Attitudes have long been a focus of study by social scientists. In the first edition of the Handbook of social psychology in 1935, Gordon Allport referred to attitudes as an indispensable concept for social psychology. Today, attitudes have become an essential concept for the social sciences. Attitudes, defined as an evaluative response to an object
When most people think of memory, they tend to think of a place in which information is put and stored until it is needed, much like a library. Unfortunately, this metaphor is quite misleading in that it implies a static, veridical process. Nothing really happens to library books while sitting on the shelf; they may
It was the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus who first observed that nature had provided two ears but one tongue that we might hear from others twice as much as we speak. While the wisdom and practical values of listening have been understood throughout history, attempts to study listening as a social science and to include
The limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP) is the most recent version of a data-driven model that tries to explain how human beings process all types of mediated messages (A. Lang 2000, 2006a, 2006b). This model differs from the vast majority of communication theories in a number of ways. First, it is
Stereotypes are typically conceived of as cognitive categorizations of people into groups that are accompanied by descriptors of group members. Early discussions of stereotypes referenced them as “pictures” of groups or “types” of people (Lippmann 1922/ 1965). According to researchers, many attributes are used as a basis of stereotype-based categorization, including race, sex, age, class
Self-concept plays an important role in information processing by facilitating the processing of self-relevant information, enhancing retrieval of relevant information, and influencing interpretations of information. As the more comprehensive construct, “self ” includes identity, relationships, roles, personality, and the physical body, as well as notions of agency and consciousness. “Self-concept” refers to one’s personal identity
“Individual differences” (also known as “differential psychology”) is the area of psychology concerned with the scientific understanding of how, why, and to what degree people differ. Its two major objects of study are personality and intelligence, though emotion, motivation, vocational interests, and creativity also represent important, and increasingly researched, topics. Thus, individual difference factors attempt
The term “goal” refers to a future state of affairs that a person wishes to attain or maintain. Goals prompt planning, which, in turn, serves as the basis for action. From these simple premises, it is apparent that the core function of goals is to regulate behavior and that communicative goals and plans fall under
The goal of the extended parallel process model (EPPM) is to provide guidance on how to manage fear generated from communications about a threat. Fear is a powerful motivator, and the key to a successful communication about a threat is to channel this fear into a direction that promotes adaptive, self-protective actions, and prevents maladaptive
Emotion is a core part of human experience and, as such, plays a central role in numerous aspects of human communication. Contemporary communication research examines how emotion influences various communication processes and outcomes, how different aspects of communication influence diverse emotional states, and the multiple ways in which emotional states are expressed during the course
Antisocial work behaviors are typically broadly defined as physical and verbal assaults, threats, coercion, intimidation, and various forms of harassment that occur in the workplace. Although the media and popular press often highlight lethal forms of antisocial work behaviors, research evidence clearly demonstrates that non-lethal forms such as those listed above are the most prevalent
An apprenticeship is defined as the service or condition of an apprentice, the state in which a person is gaining instruction in a trade or art, typically under legal agreement. The core definitional attribute of being an apprentice is learning as a beginner, normally for a trade or an occupation. Formalized apprenticeships are viewed as
Blue-collar workers, or the working class, comprise a segmented and stratified population in which economic location influences potential career mobility. Defined as manual or services laborers, this working class can be divided into five categories, based on skills and type of industry: self-employed, skilled or craft employees, semiskilled or unskilled employees in core sectors, semiskilled
The boundaryless career concept widens our perspective toward a range of possible career forms both within and across organizations, but it is not primarily determined and driven by the career system of a single organization. The formulation of the boundaryless-career concept responds to the observation that stable employment and careers within organizations account for the
As the workforce ages, career counselors will increasingly be working with older workers, especially adults who work during retirement. Career counseling can now extend to a client’s retirement. Some individuals do take the traditional retirement route (i.e., move from full-time work to full-time leisure), but a substantial number of older Americans remain in the labor
The concept of career anchors evolved from research on adult development. Most of career theory focuses on selection of an occupation or on a classification of types of careers embedded in the occupational structure. Career anchor theory deals with the choices adults make when they are well into their careers and classifies adult careers in
The increasing specialization of today’s more diverse and technologically advanced labor market challenges employees and job seekers alike to continually evaluate their career choices and engage in career appraisal. The development of a comprehensive career plan is essential in understanding one’s interests, attributes, abilities, and values necessary to fit into this ever-changing vocational environment. Moreover
The comprehensive college and university career center is a uniquely American phenomenon that has evolved over the past 100 or more years in response to changing educational, economic, political, and social conditions. This entry identifies several historic events in the evolution of the career center, outlines the core functional elements, enumerates the behavioral objectives, and
Career coaching has become a popular form of career development services since the mid-1980s. The International Coach Federation has estimated that there are currently more than 10,000 career coaches in the United States. The general goal of career coaching is to assist clients’ personal and professional development so that they can (a) better identify or
Career construction theory provides a way of thinking about how individuals choose and use work. The theory presents a model for comprehending vocational behavior across the life cycle as well as methods and materials that career counselors use to help clients make vocational choices and maintain successful and satisfying work lives. It seeks to be
Marvin Harris is one of the most prominent contributors to 20th-century anthropological theory. He is best known as the originator of cultural materialism, a theoretical paradigm and research strategy aimed at providing causal explanations for differences and similarities in cultural behavior. Cultural materialism assumes that cultural patterns are ultimately derived from the practical problems of
Barbara Harrisson is an art historian, archaeologist, and naturalist renowned for her work on primate conservation and the prehistory of Borneo. Born into a German family in Silesia, Poland, her early academic studies were interrupted by the events of World War II. From 1953 to 1972, she conducted research in Borneo, mostly in collaboration with
The developed world has transformed from industrialized societies organized around the production of goods by machines into technocracies: societies organized around evolution through the development of sophisticated technologies and the global flow of information through these technologies. Thus, Davis-Floyd has labeled its dominant health care paradigm “the technocratic model of medicine” to highlight biomedicine’s precise
Shirley Brice Heath is professor emeritus of linguistics and English at Stanford University and has made significant contributions to both cultural and linguistic anthropology. Her focus is primarily within the United States, but she has also taught and carried out research in such diverse settings as Stockholm, Johannesburg, and Papua New Guinea. Her deeply engaged
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born on August 27, 1770, in Stuttgart, Germany, and died on November 18, 1831, in Berlin. He was born into a family of Swabian civil servants. In 1783, his mother, Christine Luise Hegel, nee Fromm (1741), died. After successfully completing his school exams at Gymansium illustre, he started studying at
The fields of phenomenology and existential philosophy found a powerful voice in Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher best known for his concept of Dasein. A controversial figure who initially embraced and later repudiated Hitler and the German Nazi Party, Heidegger’s philosophical and even cultural influence remained strong until late in his life. As a university
In the mid-to late 19th century, the eminent linguist, Orientalist, and comparative religions scholar Max Müller (1823-1900), one of the founders of the “scientific study of religion” (Religionswissenschaft) and the “father of nature mythology,” coined the term henotheism from the Greek words for “one” (hen, neuter) and “god” (theos). Müller had translated the Vedas from Sanskrit
Heraclitus was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, born in circa 540 in Greek colony of Ephesus, in Ionia, Asia Minor, where he is said he have spent all of his life, and died there circa 480 BC. He was known as “The Obscure” or “The Riddler,” due to his difficult, elliptical, and paradoxical style of writing.
Hermeneutics is both the science and art of interpretation and understanding and has been applied to a broad span of disciplines and forms of scholarly inquiry. The roots of the term trace back to the Greek verb hermeneuein, which means “to interpret” and is found in the works of both Aristotle and Plato. However, Grondin
Melville Jean Herskovits spent most of his career in the anthropology department of Northwestern University, which served as a base for research focused on West and East Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. He began as an assistant professor at Northwestern (1927), where he soon became chair (1938), created the first department of African
Ethics is at the heart of health communication. Ethical issues are embedded in a wide array of health communication activities that aim to influence people’s health-related beliefs or behaviors. These activities include disseminating information about particular health risks, persuading people to adopt healthy lifestyles or to persuade others to adopt healthy lifestyles, and modeling healthy
Action assembly theory (AAT) seeks to explain message behavior (both verbal and nonverbal) by describing the system of mental structures and processes that give rise to those behaviors. As such, AAT is a member of the broader class of cognitive theories of message production. AAT, in turn, is itself an umbrella category for any of
The body of work on aging and information processing has consistently indicated that, generally, cognitive performance deteriorates with age (Park & Minear 2004). Measures of speed, reasoning, and working memory all indicate a negative trend for age. Although these findings may seem bleak, there are some domains that remain intact. For instance, knowledge seems to
Aging affects many aspects of message production and processing. The nature of conversation changes: unlike young adults, dyads of older adults mix talk about the past with talk about the present which may help them achieve a shared sense of meaning and personal worth. Conversations with older adults are often marked by “painful self-disclosures” of
Mass communication’s impact has been shown at an individual level and in society at large, yet all mass communication must pass through the same narrow gateway before having these varied effects. Unless people receive mass communication through their eyes, ears, or touch, and cognitively process it, it is powerless. This is why researchers are interested
The concept of attention is one of the oldest and most commonly used in the communication literature. The concept is fraught with connotations that typically have little to do with the use of attention in a particular study because of its origins in vernacular language and the difficulty in separating everyday meaning from scientific meaning.
