Media References Research Articles

The power of altmetrics on a CV

AbstractEditor's SummaryAlternative metrics demonstrate the value and influence of scholars' work apart from traditional citation counts and can enhance the impact of a CV. Altmetrics provide additional, supplementary information and can balance misleading metrics tied to particular journals. More timely than traditional metrics, altmetrics quickly reveal the impact of recent work and add authority to different types of scholarly products not captured as articles. Altmetrics can capture social media references that escape traditional metrics and reflect public engagement prompted by scholarly writing. The availability of altmetrics expands publishing opportunities to include new venues and stimulates innovative strategies for evaluating research. When included in a CV altmetrics must be accurate, clear and meaningful.

Book review: The Politics of Genocide, by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson

Edward S. Herman and David Peterson The Politics of Genocide, Monthly Review Press: New York, 2010, 159 pp: 9781583672129, US$12.95 (pbk) Herman and Peterson's book fundamentally critiques 'the basic outline of the politics of genocick' in contemporary times. By employing three ingenious frameworks ('constructive', 'nefarious' and 'benign') for disentangling the politics of genocide, the volume brilliantly captures the sheer hypocrisy of 'genocide-oriented intellectuals and media' and the cruelties of Western humanitarian interventions that evidently reflect a 'huge political bias' in favour of the USA and other imperialist countries. Unsurprisingly, the intensity of the crimes and the worth of the victim's life are decided by a single criterion: that of 'who is responsible for carrying them out' (p. 16). The crimes and mass killings committed by the USA and other imperialist powers are always 'constructive', therefore the 'victims are unworthy' and this cannot thus be called 'ethnic cleansing' or 'genocide'. However, mass murders carried out by US allies and clients are 'benign'. Finally, brutalities carried out by enemies of the USA are 'nefarious', and therefore victims deserve immediate attention and rigorous punishment for the perpetrators. Herman and Peterson's analysis painstakingly reveals the role of media pundits, human rights intellectuals, international NGOs and their criminal silence over US-supported mass killings in various parts of the world. Liberal academic and media treatment of human rights violations, and their laments over 'crimes against humanity', are always selective. Their explanations do not touch any of the mass killings perpetrated by the USA, and 'whenever the United States colludes in a genocidal process', they pretend that 'U.S. guilt is at worst that of remaining a mere bystander, but never that of an accomplice, let alone a perpetrator' (p. 64). Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize winning (2003) book 'A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, is a classic example in this regard. The section 'Constructive Genocides' includes various cases of mass murders, like the thirteen years (1992-2003) of economic sanctions that killed a million people, mainly children and women, and the occupation and destruction of Iraq, which killed a million and displaced around 5 million, by Anglo-American forces in 2003. The economic sanctions imposed upon Iraq destroyed that country's social fabric, and its impact was genocidal. Massive bombings and destruction and the looting of archaeological heritage were serious crimes, but still 'it is the Iraqis who owe the United States a debt' (p. 37). For the Western establishment, these 'sanctions of mass destructions' were constructive, and therefore the victims were unworthy. The authors point out that in Iraq's case, media references to 'genocide' numbere eighty, but in 'Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and Darfur, four Nefarious cases, the usage ran to 481, 323, 3, 199, and 1,172 respectively' (p. 33). The book discusses the Western 'politics of framing' false questions in the context of various political conflicts and violence. The political conflicts in Darfur have been treated as 'nefarious'. Here, 'genocide' was used ninety times, and was successfully racialised as an 'ethnic cleansing' of Black Africans by Arab Muslim rulers. The death toll was twenty times more violent than in the Democratic Republic of Congo; but for the West it was a benign bloodbath because it had the complete the support of the USA, France, and Britain. Conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-1995) and Kosovo (1998-1999) were labelled as 'Serb evil and violence', and portrayed as the ethnic cleansing, and massacre of Bosnian Muslims, Croatians, and Kosovo Albanians. The 'Srebrenica massacre' (July 1995) got huge attention in the Western media and political circles, and was 'cited heavily and repeated endlessly, and with great indignation, to demonstrate that genocide actually had taken place in Bosnia' (p. …

Influences of media on social movements: Problematizing hyperbolic inferences about impacts

