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Young People in Rural Areas of Europe (Perspectives on Rural Policy and Planning)
by Birgit JentschDespite an EU-wide commitment to rural development, research has rarely focused on the lives of young people in rural areas, their experiences in education and employment, their perceptions of policies relevant to them, and their possibilities of participation. Based on a two-year European research project on policies and young people in rural development, this edited volume examines these issues and considers young people's experiences of rural life in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Scotland. The volume is organized thematically with each chapter addressing a specific topic in one or more countries. These topics comprise: the attractiveness of rural areas to young people; the impact of programmes under the European Employment Guidelines; rural youth in local community development and partnerships; rural development programmes and their impact on youth integration; the role of social networks; and the transition from education to employment. A number of implications for policy and practice are drawn out in conclusion. This book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the future of rural areas and with those who live in the European countryside.
Young People in Rural Areas of Europe (Perspectives on Rural Policy and Planning)
by Birgit JentschDespite an EU-wide commitment to rural development, research has rarely focused on the lives of young people in rural areas, their experiences in education and employment, their perceptions of policies relevant to them, and their possibilities of participation. Based on a two-year European research project on policies and young people in rural development, this edited volume examines these issues and considers young people's experiences of rural life in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Scotland. The volume is organized thematically with each chapter addressing a specific topic in one or more countries. These topics comprise: the attractiveness of rural areas to young people; the impact of programmes under the European Employment Guidelines; rural youth in local community development and partnerships; rural development programmes and their impact on youth integration; the role of social networks; and the transition from education to employment. A number of implications for policy and practice are drawn out in conclusion. This book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the future of rural areas and with those who live in the European countryside.
Young People, Sex and the Media: The Facts of Life?
by D. Buckingham S. BraggAre children today growing up too soon? How do they - and their parents - feel about media portrayals of sex and personal relationships? Are the media a corrupting influence, or a potentially positive and useful resource for young people? Drawing on an extensive research project, which investigated children's interpretations of sexual content in films, TV and print media, this book considers how young people (aged 9-17) use such material to understand their experiences and build their identities, and how they and their parents respond to public concerns about these issues. The book offers a clearly written and entertaining insight into children's and parents' perspectives on these difficult issues - perspectives that are often ignored or trivialised in public debate.
Youth and Crime
by John MuncieThis book provides you with the most comprehensive and authoritative overview of youth crime and youth justice available. Keeping you abreast of contemporary debates, this fourth edition of Youth and Crime : Includes updated chapters on youth crime discourse and data, youth victimology, youth and social policy, youth justice strategies and comparative and international youth justice, providing a critical analysis of issues such as institutional abuse, child poverty, cyberbullying, child trafficking, international children's rights and transnational policy transfer. Covers numerous issues raised by the UK coalition government’s law and order and austerity policies including ages of criminal responsibility, the ‘rehabilitation revolution’, ‘troubled families’, abolition of antisocial behaviour orders (ASBOs), initiatives in gangs, gun and knife crime, responses to the August 2011 riots, prospects for restorative justice and reductions in child imprisonment. Keeps you up to date with contemporary research into explanations of youth crime, youth and media, youth cultures, youth unemployment and training programmes, and youth justice policies and takes into account recent legislative reform. Features a new companion website, featuring links to journal articles, relevant websites, blogs and government reports. Complete with chapter outlines, summary boxes, key terms, study questions, further reading lists, web-based resources and a glossary, this is the textbook to take you through your studies in youth and crime.
Youth and Crime (PDF)
by John MuncieThis book provides you with the most comprehensive and authoritative overview of youth crime and youth justice available. Keeping you abreast of contemporary debates, this fourth edition of Youth and Crime : Includes updated chapters on youth crime discourse and data, youth victimology, youth and social policy, youth justice strategies and comparative and international youth justice, providing a critical analysis of issues such as institutional abuse, child poverty, cyberbullying, child trafficking, international children's rights and transnational policy transfer. Covers numerous issues raised by the UK coalition government’s law and order and austerity policies including ages of criminal responsibility, the ‘rehabilitation revolution’, ‘troubled families’, abolition of antisocial behaviour orders (ASBOs), initiatives in gangs, gun and knife crime, responses to the August 2011 riots, prospects for restorative justice and reductions in child imprisonment. Keeps you up to date with contemporary research into explanations of youth crime, youth and media, youth cultures, youth unemployment and training programmes, and youth justice policies and takes into account recent legislative reform. Features a new companion website, featuring links to journal articles, relevant websites, blogs and government reports. Complete with chapter outlines, summary boxes, key terms, study questions, further reading lists, web-based resources and a glossary, this is the textbook to take you through your studies in youth and crime.
