Recasting the Dialogue between Genealogy and Critical Theory
The contributors to this volume extend, expound and explain the key areas of social theory debated between Foucault and Habermas: the meaning of modernity; the function of reason; and the importance of political freedom. They provide detailed discussion and definition of difficult themes in each theorist's work, reframing the issues and defining the context of the debate. They also explore the theoretical and conceptual methods used and discuss the implications for politics and criticism.
"Interpreting Audiences" offers a comprehensive guide to important new developments in the study of media reception. Reviewing a wide range of work done by qualitative audience researchers over recent years, the author charts the emergence of a critical ethnographic perspective on everyday consumer practices. Shaun Moores considers the distinctive features of audience ethnography and outlines its various applications in communication and cultural analysis. Four main areas of inquiry are discussed: the power of media texts to determine the meanings made by their readers; the relationships between media genres and social patterns of taste; the day-to-day settings and dynamic social situations of reception; the cultural uses and interpretations in the communication technologies in the home. Identifying the issues at stake in each of these areas, the author then relates advances in audience research to a broader set of questions about the practices and politics of cultural consumption. Assessing the theories of Bourdieu, De Certeau and others - and drawing on his own investigations of new media technologies in domestic contexts - he advances a model of creativity and constraint in everyday life. This accessible text aims to provide an introduction to recent work on audiences for students of media, communication and cultural studies, and a helpful analytical overview for media teachers and researchers.
This volume examines how tabloid newspapers are read and the relation between the messages they present and the popular culture on which they both draw and aim to appeal. In a series of interrelated studies, the authors examine the theoretical problems in assessing popular journalism, and consider common examples of its manifestations - its relationship to media stars, the coverage of sport, and the presentation of news in a "popular" form.
This work is intended as a contribution to our understanding of modernism and postmodernism. It explores the formation and deformation of the cultural sphere and the effects on culture of globalization. Against many orthodox postmodernist accounts, the author argues that it is wrong to regard our present state of fragmentation and dislocation as an epochal break. Existing interdependencies and power balances are not so easily broken down. Nonetheless, some important cultural changes have occurred since the last war. In particular, the book examines some of the processes which have uncoupled culture from the social; the erosion of the ideal of the heroic life in the face of the onslaught from consumerism and the deformation of culture; and the rise of new forms of identity development. It explains why culture has gained a more significant role in everyday life and also why it has come to preoccupy the Academy in recent years. The text covers the effects of the multiplication of cultural goods and images on our ability to read culture and develop fixed meanings and relationships. It highlights the importance of the global in attempting to cope with the objective difficulties of cultural overproduction. The book concludes that the rise of non-western nation states with different cultural frames produces different reactions of modernity, making it more appropriate to refer to global modernities.
This volume brings together a wide range of essays on culture and related themes by the sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel. The collection includes a large number of previously untranslated essays together with others that are not readily available, thereby enabling the reader to engage with the full range of Simmel's contributions to the study of culture. The collection opens with Simmel's most basic essays on defining culture, its changes and its crisis. These are followed by more specific explorations of the culture of face to face interactions, spatial and urban culture, leisure culture, the culture of money and commodities, the culture of belief and the politics of female culture. This text not only provides a missing piece in the history of cultural study, it also reveals a new way of studying culture.
`At the end of the day, what is crucial is to enable educationalists to promote and apply their own metatheories and models of child development which they feel comfortable with and which enable children to develop. ... Peter Sutherland should be credited with making a significant contribution towards achieving this fundamental goal' - Educational Psychology in Practice ` ... this book deserves to become a classic in the field. Will appeal alike to academics and students in higher education, and to serving teachers- BPS: Educational Review Section This book provides a general outline of the dominant schools of thought on cognitive development, with a focus on Piaget. His views are outlined and a range of critical responses and alternatives are detailed. The author examines the application of these schools of thought to teaching pre-school, primary and secondary children. Each chapter includes a summary and questions for discussion. The book concludes with a glossary of terms.
From the Scars of Survival to the Wisdom for Change
This text explores the nature of woman abuse and contributes to a key issue for feminist campaigning and theory. The past 25 years of research on "battered" women has focused on the psychological, sociological and political conditions which contribute to violence, and on women's reasons for staying with violent and abusive partners. Drawing on first-hand accounts, the author goes beyond the discourse of "victims" and "survivors" to provide insights into the very specific and multi-faceted nature of the abuses women experience - emotional as well as physical. The author sheds light on both the dynamics of abuse which afford abusers control over women, and the resources and knowledge women draw upon to re-empower themselves. Examining first the nature of abuse and then the issues confronted by a woman after she has left an abusive relationship, Kirkwood finds that women's experiences of society after leaving abusive partners are highly interrelated. She develops the concept of a "web" to explain how the different elements of abuse connect to make up the experiences of abused women.
`This book, written by a group of outstanding UK researchers, pinpoints the essence and scope of relationship marketing and vividly demonstrates its applicability in different industries. Relationship marketing is the marketing of the next millennium. Don't argue. Just read the book!' - Evert Gummesson, Stockholm University By examining the relationship between theory and practice, Relationship Marketing appears at an important stage in the development of relationship marketing. The opening chapter examines relationship marketing (RM) theory, reviews a number of RM definitions and reports on the economic arguments in favour of RM. It describes the nature and scope of marketing relationships, picking out characteristics such as concern for the welfare of customers, trust and commitment between partners, and the importance of customer service. Finally, it identifies a number of requirements for successful RM. The next 12 chapters describe, analyze and critique RM practice in a number of organizational settings (supply-chain relationships, principal-agent relationships, business-to-business relationships, intra-organizational relationships) and industries (hospitality, air travel, retail banking, corporate banking, credit cards, financial advisory services, advertising agencies, not-for-profit organizations). The final chapter reflects on the relationships between theory and practice.
This work charts pathways in psychoanalytic thinking about art and the artist, revising views held in applied psychoanalysis and adding new dimensions to clinical thinking about the artist and the artistic process. Roland investigates identity issues and inner struggles involved in the developing artistic career. In the second section he focuses on the use of imagery by artists in the creative formation of poetic metaphors and paradoxes, and the metaphorical portrayal of the artist's inner world. In a challenge to a pervasive assumption in psychoanalysis Roland argues that aesthetic form develops primarily to convey the artwork's autonomous meanings rather than to give disguised expression to the artist's inner world. In a third section Roland explores these themes in the context of the dramatic work of Pirandello and Pinter.
