This accessible, student-friendly book provides a concise overview of the primary debates surrounding the impact and effects of social media. From Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to Snapchat and TikTok, social media has become part of our everyday experience. However, its proliferation has brought a myriad of serious concerns about the long-term effects of social media on socializing and personal relationships and the impact on well-being and mental health (particularly in relation to children and adolescents), as well as issues linked to information and culture (such as privacy, misinformation, and manipulation). Featuring contributions by leading international scholars and established authorities such as Christian Fuchs, Henry Jenkins, Michael A. Stefanone, and Joan Donovan, editor Devan Rosen brings together key contemporary research from multiple disciplines in order to provide crucial insight into these debates. This book will be an important resource for students and scholars of media and communication, as well as educators, parents, policy makers, and clinicians interested in the impacts of social media.

For successful political leaders, public speaking is only half the battle. A good politician must also be a competent performer. Whether facing critical questions in an interview, posturing in a leaders’ debate, or conversing on a daytime chat show, success is reliant upon a candidate’s ability to dramatically but authentically impart a strong individual identity. In this innovative analysis, Geoffrey Craig looks at the interrogative exchanges between politicians and journalists. The power struggles and evasions in these encounters often leave the public exasperated, but it is the politicians’ negotiation of these struggles that determines success. Drawing on analyses of the language and performances of leaders such as Barack Obama and David Cameron, Craig examines the particular kinds of interactions that occur across political interviews, debates, conferences, and talk shows. The political games that take place between politicians and journalists, he argues, constitute the true theatre of politics. Engaging and insightful, Performing Politics will appeal to students and scholars of journalism, politics, linguistics, and media studies, as well as anyone concerned about the quality of contemporary political communication.

This volume investigates the role of social media in European politics in changing the focus, frames and actors of public discourse around the EU decision-making process. Throughout the collection, the contributors test the hypothesis that the internet and social media are promoting a structural transformation of European public spheres which goes well beyond previously known processes of mediatisation of EU politics. This transformation addresses more fundamental challenges in terms of changing power relations, through processes of active citizen empowerment and exertion of digitally networked counter-power by civil society, news media, and political actors, as well as rising contestation of representative legitimacy of the EU institutions. Social Media and European Politics offers a comprehensive approach to the analysis of political agency and social media in European Union politics, by bringing together scholarly works from the fields of public sphere theory, digital media, political networks, journalism studies, euroscepticism, political activism and social movements, political parties and election campaigning, public opinion and audience studies.

This book goes beyond environmental protection and looks at sustainability by predominantly focusing on human and social sustainability and this focus is carried into sections of the book that discuss sustainable policies, media and gender. The book takes an academic and practitioner approach.

Contemporary Climate Change Debates is an innovative new textbook which tackles some of the difficult questions raised by climate change. For the complex policy challenges surrounding climate migration, adaptation and resilience, structured debates become effective learning devices for students. This book is organised around 15 important questions, and is split into four parts: What do we need to know? What should we do? On what grounds should we base our actions? Who should be the agents of change? Each debate is addressed by pairs of one or two leading or emerging academics who present opposing viewpoints. Through this format the book is designed to introduce students of climate change to different arguments prompted by these questions, and also provides a unique opportunity for them to engage in critical thinking and debate amongst themselves. Each chapter concludes with suggestions for further reading and with discussion questions for use in student classes. Drawing upon the sciences, social sciences and humanities to debate these ethical, cultural, legal, social, economic, technological and political roadblocks, Contemporary Debates on Climate Change is essential reading for all students of climate change, as well as those studying environmental policy and politics and sustainable development more broadly.

