR background, shape alternative understandings of the occupation and their place within it. The book applies theoretical perspectives ranging from Bourdieuvian and occupational sociology to postcolonial and critical race theory, to a variety of empirical data from the UK PR industry. Diversity emerges as a product of the dialectics between occupational structures, norms and practitioners' reactions to those constraints; it follows that improving diversity is best understood as an exercise in democracy, where all practitioner voices are heard, valued, and encompass the potential for change. This insightful text will be essential reading for researchers and students in Public Relations, Communications, Media Studies, Promotional Industries, as well as all scholars interested in the sociology of race and work relations.
The Marketing Complex: Why Modern Marketers Need to Manage Multiplicity (1st edition) (PDF)
by Giles LuryMany marketers spend their days continually reducing brand positioning into single sentences to answer questions such as 'What is the brand message?' or 'What is the USP?' This tendency to perpetually condense and simplify is a carry-over from a long-gone era when products and services remained static, and changes in platforms happened much more slowly. Today, however, the reality is that brands are infinitely more complex, and span territories, consumer groups and categories. Therefore, to boil a branding message down into a single sentence or USP severely limits a brand's potential scope. After all, a brand is like a person, and a person could never be accurately described in a single sentence. The Marketing Complex examines the current obsession with over-simplification, and fearlessly challenges marketers to consider whether they are blurring the line between simplifying and simplistic. By exploring the origins and appeal of simplification through some of the best-known literature, the book conclusively proves that endless simplification actually only serves to limit a brand's appeal. By presenting a visionary new model, supported by examples, tools and expertly explained techniques, The Marketing Complex will enable marketers to recognise the important role that depth and multiplicity play in communicating a brand message, and to boldly embrace complexity when crafting their brands.
Digital Media and Reporting Conflict: Blogging and the BBC’s Coverage of War and Terrorism (PDF)
by Daniel BennettThis book explores the impact of new forms of online reporting on the BBC#65533;s coverage of war and terrorism. Informed by the views of over 100 BBC staff at all levels of the corporation, Bennett captures journalists#65533; shifting attitudes towards blogs and internet sources used to cover wars and other conflicts. He argues that the BBC#65533;s practices and values are fundamentally evolving in response to the challenges of immediate digital publication. Ongoing challenges for journalism in the online media environment are identified: maintaining impartiality in the face of calls for more open personal journalism; ensuring accuracy when the power of the "former audience" allows news to break at speed; and overcoming the limits of the scale of the BBC#65533;s news operation in order to meet the demands to present news as conversation. While the focus of the book is on the BBC#65533;s coverage of war and terrorism, the conclusions are more widely relevant to the evolving practice of journalism at traditional media organizations as they grapple with a revolution in publication.
Public Relations Ethics And Professionalism: The shadow of excellence (PDF)
by Johanna FawkesDo professions really place duty to society above clients' or their own interests? If not, how can they be trusted? While some public relations (PR) scholars claim that PR serves society and enhances the democratic process, others suggest that it is little more than propaganda, serving the interests of global corporations. This is not an argument about definitions, but about ethics - yet this topic is barely explored in texts and theories that seek to explain PR and its function in society. This book places PR ethics in the wider context of professional ethics and the sociology of professions. By bringing together literature from fields beyond public relations - sociology, professional and philosophical ethics, and Jungian psychology - it integrates a new body of ideas into the debate. The unprecedented introduction of Jungian psychology to public relations scholarship shifts the debate beyond a traditional Western 'Good/Bad' ethical dichotomy towards a new holistic approach, with dynamic implications for theory and practice. This thought-provoking book will be essential reading for students, academics and professionals with an interest in public relations, ethics and professionalism.
Entrepreneurship, Innovation And Business Clusters (PDF)
by Panos G. PiperopoulosIn Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Business Clusters, Panos Piperopoulos provides a comprehensive introduction to what entrepreneurship is all about, how and why entrepreneurs innovate and how innovation systems operate. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) constitute the backbone of most economies, so the author examines their characteristics and the crucial role played by the owners and entrepreneurs who innovate to ensure the survival and continued growth of their firms. He also includes the particular phenomena that arise where the entrepreneurs are either female or from ethnic groups, or where the context is that of a developing region or country. The importance of co-operative strategic alliances and networks between firms is discussed, along with how these strengthen SMEs' competitiveness. The concept of open innovation has been proposed as a new paradigm for the management of innovation and the author presents a hypothetical model for enhancing the competitiveness and performance of SMEs by properly utilizing employees' creative potential, emotional intelligence, tacit knowledge and innovative ideas. The contemporary model of business clusters, involving partnerships with competitors, agents, universities, research centres and local, regional and national governments is discussed. The ways, means and methods through which SMEs' competitiveness and innovation can be enhanced within business clusters is illustrated by cases that identify four types of SMEs, that behave differently and play different roles in the networks and clusters of which they form a part, but all of whose performance and competitiveness is a function of their position and role in the wider scheme of things.