Youth and Sexualities: Pleasure, Subversion, and Insubordination In and Out of Schools
by M. Rasmussen E. Rofes S. TalburtA new collection that addresses the problematic pathologization of queer youth, this book argues that the majority of educators and youth workers still know little about queer youth's negotiations of identity and community. The contributors examine the dangerous effects of heteronormalizing practices, and look at how young people negotiate labels and stereotypes in and out of school settings. What makes this project unique is that the contributors go beyond the discussions of homophobia young people experience on an everyday basis - the look at how youth subvert these experiences into those of pleasure, power, and confidence. In addition, the contributors look at how youth organize communities and negotiate positive identities in different settings.
Youth Fantasies: The Perverse Landscape of the Media
by Jan JagodzinskiYouth Fantasies is a collection of studies conducted in cross-cultural collaboration over the past ten years that theorizes 'youth fantasy'; as manifested through the media of TV, film, and computer games. Unlike other media studies and education books, the authors employ both Lacanian and Kleinian psychoanalytic concepts to attempt to make sense of teen culture and the influence of mass media. The collection includes case studies of X-Files fans, the influence of computer games and the 'Lara Croft' phenomenon, and the reception of Western television by Tanzanian youth. The authors see this book as a much needed reconciliation between cultural studies and Lacanian psychoanalysis, and attempt to highlight why Lacan is important to note when exploring youth fantasy and interest in the media, especially in shows like X-Files .
Youth in Society: Contemporary Theory, Policy and Practice
by Jeremy Roche Rachel Thomson Ronny Flynn Stan Tucker'The book is a useful student text that offers a wide range of well informed perspectives on the position of young people in society today. It has built on its successful first edition and should provide a useful springboard to further study' - Scolag Legal Journal 'This resource will be very helpful to all those already working with children and young people and essential for those who are currently learning about how to work with children and young people'- Gill Frances, Director Children's Development National Children's Bureau Are the recent policy initiatives aimed at improving life chances for young people working? Have they affected those most in need? How can young people be given more of a voice in policy making? The new edition of this bestselling text offers a comprehensive introduction to the policy developments affecting young people in today's society, covering the areas of education and training, work, youth justice, residential care and child protection. It brings together a wide-ranging series of readings written by leading experts, to encourage those working with young people, or training to do so, to critically reflect on both the theoretical and practical dimensions of their work. The themes and issues addressed in this book include: citizenship, participation and empowerment; social difference and social identity; images of youth; young people and the politics of service provision; and working with young people in different contexts. This new edition has been revised in order to bring it up-to-date on contemporary policy, law and practice changes and developments. Written in a lively and engaging manner, this accessible text will be invaluable reading for students taking courses in youth and social work, social policy, youth and criminal justice and the sociology of youth. Youth in Society is a set book for the Open University courses K201, Working With Young People and K268, Social Work with Young People.
Youth in Society: Contemporary Theory, Policy and Practice (PDF)
by Jeremy Roche Rachel Thomson Ronny Flynn Stan Tucker'The book is a useful student text that offers a wide range of well informed perspectives on the position of young people in society today. It has built on its successful first edition and should provide a useful springboard to further study' - Scolag Legal Journal 'This resource will be very helpful to all those already working with children and young people and essential for those who are currently learning about how to work with children and young people'- Gill Frances, Director Children's Development National Children's Bureau Are the recent policy initiatives aimed at improving life chances for young people working? Have they affected those most in need? How can young people be given more of a voice in policy making? The new edition of this bestselling text offers a comprehensive introduction to the policy developments affecting young people in today's society, covering the areas of education and training, work, youth justice, residential care and child protection. It brings together a wide-ranging series of readings written by leading experts, to encourage those working with young people, or training to do so, to critically reflect on both the theoretical and practical dimensions of their work. The themes and issues addressed in this book include: citizenship, participation and empowerment; social difference and social identity; images of youth; young people and the politics of service provision; and working with young people in different contexts. This new edition has been revised in order to bring it up-to-date on contemporary policy, law and practice changes and developments. Written in a lively and engaging manner, this accessible text will be invaluable reading for students taking courses in youth and social work, social policy, youth and criminal justice and the sociology of youth. Youth in Society is a set book for the Open University courses K201, Working With Young People and K268, Social Work with Young People.
