Sociología de la comunicación

La atmósfera enrarecida por las malas prácticas en la vida española ha dado a la luz estos breves estudios de comunicación pública. Tratan de rebajas políticas, homilías festivas, sucedáneos de prensa en posguerra y transición, normativa de opereta, contratos en letra de hormiga y ofertas de ilusionistas. Son acontecimientos políticos y de publicidad corporativa que comparten una atroz afinidad, la del abuso de influencia. El abuso de influencia
es la persuasión manipuladora, que se vale de una posición dominante, una relación de prestigio y unos recursos inadvertidos. La relación abusiva beneficia al persuasor y lesiona los derechos del persuadido. La crítica
de estos discursos promueve códigos de buenas prácticas comunicativas.
Estas atienden al interés público y la lealtad institucional, a la eficiencia en el gasto y la pluralidad de voces y, finalmente, a la veracidad y la responsabilidad argumentativa.

At a time when debates about social inequality are in the spotlight, it is worth examining how the two most popular media of the 21th and 21st centuries-film and television-have shaped the representation of social classes. How do generic conventions determine the representation of social stereotypes? How do filmmakers challenge social class identification? How do factors such as national history, geography and gender affect the representation of social classes? This collection of new essays explores these and other questions through an analysis of a wide range of American and British productions-from sitcoms and reality TV to documentaries and auteur cinema-from the 1950s to the present.

Disability in Comic Books and Graphic Narratives invites readers to consider both canonical and alternative graphic representations of disability. Some chapters focus on comic superheroes, from lesser-known protagonists like Cyborg and Helen Killer to classics such as Batgirl and Batman; many more explore the amazing range of graphic narratives revolving around disability, covering famous names such as Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware, as well as less familiar artists like Keiko Tobe and Georgia Webber. The volume also offers a broad spectrum of represented disabilities: amputation, autism, blindness, deafness, depression, Huntington's, multiple sclerosis, obsessive-compulsive disorder, speech impairment, and spinal injury. A number of the essays collected here show how comics continue to implicate themselves in the objectification and marginalization of persons with disabilities, perpetuating stale stereotypes and stigmas. At the same time, others stress how this medium simultaneously offers unique potential for transforming our understanding of disability in truly profound ways.

This book examines the role of emotions in contemporary TV series. Over the past 21 years, TV fiction has become one of the most powerful and influential trends in popular culture. Shows such as Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Lost and The Wire have created a vigorous televisual landscape where innovations in narrative form, aesthetic engagement and ethical concerns have raised TV entertainment to new heights. What makes this volume unique is its interdisciplinary approach, as the series are analysed from the perspective of Television Studies, Literature, Sociology, Philosophy and Media Studies. Key concepts developed include the relation between moral emotion and character identification, how serial narrative builds into 'affective moments' as a distinctive mode of aesthetic experience, the politics of emotion in collective identities, the intersection of gender and emotions, and how popular genres such as terror films, the thriller and science fiction manage the 'emotional turn' that postmodernism has made visible.

El libro trata de la relación de los niños y los jóvenes con los nuevos medios digitales. Si los educadores conocen bien cómo funcionan los medios digitales podrán no sólo explicarles cómo usarlo (lo que se conoce como “competencia mediática”), sino que también les podrán explicar cómo los nuevos medios generan estrategias que les manipulan, podrán ayudarles a detectar peligros, e incluso ayudarles a tener una visión crítica frente a las redes. Está claro que no se trata de prohibir el uso (algo utópico o imposible en la sociedad actual) sino de enseñar bien a los niños y jóvenes los peligros y las buenas prácticas de utilizar los medios digitales.

This book explores how we define our social spaces in a world of globalization, cultural diversity, and media convergence. It invites us to consider how each of us relates to multiple people and places worldwide through migration and media. Critiquing our focus on nation, state, and particular countries of origin and settlement, this book offers a new conceptual approach to study contemporary migration and media. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Singaporean university students in Melbourne, Australia, this book details how we organize our social relations into diverse configurations of global and local spaces. This book aims to help university students, researchers, and members of the public to think more critically about how we develop our mental maps of the world, experience the migration of others and ourselves, and shape our media environments.