Attitude accessibility concerns how quickly an attitude is activated from memory. Attitudes that are more accessible from memory are more predictive of behavior, influence what messages are attended to, and how those messages are processed, and are more stable across time. Unfortunately, little is known about how to change the accessibility of attitudes from memory
Attributions are the cognitive and communicative processes involved in making sense of why someone acted the way he or she did. This sense-making usually revolves around attempts to determine the cause (i.e., why) and/or who is responsible for an action. Studied initially as a largely internal, psychological process (e.g., Heider 1958), researchers in communication often
The central question addressed by the concept of attitude–behavior consistency is whether people act in accord with their attitudes. In other words, does knowing a person’s attitude allow one to predict that person’s behavior? Our naïve theories lead us to believe that this is true: we assume that attitudes guide behavior. Although it may initially
The functional approach to attitudes specifies that people hold attitudes because those attitudes serve a purpose. Functions address the psychological motivations why individuals hold their attitudes. Initial theorizing about attitude functions assumed that an attitude served a primary function. Shavitt (1990) demonstrated that although certain attitude objects (e.g., air conditioners) lend themselves to one primary
Internet Careers Background Perhaps you’re a casual user of the Internet, occasionally surfing the Web and exchanging email. Perhaps you’ve published your own Web page and spend several hours a day online reading the latest news, checking stock quotes, buying groceries, doing research for a paper, or playing computer games. Regardless of your experience with
The primary function of the newspaper and magazine publishing industries is to inform the public. Newspapers provide details, explanations, and interpretations of current events in all areas of society, such as politics, entertainment, and international affairs. Magazines usually serve special interests or populations. Editorial and production costs of both newspapers and magazines are funded by
Publishing Careers Background The origins of publishing remain unknown. Historians have proposed various theories on the subject, but the best guess is that publishing came into existence when people developed written language, perhaps in Sumer in approximately 4000 BC. After it became possible to record information in writing, somebody had to decide which information was
Do the following statements describe you? Your computer is your favorite possession. You like to program for fun. People often come to you when they are stuck with a computer problem and need some help. You keep up-to-date on the latest software and hardware by visiting computer stores and reading computer magazines. Information Technology Career
In general, sports psychologists work with amateur and professional athletes to improve their mental and physical health, as well as athletic performances, by using goal setting, imagery, focus strategies, and relaxation techniques, among others. Sports psychologists also strive to help athletes to mentally prepare for competition. There are approximately 179,000 psychologists employed in the United
Affirmative action (AA) is a public policy designed to eliminate systemic bias against members of under-represented groups in employment and education. Although the use of AA is not limited to the United States, it can be argued that it is in the United States that AA has its greatest influence on business, education, and the
Along with race and gender, people commonly use age to categorize and form stereotypes about others. Ageism consists of a negative bias or stereotypical attitudes toward aging and the aged. It is maintained by persistent, mostly negative stereotypes and myths concerning older individuals. Age discrimination itself is an action; however, it is a consequence of
The American Counseling Association (ACA) is the world’s largest association exclusively representing professional counselors in all their various practice settings. Founded in 1952 as the American Personnel and Guidance Association (APGA), ACA changed its name to the American Association of Counseling and Development in 1983 and then to its current name, the American Counseling Association
The American Psychological Association (APA), the world’s largest psychology organization, has worked for more than 100 years to advance psychology as a science, as a profession, and as a way to promote health, education, and human welfare. Psychology is a dynamic and diverse field. Psychologists follow dozens of career paths and pursue their craft in
Anticipatory socialization is a term used to describe a variety of programs and initiatives offered by organizations that allow prospective employees to gain work experience prior to full-time employment. These programs include internships, apprenticeships, cooperative education assignments, and informational interviews. Each program is designed to help individuals, usually high school or college students, develop an
The Guarani Nandeva are an Amerindian group located in the Gran Chaco. Though most currently reside in Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina also have communities. They are considered one of Paraguay’s 17 to 20 indigenous groups. The following ethnonyms have been applied to them: Nanaigua, Tapiete, Tapii, and Yanaygua. The last Paraguayan indigenous census (2002) notes
Johannes Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg is generally credited with the simultaneous invention of movable metal typefaces as well as the concept of mass production through the use of a printing press. The invention of printing using a form of durable and movable type would eventually serve the needs of the masses. It was to be hailed
The Western use of the term gypsy denotes an ethnic group believed to have migrated out from India approximately 1,200 years ago, spreading throughout Europe, the Americas, and other countries. Known by many names (Tattare in Sweden; Tsiganes, Getan, or Manus, in France; Tchingheane in Turkey; Zingare in Italy; Zincali in Spain; Zigeuner in Germany;
Alfred Cort Haddon can take credit as the man most responsible for establishing and legitimating anthropology as an academic discipline in Britain. There were anthropologists before Haddon, but no one did as much as he did for the discipline in its early years. In Haddon’s words, anthropology was the “Cinderella science.” Haddon was born on
In Germany, Ernst Heinrich Haeckel devoted his life to defending Darwin’s theory of biological evolution. He was not reluctant to consider rigorously the philosophical ramifications and theological consequences of cosmic evolution in general and human evolution in particular. As a natural philosopher, he contributed to a sound scientific understanding of the nature of humankind and
The word Haida is a derivative from the words Ou Haadas, meaning “inlet people,” the name replied when asked by the first Europeans what tribe or people they were. Their homeland is called Haida Gwaii and is situated along the archipelagos of the Queen Charlotte Islands of Canada and the southern extremities of Prince of
Haiti is a country in the Caribbean that occupies one third of the island of Hispaniola. When Christopher Columbus set foot in Haiti in 1492, the island was inhabited by the Tainos Indians, who were put into slavery by the Spanish conquistadors. Within 30 years, the Indian population was decimated by the harshness of their
Since the beginning of excavation at this complex of mounds in 1920 to 1921, Harappa has remained the type site for the so-called Harappan Civilization, also known as “Indus” or “Indus Valley Civilization.” During the period from circa 2600 BC to 1900 BC, hundreds of settlements, some of them quite large, dotted the transborder region
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection requires heritable variation for selection to work on. In Darwin’s time, thinking about heritability centered on the idea of “blending inheritance”—the hypothesis that the offspring receive some average mix of the parental characters. If this were true, each generation would be more average than the last and variation
Harry F. Harlow is best known for his studies of mother love and the importance of social interaction in primate learning. He was born in Fairview, Iowa, in 1905. He received his BA and PhD in psychology from Stanford University and immediately joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, where he established the Psychology
The health belief model (HBM), prodigiously researched, has enjoyed sustained popularity amid evolving social norms, theories and models, and the recent developments of advanced technology influencing health behavior change. Developed by US Public Health Service social psychologists in the 1950s, the HBM was conceptualized to model the failure of individuals to engage in disease prevention
Health communication campaigns have long been a tool used to influence the health of the public in countries around the world. Campaigns are an organized set of communication activities to produce health effects or outcomes in a relatively large number of individuals, typically within a specified period of time (Rogers & Storey 1987). The history
The functions of modern mass media to give information, to provide orientation, and to promote health-related behaviors are widely recognized within the field of health communication. The media of television, radio, newspapers, and magazines influence intentionally or unintentionally, and mass media health campaigns are used purposively and effectively to change health practices. Nevertheless, the existing
The news media are an important source of health information, not just for the general public, but also for patients, for doctors and the medical community, for entertainment producers in search of story ideas, and for policymakers and funding organizations. Journalistic practices favor the use of established sources, so public health and medical journals are
Eliminating health disparities is one of the most pressing global health issues. In the United States, health disparities have been examined primarily as differences in groups based on racial, class, and ethnic classifications. Globally, the issue focuses on the differences between developing and developed nations in health status and access to state of the art
The association between education and health outcomes has been well documented, and education has historically been used as an indicator for socioeconomic status in epidemiological studies (Pamuk et al. 1998). Researchers hypothesize that education may protect against disease by influencing lifestyle behaviors, problem-solving abilities, and values. Other researchers have demonstrated a strong association between education
Media advocacy is the strategic use of mass media to support community organizing and to advance public policy that improves health. The purpose of media advocacy is to put pressure on policymakers by setting the agenda and shaping debate to include policy solutions in news coverage of health issues. Media advocacy equips people to become
Patient–provider communication, interaction between patients and professional and familial caregivers in formal health-care contexts, has significant influences on healthcare outcomes. During health-care, patients interact with numerous health-care professionals (e.g., primary providers, specialists, nurses) and familial providers (e.g., elderly adults’ children, spouses, young children’s parents). Familial providers interact with health-care professionals on behalf of patients (Eggly
The concept of social capital dates back more than 100 years and has intrigued academics, policymakers, and activists interested in understanding intergroup relations and social change in a variety of fields including communication, public health, sociology, and political science (Portes 1998). It has been seen as a promising way to examine how interaction and association
Interest in social support as an important determinant of people’s health stemmed from a number of influential papers published in the 1970s (e.g., Cobb 1976). These early writings suggested that people’s interpersonal relationships with members of their social network can reduce the negative impact of stress on their health. The specific mechanisms by which these
Wood Careers Background You can’t get away from it. It’s in your home. It’s in your school. It’s in your books and your paper and even your cereal boxes. Because wood is used for so many different purposes, you probably come in contact with it, in one form or another, several times every day. Wood
Accounting Career Background Even before the introduction of the first coins in about 600 BC, farmers kept track of their livestock and other valuable possessions in order to have an accurate financial record. Having 16 sheep, for example, meant the ability to trade up to 16 sheep for something else of equal value. The farmer
