Underserved Communities And Digital Discourse

Underserved Communities and Digital Discourse: Getting Voices Heard presents a series of case studies which evaluate the elevation and suppression of voices within marginalized and minority communities. It examines the use of digital media and its role in the construction of reality—specifically who is included, who is left out, and who feels they must remain silent. Through both quantitative and qualitative measures, this book discusses digital discourse in terms of ethnic media, political communication, ethics, crisis communication, myth, and health frameworks.

Though humans have been communicating through virtual mediators since the invention of the telephone, new technologies make the use of virtual communications even more immediate and pervasive than ever before. By understanding the theories and models behind virtual communication, one can understand the way society has been changed and how it will continue to do so. Analyzing Digital Discourse and Human Behavior in Modern Virtual Environments examines the implications of virtual communication and online interaction and the theories and trends associated with them. It will discuss and address the differences and challenges that develop when communicating virtually and explore the various influences virtual communication plays in work, education, and quotidian life. This title provides a foundation of emerging trends from which new theories and models of communication can grow. This book will become a cherished resource for academics, researchers, technology developers, students, and government or institutional leaders.

Tough topics are inescapable for journalism and mass communication academics. If it’s in the news, journalism and mass communication instructors have to discuss it in class. In Testing Tolerance, Candi Carter Olson and Tracy Everbach of the AEJMC Commission on the Status of Women bring together a broad range of perspectives, from graduate students to deans, in conversation about ways to address tough topics in and out of the university classroom. Helping instructors navigate today’s toughest topics through discussions of the issues and pertinent terminology, this book provides hands-on exercises and practical advice applicable across student and instructor levels and disciplines. Readers will gain an understanding of the issues and acquire tools to address these topics in sensitive, yet forthright, ways.

This book brings together fresh evidence and new theoretical frameworks in a unique analysis of the increasing role of social media in political campaigns and electoral processes across Africa. Supported by contemporary and historical cases studies, it engages with the main drives behind the various appropriations of social media for election campaigns, organization, and voter mobilization. Contributors in this volume delve into changing and complex aspects of social media, offering an appraisal of theoretical perspectives and examining fascinating case studies which social media use is redefining elections across Africa. Contributions show that new media ecologies are resulting in new policy regimes, user behaviors, and communication models that have implications for electoral processes. The book also provides preliminary analysis of emerging forms of algorithm-driven campaigns, fake news, information distortions and other methods that undermine electoral democracy in Africa.

This book presents research by African American, Latino/a/x, and Alaskan Indian/Native American (AI/AN) communication scholars. It highlights the importance of communication and the recognition of the unique experiences that impact how health information and health care are understood through diverse racial and cultural perspectives. Each chapter advances various divergent health issues and disparities pertinent to Black, Latino/a/x, and AI/AN communities, so that the powerful aspect of the human condition to know and be known as it relates to the negotiation of health and communication can be clearly understood. Contributions to this volume unabashedly call for more equitable, community-centric, tribally-centered, and transparent scholarship on topics of health disparities, health care, marginality, medical mistrust, social justice, and media and new technology as it relates to people of color. The authors in this book are committed to research areas that invigorate and reimagine conversations among clinicians, public health professionals, classroom environments, and communities. This insightful volume seeks to shift the dominant culture paradigms and locate authors of color and their research experiences and scholarship as central to their work. It provides a space to amplify the voices of our collective lived experiences through the vehicle of rigorous engaged scholarship. The book was originally published as a special issue of Health Communication.

Federal recognition enables tribes to govern themselves and make decisions for their citizens that have the power to retain their cultures. But over the last forty years, the news media coverage of the federal recognition of tribes has perpetuated ignorance and stereotypes about tribal sovereignty. This book examines how past coverage has prioritized gaming over sovereignty and interfered in Tribes’ ability to be federally recognized. Scholars of journalism, mass communication, media studies, and indigenous studies will find this book of particular interest.

This book, the second of two volumes, explores the challenges and opportunities presented by the increased presence of social media within African politics. Electoral processes in Africa have assumed new dimensions due to the influence of social media. As social media permeates different aspects of elections, it is ostensibly creating new challenges and opportunities. Most evident are the challenges of hate speech, misogyny and incivility. This book considers the impact of digital media before, during, and after elections, as well as authorities' attempts to legislate and regulate the internet in response. Contributions to this volume analyse social media posts, transgressive images, newspaper articles, and include case studies of Algeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Uganda. This results in the delivery of an original depiction of the use of social media in a variety of African contexts. This book will appeal to academics and students of media and communication studies, political studies, journalism, sociology, and African studies.

This book presents the proceedings of the Working Conference on the societal and organizational implications for information systems of social inclusion. The contributed papers explore technology design and use in organizations, and consider the processes that engender social exclusion along with the issues that derive from it. The conference, sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 8.2, was held in Limerick, Ireland, in July, 2006.