The terms “pseudo-event” and “media event” refer to the phenomenon that in modern societies many events are created with the sole aim of getting media coverage, or rather that events are staged in a way that lends itself to media coverage. Boorstin (1961) created the term “pseudo-event”. He sees pseudo-events as “synthetic news.” They do
Altheide and Snow (1979) were the first to use the term “media logic” to identify the specific frame of reference of the production of media culture in general and of the news in particular. They define media logic as a way of seeing and interpreting social affairs. Elements of this form of communication include the
Political advocacy is not journalists’ main concern. They are chiefly in the business of gathering and disseminating the daily news, and they define themselves more by their professionalism than by their partisanship. According to McQuail (1994, 145), “The height of [journalists’] professional skill is the exercise of a practical craft, which delivers the required institutional
Populism, a notoriously ambiguous concept, is a political ideology emphasizing the central role of the “ordinary people” in the political process. Populist leaders “see themselves as true democrats, voicing popular grievances and opinions systematically ignored by governments [and] mainstream parties” (Canovan 1999, 2–3). “Mediated populism” means the outcome of the close connection between media-originated dynamics
The phrase “deliberative polls” most often refers to political philosopher James Fishkin’s conception of a multi-stage opinion poll that incorporates systematic deliberation on policy issues. As such, Fishkin has trademarked the phrase “deliberative polling.” It can refer to other methods of introducing a deliberative component to public opinion research, some of which are touched on
Deliberativeness denotes a specific quality of political communication that centers around argumentative exchange in a climate of mutual respect and civility. Empirically, deliberativeness is a variable feature of political debate or discussion. From a normative point of view, the standard of deliberativeness can be used to evaluate political communication processes and settings, and to suggest
The concept of electronic democracy has intellectual as well as technological roots. Its intellectual roots are anchored in normative democratic theory and in the idea of participatory democracy. Technologically, it is rooted in dramatic changes in media technology that amount to a revolution in the field of communication. The communications revolution is a process that
Election campaigns are among the most important events in the lives of democracies and societies in transition. Campaigns often constitute the high points in public debate about political issues. Election campaign communication takes different forms in different national and regional contexts. It is shaped by both party and media systems and by the regulatory environment
The history of survey research is inseparably entwined with the development of election polling. As early as 1904, social scientists completed the first quantitative study focusing on the constituency of the Social Democratic Party in Germany. The breakthrough of the representative survey method in the year 1936 was brought about by the spectacularly successful election
Horse race journalism is a controversial form of political coverage. It means reporting on politics with the help of sports metaphors. Horse race journalism is particularly prevalent in election campaign coverage, mainly in the context of opinion polls. Horse race coverage looks approximately like this: at the beginning of the campaign, a candidate goes into
Issue management in politics refers to the process by which politicians, campaigns, parties, and other political groups identify, prioritize, develop, and convey positions on key issues. A fundamental early step in effective political issue management involves formative research where groups investigate the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of target audiences concerning policy preferences and problems. Some
The notion of issue voting refers to electoral choices that are based on the substance of politics – collective problems for which solutions are expected from governments. That responsibility for solving problems is ascribed to the political system is not self-evident. Political cultures differ with regard to the extent to which the state is commonly
The term “media democracy” insinuates that the media and mediated communication are of central relevance for modern democracies due to their decisive influence on (or consequences for) political institutions (macro level) and political actors (meso level) as well as individual citizens (micro level). Theoretically associated with the media democracy concept is the notion of a
Media diplomacy has become a major instrument of foreign policy, and journalists are more frequently and more intensively engaged in diplomatic events and processes. Sometimes they even initiate diplomatic processes. There are several ways in which the media can help or hinder diplomacy. The media functions both as an independent actor and as a tool
Cultural diversity is an increasingly salient issue for many organizations due to greater geographic mobility among potential members (including migration) and a decrease in barriers to participation in many countries. “Cultural diversity” is defined as the presence of members with different systems of understanding based on cultural or group affiliation (Cox 1993). These systems of
A core concept in organizational communication, participative processes refer to a wide range of efforts aimed at initiating or enhancing the involvement of employees in decision-making activities to which they would otherwise not have access by virtue of their positioning within an organizational hierarchy. Participative processes are generally discussed in opposition to or as a
Sense-making is an intersubjective process of making meaning for individuals, groups, organizations, and societies. Weick’s theorizing about organizing and sense-making (1979; 1995; 2006) has been particularly influential in considerations of sense-making and is oriented toward understanding how people identify and work through puzzling, plausible, or equivocal experiences and how organizing emerges through micro-level and collective
The theory of structuration by Anthony Giddens is one of the most influential perspectives of the late twentieth century in the communication discipline. Its main argument is that communication in social systems is not simply a matter of individual action or social structure but a joint product of both these moments: social action, including communication
Hierarchy is a defining characteristic of organizations. The earliest formal theories of organization – bureaucratic theory and administrative management – held hierarchy at the core of management processes, emphasizing chain of command, order, control, and discipline. These processes occur in the context of supervisor–subordinate relationships. Supervisor–subordinate relationships are workplace relationships in which one partner (the
Researchers examining new and emerging work forms not following the traditional “9-to5 schedule” often explore the impact of opportunities for employees to work remotely by teleworking or telecommuting (Nilles 1977). Teleworking may be defined as any form of work that substitutes information technology for work-related travel, so that work travels to the employee instead of
Symbolic convergence theory (SCT), a general communication theory, explains the emergence of a common symbolic consciousness – one that contains shared meanings, emotions, values, and motives for human action – among participants in a small group, organization, or other rhetorical community. SCT, as developed by Ernest Bormann, John Cragan, and Donald Shields, among others, is
Agenda building refers to the process by which news organizations and journalists feature, emphasize, and/or select certain events, issues, or sources to cover over others. Research in the area is closely linked to but distinct from the agenda-setting tradition which examines the connection between the issues portrayed in the news media and the issue priorities
The bandwagon effect is a phenomenon of public opinion impinging upon itself: in their political preferences people tend to follow what they perceive to be majorities in society. This implies that success breeds further success, and alternatives that appear to enjoy a broad popular backing are likely to gain even more support. The effect’s metaphorical
The candidate image construct is used in the study of political communication to explain how campaign messages affect voter perceptions of candidates. It is assumed that changes in the images of candidates lead to changes in candidate evaluations and choices in elections. This assumption is consistent with the vast voting behavior literature which indicates that
The term “critical approach” refers to a broad, interdisciplinary body of theory and research that conceives of organizations as dynamic sites of control and resistance. “Critical studies” covers several distinct yet related intellectual traditions, each of which examines the communicative practices through which control and resistance are produced, reproduced, and transformed in the process of
Postmodern approaches to organizational communication elude easy description. Broadly speaking, they are diverse forms of inquiry that challenge and reconstruct systems of power, identity, and representation. Since the 1980s, postmodern approaches, situated with reference to a larger critical tradition, have burgeoned in organizational communication studies. Under this rubric, many extant theories and methods in organizational
Organizational conflict is a frequent occurrence in most work settings. Whether rooted in interactions with co-workers, supervisors, or customers, conflict is an inevitable part of task and relational communication. Conflict refers to incompatibilities or perceptions of diametrically opposed goals and values that occur in the process of organizing. It includes disagreements about ideas, negotiations to
Advancing technology, global connectivity, and ethical lapses have resulted in an escalation in the frequency and intensity of organizational crises over the past two decades. Commensurate with the increase in crisis events, academic research in crisis communication has expanded, focusing predominantly on the role of communication in predicting, managing, and resolving crisis events. Definition Of
Organizational culture is the “set(s) of artifacts, values, and assumptions that emerge from the interactions of organizational members” (Keyton 2005, 1). These interactions create a social order or a communication construction of the organization. Thus, symbols, messages, and meaning create a continuous communication performance at work. This is why it is frequently stated that an
Organizational discourse is a burgeoning area of study featuring the role of discourse and communication in organizational dynamics. While its rhetorical and literary roots date back to the ancient Greeks, a more recent impetus has been the analysis of professional talk in institutional settings, beginning in the 1970s, and the role of slogans, creeds, jokes
Organizational ethics includes the consideration of a wide number of issues of rights, responsibilities, values, and proper conduct in contemporary organizations and in organizations’ relations to host societies. Conceptions and studies of organizational ethics have focused on both internal practices and social consequences and have been descriptive as well as normative. Unsurprisingly, questions of organizational
For organizational communication scholars, identification provides a key to understanding organizing practices, the individual–organization relationship, and the construction of selves. “Organizational identification” refers to the creation, maintenance, and modification of linkages between individuals and organizations, whereas “identity” refers to the conception of the self that defines the person’s position in the social order (Cheney 1983a;
Metaphors have played an important role in shaping the study of organizations and organizational communication since the 1980s. Various principles of metaphor have been used to conceptualize the abstract and complex domains of organizations and organizational communication; to imagine new constructs, theoretical insights, and perspectives; to analyze and understand organizational culture; and to facilitate organizational
Organizational structure is the set of formally stipulated rules and regulations that regulate and legitimate the organization’s work processes, communication, and other activities. An organization’s structure constrains interaction processes and biases the style and content of interaction; also, since organizational structure is the framework of any organization, it is the focus of discourse about organizational
Interest in the relationship between group communication and group problem-solving performance has a long and somewhat controversial history. Many trace interest in problem-solving in the group context back to the early work of Maximilian Ringelmann (1861–1931). Ringelmann first measured the effort of a single individual working alone, then measured how much more effort was achieved
When a decision-making group comes into discussion intending to choose among a set of possible courses of action, any disagreement among the members of the group regarding the best option normally results in some form of social influence. We assume that group members enter discussion having formulated a “pre-discussion preference” for a particular option, that
Institutional theory is a theoretical framework for analyzing social (particularly organizational) phenomena, which views the social world as significantly comprised of institutions – enduring rules, practices, and structures that set conditions on action. Institutions are fundamental in explaining the social world because they are built into the social order, and direct the flow of social
Interorganizational communication (IOC) emphasizes relationships organizations have with external constituents as opposed to relationships that occur internally. IOC research considers issues like information flows, information sharing, reputation, cooperation, competition, coalition building, and power. IOC theoretical developments are substantially multidisciplinary. Communication researchers often emphasize the understanding of who communicates with whom and about what. Economists and
Knowledge management (KM) is a key concept in today’s business world. While there is an element of fashion in its appearance toward the end of the 1990s (Swan et al. 1999), many of the world’s most successful corporations, businesses, and organizations are investing considerable resources in this enterprise (Alvesson & Karreman 2001). These knowledge projects
Leadership dynamics significantly shape communication in organizations. By defining leadership primarily as a process of persuasion, many scholars place communication at the very heart of leadership dynamics. The complex organizational relationships between leaders and followers can crucially influence the nature and extent of communication. Equally, the nature and extent of communication often reflects and reinforces
A learning organization is most simply described as an organization in which learning has become a part of the organizational culture. As Lehr and Rice (2002, 1062) state, “organizational learning is most often treated as an extended process through which organizations grow, change, adapt, and improve to remain viable.” Interest in learning organizations can be
In an effort to enhance the functioning of the much-maligned meeting, a variety of technological solutions have been introduced. These meeting technologies represent part of a rapidly growing industry focused on improving the millions of meetings held daily across the globe. Indeed, the increased use of collaborative teams, the growing number of virtual workers, the
Organizational assimilation refers to the process by which individuals move from “outsider” to full membership in an organization. Fredric Jablin (1982, 1987, 2001) developed a framework to consider the influence of communication on the social construction of role expectations and their enactments that considers the stages of vocational socialization, organizational entry, metamorphosis, and organizational exit.
