Our actions in education, business, and government are no longer guided by conscious ideals, but by entrenched practices that are products of expediency, indolence, and even tyranny. Inveterate and ubiquitous problems abound. Students hate school. Employees dislike their jobs. Professors become disinclined toward teaching. Boredom and procrastination are everywhere. There are promotion requirements (such as scholarly publications by college professors) that promote nothing and benefit none except to move the person into the next nominal category along the spectrum of the organizational ladder. We are plagued with senseless competitive patterns and numerical evaluations that make life a mere matter of "rat race", the winning of which does not uplift us into the sublimity of humanity, but trammel us in the degradation of being "rats". Essays in this book reflect on and search for answers to widespread and inveterate problems that degenerate modern life into mere livelihood. Products in sober solitude rather than in the societal cacophony, most essays in the book were written during the author's doctoral studies.

This collection brings together ten of the most distinguished feminist scholars whose work has been celebrated for its excellence in helping to lay the foundation of feminist communication and media research. This edited volume features contributions by the first ten renowned communication and media scholars that have received the Teresa Award for the Advancement of Feminist Scholarship from the Feminist Scholarship Division (FSD) of the International Communication Association (ICA): Patrice M. Buzzanell, Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Radha Sarma Hegde, Dafna Lemish, Radhika Parameswaran, Lana F. Rakow, Karen Ross, H. Leslie Steeves, Linda Steiner, and Angharad N. Valdivia. These distinguished scholars reflect on the contributions they have made to different subfields of media and communication scholarship, and offer invaluable insight into their own paths as feminist scholars. They each reflect on matters of power, agency, privilege, ethics, intersectionality, resilience, and positionality, address their own shortcomings and struggles, and look ahead to potential future directions in the field. Last but not least, they come together to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women, marginalized people, and vulnerable populations, and to underline the crucial need for feminist communication and media scholarship to move beyond Eurocentrism toward an ethics of care and global feminist positionality. A comprehensive and inspiring resource for students and scholars of feminist media and communication studies.

Communication in Everyday Life: A Survey of Communication offers an engaging introduction to communication based on the belief that communication and relationships are always interconnected. Best-selling authors Steve Duck and David T. McMahan incorporate this theme of a relational perspective and a focus on everyday communication to show the connections between concepts and how they can be understood through a shared perspective. Students will learn how topics in communication come together as part of a greater whole, as well as gain practical communication skills, from listening to critical thinking and using technology to communicate. The Fourth Edition includes enhancements to its proven pedagogical features that reflect updates in research, cultural and societal changes, and emerging issues.

This timely book brings together activist scholars from a range of disciplines to provide new insights into a growing trend in publicly engaged research and scholarship. Bridging Scholarship and Activism creatively redefines what constitutes activism without limiting it to a narrow range of practices, with an ultimate goal of creating a decolonized and democratized forum for scholar activists worldwide.

Shifting faculty roles in a changing landscape Ernest L. Boyer's landmark book Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate challenged the publish-or-perish status quo that dominated the academic landscape for generations. His powerful and enduring argument for a new approach to faculty roles and rewards continues to play a significant part of the national conversation on scholarship in the academy. Though steeped in tradition, the role of faculty in the academic world has shifted significantly in recent decades. The rise of the non-tenure-track class of professors is well documented. If the historic rule of promotion and tenure is waning, what role can scholarship play in a fragmented, unbundled academy? Boyer offers a still much-needed approach. He calls for a broadened view of scholarship, audaciously refocusing its gaze from the tenure file and to a wider community. This expanded edition offers, in addition to the original text, a critical introduction that explores the impact of Boyer's views, a call to action for applying Boyer's message to the changing nature of faculty work, and a discussion guide to help readers start a new conversation about how Scholarship Reconsidered applies today.

The book publishing industry is going through a period of profound and turbulent change brought about in part by the digital revolution. What is the role of the book in an age preoccupied with computers and the internet? How has the book publishing industry been transformed by the economic and technological upheavals of recent years, and how is it likely to change in the future? This is the first major study of the book publishing industry in Britain and the United States for more than two decades. Thompson focuses on academic and higher education publishing and analyses the evolution of these sectors from 1980 to the present. He shows that each sector is characterized by its own distinctive ‘logic’ or dynamic of change, and that by reconstructing this logic we can understand the problems, challenges and opportunities faced by publishing firms today. He also shows that the digital revolution has had, and continues to have, a profound impact on the book publishing business, although the real impact of this revolution has little to do with the ebook scenarios imagined by many commentators. Books in the Digital Age will become a standard work on the publishing industry at the beginning of the 21st century. It will be of great interest to students taking courses in the sociology of culture, media and cultural studies, and publishing. It will also be of great value to professionals in the publishing industry, educators and policy makers, and to anyone interested in books and their future.

Through its impact on students in their lives in and beyond college, and recognizing the porous boundary between the classroom and the “real world,” SoTL can offer insights into broader societal issues, offer evidence of activities that facilitate everyday learning, promote intrinsic motivation, better support people from underrepresented communities, or uncover the ripple effects of changing educational environments. It has the potential to deliver messages of broad public interest. This book extends the field-building work of Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered and Hutchings, Huber, and Ciccone’s The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Reconsidered by taking a new look at SoTL’s ubiquitous call to “go public.” Going Public Reconsidered explores the potential impacts of knowledge generated by SoTL, considers its varied public audiences, and offers guidance for the appropriate media and modes of communication to reach them, including the use of social media. It urges the SoTL community to step up and contribute its expertise to conversations about the crises that face our communities, nations, and the world, and disseminate the relevance of its research for the world outside of the classroom.Recognizing that many practitioners find it difficult to conceptualize the public in public SoTL beyond the higher education audiences they routinely address, this book focusses on conceptualizing, planning, and shaping the message, and clarifying appropriate audiences. It offers guidance on the “who” and the “how” of public SoTL. Going Public Reconsidered addresses such questions as: ● What is happening in the world that would benefit from a SoTL-informed perspective?● What information, insight, or knowledge does SoTL generate?● Who beyond higher education might care about this information, insight, or knowledge, and why?● How can we adapt to the venues and platforms where they currently get their information and knowledge?The fifteen editors and contributors explore the potential and the implications of extending SoTL beyond its current horizons by reflecting on the ultimate responsibility of those who profess SoTL; examining SoTL’s audiences and the notion of “the public”; considering what topics and Grand Challenges public SoTL might address; offering case studies of outreach in the US and abroad; and providing guidance on the use of social media for public SoTL – from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube to blogs – as well as on developing relationships with mainstream media. The book’s message is that public SoTL isn’t a radical departure from SoTL-as-we-know-it, but a natural expansion of its methods and goals, offering the potential of broadening its impact domestically and internationally. It offers inspiration and challenges to practitioners across the globe.