This volume explores the political impact of journalistic discourse on international -- and especially Canadian/American -- relations. In so doing, it provides a comparative analysis of American and international press accounts of selected Canadian/American issues such as free trade, cruise missile testing, and acid rain. The intention of the book is to enhance understanding of the political significance of journalists' interpretations of Canadian/American affairs, although the communication perspective and method of news analysis of the book are appropriate for the study of the United States' news-mediated relations with other countries. This study also examines the way people negotiate news-mediated political discourse and how that communication process can influence international affairs.

In this book, Arturo Santa-Cruz advances an understanding of power as a social relationship and applies it consistently to the economic realm in United States relations with other countries of the Western Hemisphere. Following the academic and popular debate on the ebb and flow of US hegemony, this work centers the analysis in a critical case for the exercise of US power through its economic statecraft: the Americas—its historical zone of influence. The rationale for the regional focus is methodological: if it can be shown that Washington's sway has decreased in the area since the early 1970s, when the discussion about this matter started, it can be safely assumed that the same has occurred in other latitudes. The analysis focuses on three regions: North America, Central America and South America. Since each region contains countries that have at times maintained very different relationships with the United States, the findings contribute to a better understanding of the practice of US power in the sub-region in question, adding greater variability to the overall results. US Hegemony and the Americas: Power and Economic Statecraft in International Relations is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in Latin American History and Politics, North American Regional Integration, International Relations, Economic Statecraft, Political Economy and Comparative Politics.

Interpersonal relationships are the core of our societal system and have been since before the dawn of civilization. In today's world, friends, lovers, companions, and confidants make valuable contributions to our everyday lives. These are the relationships whose members are not automatically participants as a result of their birth and kin affiliations. The focus is on these relationships that must be forged from the sometimes indifferent, and sometimes hostile world. Yet, there is still much that is not known about how these relationships evolve, how partners communicate in on-going relationships, how people keep their relationships together, and how they cope when they fall apart. Primary to the focus of this book is the underlying theme of evolving interpersonal relationships from the initial encounter to the mature alliance. The contributors to this volume provide a contemporary perspective for the study of interpersonal relationships. Fresh areas of scholarly inquiry are presented and existing approaches are re-examined. Research in the introductory chapters breaks new ground, and appraises the ultimate question of what impact initial interactions have on further relational development. The mid-section of the volume concerns communication issues that confront the members of a relationship in process, focusing on how conflict and jealousy are communicated to a relational partner. This research considers relational development as well as obstacles and barriers to evolving relationships. The concluding chapters probe the question: Ultimately do all good things have to come to an end? Employing innovative techniques to examine maturing and disengaging relationships, the research presented here focuses on how interpersonal relationships become committed and mature.

Discourse of Reciprocity reveals patterns of press behavior in the US-Canada alliance at points where the nature of the alliance itself was under stress. Drawing on journalism studies, discourse analysis, political communication, and international relations, the book explores examples of international policymaking in national security, agriculture, and energy issues. Drawing on coverage in The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, the book articulates concepts of news as providing positive symbolic presence, exhibiting forbearance, and exhibiting cooperation. This trio of press behaviors—evident in the structure of the news coverage itself—matches the definition of reciprocity used in fields such as international relations and game theory. The book gives equal consideration to the coverage in The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, articulating country-specific examples of how press coverage enacts reciprocity. Five cases cover the period from 1980 to the present, including the Keystone pipeline proposal and the discovery of mad cow disease in North America. The cases include Liberal and Conservative governments in Canada and Republican and Democratic administrations in the United States. This binational study sheds light on an understudied dynamic contributing to the reciprocity that sustains the alliance. The book adds to the relatively limited literature on news coverage of alliances. The book also illustrates how to implement discourse analysis in news framing research in a much more extensive way than previous political communication or international relations literature.

This book bridges an important gap between two major approaches to mass communication -- historical and social scientific. To do so, it employs a theory of communication that unifies social, cultural and technological concerns into a systematic and formal framework that is then used to examine the impact of print within the larger socio-cultural context and across multiple historical contexts. The authors integrate historical studies and more abstract formal representations, achieving a set of logically coherent and well-delimited hypotheses that invite further exploration, both historically and experimentally. A second gap that the book addresses is in the area of formal models of communication and diffusion. Such models typically assume a homogeneous population and a communication whose message is abstracted from the complexities of language processing. In contrast, the model presented in this book treats the population as heterogeneous and communications as potentially variable in their content as they move across speakers or readers. Written to address and overcome many of the disciplinary divisions that have prevented the study of print from being approached from the perspective of a unified theory, this book employs a focused interdisciplinary position that encompasses several domains. It shows the underlying compatibility between cognitive and social theory; between the study of language and cognition and the study of technology; between the postmodern interest in the instability of meaning and the social science interest in the diffusion of information; between the effects of technology and issues of cultural homogeneity and heterogeneity. Overall, this book reveals how small, relatively non-interactive, disciplinary-specific conversations about print are usefully conceived of as part of a larger interdisciplinary inquiry.

Prevention through appropriate behavior is the best weapon available to fight further spread of HIV infection. However, individuals take necessary actions to prevent diseases such as AIDS only when they are properly informed and they feel motivated to respond to the information they possess. In order to achieve a clearer understanding of these two facets of the prevention process, this book examines the interplay of the messages individuals receive about AIDS at the public level and the messages exchanged between individuals at the interpersonal level. The specific purpose of the book is to provide a theoretical and conceptual foundation for understanding the pragmatic concerns related to the AIDS crisis in the United States and other parts of the world. The book represents the first systematic examination of how theory informs our understanding of AIDS and communication processes. Contributors explore the issues from a variety of theoretical and conceptual viewpoints. Their goal is to stimulate thought which will lead to the pragmatic application of the ideas presented. The chapters focus on four general communication concerns: * interpersonal interaction as it relates to choices individuals make about safer sex practices, * theory and practice of public campaigns about AIDS, * intercultural issues, and * critical and descriptive approaches for understanding news coverage of AIDS.