Bullets and Bulletins: Media and Politics in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings takes a sobering and holistic look at the intersections between media and politics before, during, and in the reverberations of the Arab uprisings. The strength of this volume lies in its multi-disciplinary approach to the topic, with the research backed up by in-depth and rigorous case studies of the key countries of the Arab Spring. The uprisings were accompanied by profound changes in the roles of traditional and new media across the Middle East. What added significantly to the amplification of demands and grievances in the public spheres, streets, and squares, was the dovetailing of an increasingly indignant population–ignited by the prospects of economic and political marginalisation–with high rates of media literacy, digital connectivity, and social media prowess. This combination of political activism and mediated communication turned popular street protests into battles over information, where authorities and activists wrestled with each other over media messages. Information and communication technologies were used by both government authorities and protestors as simultaneous tools for silencing or amplifying dissent. Bullets and Bulletins offers original insights and analysis into the role of traditional and new media in what is undoubtedly a most critical period in contemporary Middle Eastern history.

En el presente estudio se radiografían las virtudes ydefectos de la polivalencia Periodística. Para ello, se analizan los perfiles profesionales de los redactores de
las tres principales agencias de noticias presentes en Cataluña (España) a través de una comparativa entre la plantilla multidisciplinar de la Agència Catalana de
Notícies (ACN) y las especializadas de EFE y Europa Press (EP), en las cuales permanece la división de oficios tradicional: redactores, fotógrafos y operadores
de cámara.
La eficiencia económica de la primera empresa depende de esta fórmula multitarea, que puede obstaculizar la capacidad de sus periodistas para informar de forma adecuada, y contrasta con las redacciones segregadas de las otras dos, que desaprovechan algunas de las ventajas de las innovaciones tecnológicas para respetar los distintos lenguajes informativos.
El trabajo concluye trasladando estos dilemas esenciales a los profesionales de dos agencias europeas tan referenciales como AFP y ANSA porque, en el
fondo, aborda un debate antiguo entre productividad y calidad –reanimado por la revolución digital– que compromete la labor del periodista.

Now available in paperback, and with a revised conclusion to reflect the end of the program, this book offers interpretive and contextual tools to read the AMC television series Mad Men, providing a much-needed historical explanation and exposition regarding the status of women in an era that has been painted as pre- or non-feminist.
In chapters aimed at helping readers understand women’s lives in the 1961s, Mad Men is used as a springboard to explore and discover alternative ways of seeing women. Offering more than a discussion of the show itself, the book offers historical insight for thinking about serious issues that «modern» working women continue to face today: balancing their work and personal lives, competing with other women, and controlling their own bodies and reproductive choices.
Rather than critiquing the show for portraying women as victims, the book shows subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) ways that feminism functioned in an era when women were supposedly caught between the «waves» of the women’s movement but when, the authors argue, they functioned nonetheless as empowered individuals.
By doing so, it provides historical context and analysis that complicates traditional interpretations by (1) exploring historical constructions of women’s work; (2) unpacking feminist and non-feminist discourses surrounding that work; (3) identifying modes of resistance; and (4) revisiting forgotten work coded as feminine.

Wie vollzieht sich die Sozialisation Jugendlicher in der heutigen Mediengesellschaft? Auf welche Weise differenziert sich Jugend in Abhängigkeit von Medienkontexten aus? Mit welchen Inhalten werden adoleszente Rezipienten konfrontiert und welches Nutzungsverhalten legen sie an den Tag? Mit welchen Bildern von Jugend werden sie versorgt, welche jugendlichen Verhaltensmuster werden ihnen vorgeführt? Wie können schließlich die heutigen Medienwelten in den schulischen Unterricht eingebunden werden? Welche didaktischen und methodischen Aspekte wären dabei zu berücksichtigen? Die Beiträge dieses Bandes gehen diesen Fragen aus erziehungswissenschaftlicher, juristischer, linguistischer sowie literatur- und medienwissenschaftlicher Perspektive nach und bedienen sich dabei divergenter theoretischer und methodischer Zugriffe.