- Table View
- List View
Communication as Gesture: Media(tion), Meaning, & Movement (Digital Activism and Society: Politics, Economy and Culture in Network Communication)
by Michael SchandorfWhile the concept of communication has long been bound to a reductive model of the exchange of information, very few scholars of communication would argue that these assumptions are realistic, without a long list of qualifying caveats. But the concept of communication, built from the integration of semiotic signification with the idea of information as the 'carrier' of transmitted meaning, is so deeply ingrained and simple that even displacing it can seem futile, if not absurd. Nevertheless, these foundational assumptions tightly constrain the ways in which any interactional phenomena can be conceived--and constraints upon our ways of understanding communication drastically limit our capacity to understand our worlds and the social processes that generate them, at any scale or level of abstraction. Communication as Gesture traces the concept of communication from its roots in classical rhetoric to its integration in structural linguistics, semiotics, information theory, and cybernetics, integrating perspectives from contemporary rhetorical theory, relational psychology, interactional sociology, philosophy, cognitive linguistics, discourse studies, multimodal semiotics, and more. Because so much of our contemporary world is lived with and through digital media technologies, the study of new media and social media provides a rich illustration of the constraints imposed by our reductive assumptions--and hints at the possibilities generated by rethinking them. The gesture theory of communication introduced presents a dimensional account of communication that is intuitively accessible and theoretically rich while overturning reductive assumptions of the linear character of interaction.
Communication as Gesture: Media(tion), Meaning, & Movement (Digital Activism and Society: Politics, Economy and Culture in Network Communication)
by Michael SchandorfWhile the concept of communication has long been bound to a reductive model of the exchange of information, very few scholars of communication would argue that these assumptions are realistic, without a long list of qualifying caveats. But the concept of communication, built from the integration of semiotic signification with the idea of information as the 'carrier' of transmitted meaning, is so deeply ingrained and simple that even displacing it can seem futile, if not absurd. Nevertheless, these foundational assumptions tightly constrain the ways in which any interactional phenomena can be conceived--and constraints upon our ways of understanding communication drastically limit our capacity to understand our worlds and the social processes that generate them, at any scale or level of abstraction. Communication as Gesture traces the concept of communication from its roots in classical rhetoric to its integration in structural linguistics, semiotics, information theory, and cybernetics, integrating perspectives from contemporary rhetorical theory, relational psychology, interactional sociology, philosophy, cognitive linguistics, discourse studies, multimodal semiotics, and more. Because so much of our contemporary world is lived with and through digital media technologies, the study of new media and social media provides a rich illustration of the constraints imposed by our reductive assumptions--and hints at the possibilities generated by rethinking them. The gesture theory of communication introduced presents a dimensional account of communication that is intuitively accessible and theoretically rich while overturning reductive assumptions of the linear character of interaction.
Communication, Commerce and Power: The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite, 1960-2000 (International Political Economy Series)
by Edward A. ComorIn this history of US-based direct broadcast satellite developments, the United States and other nation-states are shown to be the ultimate arbiters of their ongoing histories. In making this now unfashionable argument, Edward A. Comor directly challenges recent academic work that tends to privilege global processes over national, and argues that the contemporary world order is being shaped primarily by transnational rather than nation-state-based forces. In testing this orientation with empirical research on US foreign communication policy since 1960, Communication, Commerce and Power compels academics and policy makers to rethink commonplace assumptions about the characteristics and potentials of the contemporary and future international political economy.
Communication Complexity and Parallel Computing (Texts in Theoretical Computer Science. An EATCS Series)
by Juraj HromkovičThe communication complexity of two-party protocols is an only 15 years old complexity measure, but it is already considered to be one of the fundamen tal complexity measures of recent complexity theory. Similarly to Kolmogorov complexity in the theory of sequential computations, communication complex ity is used as a method for the study of the complexity of concrete computing problems in parallel information processing. Especially, it is applied to prove lower bounds that say what computer resources (time, hardware, memory size) are necessary to compute the given task. Besides the estimation of the compu tational difficulty of computing problems the proved lower bounds are useful for proving the optimality of algorithms that are already designed. In some cases the knowledge about the communication complexity of a given problem may be even helpful in searching for efficient algorithms to this problem. The study of communication complexity becomes a well-defined indepen dent area of complexity theory. In addition to a strong relation to several funda mental complexity measures (and so to several fundamental problems of com plexity theory) communication complexity has contributed to the study and to the understanding of the nature of determinism, nondeterminism, and random ness in algorithmics. There already exists a non-trivial mathematical machinery to handle the communication complexity of concrete computing problems, which gives a hope that the approach based on communication complexity will be in strumental in the study of several central open problems of recent complexity theory.