Youth Media
by Bill OsgerbyPart of the successful Routledge Introductions to Media and Communications series which provides concise introductions to key areas in contemporary communications, Bill Osgerby's innovative Youth Media traces the development of contemporary youth culture and its relationship with the media. From the days of diners, drive-ins and jukeboxes, to today's world of iPods and the Internet, Youth Media examines youth media in its economic, cultural and political contexts and explores: youth culture and the media the 'Fab Phenomenon': markets, money and media generation and degeneration in the media: representations, responses and 'effects' media, subculture and lifestyle global media, youth culture and identity youth and new media. Analyzing the nature of different forms of communication as well as reviewing their production and consumption, this is an essential introduction to this key area in communication and cultural studies.
Youth Media
by Bill OsgerbyPart of the successful Routledge Introductions to Media and Communications series which provides concise introductions to key areas in contemporary communications, Bill Osgerby's innovative Youth Media traces the development of contemporary youth culture and its relationship with the media. From the days of diners, drive-ins and jukeboxes, to today's world of iPods and the Internet, Youth Media examines youth media in its economic, cultural and political contexts and explores: youth culture and the media the 'Fab Phenomenon': markets, money and media generation and degeneration in the media: representations, responses and 'effects' media, subculture and lifestyle global media, youth culture and identity youth and new media. Analyzing the nature of different forms of communication as well as reviewing their production and consumption, this is an essential introduction to this key area in communication and cultural studies.
Youth Policy and Social Inclusion: Critical Debates with Young People
by Monica BarryTaking a holistic and multidisciplinary approach this book identifies and analyzes the factors which promote or discourage social inclusion of young people in today’s society. It critically examines the discriminatory attitudes towards young people, and focuses on the 'problem' of adults rather than the 'problem' of young people themselves. The authors ask searching questions about society's capacity and willingness to be more socially inclusive of young people in terms of policy and practice, and explore the extent to which young people have access to status, rights and responsibilities as young adults. Challenging existing theory the book covers issues including: citizenship, education, rights, youth transactions, drug use, homelessness, teenage pregnancy and unemployment. Incorporating the views and experiences of young people themselves, the book highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the academic contribution and suggests ways forward for a more inclusive society.
Youth Policy and Social Inclusion: Critical Debates with Young People
by Monica BarryTaking a holistic and multidisciplinary approach this book identifies and analyzes the factors which promote or discourage social inclusion of young people in today’s society. It critically examines the discriminatory attitudes towards young people, and focuses on the 'problem' of adults rather than the 'problem' of young people themselves. The authors ask searching questions about society's capacity and willingness to be more socially inclusive of young people in terms of policy and practice, and explore the extent to which young people have access to status, rights and responsibilities as young adults. Challenging existing theory the book covers issues including: citizenship, education, rights, youth transactions, drug use, homelessness, teenage pregnancy and unemployment. Incorporating the views and experiences of young people themselves, the book highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the academic contribution and suggests ways forward for a more inclusive society.
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald: An American Woman's Life
by Linda Wagner-MartinLinda Wagner-Martin's Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is a twenty-first century story. Using cultural and gender studies as contexts, Wagner-Martin brings new information to the story of the Alabama judge's daughter who, at seventeen, met her husband-to-be, Scott Fitzgerald. Swept away from her stable home life into Jazz Age New York and Paris, Zelda eventually learned to be a writer and a painter; and she came close to being a ballerina. An evocative portrayal of a talented woman's professional and emotional conflicts, this study contains extensive notes and new photographs.
