How do parents and children care for each other when they are separated because of migration? The way in which transnational families maintain long-distance relationships has been revolutionised by ...the emergence of new media such as email, instant messaging, social networking sites, webcam and texting. A migrant mother can now call and text her left-behind children several times a day, peruse social networking sites and leave the webcam for 12 hours achieving a sense of co-presence.
Drawing on a long-term ethnographic study of prolonged separation between migrant mothers and their children who remain in the Philippines, this book develops groundbreaking theory for understanding both new media and the nature of mediated relationships. It brings together the perspectives of both the mothers and children and shows how the very nature of family relationships is changing. New media, understood as an emerging environment of polymedia, have become integral to the way family relationships are enacted and experienced. The theory of polymedia extends beyond the poignant case study and is developed as a major contribution for understanding the interconnections between digital media and interpersonal relationships.
"A compelling read about the ‘connected transnational family’ … The most compelling aspect of this book, this reader would argue, is its simultaneous engagement with a broad range of entangled issues. It convincingly puts mothers/children, migration/communication, mediation/relationship, past/present/future as well as theory/research practice into close encounter throughout." - Nicole Shephard, LSE Review of Books
"Mirca Madianou and Daniel Miller seem to have formed a dream team when they embarked on their mutual research project on transnational families and the role of ICTs ... In my view, the book succeeds in what many authors fruitlessly pursue: deriving convincing theory from an abundance of vast qualitative data. It is a highly engaging book that is rich in detail without drowning the reader in it. Its empirical and theoretical innovations make it a highly recommended book for any scholar working on media and migration, long-distance communication and the increasingly complex media environments that enfold us." - Kevin Smets, Communications
"An exemplary and groundbreaking study, with contributions to theory and our understanding of polymedia in everyday life, this stands out as an extraordinary read on the technology of relationships." - Zizi Papacharissi, University of Illinois-Chicago, USA
"This fascinating, richly detailed book investigates the role that fluency across multiple digital platforms plays in enabling mothering and caring to be sustained at a distance. A genuine breakthrough." - Nick Couldry , Goldmiths, University of London, UK
"With deft weaving of interview material and theorization...Mirca Madianou and Daniel Miller have produced an important and useful theoretical intervention that advances our understanding of the social life of transnational communities." - Radha S. Hegde, Media, Culture, & Society
Mirca Madianou is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester, UK. She is the author of Mediating the Nation and several articles on the social consequences of the media.
Daniel Miller is Professor of Material Culture at the Department of Anthropology, University College London, UK. His most recent books include Tales from Facebook and Digital Anthropology (edited with Heather Horst).
1. Introduction 2. Philippines at the Forefront of Globalisation 3. The Hidden Motivations of Migration 4. Crafting Love: Letters and Cassettes 5. The Cultural Contradictions of Transnational Motherhood: The Mothers’ Perspective 6. The Children’s Perspective 7. Technologies of Relationships 8. Polymedia 9. A Theory of Mediated Relationships 10. Appendix: A Note on Method
Based on a huge body of research in child language and communication development, Children's Communication Skills uses a clear format to set out the key stages of communication development in babies ...and young children. Its aim is to increase awareness in professionals working with children of what constitutes human communication and what communication skills to expect at any given stage.
Illustrated throughout with real-life examples, this informative text addresses:
normal development of verbal and non-verbal communication skills
the importance of play in developing these skills
developmental communication problems
bilingualism, cognition and early literacy development
working with parents of children with communication difficulties.
Features designed to make the book an easy source of reference include chapter summaries, age-specific skills tables, sections on warning signs that further help may be needed, and a glossary of key terms. It will be of great use to a wide range of professionals in training or working in health, education and social care.
The open access book covers a large class of nonlinear systems with many practical engineering applications. The approach is based on the extension of linear systems theory using the Volterra series. ...In contrast to the few existing treatments, our approach highlights the algebraic structure underlying such systems and is based on Schwartz’s distributions (rather than functions). The use of distributions leads naturally to the convolution algebras of linear time-invariant systems and the ones suitable for weakly nonlinear systems emerge as simple extensions to higher order distributions, without having to resort to ad hoc operators. The result is a much-simplified notation, free of multiple integrals, a conceptual simplification, and the ability to solve the associated nonlinear differential equations in a purely algebraic way. The representation based on distributions not only becomes manifestly power series alike, but it includes power series as the description of the subclass of memory-less, time-invariant, weakly nonlinear systems. With this connection, many results from the theory of power series can be extended to the larger class of weakly nonlinear systems with memory. As a specific application, the theory is specialised to weakly nonlinear electric networks. The authors show how they can be described by a set of linear equivalent circuits which can be manipulated in the usual way. The authors include many real-world examples that occur in the design of RF and mmW analogue integrated circuits for telecommunications. The examples show how the theory can elucidate many nonlinear phenomena and suggest solutions that an approach entirely based on numerical simulations can hardly suggest. The theory is extended to weakly nonlinear time-varying systems, and the authors show examples of how time-varying electric networks allow implementing functions unfeasible with time-invariant ones. The book is primarily intended for engineering students in upper semesters and in particular for electrical engineers. Practising engineers wanting to deepen their understanding of nonlinear systems should also find it useful. The book also serves as an introduction to distributions for undergraduate students of mathematics.
This open access book offers comprehensive, self-contained knowledge on Digital Twin (DT), which is a very promising technology for achieving digital intelligence in the next-generation wireless ...communications and computing networks. DT is a key technology to connect physical systems and digital spaces in Metaverse. The objectives of this book are to provide the basic concepts of DT, to explore the promising applications of DT integrated with emerging technologies, and to give insights into the possible future directions of DT. For easy understanding, this book also presents several use cases for DT models and applications in different scenarios. The book starts with the basic concepts, models, and network architectures of DT. Then, we present the new opportunities when DT meets edge computing, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence, and distributed machine learning (e.g., federated learning, multi-agent deep reinforcement learning). We also present a wide application of DT as an enabling technology for 6G networks, Aerial-Ground Networks, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The book allows an easy cross-reference owing to the broad coverage on both the principle and applications of DT. The book is written for people interested in communications and computer networks at all levels. The primary audience includes senior undergraduates, postgraduates, educators, scientists, researchers, developers, engineers, innovators and research strategists.
Statistical Methods for Communication Science is the only statistical methods volume currently available that focuses exclusively on statistics in communication research. Writing in a ...straightforward, personal style, author Andrew F. Hayes offers this accessible and thorough introduction to statistical methods, starting with the fundamentals of measurement and moving on to discuss such key topics as sampling procedures, probability, reliability, hypothesis testing, simple correlation and regression, and analyses of variance and covariance. Hayes takes readers through each topic with clear explanations and illustrations. He provides a multitude of examples, all set in the context of communication research, thus engaging readers directly and helping them to see the relevance and importance of statistics to the field of communication.
How communication technologies meant to empower people with speech disorders--to give voice to the voiceless--are still subject to disempowering structural inequalities.
Too much to know Blair, Ann
2010, 20101130, 2010-11-02, 20100101
eBook, Book
The flood of information brought to us by advancing technology is often accompanied by a distressing sense of "information overload," yet this experience is not unique to modern times. In fact, says ...Ann M. Blair in this intriguing book, the invention of the printing press and the ensuing abundance of books provoked sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European scholars to register complaints very similar to our own. Blair examines methods of information management in ancient and medieval Europe as well as the Islamic world and China, then focuses particular attention on the organization, composition, and reception of Latin reference books in print in early modern Europe. She explores in detail the sophisticated and sometimes idiosyncratic techniques that scholars and readers developed in an era of new technology and exploding information.
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