Virtual attractors, actual assemblages

This teaching activity employs Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) through the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) case to demonstrate how all actants involved in a network from laws to algae co-produce socio-ecological systems. For communication scholars, identifying all actants in a network is crucial to understanding complex systems. Following Latour’s symmetrical approach, which treats all actants as equally consequential in shaping outcomes, students complete a “Weave Your Network Map” exercise. The first part of the activity is about students’ daily interactions with technological and environmental forces. In the second part of the activity, they analyze LEBOR's network, where a lake's legal personhood emerged through alliances among activists, water quality data, and legislative texts. By comparing personal networks with LEBOR’s struggle, students analyze power as distributed agency, a horizontal web of influence where actants (e.g. laws, algae, apps) shape outcomes alongside human actors. Courses Communication Theory, Media Studies, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Environmental Communication. Objectives Following this activity, students will be able to (1) define ANT, (2) apply ANT by mapping interactions between all the actants present in a network to explore how agency is distributed in everyday life, and (3) critically evaluate the strengths and limitations of ANT.

The goal of this paper is to argue for the concept of social communication that we identified with the idea of innovation and almost always to technological innovation. The starting point is the hypothesis that innovation is a valuable tool in the service of the greater good. The paper has four sections. First, it briefly reviews concepts and methods in Actor Network Theory, a social theory that is useful in framing the (theoretical) approach and implications of e-service (e-care, e-health, etc … ). Second, it examines the implication of social innovation and e-service and discusses the prime agents involved in its creation. Third, it assesses the role of social communication and initiative’s benefits and risks to society. Finally, the paper concludes by exploring the broad implications of e-service for evolution of national-state conventional communication.

An Effect of Medical Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction, Relationship Quality and Reuse intent -Focusing Small-size Medical Clinic in Daegu Area-

This paper applies Matlab software as an auxiliary method in teaching course of communication principle.Considering variety of abstract concepts in this course, such as digital modulation and demodulation, channel-coding, random signal analysis, we select Matlab aid to provide dynamical simulation for communication theory.This method is used both in class presentation and laboratory experiments, which is helpful for students to understand the theory knowledge, enhancing their practical skills.Moreover, it can also extend students' ability of programming.Compared to traditional teaching method, the teacher's interpretation written on blackboard is the main means, this method enables students to study actively and cultivate their scientific qualities.

In current digitalized era electronic media has very responsible roles in society. An old common perception regarding the role of media was to keep informed, aware and act as a source of entertain has now changed. Rather in the last couple of decade media has taken up a role of watch dog on government, mirror of the society and a window to the global world. The research is carry through to find out the effect of media on the perception building of common citizen. There have been numerous studies over the impact of media and its impact on socio-psychological issues. However this study is an effort to establish the linkage between electronic media and its impact on audience on major social and current issues. For the conceptual understanding study takes notes from primitive works of Aristotle on senses and modern theories of psychology, sociology and communication. Theories on opinion making, agenda setting and priming are discussed in a sequential manner. It provides a platform to the researchers to review past research works to find the answers. Findings reveal the actual relationship of electronic media and perception of the audience. It also validates the hypothesis developed by the researchers.

Previous research suggests a link between the quality of teacher–student relationships and the students’ behavioral outcomes; however, the observational nature of past studies makes it difficult to attribute a causal role to the quality of these relationships. In the current study, therefore, we used a propensity score analysis approach to evaluate whether students who were matched on their propensity to experience a given level of relationship quality but differed on their actual relationship quality diverged on their concurrent and subsequent problem and prosocial behavior. Student/self, teacher, and parent- (only waves 1–3) reported data from 8 waves of the Zurich Project on the Social Development of Children and Youths (z-proso), a longitudinal study of Swiss youth among a culturally diverse sample of 7- to 15-year-olds were utilized. The initial sample included 1483 (49.4 % female) students for whom information relevant for this study was available. The sample represented families from around 80 different countries, from across all the continents; with approximately 42 % of the female primary caregivers having been born in Switzerland. Following successful matching, we found that students who reported better relationships with their teachers and whose teachers reported better relationships with them evidenced fewer problem behaviors concurrently and up to 4 years later. There was also evidence for an analogous effect in predicting prosocial behavior. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to prevention and intervention practices.