Pronouncements about the value of information and communication technology (ICT) (hereafter traditional, new, and social media) to social movements – hyperbolic in popular media references to new and social media (e.g., Facebook revolution, Twitter revolution, etc.) – invite scholarly inquiries that critically assess the implications of these assumptions for African countries. Sensing the tendency toward technological determinism, a position which Castells warns is fraught with failure to recognize complex interactions between society and technology; authors examined popular press vis-à-vis scholarly assumptions about the value of media during social movements. Questions that critically analyze the roles and power of old versus new media in social movements should be posed particularly about 21st century iterations with citizens increasingly doubling as creators and disseminators of news and information. For example: to what extent do various media comparatively facilitate or constrain activists in social movements? How have new ICTs assisted citizen activists in circumventing the power and reach of traditional media? How have the roles of traditional versus new media in social movements been framed in the popular press and academic journals? What contextual factors (e.g., communal networks; third-party- and foreign-interventions, digital divide, etc.) may be accountable for the take-off and successes of social movements? In a continent fraught with cultural, political, and socio-economic divisions of historic proportions, authors critically assessed cases across Africa of variegated employment of old (i.e., radio, newspaper, television) and new media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, mobile telephone text messaging) by four social movements spanning 35years. Assessments underscore citizen empowerment and multiplier capabilities of new media but affirm the value of contextual factors that minimize hyperbolic assumptions about the contribution of new media to the formation and progression of social movements.

Abstract 52: The Heart of the Matter: Cardiac Arrest and Public Health Information on Twitter

Background: Despite the increasing use of social media, little is known about how it is used to communicate health-related information. Twitter's 300 million users communicate a variety of information via their “tweets” (140 character messages). We sought to characterize the cardiac arrest specific information being shared. Methods: A Twitter search engine was used to identify tweets published April 19-May 19 2011 with keywords: “cardiac arrest, CPR, AED, resuscitation, heart arrest, and defib.” A 1% sample of tweets was reviewed independently by three study investigators to characterize content. Tweets were then categorized as relating to cardiac arrest (personal sharing/ information sharing), CPR or AED (personal sharing/ information sharing), health education/news media, or unrelated to resuscitation (e.g., jokes, miscellaneous). Results: Of 61,053 analyzed tweets, 25% (15,324) included cardiac arrest specific information, (i.e. not miscellaneous). Of this cohort: 14% of tweets referenced cardiac arrest events, 29% referenced CPR performance/AED use, and 57% included cardiac arrest related health education/news media references or links. Of tweets referencing cardiac arrest events (n=2,172), 5% represented personal sharing (e.g. “when I or a family member/friend/ had a cardiac arrest”) and 9% represented information sharing (e.g. arrest location, interventions, guidelines). Of tweets referencing CPR performance or AED use (n=4,465), 23% represented personal sharing (e.g. actual or classroom provision of CPR/AED, likes/dislikes regarding CPR/AED courses) and 6% represented information sharing (e.g., observation of CPR delivery or AED use, commentary regarding hands-only CPR). Tweets (n=8,687) regarding resuscitation specific education or news articles included content such as: advocacy group events, CPR/AED training events, heart health surveys, and reports of celebrities, athletes, and young adults affected by cardiac arrest. Conclusion: Cardiac arrest related information is discussed on Twitter in a variety of categories, with unique opportunities for healthcare provider information sharing, therapeutic intervention guidance (e.g., CPR/AED provision, therapeutic hypothermia), and medical education.

The ill effects of “opium for the spirit”: a critical cultural analysis of China's Internet addiction moral panic

This article examines the crisis over Internet gaming and Internet addiction in China through the lens of moral panic theory. In addition to comparing the Chinese situation to other crises over youth and technology, the uniquely Chinese attributes of this crisis are discussed. As will be shown, the emphasis on moral culture in China provides particularly fertile breeding ground for panics of this sort. Furthermore, the rhetoric employed by the media references other distinct crises over youth, westernization and morality in China's past, thus situating these contemporary problems within an extended narrative about the struggle to establish a “civilized” but uniquely Chinese modern state. An analysis of the various actors involved in the creation and development of the crisis reveals power dynamics and class issues that lie hidden within the discourse. Finally, the impact of new media and the material consequences of the media-driven Internet addiction crisis are addressed.

