How do people traditionally situated on the margins of society-people of color, women, gays/lesbians/bisexuals, and those from a lower socio-economic status-communicate within the dominant societal structures? Constructing Co-Cultural Theory presents a phenomenological framework for understanding the intricate relationship between culture, power, and communication. Grounded in muted group and standpoint theory, this volume presents a theoretical framework that fosters a critically insightful vantage point into the complexities of culture, power, and communication. The volume comprises six chapters; key coverage includes: a review of critique of the literature on co-cultural communication; description of how the perspective of co-cultural group members were involved in each stage of theory development; an explication of 25 co-cultural communication strategies, and a model of six factors that influence strategy selection. The final chapter examines how co-cultural theory correlates with other work in communication generally and in intercultural communication specifically. Author Mark P. Orbe considers inherent limitations of his framework and the implication for future research in this area. Scholars and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students will find that this volume covers an important topic which will be of interest to those in the fields of communication, cultural studies, and race and ethnic studies.

Today, students are more familiar with other cultures than ever before because of the media, Internet, local diversity, and their own travels abroad. Using a social constructionist framework, Inter/Cultural Communication provides today's students with a rich understanding of how culture and communication affect and effect each other. Weaving multiple approaches together to provide a comprehensive understanding of and appreciation for the diversity of cultural and intercultural communication, this text helps students become more aware of their own identities and how powerful their identities can be in facilitating change—both in their own lives and in the lives of others.

"Will be a very useful tool for any student trying to make sense of the vast expanses of contemporary cultural theory and criticism. Well-written and admirably self-reflective, it combines rigorous explications and applications of many of the most influential concepts and theorists." - Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina "Accessible and insightful throughout; offering help to both experienced and inexperienced students of cultural theory. Highly recommended." - John Storey, University of Sunderland Doing Cultural Theory teaches more than just the basics of cultural theory. It unpacks its complexities with real-life examples, and shows readers how to link theory and practice. This book: Offers accessible introductions to how cultural studies has engaged with key theories in structuralism, poststructuralism and postmodernism Teaches straightforward ways of practising these theories so students learn to think for themselves Uses ′practice′ boxes to show students how to apply cultural theory in the real world Guides students through the literature with carefully selected further reading recommendation. Other textbooks only show how others have analyzed and interpreted the world. Doing Cultural Theory takes it a step further and teaches students step-by-step how to do cultural theory for themselves.

Why do people want what they want? Why does one person see the world as a place to control, while another feels controlled by the world? A useful theory of culture, the authors contend, should start with these questions, and the answers, given different historical conditions, should apply equally well to people of all times, places, and walks of life.Taking their cue from the pioneering work of anthropologist Mary Douglas, the authors of Cultural Theory have created a typology of five ways of life?egalitarianism, fatalism, individualism, hierarchy, and autonomy?to serve as an analytic tool in examining people, culture, and politics. They then show how cultural theorists can develop large numbers of falsifiable propositions.Drawing on parables, poetry, case studies, fiction, and the Great Books, the authors illustrate how cultural biases and social relationships interact in particular ways to yield life patterns that are viable, sustainable, and ultimately, changeable under certain conditions. Figures throughout the book show the dynamic quality of these ways of life and specifically illustrate the role of surprise in effecting small- and large-scale change.The authors compare Cultural Theory with the thought of master social theorists from Montesquieu to Stinchcombe and then reanalyze the classic works in the political culture tradition from Almond and Verba to Pye. Demonstrating that there is more to social life than hierarchy and individualism, the authors offer evidence from earlier studies showing that the addition of egalitarianism and fatalism facilitates cross-national comparisons.

The 24th volume addresses how people's lives and experiences across the world are being transformed by technological changes, media institutions, political ideologies, and social forces. Nine articles consider such topics as implications of the privatization of television in India, diasporic cinema and media definitions of Indian femininity, the construction of Latinos and Latino issue, and peril and play in an Arab-American community. The contributors are from a range of countries, but all now working in the US. -- c. Book News Inc.

The Encyclopedia of Communication Theory provides students and researchers with a comprehensive two-volume overview of contemporary communication theory. Reference librarians report that students frequently approach them seeking a source that will provide them with a quick overview of a particular theory or theorist - just enough to help them grasp the general concept or theory and its relation to the discipline as a whole. Communication scholars and teachers also occasionally need a quick reference for theories. Edited by the co-authors of the best-selling textbook on communication theory and drawing on the expertise of an advisory board of 10 international scholars and nearly 200 contributors from 10 countries, this work finally provides such a resource. More than 300 entries address topics related not only to paradigms, traditions, and schools, but also metatheory, methodology, inquiry, and applications and contexts. Entries cover several orientations, including psycho-cognitive; social-interactional; cybernetic and systems; cultural; critical; feminist; philosophical; rhetorical; semiotic, linguistic, and discursive; and non-Western. Concepts relate to interpersonal communication, groups and organizations, and media and mass communication. In sum, this encyclopedia offers the student of communication a sense of the history, development, and current status of the discipline, with an emphasis on the theories that comprise it.

Comprehensively collects the essential theoretical ideas of 'sociological neo-institutionalism', one of the leading approaches in social theory.

This text addresses the central problem in anthropological theory of the late 1990s - the paradox that humans are both products of social discipline and creators of remarkable improvisation.

The culture-centred approach offered in this book argues that communication theorizing ought to locate culture at the centre of the communication process such that the theories are contextually embedded and co-constructed through dialogue with the cultural participants. The discussions in the book situate health communication within local contexts by looking at identities, meanings and experiences of health among community members, and locating them in the realm of the structures that constitute health. The culturecentred approach foregrounds the voices of cultural members in the co-constructions of health risks and in the articulation of health problems facing communities. Ultimately, the book provides theoretical and practical suggestions for developing a culture-centred understanding of health communication processes.