Retail business owners are entrepreneurs who start or buy their own businesses or franchise operations. They are responsible for all aspects of a business operation, from planning and ordering merchandise to overseeing day-to-day operations. Retail business owners sell such items as clothing, household appliances, groceries, jewelry, and furniture. History of Retail Business Owner Career Retailing
From the street cries of merchants selling their wares to today’s sophisticated electronic means of reaching customers, advertising has experienced a dramatic evolution. In its earliest days, advertising allowed merchants to go from street to shop, adopting symbols and later written signs to show the goods and services they offered. With the invention of paper
Sales Careers Background Sales is a complex and diverse field. It involves the selling of all types of physical goods, such as automobile parts, pharmaceuticals, clothing, health care products, books, and food, as well as services, such as automobile repair or rug cleaning. The selling of physical goods usually requires both a wholesaler and a
Media specialists are responsible for placing advertisements that will reach targeted customers and get the best response from the market for the least amount of money. Within the media department, media planners gather information about the sizes and types of audiences that can be reached through each of the various media and about the cost
Business Careers Background The practice of conducting business is as old as civilization itself. As long as people have been exchanging goods and services for payment of some sort, business transactions have been a part of life. Business was, in fact, one of the factors that led to America’s independence, when the early settlers, who
The computer industry has dramatically changed since the early 1800s when Charles Babbage conceived the basic parts of the modern computer. The Babbage model, known as the analytical engine, was composed of gears and levers and was the size of a desk calculator. Early computers, using vacuum tubes to store program concepts, were considered first-generation
Computer Science Career Field Background Computer science careers can be divided into three broad categories, by operation and industry sector: hardware, software, and the Internet. Hardware refers to the physical equipment of a computer, such as motherboards, memory chips, and microprocessors. Software includes the programs that tell the hardware exactly what to do and how
Software Careers Background The software industry comprises many facets: personal computer (PC) applications; operating systems for both stand-alone and networked systems; management tools for networks; enterprise software that enables efficient management of large corporations’ production, sales, and information systems; software applications and operating systems for mainframe computers; and customized software for specific industry management. Packaged
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on August 28, 1749 in Frankfurt a.M. Main and died March 22,1832 in Weimar. He was a poet, playwright, and novelist but also a natural philosopher, scientist, and minister (Geheimer Rat) of the duchy of Sachsen-WeimarEisenach. His parents—Katharine Elisabeth nee Textor and Johann Kaspar Goethe, a lawyer who held
Jane Goodall is a world-renowned primatologist who was born in London on April 3, 1934 to Mortimer and Vanne Goodall. Her family decided to move to England when Hitler began invading areas of Europe. She spent most of her childhood on the south coast of England in Bournemouth. She lived with her mother, her maternal
“Si” Goode was born in Houston, Texas in 1917. He died in 2003, holding the position of Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. In his career, he held many distinguished positions within academia, including his election as 63rd president of the American Sociological Association, in 1970. Goode earned a long list of academic awards
The wild gorilla of equatorial Africa is the largest of the four great apes; the mountain subspecies was discovered in 1847 but first scientifically described in 1902. Until recently, this primate was thought to be a brutish and ferocious animal of the jungle. However, field studies have revealed that this huge pongid is shy, gentle
Saving gorillas poses a great challenge to conservationists. Currently, gorilla populations suffer from habitat loss, hunting, and disease. The four subspecies of the large, black-haired great apes are found in Uganda, Rwanda, Zaire, Congo, Cameroon, and Nigeria. There are approximately 94,000 western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), 17,000 eastern lowland or Grauer’s gorillas (G. g.
In Victorian England, Philip Henry Gosse made an unusual attempt to reconcile the glaring discrepancy between the empirical facts of the earth sciences that supported the theory of evolution and the revealed beliefs of traditional religion. As a fundamentalist creationist of the Plymouth Brethren sect, he held to a strict and literal interpretation of the
Antonio Gramsci is considered one of the foremost Marxist theorists of the 20th century. Though he was not an anthropologist, his work has had a tremendous impact on the field of anthropology, and he was a major influence on social theorists of such stature as Louis Althusser, Raymond Williams, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas
The depositing of the dead in graves is only known from Homo sapiens and Homo Neandertalensis. Graves belong to the earliest and most important testimonies of human culture. But in many recent cultures, burials do not imply as a necessary accompaniment any kind of grave. The act of burying associated with ritual practices is a
A distinguished anthropologist and linguist, Joseph Harold Greenberg was most well-known for his work in universals of language and comparative language studies. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 28, 1915, and died from pancreatic cancer on May 7, 2001. He was gifted musically, taught himself Hebrew, and in high school studied Latin
Grooming is a common everyday activity of many members of the order Primates. Grooming consists of going through the fur, using either the hands or teeth, to remove debris. Some species of primates have specific adaptations for grooming. For example, in prosimians, the incisors and canines of the lower jaw jut out, forming a comblike
Sexism in the media relates to concerns about a range of gender inequalities – in content, employment, policy, decision-making, and ownership – that have been a major focus of women’s liberation movements throughout the world since the 1970s. Mass media matter to women everywhere. They play a central role in the formulation and dissemination of
The representation of sexual violence has been subject to critical inquiry in two main ways. One strand of research explores whether scenes of sexual violence (in films, computer games, and pornography magazines) might trigger sexual aggression. This sort of research is often pursued under the umbrella of psychology and criminology. A second strand, more often
Sexualization is a concept used in communication research, primarily by feminist and gender studies researchers, to describe an increasingly close link between media images of men, women, and inanimate objects and human sexuality. Historical portrayals of sexuality tended to focus on psychological characteristics such as passivity and domesticity for women, and aggression and work for
Woman as sign is a semiotic construct developed by feminist scholars trying to explain the ways in which women’s status in patriarchal society is understood, communicated, and acted on through institutional practices. Film scholar Laura Mulvey’s (1975) application of psychoanalysis to film theory was foundational to the construct’s development. Mulvey argued that woman stands in
Images of women in the media have presented a serious problem and challenge to feminist activists and scholars concerned about women’s status in society. In the US in particular, but also in other parts of the world, the type, quality, and number of images of women in various fictional and nonfictional genres (in film, television
With the general growth of gender research across multiple disciplines, it is not surprising that issues surrounding women’s language and communication have become a popular area of study. Research in this area has been traced back to a 1664 report that cited differences in speech forms of “Carib” women and men (Jesperson 1922). This research
Women’s media genres include women’s magazines and romances in print media, the soap opera on television, and romantic comedy in film. They are not generally the corollary of men’s media but defined in contrast to general audience media such as newspapers or “family genres,” including situation comedies, quiz shows, and action series on television. In
It is widely recognized that cultural norms, values, beliefs, and practices vary among population sub-groups, and influence how members of a group seek, understand, process, communicate, and act upon information about health. Ignoring these cultural differences during health and medical system interactions can have serious consequences that lead to or exacerbate disparities in health status
Much has been written in recent years about the issues of disclosing and communicating health information (including genetic information) in biomedical research and medical practice. Various guidelines and policy statements have been adopted internationally, but these are contradictory and the criteria they set out sometimes vague. Given the complexity of the ethical landscape surrounding this
The transtheoretical model is an integrative model of behavior change, combining key constructs from other theories. The model describes how people modify a problem behavior or acquire a positive behavior. It has been very influential in guiding the design of behavior change interventions during the last two decades. The central organizing construct of the model
Telecommunications Careers Background The telecommunications industry, which consists of the telephone, computer, and cable TV industries, has its roots in the telephone industry. The telephone industry is the nerve system of the United States, consisting of millions of telephones and a vast network of switching and transmission systems. To provide the kind of service required
Television Careers Background Modern television developed from experiments with electricity and vacuum tubes in the mid-1800s, but it was not until 1939, when President Franklin Roosevelt used television to open the New York World’s Fair, that the public realized the power of television as a means of communication. Several television stations went on the air
Textiles Careers Background The word textile originally referred only to fabrics made by weaving yarn on a loom. Today, the textile industry includes knitted goods, braids, and other fabrics that are made from fibers, yarns, and other materials. Textiles may be made from natural products, such as cotton, linen, wool, and mohair, or from synthetic
Theater Careers Background Theatrical performance is among the oldest of human art forms. It probably began with storytelling to recount recent and historical events in small communities. Ancient peoples often performed elaborate rituals to ask spirits or gods for success in hunting or in battle. Sometimes community leaders or religious officials wore masks and colorful
Toys and Games Careers Background Toys and games have been around for centuries. In 1600 BC, children used swings on the island of Crete. Dice have been found in 2,000-year-old Egyptian tombs. American Indian, Chinese, and African dice and other playing pieces have also been found in archaeological digs. Dice are the oldest known game
The transportation industry includes air, rail, road, and water travel, and its core business is transporting passengers and moving freight. Each branch of the transportation industry employs workers in a variety of positions, from managers who coordinate shipping schedules to freight handlers to customer service representatives to conductors and even safety inspectors. Many workers are
Travel and Tourism Careers Background People have always traveled. In ancient times, people moved from area to area to search for food or better living conditions. When the Roman Empire was at the peak of its power in AD 100, it built the first great system of roads (29 highways in all) connecting Rome to
Trucking Careers Background The trucking industry is an integral part of the nation’s economy. Along with ships, airplanes, and railroads, trucks move freight quickly and efficiently, from city to city. Almost everything Americans eat, wear, or use at home or in business has completed some part of its journey from the manufacturer to the merchant
Visual Arts Careers Background Black Iris Georgia O’Keefe’s painting Black Iris, Michelangelo’s sculpture David, and Robert Mapplethorpe’s photograph Fish, all express the diversity of the visual arts. Today, visual arts include not only the traditional fields of painting, drawing, and sculpture but also illustration, photography, filmmaking, needlework, even computer animation, as well as many others.