Change is fundamental to organizing. To organize, or structure human activity intentionally to achieve collective goals, is in itself a change process – a movement from one state of being to another. A change process in the context of formal organizations may be defined as a sequence of events by which alteration occurs in the
In his monumental work Economy and society, Weber (1978, 1st pub. 1922), explained bureaucracy both in terms of principles of societal order and with respect to its place in the modern world. In seeking to answer the fundamental question “How do we understand un-coerced obedience?” Weber examined the history of societies and empires ranging from
Communication and other social networks have been the subject of considerable scholarship since the eighteenth century (Mattelart 2000), but the past two decades have produced unprecedented growth in network theorizing and research. Further, this interest in communication and information networks now spans the social sciences, including sociology, psychology, history, political science, organization science, and economics
Although scholars take differing perspectives on the purposes and functions of control and authority, the definitions of these two terms are quite clear. In an organization, to “control” means to constrain work processes, human activity, and environmental events so that the organization creates value. That is, a refrigerator-manufacturing business must control work processes so that
Organizational decision-making is a primary process in organizations. It has been the subject of much research, and numerous prescriptive frameworks have been advanced. A facile analogy with individual decision-making makes organizational decision processes seem relatively straightforward, but research has shown it to be complex and problematic. In its simplest form, decision-making is the process of
Employee dissent occurs when employees express their disagreement or contradictory opinions about workplace policies and practices to various audiences. The most notable and obvious cases of dissent occur when employees engage in whistleblowing by dissenting to industry regulatory bodies, the media, or both. However, not all employees feel the need to voice their concerns in
Emotional communication is central to many jobs. Stockbrokers express aggression, nurses communicate care, and emotions such as shame, pride, and fear are central in organizational evaluation. Nonetheless, organization studies have traditionally written out emotion, treating it as a private issue, a barrier to effectiveness, or something that should be controlled. Early research suggested that organizations
Multiple intellectual traditions exist within a dialogic perspective toward organizational communication. These intellectual traditions share a common set of theoretical inclinations that distinguish a dialogic perspective by focusing on discourse, holism, and tensionality (Stewart et al. 2004). First, dialogic approaches emphasize the centrality of discourse. A dialogic perspective focuses on both “little d” and “big
Engineers have linked the concepts of feedback and enhanced performance since the time of the industrial revolution, but the term “feedback” was coined only in 1948 by cybernetic theorist Norbert Weiner. In this early work, feedback was a signal which indicated a discrepancy between the goal of a system and its current state. Based on
Most generally, globalization is defined as “the widening, deepening, and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life” (Held et al. 1999, 5). Globalization is produced and maintained through communicative action. Political, cultural, social, and economic events are no longer bound by time or space. The free flow of goods, services
The study of group communication focuses on (1) the nature and effects of symbol usage in relatively small collectivities (a minimum of three people) on individual, relational, and collective processes and outcomes, as well as (2) how groups and group processes themselves are products of such symbolic activity. The study of how groups employ communication
An ideology is a consistent set of related ideas about the nature and goals of society, such as liberalism, conservatism, or socialism. Ideological bias refers to the skewed thoughts and perceptions that such perspectives can produce. One such misperception is pluralistic ignorance, an inaccurate perception of how a group member’s own opinions relate to those
The term “social perception” might seem a misnomer, as it refers less to how people perceive their social environment through their senses than to how they make a judgment. Unlike the color of a car or the loudness of a piece of music, both of which can be more or less directly perceived by the
According to the impersonal impact hypothesis, the mass media influence individuals’ perceptions of risk to others (societal-level risk), but not perceptions of risk to themselves (personal risk). Implicit in this hypothesis is the notion that individuals can compartmentalize various perceptions of risk, differentiating between societal-level judgments, or beliefs about the larger community with respect to
Unrealistic optimism, suggested by LeJeune and Alex in 1973, was described as the “illusion of unique invulnerability.” It was further developed by Weinstein (1980) in an article on individual perceptions of future life events. This illusion refers to an individual’s tendency to believe oneself invulnerable or at very low risk of suffering misfortune and victimization.
The mass media can play a significant role in shaping the social attitudes and social behaviors of children and adolescents. These effects are distinct from more general media effects that do not involve attitudes toward or behaviors with others, such as purchasing behaviors or learning educational content. Although parents exert the most influence on children
Developed by German survey and communication researcher Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in the 1960s and 1970s, the spiral of silence theory describes collective opinion formation and societal decision-making in situations where the issue being debated or decided upon is controversial and morally loaded. The theory is one of the most frequently cited and debated to emerge from
Stereotypes are positive or negative generalizations indiscriminately attributed to members of a group (Tamborini et al. 2000). They have a significant impact on individuals’ perception of and interactions with members of different social groups by conveying information about the social groups’ capabilities (e.g., fast learners, good athletes), personalities (e.g., shy, violent) and/or socio-economic status (e.g.
The third-person effect was introduced into communication research by W. Phillips Davison in 1983. The term conceptualizes his impression that people overestimate the impact that mass media content has on others – so-called “third persons”: In its broadest formulation, this hypothesis predicts that people will tend to overestimate the influence that mass communications have on
The term “video malaise” was coined by political scientist Michael Robinson in 1975 in reference to a hypothesis that viewership of televised public affairs programming results in an increased sense of malaise, or vague cynicism or detachment, regarding political institutions, processes, and actors. The rationale was based on a discernible decrease in the 1960s and
The bona fide group construct grew out of a concern over the external validity and generalizability of studies conducted on zero-history, laboratory groups. More than just a focus on studying naturally occurring groups, a bona fide group perspective focuses on characteristics of naturally occurring groups that do not exist in laboratory groups. The first conceptualization
The Zande (or Azande, using the Zande plural prefix a-) are popular in anthropological literature thanks to the works of prominent British ethnographer, E. E. Evans-Pritchard. They are well known for the brilliant political success of their noble clans, their Trickster tales, their music, and especially for their beliefs in witchcraft, magic, and oracles. The
The Zapotec are an ethnic group that has long inhabited modern Oaxaca in Mexico. The ancient Zapotec produced one of Mesoamerica’s earliest civilizations, replete with cities, monumental architecture, writing and calendrical systems, accomplished artisans, complex sociopolitical organization, and far-reaching economic ties. Contemporary Zapotec peoples refer to their ancestors as binni gula’sa’ (or Ben Zaa), the
A common feature in ancient Mesopotamian cities, a ziggurat was a square or rectilinear terraced platform with a temple at its summit. A stairway or ramp led from the ziggurat’s base to the temple, the residence of the city’s patron deity. Ziggurats vary in form and style; some of the largest and best-understood ziggurats have
Zinjanthropus is an extinct hominin discovered by Mary Leakey in 1959 at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The name Zinjanthropus literally means “East African Man.” The specimen for which the species Zinjanthropus boisei was named (OH5, or Olduvai Hominind 5) is also known as “Nutcracker man” because of its extremely large postcanine teeth (molars and premolars). Zinjan-thropus
Zooarchaeology is the study of human beings and their relationship to nonhuman animals. Research in this area involves the analysis of animal remains (also called faunal remains or archaeofauna) from archaeological sites, such as bone from amphibians, mammals, reptiles, birds, and fish, and shellfish such as lobster and mollusks. Animals have probably always played an
A zoological garden is an establishment housing collections of both wild and domestic animals that are exhibited to the public. Zoos reflect the curiosity and intrigue of humankind toward our animal kingdom. Zoos also reflect our responsibility as a species to promote conservation through education and make an attempt to manage our globe by studying
The largest Black ethnic group in South Africa is the Zulu, whose population stands at about nine million. The Zulu have a relatively brief history as an independent group. The term Zulu refers to the Nguni speaking people in KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. The Zulu are a branch of the southern Bantu, who have
The Amerindians known as the Zuni, Zuni, or Aashiwi (as they call themselves) number slightly more than 10,000. Their 640-square-mile reservation is located in the valley of a tributary of the Little Colorado River high in the rugged plateau country of western New Mexico. The main village, or Zuni Pueblo, known to its inhabitants as
Humans act, at least partly, on the basis of how they think others expect them to act. This means that humans have the capacity to know what others think or expect them to do. Some researchers have argued that understanding what others think is essential to social life and that successful human relationships depend on
Although today’s mixture of theories and approaches combining interpersonal and mass communication is a two-sided one (incorporating researchers with training in both fields), virtually all of the accessible research on media content in interpersonal communication has arisen from researchers primarily trained in the effects tradition of mass communication research, rather than from interpersonal communication researchers
In The people’s choice, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and his colleagues laid out many of the key issues that disciplines such as communication, political science, and sociology continue to struggle with when modeling the intersection of mass media and social networks (Lazarsfeld et al. 1948). More specifically, they offered two key constructs to explain the interplay
Media use is a central leisure-time activity for many families worldwide. Given the considerable time investment of family members in media use collectively and individually, and the fact that the family is the context in which young people are first exposed to media, it is important to study how family dynamics shape the use of
Communication scholars, psychologists, sociologists, and other social scientists have long been interested in how individuals interpret the real world around them. Although some of the information we receive in our daily lives is first-hand, much of what we know about our communities, states, countries, and the world comes to us through second-hand sources. Perceptions of
What do we mean when we say a story is realistic? At first, that may seem simple. One possibility is that realism is a characteristic of the genre – news is real and a soap opera is not. That explanation may work in many cases, but fiction is intended to capture aspects of reality that
Beyond one’s own direct experiences of the world, humans rely on communication to form impressions about the rest of reality. This fact makes communication a key to how people form their perceptions of reality. There is a rich literature grounded in communication dealing with the role of mass communication in forming individual-level judgments as well
Meta-analyses have been conducted within the last twenty years in four areas in the field of perceived social reality. Their results will be summarized here. It has to be noted from the start, though, that any meta-analysis summarizes only the existing literature at the time. The findings reported here should not be taken to reflect
Research on small group communication has a long history of examining how participation in groups affects perceived reality. Groups often create a shared reality in which to work, interact, and complete their tasks. As Herbert J. Simon (1976, 23) states, “A man does not live for months or years in a particular position in an
There are several definitions of pluralistic ignorance – in the fields of psychology, sociology, and communications the term is not used uniformly. But despite the differences in details, they all share a focus on the same phenomenon: the inaccuracy with which most people perceive or judge public opinion or at least the distribution of opinions
Work is the labor, task, or duty that is one’s accustomed means of livelihood. Anthropologists among social scientists have debated the significance of work in industrial and nonindustrial societies. In anthropology, emphasis is given to the association of the work concept to pertinent social relationships. Skills are learned powers of competence, developed aptitudes, or abilities.
