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Communication

Communication, Information, and Media

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The Sociology of Communication and Media is concerned with the transaction of media alter and social alter and centers on the complex connections between intervened communication and social relations on the smaller scale-, meso- and macro-level of society.

Communication and Information

A

  • Accuracy in Media (AIM)
    A non-profit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have recieved slanted coverage. Members of the media are encouraged to report the news fairly and objectively, without resorting to bias or partisanship.
  • Allotey, Francis K.A. / Akorli, Felix K.
    Telecommunications in Ghana
    An overview of telecommunications in Ghana.
  • Alstyne, M.V. / Brynjolfsson, E.
    Communication Networks and the Rise of an Information Elite -- Do Computers Help the Rich Get Richer?
    Circumstances exist under which a telecommunications policy of universal access leads to an increase in the gap between the information "haves" and the "have-nots." A national information infrastructure which provides only channels and not incentives for information sharing might therefore lead to results which are reversed from those originally intended. This argument and several related propositions are explored through a formal theoretical model built on four simple assumptions: one cannot converse with everyone at the same time, information is not lost when shared, private information resources differ in quality, and agents can improve the quality of their information based on the quality of the resources to which they gain access. The model rigorously explains how inter-agent infrastructure can be used to help the "rich get richer" and also why "it's not just what you know but whom you know." This theoretical framework serves to explain several stylized events and offers several useful levers for exploring policy options. You can download this article in pdf format.
  • Andrews, Jim [1999]
    McLuhan Reconsidered
    In: BeeHive, no. 4, September 1999
    McLuhan has become famous with his vision of the ways in which history, culture and individuals are modified and, to some extent, determined by technology. But is it accurate to say that McLuhan offers a technologically determinist analysis of the history of western cultures? Andrews argues that McLuhan was concerned with exploring the ways in which culture and history are determined by technology, not the ways in which they aren't. He might have overstated his case (such as "the medium is the message"), but has posed some interesting questions.

B

  • Bakker, Piet / Scholten, Otto [2014]
    Communicatiekaart van Nederland 
    A review of media and communication in the Netherlands. A compilation of the book in 20 pages.
  • Barbatsis, Gretchen/Fegan, Michael/Kenneth Hansen [1999] (Michigan State University, USA; Aalborg University, Denmark)
    The Performance of Cyberspace: An Exploration Into Computer-Mediated Reality
    In: JCMC, 5(1)
    Examination of the concept of space and methaphor of cyberspace. The authors conclude that cyberspace is "a figurative term for a figurative space, it is something we project as a shared mental concept". And "through the self-reflexibe structure of the hyperlink, 'cyber'space is an ideational object, constituted by the 'reader'. Its 'reality' or object of contemplation is the 'reader's' own ideational activity".
  • Baym, Nancy K. (Wayne State University, USA)
    The Performance of Humor in Computer-Mediated Communication
    CMC is often seen as a means of distributing information, of increasing organizational efficiency, of creating electronic democracy, or of challenging traditional hierarchies. It is rarely seen as a means of making people laugh. Some CMC studies suggest that the medium is inhospitable to humor. Baym however argues that humor can be accomplished in CMC and can be critical to creating social meaning on-line. Her analysis of the Unsenet newsgroup on soap operas shows how the group’s humor arises from the juxtaposition of close and distant readings of the soap opera, which place the participants in close relation to one antohter, and distance them from the soap opera's writers and producers. Group solidarity is also created as participants draw extensively on previous messages to ground their own humor. Humor is also shown to be a primary mechanism for the establishment of individuality, as participants combine the shared meaning and play with the shared parameters of the group in idiosyncratic ways. In: JCMC, 1(2).
  • Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT)
    BUPT is a comprehensive university with information technology as its main feature, engineering and science as its main focus and a combination of engineering, management, humanities and sciences as its main pursuit, which becomes an important base for fostering high-tech talents.
  • Bibliography on Chat-Communication 1984-2005 - Michael Beißwenger (Dortmund University, Germany)
    A general bibliography on computer-mediated communication, that concentrates on communication in webchats and IRC (an partly also MUDs and MOOs).

C

  • Cavell, Richard [1999] 
    McLuhan in Space: A Cultural Geography
    A discussion of Marshall McLuhan’s contribution to communication theory: the elaboration of a spatial model of communication. Cavell tackles one of the all-time greats of communication theory. McLuhan was one of the great prophets (some would say charlatans) of early communication theory. For a long time he was one of one of the only celebrities of the field and toured wildly to give his opinions on the subject. They were certainly opinions worth hearing, for he had some remarkably new and insightful things to say about media, communication, and the way in which technology affects human development. Within the scope of his own lifetime, he went from spokesman to outcast and academia widely turned against him. Before his death his saw the school he had founded shut down and his work widely discredited. Since the rise of the internet, however, the development of other, new forms of entertainment and media, McLuhanism has enjoyed something of an academic comeback.
  • Chandler, Daniel - Aberystwyth University, UK
    The homepage of visual semiotician Daniel Chandler offering an extensive list of books and papers.
  • CIO Online 
    A resource for executives interested in the strategic application of information technology.
  • Commissariaat voor de Media - Dutch Media Authority 
    An overview of laws and regulation on radio and television.
  • Communications Security Establishment (CSE) - Canada
    A federal government lead agency that delivers Information Technology Security (ITS) solutions to the government of Canada.
  • Computer and Communication Companies
    A fast road to find a computer or communication vendor, or a prospective supplier. You can browse an alphabetic section of companies, search by geographic areas, by standard search terms or by keyword.
  • Computer-Mediated Communication Information Resources 
    A directory of information sources about online communication and the Internet. Topics range from internet use to groupware. Editor: John December.
  • Current Cites 
    An annotated monthly bibliography of of articles, books and electronic documents on information technology. Edited by: Roy Tennant.

D

G

Gow, Gordon - University of Calgary, Canada

  • [1997] New Approaches in Disaster Communications: Towards a Global Communications Lifeline Infrastructure
    Examines the impact of computer-mediated networking (CMC) on disaster communications. CMC is considered as a powerful tool for improving disaster communications, and especially for self-organizing approaches. It challenges traditional appoaches to disaster communication strategies.
  • [2010] Marshall McLuhan and the End of the World as We Know It
    In: ESC: English Studies in Canada (ESC), 36(2/3), June/September 2010 
    Social media has effectively erased the distinction between hacker and hackee, between the producer and consumer of media, creating the world of the produser, wherein a mashup-remix ecosystem of metadata and free-floating signifiers prevails as an emerging new cultural order. Marshall McLuhan saw in his time the antecedents of this new information order: “[t]he Western world is imploding.… Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the extensions of man—the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society” [Understanding Media, 1964]. Structural considerations were central to McLuhan’s intellectual engagement with communications history and became the foundation for his contribution to “Transformation Theory” and “Media Ecology” approaches. Transformation Theory offers a perspective on our time to remind us the ‘content of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. It encourages communication scholars to seek out the deep structure that underlies the design and success of today’s social media platforms rather than preoccupy themselves with the unceasing stream of tweets emitted from Twitter or its inevitable successors.