Waste Management Careers Background Most people rarely give a second thought to garbage. We throw away what we don’t need, and it is “out of sight, out of mind.” But were the waste-management industry to grind to a halt, Americans would quickly discover how much our way of life has come to depend on someone
Coined in 1906 by Russian biologist Eli Metchnikoff, the word gerontology is historically derived from the Greek word geront, meaning “old man,” and logia, meaning “the study of” By definition, gerontology is the scientific study of the biological, psychological, historical, sociological, and economic aspects of human aging. Research is aimed at discovering the processes inherent
Gesellschaft, which I will here translate as “society,” is one of the most ambiguous sociological notions. One talks about caste societies, class societies, open and closed societies, agrarian, socialist, capitalist, industrial, civil, and pluralist societies, static and dynamic societies, and many other types of societies. All types of societies are particularly being dealt with within
The Ghost Dance originated among the Great Basin Paiute as a religious movement arising out of the extreme social, political, economic, demographic, cultural, and personal stress brought about by the rapid incursion of Europeans and, later, Americans into North America. Anthropologists refer to such movements as revitalization, nativistic, new religious, and/or transformative social movements. As
Gibbons are members of the order Primates, family Hylobatidae, and genus Hylobates. They are most notably known for their unique vocalizations and long arm spans, which can reach twice the length of their bodies. Slender and agile, gibbons usually loco-mote using their long arms in a movement known as brachiation. Their hands, equipped with long
Gigantopithecus is the name given to an extinct ape discovered by G. H. R. von Koenigswald, in 1935. The two species, Gigantopithecus blacki (named after Koenigswald’s late friend and colleague Davidson Black) and G. giganteus (formerly bilaspurensis), are known primarily by teeth and jaws. The first tooth (as well as many of the more than
The Contested Territory of Globalization The term globalization has entered modern parlance with increasing frequency, but in such varied contexts with such varied meanings as to render the term less than useful. All agree that it describes a perspective beyond the personal, local, and national, an awareness that human actions and institutions can have worldwide
Glottochronology is a method that tries to calculate when two languages separated in the past. It is analogous to a kind of linguistic Carbon-14 test, but it usually cannot give absolute dates. The later term lexicostatistics is often used synonymously with glottochronology, though occasionally it simply refers to any kind of statistical comparison of lexical
The founder of the Manchester School of Social Anthropology, British born Max Gluckman completed his PhD at Oxford University in 1936. His role as director (1941-1947) for the Rhodes-Livingston Institute helped him to later establish the Rhodes-Livingston Institute as a field research site for a great deal of the work conducted by the Manchester School.
The belief in and attempt to manipulate the supernatural is widespread throughout humanity. Although the particular content of any people’s religious or spiritual beliefs is dependent on their specific environment, lifestyle, social configuration, and history, the presence of spiritual or supernatural beliefs of some sort in virtually every society suggests that there may be a
The term god is very vague; its common uses include reference to an extremely wide range of sorts of thing, including living human beings (for example, the Egyptian pharaohs and the Roman emperors), humanlike beings with superhuman powers (for example, the Greek pantheon), and impersonal or even abstract concepts (for example, the Hindu Brahman). The
The study of representations of gender in the media understands gender to be socially constructed – an ongoing process of learned sets of behaviors, expectations, perceptions, and subjectivities that define what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man. The main assumption of these studies is that a cultural
Grassroots media are small-scale, developed by and accessible to members of a local community or group, and conceptualized as a key tool in the process of social change. They have developed out of concerns with problematic representations of women and other marginalized peoples in mainstream media, as well as limited access to the media and
Heterosexism “refers to the belief and expectation that everyone is or should be heterosexual” and the term “heteronormativity” equates heterosexual experience with human experience, in effect “render[ing] all other forms of human sexual expression pathological, deviant, invisible, unintelligible, or written out of existence” (Yep 2002, 167). Heteronormativity provides a larger context for understanding how heterosexism
Identity politics refers to the struggle for political recognition by marginalized social groups based on particular affiliations of individual identity, such as gender, sexuality, “race,” ethnicity, and nationality. Identity-based movements, as they grew in the west, challenged the limitations of political representation and citizenship offered within the liberal democratic state and institutions. Even as identity
Latina feminist media studies addresses the intersectional themes of gender, ethnicity, nation, and media in relation to that recently constructed category of Latina/os, i.e., a segment of the US population of Latin American origin. As such, this category both differs from, and overlaps with, “Latin American,” as many US Latinas experience transnational lives through personal
The focus of this article is upon representations of masculinity in one medium only, television, while making it evident that the approach adopted could be applied equally well to newspapers, magazines, radio, and film. Three broad phases can be identified in the evolution of televisual masculinities, a term coined to reflect the breakup of the
The feminist pornography debates, known as the “porn wars” or the “sex wars,” began in the US, the UK, and many other countries around the world in the early 1980s. These struggles have raised questions about the nature and effects of not only pornography but also prostitution and stripping, highlighting crucial debates about women’s agency
Postfeminism is one of the most important and contested terms in the lexicon of western feminist cultural critique. The term signifies something that is either after or beyond feminism in some way, yet still maintains a distinctive relationship to it. The notion of postfeminism was first used in the 1920s to describe the reaction against
The ubiquity of sexualized images and narratives across all media forms signals the importance of this topic for research and analysis. In mainstream communications research in the US it has been located in the “media effects” tradition, where the emphasis has been on the moral risks of explicit sexual content to “family values” (Gunter 2002).
Sex role stereotypes represent women and men in highly generalized, often unrealistic, ways. Such media stereotypes are important because representation plays a key role in shaping what becomes social reality. Mediated messages influence knowledge as well as what is deemed significant and interesting (Brooks & Hébert 2006). Repeated media images shape attitudes, beliefs, and values.
Recreation Careers Background Ancient people, after daily chores such as gathering food and mending clothing, devised ways to amuse and relax themselves. Often, the conclusion of a good harvest was celebrated with dancing, music, and other merriment. However, because most food, clothing, and other necessities were grown or handmade, little time was left for recreation.
Religious Ministries Careers Background The largest religions in the United States are Christianity (including both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism) and Judaism. Among Americans professing a religious faith, about 52 percent are Protestant, 24 percent are Roman Catholic, 1 percent are Jewish, 1 percent are Muslim, and 22 percent practice other religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, and
The food service industry includes all types of establishments that prepare, supply, and serve food outside the home. This includes restaurants, carryout operations, cafeterias, school and college dining rooms, catering and vending companies, hotels and motels, and retirement centers. Food service operations primarily serve food to their customers, but they also may provide entertainment, group
Rubber Careers Background Natural rubber is a pliable, stretchy material made from the milky juice of various tropical plants. Synthetic rubber, synthesized from petroleum and other minerals, was developed as a substitute for natural rubber. The material is called rubber because it appeared that one of the most practical uses of the gum would be
Shipping Careers Background The waters of the world have carried civilization around the globe. Today they continue to carry goods worldwide, and the shipping industry is where this activity is centered. Unless you live near ocean ports or busy riverways, you might not realize the extent of this business, also called the maritime industry. All
Social Sciences Careers Background Have you ever wondered what future generations will make of our culture? What do you think they’ll dig up on the archaeological digs of tomorrow? Old Beanie Babies? iMac computers? Volkswagen beetles? If you’ve got a bit of the social scientist in you, you may be intrigued by the bit of
Social Services Careers Background In the earliest civilizations, those in need were faced with prejudice and discrimination. Ancient civilizations believed that people with mental disorders were being penalized by the gods and punished or banished them from society. It wasn’t until 1597 that the Poor Laws were established in England to handle the needs of
Space Exploration Careers Background Space exploration began in the second half of the 20th century, but its roots can be traced back to 1926 with the launch of the first vehicle propelled by ejection of gases, the rocket. Russian Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky and American Robert Goddard developed and launched this early fuel rocket. During World
Sports Careers Background The first organized athletic events took place in Greece in 776 BC, with the advent of the ancient Olympic Games. The Olympics featured running races, throwing contests, and other competitive events, with the greatest athletes from the Greek empire competing. The Olympics, even then, were colorful events and people from nearby countries
The stone, concrete (cement mixed with gravel or crushed rock), ceramics, and glass industries represent human creativity and resourcefulness in using material from the earth to make things that can make our lives easier. From the earth come all the elements needed to construct things such as roads, buildings, bathroom fixtures, and rocket components. Stone
One of the conditions of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (the set of circumstances under which evolution does not occur) is that the population of breeding individuals is large enough that chance will not alter the allele frequency from one generation to another. When the population is small, however, all but one allele of each gene tends
Genetic engineering denotes the process of changing the genetic constitution of cells by introducing, modifying, or eliminating specific genes through modern molecular biology techniques. It is applied in several fields, including medicine and agriculture. Its application in medicine comprises the production of medical substances in genetically modified organisms, genetically modified animals as models for the
In its broadest sense, genetics is the science of biological variation. It focuses on variation that results from inheritance, the process by which characters are passed from parents to their offspring. This often places genetics in contrast to the environment, even though one is not sufficient without the other. For thousands of years, humans have
Human genetics is the study of the inheritance of epigenetic traits among humans, notably but not exclusively traits of medical interest. The overarching goal of human genetics is to apply knowledge of human heredity to a better understanding of diversity in development and adaptation as “nature is nurtured.” Another central goal of human genetics is
Population genetics is the study of the inheritance, distribution, and fluctuation of allele frequencies as affected by the four main forces of evolutionary genomics: natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, and migration. Population genetics is the overarching discipline of which quantitiative genetics is a crucial subfield that calculates selective effects. Ecological genetics is another subfield that
The term genocide is derived from the ancient Greek word genos (meaning a tribe or race) and the Latin cide (killing). Raphael Lemkin first used this term in 1944. Lemkin worked for the creation of international standards intending to outlaw the wanton and directed killing of identified peoples. Ultimately, Limkin’s efforts were the driving force
Simply defined, genomics is the study of an organism’s set of genes and their functions. An organism’s genome could be considered its instruction manual, and genomics is the science of reading and interpreting that set of instructions. The information contained within an organism’s genome controls every aspect of its life, including growth, maintenance, and development
The term geologic column brings to mind rock layers, laid one on top of another, representing the geologic history of the Earth. However, this picture is only a small part of what constitutes the geologic column. In no place on Earth do preserved sediments represent the entire geologic column; sediments representing significant portions of geologic
The magnetic phenomena exhibited by the earth and its atmosphere is known as geomagnetism. The strong magnetic field generated from deep within the earth is continually monitored and studied, allowing scientists valuable information for precise indexing of time (geochronology, paleomagnetism), determining crustal position (paleogeography), and abetting perhaps the most important revolution to unify modern geology:
Geomythology is the branch of geology that aims to discover the relationship between various ancient people’s myths and the geological environments where their early civilizations developed. The long history of the human being, Homo sapiens, is divided into two long periods: the historic period that starts with the invention of writing and the prehistoric one.