Xenophanes was a Greek Presocratic philosopher, poet, rhapsode, and social and religious critic. Born circa 570 BC in the Ionian city of Colophon, Xenophanes spent a long life of “traveling counselor” and wanderer about the western Greek provinces, mainly in Sicily, once for a time associated with Elea on the Italian southwest coast, where he
In the modern world, the diversity of cultures on this planet becomes more evident when seen in the process of globalization. Both internal and external conflict during this process is certain, whereby overt and covert actions threaten a population’s autonomy, sovereignty, and nationalistic state. The resulting psychological state becomes that of xenophobia. Xenophobia is the
The Yabarana are an Orinoquian indigenous group of Amazonas State, Venezuela. Most live along the banks of the Parucito River in villages with a male leader or in the town of San Juan de Manapiare. But the Parucito River is their stronghold. The Indigenous Census of 1992 reported a total of 319 Yabarana, a figure
Since the early European-natives encounters, two main groups were identified in the southernmost region of the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego. Those groups were the Yaganes, or Ydmanas, in the region of the Beagle Channel and the Alakalufes, in the southwestern Chilean archipelagos (the Pacific Ocean end of the Strait of Magallanes). Yaganes are usually
As one of the most famous of all cultures in anthropology and beyond, the Yanomami are ethnographic celebrities. They are a large population of indigenous people living in a vast area of some 192,000 square kilometers in the Amazon rain forest. The heart of their homeland is the Sierra Parima, part of the Guyana Highlands
Robert Mearns Yerkes was an American psychobiologist who was among the most influential psychologists of the early 20th century. Although perhaps best known for his eugenic beliefs and role in the implementation of psychological tests for the United States Army in World War I, his most notable accomplishments were in nonhuman primate research. The Yerkes
Yeti is the mysterious giant bipedal creature of the eternal snows of the Himalayas. The yeti (yeh-teh) has always been a part of the cosmology of Lamaistic Buddhist peoples of the Himalayas, who class it as not quite human yet more than human, and keep relics of it in monasteries. As early as the 1830s, “westerners”
Y-STR is a relatively new term for geneticists, becoming common in DNA literature in the second half of the 1990s. The Y stands for the male chromosome, which, as a reproducing cell, does not recombine. STR is an abbreviation for short tandem repeat. Compared to other polymorphisms (different forms of the same trait), STR refers
Zafarraya is a Mousterian site located within the El Boquete de Zafarraya (The Zafarraya Pass) of the Sierra Tejeda Mountains in the northeastern portion of the Malaga province of southern Spain, near the border of the town of Alcaucin. Five layers of archaeological material typed to the Mousterian were identified during initial excavations (1980-1983) by
The media landscape of West Asia includes countries and media systems as diverse as Turkey, with big media conglomerate holdings; Lebanon, whose media strongly influence developments in the Arab media sector, state-controlled Syrian media, partly controlled media under the Palestinian National Authority (PNA); and pro-government media in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The media market
Social norms entail learned expectations of behavior or categorization that are deemed desirable, or at least appear as unproblematic (Sherif 1936) for a specific social group in a given situation. Mass media have been found to help shape perceptions of behavioral norms. These perceptions are consequential for health behaviors, social and sexual practices, democratic participation
Visual portrayals of women in the media tend to emphasize idealized standards of thinness and beauty that are beyond the reach of most women. The systematic analysis of the body type of fashion models (Silverstein et al. 1986) provide convincing evidence that women portrayed in glamorous roles in the popular media are thinner than the
Immediately following the debut of Nintendo in 1995, researchers questioned what effects games like Super Mario Brothers had on those who played them. Early video games consisted primarily of objects or unidentifiable characters such as Pac-Man. Now, through several technological advancements, game play is more complex and has begun to visually mimic real life. For
Television is the world’s storyteller, telling most of the stories to most of the people, most of the time. As such it has become our most common and constant learning environment, one that very few can or even want to escape or ignore. Children today are born into homes in which most stories are told
In a projection, a person attributes certain aspects of him or herself to others. The process is closely tied to identification in the psychology of personality. A disowning projection involves attributing negative aspects of the self to others, such as “selfish motives, evil intent . . . [or] stupid attitudes” (Cameron 1947). Cameron includes the
Our perceptions of reality may often rely on mass mediated images. Walter Lippmann’s classical work, Public Opinion, first published in 1922, highlighted the possibility that factual features of the world often have little relation to the perception and beliefs that people entertain about the world. Lippmann (1922) argued that the press’s depiction of events was
The term “extra-media data” describes a methodological approach to assessing the quality of media content. The phrase was coined in the early 1970s by Swedish scholar Karl Erik Rosengren (1970) during a controversy about the criteria needed to assess bias in the news. Scandinavian researchers Galtung and Ruge (1965) had criticized the coverage of foreign
False consensus is the inaccurate perception that our own beliefs are similar to those of others, when in fact they are not similar (Ross et al. 1977), and the tendency to see our behavioral choices and judgments as common and situationally appropriate, while viewing alternative responses as uncommon, deviant, and/or inappropriate (Mullen et al. 1985;
A person expresses false uniqueness, an inaccurate social comparison, when that individual perceives that differences between his or her own attitudes, abilities, and behaviors and those of others are larger than they really are (Suls & Wan 1987). This difference is thought especially prevalent when one’s own behavior is desirable and the individual estimates the
Benjamin Lee Whorf was a chemical engineer, a linguist, and an anthropologist. He pursued his interest in anthropology and linguistics as an avocation. While working as a fire prevention engineer (inspector), he developed an interest in linguistics, pursued in off hours and on business trips. Through his initial independent research and his later collaboration with
Raymond Williams was one of the foremost public intellectuals of the 20th century. As a social theorist and cultural critic, he had a major influence on various fields, including anthropology, literary criticism, media studies, and history. Born into a working-class family in Wales, his academic career led him to Cambridge and Oxford. He was a
Edward O. Wilson was born in Alabama on June 10, 1929. He grew up with an early interest in and utter fascination with the natural world. As he recalls, this enchantment began in the seventh year of his life when he spent the summer at Paradise Beach, near Pensacola, Florida. Wilson wandered the shores and
Clark Wissler was an influential American anthropologist, although his impact on anthropological theory is often overlooked. Many of Wissler’s ideas on culture area, culture pattern, universal culture pattern, and age and area distribution of cultural traits are still in use by anthropologists today. However, Wissler is rarely cited for his contributions to these theories. While
Witch doctor, also sometimes witchman, is an unfortunate term created by English speakers during colonial times in Africa to refer originally to healers using supernatural means, but it became a generic term for any sort of traditional healer anywhere, regardless of what methods were employed or what affliction was treated. It reflects a time when
The term witchcraft is used in a great number of ways, to refer to supernatural beliefs and practices that the user considers evil or dangerous. Some of its many meanings are confusing, and its use is frequently pejorative, and unless it is carefully defined by its user it can be quite misleading. But it is
Eric Robert Wolf spent his professional career defining and expanding issues such as peasant society, state formation, development of capitalism, and colonial expansion. He worked extensively to unite political anthropology, economic anthropology, and historical sociology. He worked with the Marxist concept of modes of production as a conceptual tool in studying the historical and materialist
Eric Wolf viewed culture as a web of relations, constantly changing over time. Power on the endpoints of the relationships is unequal, so that European merchants, for example, altered political arrangements in West Africa by trading guns for slaves, but relationships are mutually causal, and change extends in both directions. Nor is this a matter
In all four fields of anthropology (Cultural, Archaeology, Linguistics, and Physical Anthropology) women have made significant contributions to establishment and growth of the field. In addition to providing role models for future generations, the earliest women in the field pioneered pivotal studies, generating new questions and venues for research. The discussion of women in anthropology
Women’s Studies examines the scholarship and theory on the history, status, contributions, and experiences of women in diverse cultural communities, and on the significance of gender as a social construct and as an analytical category. Women’s Studies challenges the gendered knowledge base that was assumed to be universal. As an interdisciplinary course of study, Women’s
Public service broadcasting (PSB), according to McQuail (2005, 179), refers to “a system that is set up by law and generally financed by public funds (often a compulsory license fee paid by households) and given a large degree of editorial and operating independence.” Public service broadcasting is supposed to function independently of both the market
The Russian Federation is a 17.1 million km2 territory, on which a population of 146 million is unevenly distributed. It has borders with 14 countries in Europe and Asia. Russia is a federal republic comprised of 88 federal administrative units subordinate to the central government. Russia is divided into seven federal regions headed by plenipotentiaries
The Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are individually small but together have a population of more than 25 million people. Historically there are strong links between them and they have to a large extent a common history, which also includes much warfare up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The languages