Chorus boys: words, music and queerness (c.1900-c.1936)

While a great deal has been written about the fin-de-sicle chorus girl's subjection to the so-called male gaze, comparatively little has appeared regarding the chorus boy. This article attempts to redress the balance by concentrating on the specific problems of the West End chorus boy from the turn of the century up until the mid-1930s. As well as discussing questions of queerness, it addresses other issues such as working conditions, salaries, audience perception and World War I. However, while there are a number of articles, reviews and even novels regarding chorus girls, material on chorus boys is relatively meagre. Primary source research for this article has therefore relied mainly on occasional media references. But there have also been two main areas that have given a more complete depiction of the working life and activities of the chorus boy. Firstly, the fairly extensive media coverage of Noel Coward's deployment of the Dancing Boys in his 1932 revue for C.B. Cochran, Words and Music, to be found in the C. B. Cochran files of the V&A Theatre Collections. The other important source has been a rare article on Chorus Gentlemen by Cyril Butcher, who was a member of the Words and Music chorus. This attempts to defend the chorus boy against accusations of effeminacy and homosexuality, while offering a useful insight into his working life. Otherwise material exclusively about the West End chorus boy is sparse, and this necessitates a certain amount of conjecture.

Jornalismo Literário: a realidade de forma autoral e humanizada

Literary journalism is a borderline gender that aims the production of creative writings based both on literary and journalistic techniques. The movement became worldwide known back in the 1960´s due to the innovative work of North American reporters such as Gay Talese, Truman Capote, and Norman Mailer. However, its roots are much older, going as deep as the 17th century European writer Daniel Defoe (1660-1731). In Brazil, the form can be retraced to the journalists Euclides da Cunha (1866-1909) and João do Rio (1881-1921), Paulo Barreto´s fictitious name. Realidade magazine and Jornal da Tarde are still media references, but new publications, specially Brasileiros and Piauí magazines, besides websites and non-fiction books, are helping to develop the genre.

Leo Ornstein: Modernist Dilemmas, Personal Choices (review)

TWENTIETH-CENTURY COMPOSERS Leo Ornstein: Modernist Dilemmas, Personal Choices. By Michael Broyles and Denise Von Glahn. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007. [xvi, 392 p. ISBN-13: 9780253348944. $34.95.] Illustrations, music examples, works list, biographical references, index. In the early part of the twentieth century, Russian-born Leo Ornstein burst onto the American musical scene. He played piano recitals to standing-room only audiences across the country, was discussed in newspaper and magazine articles, parodied in cartoons, and had his portrait painted by Leon Kroll and William Zorach among others. For a time, Ornstein was the poster child for the cause of musical modernism. His name once was mentioned beside Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky as a harbinger of modernism in America; however, shortly after World War I he disappeared from the public eye and was almost entirely forgotten by music historians. In the early 1970s Ornstein's family contacted historian Vivian Perlis, with the hope that she could help bring the composer out of obscurity. Perlis brought Ornstein's manuscripts and related material to the Yale University Music Library, where she was able to preserve and promote his music. One of the fruits of her labors was an article published in this journal (The Futurist Music of Leo Notes 31, no. 4 [ June 1975]: 735-50), which helped to acquaint the late twentieth century to Ornstein's music. Despite Perlis's work, Ornstein unfortunately still resides on the periphery of American music. For this reason, the authors of Leo Ornstein: Modernist Dilemmas, Personal Choices seek to reestablish Ornstein's place in early twentieth-century America and the development of musical modernism. In addition to presenting the most comprehensive history of Ornstein's music and life to date, they attempt to answer two questions about Ornstein's life: what led to his slip into obscurity and what influenced his brief stint with musical modernism? In the preface the authors tell us that this text will be more than just a biography of Ornstein and an attempt to answer these pressing issues about his life. The authors indicate that they want to tell about the role of music in early twentieth-century America. To this end, the book covers the gamut of events, from Russian pogroms that led to mass migrations of Jews to the United States, to the beginnings of a modern art movement in the United States; from anti-Semitism in the early 1920s to the stock market crash of 1929 and the rise of the Red Scare. In the broad path of this historical sweep we encounter a cast of prominent characters who had some type of relationship to Ornstein, albeit sometimes tangential, such as Frank Damrosch, Henry Ford, Georgia O'Keefe, Deems Taylor, Henry Cowell, Sergei Rachmaninoff, John Coltrane, Dan Rudhyar, and George Antheil. Besides discussing important figures and events of the early twentieth century, the authors also discuss some of the important technologies sweeping the musical world such as player pianos, recording technology, and radio broadcasting. The first two chapters of this text serve to give the reader the most comprehensive understanding of Ornstein's musical beginnings. In the first chapter the authors give details of Ornstein's earliest days in a fairly novel way; they turn to the autobiography of Jacob Titiev, Ornstein's uncle, to furnish otherwise incomplete details about the Ornstein family's life in Russia and their immigration to the United States. In the second chapter the authors attempt to pinpoint the impetus behind Ornstein's futurist works. In addition to examining the first references in contemporary media to Ornstein's new style, they also probe his compositions to look for the transitional period to determine from where and whence his inspiration came. The authors' sticking point in the argument is whether Ornstein was influenced by modern music that he heard while on a European tour in 1913 or whether his modernist style emerged from his own imagination without any contemporary influences. …

