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Unique graphic introductions to big ideas and thinkers, written by experts in the field.
This is the first book to consider the major implications for culture of the new science of biosemiotics. The volume is mainly aimed at an audience outside biosemiotics and semiotics, in the humanities and social sciences principally, who will welcome elucidation of the possible benefits to their subject area from a relatively new field. The book is therefore devoted to illuminating the extent to which biosemiotics constitutes an ‘epistemological break’ with ‘modern’ modes of conceptualizing culture. It shows biosemiotics to be a significant departure from those modes of thought that neglect to acknowledge continuity across nature, modes which install culture and the vicissitudes of the polis at the centre of their deliberations. The volume exposes the untenability of the ‘culture/nature’ division, presenting a challenge to the many approaches that can only produce an understanding of culture as a realm autonomous and divorced from nature.
This unique volume offers an overview of the diversity in research on communication, including perspectives from biology, sociality, economics, norms and human development. It includes general social science and humanities approaches to communication, from systems theory to cultural theory, as well as perspectives more specifically related to communication acts, such as linguistics and cognition. The volume also features chapters on the participants and various elements in communication processes, on possible effects and on wider consequences of mediation (with technical media). The scope of the contributions is global, and the volume is relevant to both the empirical and the philosophical traditions in human sciences. Designed as a stand-alone collection to engage undergraduates as well as postgraduates and academics, this is also the first book in, and an introduction to, the De Gruyter Mouton multi-volume Handbooks of Communication Science.
Today, arguably more than at any time in the past, media are the key players in contributing to what defines reality for the citizens of Europe and beyond. This book provides an introduction to the way that the media occupy such a position of prominence in contemporary human existence. This expanded and fully updated third edition of the bestselling The Media: An Introduction collects in one volume thirty-six specially commissioned essays to offer unrivalled breadth and depth for an introduction to the study of contemporary media. It addresses the fundamental questions about today’s media – for example, digitisation and its effects, new distribution technologies, and the implications of ...
This collection of readings is designed to provide easy access to Communication Theory. Many of the essays in the Reader have previously been difficult to obtain and many have appeared in contexts where their relevance for communications, media and cultural studies was not immediately apparent. The Reader presents the most important work which has shaped the field as it stands today. The articles are grouped in subject sections, with an editor's introduction, indications of further reading together with a glossary and comprehensive bibliography.
The ideal introduction to semiotics, containing engaging essays from an impressive range of international leaders in the field. Featuring an extended glossary of key terms and thinkers as well as suggestions for further reading, this is an invaluable reference guide for students of semiotics at all levels.
Comprising specially commissioned contributions from leading scholars in the field, this book provides a comprehensive theoretical and practical overview of the modern media.
This comprehensive, accessible guidebook traces the ways in which human beings have used narrative to make sense of time, space and identity over the centuries. Particular attention is given to: * early narrative, from Hellenic and Hebraic * the rise of the novel * realist representation * imperialism and narrative * modernism and cinema * postmodern narrative * narrative and new technologies. With a strong emphasis on clarity and a range of examples from oral cultures to cyberspace, this is the ideal guide to an essential critical topic.
The study of photography has never been more important. A look at today's digital world reveals that a greater number of photographs are being taken each day than at any other moment in history. Countless photographs are disseminated instantly online and more and more photographic images are earning prominent positions and garnering record prices in the rarefied realm of top art galleries. Reflecting this dramatic increase in all things photographic, A Companion to Photography presents a comprehensive collection of original essays that explore a variety of key areas of current debate around the state of photography in the twenty-first century. Essays are grouped and organized in themed secti...
This remarkable four-volume collection brings together a range of essays at the cutting edge of, communication theory. Selections included provide in-depth theoretical analysis and overviews rather than specific study of phenomena within a given theoretical tradition. The collection provides academics and students with access to a free-standing body of theoretical work which is applicable to a range of different topics within communications, media and cultural studies. Including a new introduction by Paul Cobley, a chronological table of articles and a full index, it is undoubtedly an exceptional and invaluable research resource.