Singapore, an island nation at the southern tip of mainland Southeast Asia, has a population of about 3.6 million made up of 77 percent Chinese, 14 percent Malays, 7 percent Indians, and 2 percent classified as others. A former British colony, the republic adopts the Westminster parliamentary system, and the government has been controlled by
South Africa had an estimated population of 47 million people in 2005. Eight in ten people were classified as African; among the rest, whites were the largest minority. Since 1994, there has been a constitutional democracy with an executive president elected by parliament, which recognizes 11 official languages (although these are still far from equitable
South Korea, in its pan-national homogeneity across many fronts, has been a friendly and profitable market for the mass media industry. All South Koreans speak in just one common language of their own, and they all come from just one identical race. Hence they all share an identical heritage from their common history, ancient and
Spain had in 2005 a population of 44.1 million inhabitants and was twelfth in world ranking in GDP. Just after Greece and Portugal, it became the third Mediterranean country in Europe to re-establish a democratic system in the early 1970s. The new regime after the death of the dictator General Francisco Franco in 1975 brought
Switzerland is a small, federal, non-EU-member country in the center of Europe. It has a population of 7.4 million people, about 21 percent of whom are foreigners, and four official languages, namely German (the first language of 64 percent of the population), French (20 percent), Italian (6.5 percent), and Romansh (0.5 percent). The media inflow
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (population 58.8 million; 2001 census) dates from the treaty that ceded an independent Irish Free State in 1921. This had followed on from the 1918 general elections, the first under near-universal suffrage, which had seen a rise in support for separatists in Ireland and the youthful
The United States of America, located in the northern hemisphere of the American continent, is a federal republic that consists of 50 states and the District of Columbia (capital: Washington). The population comprises 250.6 million people. The USA was created in 1776 out of 13 British colonies. The head of state is the president, and
War is armed combat (fighting with weapons) between warriors or soldiers from two different political communities. This definition puts emphasis on learning to use weapons because learning to use weapons is socialization for armed combat. Warfare by definition is differentiated from other forms of killing—those that occur within political communities; these are, namely, homicide, political
The study of warfare in prehistory is a specialty of its own embedded within the anthropology of war. To study prehistoric warfare requires knowledge of the conceptual and theoretical ideas set forth in the entries for “Feuding” and “War, Anthropology of,” as well as an awareness of how to apply this knowledge to the archeological
Washoe is a female chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) known for bringing insight into animal cognition, communication, and social complexity with her capacity for communicating via American Sign Language (ASL). Washoe was born in West Africa in 1965. It is suspected that she was taken to animal dealers after her mother was killed by hunters. Washoe
Alfred Lothar Wegener was born on the 1st of November 1880 in Berlin, and he died at the end of November 1930 in Greenland. His parents were preacher and orphanage director Dr. Richard Wegener and Anna Wegener, nee Schwarz. He was the youngest of their five children. In 1899, he took his school-leaving exam from
German-Jewish physical anthropologist and anatomist Franz Weidenreich was known for his evaluation and interpretation of Sinanthropus pekinensis. Born in Endenkoben, Germany, Weidenreich developed an interest in skeletal structure and bipedal locomotion. Educated at several universities, Weidenreich received his MD from the University of Strasbourg (1899) and remained to teach anatomy. Shortly after graduation, he was
Herbert George Wells was a novelist, prophet, and gadfly, one of the 20th-century’s most multitalented thinkers. Born on September 21,1866, in modest circumstances in Bromley, Kent, Wells narrowly avoided a life of penury and obscurity in the drapery trade his mother planned for him. He studied at the Normal School of Science at South Kensington
Leslie White was an American cultural anthropologist known for his neo-evolutionary viewpoint. White was born in Salida, Colorado, on January 19, 1900 and planned a career in the natural sciences before joining the Navy during World War I. This experience had a profound effect on him shifting his interests from the natural to the social
Timothy D. White received his PhD from the University of Michigan and concerned himself with integrative biology, physical anthropology, and human evolutionary studies. He is a man who wears many hats: He has performed many important roles relating to his profession as a highly recognized anthropologist and has made significant contributions to hominid evolution. In
Alfred North Whitehead had a long and illustrious career spanning more than 60 years spread out over two centuries. Although Whitehead’s contributions to anthropology are indirect and came principally toward the end of his life, his observations on the connections between nature and the human spirit were informed by a long lifetime of varied pursuits
American physical anthropologist Sherwood Washburn’s greatest contribution to the field of anthropology was promoting genetics to explain both human variation and as an acting guideline for the basis of a New Anthropology (1951). He was also instrumental in both the fields of primatology and forensic anthropology. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to a highly educated and
The Islamic Republic of Iran (population approx. 67,500,000 in 2004; adult literacy rate 77.1 percent) was established as a result of Iran’s revolution in 1979. The political system blends republican elements (i.e., regular parliamentary and presidential elections) with the idea of the “government of the Islamic jurist” (velayate faqih), developed during the 1960s and 1970s
Israel, a young democracy, established in 1948, with a 120-member unicameral parliament elected officially every four years in universal, proportional, nationwide elections, is located in the Middle East, along the eastern coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, bordered by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. It lies at the junction of three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Italy (population 58.4 million) is one of the founding members of the EU. It is a parliamentary republic; general elections are held every five years. The electoral system, formerly a mix of majoritarian rule and proportional representation, was changed to purely proportional before the general election of 2006. Governments and political parties have always displayed
Japan is an advanced industrialized country whose GNP/GDP is the second largest in the world. Its population is 127 million, which is the ninth largest in the world. The political system is a parliamentary democracy with the emperor as the state figurehead. The literacy rate is nearly 100 percent, and the per-capita income is about
Malaysia is a federation of 13 states covering an area of 329,750 square km. A parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy, Malaysia shares a border in common with five of the 10 ASEAN countries, namely Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, and the Philippines. It has a population of 26.6 million, comprising the three major ethnic
Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1810, and in 1822 it became a republic. Of the history prior to the 1910 revolution, the war between Mexico and the United States in the mid-nineteenth century needs to be mentioned, in which the former lost almost half of its territory – this became a permanent source
Despite its open borders and its central location between big European countries, the Netherlands (with a population of 16.3 million) has its own tradition with respect to both press and broadcasting, a tradition that is closely related to the country’s overall sociopolitical structure during most of the twentieth century. In the early years of the
This article focuses on the media systems in the Maghreb countries. The Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) as a political entity is characterized by authoritarian structures. The regimes are omnipresent in almost every aspect of daily life, including the media sector. The countries in question share strong similarities in terms of their early historical development
The Republic of Poland is one of the largest countries in central Europe, and in size of population (38.7 million people) ranks eighth in Europe. Of that population, 98 percent are of Polish ethnic origin, and over 90 percent are Roman Catholics. Politics in Poland takes place in the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic
Situated in southwestern Europe, Portugal covers an area of 92,152 sq km and has a population of 10.6 million (2006 estimate). The two biggest cities are Lisbon, the capital, and Oporto. The official language is Portuguese. The literacy rate is 93 percent, and 94 percent of the population are Roman Catholic. In 2005, the country’s
In the mid to late 19th century, Jules Gabriel Verne brought to the world an innovative approach to writing that was adventurous and romantic, yet scientifically sound. As the author of more than 60 novels, nearly 20 short stories, 30 plays, and various geographical works and opera librettos, Verne, along with H. G. Wells, is
Vikings, Norsemen, or Northmen were a successful group of marauders and conquerors who expanded their influence over much of Europe, parts of the Middle East, and as far east as Russia. These groups of Scandinavian clans rose to prominence during the late 8th century and continued to be a part of Western destabilization until the
A village is a relatively stable human community, in terms of location and composition, that is generally larger than a camp or dispersed hamlet but is smaller than a town or city. Some villages, however, only exist for a few months, as they represent a phase of an annual cycle (for example, the band villages
Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow was born on the 13th of October, 1821 in Schivelbein, Pomerania, Prussia (part of Poland now), and he died on the 5th of September 1902 in Berlin. He was the only child of the treasurer Karl Christian Virchow and his wife Johanna Maria, née Hesse, who was taking care of the
Gyôzô Vôrôs is an Egyptologist belonging to the new generation of Hungarian archaeologists. In spite of his young age (born in Pécs, Hungary, January 15, 1972), he became very accomplished and well known on an international level. Vôrôs has spent most of his professional life in Egypt, where he was working for the government of
Lev Semenovich Vygotsky was one of the former Soviet Union’s most important and influential psychologists. Although he died before he was 40, and his writings fell into disfavor by Stalin and were banned until 1956, he has left a lasting mark on both American and Continental scholars in numerous fields, from anthropology to cognitive science.