Picture Perfect: Life in the Age of the Photo Op
by Kiku AdattoWe say the camera doesn't lie, but we also know that pictures distort and deceive. In Picture Perfect, Kiku Adatto brilliantly examines the use and abuse of images today. Ranging from family albums to Facebook, political campaigns to popular movies, images of war to pictures of protest. Adatto reveals how the line between the person and the pose, the real and the fake, news and entertainment is increasingly blurred. New technologies make it easier than ever to capture, manipulate, and spread images. But even in the age of the Internet, we still seek authentic pictures and believe in the camera's promise to document, witness, and interpret our lives.
Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide
by Linda Babcock Sara LascheverWhen Linda Babcock asked why so many male graduate students were teaching their own courses and most female students were assigned as assistants, her dean said: "More men ask. The women just don't ask." It turns out that whether they want higher salaries or more help at home, women often find it hard to ask. Sometimes they don't know that change is possible--they don't know that they can ask. Sometimes they fear that asking may damage a relationship. And sometimes they don't ask because they've learned that society can react badly to women asserting their own needs and desires. By looking at the barriers holding women back and the social forces constraining them, Women Don't Ask shows women how to reframe their interactions and more accurately evaluate their opportunities. It teaches them how to ask for what they want in ways that feel comfortable and possible, taking into account the impact of asking on their relationships. And it teaches all of us how to recognize the ways in which our institutions, child-rearing practices, and unspoken assumptions perpetuate inequalities--inequalities that are not only fundamentally unfair but also inefficient and economically unsound. With women's progress toward full economic and social equality stalled, women's lives becoming increasingly complex, and the structures of businesses changing, the ability to negotiate is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Drawing on research in psychology, sociology, economics, and organizational behavior as well as dozens of interviews with men and women from all walks of life, Women Don't Ask is the first book to identify the dramatic difference between men and women in their propensity to negotiate for what they want. It tells women how to ask, and why they should.
Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide
by Linda Babcock Sara LascheverWhen Linda Babcock asked why so many male graduate students were teaching their own courses and most female students were assigned as assistants, her dean said: "More men ask. The women just don't ask." It turns out that whether they want higher salaries or more help at home, women often find it hard to ask. Sometimes they don't know that change is possible--they don't know that they can ask. Sometimes they fear that asking may damage a relationship. And sometimes they don't ask because they've learned that society can react badly to women asserting their own needs and desires. By looking at the barriers holding women back and the social forces constraining them, Women Don't Ask shows women how to reframe their interactions and more accurately evaluate their opportunities. It teaches them how to ask for what they want in ways that feel comfortable and possible, taking into account the impact of asking on their relationships. And it teaches all of us how to recognize the ways in which our institutions, child-rearing practices, and unspoken assumptions perpetuate inequalities--inequalities that are not only fundamentally unfair but also inefficient and economically unsound. With women's progress toward full economic and social equality stalled, women's lives becoming increasingly complex, and the structures of businesses changing, the ability to negotiate is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Drawing on research in psychology, sociology, economics, and organizational behavior as well as dozens of interviews with men and women from all walks of life, Women Don't Ask is the first book to identify the dramatic difference between men and women in their propensity to negotiate for what they want. It tells women how to ask, and why they should.
Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation
by Sandra Bermann Michael WoodIn recent years, scholarship on translation has moved well beyond the technicalities of converting one language into another and beyond conventional translation theory. With new technologies blurring distinctions between "the original" and its reproductions, and with globalization redefining national and cultural boundaries, "translation" is now emerging as a reformulated subject of lively, interdisciplinary debate. Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation enters the heart of this debate. It covers an exceptional range of topics, from simultaneous translation to legal theory, from the language of exile to the language of new nations, from the press to the cinema; and cultures and languages from contemporary Bengal to ancient Japan, from translations of Homer to the work of Don DeLillo. All twenty-two essays, by leading voices including Gayatri Spivak and the late Edward Said, are provocative and persuasive. The book's four sections--"Translation as Medium and across Media," "The Ethics of Translation," "Translation and Difference," and "Beyond the Nation"--together provide a comprehensive view of current thinking on nationality and translation, one that will be widely consulted for years to come. The contributors are Jonathan E. Abel, Emily Apter, Sandra Bermann, Vilashini Cooppan, Stanley Corngold, David Damrosch, Robert Eaglestone, Stathis Gourgouris, Pierre Legrand, Jacques Lezra, Françoise Lionnet, Sylvia Molloy, Yopie Prins, Edward Said, Azade Seyhan, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Henry Staten, Lawrence Venuti, Lynn Visson, Gauri Viswanathan, Samuel Weber, and Michael Wood.
Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation
by Sandra Bermann Michael WoodIn recent years, scholarship on translation has moved well beyond the technicalities of converting one language into another and beyond conventional translation theory. With new technologies blurring distinctions between "the original" and its reproductions, and with globalization redefining national and cultural boundaries, "translation" is now emerging as a reformulated subject of lively, interdisciplinary debate. Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation enters the heart of this debate. It covers an exceptional range of topics, from simultaneous translation to legal theory, from the language of exile to the language of new nations, from the press to the cinema; and cultures and languages from contemporary Bengal to ancient Japan, from translations of Homer to the work of Don DeLillo. All twenty-two essays, by leading voices including Gayatri Spivak and the late Edward Said, are provocative and persuasive. The book's four sections--"Translation as Medium and across Media," "The Ethics of Translation," "Translation and Difference," and "Beyond the Nation"--together provide a comprehensive view of current thinking on nationality and translation, one that will be widely consulted for years to come. The contributors are Jonathan E. Abel, Emily Apter, Sandra Bermann, Vilashini Cooppan, Stanley Corngold, David Damrosch, Robert Eaglestone, Stathis Gourgouris, Pierre Legrand, Jacques Lezra, Françoise Lionnet, Sylvia Molloy, Yopie Prins, Edward Said, Azade Seyhan, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Henry Staten, Lawrence Venuti, Lynn Visson, Gauri Viswanathan, Samuel Weber, and Michael Wood.
Everyday Media Culture In Africa: Audiences And Users (PDF)
by Wendy Willems Winston ManoAfrican audiences and users are rapidly gaining in importance and increasingly targeted by global media companies, social media platforms and mobile phone operators. This is the first edited volume that addresses the everyday lived experiences of Africans in their interaction with different kinds of media: old and new, state and private, elite and popular, global and national, material and virtual. So far, the bulk of academic research on media and communication in Africa has studied media through the lens of media-state relations, thereby adopting liberal democracy as the normative ideal and examining the potential contribution of African media to development and democratization. Focusing instead on everyday media culture in a range of African countries, this volume contributes to the broader project of provincializing and decolonizing audience and internet studies.
Playbooks and Checkbooks: An Introduction to the Economics of Modern Sports
by Stefan SzymanskiWhat economic rules govern sports? How does the sports business differ from other businesses? Playbooks and Checkbooks takes a fascinating step-by-step look at the fundamental economic relationships shaping modern sports. Focusing on the ways that the sports business does and does not overlap with economics, the book uncovers the core paradox at the heart of the sports industry. Unlike other businesses, the sports industry would not survive if competitors obliterated each other to extinction, financially or otherwise--without rivals there is nothing to sell. Playbooks and Checkbooks examines how this unique economic truth plays out in the sports world, both on and off the field. Noted economist Stefan Szymanski explains how modern sporting contests have evolved; how sports competitions are organized; and how economics has guided antitrust, monopoly, and cartel issues in the sporting world. Szymanski considers the motivation provided by prize money, uncovers discrepancies in players' salaries, and shows why the incentive structure for professional athletes encourages them to cheat through performance-enhancing drugs and match fixing. He also explores how changes in media broadcasting allow owners and athletes to play to a global audience, and why governments continue to publicly fund sporting events such as the Olympics, despite almost certain financial loss. Using economic tools to reveal the complex arrangements of an industry, Playbooks and Checkbooks illuminates the world of sports through economics, and the world of economics through sports.
Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science
by Michael NielsenIn Reinventing Discovery, Michael Nielsen argues that we are living at the dawn of the most dramatic change in science in more than 300 years. This change is being driven by powerful new cognitive tools, enabled by the internet, which are greatly accelerating scientific discovery. There are many books about how the internet is changing business or the workplace or government. But this is the first book about something much more fundamental: how the internet is transforming the nature of our collective intelligence and how we understand the world. Reinventing Discovery tells the exciting story of an unprecedented new era of networked science. We learn, for example, how mathematicians in the Polymath Project are spontaneously coming together to collaborate online, tackling and rapidly demolishing previously unsolved problems. We learn how 250,000 amateur astronomers are working together in a project called Galaxy Zoo to understand the large-scale structure of the Universe, and how they are making astonishing discoveries, including an entirely new kind of galaxy. These efforts are just a small part of the larger story told in this book--the story of how scientists are using the internet to dramatically expand our problem-solving ability and increase our combined brainpower. This is a book for anyone who wants to understand how the online world is revolutionizing scientific discovery today--and why the revolution is just beginning.
Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science
by Michael NielsenIn Reinventing Discovery, Michael Nielsen argues that we are living at the dawn of the most dramatic change in science in more than 300 years. This change is being driven by powerful new cognitive tools, enabled by the internet, which are greatly accelerating scientific discovery. There are many books about how the internet is changing business or the workplace or government. But this is the first book about something much more fundamental: how the internet is transforming the nature of our collective intelligence and how we understand the world. Reinventing Discovery tells the exciting story of an unprecedented new era of networked science. We learn, for example, how mathematicians in the Polymath Project are spontaneously coming together to collaborate online, tackling and rapidly demolishing previously unsolved problems. We learn how 250,000 amateur astronomers are working together in a project called Galaxy Zoo to understand the large-scale structure of the Universe, and how they are making astonishing discoveries, including an entirely new kind of galaxy. These efforts are just a small part of the larger story told in this book--the story of how scientists are using the internet to dramatically expand our problem-solving ability and increase our combined brainpower. This is a book for anyone who wants to understand how the online world is revolutionizing scientific discovery today--and why the revolution is just beginning.
Ground Wars: Personalized Communication in Political Campaigns
by Rasmus Kleis NielsenPolitical campaigns today are won or lost in the so-called ground war--the strategic deployment of teams of staffers, volunteers, and paid part-timers who work the phones and canvass block by block, house by house, voter by voter. Ground Wars provides an in-depth ethnographic portrait of two such campaigns, New Jersey Democrat Linda Stender's and that of Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, who both ran for Congress in 2008. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen examines how American political operatives use "personalized political communication" to engage with the electorate, and weighs the implications of ground war tactics for how we understand political campaigns and what it means to participate in them. He shows how ground wars are waged using resources well beyond those of a given candidate and their staff. These include allied interest groups and civic associations, party-provided technical infrastructures that utilize large databases with detailed individual-level information for targeting voters, and armies of dedicated volunteers and paid part-timers. Nielsen challenges the notion that political communication in America must be tightly scripted, controlled, and conducted by a select coterie of professionals. Yet he also quashes the romantic idea that canvassing is a purer form of grassroots politics. In today's political ground wars, Nielsen demonstrates, even the most ordinary-seeming volunteer knocking at your door is backed up by high-tech targeting technologies and party expertise. Ground Wars reveals how personalized political communication is profoundly influencing electoral outcomes and transforming American democracy.
Ground Wars: Personalized Communication in Political Campaigns
by Rasmus Kleis NielsenPolitical campaigns today are won or lost in the so-called ground war--the strategic deployment of teams of staffers, volunteers, and paid part-timers who work the phones and canvass block by block, house by house, voter by voter. Ground Wars provides an in-depth ethnographic portrait of two such campaigns, New Jersey Democrat Linda Stender's and that of Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, who both ran for Congress in 2008. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen examines how American political operatives use "personalized political communication" to engage with the electorate, and weighs the implications of ground war tactics for how we understand political campaigns and what it means to participate in them. He shows how ground wars are waged using resources well beyond those of a given candidate and their staff. These include allied interest groups and civic associations, party-provided technical infrastructures that utilize large databases with detailed individual-level information for targeting voters, and armies of dedicated volunteers and paid part-timers. Nielsen challenges the notion that political communication in America must be tightly scripted, controlled, and conducted by a select coterie of professionals. Yet he also quashes the romantic idea that canvassing is a purer form of grassroots politics. In today's political ground wars, Nielsen demonstrates, even the most ordinary-seeming volunteer knocking at your door is backed up by high-tech targeting technologies and party expertise. Ground Wars reveals how personalized political communication is profoundly influencing electoral outcomes and transforming American democracy.
The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature
by Emily ApterTranslation, before 9/11, was deemed primarily an instrument of international relations, business, education, and culture. Today it seems, more than ever, a matter of war and peace. In The Translation Zone, Emily Apter argues that the field of translation studies, habitually confined to a framework of linguistic fidelity to an original, is ripe for expansion as the basis for a new comparative literature. Organized around a series of propositions that range from the idea that nothing is translatable to the idea that everything is translatable, The Translation Zone examines the vital role of translation studies in the "invention" of comparative literature as a discipline. Apter emphasizes "language wars" (including the role of mistranslation in the art of war), linguistic incommensurability in translation studies, the tension between textual and cultural translation, the role of translation in shaping a global literary canon, the resistance to Anglophone dominance, and the impact of translation technologies on the very notion of how translation is defined. The book speaks to a range of disciplines and spans the globe. Ultimately, The Translation Zone maintains that a new comparative literature must take stock of the political impact of translation technologies on the definition of foreign or symbolic languages in the humanities, while recognizing the complexity of language politics in a world at once more monolingual and more multilingual.