Research on the transition from school to work focuses on the relationship between the level of education and the first job achieved upon entry into the labor market. This has traditionally been a central topic in social stratification and social mobility research. As such, the study of the transition from school to work has reflected
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Cyberfeminism as feminist theory and practice has grown out of an emergent use of digital media and new communication technologies. The concept was used for the first time by Australian artists’ group VNS Matrix in their Cyberfeminist manifesto for the 21st century (1991), and soon after by British cultural theorist Sadie Plant. Cyberfeminism refers to
The 1963 publication of The feminine mystique by Betty Friedan (1921–2006) is certainly linked to, and sometimes considered the starting date of, the second wave of feminism in the US. Despite a lackluster “launch” by its publisher, the book quickly became a brisk seller in its hardback edition and went on to sell 1.5 million
Femininity and feminine values refer to the qualities of appearance, behavior and practices conventionally attributed to women. Feminist thinking strongly endorses the view that these qualities are not innate, but exist as ideological constructs, defined in opposition to masculinity and masculine values. The superiority ascribed to masculinity in patriarchal thinking devalues the “feminine,” despite assigning
Feminist ethics is concerned with how people can live together with others in healthy, productive ways and how we can build social or political structures to support this. As a way of thinking and acting that is fundamentally transformative and concerned with human good, feminism is itself normative. Its resistance to codification and preference for
Around the world, newspapers and magazines, cable and satellite television programs, radio broadcasts, documentary film, and more recently Internet sites produced by, for, and about women have been crucial to the process of resisting dominant conceptions of women, celebrating oppositional visions of womanhood, and adopting lives as “new women.” Until the 1960s, such journalism outlets
Feminist media pedagogy is a critical teaching practice and body of scholarship concerned with the lives and relationships of both women and men as mediated through cultural forms and institutions. Primarily, feminist media pedagogy focuses on the processes of teaching and learning about the politics of teaching and learning, especially as they are related to
Transnational feminist media studies, an emergent area of scholarship, is both a critical intervention and a response to the challenges posed by globalization. The transborder movement of capital, commodities, images, and people has set in motion a range of social and political issues, affecting multiple aspects of lived experience. Globalization reproduces gender and sexuality in
The term “feminization” tends to be used in communication studies in two basic ways. On the one hand, it describes any increases in the proportion of women working in a particular media profession. On the other, it refers to a process in which communication norms, values, and behaviors coded as “masculine” are becoming gradually modified
The subject of this article is the field of study that examines the representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) people in the media. GLBT media studies employ theories and methods from the relatively new field of GLBT and queer studies that started to appear in academia at the beginning of the 1990s. It
Theorizing about gender and organizations has proved a complex challenge, resulting in a body of literature that is “patchy and discontinuous” (Ashcraft & Mumby 2004, xiii). Yet, around the globe, feminist scholars tend to agree on one universal impediment to gender equity: reality emerges from the male standpoint, which shapes organizations and meanings. For the
Pharmaceutical Careers Background Through trial and error, prehistoric humans discovered that certain plants were effective in treating injuries and fevers. Once a plant was recognized as having medicinal qualities, the information was passed from generation to generation. Gradually, one person in a tribe or social group acquired considerable knowledge of these treatments and was appointed
Photography Careers Background In the photographic process, images are produced by exposing light-sensitive chemicals called silver halides to light. The more light these chemicals are exposed to, the darker they become. After the silver halides are developed and fixed, a negative image is produced. The negative image, which is usually made on film, is then
Plastics Careers Background Since the first synthetic plastics were produced in 1909, plastics have become a part of everyday life. Plastics can be manufactured to be hard enough to use as dies for shaping metal or soft enough to weave nylon stockings. Surgeons can use plastic screws to join broken bones; architects use plastics that
Printing Careers Background Printing is a dynamic and highly technical industry that enters into nearly every facet of our lives. Practically every product you buy, use, or look at involves some sort of printing: a sign in a store window, your favorite magazine, a soda can or cereal box, the instructions to the latest computer
Public Relations Careers Background The origins of public relations date back to early Greece, when Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle developed rules of rhetoric that made arguments more effective. Their methods were used in jury trials, ethics instruction, and other situations in which reason guided the discussion. In the late 19th century, newspapers decided to encourage
Public Safety Careers Background Virtually every aspect of life involves policies, regulations, and laws that help to promote public safety. The exterior of a house meets certain codes, or rules, so that it won’t catch on fire easily. Every time you drive a car, you follow a number of rules so that you won’t cause
Pulp and Paper Careers Background How much paper do you think you use? According to one estimate, the average American consumes more than 700 pounds per year. Although this may sound like a lot, it’s really not so surprising, given the vast number of paper products produced every year used for everything from mopping up
Radio Careers Background Broadcast technology developed in the 20th century enabled people to reach large audiences around the world instantly, changing forever the way we communicate. The power and mystery of the radio broadcast in the United States has been marked by events like Orson Welles’s 1938 live radio broadcast of “The War of the
Railroad Careers Background Despite its decline as a method of passenger transportation, the railroad remains the most efficient method of land transportation because it requires the least amount of fuel and human labor and is the least damaging to the environment. Found in almost every country in the world, railroads have transported millions of passengers
Real Estate Careers Background The real estate business helps fulfill one of our most basic needs: shelter. For many people, this shelter is a house. But real estate is more than just shelter and houses. It includes apartments, condominiums, cooperatives, farms, retail stores, office buildings, shopping centers, warehouses, industrial plants, medical centers, and many other
On the Galapagos Islands, one has the exciting opportunity to walk in the footsteps of Charles Darwin on this primeval archipelago seemingly isolated from the destructive encroachment of human civilization and the ravages of time. This isolated archipelago consists of 15 major islands, along with numerous islets, uplifts, and reefs, located on the equator about
Perhaps no one knows more about orangutans than the renowned “professor of primates” who has spent more than 30 years in the wilds studying them. Birute Mary F. Galdikas is a post-World War II baby boomer who has done quite well in the field of anthropology on a national and international basis. No doubt she
Sir Francis Galton was one of the most influential scientists of his time and is of systematic anthropological and bioethical interest for having introduced into the discussion the idea of eugenics. Galton was born on February 16, 1822 near Sparbrook, south of Birmingham, England, and was the youngest of seven children of Violetta Darwin and
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma), who is discussed in the anthropological literature for his adoption of nonviolent resistance (Satyagraha, the vindication of truth by infliction of suffering not on the opponent, but on oneself), which culminated in the “Quit India” movement against the British in Colonial India, is a modern example of the embodiment of classic
In every society, young people form loose or organized groups or networks around myriads of intertwining and competing interests and practices: It is a normal form of sociality based on generation. Members and outsiders, however, often see and label these formations in different, sometimes contradictory ways. And political institutions may define and public imaginaries understand
For the last 40 years, Clifford James Geertz has been the most influential and controversial anthropologist to capture the interest of both scholars and the general public. In contrast to the works of most anthropologists, Geertz’s books, now numbering 19 individually authored and edited volumes that have been translated into 21 languages, are widely debated
Gemeinschaft, or “community,” has always been an ambiguous notion. Particularly in the German context, it has been contrasted with the term Gesellschaft (society). Both notions represent aspects of the Ancient Greek term KOIVCQVI’OC, the historical background of which is identical to “society.” In German, the term can turn up in connection with family, village, city
Gender is a social and cultural categorization defined by the meanings given to biological differences between the sexes. Gender roles are the social skills, abilities, and ways of acting thought appropriate to members of a society depending upon their sex. Since the 1970s, there has been a growing anthropological interest in the construction of gender
Gene flow is the transfer of genes from one population to another population, usually by migration of one population into the other population’s territory. Descriptively, it is also referred to as gene migration, gene admixture, interbreeding, or gene exchange between populations. Almost always, gene flow refers to migration taking place primarily in one direction. It
Generative grammar is a theory of language that is generally said to have made its appearance in 1957, with Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures. It is often contrasted with structural or taxonomic grammars. While the aim of structural grammar was to account for all the data in a given corpus, the aim of generative grammar was to
School climate refers to the general tone of social relations in and around schools: how people in the school relate to each other, the culture that emerges among these people, the norms that they construct. Quite simply, it represents the general ”feel” of the school. This aspect of school context taps the informal processes that
School discipline refers to a system of rules, monitoring, sanctions, and rewards implemented by school personnel with the intent of shaping student behavior. Commonly associated with teachers and principals imposing order in classrooms and corridors by exerting control and maintaining student compliance through supervision and punishment, school discipline also plays a role in educational and
School transitions signify students’ entries into new schools. They are important milestones that lead to both positive and negative events that affect young people’s lives. There are two broad categories of school transitions: (1) normative school transitions (e.g., the transition into elementary school, from elementary to junior high school, from junior high to high school);
The empirical association between schooling and economic success is one of the most secure findings in the social sciences. With rare exceptions, across societies and historical periods those with more schooling or particular types of schooling have held significant material advantages over those with less schooling. While not perfect, the empirical associations between schooling and
The concept of social capital has been widely used in educational research. However, researchers have yet to come to an agreement over what constitutes social capital and what its effects are on educational and other social outcomes. There are at least two distinct theories of social capital commonly used by educational researchers. The first, by
Standardized tests are tests that are administered under controlled (or “standardized”) conditions – specifying where, when, how, and for how long test takers may respond to questions. The test questions provide a way to gather, describe, and quantify information that assesses performance on particular tasks to demonstrate knowledge of specific topics or processes. Standardization is
Status attainment research begun by sociologists in the United States more than three decades ago laid the foundation for the study of the transmission of socioeconomic advantage from one generation to the next (also called intergenerational social mobility). Status attainment research seeks to understand how characteristics of an individual’s family background (also called socioeconomic origins)
With over 3 million teachers working in the US public school system, teaching attracts consider able attention from sociologists. Many issues have been explored. Dominating the field are questions concerning teachers’ roles, quality, professional status, training, gender composition, pay, staffing, and placement. Teachers play multiple roles in the educational process. First, teachers impart academic skills
The study of teachers and teaching has always been an important focus of sociology of education, but the analysis of links between teaching and gender has developed more recently. As Grant and Murray (1999) contend, K-12 teaching and postsecondary teaching are two different occupations and thus relationships between gender and teaching differ at each level.
