This book will play an important role in providing structure to a broad, fragmented discipline. I believe it will, at the very least, create important dialogues about what we now know//understand about areas of mass media, and where we should move as a discipline.a[Thisabook will]ahelp orient future scholars about the imperative to organize our re search more efficiently so that we can expand our knowledge about media phenomena. a Dr. Potter is an excellent writer, able to distill important ideas in a compelling, yet en gaging way. His passion about the topic clearly shines through and this is a major rea son why I believe scholars (and future scholars) will gravitate toward this book.oa --Roger Cooper, Ohio UniversityIn Arguing for a General Framework for Mass Media Scholarship, media scholar and bestselling author W. James Potter challenges media scholars and students to change the way they think about the media.a His goals are to: (1) take a macro approach and focus on explanations that span across four major facets of the mass media: (2) present a critical analysis of the mass media literatures and offer a recalibration of what we know about the media; anda(3) provide structure to mass media scholarship that is focused on the most useful ideas in the phenomenon of the mass media, not lines of research.The arguments and findings in the book are based on sound, in-depth research and analysis. The book presents scholars with an innovative way of thinking about the mass media. It challenges many of their assumptions and practices: Some scholars will find this very stimulating and will learn a great deal by working through the arguments presented in the book; other scholars will likely find themselves arguing against some of Potter's positions u but in so doing, they will be examining their own assumptions to a much deeper level and thereby be stimulated by the experience of reading the book.KEY FEATURES &BAD:amp; BENEFITS**The book is respectful of the wide range of theories and methodologies. Potter does not take an approach that sanctions one world view, method, or theory over others. All are important and useful. However, we need to integrate the value of all approaches instead of arguing over differences. On first reading, his arguments might appear as subversive with so many challenges to past thinking and practices; however,ahe takes a constructive approach: not solely criticizing faulty practices, but providing detailed recommendations about alternative assumptions, re-conceptualizations, and alterations in research practices.**The book is more interested in the future than in the past. It is not just a review of the literatures. It identifies shortcomings and proposes strategies for overcoming them. It presents an innovative plan for moving beyond the base of scholarship produced in the last century and into a new generation of thinking that will provide even more useful explanations for the next millennium.** Most explanations of the mass media focus on only one sub-topic of the overall phenomenon u such as one effect, one type of content, one issue of audience construction, or one type of channel. This book takes a macro approach and focuses on explanations that span across all four major facets of the mass media u the organizations, the content, the audiences, and the effects. ** The few treatments of the mass media that exist are general in nature and are very descriptive, that is, they present thumbnail descriptions of one theory after another, or one research finding after another.a This book presents a critical analyses of the mass media literatures. It presents arguments why certain parts of those literatures u while fairly large u have not produced much value for the field, while other writings u often overlooked or discounted u contain powerful ideas that can be fashioned into elegant explanations about some persistently puzzling aspects of the mass media. This critical analysis results in a re-calibration of what we know about the media.** This re-calibration of important findings along with some creative speculations are synthesized into a fresh approach to explaining the mass media.**The book is not structured by media channels, theories, world-views, or other typical devices used to organize books on the mass media. Instead, it is structured by a vision of what Potter considers the most important ideas to have been generated by mass media scholarship over the last half century. **The focus is on the mass media phenomenon itself more so than on the contours of the research about the mass media.
Historical and biographical work is becoming a more common type of qualitative research done by social scientists and usually requires the extensive use of formal archives housed in universities, governments, museums and other institutions. This practical and concise book provides an introduction for the novice on conducting archival research and covers such topics as contacting and preparing to work in archives, the protocol of using archives, and ways of organizing and referencing the useful data from the archive.
Scientific research and science-guided practice based on the promotion of an individual's strengths constitutes a radical shift in a new and growing area of study within the field of human development. Its trademark term is `positive youth development'. This approach to human development is based on the idea that, in addition to preventing problems, science and practice should promote the development of competencies, skills, and motivation in order to enhance individuals' developmental pathways. Approaches to Positive Youth Development, is based on this concept and brings together authors from across Europe and America who are leaders in their respective fields. The main focus of the book, beyond a clarification of the paradigmatic foundations, concerns the major contexts of adolescents and young adults, namely, neighbourhoods and leisure locales, school and family, and the major themes of healthy psychosocial development, namely, competences and knowledge, prosocial behaviour, transcending problems of delinquency, civic engagement, identity, agency, and spirituality.
This Reader presents a selection of articles from Economic Development Quarterly, the premier journal for practitioners and academics of local economic development. The pieces chosen cover both the breadth and the cutting edge of real world economic development practices.
This Reader presents a selection of articles from Economic Development Quarterly, the premier journal for practitioners and academics of local economic development. The pieces chosen cover both the breadth and the cutting edge of real world economic development practices.