On May 22, 1813, Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany. He was destined to become both a supreme composer and accomplished conductor, as well as one of the towering geniuses of all time. As a child, he was especially interested in writing and the theater. Later, however, three memorable productions permanently determined his
The independent codiscoverer, with Charles Darwin, of the principle of evolution by natural selection, Wallace was born near Usk, Wales. Even as he trained for a career as a surveyor, Wallace developed a lively interest in natural history, and after he moved to England in 1844 a fortunate meeting with another amateur naturalist, Henry Walter
Anthony F. C. Wallace, born April 15, 1923, is a Canadian-born American anthropologist and historian best known for his work in community studies and ethnohistory, particularly social changes triggered by technological change. He received a PhD in 1950 from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he taught from 1951 to 1988. Wallace’s book The
Immanuel Wallerstein was born in New York in 1930. He attended Columbia University where he received his BA in 1951, his MA in 1954, and his PhD in 1959. He then continued to lecture at Columbia until 1971. Wallerstein became a Professor of Sociology at McGill University in 1971 and in 1976 he joined the
For centuries, China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences. But in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, China was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists, under chairman Mao Zedong, founded the People’s Republic of
With an area of 1.14 million square kilometers, Colombia is the fourth largest country in Latin America. The population is 45 million. Geographical conditions impede the infrastructural development as well as the opening up of an efficient system of communication. For several decades, a violent conflict has been going on in Colombia. As a consequence
A system is an assemblage of individual elements that together constitute a whole, with each component interacting with the others and with the outer world. Using this approach, a media system may be seen as consisting of different publishing entities, such as news agencies, the press, or television, which relate to each other. To give
With nearly 111,000 square kilometers Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean Sea. It is located only 180 kilometers off Florida on the American continent. Since 1976 the República de Cuba has been subdivided into 14 provinces of almost equal size and one special municipality (Isla de la Juventud). The total population is 11.3
The Czech Republic is located in the central part of Europe, with over 10 million inhabitants, Czech as the main official language, and a two-chamber parliamentary system. The state was founded after the split of former Czechoslovakia in 1993, which had belonged to the Soviet bloc after World War II. The current media system, established
Egypt occupies a leading political and cultural role in the Arab world as the region’s most populous state, with 72.6 million inhabitants. Until 1914, Egypt officially belonged to the Ottoman Empire. However, British economic and geopolitical interests in the region turned Egypt into a semi-colony from 1882 to 1952. The ongoing struggle for independence culminated
In its 543,965 square kilometers and some overseas dependencies, France has a population of 63 million. Currently under its Fifth Republic, a semi-presidential, semi parliamentary political system, and a founding member of the European Union, it is a democracy of long standing. As early as 1789, freedom of speech was one of the main claims
Germany is the most populous country in Europe, with 81 million inhabitants. Since 1990, it has been a federal republic consisting of 16 states. Until then the country had been separated into two states as a result of World War II (1939 –1945). Next to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), established in the western
The six Arab countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) passed through similar development stages evolving comparable media systems. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, the smaller Gulf States had been British protectorates, gaining their independence only in 1971 (Kuwait in 1961). Since extensive oil production started in
India, with a population of more than a billion, is a multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious, pluralistic society. Politically it is a union of states (28 states and 7 union territories) and a sovereign, secular, democratic republic with a bicameral, multi-party, parliamentary system of government based on a universal adult franchise. It is governed by a written
The Uranium-Lead (U-Pb) Dating is a method that encompasses several techniques that are employed in determining the geological age of both terrestrial and extraterrestrial (for example, meteorites) rocks. The method was first suggested by Boltwood in 1907 when he postulated lead to be the decay product of uranium. The method has a dating range from
Urban legends are those fanciful tales that grip listeners and are spread widely across continents and oceans while repeated by individuals often claiming the facts reported in the tale happened to a “friend of a friend,” or are based on “facts” reported in news reports that the teller of the tale had allegedly read in
Urban ecology is the study of humans and non-human organisms in urban areas, their interaction with their surroundings, and their reactions to environmental change. Anthropologists use theories, principles, or methods developed by ecologists to study how past cities arose, how current cities develop and change, and the effects of urban environments on people. Ecological Theories
Although ancient Egypt was once described as a “civilization without cities,” contrary archaeological evidence has mounted as increasing numbers of settlement sites have been surveyed and excavated. Settlement archaeology began taking off in Egyptology in the 1970s, and was manifested particularly in the innovative research projects at El-Amarna, Elephantine, and Hierakonpolis, amongst other sites. These
Located in Mexico’s modern-day state of Yucatan, Uxmal was a Late and Terminal Classic Maya center with considerable political and economic clout. The name Uxmal is thought to derive from Yucatec Maya, and roughly translates as “thrice built.” Given its history and spectacular architecture, Uxmal is well named. Archaeological excavations at Uxmal have been minimal
Anthropology has the highest regard for rigorous and honest research. Most anthropologists respect the internal, culturally defined explanations of truth of the people they study (emic) while doing scientific research (edic). Both types of research are part of cultural anthropology. In both cases, social facts are determined by observation; this requires actual field research. Both
Andrew P. Vayda is retired from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he was Professor in the Department of Human Ecology, Cook College, and Rutgers University. Vayda received his PhD in Anthropology from Columbia University. Vayda has maintained an interest in Popperian methodology and social science. He has taught numerous courses on the role
Located on the north coast of South America, Venezuela is a country of stunning scenery and extreme cultural diversity, including the forest-dwelling Yanomamo and modern Caracas with its economy fueled by petroleum. The climate is generally tropical, but diverse habitats from Amazon rain forest to tall, cold mountains support high biological diversity, including at least
The Venus of Willendorf, a small female figurine with exaggerated sexual characteristics, is arguably the most famous example of Paleolithic portable art. It was found in 1908 by archaeologist Joseph Szombathy near the town of Willendorf, Austria, in loess deposits dated to the Aurignacian period (24000-22000 years BP). It is currently housed in the Naturhistorisches
Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, an outstanding Russian mineralogist, biogeochemist, historian of science, philosopher, and political figure especially concerned himself with the origin and historical development of humankind as a natural stage of the biosphere evolution, and a place of man as an “autotrophic” species in a present-day biosphere. The peak of his research work fell on
Austria is a parliamentary democratic federal republic with a population of 8.26 million. The official language is German; regional official languages are Croatian, Slovenian, and Hungarian. The historical development of its media system can be divided into the following phases: the period 1621–1848 under the influence of censorship; the abolishment of censorship in the year
The Balkan states, situated in southeastern Europe, include Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia. Altogether, the Balkan states have a population of almost 54.5 million people of very diverse ethnic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds. Montenegro is the smallest of these states and Romania the largest. The Balkan states are emerging democracies with
The three countries on the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea in northeast Europe – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, known collectively as the Baltic states – had been subject to the empire-building policies of neighboring countries around the Baltic Sea since the thirteenth century before they first achieved independence from 1918 to 1940. In 1939
Argentina is located in the southernmost part of Latin America. It has more than 38 million inhabitants, the main language is Spanish, and the Catholic religion is predominant. Since 1983 it has had a democratic system of government which formally guarantees press freedom in its Constitution. Article 14 of Argentina’s National Constitution sets the guarantees
The evolution of the media system in Bolivia has been shaped by the nation’s particular geography, demography, culture, politics, and economy to produce a contradictory blend of innovation, richness, stagnation, and poverty. Land-locked in South America, Bolivia is perennially one of the most impoverished and politically unstable nations in Latin America, a legacy that has
Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, surpassed only by Russia, China, the USA, and Canada. It has over 180 million people, the largest Portuguese-speaking population in the world. Independent since 1822, Brazil suffered in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from several military and authoritarian regimes, and became a republican democracy again in
Canada is the world’s second-largest country by land area, occupying most of the northern part of North America between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and extending north to the Arctic Ocean. Originally founded as a union of British and former French colonies, Canada became a dominion in 1867 and gained independence from the United Kingdom
The Caribbean archipelago curves from Cuba in the northwest to Trinidad in the southeast. The islands have all been at some stage colonies, departments, or possessions of European or North American countries. This history has given the region a varied culture that has created divisions among groups of islands. The English-speaking group, for example, traditionally
Geographically, Central America includes parts of Mexico, i.e., the southern part of the Tehuantepec Isthmus, but traditionally it is composed of the countries of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. With the exception of Belize, which is a small country with about 300,000 inhabitants that did not gain its independence from
Chile is a country of over 16 million people, lying along the southwest coast of South America. Becoming independent from Spain after 1810, Chile evolved as a republic with strong democratic traditions, until a major coup in 1973. The development of media in Chile has been unique in its region, principally because of the following
As one of the most important proponents of humanistic approaches to anthropology, Edith Turner has influenced how anthropologists think about women’s roles within the discipline and how anthropologists write. Her first solo authored book, The Spirit and the Drum, originally written in the 1950s but not published until 1987, cannot easily be located in postmodern
Edward B. Tylor, founder of the study and curriculum of anthropology, is considered to be the first cultural evolutionist anthropologist and the father of the science of anthropology. Tylor was born the son of Quakers on October 2, 1832 in London, England. He attended school at Tottenham, but due to poor health withdrew to travel
Ubirr lies in Kakadu National Park in Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Kakadu encompasses nearly 5 million acres of land, most of which is inaccessible by car. Darwin, the closest city of any size, is a 12-hour drive from Ubirr. Ubirr first appears to be a rather chaotic collection of rock art.