H

  • Hempell, Anthony [1996]
    The Resonating Interval: Exploring the Process of the Tetrad
    An exploration of Marshall McLuhan and Bruce Powers' concept of the tetrad as a theoretical model for assessing, analysing and predicting the social effects of technology on society.
  • Houben, Michael / Houben, Ronda [2001]
    Netizen’s An Anthology 
    The history and impact of various aspects of the net: the Internet, ARPANET, Usenet, etc.
  • How Much Information? 2000 | 2003
    A team of researchers at U.C. Berkeley’s School of Information attempted to measure how much information is produced in the world each year. They examined a variety of media: print, film, optical, broadcast, and internet. It is estimated that the world’s total yearly production of content requires roughly 5 exabytes of storage. This is the equivalent of 800 megabytes for each person on earth. If digitized with full formatting, the seventeen million books in the Library of Congress contain about 136 terabytes of information; five exabytes of information is equivalent in size to the information contained in 37,000 new libraries the size of the Library of Congress book collections. “It is clear that we are all drowning in a sea of information. The challenge is to learn to swim in that sea, rather than drown in it. Better understanding and better tools are desperately needed if we are to take full advantage of the ever-increasing supply of information described in this report.”

K

L

  • Leong, Nancy / Morando, Joanne [2015]
    Communication in Cyberspace
    In: North Caroline Law Review, 15(11)
    What counts as «communication» on the internet? Defining the term is particularly important for crimes such as cyberstalking, cyberharassment, and cyberbullying, where most statutes require a showing that the alleged perpetrator ‘communicated’ with the victim or impose a similar requirement through slightly different language.
  • Liu, Yuliang [2002]
    What does research say about the nature of computer-mediated communication: Task-oriented, social-emotion-oriented, or both?
    In: Electronic Journal of Sociology, 6(1).
    The author compares to models of CMC. The task-oriented research model is primarily bases on three theorie: Social Presence Theory, Media/Information Richness Theory, and Social Context Cues Theory. Teh social-emotion oriented research model in CMC environments is primarily based on Walter's Social Information Processing Model. The theoretical foundations, research methodology and major findings are evaluated and compared.

M

  • Masters in Public Relations
    An information hub for students pursuing a master’s degree in public relations.
  • Media Theory Site - UK
    Created by David Gauntlett of the Institute of Communication Studies, University of Leeds.
  • Messages
    An online exhibition of the Museum of Science (MOS)
    Communication is "social interaction through messages" [Gerbner 1976]. Communication is a sign of life -- and it's central to human activities. Learn about the myriad ways we communicate, from language, to music to codes. In five sections we can learn how animals communicate, how human language has evolved, how humans communicate non-verbally, how humans might communicate with aliens, and how what's the big deal about Internet communication. Don't forget to participate in the experiment: Six Degrees of Separation.
  • Mulvaney, Becky Michele [1994] (Dept. of Communication, Florida Atlantic University)
    Gender Differences in Communication: An Intercultural Experience
    An analysis of geneder communication as a form of intercultural communication.

N

New Media Studies
A site for the study of new media, containing book reviews, website reviews, web design guides, internet information, and more. Created and maintained by David Gauntlett, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, UK.

O

Ødegård, Ola
Telecommunications and social interaction - Social constructions in virtual space
The article focuses on aspects of social interaction in three categories of networked applications: computer mediated communication, networked multimedia applications and distributed virtual reality systems. Special interest is paid to illustrate how the three different media offer various conditions for social interaction in education and work.

P

R

  • Rhetoric and Composition - eserver
    A portal on classical and computer-mediated rhetoric and communication.
  • Reid, Elizabeth M.  - University of Melbourne, Australia
    • [1991] Electropolis: Communication and Community on Internet Relay Chat 
      One of the first analysis of the social dimensions of synchronous computer-mediated communication. It is shown that the structure of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) forces users to deconstruct many of the cultural tools that form the basis of more conventional systems of interaction. Users develop new methods of creating shared systems of significance, and methods of enforcing that new hegemony. IRC’s internal system of cultural deconstruction and regeneration is mirrored in its implications for the external system of academic discourse. The autor argues that the forms of interaction seen on IRC problematize and necessitate the reconstruction of some of the methods of analysis that have been applied to computer-mediated communication. Synchronous computer-mediated communication offers challenges to disciplines such as linguistics, sociology and history that demand a reconstruction of those discourses. A must-read for any student of virtual communities.
    • [1994] Cultural Formations in Text-Based Virtual Realities
      Virtual reality is an imaginative experience and thus a cultural construct rather than a technical construction. Reid discusses cultural and social issues raised by interaction on MUDs (text-based virtual reality systems). MUD usage forces users to deconstruct many of the cultural tools and understandings that form the basis of more conventional systems of interaction. Unable to rely on physical cues as a channel of meaning, users of MUDs have developed ways of substituting for or by-passing them, resulting in novel methods of textualising the non-verbal. The nature of the body and sexuality are problematised in these virtual environments, since the physical is never fixed and gender is a self-selected attribute. New systems of significance have been developed by users, along with methods of enforcing that cultural hegemony through power structures dependent upon manipulation of the virtual environment. These new systems of meaning and social control define those who use MUDs as constituting a distinct cultural group.
    • [1996] Informed Consent in the Study of On-Line Communities: A Reflection on the Effects of Computer-Mediated Social Research
      In: The Information Society, 12(2): 169-174.
      In studying on-line communities, researchers must consider the unique environmental factors involved in order to minimize potential harm to human subjects. The disinhibiting effect of computer-mediated communication can encourage people to agree to or even insist on a kind of public exposure by which they may eventually be harmed. On the internet the perceptions of interpersonal affect and effects may be obscured by the nature of the medium itself. Therefore care must be taken to guard against not only any increased tendency for researchers to objectify subjects, but also the tendency for subjects to underestimate the potential consequences of consent. The criteria for informed consent that may be sufficient in face-toface research environments are not necessarily so in a medium in which subjective experience is easily objectified and information is easily devalued.
    • [1998] Power and the Evolution of Social Control in Cyberspace
      In: Peter Kollock and Marc Smith [1998] Communities in Cyberspace. Routledge.
      Hierarchies and power on the text-based multi-player virtual reality games (MUDs) rely on the control of players’ abilities to manipulate the virtual environment. Social status on a MUD is linked to a player’s ability to manipulate the virtual components of the system; rewards consist of increased access to such world-manipulating tools. An effective form of power is described by Foucault as one that enables the powerful to “gain access to the bodies of individuals, to their acts, attitudes and modes of everyday behaviour.” On a MUD, where the physical body is not present, but the virtual body is at the absolute mercy of those who control the system, such power exists. The theatre of authority in a MUD is one which demands and facilitates a strongly dramaturgical element. Underlying each MUD system are cohesive social structures which centre on control and the manipulation of game elements. Every piece of information a player integrates into the virtual universe permits and assures the exercise of power. Speaking and writing (transmitting knowledge) are acts of literal power in the virtual reality of a MUD, and permit the creation of hierarchies of social control.
  • Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics 
    Research on the social aspects of computerization, including the roles of information technology in social and organizational change and the ways that the social organization of information technology are influenced by social forces and social practices. Includes social impacts of computing, social analysis of computing, studies of computer-mediate communication (CMC), information policy, computers and society, organizational informatics, interpretive informatics, etc. Editor: Rob Kling  (Univ. of Indiana, USA).

