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The Communication Ecology of 21st Century Urban Communities addresses the questions of whether it (still) matters what neighborhood individuals live in and if it is still necessary and possible for city dwellers to build and maintain place-based communities. The book's contributors address how urban communities are formed, reformed, and transformed from a communication infrastructure theory perspective. Through the lens of this theory, communication is defined as a fundamental social process by which cities are sustained and changed over time. The chapters in this book elaborate the theoretical and methodological frameworks of the communication infrastructure theory approach; articulate theory-driven and multi-method frameworks for the study of the city; and speak to pressing, contemporary, research- and policy-related challenges (or questions). The broad array of issues addressed within this volume is expected to draw the interest not only of communication researchers and professionals, but also of students, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers from a variety of backgrounds and with an interest in different aspects of life in the city, including: public health, technology, civic engagement, and urban planning and design.

This book brings into focus the technologically augmented nature of global online communities, advancing research methods that reveal the imprint of emergent social forms and characterise digital frontiers of social engagement. Drawing on insights from across the social sciences, it presents a case study of people with passions for reptiles and amphibians to illustrate for next generation researchers how to conduct community research in the real world. Richly illustrated with ethnographic research, together with extensive survey and interview material drawn from around the world, Research Methods and Global Online Communities explores the changing nature of communities that form around common interests and are embedded in a digital architecture rather than place. In doing so, this book transcends the digital dualism of online/offline models of community and engages with debates on the social impacts of the internet and the adaptive nature of community. As such, it will appeal to social scientists interested in innovative approaches to characterising digital communities through mixed-methods research practice.

In the different versions of multiculturalism that have re-shaped English-speaking societies and political systems, identities appear more plastic than in societies which have constructed their national narratives on more stubborn denials of their colonial and patriarchal pasts; yet, the myth of purity (or authenticity) and separatist temptations remain very real parameters of identity politics. In such contexts, crafting an identity for oneself implies expectations of consistency, linked not only to the individual need to prove oneself and disprove stereotypes and statistics, but also to the broader political goal of dis-alienating or, as it were, de-Othering oneself and one's community. The contributors to this book explore the different ways – from the most institutional to the most intimate – in which people articulate the politics of memory and the creation of national narratives, or communal and personal identities.

Told through the voices of local community leaders, this book analyzes how communities respond to natural disasters and how outsiders contribute positively - or negatively - to their response, promoting debate on the role of aid and the media in times of crisis.

Throughout the history of Western political thought, the creation of a world community has been seen as a way of overcoming discord between political communities without imposing sovereign authority from above. Jens Bartelson argues that a paradox lies at the centre of discussions of world community. The very same division of mankind into distinct peoples living in different places which makes the idea of a world community morally compelling has also been the main obstacle to its successful realization. His book offers a philosophical and historical analysis of the idea of world community by exploring the relationship between theories of world community and changing cosmological beliefs from the late Middle Ages to the present.

Now includes “The Life Inc. Guide to Reclaiming the Value You Create”In Life Inc, award-winning writer Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from being convenient legal fictions to being the dominant fact of contemporary life. The resulting ideology, corporatism, has infiltrated all aspects of civics, commerce, and culture—from the founding of the first chartered monopoly to the branding of the self, from the invention of central currency to the privatization of banking, from the Victorian Great Exhibition to the solipsism of Facebook. Life Inc explains why we see our homes as investments rather than places to live, our 401(k) plans as the ultimate measure of success, and the Internet as just another place to do business. Most important, Rushkoff illuminates both how we've become disconnected from our world and how we can reconnect to our towns, to the value we can create, and, mostly, to one another. As the speculative economy collapses under its own weight, Life Inc shows us how to build a real and human-scaled society to take its place.

Young Children as Citizens explores how young children (birth to 12 years of age) can and should participate in civic life. It reflects new images of young children as social actors, together with the increased interest in children's rights in the public sphere. The contributors are early childhood researchers, pedagogues, children and policy makers from Australia and Europe. They present a rich diversity of research-based case studies in which policy-makers and educators have listened to young children¹s views on public issues and responded in respectful and ethical ways.Young Children as Citizens is a unique resource for policy-makers, those working in children's services and child advocates. It shows how best to consult young children and it presents a range of arguments that consulting young children about policies and decisions that affect them supports and enhances a vigorous democratic society. Students (undergraduate and postgraduate), teachers and researchers in early childhood studies can use individual chapters of Young Children as Citizens selectively to explore issues of increasing complexity in different courses.The book would be a good set text for Honours and Master's programs that address issues of children¹s rights.

Using case studies drawn from all areas of museum studies, Museums and their Communities explores the museums as a site of representation, identity and memory, and considers how it can influence its community. Focusing on the museum as an institution, and its social and cultural setting, Sheila Watson examines how museums use their roles as informers and educators to empower, or to ignore, communities.Looking at the current debates about the role of the museum, she considers contested values in museum functions and examines provision, power, ownership, responsibility, and institutional issues.This book is of great relevance for all disciplines as it explores and questions the role of the museum in modern society.

This edited volume provides a cross-section of the cutting-edge ways in which archaeologists are developing new approaches to their work with communities and other stakeholder groups who have special interest in the uses in the past.

By exploring the experiences of community activists and organizations working with information and communication technology (ICT) to build communities, this book offers a grounded and informed study of the role ICT plays in people's lives. The author emphasizes the importance of networks built around trust, shared spaces and local knowledge bases in the formation of significant relationships in contemporary Western societies and in doing so, questions many of the assumptions which inform the rhetorics of the information age.

'The overall purpose of human communication is - or should be - reconciliation. It should ultimately serve to lower or remove the walls of misunderstanding which unduly separate us human beings, one from another...'Although we have developed the technology to make communication more efficent and to bring people closer together, we have failed to use it to build a true global community. Dr M. Scott Peck believes that if we are to prevent civilization destroying itself, we must urgently rebuild on all levels, local, national and international and that is the first step to spiritual survival. In this radical and challenging book, he describes how the communities work, how group action can be developed on the principles of tolerance and love, and how we can start to transform world society into a true community.