Spanish novelist and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno is best known for his conception of the “tragic sense of life,” but was also a noted man of letters. Born in the Spanish Basque city of Bilbao, Unamuno studied philosophy and classics in the Spanish capital at the University of Madrid. In 1891, Unamuno was awarded a
Uniformitarianism is among the primary doctrines in the science of geology. It states that all processes that can be seen sculpting the Earth today have operated throughout geologic time and will continue to operate in the future. This also lends itself to the idea of “gradualism,” whereby change in our world is slow and gradual
When the United States decided to reverse the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, it did not act unilaterally. It turned to the United Nations (UN) Security Council. When the Security Council sought to learn the extent of chemical, biological, and nuclear arms in Iraq, it did not rely on U.S. forces. It dispatched inspectors from the
The universals in culture, which is part of the academic field known as the humanities, cannot be defined in a simple statement. The universals are the cumulative artistic and intellectual achievements of humanity. They are a body of work created by those who have been singled out for special praise, extraordinary achievers of whom all
The term language universal refers to those features or properties of language that are common to all languages. The notion that languages might share universal features creates a tension of sorts with conceptions of language, as developed by Boas and other early linguistic anthropologists, that held that languages (along with their respective cultures) were infinitely
The term untouchable is an English translation for the Indian terms antyaja and achhoot and refers to individuals and groups who inhabit the bottom rung of the hierarchical Indian social order known as the caste system. It is a social status forced upon those who either allegedly made serious transgressions against established orthodox Hindu rules
Located in modern southern Iraq, the ancient site of Ur (Arabic: Tall el-Muqayyar) grew from a modest agricultural village to one of the most important cities of Mesopotamian civilization. Popularly known as economic and religious center from the fifth millennium to the first millennium BCE. Although several archaeologists had worked there briefly before him, the
A sound bite is a portion of recorded human speech that is presented as part of a broadcast news report. Referred to by a variety of names, including actuality, sound clip, and sound-on-tape, the sound bite is characteristically the distillation of a person’s message, usually in one or two well-turned phrases or sentences. The overwhelming
Stereotypes are gross generalizations about people. A stereotype is a category-based cognitive response whose affective counterpart is prejudice and whose behavioral counterpart is discrimination. By judging others not on knowledge of their individual complexities but on their inclusion in an outgroup, stereotyping is categorical thinking that can engender racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other types
“Synchronization” means the selection and presentation of news to favor a medium’s marked editorial policy or stance. “Synchronized” news, then, is news selected and presented to support a medium’s anti- or pro-government sentiments, for instance, or its liberal or conservative philosophy (Schoenbach 1977). The principle of “comments are free; facts are sacred” is supposed to
Tabloid means compact size. In reference to the press it describes smaller sized newspapers. Yet in contemporary journalism the term tabloid refers to both newspapers and television and carries a strong normative evaluation of news work. In many respects, the term tabloid has become removed from its original meaning and attached itself to the idea
“Tabloidization” is a vaguely defined term that since the 1980s has been used to describe stylistic and content changes in journalism, usually perceived as representing a decline in traditional journalistic standards. To grasp the significance of the term, it is first essential to understand its root form – the tabloid. Although the term “tabloid” strictly
Since the advent of the post-World War II era, television has functioned as the quintessential mass medium. Television’s status as a central cultural storyteller that offers a widely shared lens on news information, media events, and fictional narratives has allowed it to transcend academic approaches and operate as a crucial object of study for a
News is a genre of mass media content resulting from journalists’ information gathering and editors’ decisions and following professional practices and norms. News is the product of teamwork in media outlets. According to functional-structural social theory, news content is information that seeks to meet social needs by observing the natural and human universe in order
Truth is a slippery concept, and philosophers since Aristotle have battled over its meaning. The most intuitive and widely adopted understanding of truth is that of correspondence theory – the idea that “true propositions tell it like it is;” that “for a proposition to be true is for it to correspond to the facts” (Blackburn
Most of what we know about violence in the media has explored violence on television. While some studies of television violence were conducted during the 1950s and 1960s, most of the information about the amount of violence on television in the US comes from the long-term research conducted as part of the Cultural Indicators (CI)
This article concentrates on media systems in countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. The SubSaharan media system was born in the colonial era. Following the partition of Africa in Berlin in 1884, the colonial era saw the establishment of mass media systems that initially served minority white settlers located in the emerging urban centers. Both early print
The tall, elaborately carved and painted totem pole represents the most famous and well-known type of Northwest Coast art. Images on these carvings depict crests, beings that in some time in the past interacted with a family ancestor and bestowed upon his lineage the right to tell its story and depict its image. Crests were
Totemism is often described as a kinship system linking humans ancestrally to powerful symbols present in the natural world. Totemic systems are said to be built around totems, which are fundamental signs of “kinship” running between human societies or individuals and the surrounding world. The term “totem” comes from “ototeman” in Algonquian (the largest family
Considered one of the most influential historians of the 20th century, Arnold J. Toynbee and his interpretations of the world’s civilizations have become standard reading for generations of students and scholars alike. Like Oswald Spengler before him, Toynbee wrote about human history as a series of civilizations, separated not by national characteristics, but by culture
Transnationalism is the idea that flows of transstate migrants and their symbolic and material accoutrements are bi- or multidirectional and ongoing. That is, where previous generations of migrants tended toward making a “clean break” with their societies of origin, many contemporary migrants continue to have ongoing ties with the communities from which they migrated. Transnationalism
From a Western perspective, travel begins with Europe’s fascination with the “Other.” Examples of this include religious pilgrimages and the Renaissance expeditions of trade and exploration. Undoubtedly, travel is also tied to colonization by European forces, beginning with the travels of the Portuguese to Africa in 1455 to obtain slave labor when Pope Nicolas V
A group of mammals belonging to the order Scandentia, and included in a single family, the Tupaiidae. They are endemic to the Indomalayan region, with a geographic range that extends from India to the Philippines. They reach their greatest diversity on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo, where ten of the twenty known species occur.
About one third of the world’s forests are tropical rain forests. They are the most ancient, diverse, complex, and productive ecosystems on the terrestrial surface of the Earth. Although they cover only about 6-8% of the land surface, they contain about half of all life, whether this is measured by the number of species (biological
The city of Troy, situated on the northwest coast of modern Turkey, occupies a special place in Western culture. The story of the sack of Troy told by Homer was considered history in antiquity, then myth, then imaginative poetry, and then history again. It provided a major theme for Western art throughout the millennia; created
The term “Tswana Bantu” refers to both ethnic peoples and a language. The Tswana Bantu population, related to the Sotho, divide themselves into subgroups (lineages): the Hurutshe, Gwaketse, Kgalagadi, Kgatha, Kwena, Malete, Ngwato, Rolong, Tawana, Thlaping, and Tlokwa. The country of Botswana (which literally means “Land of the Tswana”) bears the name of the Tswana
Colin M. Turnbull was born in Harrow, England and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. After serving in World War II in the British Royal Navy, he returned to Oxford and finished his education. Turnbull ultimately received his Ph.D. from Oxford in 1964. He also studied in India under Sri Anandamayl Ma and Sri Aurobindo (1949
Quality of the news is a difficult and complex concept to define. Who determines what is good quality and what is not? Quality depends in part on what uses and gratifications are demanded from the media. Taking a liberal standpoint one could say that quality is what the audience wants. Another view would be to
Although communication researchers talk and write eloquently about the quality press and seem to have a clear concept what the term means, hardly anyone has made an effort to define it. A short, impressionistic review of handbooks and lexica as well as of online resources like Wikipedia and Google shows the term “quality” in many
Radio is a media technology that permits one person or organization to communicate with many receivers over large distances via the electromagnetic spectrum and radiated electrons. Listening to radio is possible by modulating voice or music onto a radio wave that transmits at a predetermined signal. A radio receiver is tuned to the modulated carrier
Timely information delivered over radio waves dates back to the earliest stations and before ews). Lee de Forest reported the election night results via radio in 1916 and the first licensed US station to report election returns was KDKA in 1920. By 1924, radio broadcasts became a major influence on public opinion because they could
Since the earliest days of mass media, researchers, social critics, politicians, and the general public have been concerned about the extent to which media representations reflect or deviate from “reality.” Over the years, a great deal of research and public debate have revolved around the kinds of images of the world that are created and
Scandalization in the news refers to the apparent tendency for news content to focus on material exposing the foibles and misdemeanors of fellow citizens, especially the rich, famous, and powerful. Scandals themselves have an ancient pedigree. The original Greek terms, the noun “skandalon” and the verb “skandalizein,” refer to a spring-trap for prey, recalling the
Sensationalism may be defined as a theoretical concept that encompasses those features of journalistic products that are capable of attracting the attention of the audience. Since the early days of newspapers, complaints about sensationalism have recurrently emerged in public discussions about the quality of journalistic products. In a nutshell, these complaints pictured sensationalist news as
News and comment cannot coexist independently in a social system. Factual news and comment become twisted together like two strands of a rope. What is news? What is commentary? When we think of news, we often think of facts that refer to specific objects or events in the world. By contrast, commentary usually refers to
Initially named after the soap manufacturers who advertised in the program breaks, the soap opera has long attracted among the largest audiences of any broadcast genres while being also widely reviled for its supposedly cheap, trashy, and repetitive content. The soap opera audience has, in consequence, received similar criticism, for being mindless, stereotyped, and vulnerable
The nature of news content has changed during the past decades due to the changes in media environment. As new media such as cable television, satellite television, and the Internet have appeared, the news media market has become more competitive than ever and news contents have tended to be more audience-oriented and softer. The problem
Tierra del Fuego (“land of fire” in Spanish) is the southernmost tip of Argentina and Chile’s southern Patagonian territories. It is an archipelago that consists of a large island, called Tierra del Fuego as well, and a group of smaller islands separated from the continent by the Strait of Magellan. Half of the large island
From atop Tikal’s Temple IV, a structure that soars 65 meters into the air, it is possible to view one of the largest pre-Columbian Maya sites and its surrounding environs. Today, the jungle has reclaimed ownership of the city’s buildings, which were so carefully constructed by Tikal’s ancient inhabitants. Throughout the Classic period, however, Tikal
Tikopia, a Polynesian community near the eastern border of the Solomon Islands, is arguably the most thoroughly documented small-scale society in the ethnographic record. That documentation exists primarily as a result of investigations by Sir Raymond Firth in 1928-29, 1952, 1966, and 1973. Based on those four field visits, he published nine full-length books and
The many differences between the ways time is understood in different cultures, as well as the ways in which such differences might affect those cultures, can be divided into three main areas: what time is, how time is experienced, and how it is measured— the metaphysics of time, the perception of time, and the metric
The nature of time is a topic of commanding interest to scholars in many different academic disciplines. Anthropology has been concerned with time in two major ways. The first is how human beings create and express time, including the generic, universal, homogenous time of science that many people take for granted. The second concern is
Tiwanaku (also called Tiahuanaco) was a state-level society centered in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin of South America. The exact dates for this civilization are an issue of contention, but most archaeologists agree that the peak of Tiwanaku cultural expansion occurred between the 8th and 10th centuries AD. The civilization saw considerable change, including a
The Tlingit are a people who are part of the Na-Dene phyla, and reside in the southeast Alaska panhandle and inland Canada. They are a matriarchal society, receiving their lineage of crests from their mothers’ clans. From time immemorial they have been a powerful people living on the edges of the boreal forests, using cedar
The name Tlingit means in the people. These Native Americans continue to inhabit many of their aboriginal village sites along the southeastern coast of Alaska. Foraging people, they were well adapted to hunting and gathering in rugged temperate rain forest and at sea. Tlingit came to depend on income from fur trapping and an active
There is an inherent problem within African Acheulian and Middle Stone Age assemblages research: how to recognize culture and ethnicity and the period in which hominins evolved the cognitive ability to invent social solutions to perceived or real ecological and functional challenges. There also exists the challenge of establishing the relationships between the stone tool
The name Tonga is composed of to (to plant) and nga (a place). It also means “south.” Recent archaeological findings suggest people arrived in the archipelago or “land lying in the south” about 1500 BCE from Fiji, located northwest of Tonga. These first colonists, seafaring ancestors of the Polynesians, were a culture distinguished by Lapita
The term “narrative news story” refers most broadly to any sort of nonfiction storytelling, but more specifically to a news story that begins with an anecdote rather than a summary lead and then is organized in temporal sequence rather than either by inverted pyramid style or analytically. Narrative news has a long and varied history
Negativity is the tendency of humans to pay selective attention to events and behaviors that could have a negative impact on themselves or their group. Selective attention to negative events by primary observers, such as journalists, may result in overly negative reports to those who were not witnesses, which may result in anger or fear.