Tracking is the process of differentiating individuals’ school experiences through the grouping of students for instructional purposes based on actual or assumed differences in academic development or interests. In theory, such practices can maximize learning by allowing instruction to be tailored to the needs of each classroom of students. In practice, the quality of instruction
Which elements of films, novels, or plays are able to produce suspense in the viewer or reader? (We will use the term “viewer” in the rest of this article to cover viewers, readers, and users.) This question immediately indicates that the concept of suspense has to be treated on multiple levels because it is a
In general, suspension of disbelief is understood to be an audience’s tolerance of the fictionality of media content. The phrase means that the audience accepts limitations in the presented story, sacrificing realism, and occasionally logic and believability, as well as the media content’s aesthetic quality for the sake of enjoyment. Originally, the term traces back
Representation and explanation of complex communication phenomena are goals of communication research and theory building. To reach these goals, communication science uses simplified representations, also known as scientific models. Scientific models describe, in simplified form, the order of elements in a system and their relations to each other. These relations can be described as temporal
Transportation into a narrative world refers to the feeling of being lost in the world of a narrative, of being completely immersed in a story and leaving the real world behind. This experience is a key mechanism underlying the influence of stories or narratives on individuals’ attitudes and beliefs, and is also associated with media
Dating back to work done in Columbia’s Bureau of Applied Social Research in the 1940s, media uses and gratifications (U&G) research represents one of the oldest and largest continuous programs of research in the field of communication. The tradition represents hundreds of research projects since the 1940s examining the reasons why people use mass media
Zapping is the selective avoidance of television commercials, either by changing the channel with the remote control or by leaving the room during the commercial break. Sometimes the term “zapping” is used as a synonym for changing channels, or switching, but more often it is connected to advertising avoidance. Analog or digital video recorders can
The ways in which “the audience” has been conceptualized have moved, historically, through an arc from passive to active to interactive, and the embodied audience has become fragmented as the media industry tries to deliver niche audiences to particular advertisers. One such segmented audience is that of the group “women,” even though an archetypal “woman”
Black feminist media studies is a growing body of scholarly work that looks at the intersection of media, race, and gender, with a specific focus on women of African descent. This field of research most often designates scholarship produced in the United States or Europe that explores the ways that film, television, broadcast and print
Commodity feminism refers to the way feminist ideas and icons are appropriated for commercial purposes, emptied of their political significance and offered back to the public in a commodified form – usually in advertising. The term pays homage to Marx’s notion of “commodity fetishism” and is often framed within contemporary Marxist and feminist terms. The
The question of what counts as “feminist popular culture” arises from an engagement with foundational debates within cultural studies as to the primary site for cultural reproduction and contestation. These debates are reflected in the competing definitions of “popular culture” that circulate in the literature, namely: (1) the ideological products of mainstream commercial culture addressed
Metallurgy Careers Background The first crude metal objects, knives for hunting and tools for farming, evolved during the Stone Age. Forged metal (heated, then hammered into shape) was used to make simple blades and hoes. Historical records indicate that metal casting (melting, and then pouring into a shaped mold) was being done around 4000 BC.
Military Careers Background Five separate military services make up the United States Armed Forces: the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. These branches organize, train, and equip the nation’s land, sea, and air services to support the national and international policies of the government. Together, they are responsible for the safety and
Mining Careers Background The mining industry locates valuable minerals in the earth and water and removes them in the most economical and efficient way. Mined materials include energy minerals, such as coal, petroleum, and uranium; nonmetallic minerals, such as limestone, salt, sandstone, and diamonds; and metallic minerals, such as iron ore, gold, and silver. Mining
Museum and Cultural Centers Careers Background Museums and cultural centers have many things in common. Their function is primarily to educate people about themselves and the natural and technological world, past and present. They try to authentically portray cultural diversity and search for universal elements that unite people from different backgrounds. Most museums and cultural
Music Careers Background Throughout human history, there have been numerous theories about how music originated. The great naturalist Charles Darwin thought that music was related to sex. In his view, music evolved from the mating cries of birds and animals. Others have proposed that early humans developed singing as a way of imitating the sounds
Recording Industry Careers Background Acoustical recordings were the earliest efforts in recording live music with the intention of playback. Thomas Edison invented a machine in 1877 that recorded and played back sounds. When he spoke “Mary had a little lamb” into a device that, in reaction to the vibrations of his voice, cut fine grooves
Nuclear Power Careers Background In 1942 Enrico Fermi produced the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction with the first demonstration reactor, the Chicago Pile 1. Fermi’s work was part of the U.S. government’s research project, code-named the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the world’s first atomic bomb. Research and experimentation further refined the method by which
Packaging Careers Background Packaging is the planning, creating, manufacturing, wrapping, boxing, or bottling of goods for consumer, industrial, and military markets. The packaging industry services nearly all of the industries and manufacturing establishments in the United States. Packaging is one of the largest employers; increasing sophistication of technology has created a strong demand for packaging
The history of federal land in the United States can be divided into five major eras, some of which overlap one another: acquisition, from 1781, when the land claims of the original states were first ceded to the central government, until the purchase of Alaska in 1867; disposal, from about 1810 until about 1934, when
Petroleum Careers Background In the United States about 65 percent of the petroleum consumed is used for transportation, including truck, bus, automobile, airplane, and ship fuel. Industrial uses account for about 25 percent. Household and commercial use accounts for about 7 percent, largely for heating. About 3 percent is used in the production of electrical
Foucault’s university education was a mixture of philosophy and psychology. He combined this with strong interests in aesthetics, social history, and the history of culture and discourse to produce a rich body of work, which evolved through a number of stages, covering many issues and having an enormous influence across disciplines. His work is present
Sir James George Frazer was born in Glasgow, in 1854; he died in 1941 in Cambridge, where he spent most of his academic life. He was the best-known anthropologist of his time. His work was deeply influenced by Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, and E. B. Tylor; that is to say, he applied a comparative and
John Derek Freeman was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He first studied anthropology when Ernest Beaglehole offered a course on the subject through the Psychology Department of what is now Victoria University of Wellington. In 1940, Freeman took up a position teaching in Samoa, where he remained until 1943. Freeman subsequently studied at both University
Structuralism is a powerful theoretical framework that dominated French thought in the 1960s. Deriving from the insights of the Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and receiving its most comprehensive expression in the anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss, the structuralist paradigm also operates in the political philosophy of Louis Althusser, the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan, the “narratology”
Sigmund Freud, born in Freiberg, Moravia, on May 6, 1856, and now known as one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, was a physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist, and the father of psychoanalysis. He postulated that many neuroses (mostly phobias, hysteria, chronic pain, and sometimes forms of paranoia) had origins in past traumatic experiences
The highly influential writings of American anthropologist Morton H. Fried have made key contributions to explaining the origins of the state and its attendant modes of social stratification. Fried devised an evolutionary framework to describe the basic processes that account for general similarities in independent sequences of cultural complexity. Asserting that all significant differences among
The concept of friendship refers to a social phenomenon that is characterized by a diversity of ties and connections to a variety of degrees that are shaped by complex sociocultural codes. As a configuration of sociocultural practices, friendship remains an open concept used by researchers from different fields. Anthropologists, for example, experience their immersion in