S

  • Sanes, Ken
    • [1997] Image and Action 
      An ebook about the way the representations and communications of the news media are forms of action and interaction. It is focussed on the way images are manipulated in the media (as well as in everyday conversation) in an effort to gain and exert power. This contrubution is a part of a larger project: a general theory of social interaction and communication. It is called Transparancy.
    • The Age of Simulation
    • Simulation and Postmodern Society
      Contemporary society is characterized by a newfound ability to control the world of nature and worlds of illusion. It immerses people in a virtual environment of images and simulations, and encourages the acting out of desires, including desires that once seemed off-limits to action and experience. Ultimately, it seeks to turn reality into a simulation and make simulations seem real, so humanity will have the ability to control and create its surroundings at will. How does postmodern society use this newfound power?
  • Storsul, Tanja [2014]
    Deliberation or Self-presentation? Young People, Politics and Social Media 
    In: Nordicom Review, 35(2): 17-25
    A study of how politically engaged young people use social media for political purposes. There has been a growing optimism that social media can stimulate political participation and deliberation, especially among young people. Based on focus group interviews with Norwegian teenagers, the author argues that social media have become an important platform for young people to participate in political activities. Whether the purpose is internal meetings or external mobilization, social media provide platforms for planning, reporting and communicating political activities. At the same time, politically engaged young people are hesitant about using social media for political deliberation. They are concerned about how they present themselves, and they are reluctant to stand out as highly political. One important explanation for this is that social media integrate different forms of communication and collapse social contexts. This causes teenagers to delimit controversies and try to keep political discussions to groups with more segregated audiences.

T

  • Thomas, Pradip Ninan [2015] 
    Communication for Social Change, Making Theory Count
    In: Nordicom Review, 36:71-78
    Thomas argues for communication for social change theory to be based on a theory of knowledge, a specific understanding of process that feeds into practice, a knowledge of structures, a specific understanding of context and flows of power. He highlights the example of the Right to Information Movement (RTI) in India as an embodiment of meaningful practice that was in itself a response to the felt needs of people. The RTI movement provided opportunities to understand Voice as a practice and value through indigenous means, specifically through the mechanism of the Jan Sunwai (Public Hearings). When local people are involved in articulating ‘needs’, there will be scope for the sustainability of the practice of communication and social change and opportunities to theorise from such practice.
  • Tyler, Michael / Hughes, Janice / Renfrew, Helena
    Telecommunications in Kenya: Facing the Challenges of an Open Economy
    An overview of telecommunications in Kenya and a discussion of the major policy issues facing this sector in the 1990s, in the wider context of the challenges of development strategy as a whole.
  • Telecommunicatiewet 
    The Dutch law on telecommunication.
  • Telecommunications Research Associates (TRA)
    A leader in advanced communications training.
  • TelecomWeb
    Provides information on all aspects of the telecom business. It includes a weekly email service, TelecomWeb Direct, that provides a summary of the broadband, satellite and wireless stories covered on the TeleComWeb network.

V

Media Literacy

 

Put simply, media literacy includes the skills of literacy extended to all message forms, including those little black squiggles on white paper. Media literacy includes reading and writing, speaking and listening, critical viewing, and the ability to make your own messages using a wide range of technologies, including audio technology, billboards, cameras, camcorders, and computers. However, media literacy is not a new subject area and it is not just about television: it is literacy for the information age [Renee Hobbs, Media Studies Journal, 1994].

 

  • Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME)
    A network of educators, students, health professionals, journalists, media-makers, parents, activists, and other citizens joined as a member-supported, independent, nonprofit continental educational coalition.
  • Canadian Association of Media Education Organizations (CAMEO)
    An association of Canadian media literacy groups that advocates, promotes and develops media literacy in Canada.
  • Center for Media Literacy (CML) 
    Media literacy is a critical lifeskill for children and adults in today's media culture. Media literacy is the ability to communicate competently in all media forms, print and electronic, as well as to access, understand, analyse and evaluate powerful images, words and sounds that make up our contemporary mass media culture. This site might help you expand your media literacy. It provides a catalog with media literacy educational materials.
    • [2003] Literacy for the 21st Century
      Since the beginning of recorded history, the concept of literacy meant having the skill to interpret “squiggles” on a piece of paper as letters which, when put together, formed words that conveyed meaning. Teaching the young to put the words together to understand and express ever more complex ideas became the goal of education as it evolved over the centuries. Today information about the world around us comes to us not only by words on a piece of paper but more and more through the powerful images and sounds of our multi-media culture. Although mediated messages appear to be self-evident, in truth, they use a complex audio/visual “language” which has its own rules (grammar) and which can be used to express many-layered concepts and ideas about the world. If our children are to be able to navigate their lives through this multi-media culture, they need to be fluent in “reading” and “writing” the language of images and sounds just as we have always taught them to “read” and “write” the language of printed communications. Media literacy education organizes and promotes the importance of teaching this expanded notion of “literacy.” At its core are the basic higher-order critical thinking skills: knowing how to identify key concepts, how to make connections between multiple ideas, how to ask pertinent questions, formulate a response, identify fallacies. These skills form the very foundation of both intellectual freedom and the exercising of full citizenship in a democratic society
    • [2016] CML MediaLit Kit
    • [2016] Integrating Media Literacy Across the Curriculum
    • [2016] On Media and Living in a Media Culture
    • [2016] Media Literacy and Public Health
    • [2016] Media Literacy in the Home
    • [2016] Media Literacy in Faith Communities
  • Hobbs, Renee - University of Rhode Islands
  • Jesuit Communication Project (JCP)
    Promotes media literacy across Canada. It helps students develop an informed and critical understanding of the nature of the mass media, the techniques used by them, and the impact of these techniques.
  • Journal of Media Literacy (JML)
    JML brings together the thinking and experiences of the major pioneers, the current practitioners, and the future thinkers in media literacy.
  • Kaplan, Nancy
    • [1995-1997] E-Literacies: Politexts, Hypertexts and Other Cultural Formations in the Late Age of Print or mirror 
      Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine, 2(3), March 1995.
      An exploration of the reading and writing process specific to electronic texts and an examination of the academic debates over the issue. Kaplan is Professor and Director of the School of Information Arts and Technologies at the University of Baltimore, USA.
    • [2001] Knowing Practice: A More Complex View of New Media Literacy
      Kaplan examines the pervasive quest for invisible computers, applications, and interfaces in order toe mae a case for resisting the presure of standardize platforms for delivering on-line courses and other Web-based applications. She argues that too great a reduction of the cognitive challenge in the present may prevent people from developing effective learning strategies they can apply to future technologies. Seen from a constructivist perspective on learning the applications and interfaces must remain visible and accessible to knowledge workers if the are to develop new media literacies.
  • Media Literacy
    A course on media literacy, presented by Carl Bybee - Communication Studies at the University of Oregon, USA. It explores the growing media literacy movement in the United States, including the debates over what media literacy means and where it should be headed. The primary focus is on the relationship between critical as as opposed to traditional views of media literacy with regard to media and health issues concerning youth.
  • Media Smarts 
    Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy.
  • National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLA)
    A national membership organization dedicated to advancing the field of media literacy education in the United States.
  • Thoman, Elizabeth
    Skills & Strategies for Media Education
    For 500 years, we have valued the ability to read print in order to participate fully as informed citizens and educated adults in society. Today the family, the school and all community institutions, including the medical and health community, share the responsibility of preparing young people for living in a world of powerful images, words and sounds. Television and mass media have become so ingrained in our cultural milieu that we should no longer view the task of media education as providing ‘protection’ against unwanted messages. Our goal must be to help people become competent, critical and literate in all media forms so that they control the interpretation of what they see or hear rather than letting the interpretation control them. Media literacy is the ability to interpret and create personal meaning from the hundreds, even thousands of verbal and visual symbols we take in everyday through television, radio, computers, newspapers and magazines, and of course advertising. It’s the ability to choose and select, the ability to challenge and question, the ability to be conscious about what’s going on around you and not be passive and therefore, vulnerable.
  • Walsh, Bill
    Brief History of Media Education
  • WikipediaDigital Literacy | Information literacy | Media literacy | Visual literacy