Neutrality is a concept deployed for safeguarding one’s position in the complex and sometimes hazardous world. Since the fourteenth century, the word neutrality has predominantly denoted nonalignment in the realms of politics, diplomacy, and war, in which no firm ground for neutrality can be assured. Thus, neutrality as nonalignment is dependent on the political judgment
News is a genre of mass media content resulting from journalists’ information gathering and editors’ decisions and following professional practices and norms. News is the product of teamwork in media outlets. According to functional-structural social theory, news content is information that seeks to meet social needs by observing the natural and human universe in order
The term “news factors” denotes characteristics of news stories about events and topics that contribute to making them newsworthy. Other than events (e.g., the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001) and topics (terrorism), news factors like “damage” are scientific constructs, which can be related to all kinds of events or topics. News factors
The term “news production and technology” describes the process and the tools that are necessary for formatting and disseminating journalistic content to an audience. Communication always needs a medium – be it air, paper, or electricity – to travel from producer to recipient, and the advance of technology has had a deep impact on forms
The composition of news in the mass media is shaped by a broad variety of causes – by the number and type of topical events, by the type of the media and the interests of their audiences, by professional routines and individual preferences of journalists, and by technical constraints and economic conditions (Shoemaker & Reese
Known as the chroniclers of daily life, newspapers assemble large amounts of information in the form of words, pictures, and graphics printed on lightweight, inexpensive paper stock for the purpose of informing and entertaining the public. Newspapers are portable, inexpensive, and printed either daily or weekly in tabloid or broadsheet format. Estimates indicate that there
The concept of “objectivity” connotes a set of practices and ideas, such as a stance of neutrality or balance in relation to the people and events being reported. It is a central ethos in journalism, especially in the Anglo American liberal democracies. It is also acquiring global significance as journalists seek new roles and institutional
Plurality refers to the existence of a multiplicity of identities and perspectives from which different groups and people experience social reality. A belief that this diversity should be a criterion for judging how power is distributed in society is termed pluralism; transferred to debates about the media, pluralism is an ideal that calls for versatile
The term “superorganic” was probably first used by the early sociologist Herbert Spencer in the late 19th century, in contrast to “inorganic”or “organic.”To Spencer, and other cultural-determinist sociologists and philosophers like Emile Durkheim and Auguste Comte, human society is superorganic in that it exists at a higher level of complexity than physical things or biological
William Graham Sumner, a founder of sociology and a brilliant anthropological theorist of normative order, was strongly influenced by the writings of the British evolutionist Herbert Spencer. Sumner was born in Paterson, New Jersey on October 30, 1840. He studied political economy and graduated from Yale University (1863). He studied French and Hebrew at the
Teleology (from Greek words telos, “end,” and logos, “reason, discourse”) is the study of processes in nature as they are driven by their ends, goals, and purposes. This is diametrically opposed to a mechanistic explanation based only on cause-effect sequences in time series. Teleological thinking was natural for mythical, anthropomorphic explanations of nature. A tradition
In the classification of architecture, the temple falls into the devotional class, that is, a building constructed as a place of worship. The ancient Indians, Egyptians, Sumerians, Greeks, and Romans all built beautiful temples, which are marked by their own individual characteristics. Temples in some form must have originated as soon as image worship came
Tenochtitlan was the capital city of the Aztec empire that occupied highland central Mexico during the 14th through 16th centuries. The city was composed of a ceremonial and administrative core surrounded by palaces and residences of the society’s elite. Aztec urbanites, numbering as many as a quarter of a million, comprised a diverse array of
Terra Amata is an open-air Lower Paleolithic, or Early Stone Age, site on the Mediterranean near the delta of the Paillon River in present-day Nice, France. Henri de Lumley, a 20th-century French archaeologist, excavated the site in 1966 prior to the construction of an apartment building, the lowest floor of which now houses the Terra
Territoriality involves rights to specific locations or bounded areas and the resources and activities within them. Our assumptions about territoriality often are shaped by the contemporary nation-state, which lays claim to a large number of rights over a large, unitary, and bounded territory. Also, we may well be influenced by the concept of private property
Textiles are woven and knit fibers and yarns that are twisted up in order to produce materials that are used every day. Human society produces numerous objects from the technology of textiles, for example, towels, sheets, carpet, clothing, toothbrushes, and upholstery. Also included are objects that use textiles to reinforce structures such as vehicle tires
Theory, from the Greek word for viewing or contemplation, has played a significant role in the understanding of science since the early 19th century but was not considered central before then. Instead, philosophers and scientists spoke more often of (Natural) Law and of hypothesis, defined by Mill as “any supposition which we make (either without
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was born September 13, 1931 to Laurence K. Marshall, founder of Raytheon Corporation, and Lorna McLean Marshall. She grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduated from Abbot Academy in Andover, Massachusetts in 1949, and then attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. After one year at Smith, her father retired from Raytheon and led
Media content takes many forms and is differentiated by code and convention, genre and technology. The term “content” refers to the nature of the representations that are communicated by media genres and technologies rather than the medium in which they are carried. Fictional media content is one such classificatory grouping, signaling a similarity in the
Framing of news has become a lively interdisciplinary research area in recent years. The sprawling growth of this research area has its roots both in the intellectual ferment spurred by the “linguistic turn” of social theories and political practices in the era of mediated politics. Although the extant framing studies vary in precise conceptual definitions
The term infotainment refers to a cluster of program types that blur traditional distinctions between information-oriented and entertainment-based genres of television programming. Primarily a pejorative term, infotainment is often used to denote the decline of hard news and public affairs discussion programs and the corresponding development of a variety of entertainment shows that mimic the
Instrumental actualization is first and foremost an approach to journalists’ news selection. The notion was formulated by Hans Mathias Kepplinger to explain the effect of journalists’ (political) opinions on news content. As an approach to news selection, instrumental actualization continues and complements approaches such as gatekeeping, news factors, and news values. The theory of instrumental
The Internet is a network of computer networks. In that sense, even though the content provided can often be similar to that offered by radio or television networks, a more appropriate structural analogy should probably be to telephone or telegraph networks. The Internet, telephone, and telegraph networks all originated as electronic means of communicating in
Between the release of the world wide web (WWW) standard in 1991, the start of the first online news publications worldwide in the mid-1990s, the Kidon Media-Link international database of 18,318 online news media in 2006, and the emergence of 70 million or more weblogs and podcasts, of which about one-tenth focus on news, one
The term “local news” is often used to refer to news with coverage of events in a local context, which would be contrasted with news of other localities, or of national or international scope. The geographic characteristics of local news have been regarded as forces with influence on shaping local media markets, labor, and media
No other popular mass medium rivals magazines for timelessness, permanence, and scope. Magazines reflect and mold the issues, opinions, and trends of the present; they also interpret and shape society’s collective memory of the past. Although critics fret about celebrity journalism and advertising pressure on editorial content, the diversity of magazines makes them a voice
The term media performance has a broad reference to the assessment of mass media according to a range of evaluative criteria and primarily employing “objective” methods. In practice most attention has been given to the product of mass media, its content as sent and received. The criteria applied are mainly derived either from professional goals
Tensions and contradictions abound in claims about media content and its relationship to popular taste and public morality. Media, especially mainstream media, reinforce prevailing norms of taste and morality by catering to them, but they also legitimize new and different standards of good and bad by circulating provocative and unorthodox material. Media coverage of scandals
The first evidence of human habitation on Tasmania dates from around 23,000-25,000 years ago, when the Bass Strait was actually a land bridge and allowed for easy passage between the mainland and Tasmania. Then, between 8,000-12,000 years ago, with the warming of the Earth, the Strait flooded, leaving the small population stranded for the longest
Taphonomy is the study of processes by which organic remains and traces are incorporated into the fossil record. The term is derived from Greek roots: taphos, meaning burial, and nomos, meaning law. Taphonomy is the subdiscipline of paleontology and archaeology predominantly concerned with the characteristics and context of fossil remains, in which the challenge of
Tamarins are one of 16 species of small New World monkeys grouped in two genera: Leontopithecus and Saguinus. They belong to the subfamily Callitrichinae, which also includes their smaller counterparts, the marmosets (Callithrix, Cebuella, and Mico) and Goeldi’s monkeys (Callimico). Callitrichines are the smallest monkeys in the world, with bodies ranging between 20-30 centimeters in
The Taj Mahal stands on the banks of the Yamuna River in the city of Agra, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is one of the most recognized buildings in the world. The Taj Mahal is actually a complex containing a mausoleum, a mosque, a guesthouse, a large entrance gate, and extensive
Taboo is a concept that originated in a very specific cultural meaning and became generalized in popular English. Popularly it means forbidden and to be avoided—by custom, or because of some danger, or under some general supernatural sanction, or by explicit divine order. But in anthropology, it has much more specific meaning. Based in the