Lawyers of the Right: Networks and Organization

Lawyers for conservative and libertarian causes are active in organizing and mobilizing interest groups within the conservative coalition, and networks of relationships among those lawyers help to maintain and shape the coalition. Using data gathered in interviews with seventy-two such lawyers, this article analyzes characteristics of the lawyers and the structure of their networks. The findings suggest that the networks are divided into segments or blocks that are identified with particular constituencies, but that a distinct set of actors with extensive relationships serves to bridge the constituencies. Measures of centrality and brokerage confirm the structural importance of these actors in the network, and a search of references in news media confirms their prominence or prestige. This “core” set of actors occupies the “structural hole” in the network that separates the business constituency from religious conservatives. Libertarians, located near the core of the network, also occupy an intermediate position. Regression analysis of ties within the network suggests that the Federalist Society plays an important role in bringing the lawyers together.

POPULATION AND EMPLOYMENT CHANGES IN REGIONAL AUSTRALIA

Regional Australia has experienced significant changes in population and employment since the early 1990s. Evidence regarding these changes has often been anecdotal, with references in political and media spheres to a ‘Sea Change’ or ‘Tree Change’. There has also been considerable public discussion about the effect that the structural changes and misfortunes within the agricultural sector have had on localities in rural regions. The purpose of this paper is to provide and analyse data on regional population and employment changes since the early 1990s. It will also examine the role that the agricultural sector may have had in these changes. This will provide a basis for informed debate and analysis of population changes in regional Australia and the causes and implications of these changes.

Lawyers of the Right: Networks and Organization

Lawyers for conservative and libertarian causes are active in organizing and mobilizing interest groups within the conservative coalition, and networks of relationships among those lawyers help to maintain and shape the coalition. Using data gathered in interviews with seventy-two such lawyers, this article analyzes characteristics of the lawyers and the structure of their networks. The findings suggest that the networks are divided into segments or blocks that are identified with particular constituencies, but that a distinct set of actors with extensive relationships serves to bridge the constituencies. Measures of centrality and brokerage confirm the importance of these actors in the network, and a search of references in news media confirms their prominence or prestige. This set of actors occupies the structural hole in the network that separates the business constituency from religious conservatives. Libertarians, located near the core of the network, also occupy an intermediate position. Regression analysis of ties within the network suggests that the Federalist Society plays an important role in bringing the lawyers together.

“ Minister, we will see how the public judges you.” : Media references in political interviews

This contribution investigates political interviews from a sociopragmatic angle and defines them as negotiating validity claims with regard to the first-frame interaction of interviewer and interviewee, and with regard to the second- or media-frame interaction consisting of the first-frame (interviewer, interviewee) interacting with the media frame. Section 1 examines a political interview's dual status as a communicative genre and as a media event by accounting for interfacing frames, constitutive multi-frame interactions and multiple discourse identities. Section 2 discusses the linguistic representation of media references, such as TV, program, institutional roles of interviewer, interviewee and audience, and investigates when, where and how the references are realized and which communicative function(s) they fulfill. In unmarked interviews, explicit references to the media frame are restricted to the opening and closing sections. If employed in the topical-sequence section, they may either function as securing the common ground between the first-frame and second-frame interactants, or they may be exploited in order to communicate conversationally implicated meaning, such as boosting the pragmatic force of a challenge or expressing criticism. In conclusion, media references have the communicative function of (1) initiating the opening and closing sections of the political interview, and of (2) intensifying the pragmatic force of a communicative contribution thus indirectly guiding the audience in their process of calculating the interviewer's and interviewee's communicative intentions.