Middle Eastern cinema has received increasing attention in academia for its cultural and gendered narratives, but family systems' emotional architecture in such films has received little attention. Filling this gap in the literature, this research applies Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory to examine intergenerational emotional processes in Wadjda (2012), the first feature film by a Saudi woman. In this study, I utilized qualitative, doctrinal methodology and applied deductive scene-based codes from Bowen’s eight constructs, which focused primarily on emotional differentiation, triangulation, projection, and societal emotional process. Findings suggest Wadjda’s resistance extends beyond a symbolic or superficial act of defiance, whereby she is able navigate maternal fusion, paternal absence, and societal constraints through her emotional processes associated with features of agency, autonomy and relational clarity. In social and familial systems, her portrait of agency exemplified systemically embedded agency that serves as a form of supported emotion-regulated defiance. By drawing on cultural and feminist film analysis with Bowen’s clinical theory, I challenged traditional perceptions of social family systems, providing a different lens to view emotionally supportive family systems as active sites of gendered negotiation. The contribution from this study extends family systems theory beyond a therapeutic sense, offering another approach to understand how emotionally enabled dynamics provide resistance in patriarchal societies. Specifically, it became apparent that depictions of agency in patriarchal cultures through an emotional systems framework may provide a deeper analysis of resistance than only through a symbolic critique.

Throughout the evolution of journalism, innovative technology has played a pivotal role in shaping the production and consumption of news. The transformative power of disruptive technology has revolutionized the journalism industry in the past by impacting the society it serves through the diffusion of innovation. Artificial Intelligence, when operationalized for use in journalism, has the propensity to be a disruptive technology, possibly transforming the industry in significant and meaningful ways. This research investigates the impact of Artificial Intelligence as an emerging digital innovative technology on journalism and mass communication from a sociological and historical context. The aim of this study is to examine how the use of innovative AI technology may influence sociocultural perceptions and behavior in U.S. and UK-based news reporters and their semi-automated newsrooms by comparing present-day news reporters and newsrooms against the behavior of news reporters and newsrooms at the start of the last century when television and radio emerged as previous disruptive technologies. Present-day semi-automated newsrooms employ smart technology based on Artificial Intelligence to aid in the production of news information. AI technology has been operationalized at every measurable level, from simple intelligent content management system agents to fully-autonomous robust agents capable of producing natural human-language news reports and short articles. Pioneering news organizations that push the limits of AI operationalization capabilities have partnered with technology companies to generate lifelike digital avatars based on living human news reporters. These avatars are capable of rendering news reports that can be presented on digital video publishing platforms such as YouTube or websites owned and operated by the parent organizations. Creating a new social role generates contention in a shared social space, leading existing occupants to consider their existing role and the opportunities or challenges posed by this new role. This phenomenon is examined using Diffusion of Innovation theory, Human-Machine Communication theory, and Actor-network theory to help understand the emergence of new social roles in shared social spaces. Such a perspective enables a more nuanced understanding of how new social roles emerge and gain influence, and how existing roles may be challenged or reinforced. Data collected through semi-structured interviews from news reporters at a global news organization with offices in the U.S. and the UK have been analyzed using a comparative framework to study social behavior, customs, and culture evident in semi-automated newsrooms. The goal of this research is to better understand the impact that the diffusion of emerging digital innovative technology may have on the social culture of journalists and the newsroom within which they perform as newsmakers.

This entry provides an introduction to risk communication. It defines risk communication as symbolic activities of individuals, groups, and institutions for identifying, understanding, and managing risk to individuals and society. On this basis, this entry focuses on risk message design, risk communication audiences, and key theoretical models. To understand risk communication, one must consider the capabilities of different kinds of messages, the receivers of the information, and interaction between these entities. Because reducing risk requires not only modifications of individual behaviors but also changes in societal conditions, this entry discusses the societal risk reduction motivation model which provides a multilevel perspective of social and structural contexts surrounding risk. Further attention to societal processes surrounding risk is necessary to promote public health and avoid unintended outcomes. Social media‐based social movements may also be an avenue where future risk communication theory, research, and action converge.