Communication in Modern Social Ordering: History and Philosophy
by Kai ErikssonCommunication in Modern Social Ordering investigates the modern history of communication in relation to the thinking of the political community in the United States. By illustrating the intertwining of the technological developments in communication methods and its community-building effects, the different representations of society and their political implications are examined against the development of communication systems from the telegraph, to the telephone, to computer networks. It was the telegraph that made communication a continual process, thus freeing it from the rhythmical motion of the postal service and from physical transportation in general, and provided both a model and a mechanism of control. Using the theories of both Foucault and Heidegger to provide a lens for new investigation, the author studies not the meanings of communication and its logic as such but rather the conditions and structures that allow meanings and logic to be formulated in the first place.The book offers an original combination of historical analysis with an ontological discussion of the evolution of telecommunications in the U.S. as a phenomenon of modern social ordering.
Communication Research Methods In Postmodern Culture: A Revisionist Approach
by Larry Z. LeslieThe second edition of Communication Research Methods in Postmodern Culture continues to explore research from a postmodern perspective. Typical qualitative and quantitative research methods are adjusted to fit the needs of contemporary culture. Each chapter is updated with new information and fresh examples. Included in the second edition is a new chapter on Internet and social media research. The author uses straightforward and easy-to-understand language. Both individual and group projects are among the suggested activities. This book is important for the study of communication in a changing political, social, economic, and technological environment.
Communication Research Methods In Postmodern Culture: A Revisionist Approach
by Larry Z. LeslieThe second edition of Communication Research Methods in Postmodern Culture continues to explore research from a postmodern perspective. Typical qualitative and quantitative research methods are adjusted to fit the needs of contemporary culture. Each chapter is updated with new information and fresh examples. Included in the second edition is a new chapter on Internet and social media research. The author uses straightforward and easy-to-understand language. Both individual and group projects are among the suggested activities. This book is important for the study of communication in a changing political, social, economic, and technological environment.
Communicative Action: Selected Papers of the 2013 IEAS Conference on Language and Action
by Tzu-Wei HungThis book focuses on the connection between action and verbal communication, exploring topics such as the mechanisms of language processing, action processing, voluntary and involuntary actions, knowledge of language and assertion. Communication modelling and aspects of communicative actions are considered, along with cognitive requirements for nonverbal and verbal communicative action.Contributions from expert authors are organised into three parts in this book, focussing on language in communication, action and bodily awareness and sensorimotor interaction and language acquisition.Readers will discover various methods that have been employed in investigations presented here, including neurological experiment, computational modeling and logical and philosophical analysis.These diverse expert perspectives shed light on the extent to which a mechanism for processing actions also facilitates the processing of language and the authors’ work prompts further interdisciplinary investigation of the relationship between language and action.This book is written for readers from different academic backgrounds; from graduate students to established academics in disciplines ranging from neuroscience to psychology, philosophy, linguistics and beyond.Earlier versions of the selected essays in this book were presented at the 2013 IEAS Conference on Language and Action, held in Taipei, Taiwan.
Communicative Competence, Classroom Interaction, and Educational Equity: The Selected Works of Courtney B. Cazden
by Courtney B. CazdenIn the World Library of Educationalists series, international scholars themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces—extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/or practical contributions—so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers thus are able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field, as well as the development of the field itself. Contributors to the series include: Michael Apple, James A. Banks, Joel Spring, William F. Pinar, Stephen J. Ball, Elliot Eisner, Howard Gardner, John Gilbert, Ivor F. Goodson, and Peter Jarvis. In this volume, Courtney B. Cazden, renowned educational sociolinguist, brings together a selection of her seminal work, organized around three themes: development of individual communicative competence in both oral and written language and discourse; classroom interaction in learning and teaching; and social justice/educational equity issues in wider contexts beyond the classroom. Since the 1970s, Cazden has been a key figure in the ethnography of schooling, focusing on children’s linguistic development (both oral and written) and the functions of language in formal education, primarily but not exclusively in the United States. Combining her experiences as a former primary schoolteacher with the insight and methodological rigor of a trained ethnographer and linguist, Cazden helped to establish ethnography and discourse analysis as central methodologies for analyzing classroom interaction. This capstone volume highlights her major contributions to the field.