School Commercialism and Adolescent Health

Commercial activities in public schools are examined in light of growing concern over increasing rates of childhood obesity. The work and findings of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory, which documents school commercialism through media references, is detailed. Alongside evidence of increased commercialism, including activities that promote the consumption of unhealthful beverages and foods by students, growing public opposition to such activities also is documented. The argument is made that schoolhouse commercialism is not in the best interests of the health or the education of students.

This Way, Uncle, into the Palace

[Begin Page 13] My nephew Xuan, now forty and too old for such talk, used an American expression I had never heard before, and after his wife explained it to me in laborious detail I briefly fell deaf. This was at our annual family picnic in Fresno, under a shade tree. When my hearing disappeared I pretended nothing had happened: for months now, whenever I am spoken to insensibly, in a rush of American street slang or media references, I have experienced total silence lasting up to a minute. I have not yet told Xuan of my affliction. He sometimes seems to me no longer Vietnamese. His American wife, Janet, and their two mixed-blood sons, and even Janet's parents, whose house we are driving to after the picnic, have transformed him. His [End Page 13] family extends me courtesy but nothing more, and I sense that Xuan, too, no longer holds me dear to his heart. I am the last of my own family's Saigon generation, a dried-out stalk, and one day soon, I know, my nephew will place my portrait on the small altar in his garage and light funeral incense. Until then I have no desire to suffer empty and dismal lamentations from Xuan or his family. Time no longer welcomes my presence. I accept that, even as I accept the betrayal of my adopted language, one I have loved and cultivated for decades. It has now begun to turn its back to me, leaving me bereft, as if standing outside a door, until the door opens again of its own accord. There is nothing that can be done. We had been at the park eating picnic food for perhaps half an hour. Xuan's sons, Peter and Jackson, played nearby in the meadow, throwing a football back and forth. Last week, Xuan told me, a despondent man had been shot dead by the police in their neighborhood. They live in a respectable area, one with many professionals, so of course I was curious. "Suicide by cop," Xuan then said, stuffing potato salad into his mouth. He wore a backward baseball cap in imitation of his sons, and he spoke the words so fluently—he still has an accent—that I asked him how he came to know such an arcane expression. Then Janet leaned across the picnic table and informed me it was a common phrase. She explained its meaning to me. She must have been worried I'd [End Page 14] start to ask for word derivations and such because she then leaned back and tried to expand the conversation. Imagine, she said to us both: imagine making a poor policeman carry around that guilt. What an act of spite, she said. Imagine pulling a stranger into your own darkness. It was like killing two people, yourself and the cop. That is when my hearing briefly vanished. I nodded politely, and I passed Xuan a hot dog bun when I saw where his eyes were looking. Janet turned toward Peter and Jackson and yelled something, telling them, I think, to hurry up and eat. Soon, before traffic picked up, we would all drive to Janet's parents' house to exclaim over their newly installed hot tub. Peter shouted something back to his mother, but Xuan and Janet simply ignored him. If I had been the parent of either of those two boys, my response would have been much stronger. They had been speaking nonsense all morning, and they both laughed in my face when rude noises came from a mustard container I had squeezed. I found myself wishing my deafness would continue all day, sparing me from the conversation that would ensue at Janet's parents' house. The last time we had all spent the evening together—it was Christmas dinner, with turkey and pineapple ham—I felt only insult. Xuan, of course, had fitted in quite nicely, raising his glass several times to toast ridiculous things—badminton, the...

Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian (review)

Reviewed by: Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian James R. Tootle (bio) David L. Fleitz. Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian. Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2002. 229 pp. Paper, $28.50. For a player whose Major League career consisted of only 94 games for Cleveland in the 1890s, Louis Sockalexis continues to draw an unusual degree of attention and interest. His name often surfaces in the debate over the origin and appropriateness of "Indians" as the nickname of the Cleveland club. In addition to his part in this dispute, there is much more to the story of this athletically gifted Native American outfielder whose baseball career came to a tragic and premature end, with his enormous potential unfulfilled. As with his excellent 2001 book, Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson, David Fleitz has produced a well-researched, highly readable study of an intriguing [End Page 138] baseball figure whose career and persona have been wrapped in layers of confusion, myth, and misperception. Fleitz's enlightening introduction to Penobscot culture, history, and geography furnishes important background information for the story that unfolds. Sockalexis, born on the Penobscot reservation in Maine, grew into a young man who was a "five-tool player" in modern terminology. He could run, throw, field, hit for average, and hit with power. Fleitz traces Sockalexis's career—his participation on local teams; his college days (where he was "the best athlete at Holy Cross, if not in the entire nation"), including his brief enrollment at Notre Dame; and his signing by Cleveland in March1897. When he made his dazzling debut as a Major League player (with no Minor League experience) in April1897, "he was the first minority athlete of any kind to play in the National League." Fleitz provides an interesting and detailed account of Sockalexis's exploits during the first three months of the 1897 baseball season, when Cleveland was so taken by its new hard-hitting outfielder that fans and sportswriters started dropping the nickname "Spiders" and began referring to the team as the "Indians" in honor of the new star player. Fleitz points out that although the club featured future Hall of Fame members Jesse Burkett, Bobby Wallace, and Cy Young, the intriguing and talented Sockalexis, who hit .338 his rookie year, emerged as the fan favorite. "He was a nearly perfect physical specimen," writes Fleitz, "handsome and athletic, and showed his prodigious athletic talent by belting line drives and making circus catches in the outfield." Unfortunately, the success and sudden acclaim Sockalexis enjoyed proved short-lived. Fleitz traces the rapid decline of the popular Indian outfielder to his excessive use of alcohol, which led to off-the-field injuries, erratic fielding, and the erosion of his skills. Sensitive, thoughtful explanations are offered regarding Sockalexis's inability to overcome alcohol problems, as the author chronicles his unsuccessful attempts to resurrect his career. This biography of Sockalexis provides a window on baseball in the 1890s, when the rough-and-tumble style of the Baltimore Orioles dominated, local blue laws prohibited Sunday games, and Cleveland was in the National League. Especially informative is the description of "syndicate baseball," the reason for the abysmal record of 20 wins and 134 losses (the worst in baseball history) compiled by the 1899 Cleveland club, on which Sockalexis received and squandered his last chance to salvage his career. The book is also, in part, a social history; the author provides insight into race relations of that time. Fleitz analyzes the exclusion of African-American players from the majors after 1884, the ethnic heckling and media references to scalping, war whoops, and going "on the warpath" that Sockalexis endured, and the accomplishments and experiences of other notable Native American players. He also offers a short course in the longstanding relationship between [End Page 139] baseball players and alcohol abuse, citing King Kelly, Ed Delahanty, Hack Wilson, and Pete Alexander as others whose careers suffered due to serious alcohol problems. In his treatments of Sockalexis and (in his earlier work) Jackson, Fleitz is at his best in demythologizing those areas of baseball history where the facts have been forgotten and the truth has been obscured. In creating this concise and accurate...

Book review: The World of Psychology, 3rd Canadian Edition.