Erich Fromm was born in Frankfurt, Germany, into an Orthodox Jewish family. A grandfather and two great grandfathers had been rabbis; an uncle was a Talmudic scholar. Fromm studied at universities in Frankfurt and Munich before receiving his PhD in sociology from the University of Heidelberg in 1922. Though he lacked any formal medical training
Functionalism was the predominant underlying theory in both British Social and U.S./American cultural anthropology from the beginning of the 20th century up through the early post-World War II era. Deriving largely from French sociologist Emile Durkheim’s work, this school of thought saw societies largely through the lens of an organic metaphor, so that societies were
Developed by James Lovelock in his 1979 work, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, the Gaia hypothesis offers an understanding of the earth as a living thing, capable of change and transgression. Lovelock named his theory Gaia after the Greek goddess responsible for drawing the living world forth from chaos. The Gaia hypothesis
The idea of a kindergarten originated in 1840, after the German educationalist Friedrich Froebel opened a Play and Activity Institute for children between the ages of 3 and 7 to develop their mental, social, and emotional faculties. The term is now used in many parts of the world for the initial stages of a child’s
Intelligence is a concept whose meaning has been fashioned by the discipline of psychology. Psychologists view intelligence as a set of mental abilities that are inferred from an individual’s performance on an intelligence test. In defining intelligence as one or more abilities, psychologists seek to demarcate it from the accumulation of specific knowledge to which
Something like 25 percent of US university students currently major in business or management, and in the UK, 30 percent of under graduates study some management. Elsewhere, business and management education is expanding its scope. A Chinese government minister is said to have recently called for a million MBA (Master of Business Administration) graduates to
The study of educational practices in mathematics, science, and technology considers the social, psychological, economic, and political forces that affect career choice and cognitive understanding of those subject areas. The field involves the development of theories and methods that explore how students learn complex topics in the sciences and engineering. Many products of research in
The study of medical education as a process of professional socialization is at best a dormant and at worse a dying object of academic inquiry. What once helped to legitimate an emerging academic field (medical sociology) in the 1950s and 1960s has since fallen on hard conceptual and analytic times. Today, cutting edge work on
Central to the sociology of education are questions about how schools operate to produce learning. Sociological models of schooling recognize that school systems are complex organizations, with a technical core consisting of classrooms in which teaching and learning – the core technology of schooling – take place. The concept of opportunities for learning provides a
Scholarly interest in parental involvement was sparked in the late 1960s, when the seminal Coleman report (Coleman et al. 1966) found family social background to be the most important predictor of children’s academic success in the United States. Educational inequalities by social class are found in most countries and such findings prompted researchers’ efforts to
Professors are people with academic appointments at institutions of higher education. Compared to just a half century ago, higher education is differentiated on many counts, including the professorial role. While definitions delimit boundaries, they are sometimes ambiguously drawn. Professors in the American context typically hold advanced terminal degrees in the specialty in which they hold
Race and schools become a social issue when educational opportunities are differentially available to members of diverse racial groups within a society. Educational discrimination has a variety of effects that often lead to interracial conflict. Since education is a major means of social mobility, discrimination in this domain forces the less favored racial groups to
School choice refers to the use of public funds that give parents more discretion in their children’s education. It usually entails making available to parents a wider variety of educational options beyond a standard, local public school. Examples of choice initiatives include charter schools, home schooling, voucher programs, tax credits for private schools, and the
Television – which literally means “seeing from a distance” – has seldom been discussed by either critics or scholars primarily as a visual medium. Yet from the start, key sectors of the television industry itself were fascinated by the possibilities and potential for televisual representation. In the shadow of more “legitimate” art forms in the
The term theatre refers to that art form based on mimetic activity. It differs from the closely related performance arts of cinema and television by its requirement that the enactment be physically present to its observers, which gives it an important specificity of occasion or event. Despite its traditional close connection to the dramatic text
Typography is a process for reproducing text, figures, punctuation, characters, ornaments, and borders via a printing press or electronic communication. Typography is distinguished from calligraphy, by which single, handwritten copies are made. Manuscripts set into type may be printed or stored electronically, allowing an infinite number of exact replicas to be distributed widely. Early typeface
Video began as a technological innovation and changed the media landscape of mainstream network television around the globe forever. As the technology became more accessible to the consumer market, it developed a greater impact on independent filmmaking: “media arts centers” emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as community media with the advent of
Visual culture is an area of study focused on practices of looking and the role of visual representations in the arts, popular and alternative media cultures, institutional and professional contexts, and everyday life. Art history, film and media studies, cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology are some of the fields in which visual culture study is
The study and conceptualization of visual representation were primarily associated with art and art history prior to the twentieth century, and drew on the analytical tools of iconology with a focus on the artist’s intention and perception. With the advent of semiotics, followed by other theories of the visual, the twentieth century marked a broadening
Voyeurism (from the French voir – to see) is a term used to describe the act of observing the actions of other people in order to provoke sexual arousal. Although all-encompassing, it is often associated specifically with the behavior of adolescent males, who frequently engage in voyeuristic activities in the period leading up to sexual
Presence, in its broadest sense, is a media user’s state that is characterized by the illusion of nonmediation. If present, media users are temporarily unaware of the mediated origin of their experience. Their thoughts, feelings, and behavior tend to react to the media content as if the portrayed scenery, persons, or objects were real, because
The study of selective exposure seeks to understand how and why people consume particular communication content when faced with a constellation of choices. Broadly defined, selective exposure refers to behaviors that are deliberately performed in an effort to bring communication content within reach of one’s sensory apparatus (Zillmann & Bryant 1985). In the modern, media-saturated
Perception refers to the process of categorizing and interpreting information that is attended to. Selective perception refers to the process of categorizing and interpreting information in a way that favors one category or interpretation over another. Thus, selective perception is generally considered to represent a bias in information processing. More specifically, information tends to be
Sensation seeking is a basic personality trait that has been defined as “the seeking of varied, novel, complex, and intense sensations and experiences, and the willingness to take physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the sake of such experience” (Zuckerman 1994, 27). The test used to measure the construct, the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS)
Few concepts in the social sciences have attracted more attention and caused more confusion than the concept of the “public.” The dispute concerning the nature of the public is at least as old as Greek democracy. Since that time, one of the most divisive questions has been whether the public is characterized by an everyman
Simulations are imitations of some “real-world” phenomena, especially the states of affairs of (real) natural or social systems or the processes of the systems (processes are defined as temporal sequences of system states). Simulations are used in numerous domains: physics, chemistry, biology, economy, social sciences, and computer and engineering sciences. The general purpose of simulations
Theories of human behavior differ in their conceptions of human nature and what they regard as the basic determinants and mechanisms governing self-development, adaptation, and change. Social cognitive theory is rooted in an agentic perspective. To be an agent is to influence one’s own functioning and events that affect one’s life. In this view people
The central idea of social comparison theory is that individuals often assess how well they are doing by comparing themselves with others around them. When Festinger (1954) originally developed the theory, he argued that individuals want an accurate assessment of their opinions and performance, and that in the absence of objective standards, they look to
Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner 1979) was originally developed to explain prejudice and discrimination, and the circumstances under which societies would move from relatively cooperative and harmonious arrangements to overt conflict. The theory has since expanded enormously, and has become the basis for a general social identity approach to social psychological and communicative phenomena.