<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Objective</strong>. Socio-psychological analysis of value orientations in the main subsystems of the modern family (marital, parent-child, sibling). <br><strong>Background</strong>. The scientific literature notes methodological heterogeneity in the study of intra-family values with the actual request of practice to determine the consistency of value orientations in various subsystems of the family. This becomes especially relevant in the modern historical situation for a deeper understanding of the processes of value-semantic integration and differentiation within the family. <br><strong>Study design.</strong> The differences in actual and reflexive values in the dyads of married couples, parents and children, and siblings were investigated. The validity of differences was tested using statistical criteria for comparing mean (Student, Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney). To analyze pairwise similarity, correlations of value profiles (po-Spearman, r-Pearson), indices of value-orientation congruence in actual (VOC-A) and reflective (VOC-R) assessments were calculated. <br><strong>Participants</strong>. The study included 4 samples: married couples (<em>n</em> = 58 couples), college youth (<em>n</em> = 193; 44,6% males; 55,4% females), 3 generations of women from the same family (<em>n</em> = 20 triads), and respondents with a sibling (<em>n</em> = 63; 38% males; 62% females). <br><strong>Measurements</strong>. The method “Value orientations-36” (modification of Sh. Schwartz's method) (Kunitsyna, 2005). In the sample of couples and three generations of women actual values were measured. In the sample of young people and respondents with siblings − actual (answers for themselves) and reflexive (young people answered for their mothers, and respondents for their siblings). Adapted PEA questionnaire (Volkova, 2006) to assess the quality of relationships in couples and siblings. <br><strong>Results.</strong> The specificity of value orientations in family subsystems (marital, parent-child, sibling) was revealed. Thus, the differences in family couples reflect the persisting social perception of the division of marital roles: men value independence and self-assertion more, and women value interpersonal relations. Differences in children's actual and reflexive evaluations testify to the selective intergenerational continuity of value orientations in the family. In the three-generation sample, it was found that the dyads of mothers and daughters are closer to each other in terms of value profiles than grandmothers and granddaughters; the dyads of older and middle-generation women are most similar to each other. The values of value-orientation unity in the dyad are higher with higher satisfaction with the child's upbringing. Differences in the values of siblings are related to the values of achievement and ethical and aesthetic orientation. Profile correlations show the similarity of the general structure of values in all subsystems. The indices VOC-A and VOC-R express the degree of value integration in family dyads and are similar in content to the intercorrelations of individual value hierarchies. <br><strong>Conclusions</strong>. In vertical (parent-child) and horizontal (marital and sibling) dyads, the similarity of value orientations is quite high. Comparison of the profiles of family dyads from unrelated samples allows us to speak about the general consistency and selective continuity of value orientations in the modern Russian family. The general orientation of value orientations of spouses, parents and children, and siblings is characterized, on the one hand, by a high importance of family values (in such aspects as the safety of relatives and trustworthiness of interpersonal relations), and, on the other hand, by a pronounced focus on independence and achievement. This configuration can be a source of contradictions and disunity of family members. At the same time, intergenerational and intragenerational cohesion is supported by the continuity of values of moral orientation and normative behavior, with no differences in all dyads.</p>

This article analyzes the current political transition in México from the vantage point of civil society. It departs from a definition of the Mexican authoritarian regime, now the oldest in the world, as a model of fusion between the state, the market and society. The crisis of the developmental model and the regime’s increasing inability to incorporate the new social actors created by industrialization and urbanization opened up a long period of political crisis whose main content was a process of societal differentiation. The failure of President Salinas’ project of neo‐liberal reconstruction of the authoritarian regime deepened the crisis and led to the formation and consolidation of strong national political parties, the beginning of a still unequal, but effective electoral competition and especially to the emergence of several civic groups that are struggling for a democratization that goes beyond electoral politics. The collective identity as civil society of these civic groups has been instrumental for the critique of the regime’s gradualist strategy of “permenent electoral reform”.

The concept of societal differentiation, core of a specifically sociological theory of evolution and societal structures ever since the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology, still shows, however, considerable deficiencies of clear outline, elaboration and systematization. In this context, a number of pressing open questions and unsolved problems will be compiled and discussed in this paper: the basic assumptions of the theory of societal differentiation regarding ‘primitive’ societies (II), the question about the relation of societal differentiation and stratification (III) and, furthermore, the theses of the theory in respect of the (mainly modernizing) processes of the functional differentiation of society (IV, V) and the structure of modern, functionally differentiated societies (VI, VII).