Communicative Competence, Classroom Interaction, and Educational Equity: The Selected Works of Courtney B. Cazden
by Courtney B. CazdenIn the World Library of Educationalists series, international scholars themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces—extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/or practical contributions—so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers thus are able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field, as well as the development of the field itself. Contributors to the series include: Michael Apple, James A. Banks, Joel Spring, William F. Pinar, Stephen J. Ball, Elliot Eisner, Howard Gardner, John Gilbert, Ivor F. Goodson, and Peter Jarvis. In this volume, Courtney B. Cazden, renowned educational sociolinguist, brings together a selection of her seminal work, organized around three themes: development of individual communicative competence in both oral and written language and discourse; classroom interaction in learning and teaching; and social justice/educational equity issues in wider contexts beyond the classroom. Since the 1970s, Cazden has been a key figure in the ethnography of schooling, focusing on children’s linguistic development (both oral and written) and the functions of language in formal education, primarily but not exclusively in the United States. Combining her experiences as a former primary schoolteacher with the insight and methodological rigor of a trained ethnographer and linguist, Cazden helped to establish ethnography and discourse analysis as central methodologies for analyzing classroom interaction. This capstone volume highlights her major contributions to the field.
Communicative Ethics in Theory and Practice
by Niels Thomassen trans John IronsThis book provides a new system of communicative ethics which present an alternative to teleological and deontological ethics. It brings philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Logstrup, Gadamer and Habermas into the Anglo-American debate.
Communicology: Mutations in Human Relations? (Sensing Media: Aesthetics, Philosophy, and Cultures of Media)
by Vilém FlusserCommunicology is Vilém Flusser's first thesis on his concepts of technical images and technical imagination. In this foundational text he lays the groundwork for later work, offering a philosophical approach to communication as a phenomenon that permeates every aspect of human existence. Clearly organized around questions such as "What is Communication?," "What are Codes?," and "What is Technical Imagination?," the work touches on theater, photography, film, television, and more. Originally written in 1978, but only posthumously published in German, the book is one of the clearest statements of Flusser's theory of communication as involving a variably mediated relation between humans and the world. Although Flusser was writing in the 1970s, his work demonstrates a prescience that makes it of significant contemporary interest to scholars in visual culture, art history, media studies, and philosophy.
Communicology: Mutations in Human Relations? (Sensing Media: Aesthetics, Philosophy, and Cultures of Media)
by Vilém FlusserCommunicology is Vilém Flusser's first thesis on his concepts of technical images and technical imagination. In this foundational text he lays the groundwork for later work, offering a philosophical approach to communication as a phenomenon that permeates every aspect of human existence. Clearly organized around questions such as "What is Communication?," "What are Codes?," and "What is Technical Imagination?," the work touches on theater, photography, film, television, and more. Originally written in 1978, but only posthumously published in German, the book is one of the clearest statements of Flusser's theory of communication as involving a variably mediated relation between humans and the world. Although Flusser was writing in the 1970s, his work demonstrates a prescience that makes it of significant contemporary interest to scholars in visual culture, art history, media studies, and philosophy.
Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx Versus Friedrich List
by Roman SzporlukIn this highly original study, Roman Szporluk examines the relationship between the two dominant ideologies of the 19th century--communism and nationalism--and their enduring legacy in the 20th century. Szporluk argues that both Karl Marx's theory of communism and Friedrich List's theory of nationalism arose in response to the sweeping changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution, and that both sought to promote industrialization as a means of reforming the modern world. Each ideology, the author contends, developed in relation to the other and can best be understood as the product of a complex interweaving of the two, producing in the 20th century new forms of nationalism that have incorporated Marxism into the fabric of their movement and Marxist states that have adopted threads of nationalistic belief. Casting the role of List and the intellectual development of Marx in an unorthodox light, this book adds a new dimension to the debate over the boundaries of nationalism and socialism in the development of political ideologies.