SAMUEL E. WOOD, ELLEN R. GREEN WOOD, EILEEN WOOD, and SERGE DESMARAIS The World of Psychology, 3rd Canadian Edition Toronto, ON: Pearson Education Canada Inc, 2002, 592 pages (ISBN 0-205-36456-X, $67.95, Softcover) Reviewed by GIRA BHATT The task of teaching an introductory course in psychology can be quite challenging. The discipline has been growing rapidly and there is a continual influx of new research findings that need to be sifted through, summarized, organized, and incorporated into the course while making it palatable and interesting to the eager minds of the first year of psychology. The challenge is equally daunting for the writers of textbooks who must not only keep pace with the latest developments, but also ensure that the content as well as the style meets the pedagogical demands in the competitive world of textbook publication. Keeping pace with the latest research trends and media technology, writers and publishers have met these challenges quite well. Today's introductory psychology textbooks are multicoloured, filled with colour-coded boxes, tables, diagrams, pictures, photographs, quotations, cartoons, and more (Bhatt & Chan, 1996). Also, almost all introductory textbooks that arrive in the instructors' offices today come as a package loaded with instructors' resources, hundreds of colour transparencies, test-banks, video-tapes, video-discs, CDs, and even the on-line versions of the course with simulated exercises, quizzes, etc. These are now standard features of most introductory psychology textbooks. In fact, that introductory textbooks all look almost alike has made the task of textbook selection quite arduous. Canadian instructors face an additional challenge. A large majority of these textbooks are published in the U.S., written by U.S. authors, and aimed for use of U.S. students. As such, the focus of the textbook content has remained on the U.S. context. The examples illustrating core concepts are replete with American themes such as American demographics, American presidents, American TV shows, American news stories, American baseball, and so on. Canadian do not necessarily relate to these contents and instructors often have to search for Canadian equivalents. It is, therefore, heartening to note an emerging trend of introductory textbooks being published as Canadian. The main issue, however, is what makes an introductory textbook Canadian? Is there any pedagogical value in Canadianizing an introductory psychology textbook? On the surface, it may appear that differences between the U.S. and Canada are only geographical. Yet, if one searches for unique features of life in Canada, one is likely to find plenty. Our political system is different from that of the U.S.. Our multicultural mosaic ideal stands in contrast to the melting pot ideal of the U.S. We have strict gun controls. We have a universal health care system. We do not have a large black population. We tend to be fanatic about ice hockey, and so on. In fact, that we are not like the Americans is a salient feature of our identity as Canadians (Tonks & Bhatt, 1991). Moreover, the differences between life in the U.S. and life in Canada do have significant implications for our academic programs (Bowman, 2000). Wood, Wood, Wood, and Desmarais' The World of Psychology: Third Canadian Edition acknowledges at the outset that students learn best when materials are relevant to their lives (p. xxi). Consequently, they have integrated Canadian content throughout the text, including Canadian demographics, Canadian illustrations, Canadian historical events, and media references. Six of the 14 chapters have opening vignettes that are interesting and relevant to life in Canada. For example, one chapter opens with a story about the youth gang of Spadina girls in Toronto and the Reena Virk tragedy in Victoria, which highlight the violence among young women in Canada. Another chapter opens with an interesting news story about conjoined twins from Pakistan who were flown to Toronto's Hospital for the Sick Children to undergo a surgery to separate their heads. …

New Realities That Frame Our Futures Efforts Today

This reflections column is also the concluding article in this special issue on Future Directions. The following reflections indicate my view of the new realities that frame our futures efforts today. One feature of the past half-century working in the adult and continuing education field is that my entry provides me with a sort of hinge of history Many of the pioneers from the previous generation, when the field was still emerging, were still around. The following reminiscences illustrate the very different societal context when the field was invisible compared with the new realities today, when there are frequent references in the mass media to lifelong learning. Fond memories abound: Listening on the radio to Invitation to Learning with Lyman Bryson, an early professor of adult education when Teachers College, Columbia University had just established the first doctoral program in adult education; receiving the first doctorate in adult education awarded by Syracuse University; working with Malcolm Knowles while he was executive director of AEA and later professor of adult education; chairing the residential adult education section of AEA with members including Myles Horton at Highlander and Tim Pitkin at Goddard; starting the Education Research Conference; serving as visiting staff at the Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults; and my career long friendship with Cy Houle. When I left Nebraska and joined the Teachers College faculty in 1965, the last of the long-time professors of adult education there had just retired, and I handled the transition from the Institute of Education (that had produced many early publications) to the Center for Education Research and invited Jack Mezirow to leave his extension position in California to join me there. The field, and related graduate study and research, continued to expand during the 1970s, when I taught in a newly established University of Illinois adult education graduate program, held an administrative role, and served as consulting editor for Jossey-Bass and started their quarterly sourcebooks on New Directions for and Continuing Education. Our move in 1981 to the well-established graduate program here at the University of Wisconsin has marked the longest time Linda and I have lived in any one community. After 12 years at Syracuse University the more in 1960 to Lincoln to start the Education graduate program at the University of Nebraska occurred when Commission of Professors of Education members were completing a statement on Adult Education: A New Imperative for Our Times and a 1964 book edited by Jensen, Liveright, and Hallenbeck entitled Education: Outlines of an Emerging Field of University Study. Reviewing them recently reminds me that we have far exceeded much of what seemed to many of us then to be bold dreams for the future. However, I still share Houle's sentiment expressed to me back then that what the field could become is what continues to interest me most. As with many grandparents, familiarity with three previous generations increases my interest in the legacy and prospects for coming generations. The dramatic increase in the size, diversity, and visibility of the field was a rising tide that lifted my boat and many others. But circumstances are different now Complaints about marginality and neglect have been replaced by acceptance and then assimilation. Pioneering and celebrations of diversity have been replaced by fragmentation as reflected in the vitality of 50 specialized national associations of people who work in the field, and in concern about whether the center will hold. As Roger Boshier commented some years ago, we seem to have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. By contrast, my optimism about desirable future directions for the field given our new realities springs from the challenge of continued expansion of people in the field who are able to provide leadership characterized by vision, excellence, and collaboration. …

