A linguistic expert argues that the panic over text messaging is misplaced, looks at every aspect of the phenomenon of text messaging, and considers its effects on literacy, language, and society, in an insightful study.

Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.

How maturing digital media and network technologies are transforming place, culture, politics, and infrastructure in our everyday life. Digital media and network technologies are now part of everyday life. The Internet has become the backbone of communication, commerce, and media; the ubiquitous mobile phone connects us with others as it removes us from any stable sense of location. Networked Publics examines the ways that the social and cultural shifts created by these technologies have transformed our relationships to (and definitions of) place, culture, politics, and infrastructure. Four chapters—each by an interdisciplinary team of scholars using collaborative software—provide a synoptic overview along with illustrative case studies. The chapter on place describes how digital networks enable us to be present in physical and networked places simultaneously—often at the expense of nondigital commitments. The chapter on culture explores the growth and impact of amateur-produced and remixed content online. The chapter on politics examines the new networked modes of bottom-up political expression and mobilization. And finally, the chapter on infrastructure notes the tension between openness and control in the flow of information, as seen in the current controversy over net neutrality.

As media environments and communication practices evolve over time, so do theoretical concepts. This book analyzes some of the most well-known and fiercely discussed concepts of the digital age from a historical perspective, showing how many of them have pre-digital roots and how they have changed and still are constantly changing in the digital era. Written by leading authors in media and communication studies, the chapters historicize 16 concepts that have become central in the digital media literature, focusing on three main areas. The first part, Technologies and Connections, historicises concepts like network, media convergence, multimedia, interactivity and artificial intelligence. The second one is related to Agency and Politics and explores global governance, datafication, fake news, echo chambers, digital media activism. The last one, Users and Practices, is finally devoted to telepresence, digital loneliness, amateurism, user generated content, fandom and authenticity. The book aims to shed light on how concepts emerge and are co-shaped, circulated, used and reappropriated in different contexts. It argues for the need for a conceptual media and communication history that will reveal new developments without concealing continuities and it demonstrates how the analogue/digital dichotomy is often a misleading one.

Health Communication: Strategies and Skills for a New Era provides a practical process model for developing a health communication intervention. The book also explores exposure to media and how it shapes our conceptions of health and illness. Using a life stages and environments approach, the book touches on the patient role and how we ‘hear’ information from health care providers as well as guidance on how to be a thoughtful consumer of health information.

Consumer Behavior, 9/e, by Hawkins, Best, & Coney offers balanced coverage of consumer behavior including the psychological, social, and managerial implications. The new edition features current and exciting examples that are tied into global and technology consumer behavior issues and trends, a solid foundation in marketing strategy, integrated coverage of ethical/social issues and outlines the consumer decision process. This text is known for its ability to link topics back to marketing decision-making and strategic planning which gives students the foundation to understanding consumer behavior which will make them better consumers and better marketers.