Research Centers

Australia

Austria

Belgium

Canada

  • Communications Research Centre (CRC) - Nepean, Canada 
    The leading communications research facility of the Canadian government. Its key research areas include: radio sciences and radiocommunications technologies, broadcast technologies, satellite communications systems, network systems and technologies, and microelectronic and optical technologies.

Denmark

France

Germany

Hungary

Japan

Netherlands

Norway

United Kingdom

U.S.A.

  • California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) - University of California, Irvine
  • Center for Computer-Mediated Communication (CCMC) - Indiana University, Bloomington
  • Center for Information Strategies & Technologies (CIST) - California State University
  • Center for Pervasice Communications & Computing (CPCC) - University of California, Irvine
    CPCC was established in 2000 to facilitate research in emerging communications technologies that will dramatically change the way people access and use information. The need for ubiquitous communications to anywhere at anytime results in many challenges in different areas of communications, information theory, signal processing, systems, circuits, and networking. CPCC conducts fundamental research in these areas with the goal of pushing the technological limits as far as possible.
  • Center for Telecommunications Research (CTR) - University of Columbia
  • Information Infrastructure Project - Harvard University
  • MIT - Media Lab
  • Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics (RJCSI) - Indiana University, Bloomington 
    The center is dedicated to support research into information technology and social change. Social Informatics (SI) refers to study of social aspects of computerization, including the role of information technology in social and organizational change, the uses of information technologies in social contexts, and the way that the social organization of information technologies is influenced by social forces and social practices.
  • School of Information (SI) - University of Michigan
    SI works to develop an integrated understanding of human needs as they relate to information systems and social structures. The research projects are highly collaborative and focus on testbeds or assessments in real settings.
  • School of Information Management & Systems (SIMS) - University of California, Berkeley
  • Virtual Institute of Information
    An online research facility for independent research in telecommunications, cybercommunications, and mass media. Managed by the Columbia Institute for Teleinformation at Columbia Business School, Columbia University. New York, USA.

Professional Associations, Societies, and Networks

  • American Communication Association (ACA)
    A not-for-profit virtual professional association with actual presence in the world of communication scholars and practitioners. It is committed to enabling the effective use of new and evolving technologies to facilitate communication instruction, research and criticism, and to offering a technologically supportive venue for all who study the ways in which humans communicate. While the Association is based in the United States, it is a virtual organization that welcomes participation from academics and professionals throughout the world. The ACA was founded and incorporated in 1993 on the notion that information about the discipline should be free. It stands to reason that our new communication technologies have ushered in a new era of information exchange and sharing, only comparable to the invention of the printing press and movable typeface.
  • Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)
    AEJMC's mission is to promote the highest possible standards for journalism and mass communication education, to encourage the widest possible range of communication research, to encourage the implementation of a multi-cultural society in the classroom and curriculum, and to defend and maintain freedom of expression in day-to-day living. AEJMC offers members the opportunity to affiliate with 17 divisions, 9 special interest groups and 2 commissions. These groups address a variety of interests in journalism and mass communication education, and feature newsletters, research competitions and convention programming in their respective areas.
  • European Communications Research and Education Association (ECREA)
    ECREA was established in 2005 as a merger of the two main European associations of communication researchers, the European Communication Association (ECA) and the European Consortium for Communications Research (ECCR). ECREA is an international non-profit association. It provides a forum where researchers and others involved in communication and information research can meet and exchange information and documentation about their work. Its disciplinary focus includes media, (tele)communications and informatics research, including relevant approaches of human and social sciences.
  • European Network for Communication and Information Perspectives (ENCIP)
    ENCIP is a collaborative network for socio-economic research on ICT and policy. ENCIP’s activities aim to create an open intellectual environment for the design of policies for ICT, strengthen the European and international ICT research infrastructure and bridge between the academic world, the ICT industry and the policy-making arena. The European Communications Policy Research (EuroCPR) Conference is held annually to facilitate systematic interaction between academic research, European and national policy makers, and industrial representatives in the communications sector. It brings well-grounded theoretical and empirical research to bear upon current policy issues.
  • International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)
    The largest professional organization in the field of communication research.
Sections Working Groups

 

International Communication Association (ICA) 
Brings together academicians and other professionals whose interest focused on human communication.

Sections of the ICA

 

  • International Interactive Communications Society (IICS)
    A professional trade association for companies and individuals involved in the interactive multimedia.
  • Internet Professional Association (IPROA)
    A non-profit making professional organization founded in 1999, dedicated to the bridging of digital divide in society, and advancing the art & science and proper application of Internet technology. Members of iProA come from a wide spectrum of professions, including experts in areas like innovative design, sales, marketing, infrastructure, e-commerce, consultancy, investment and other Internet related professional services.
  • Media, Communications & Cultural Studies Association (MECCSA)
    MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. Membership is open to all who teach and research these subjects in HE institutions, via either institutional or individual membership. The field includes film and TV production, journalism, radio, photography, creative writing, publishing, interactive media and the web; and it includes higher education for media practice as well as for media studies.
  • Organization for Research on Women and Communication (ORWAC)
  • Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Kommunikationswissenschaft (ÖGK)
    The Austrian Society for Communication Studies is a forum for critical confrontation with communication and media questions in sicence and practice. De association of professionals aims at the strenghtening of communication science and at the embedding of communicational problem solving competence into practical fields. The official journal of the society is Medien Journal.
  • Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing (SHARP)
  • Telecommunication Society of Australia (TSA)
  • University Network for Communication Sciences
    A Finnish network that includes all the institutions of higher education in the field from ten different universities. The goals are to enchance scientific co-operation and the exchange of information, to exchange basic studies, to support doctoral and postdoctoral studies, and to plan new programs.