Some behaviors take a long time to change, and rarely do individuals progress immediately from awareness of a new product or idea to its use. Stages of change models document and specify the specific stages or steps a person goes through when they adopt or quit a behavior. At least four distinct stages of change
Hospitality Careers Background The hospitality industry provides accommodations, meals, and personal services for both the traveling public and permanent residents. The range of employment opportunities in this industry is vast. All positions, from bellhops to executive managers, share the same goal of serving the public. Hotels have been in existence for as long as people
Human Resources Careers Background In the 18th century, the U.S. economy was primarily agricultural, dependent on crops such as wheat and cotton. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, however, the United States experienced an industrial revolution. With this revolution, the economy shifted largely toward production of raw materials, such as iron and steel, and
Information Services Careers Background Information occupies an invaluable place in our lives. Information is the tool by which we learn, make decisions, and answer questions or concerns that we face every day at work, at school, and in our personal lives. A junior high school student may seek information on the history of ancient Greece
Insurance Careers Background The insurance industry provides protection for its customers against financial loss from various hazards. This protection is offered in the form of insurance policies. The industry is a massive, highly complex one that has grown out of an ancient and very simple principle: The more people who share a financial risk, the
Law Careers Background You probably know someone who drives as if there were no speed limits or stop signs. They just zoom down the road, oblivious of others. What if there really were no traffic laws like stopping at stop signs or driving slower on a curvy road? We would live in a much more
Post Office Careers Background The postal service touches the lives of virtually everyone in the nation. Letter and package carriers visit the homes and offices of millions of Americans, clerks and postmasters wait on customers at their local post offices, and thousands of postal employees work behind the scenes to process and deliver 212 billion
Literary Arts Careers Background From the earliest times, people have wanted to communicate with other people, and one of the best means of communication is language. Before the invention of writing, people could only transmit information orally. After writing was invented, which may have occurred in Sumer in approximately 4000 BC, writers could communicate with
The machining and machinery industry manufactures metal parts that are used to make machines, tools, and other machine parts. In other words, the industry creates metal machines that make other machines. The machining and machinery industry also produces parts for such items as engines, tools, and other machinery. It is, in effect, the first stage
Manufacturing Careers Background From ancient Greek clay pots to Roman bronze weapons and building materials, humans have demonstrated the need to produce goods. By the Renaissance, Europeans were manufacturing gunpowder, clothing, and other goods for trade with people in faraway lands and across the oceans. They built factories where goods were produced by hand with
Mathematics and physics are closely related natural sciences. Mathematics is the science and study of numbers and how they relate with each other. Physics is the study of the basic elements and laws of the universe. The earliest mathematical records date to the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians of 3000 BC, when math involved basic measuring
Ethnographic fieldwork is an in-depth localized research process aimed at the description and analysis of cultural systems. Both scientific and artistic in perspective and approach, ethnographic fieldwork is characteristic of the work of cultural anthropologists who seek explanation and/or interpretation of human behavior, practices, ideas, and values. Conducted in the naturalistic setting of everyday life
The nation of Fiji contains a large group of islands known as an archipelago. Officially titled the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Fiji, the archipelago contains 330 islands that sprawl over 501,800 square miles in the world’s largest ocean, the Pacific. The people of Fiji inhabit about one third of the islands within the archipelago. The
From his position as a professor of anthropology at London School of Economics (LSE), Sir Raymond William Firth was in a position to influence studies of Pacific anthropology while contributing to anthropological theory in many areas, but he did so most prominently in economic anthropology. Firth studied at LSE, primarily with Malinowski, though he initially
To fully understand the concept of folk culture, we must first separate the two words and define them individually, then rejoin them to completely comprehend the term’s overall concept. Folk, or folkways, are routine conventions of everyday life. They are the customary ways that people act: eating, personal hygiene, dressing, and so on. Folkways are
Folkways are informal patterns of social interaction that reveal commonly shared attitudes and beliefs by members of intimate social groups. They are found in all societies and characterize subcultures such as age groups, peer groups, and professional groups, family units, or special interest groups. Folkways are typically unconscious ways of thinking and doing that are
The discovery in 1927 near Folsom, New Mexico, of distinctive stone projectile points in unambiguous association with bones of extinct Late Pleistocene bison provided the first widely accepted evidence for a human presence in North America greater than a few thousand years and initiated the field of Paleo-Indian studies in American archaeology. The discovery also
Food is any substance that can be metabolized by an organism to give energy and build tissue. Foods are made up of a combination of calories, proteins, fats, minerals, and carbohydrates. Enzymes in the mouth begin to break down sugars as food is processed for digestion. Upon entering the stomach, the acids therein separate the
Meyer Fortes was born in South Africa in 1906. He attended school in South Africa, studying at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He went to London, where he studied psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 1930, he received his PhD in psychology from the London School of
Dian Fossey was to gorillas what Jane Goodall is to chimpanzees. Her long-term studies of Mountain Gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) in the Virunga Volcanoes of Rwanda, in central Africa, laid the basis for understanding the behavior and social life of gorillas in general, and all subsequent fieldworkers on gorillas have built upon her work. Like
What is a fossil? The word is Latin, and it means, “dug up.” One of the earliest known research publications to use this term was Agricola’s work on systematic mineralogy, De natura fossilium. It wasn’t until Lamarck’s Hydrogeologie was published in 1802 that the term was restricted to “the still recognizable remains of organized bodies.”
Dropping out of school in a postindustrial society comes with many risks. In the United States, as with most industrialized societies, education is a key factor for predicting social mobility; dropping out clearly undermines one’s prospects of moving up the socioeconomic lad der. Dropping out of high school is also accompanied by many other negative
Changes in developed economies and societies stemming from the Industrial Revolution have shifted responsibilities for the education of young people from the family and community to schools. Schools are now a major institution, educating the vast majority of children and youth in the developed world and functioning as a primary engine of change in developing
The relation between education and economy is interdependent and reciprocal. Education is a form of human capital, an intangible form of accumulated capital stock, which includes level and dispersion of education as well as those of applied and basic research. It has many measurable forms, including years of aggregate schooling, rates of enrollment, public education
Educational attainment refers to the highest level of formal education completed by the members of a population. Because national systems of education differ greatly from one another, the measurement of educational attainment is typically restricted to education completed in the country where the education was received (Siegel & Swanson 2004: 220), although researchers have developed
Both educational and occupational attainment are important (and related) aspects of prestige differences in the United States as well as throughout the more developed and developing countries. Prestige is used as a measure of social status and therefore is a part of the broader social stratification system. Social status is viewed as a subjective concept
Expectations and aspirations, within sociological research on education and social inequality, are stable prefigurative orientations composed of specific beliefs about one’s future trajectory through the educational system and one’s ultimate class or status position. As adolescents age, these expectations and aspirations are presumed to condition current behavior and, in the process, become self-fulfilling prophecies. Expectations
Extracurricular activities such as band, debate, or soccer are optional activities offered by the school that complement the academic curriculum and enhance the school’s sense of community. These activities provide settings within schools for adolescents to develop facets of their personalities that contribute to their emerging independence and their eventual assumption of adult roles. Extracurriculars
The hidden curriculum refers to the unofficial rules, routines, and structures of schools through which students learn behaviors, values, beliefs, and attitudes. Elements of the hidden curriculum do not appear in schools’ written goals, formal lesson plans, or learning objectives although they may reflect culturally dominant social values and ideas about what schools should teach.
Graduate study, including the master’s degree but more specifically the pursuit of a PhD, is an extremely focused educational experience that is designed to produce a professional trained in the research, creation, and critique of knowledge within a given field. Graduate study is an essential part of the modern knowledge economy. The processes of graduate
Home schooling, the practice of educating one’s own children, has seen dramatic growth in the last three decades, and has transformed from a peculiarly American innovation to a truly global movement. An estimated 15,000 US children were home schooled in the late 1970s; by 2003 the number was over a million, and the practice had
Special effects are those techniques employed in moving image technologies to provide images other than those recorded by simply opening the camera’s shutter and recording. In some cases the entire image may be produced using non-camera techniques. Alternatively, events may be staged or images altered to produce special effects. Special effects (hereafter “effects”) may usefully
The term “spectacle” refers to an event or image that is particularly striking in its visual display, to the point of inspiring awe in viewers. In its origins, the concept of spectacle was used to describe something impressive and unusual, which thrilled because it looked like things never seen before or which deployed immense scale
The concept of the spectator gaze was central to the development of theories of cinema and art history, emerging primarily in the 1970s. Its origins most likely lie in Jean-Paul Sartre’s theory of the look (in French, le regard) and the extension of that theory into psychoanalytic theory by Jacques Lacan. This theory postulates the
A star is an individual who is highly celebrated and deemed exceptional in a particular field or profession. The term has most commonly been associated with performers in popular media such as music, television, and, particularly, cinema. Stardom is closely linked to fame and celebrity, and these terms are often used interchangeably. The term “star,”
Stock photography is the name given to a particular type of standardized commercial imagery. This largely consists of clichéd photographs of consumer well-being or corporate achievement: the happy couples on sun-drenched beaches pictured in travel adverts, and the well-groomed businessmen shaking hands who tend to grace company brochures. Stock photography is also the name of
As a body of work structuralism assumes that social life and meaning are organized by a set of deep structures that frame understanding and perceptions of reality. Social meaning is the product of systematic conceptual structures through which we apprehend reality. Structuralism traces its existence to the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who
Symbols are linguistic devices in which complex, culturally specific meanings are communicated simply. Nearly all human utterance is in some ways symbolic, and for many who study communication, symbolizing is the most fundamental attribute of being human (Burke 1966). Peirce defines a symbol as “a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by
The idea that popular culture consists of distinct “taste cultures” was developed by Herbert Gans (1974) as an alternative to the then dominant theory of mass culture. Mass culture theorists (Horkheimer & Adorno 2001) viewed popular culture as a commercial enterprise that represented a debased form of high culture. They claimed that mass culture targeted
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
The emergence of television news programs in the late 1940s in the US marked a major historical development in the history of journalism. Combining the broadcast auditory flow of radio with the moving images of the movie newsreels shown in the cinema, television news was able to provide the public with a new experience in
It is a phenomenon that can be observed in all industrialized societies that media use is connected with demographic factors. As a rule, people from different social backgrounds also use the media differently. On the other hand, people from similar social backgrounds also show similarities in their use of the media. Thus, there is a
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 term “mood management” stands for a theory that aims to predict people’s choices from media messages. The audience is confronted with an enormous diversity of media channels and messages, thus selectivity in media use is inevitable. Hence, a classic key question in communication research is what drives the choices made by media users. Mood-management
Multitasking may be defined as the performance of two or more informationprocessing activities simultaneously. The term originated in computer science as a description of a central processor performing two or more tasks at the same time. In the context of communication and media studies, multitasking is the term used for the situation in which an
The concept of navigation refers to the interpretation of user actions in hypermedia as a movement through virtual space. Navigation can thus be seen as selective exposure to hypermedia on a micro-level. Hypermedia commonly includes graphics and fragments of audio, video, and plain text (nodes), which are all knotted via hyperlinks. Navigation research is dedicated
The news audience is the sub-group of the general media audience that is exposed to newspapers, news magazines, television news, radio news, or online news. Analyses of news audiences usually deal with their size and their structure. This can be done on the micro-level (audiences of particular newspapers, news broadcasts, etc.) or on the macro-level
The term “parasocial interaction” (PSI) was first used by Horton and Wohl (1956) to describe viewers’ responses to media characters (called “personae” in PSI research; singular: “persona”) during media consumption. Horton and Strauss (1957) set down the first systematic descriptions and observations of PSI as well as of more long-term responses to personae, known as