Tahiti is part of the Society Islands, a group of 11 major islands and numerous smaller islets in the South Pacific also commonly referred to as French Polynesia; these islands are included geographically as part of East Polynesia by archaeologists. Tahiti is one of the windward isles of the archipelago, along with Maiao, Me’etia, Mo’orea
Syncretism is defined as any attempt to reconcile disparate—and sometimes opposite—beliefs and practices. It represents a blending of schools of thought and is often associated with establishing analogies between two or more discrete or formerly separate traditions. Most academic studies of syncretism focus on the blending of religion and myths from various cultures. Viewed positively
In its simplest definition, a symbol is a thing or action that represents another thing or action, and anthropologists agree that symboling is the unique cognitive capacity that allows advanced primates to have culture and to communicate their cultural concepts. Although they are used as synonyms, as verbs “symbolize” and “symbol” differ: to symbolize means
Swahili (more properly Kiswahili) is in the Bantu family of languages that dominate most of sub-Saharan Africa. It is used as a first language by about five million people along the East African coast from Mozambique and the Comoro Islands to Somalia. More important, it is used as a lingua franca (in the form of
Toward the end of the colonial era, there seemed an imperative to collect, record, and catalog as much about the disappearing cultures encountered by colonial Europe as possible. From the perspective of the 19th-century traveler, government official, and academic, it seemed that cultural traditions were rapidly becoming extinct following the perceived lure of the modern
No industry exists without a product or service to offer to customers. For mass media organizations the product they offer is their content. The primary business of the mass media is to produce content – fill the broadcast hours, the print pages, the Internet site. Because of limits of time and space, selection of content
Conflicts are endemic to the known social world and can be defined straightforwardly as struggles between opposing interests and outlooks. How the media report and represent conflicts have been questions throughout the history of media and communications research. From early studies of propaganda in World War I to the latest research into the media’s role
The mass media are an important, if not the most important, factor in the development of free opinion in democracies. That is to say that the media have a specific democratic responsibility (McQuail 1987, 117–118). It is no wonder that, apart from freedom of speech, free journalism, and a free media system, the diversity of
Between the local newspaper, radio updates, the evening television newscasts and now updates via the Internet, your PDA or your cell phone, news seems ubiquitous. But where does news come from? How does what you read and hear and view get to the point of being published or broadcast? Fundamentally, news is a construction, and
Credibility of messages, studied in the communication, psychology, sociology, political science, and other literatures, is generally defined as a collection of attributes of messages that make the message content or their senders valued relative to the information imparted. The attributes generally refer to either the sources of the messages’ content or the authenticity of their
Crime reporting represents a significant component of newspapers in the western world. This is the case for both broadsheets and tabloids, although crime coverage in tabloids tends to be more sensational, in terms of the types of crime covered, as well as the use of emotive language and visual images. The most up-to-date research in
The term “editorial” in the mass media refers to a format designed to express the outlet’s or a particular author’s commentary or political position most openly and legitimately. In editorials the different media outlets establish a particular ideological profile that distinguishes them from their competitors and binds to them certain segments of the audience. Editorials
Newspapers report political news and may also attempt to influence voting decisions through editorial endorsements, that is, formally stated support of political candidates or parties. In countries following the US and British system of organizing newsrooms, the news media have separate news and editorial staffs and pages, although it is not unusual for a news
Questions of media ethics address the way media practitioners – journalists, public relations (PR) representatives, bloggers, technical support staff – resolve various types of dilemmas they face, as well as the value judgments that media audiences make regarding media content and performance. What does it mean to be “responsible” as a media professional? How should
The Fairness Doctrine, from its inception in the 1940s to its demise in the 1980s, epitomizes American broadcast law in flux. In adopting the broadcast policy, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States intended broadcast licensees to make reasonable effort to discuss controversial issues and to do it fairly by affording equal treatment
Structuralism emerged in the 1970s as a departure from the theoretical foundations of structural functionalism. It is among a variety of approaches to the study of social structure based on the general premise that there exist underlying structures that form the foundation for a social reality that only appears to be variable and changing. From
Sudan is an ancient African nation; early Stone Age or Paleolithic sites suggest dates as early as 250,000 BCE. The states of Nobatia, Mukuria, and Alwa adopted Christianity for centuries until they converted to Islam in 1315. Today, Sudanese society is multi-ethnic and multi-religious. The medieval Funj Muslim kingdoms of the Blue Nile might well
The concept of subculture has a particularly strong, yet controversial trajectory in the social sciences in general and anthropology in particular. The concept was formulated in early social theory to address a variety of sociocultural forms that are included in a totality, be it society or national culture. These forms could be the subdivisions of
Shirley Strum has had an interest in primitive life since she was a child. This interest was furthered in a number of ways. She successfully pursued it at Stanford University where she earned a PhD in anthropology. This brought her to Kenya where she found a group of baboons nicknamed the Pumphouse Gang. She has
In most Muslim societies, pioneering Sufi mysticism taught the principles of Islam in a simple way by committing its disciples to a special moral and social order with a specific worshipping recitation based on the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith (the Prophet’s sayings and deeds). “The Mawlawiyah (“Mevlevis” in Turkish), known to the West as
Sumerian civilization began in the flood plains between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. Deep beneath the land that now covers most of modern day Iraq lies the ancient country of Sumer where Sumerian civilization thrived. It covered approximately half of Mesopotamia. From 3500-2000 BC, this civilization flourished in the Mesopotamian land where the first
Are science and theology reconcilable in terms of evolution? As both an eminent geopaleontologist and cosmic mystic, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin presented a dynamic worldview. He argued that the human species does occupy a special place within a spiritual universe, and that humankind is evolving toward an Omega Point as the end goal of converging
Technics can be a tool extending human body parts and senses or a combined physical system (man-tool, man-machine, man-natural process) created by a culture and utilizing human powers and external natural powers, structures, and systems for human cultural purposes. It is not important whether these systems and powers are predominantly animate or inanimate, natural or
Dedicating himself to the dual goals of “action anthropology” and the internationalization of anthropology, Sol Tax was instrumental in changing anthropological practice and pioneering new forums for anthropological debate. Although he published relatively little over the course of his career, Tax made significant contributions in three theoretical areas of anthropological research: acculturation, capitalism in small-scale
Tarsiers are small arboreal primates (genus Tarsius) that inhabit the forests of various islands of the Philippines, where they are active primarily during dawn and dusk. Their common and genus names reflect the fact that this small primate’s tarsal (ankle) bones are extremely long, making its “heel” a major component of hind limb elongation. Functionally
For over a century violence in the media has been framed as a “problem” by social commentators. The arrival of a new medium (from the early tabloids to comic books, from cinema to the Internet) has typically been accompanied by a wave of concern about its potential for “exposing” an audience to representations considered undesirable
Virtual reality (VR) has at least three dominant meanings in communications. Though the distinctions blur in some analyses, these largely discrete areas are: (1) immersive audiovisual technologies; (2) technologies that achieve a similar effect through their ubiquity and apparent removal from mundane reality; and (3) technologies, architectures, and social processes that in some degree resemble
Watergate was more than a break-in at Democratic national headquarters. It reflected a larger struggle over US foreign policy between an increasingly powerful executive branch and a resurgent legislative branch. The precursor to this struggle was US involvement in the war in Indochina. The Watergate crisis grew directly out of this war. As was usual
In the US, as in many other western countries, the link between the media and organized feminism goes back to the establishment of what in the west has been called “first wave feminism” in the nineteenth century. At the famous 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY the organizer Elizabeth Cady Stanton sought to
The accountability of the media is a normative notion that underlies the balance of freedom and social responsibility across media structure, performance, and product. In order to grasp the concept, we need to understand how closely related the two competing values of freedom and responsibility are. Press freedom has been constitutionally protected to guarantee a
The notion of media accountability concerns how to balance freedom and social responsibility in various aspects such as media structure, performance, and products. Accountability of the news is a notion concerning media products, especially public affairs reporting. News accountability may involve two different sub-dimensions: liability and answerability (McQuail 2005). The former mainly addresses the issues
Journalists operate under an ethic that includes a respect for truth as demonstrated by the accuracy of the information delivered to the public (Sartori 1987). On the basis of that accuracy, it is assumed, public opinion is formed in a democracy. Accuracy is closely related to the journalistic norms of fairness and objectivity and to
Balance is one of the most contested concepts in the wider academic and public debates about the role of the media in society, but the concept is particularly relevant to public service broadcasters, with the UK’s BBC being an international exemplar, for whom balance often is a specific mandate. While the print media claim objectivity