 

Journals

  • Adformatie [full text]
    Dutch journal on advertising, marketing and media.
  • American Communication Journal, The [full text]
  • Atlantic Journal of Communication (AJC) [table of contents]
    The official publication of the New Jersey Communication Association (NJCA) and the New York State Communication Association (NYSCA).
  • Canadian Journal of Communication (CJC) [full text]
    Publishes Canadian research and scholarship in the field of communication studies. Particular attention is paid to research that has a distinctive Canadian flavour by virtue of choice of topic or by drawing on the legacy of Canadian theory and research.
  • Communication Review, The [abstracts]
  • Communication Theory (CT) [abstracts]
    A journal of the International Communication Association (ICA), published quarterly by Guilford Publications.
  • Communications of the ACM [full text] 
    A monthly magazine that claims a readership of 100,000 computing professionals. Includes general interest articles, case studies, and special sections. There are also several channels for expressions of opinion and technical commentary. Presented by the Association for Cumputing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society
  • Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine [full text]
    Reports about people, events, technology, public policy, culture, practices, study, and applications of the phenomenon of human communication and interaction via computer networks and in online environments. The publication of the magazine was ceased in 2007, but all the past issues will be available. Editor: John December.
  • Comweb - The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
    A product magazine that explains the pros and cons of new products —hardware and software— to buyers.
  • Contiuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Culture [full text]
    A thematically based cultural studies journal with a primary focus on screen media (including publishing, broadcasting and public exhibitionary media such as museums and sites). Special interest: the history and practice of screen media in Australasia and Asia.
  • Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies [abstracts]
    A refereed academic journal of research into new media technologies.
  • Current Online [full text]
    A byweekly newspaper that covers public TC and public radio in the United States.
  • Electronic Journal of Communication (EJC) [full text]
  • Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries (EJISDC) [full text]
  • European Journal of Communication [table of contents + abstracts]
  • Explorations in Media Ecology (EME) - A Journal of Intersections [full text] 
    A journal that investigates the intersections between culture, communication and technology. ME seeks to make an intersection between traditional refereed scholarship and serious non-academic critique.
  • Human Communication Research (HCR) [abstracts]
    An official journal of the International Communication Association (ICA).
  • Information, Communication & Society [abstracts + full text featured article]
  • Information Society, The (TIS) [abstracts]
    A critical forum for leading edge analysis of the impacts, policies, system concepts, methodologies related to information technologies and changes in society and culture. Includes computers and telecommunications; the sites of social change include homelife, workplaces, schools, communities and diverse organizations, as well as new social forms in cyberspace. It publishes scholarly articles, position papers, debates, short communications and book reviews. Editor-in-Chief: Rob Kling.
  • International Communication Gazette [abstracts]
    Covers all aspects of communication, with a particular focus on communication and international relations; communication and development; and new information and communication technologies. Editor: Cee J. Hamelink.
  • International Journal of Media and Communication Studies (IJMCS) 
    A peer review open access journal that addresses broad themes in media and communication studies. Editor: Daniel Chandler.
  • Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (JAsIST) [abstracts]
    A forum for new research in information transfer and communication processes in general, and in the context of recorded knowledge in particular. Concerns include the generation, recording, distribution, storage, representation, retrieval, and dissemination of information, as well as its social impact and management of information agencies. There is a strong emphasis on new information technologies and methodologies in text analysis, computer based retrieval systems, measures of effectiveness, and the search for patterns and regularities in measures of existing communication systems. The orientation is toward quantitative experimental work, but significant qualitative and historical research is also welcome.
  • Journal of Communication (JOC) [abstracts]
    A bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes articles and book reviews on a broad range of issues in communication theory and research. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International Communication Association (ICA).
  • Journal of Computer Mediated Communication (JCMC) [full text]
    A web-based, peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Its focus is social science research on communicating with computer-based media technologies. Editor: S. Shyam Sundar.
  • Journal of Media Literacy (JML)
    JML brings together the thinking and experiences of the major pioneers, the current practitioners, and the future thinkers in media literacy.
  • Journal of Radio & Audio Media [abstracts]
    A semiannual publication designed to promote scholarly dialogues generated by various disciplinary and methodological points of view. The Journal welcomes interdisciplinary inquiries regarding radio’s contemporary and historical subject matter as well as those audio media that have challenged radio’s traditional use.
  • Media/Culture [full text]
    M/C crosses over between popular and the academic, by engaging with the ‘popular’ and integrating the work of ‘scholarship’ in media and cultural studies.
  • Media Studies Journal [full text]
    A biannual journal devoted to media issues and topics.
  • Medien & Zeit [table of contents]
    An Austrian journal on the history and actuality of communication. Presented by the Arbeitskreis für Historische Kommunikationsforschung.
  • Medien Journal
    The official journal of the Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Kommunikationswissenschaft (ÖGK). It publishes on actual problems of the media and information society, but also on theoretical foundations of communication science.
  • Nordicom Review [full text]
    A refereed journal that provides a major forum for media and communication researchers in the Nordic countries. This semi-annual and blind peer-reviewed journal (hard copy and open access) is addressed to the international scholarly community. It publishes the best of media and communication research in the region, as well as theoretical works in all its diversity.
  • Telecommunications.Online
    Specialized on the application of service provider technologies.
  • Total Telecom
    An online publication from the publishers of Communications Week International, Communication International and New Carrier. Busy telecoms professionals can find all the latest news and analysis about their industry.
  • Women's Studies in Communication
    The official Journal of the Organization for Research on Women and Communication (ORWAC).
  • Reference
    • Mediastudies.com
      Helps advance research and education in media studies and critical thinking. The site is a hub - providing links to news, media studies sites, and other resources for educators, students, researchers, and the wider community.
    • Wikipedia: Media_studies
    • www.theory.org.uk
      A collection of media studies resources and projects organised by the University of Westminster.

Bulletins and Newsletters

  • Computers and Society 
    A quarterly bulletin of the ACM's Special Interest Group on Computers and Society (SIGCAS)
    Articles on social implications of computerization -- including computer ethics, privacy, organizational issues, intellectual and other property, equity, gender, health and safety, environment, professional certification, education, research, and similar topics. Editor: Tom Jewett (Department of Computer Science in the California State University at Long Beach).

Mailing Lists

  • AltMedia
    An interdisciplinary list to promote research into alternative, radical and community media in all their forms. It provides a space to share ideas, information, skills and resources.
  • CRTnet
    The Communication Research and Theory Network. You can subscribe online.
  • France-Media
    Facilitates the exchange of ideas and information between researchers interested in the French broadcasting media.
  • IAMS
    The International Association for Media in Science provides an international forum for the sharing of innovation and expertise to the benefit of higher education.
  • Professional-communication 
    Concentrates at the practive of professional communication from a linguistic analysis basis. Intended as a discussion forum for students, researchers, academics and professional practitioners in Europe.
  • Virtual-methods
    Discussion of methodological problems and innovations associated with research into computer-mediated communication.

Business Communication

Academic Departments

Management Communication - New York University, USA

  • Business & Professional Communication Quarterly (BPCQ)
    A refereed journal of the Association for Business Communication ABC) devoted to pedagogical issues and instructional research.
  • Presentations
    Monthly magazine focusing on technology and techniques for effective business presentations.
  • A multidisciplinary association dedicated to enhancing the teaching of business education and improving the learning environment.

Association for Business Communication (ABC)
An international organization committed to fostering excellence in business communication scholarship, research, education, and practice.