Approaches to Behavior and Classroom Management focuses on teaching readers how to use a variety of approaches in behaviour and classroom management in order to make good decisions when faced with the challenge of creating positive classroom communities. Today's classrooms often include children from a variety of backgrounds and with different needs - needs that must be met if these children are to thrive in school. This text will provide teachers and other educators with the historical and cultural framework necessary to understand approaches to behavior and classroom management, a deep understanding of each approach, and a tool belt of relevant methods from which to choose to meet the needs of various situations.
Appreciative Inquiry: Research for Change is the first book dedicated to exploring appreciative inquiry (AI) as an approach to change-focused research. More than ever, students and researchers seek to do more than report on what they see following a research study or project, but rather engage the research environment (participants, stakeholders) to promote change. In other words, their studies are as much research-based as they are meant to initiate or sustain social or organizational change. Very often, the nature of this dual purpose - research and change - requires the researcher to use nontraditional approaches that bridge the theory-practice gap. In this book, author Jan Reed draws on the work of David Cooperrider and other pioneers in the area of AI to bridge the current gap between consulting activity and academic research in AI. The book begins with real-world, international insights and experiences of AI as a research methodology and offers the history and principles of AI. Next, it provides ways of linking and differentiating these activities and exploring the range of ways to engage AI in change-focused research and practice - from research question and research design through data collection, data analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of findings. And perhaps most importantly, the book places AI in the context of other research paradigms and approaches, addressing positivist versus naturalistic stances, social constructionist concepts, and related methods and methodologies such as action research, PAR, ethnography, case studies, and narrative inquiry. This book is appropriate for use in graduate-level methods courses devoted to appreciative inquiry, change- or community-based research, organizational development and change, and related topics across the social sciences, education, and management. It will also prove invaluable to researchers and professionals who are interested in using AI but need to know how to frame this approach within the greater context of traditional research. Key Features: Comprehensive introduction to Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and the range of debates that it can generate for a researcher or professional used to employing otherwise traditional research models International examples from recent published and unpublished projects in which AI was used, with an emphasis on those that shaped policy, planning, and future practices Discussion and guidance on how to make the connections between AI and various research paradigms and approaches to research, including positivist versus naturalistic research, social constructionist concepts, action research PAR, ethnography, narrative inquiry, and case studies An assessment of the strengths and limitations of AI in research environments Practical guidance and ideas for generating different research questions, managing, organizing, and analyzing data, and communicating and disseminating the final results Individual and group exercises that draw on organizational development techniques as a way to bring AI concepts to life through practice.
Appreciative Inquiry: Research for Change is the first book dedicated to exploring appreciative inquiry (AI) as an approach to change-focused research. More than ever, students and researchers seek to do more than report on what they see following a research study or project, but rather engage the research environment (participants, stakeholders) to promote change. In other words, their studies are as much research-based as they are meant to initiate or sustain social or organizational change. Very often, the nature of this dual purpose - research and change - requires the researcher to use nontraditional approaches that bridge the theory-practice gap. In this book, author Jan Reed draws on the work of David Cooperrider and other pioneers in the area of AI to bridge the current gap between consulting activity and academic research in AI. The book begins with real-world, international insights and experiences of AI as a research methodology and offers the history and principles of AI. Next, it provides ways of linking and differentiating these activities and exploring the range of ways to engage AI in change-focused research and practice - from research question and research design through data collection, data analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of findings. And perhaps most importantly, the book places AI in the context of other research paradigms and approaches, addressing positivist versus naturalistic stances, social constructionist concepts, and related methods and methodologies such as action research, PAR, ethnography, case studies, and narrative inquiry. This book is appropriate for use in graduate-level methods courses devoted to appreciative inquiry, change- or community-based research, organizational development and change, and related topics across the social sciences, education, and management. It will also prove invaluable to researchers and professionals who are interested in using AI but need to know how to frame this approach within the greater context of traditional research. Key Features: Comprehensive introduction to Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and the range of debates that it can generate for a researcher or professional used to employing otherwise traditional research models International examples from recent published and unpublished projects in which AI was used, with an emphasis on those that shaped policy, planning, and future practices Discussion and guidance on how to make the connections between AI and various research paradigms and approaches to research, including positivist versus naturalistic research, social constructionist concepts, action research PAR, ethnography, narrative inquiry, and case studies An assessment of the strengths and limitations of AI in research environments Practical guidance and ideas for generating different research questions, managing, organizing, and analyzing data, and communicating and disseminating the final results Individual and group exercises that draw on organizational development techniques as a way to bring AI concepts to life through practice.
Fully revised and reorganized by Anna Getmansky and Alejandro Quiroz Flores to fit the exciting new edition of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's Principles of International Politics, this accompanying workbook continues to feature class-tested, user-friendly exercises that walk students through the building blocks of the strategic method, ensuring that even novice students have the opportunity to develop and hone their problem-solving skills and can successfully apply what they have learned in the text. The fifth edition of Applying the Strategic Perspective: Problems and Models, Workbook introduces students to a wide range of problems so that they master basic principles as well as test their capabilities with more challenging material. Easy for students to use, and with perforated pages for turning in assignments.