Zwischen "Nebenwiderspruch" und "revolutionärem Entwurf": Emanzipatorische Potentiale sozialdemokratischer Frauenpolitik 1945-49 (Frauen in Geschichte und Gesellschaft #40)
by Heike Meyer-SchoppaDie Verankerung von Art. 3 II GG „Männer und Frauen sind gleichberechtigt“ ist zweifelsohne das bedeutendste frauenpolitische Ereignis der unmittelbaren Nachkriegszeit. Welche Ziele aber verfolgten die Protagonistinnen der Normgebung im Parlamentarischen Rat? Das bis heute fortbestehende Spannungsverhältnis zwischen der Verfassungsnorm der Gleichberechtigung und der gesellschaftlichen Wirklichkeit der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bildet den Ausgangspunkt dieser Untersuchung. Die Sozialdemokratin Dr. jur. Elisabeth Selbert prägte für dieses Spannungsverhältnis den Ausdruck des „Verfassungsbruchs in Permanenz“. Sie ist eine der bekanntesten Vertreterinnen sozialdemokratischer Frauenpolitik der Nachkriegszeit und gilt als die große Anwältin der Gleichberechtigung. Ihre eigene parteipolitische Verortung aber fand bisher nur wenig Beachtung. Das zwischen Norm und Wirklichkeit bestehende Spannungsverhältnis scheint vielmehr analog auch auf die Wahrnehmung der Sozialdemokratie übertragbar. Sie gilt als die Partei, die die Gleichberechtigung zwar auf ihre Fahnen und in ihre Programme schrieb, zu allen Zeiten aber eine Kluft zwischen Programmatik und Realität erkennen ließ. Schilderungen älterer Sozialdemokratinnen und der Aktenbestand des Frauenbüros beim Parteivorstand der SPD belegen demgegenüber eindrücklich, dass Elisabeth Selbert innerhalb der Partei keine Einzelkämpferin für Frauenrechte war. Aus der Diskussion zeitgenössischer Themen ergibt sich vielmehr der begründete Verdacht, dass emanzipatorische Potenziale sozialdemokratischer Frauenpolitik der Nachkriegszeit – analog der These vom Fortleben der Nachkriegserfahrung im Privaten – dem „Verfassungsbruch in Permanenz“ widerstanden. Dieses Buch analysiert die Positionen sozialdemokratischer Frauenpolitik der Nachkriegszeit und richtet sich an all diejenigen, die die Kluft zwischen Verfassungsnorm und -wirklichkeit zu überwinden wünschen.
Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey's Embodiment of African American Culture
by Thomas F. DeFrantzIn the early 1960s, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was a small, multi-racial company of dancers that performed the works of its founding choreographer and other emerging artists. By the late 1960s, the company had become a well-known African American artistic group closely tied to the Civil Rights struggle. In Dancing Revelations, Thomas DeFrantz chronicles the troupe's journey from a small modern dance company to one of the premier institutions of African American culture. He not only charts this rise to national and international renown, but also contextualizes this progress within the civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights struggles of the late 20th century. DeFrantz examines the most celebrated Ailey dances, including Revelations, drawing on video recordings of Ailey's dances, published interviews, oral histories, and his own interviews with former Ailey company dancers. Through vivid descriptions and beautiful illustrations, DeFrantz reveals the relationship between Ailey's works and African American culture as a whole. He illuminates the dual achievement of Ailey as an artist and as an arts activist committed to developing an African American presence in dance. He also addresses concerns about how dance performance is documented, including issues around spectatorship and the display of sexuality, the relationship of Ailey's dances to civil rights activism, and the establishment and maintenance of a successful, large-scale Black Arts institution. Throughout Dancing Revelations, DeFrantz illustrates how Ailey combined elements of African dance with motifs adapted from blues, jazz, and Broadway to choreograph his dances. By re-interpreting these tropes of black culture in his original and well-received dances, DeFrantz argues that Ailey played a significant role in defining the African American cultural canon in the twentieth century. As the first book to examine the cultural sources and cultural impact of Ailey's work, Dancing Revelations is an important contribution to modern dance history and criticism as well as African-American studies.