Non-verbal Communication and Body Language

 

The impact you make on others depends on what you say (7%), how you say it (38%), and by your body language (55%). Since how you sound also conveys a message, 93% of emotion is communicated without actual words. Body language is nonverbal communication by means of facial expressions, eye behavior, gestures, posture, and the like. Flirting is an example of applied body language. Sexual or romantic interest is primarily communicated through body language, which may include flicking one’s hair, eye contact, brief touching, open stances, and close proximity between partners. ‘Flirting with intent’ is part of the mate-selection and courtship process: flirting to get someone into bed, or into a relationship. ‘Flirting for fun’ is just flirtation that tend to be flippant and fun — aimed to have a laugh with someone.

 

  • Bibliography on Dutch body language literature
  • Brazilian Body Language
    Although in terms of body language nobody beats the Italians in sheer number of gestures, Brazilians are not very far behind.
  • Casciani, Dominic
    No sweat? Reading the body language
    An analysis of the performance of President Clinton in his evidence about the Lewinsky affair.
  • Center for Nonverbal Studies (CNS)
    A nonprofit research center located in Spokane, Washington and La Jolla, California. The mission of the center is to advance the study of human communication in all its forms apart from language. This includes body movement, gesture, facial expression, adornment and fashion, architecture, mass media, and consumer-product design. CNS is affiliated with the Center for Ethnographic Research (CER) at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, USA.
  • Donath, Judith S.
    Body language without the body: situating social cues in the virtual world
    Social cues have always been embodied in the physical world. But how can such cues emerge in today's virtual world where we leave our bodies at home? Is it possible to translate our body language in a disembodied environment?
  • Duffy, John / Feltovich, Nick [2000]
    Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words? An Experimental Comparison of Observation and Cheap Talk
    How do individuals achieve good outcomes in one-shot strategic situations? They can engage in some kind of preplay communication —cheap talk— in which they endeavor to convince one another of the actions they intend to play. Another, less explored, possibility is that individuals take account of their knowledge of the past behavior of others when deciding which actions to play. There has been no research examining the relative efficacy of cheap talk and observation for the achievement of good outcomes. This paper reports the results from an experiment with human subjects that allows for such a comparison.
  • Flynn, Patricia K. - Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, USA
    Body Language — The Language of Contemporary Fashion
  • Gendlin, E.T. - University of Chicago, USA
    Thinking Beyond Patterns: Body, Language, and Situations
  • Harrison, Beverly / Ishii, Hiroshi / Chignell, Mark H. - University of Toronto, Canada
    An empirical study of onrientation of shared workspaces and interpersonal spaces in videomediated collaboration
  • Hogan, Kevin [2010]
    The Secret Language of Business - Wiley & Sons
    Reveals the secrets of body language and nonverbal communication in bussiness. Explains how to sell something by using your body. Nonverbal messages can move prospects from suspicion to openness and receptiveness. They can calm hostile or dissatisfied clients and sway fence-sitters into buying.
  • lichaamstaal.pagina.nl
    A list of links on body language and non-verbal communication.
  • Maginnis, Tara
    How's your personal distance - watch this space
    The 'personal distance' of Russians from an American perspective.
  • Marwijk, Frank van
  • Marwijk, Frank & Marianne
    Lichaamstaal
    A Dutch site on non-verbal communication.
  • Dr. Nerdlove [2012] 
    Read her Signs (Without Reading the Tea Leaves)
    In many societies it’s just not socially acceptable for a women to approach a man. But most women will give off all kinds of clues if they’re interested. This article informs on how to learn these subtle hints, i.e. how to evaluate their body language.
  • Nonverbal Behavior / Nonverbal Communication Links - University of Salamanca, Spain.
  • Sheppard, Mike
    Proxemics
    On the study of our use of space and how various differences in that use can make us feel more relaxed or anxious.
  • Siegel, Art (SeaBird Associates Inc.)
    • Actions speak louder than words [1997]
      A short explanation of how positive and negative body languages can influence the succes of salespeople. Face-to-face meetings can be enhanced by the use of body language: observe the customer's body language (positive moves are buying signals, negative moves are objections) and control your own body language.
    • Harnessing the Power of Body Language - part 2 [1998]
      Identifies key clues to the ‘true thoughts’ of customers by observing their body language.
  • Situationist, The [2008]
    The situation of flirting
    Flirtation is gaining new respectability thanks to a spate of provocative studies of animal and human behavior in many parts of the world. The capacity of men and women to flirt and to be receptive to flirting turns out to be a remarkable set of behaviors embedded deep in our psyches. Flirting is nature’s solution to the problem every creature faces in a world full of potential mates-how to choose the right one. Flirtating is executed with little acts (gestures, stance, eye movement) that are called contact-readiness cues, because they indicate nonverbally that you’re prepared for physical engagement.
    The Situationist is associated with The Project on Law and Mind Sciences (PLMS) at Harvard Law School.
  • Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) [2004]
    The Flirting Report
    A study that explores the nature of flirting in Britain today. What is flirting? How much do we flirt? What are the rules? What are the taboos? Who do we flirt with? Where are the hotbeds of flirting, and where are the no-go areas? And what about the future of flirting: how will our flirting habits have changed by the year 2020, and beyond? The researchers are particularly interested to discover how flirting habits may be affected by modern trends and innovations, such as the rise of the ‘singleton’ and the advent of email and internet dating. Which aspects of flirting are ‘innate’ and unchangeable, and which are influenced by new sociocultural trends and patterns?
  • Stichting Lichaamstaal
    The Body Language Foundation produces and presents visual material about childbirth and contact with the baby.

History of Communication

  • Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI)
    An organization that expresses the wonders of the moving images and opens the door to the art of the future. The centre displays and preserves Australian and international screen content in all its forms.
  • Computer History
  • Dead Media Project
    In 1997 science writer Bruce Sterling posted The Dead Media Manifesto (mirror) in the "boingboing" magazine in which he asked for help in creating a virtual library dedicated to past forms of media. Students of the Vancouver Film School-Multimedia saw the opportunity and created a site dedicated to the old and dead media. It's a naturalist's field guide for the communications paleontologist.
  • Jones, Bruce [1998]
    The History of Printing
  • Media History Project
    Media historians have a special stake in "homesteading" the internet as a new communication medium. Here they show what might be going on in cyberspace. The site offers a lot of information and links to early media (oral & scribal culture), printed media (printing & publishing, journalism, photography, advertisering, comics), electrical media (telegraphy, telephony, sound recording), massa media (radio, film, television), and digital media (computing). In the TimeLine you can browse lists of events that have been arranged in some sort of logical consequence.
  • Leggat, Robert [1999]
    A History of Photography - from its beginnings till the 1920s
    Portraits of the most important photographers of the period and information on significant processes used during the early days of photography.
  • Leydesdorff, Loet (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
    The Evolution of Communication Systems
    Communications can be studied by using a mathematical theory of commucations. In social communications, however, the channels are not "fixed", but themselves subject to change. Communication systems change by communicating information to related communication systems; co-variation among systems if repeated over time, can lead to co-evolution. Conditions for stabilization of higher-order systems are specifiable: segmentation, stratification, differentiation, reflection, and self-organization can be distingguished in terms of developmental stages of increasingly complex networks. So in addition to natural and cultural evolution, a condition for the artificial evolution of communnication systems can be specified.
  • Telemuseum
    Telecommunications Museum, Stockholm, on history of telecommunications within the fields of telegraphy, telephony, radio and television.