Communism and Nationalism in Postwar Cyprus, 1945-1955: Politics and Ideologies Under British Rule
by Alexios AlecouThis book analyzes the events that impacted the structure and competitive processes of the two dominant Cypriot political factions while under the watchful eye of British rule. Based on new archival research, Alecou addresses the social and political environment in which the Cypriot Communists and Nationalists fought each other while at the same time had to fight the British Empire. The differences between communists and nationalists brought the two sides to a frontal collision in the wake of the events of the Greek civil war. The class conflict within Cypriot society would at some point inevitably lead, in one way or another, to a clash between the two factions. The civil war in Greece constituted another field of conflict between Left and Right, accelerating the formation of a bipolar party system in which the vertical division of the Greek community in Cyprus eventually expressed itself.
Communism, Political Power and Personal Freedom in Marx: Beyond the Dualism of Realms (Marx, Engels, and Marxisms)
by Levy del Aguila MarchenaThis book investigates communism in Marx’s writings, incorporating a consideration of communist politicity. The author outlines the arguments by which it is possible to sustain—from Marx—the idea that human emancipation against capital also means the elimination of the State, the public, and the political dimension of praxis. He also posits that the concrete tasks of the “management of the common” in a communist society require political mediations that allow us to confront the difference inherent to the personality of freely associated producers, as well as the ontological finitude from which no technical power can evade. Finally, assuming Marx as a starting point whose work remains an inescapable source for “thinking communism,” the book proposes a research agenda from Marx and beyond to continue in this imperative task.Levy del Aguila Marchena is Senior Professor and Chair of the Department of Management Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He has published extensively on Marx, political philosophy, and applied ethics.
Communism, Subaltern Studies and Postcolonial Theory: The Left in South India
by Nissim MannathukkarenThis book is a thematic history of the communist movement in Kerala, the first major region (in terms of population) in the world to democratically elect a communist government. It analyzes the nature of the transformation brought about by the communist movement in Kerala, and what its implications could be for other postcolonial societies. The volume engages with the key theoretical concepts in postcolonial theory and Subaltern Studies, and contributes to the debate between Marxism and postcolonial theory, especially its recent articulations. The volume presents a fresh empirical engagement with theoretical critiques of Subaltern Studies and postcolonial theory, in the context of their decades-long scholarship in India. It discusses important thematic moments in Kerala’s communist history which include — the processes by which it established its hegemony, its cultural interventions, the institution of land reforms and workers’ rights, and the democratic decentralization project, and, ultimately, communism’s incomplete national-popular and its massive failures with regard to the caste question. A significant contribution to scholarship on democracy and modernity in the Global South, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics, specifically political theory, democracy and political participation, political sociology, development studies, postcolonial theory, Subaltern Studies, Global South Studies, and South Asia Studies.
Communism, Subaltern Studies and Postcolonial Theory: The Left in South India
by Nissim MannathukkarenThis book is a thematic history of the communist movement in Kerala, the first major region (in terms of population) in the world to democratically elect a communist government. It analyzes the nature of the transformation brought about by the communist movement in Kerala, and what its implications could be for other postcolonial societies. The volume engages with the key theoretical concepts in postcolonial theory and Subaltern Studies, and contributes to the debate between Marxism and postcolonial theory, especially its recent articulations. The volume presents a fresh empirical engagement with theoretical critiques of Subaltern Studies and postcolonial theory, in the context of their decades-long scholarship in India. It discusses important thematic moments in Kerala’s communist history which include — the processes by which it established its hegemony, its cultural interventions, the institution of land reforms and workers’ rights, and the democratic decentralization project, and, ultimately, communism’s incomplete national-popular and its massive failures with regard to the caste question. A significant contribution to scholarship on democracy and modernity in the Global South, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics, specifically political theory, democracy and political participation, political sociology, development studies, postcolonial theory, Subaltern Studies, Global South Studies, and South Asia Studies.
Communism's Collapse, Democracy's Demise?: The Cultural Context and Consequences of the East German Revolution
by L. McFallsBased on original research, this book explores East German political culture and its role in the revolution of 1989 and in reunification. Specifically the book shows how a set of common values stabilised the communist regime until the 1980s, how the undermining of these values motivated revolutionary mobilization, and how the partial survival of this specific culture and its conflict with West German culture have contributed to the post-unification political crisis.