Different but equal: communication between the sexes

Introduction Gender Roles Women's and Men's Movements in America Gender Communication and Religion Self-Esteem and Gender Communication Gendered Communication in Close Relationships Gendered Issues in Communication about Sex Gendered Differences in Language and Aggressive/Argumentative Communication Gender and Power Nonverbal Gender Communication Gender Differences in Leadership Cultural Expectations of Attractiveness: Presentations of Men and Women in the Media References Index

The X-Files and the Aesthetics and Politics of Postmodern Pop

The X-Files is generally acclaimed as the television cult hit of the 1990s. Its excursions into the occult, paranormal, and supernatural have touched a responsive chord in an era when belief in the fantastic, aliens, and government conspiracies is accelerating. Featuring the exploits of two FBI agents, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Armstrong), the series articulates a panorama of contemporary fears, anxieties, and fantasies, drawing on classic figures of the occult, present-day horrors, and political conspiracies as material. It thus uses conventions and iconic figures of media culture and references to contemporary historical individuals and events to comment upon present day issues and to represent salient disturbing aspects of the current era. In so doing, it raises questions concerning dominant institutions, ideologies, and values. In this study, I argue that The X-Files deploys the aesthetics of postmodernism, drawing on its characteristic representational strategies and thematic tropes, and thus can serve as an example of a popular form of postmodernism that engages in pastiche of plot-lines, genre conventions, iconography, folklore, and bits of history found in the forms of previous media culture. Further, in my reading, its implosion of generic boundaries enacts a postmodern subversion of the categories and aesthetic forms of modern media culture; it mixes a heavy style and high seriousness with irony and parody, and its combination of the standard postmodem aesthetic strategies and themes of postmodern culture produces a pop postmodernism that enables us to interrogate both the aesthetics of television and postmodernism. ' I. TELEVISION AESTHETICS

The Spectacle of Plains: Public Evidence, Personal Invention, and the Painting of Roger Brown

In late March, 1977, in the midst of mocking jabs at the televised Nixon interviews, the U.S. Postal service, and genetic engineering, Chicago Tribune cartoonist Wayne Stayskal fired off one quick frame on the plight of newly elected President Jimmy Carter's hometown of Plains, Georgia. The cartoon presented a group of typically chunky, grinning Stayskal characters awkwardly bumping along with a pack of hounds before a solitary wooden shanty labeled “PLAINS.” As they jog along, the guide looks back from his straining hounds to drawl, “Hot dang… th'ar on Billy's trail ag'in folks!” Stayskal's cartoon clearly stemmed from a front page article in the Tribune of the previous day. Entitled “Tourists, Fear Rout Billy Out of Plains,” the story explained how fear for his family's safety in the suddenly popular small town had finally forced Billy Carter to move to an even more remote location several miles away. Yet while this was quite obviously the impetus behind this cartoon, the short notice of Billy's intended retreat from Plains was actually just one of many media references to the changing character of the town in the wake of his older brother's victories at the polls. Beginning in the spring of the previous year as Jimmy Carter suddenly emerged to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, Plains had risen just as rapidly to become the most famous small town in America. And at the peak of its early notoriety in 1977, Roger Brown characterized what this really meant for the town in a complex painting entitled Two Couples Viewing the Spectacle of Erosion at Providence Canyon Near Plains, Georgia (figure 1).