Telephone

 

We have come to rely on the telephone without thinking. When we need to contact someome over distance, we pick up the phone and dial. And if that person is not available, we simply leave a voice message. "Lifeline of the lonely and lifeblood of the busy, the telephone is taken for granted. It comes as near as any invention to being an exension of the human body"

[John Broooks, Telephone: the First Hundred Years].

What has been the impact of the introduction of the telephone on people and their cultures? The telephone facilitates conversations between people at a distance. The far speaker enabled those who had moved away from their old neighnourhoods. relatives, friends and lovers to stay in touch. The telephone also falicitated the efficient organization and operation of large enterprises and institutions. It has profound effects on the ecology of all human activity, including the structure of the city and the state.

 

  • Agnelli, Davide et a. [2004]
    Fashion Victims: an unconventional research approach in the field of mobile communication
  • Alexander Graham Bell Virtual Museum
  • Alexander Graham Bell: Who Invented the Telephone
    The phone of today is almost nothing like the original telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell. People today carry their phones around in pockets and purses, talking almost anywhere and everywhere to stay in touch with friends and family. Initially, the first telephone invented by Bell could only transmit a one-way message, making it necessary for two telephones to complete a conversation. The site offers extensive information on the life and work of Alexander Bell.
  • Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA)
    The Impact of the Mobile Phone on Work/Life Balance
  • Bautsch, Holly et al. [2001]
    An investigation of mobile phone use: a socio-technical approach
    IE 499 - Socio-technical Systems in Industry.
  • Beaton, John / Wajcman, Judy [2004]
    The impact of the Mobile Phone in Australia
    Paper presented at the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association Conference, September 2004.
  • Benschop, Albert [2014] - University of Amsterdam
    De mobiele samenleving
    A study on the interactive, organizational and societal peculiarities of mobile communication.
  • Brian, Marshall
    How Cell Phones Works - How Stuff Works
    Ten articles on how a cell phone works and what can go wrong with it. You’ll learn that a cell phone really is an extremely sophisticated radio.
  • Chandler, Daniel
    Using the Telephone
    Article on the nature of the medium, the phenomenology of using the telephone, social and psychological functions of the telephone, individual and role differences, and the teaching and learning by telephone. This was written before the mobile phone boom.
  • Eby, Chuck
    Antique Telephone History Web Site 
    Introduction to the history of the telephone since its invention in 1876 and to the histories of a numer of current telephone companies. In addition, information about antique telephones, wiring diagrams, and where to obtain parts.
  • Geser, Hans - University of Zürich, Switzerland
    • [2005] Towards a Sociological Theory of the Mobile Phone
      The evolution of life on earth has been shaped by two highly consistent physical constraints: (a) Physical proximity was always a precondition for organisms to initiate and maintain continuing interactive relations; (b) Stable dwelling places were necessary for the development of more complex forms of communication and cooperation. The restraining effects of these two physical factors increased in the course of biological and socio-cultural evolution, because they collide more and more with some other outcomes of this same evolution: the increase of spatial mobility and the growing capacities for communication. The landline phone has eliminated the prerequisite of physical proximity, but on the other hand, it has preserved (or even reinforced) the need to stay at specific places. Portable wireless technologies make communication compatible with spatial mobility. The significance of the mobile phone lies in empowering people to engage in communication, which is at the same time free from the constraints of physical proximity and spatial immobility. This emancipation from physical constraints has to be paid for with an almost exclusive limitation to bilateral contacts, and with increased uncertainties about the current subjective states and environmental conditions of the contacted partners.
    • [2006a] Is the Cell Phone undermining the Social Order? Understanding Mobile technology in a Sociological Perspective
      While conventional mass media and fixed phones have primarily supported centralized, formalized organizations, households and other supraindividual systems, cell phones increase the reach and capacity of decentralized, informal systems based on interindividual interactions, thus decelerating or even reversing very long-term evolutionary trends of human society: trends toward stable, depersonalized, formalized, complex and predictable supraindividual institutions.
    • [2006b] Pre-teen cell phone adoption: consequences for later patterns of phone usage and involvement
      Most kids nowadays get their first cell phone at an age or 12 or before. Geser asks whether such early adoption has only an accelerating effect (by causing a certain usage level to be reached earlier in life), a habitualizing impact (by stabilizing higher usage levels that persist later in life) or an inseminative influence (by instilling drives and learning processes that trigger self-amplifying processes of ever growing usage and involvement). His tentative conclusion is that habitualizing or even inseminative influences are at work.
    • [2006c] Are girls (even) more addicted? Some gender patterns of cell phone usage
    • [2007] Patterns of multi-channel communication among older teens
      Based on a study of 1440 Swiss teenagers in 2003, highly complementary (instead of substitutive) relationships are found between the usage of various technical communication media as well as between media usage and face-to-face interactions. Males seem particularly prone to use all media channels in a complementary fashion. Among both genders, there is a particularly strong complementarity between the landline and the mobile phone. When partners meet rarely, they communicate more by written than by oral media, particularly by SMS. By comparing older acquaintances with more recently created interpersonal relationships, it is found that the mix of media channels doesn’t change significantly over time, except that the exchange of Short Text Messages declines. While the closeness of a relationship seems to be positively affected by the frequency of meetings and fixed phone calls, mobile contacts and emails don’t seem to make any consistent contribution.
  • Gorman, Michael E. [1994-2015]
    Alexander Graham Bell's Path to the Telephone
    A detailed reconstruction of the the path taken by A.G. Bell. Includes links to other inventors and ideas.
  • Gow, Gordon - University of Calgary, Canada
    Privacy Rights and Prepaid Communication Services - A survey of prepaid mobile phone regulation and registration policies among OECD member states
    A research report for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, 1999.

     

  • Gow, Gordon A. / Waidyanatha, Nuwan [2011]
    Mobile Phones and the Challenge of Sustainable Early Warning Systems
    In: James Katz (Ed.), Mobile Communication: Dimensions of Social Policy. Transaction Publishers. 
    Mobile phones can play a vital role in ‘last-mile’ emergency alerting systems provided that communities remain actively engaged in disaster preparedness activities. Mobile phones are more easily integrated into everyday activities than more specialized technologies. But access alone is not enough to sustain an adequate level of emergency preparedness withinlocal communities. Interaction is more likely to be sustained through a community of practice based on effective use. This paper suggest that a community of practice might be fostered through the sharing of local risk knowledge. The mobile phone could play a prominent role in this strategy by facilitating cost-effective datacollection and regular interaction in support of local risk-mapping, with the aim of improving disaster preparedness and sustained early warning capabilities at the last-mile
  • Lohan, E. Maria
    Men, Masculinity and the Domestic Telephone
    A theoretical framwork for studying gender and technology.
  • Richardson, Ingrid [2005] - Murdoch University, Western Australia
    Mobile Technosoma: some phenomenological reflections on itinerant media devices
    In: Fibreculture Journal 6
    Portable media devices and ’wearable’ communications technologies are becoming both increasingly ubiquitous and personalised, penetrating and transforming everyday cultural practices and spaces, and further disrupting distinctions between private and public, ready-to-hand and telepresent interaction, actual and virtual environments. Such devices range from the standard mobile phone to highly sophisticated multimedia hybrids, personal digital assistants (PDAs), MP3 players, personal media centres and handheld networkable game consoles. Some initial thoughts for an investigation of the emerging socio-cultural and techno-corporeal effects of mobile interactive media, and how they are changing the ways people interact with both their digital interfaces and each other, altering the shape and meaning of community and spatial location, and our embodied and agentic placement within metropolitan, pedestrian (i.e. literally ‘walkable’) and urban environments.
  • Rovere, Richard H. [1958]
    The Invasion of Privacy
    Original in The New Yorker, reprinted in The American Scholar, 1.6.2007
  • Telephone Museums & Exhibits
A glimpse into the history of the telephone