This two-volume set examines recent presidential and vice presidential debates, addresses how citizens make sense of these events in new media, and considers whether the evolution of these forms of consumption is healthy for future presidential campaigns—and for democracy. The presidential debates of 2016 underscored how television highlights candidates' and campaigns' messages, which provide fodder for citizens' widespread use of new media to "talk back" to campaigns and other citizens. Social media will continue to affect the way that campaign events like presidential debates are consumed by audiences and how they shape campaign outcomes. This two-volume study is one of the first to examine the relationship between debates as televised events and events consumed by citizens through social media. It also assesses the town hall debate format from 1992 to 2016, uses the lens of civil dialogue to consider how citizens watch the debates, and considers the growing impact of new media commentary on candidate images that emerge in presidential and vice presidential debates. Televised Presidential Debates in a Changing Media Environment features contributions from leading political communication scholars that illuminate how presidential debates are transforming from events that are privately contemplated by citizens, to events that are increasingly viewed and discussed by citizens through social media. The first volume focuses on traditional studies of debates as televised campaign events, and the second volume examines the changing audiences for debates as they become consumed and discussed by viewers outside the traditional channels of newspapers, cable news channels, and campaign messaging. Readers will contemplate questions of new forms, problems, and possibilities of political engagement that are resulting from citizens producing and consuming political messages in new media.

An accessible, engaging, and timely overview of the key debates surrounding the role of mobile media in today’s society. Edited by Thilo von Pape and Veronika Karnowski, this volume includes contributions from a variety of geographical and disciplinary backgrounds, reflecting the diverse standpoints within the field of mobile media and communication. The collection explores perspectives from the micro-level of individual or small group appropriation of mobile media, to the uses and effects among larger communities, public spaces, and societies at large. The chapters address individual uses and effects of mobile media, such as problematic smartphone use, news consumption through mobile media, and mobile media as an empowerment tool for entrepreneurs. They also discuss the role of mobile media in private and professional social constellations (phubbing, personal mobile device use at work) and in struggles over personal empowerment, counter-power, and global development. Looking beyond the smartphone, the book also explores underlying infrastructures and emerging technologies such as augmented and virtual reality. This book is a key resource for students and scholars of media and communication, as well as policy-makers and practitioners working in related areas such as media education.

This two-volume set explores the various ways social media are profoundly changing politics in America. The last decade has seen dramatic changes in the U.S. political process. The advent of social media and other new forms of expression have enabled an unprecedented number of citizens to enter the political arena by expressing their opinions about issues and candidates in ways that can influence untold numbers of voters and officials. But the vast majority of politicians have not fully grasped how social media has fundamentally changed the process of communication or adjusted to the dramatic shift in political power that is taking place. Written by experts on the intersections of politics, public opinion, and popular culture, this book examines how new media have brought political "power to the people" like never before, provided new channels through which politicians communicate and attempt to influence public opinion, and caused a game-changing shift in political power. Volume one focuses on how savvy politicians are learning to communicate in new ways via new media in order to enhance their political appeal. The second volume examines the various ways in which individuals or groups who use new/social media are affecting voters' decisions, applying pressure to elected or appointed officials, and influencing the direction of the country.

This book offers the first broad-based survey of the way artists, audiences and society at large are making use of social media, and how the emergence of social media platforms that allow two-way interaction between these groups has been held up as a ‘game changer’ by many in the theatre industry. The first book to analyse aesthetic, critical, audience development, marketing and assessment uptake of social media in the theatre industry in an integrated fashion, Theatre, Social Media and Meaning Making examines examples from the USA, UK, Europe and Australasia to provide a snapshot of this emerging niche within networked, telematic, immersive and participatory theatre production and reception practices. A vital new resource for the field, this book will appeal to scholars, students, and industry practitioners alike.

What's wrong with targeted advertising in political campaigns? Should we be worried about echo chambers? How does data collection impact on trust in society? As decision-making becomes increasingly automated, how can decision-makers be held to account? This collection consider potential solutions to these challenges. It brings together original research on the philosophy of big data and democracy from leading international authors, with recent examples - including the 2016 Brexit Referendum, the Leveson Inquiry and the Edward Snowden leaks. And it asks whether an ethical compass is available or even feasible in an ever more digitised and monitored world.