Evidence-Based Practice Manual: Research and Outcome Measures in Health and Human Services
by Albert R. Roberts Kenneth R. YeagerThe Evidence-Based Practice Manual was developed as an all-inclusive and comprehensive practical desktop resource. It includes 104 original chapters, each specially written by the most prominent and experienced medical, public health, psychology, social work, criminal justice, and public policy practitioners, researchers, and professors in the United States and Canada. This book is specifically designed with practitioners in mind, providing at-a-glance overviews and direct application chapters. This is the only interdisciplinary volume available for locating and applying evidence-based assessment measures, treatment plans, and interventions. Particular attention has been given to providing practice guidelines and exemplars of evidence-based practice and practice-based research. The Evidence-Based Practice Manual emphasizes and summarizes key elements, issues, concepts, and how-to approaches in the development and application of evidence-based practice. Discussions include program evaluation, quality and operational improvement strategies, research grant applications, validating measurement tools, and utilizing statistical procedures. Concise summaries of the substantive evidence gained from methodologically rigorous quantitative and qualitative research provide make this is an accessible resource for a broad range of practitioners facing the mandate of evidence-based practice in the health and human services.
Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World (AAR Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion)
by Randall StyersSince the emergence of religious studies and the social sciences as academic disciplines, the concept of "magic" has played a major role in defining religion and in mediating the relation of religion to science. Across these disciplines, magic has regularly been configured as a definitively non-modern phenomenon, juxtaposed to distinctly modern models of religion and science. Yet this notion of magic has remained stubbornly amorphous. In Making Magic, Randall Styers seeks to account for the extraordinary vitality of scholarly discourse purporting to define and explain magic despite its failure to do just that. He argues that this persistence can best be explained in light of the Western drive to establish and secure distinctive norms for modern identity, norms based on narrow forms of instrumental rationality, industrious labor, rigidly defined sexual roles, and the containment of wayward forms of desire. Magic has served to designate a form of alterity or deviance against which dominant Western notions of appropriate religious piety, legitimate scientific rationality, and orderly social relations are brought into relief. Scholars have found magic an invaluable tool in their efforts to define the appropriate boundaries of religion and science. On a broader level, says Styers, magical thinking has served as an important foil for modernity itself. Debates over the nature of magic have offered a particularly rich site at which scholars have worked to define and to contest the nature of modernity and norms for life in the modern world.
Spatially Integrated Social Science (Spatial Information Systems)
by Michael F. Goodchild Donald G. JanelleSpatial analysis assists theoretical understanding and empirical testing in the social sciences, and rapidly expanding applications of geographic information technologies have advanced the spatial data-gathering needed for spatial analysis and model making. This much-needed volume covers outstanding examples of spatial thinking in the social sciences, with each chapter showing some aspect of how certain social processes can be understood by analyzing their spatial context. The audience for this work is as trans-disciplinary as its authorship because it contains approaches and methodologies useful to geography, anthropology, history, political science, economics, criminology, sociology, and statistics.
Voices from the Edge: Narratives about the Americans with Disabilities Act
by Ruth O'Brien Rogers M. SmithFear, rage, courage, discrimination. These are facts of everyday life for many Americans with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), has made working, traveling, and communicating easier for many individuals. But what recourse do individuals have when enforcement of the law is ambiguous or virtually nonexistent? And how will its changing definition affect individuals' lives-as well as their legal actions-in the future? What is life like in post-ADA America? Voices from the Edge seeks to challenge the mindset of those who would deny equal protection to the disabled, while providing informative analysis of the intent and application of the ADA for those who wish to learn more about disability rights. Giving voice to the many types of discrimination the disabled face--at a small Southern College, in the Library of Congress, on a New York City sidewalk--while illustrating the personal stakes underlying legal disputes over the ADA, this collection offers unparalleled insight into the lives behind the law. Contributors: Joan Aleshire on disability and the eye of the beholder. Achim Nowak on disclosing HIV. C.G.K. Atkins on being an academic liability. Stephen Kuusisto on hope without the tenure lifeboat. Leonard Kriegel on wheelchairs vs. NYC sidewalks. John Hockenberry on trying one's luck at public transit. Joan Tollifson on a license to drive disabled. Shawn Casey O'Brien on the blue beacon of accessibility. Jean Stewart on sign language in the ER. Ruth O'Brien on everything you wanted to know about the ADA.