Communism's Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes
by Grigore Pop-Eleches Joshua A. TuckerIt has long been assumed that the historical legacy of Soviet Communism would have an important effect on post-communist states. However, prior research has focused primarily on the institutional legacy of communism. Communism's Shadow instead turns the focus to the individuals who inhabit post-communist countries, presenting a rigorous assessment of the legacy of communism on political attitudes.Post-communist citizens hold political, economic, and social opinions that consistently differ from individuals in other countries. Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua Tucker introduce two distinct frameworks to explain these differences, the first of which focuses on the effects of living in a post-communist country, and the second on living through communism. Drawing on large-scale research encompassing post-communist states and other countries around the globe, the authors demonstrate that living through communism has a clear, consistent influence on why citizens in post-communist countries are, on average, less supportive of democracy and markets and more supportive of state-provided social welfare. The longer citizens have lived through communism, especially as adults, the greater their support for beliefs associated with communist ideology—the one exception being opinions regarding gender equality.A thorough and nuanced examination of communist legacies' lasting influence on public opinion, Communism's Shadow highlights the ways in which political beliefs can outlast institutional regimes.
Communism's Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes (PDF)
by Grigore Pop-Eleches Joshua A. TuckerIt has long been assumed that the historical legacy of Soviet Communism would have an important effect on post-communist states. However, prior research has focused primarily on the institutional legacy of communism. Communism's Shadow instead turns the focus to the individuals who inhabit post-communist countries, presenting a rigorous assessment of the legacy of communism on political attitudes.Post-communist citizens hold political, economic, and social opinions that consistently differ from individuals in other countries. Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua Tucker introduce two distinct frameworks to explain these differences, the first of which focuses on the effects of living in a post-communist country, and the second on living through communism. Drawing on large-scale research encompassing post-communist states and other countries around the globe, the authors demonstrate that living through communism has a clear, consistent influence on why citizens in post-communist countries are, on average, less supportive of democracy and markets and more supportive of state-provided social welfare. The longer citizens have lived through communism, especially as adults, the greater their support for beliefs associated with communist ideology—the one exception being opinions regarding gender equality.A thorough and nuanced examination of communist legacies' lasting influence on public opinion, Communism's Shadow highlights the ways in which political beliefs can outlast institutional regimes.
Communist Ghosts: Post-Communist Thresholds, Critical Aesthetics and the Undoing of Modern Europe (Studies in the Psychosocial)
by Magda SchmukallaThis book explores post-communist thresholds as materializations of a specific crisis of modern European identity that was caused by the existence and sudden breakdown of Soviet-type communism. It shows how post-communist thresholds emerge where relics from the communist experience continue disrupting the routines and rhythms of a modern life and confront Europeans with cultural experiences, affects and material realities of the ‘enlightened world’ which they usually seek to repress or ignore. In exploring and writing through art projects which engage with the psychosocial fabric of such post-communist thresholds, this book finds ways of speaking and thinking through these transitory and paradox sites, and asks what we can say about other or new worlds, about new beginnings and endings as well as about decolonial and ethical ways of relating to the other when assessing the status quo of European modernity from within its liminal and crisis-driven sphere.
The Communist Ideology in Hungary: Handbook for Basic Research (Sovietica #23)
by E. LaszloThe immediate purpose of this handbook is to aid further research by stating, in a form providing handy reference, the facts concerning the Communist ideology in Hungary Following a narrative of the vicissitudes of that ideology prior to its power-phase - intended as a general introduction contributing to the proper assessment of the 1945-1965 period, which is the main concern of this book - the essential and relevant facts concerning the events, issues, organizations and opinions which have shaped post-war Hungarian Marxism Leninism are set out without indulging in lengthy commentaries and personal value-judgements. (Since even the 1956 revolution is treated thus - perhaps the most important, and certainly the most controversial single event of the above period - I should add that the reader interested in finding a detailed analysis and evaluation of the ideological relevance of that event may refer to my Individualism Collectivism and Political Power, The Hague, 1963, pp. 111-140. ) Despite the specificity of much of the data, sufficient translations of Hungarian titles, names and terms have been provided to render the present book useful for the investigator regardless of whether or not he reads Hungarian. But the fundamental purpose of this volume is to make a modest contribution to East-West understanding. It has arisen from the belief that the lessening of world-tensions is best served by understanding, and understanding is best served by objective information.