Communicative Civic-ness explores how political culture shapes social media interactions in civic participation, arguing that social media usage is informed by context-specific civil and political culture. Drawing on cutting-edge research, the book develops a new robust theoretical and conceptual framework on civic engagement and participation, comprising: contextual ethos of civic communication; political culture and civic communication; use of social media in private and public spheres; design of social media. It critically addresses issues within the concept of political culture and develops the concept of ‘communicative civic-ness’. This concept seeks to aid a better-informed debate about the capacity of social media to support the pluralistic discussions that underpin deliberative democratic processes. This book appeals to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as academics with an interest in areas including (but not limited to) sociology, political science and media studies. It will also provide useful information and understanding to third sector organisations and policy-makers regarding forms of civic participation.

This volume contributes to the extant and prolific New Agendas in Communication Series from one of the most salient perspectives within the field of Communication: New Technologies and Civic Engagement. The impact of the Internet and other technological advances are constantly referred to at most junctures of today's Communication research agendas. The area of Political Communication is not immune to this trend. The effects of the Internet and digital media on today's political landscape, with a particular emphasis on enhancing individuals’ civic duties and engagement levels, are theme of concern at many of the most renowned journals in Communication and Political Science disciplines. First, this book pays attention to the overall impact of the Internet and people's use of digital media and new technologies to analyze civic life at large, reconceptualizing what citizenship is today. Secondly, and more specifically, participants shed light over the intersection of a number of current new agendas of research in regards to some of the most rapidly growing technological advances (i.e., new publics and citizenship), and the emergence of sprouting structures of citizenship. The volume shows the implications that new technological advances carry with respect the possibilities, patterns and mechanisms for citizen communication, citizen deliberation, public sphere and civic engagement.

This book addresses the socio-technical constitution of civic communication in increasingly digital democracies. Despite problematic phenomena like hate speech in online commenting, it argues that citizens’ potential for resisting technological inscriptions in digital media remains a fundamental democratic right. While producers inscribe anticipations for how people should be discussing political issues into commenting interfaces, citizens still resist these technological inscriptions in their commenting practices. This dialectic interrelation between interfaces and practices highlights the inadequacy of purely technological solutions for undemocratic tendencies in digital media.

This volume addresses teaching and research across disciplines, communication and identity development, and the centrality of communication in our quickly changing world. Contributors convey the social and global need, value, and responsibility of communication instruction across disciplines.

This volume addresses communication and its roles in the problems and prospects of community, and is intended for scholars in communiation, cultural studies, and social psychology.

One of the most difficult problems facing Western democracy today is the decline in citizens' political engagement. There are many elements that contribute to this, including fundamental socio-cultural changes. The book summarizes these contexts and situates itself within them, while focusing on the media's key role in shaping the character of civic engagement. In particular, it examines the new interactive electronic media in terms of their civic potential. Looking at the evolution of the media landscape, the book interrogates key notions such citizenship, public sphere, agency, identity, deliberation, and practice, and offers a multi-dimensional analytic framework called 'civic cultures'. This framework is then applied to several settings, including television, popular culture, journalism, the EU, and global activism, to illuminate the role of the media in deflecting and enhancing political engagement, as well as in contributing to new forms of political involvement and new understandings of what constitutes the political.

Social networking fascinates scholars, pundits, and a billion Facebook users; this book shows that whom we know has a vast impact on our political beliefs, actions, and abilities. Prior scholarship has shown that networks are crucial to explaining everything from how bills get through Congress, why people vote, how NGO’s become successful in developing nations, and much more. Yet an in-depth analysis of the social basis of the rationality is missing. To fill this void, The Social Basis of the Rational Citizen provides the first empirical analysis of the most important hypothesized effect of social network influence on politics: social cognition. Through new lab experiments and survey data, this book shows that decision-making in groups promotes more rational choices and better citizenship. Thus, advice and learning derived from social network contacts are shown to be the basis of decision-making for the rational citizen.

Practicing Communication Ethics provides a theoretical framework for developing a personal standard of ethics that can be applied in real world communication situations. Through an examination of specific ethical values including truth, justice, freedom, care, and integrity, this first edition enables the reader to personally determine which values they are ethically committed to upholding. Blending communication theory, ethics as practical philosophy, and moral psychology, this text presents the practice of communication ethics as part of the lifelong process of personal development and fosters the ability in its readers to approach communication decision-making through an ethical lens.

Positive civic engagement can range from the smallest interpersonal gesture to the largest government-sponsored social program. Communication, Culture and Community reintroduces readers to the importance of civic engagement, and to the idea that American society is built on sharing with and caring for fellow citizens. The book is organized into three sections. Part One questions whether civic engagement is a disappearing trait in a society that increasingly seems to focus on the individual. Part Two explores the foundations of communication, culture, and community. Part Three details practices and policies of civic engagement. Opening with a call for re-engagement, the text then moves on to address topics such as high quality civic education, building social capital, the role of citizenship in students daily lives, cultural approaches to communication, and theoretical and pedagogical perspectives on global citizenship. Communication, Culture and Community can be used in courses on communication, education, and political science. Patricia Darlington earned her Ph.D. at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Currently Dr. Darlington is an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University. Dr. Darlington was instrumental in developing the introductory core course entitled Intro to Communication and Civic Life, which she also teaches in the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies at Florida Atlantic University. Her research focuses on the intersectionality of women, power, and ethnicity in U.S. society, and, cultural minority representation in the media. Her recent publications include Cultural Minority Representation in the Media: A Historical View of Television's Underserved (2011) and The Concise Handbook of Cultural, Political, and Pop Culture Terms: A Few Hundred Words You Need to Know to Sound Ten Times Smarter (2012) . She is also co-author of the book Women, Power, and Ethnicity: Working Toward Reciprocal Empowerment. Dr. Darlington is the recipient of the (2003) Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award and the (2011) Florida Atlantic University Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.