Brasil

Museu das Telecomunicações
Museu do Telefone e Telecomunicações - Rio de Janeiro

Canada

Alder Grove Telephone Museum - Aldergrove, British Columbia
Telephone Historical Centre - Edmonton, Alberta

Czech Rebuplic

Narodni technicke muzeum

Denmark

Post & Tele-Museum - Copenhagen
Telefonmuseets - Liseleje

Germany

Deutsche Telefonmuseum - Morbach
Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin
Fernmeldemuseum Aachen
Museumstiftung für Post und Telekommunikation

Japan

NTT Digital Museum

Netherlands

Dutch Online Telephone Museum
Houweling Telecom Museum - Rotterdam
Museum van de Verbindingsdienst
Museum voor Communicatie
Stichting Telefoniemuseum Nederland

Norway

Norsk Telemuseum
Oslo Nord Central

Sweden

Ove’s Telephone pages - Mölndal

Switzerland

Museum für Kommunikation - Bern

United Kingdom

Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre
Connected Earth
Darvel Telephone Museum
Milton Keynes Museum
Science Museum
Telegraph Museum Porthcurno

U.S.A.

Cle Elum Historical Telephone Museum - Cle Elum, Washington
Cyber Telephone Museum - Christianson
Georgia Rural Telephone Museum - Leslie, Geogia
National Museum of American History - Communications
North American Data Communications Museum (NADCOMM)
Museum of Independent Telephony - Abilene, Kansas
Roseville Telephone Museum - Roseville, California
Tacoma Telephone Pioneer Museum - Tacoma, Washington
Telephone Museum - Ellsworth, Maine
Telephone Museum - Maitland, Florida

 

  • Telephone Tribute 
    All sorts of telephone related web pages on the history of the telephone, technical information, research resources, human interest stories, clubs, pictures, sound files, links, etc. Don't forget a visit to the Research Resources and the page on Telephone Museums and Exhibits.
  • Wehrle, Urs - Switzerland
    Links to Web sites about Old Telephones
  • Wu, Chyi-In / Chan, Chao-Wen / Chen, Yi-Chien / Ishii, Kenichi [2006]
    The Digital Gap between Openness and Closeness of Relational Divide Upon The Mobile Phone Usage
    International Journal of Internet and Enterprise Management, 4(3): 269-292.
    The possibility of communication depends fully on the usage of modern technology. Several digital divides exist with respect to mobile phone usage, and they further aggravate the interpersonal relationship. In personal connection, the availability of mobile phone users can be measured by several indicators, such as phone number sharing behavior and phone answering strategies. Mobile phone users also look over the necessity of using their mobile phone to communicate with others in daily life. The ‘dual availability’ model distinguishes active/passive attitude and behavior of individual’s calling and receiving styles. In the relational connection, the usage of mobile phone implies the openness and closeness of interpersonal relationships.
  • Yildirim, N. / Ansal, H. [2014] - Faculty of Management, Istanbul Tech. University, Turkey
    How do mobile technologies affect work and private lives? The case of Turkish banking professionals
    Mobile technologies (MTs) became important part of infrastructure in service industries. The impacts of MT usage in work are shown to be significant; improving the productivity, responsiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of companies, while reshaping the work place organization and making employees accessible on a 7/24 basis. However, there are great differences in terms of the types and levels of these impacts on organizations and individuals as the industry, region/country changes. Banking industry has always been among the early adapters and first users of new information and communication technologies, as well as first appliers of new organizational development and human resource management techniques. This study tries to provide insights on the perceptions of employees in the Turkish banking industry, about the impact of these technologies on their work practices and on their private lives.

 

Radio

  • Rossman, Gabriel [2015]
    Climbing the Charts: What Radio Airplay Tells Us about the Diffusion of Innovation
    Despite the growth of digital media, traditional FM radio airplay still remains the essential way for musicians to achieve commercial success. Climbing the Charts examines how songs rise, or fail to rise, up the radio airplay charts. Looking at the relationships between record labels, tastemakers, and the public, Gabriel Rossman develops a clear picture of the roles of key players and the gatekeeping mechanisms in the commercial music industry. Along the way, he explores its massive inequalities, debunks many popular misconceptions about radio stations’ abilities to dictate hits, and shows how a song diffuses throughout the nation to become a massive success. Rossman demonstrates that corporate radio chains neither micromanage the routine decision of when to start playing a new single nor make top-down decisions to blacklist. Neither do stations imitate either ordinary peers or the so-called kingmaker radio stations who are wrongly believed to be able to make or break a single. Instead, Rossman shows that hits spread rapidly across radio because they clearly conform to an identifiable style or genre. Radio stations respond to these songs, and major labels put their money behind them through extensive marketing and promotion efforts, including the illegal yet time-honored practice of payoffs known within the industry as payola.
  • SoundCloud 
    A Swedish online audio distribution platform based in Berlin, that enables its users to upload, record, promote, and share their originally-created sounds.
  • SpreakerSociology | Anthropology | Gender | Psychology | Sexuality | Religion
    A social web radio open to all amateur and professional, speaker and dj.
  • Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed - (BSA) - Listen to sociological research on Radio 4
    See also: BBC: Rhinking Alowed | Open University: Thinking Allowed Archives. Great stuff for a sociology of radio / listening.
  • Radio Locator 
    A radio station search engine with links to over 15,000 radio stations’ web pages and over 9700 stations’ audio streams from radio stations in the U.S. and around the world.
  • News & Discussion Groups
  • DirectoriesAbout.com | DMOZ

Directories: Guides and Link Collections

  • Internet Sources for the Study of Communications - Paul Starr (Princeton University, USA)
  • Media and Communication Studies (MCS)
    A British-based gateway to web resources useful in the academic study of media and communication. The purposes of this meta-index is to act as a first stop in exploring what is available on these topics. The links are organizes in several sections: general issues, textual analysis, active interpretation, media influence, gender/ethnicity, written/spoken, visual image, news media, advertising, TV & Radio, film studies, IT & Telecoms, media ecucation, pop music/youth, general reference. Editor: Daniel Chandler (Department of Education, University of Wales, Aberystwyth).
  • Startpagina: Communicatie
    A collection of communication resources, presented by the Dutch Startpagina.nl
  • Telecoms Knowledge Centre 
    A well structured list of resources on conmmunication, telecommunication and networks. Presented by Analysis Mason.
  • Voice of the Shuttle: Media Studies

Google Scholar - Stand on the shoulders of giants

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A comprehensive, step-by-step guide on creating a successful blog..

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