Cruel and Unusual: Punishment and U.S. Culture
by Brian JarvisFrom the excesses of Puritan patriarchs to the barbarism of slavery and on into the prison-industrial complex, punishment in the US has a long and gruesome history. *BR**BR*In the post-Vietnam era, the prison population has increased tenfold and the death penalty has enjoyed a renaissance. Cruel and Unusual offers an exploration of the history of punishment as mediated in American culture. Grounding his analysis in Marxist theory, psychoanalysis and Foucault's influential work on discipline, Brian Jarvis examines a range of cultural texts, from seventeenth century execution sermons to twenty-first century prison films, to uncover the politics, economics and erotics of punishment. *BR**BR*This wide-ranging and interdisciplinary survey constructs a genealogy of cruelty through close reading of novels by Hawthorne and Melville, fictional accounts of the Rosenberg execution by Coover and Doctorow, slave narratives and prison writings by African Americans and the critically neglected genre of American prison films.
The Road to Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden's Right-Hand Man (Critical Studies on Islam)
by Montasser Al-ZayyatWritten by an Egyptian human rights lawyer, it is the first English-language account of the development of tensions between violent and non-violent factions in radical Islamist movements, from the perspective of an insider. It is also a biography of one of the world's most-wanted terrorists: Egyptian-born Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri. Widely recognized as the man who will take over the leadership of Al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden, he is also the reputed architect of the Riyadh bombings in Saudi Arabia.*BR**BR*The original version of this book sold widely across the Arabic world. Reproduced in translation here, with an extensive introduction from distinguished scholar Ibrahim Abu Rabi, it stands alone as an unrivalled account of the divisions within militant Islamist ideology. The author provides insight into the internal politics of Islamic Jihad, and the radicalisation of bin Laden's deputy; he examines Zawahiri's opposition to efforts by other militant Islamists to call a ceasefire with the Egyptian authorities; and he narrates the redirection of Zawahiri's activities towards the US and Israel.*BR**BR*As an insight into one of the key minds behind Al-Qaeda this book makes unparalleled and disturbing reading. It is an important document for anyone who seeks to understand how a minority extremist ideology came to have such an impact on world events.
Social Attitudes in Northern Ireland - the 9th Report: The Ninth Report
by Katrina Lloyd Paula Devine Anne Gray Deirdre HeenanThis book is an essential resource on attitudes to social and political issues in contemporary Northern Ireland. Within this report, an authoritative group of academics and those involved in informing policy-making within the community summarise and interpret data from the annual Northern Ireland Life and Times survey. Topics explored include the extent of change in attitudes centred on religion, politics and community relations. Other topics contribute to the more general social policy debate and include health, social capital, lifelong learning, men’s issues, culture and attitudes to work. *BR**BR*This is the ninth report in the series on social attitudes in Northern Ireland. The chapters draw on data from the 2000 and 2001 Northern Ireland Life and Times surveys, as well as on data from previous years, thus providing an in-depth examination of changing values in Northern Ireland.
Thinking about Crime: Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)
by Michael TonryIn this wide-ranging analysis, Michael Tonry argues that those responsible for crafting America's criminal justice policy have lost their way in a forest of good intentions, political cynicism, and public anxieties. American crime control politics over time have created a punishment system no one would knowingly have chosen yet one that no one seems able to change. Prevailing sensibilities rather than timeless truths govern the American war on crime, resulting in policies both wasteful and harsh. U.S. crime trends closely resemble those of other nations, yet American policies, shaped by different sensibilities, are much more punitive. Seamlessly blending history with an easy presentation of day-to-day realities and empirical evidence, Tonry proposes tangible, specific solutions that can serve as a platform for criminal justice reform. We know how to create an effective and humane criminal justice system. Now we must have the courage to do so, by abandoning the current status quo, which is both costly and cruel in favor of practices that will move America closer to the mainstream of contemporary Western values.
More Than a Music Box: Radio Cultures and Communities in a Multi-Media World (Polygons: Cultural Diversities and Intersections #8)
by Andrew CrisellSince the rise of television, much radio consists of 'capsule' news and music formats which are heard as background to other activities. However the medium offers a great deal more. This collection of essays shows how in North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and the South Pacific, radio continues to provide distinctive forms of content for the individual listener, yet also enables ethnic and cultural groups to maintain their sense of identity. Ranging from radio among the primordial communities to digital broadcasting and the internet, these essays suggest that the benefits and gratifications which radio confers remain unique and irreplaceable in this multi-media age.