Winner of the 2007 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award
Convergence Culture maps a new territory: where old and new media intersect, where grassroots and corporate media collide, where the power of the media producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways.
Henry Jenkins, one of America s most respected media analysts, delves beneath the new media hype to uncover the important cultural transformations that are taking place as media converge. He takes us into the secret world of Survivor Spoilers, where avid internet users pool their knowledge to unearth the show s secrets before they are revealed on the air. He introduces us to young Harry Potter fans who are writing their own Hogwart's tales while executives at Warner Brothers struggle for control of their franchise. He shows us how The Matrix has pushed transmedia storytelling to new levels, creating a fictional world where consumers track down bits of the story across multiple media channels. Jenkins argues that struggles over convergence will redefine the face of American popular culture. Industry leaders see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets. At the same time, consumers envision a liberated public sphere, free of network controls, in a decentralized media environment. Sometimes corporate and grassroots efforts reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes these two forces are at war.
Jenkins provides a riveting introduction to the world where every story gets told and every brand gets sold across multiple media platforms. He explains the cultural shift that is occurring as consumers fight for control across disparate channels, changing the way we do business, elect our leaders, and educate our children.
About this product: Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Niels Bohr, Einstein. Their insights shook our perception of who we are and where we stand in the world, and in their wake have left an uneasy coexistence: science vs. religion, faith vs. empirical inquiry. Which is the keeper of truth? Which is the true path to understanding reality?
After forty years of study with some of the greatest scientific minds, as well as a lifetime of meditative, spiritual, and philosophic study, the Dalai Lama presents a brilliant analysis of why all avenues of inquiry—scientific as well as spiritual—must be pursued in order to arrive at a complete picture of the truth. Through an examination of Darwinism and karma, quantum mechanics and philosophical insight into the nature of reality, neurobiology and the study of consciousness, the Dalai Lama draws significant parallels between contemplative and scientific examinations of reality.
This breathtakingly personal examination is a tribute to the Dalai Lama’s teachers—both of science and spirituality. The legacy of this book is a vision of the world in which our different approaches to understanding ourselves, our universe, and one another can be brought together in the service of humanity.
About this product: I truly regret not ordering this text for my composition courses this semester but I definitely will teach it next semester. I have been reading through it and I find that it is carefully structured. The themes focused on are fascinating. I can well see how students would become drawn to this text. There are a wealth of essays, short stories, commentaries, and images here: the images are just a wonder, ranging many different subjects. The images are followed by questions designed to provoke deep thought. What a way to encourage class discussion and encourage students to stop and carefully examine what they see! I congratulate the author for a superb job.
About this product: This text presents diversity from a much broader perspective than just race and ethnicity, exploring a broad spectrum of cultural and diversity issues and their impact on the client--counselor relationship. The author, herself an African American, examines the dominant cultural beliefs and values in the United States and discusses how their nearly wholesale acceptance as "normal" and "better" can perpetuate feelings of inadequacy, shame, confusion, and distrust on both sides of the counseling "couch." Embracing feminist and diversity theories, methods, and techniques, while injecting humor and fascinating stories, Robinson-Wood has created a genuinely insightful and thoroughly practical volume. Highlights of the New Edition: * New! Chapter 8, People of the Middle East and Arab Americans * New! Chapter 10, Converging Biracial and Multicultural Identitites * New!Chapter 17, Converging Spirituality * Chapter 16 now emphasizes Advocacy and Social Justice in Counseling and Psychotherapy * Chapter 14 now focuses specifically on people with disabilties * Chapter 13, Converging Sexuality, now includes coverage on Transgendered clients * Coverage of Assessment in has been expanded to discuss the AAC Standards on Multicultural Assessment.
About this product: This resource clarifies the boundaries and issues of the future market for wireless services with a focus on accessibility through minimizing industry jargon. The authors provide insight into the emerging technologies, service delivery options, applications, and digital content that will influence and shape the next phase of the wireless revolution. They put current and near-future developments into historical perspective, and analyze the current state of wireless and broadband technology in the context of the industry surrounding it. In the process, they provide a crucial tool for telecommunications decision-makers, investors, and the interested general public.
About this product: I appreciate the difficult task of trying to communicate to different worlds when you have one foot in both. As the author says, you open yourself up to being shot at from both directions. Yet if we are ever going to rise above mere caricatures of those in different groups than our own, we must have a conversation like the one this book attempts to have.
The author takes great pains to say he would rather not talk about his own life and does so only because he feels compelled to give testimony to what God has done for him. I actually think the book would have been more effective if he had made it almost exclusively autobiographical. Hearing someone's life story has a way of opening us up beyond the sometimes rigid categories we settle into.
I did not agree with all the author's conclusions, his logic or even his attitude at times. He made me mad at a few points. But I appreciate his effort.
He is a theologian and so it must be expected that he attempts to by systematic and theological. I do not think the theological aspect of the book will be found to be especially convincing or compelling to either side. On the other hand, it takes a large soul who loves people and loves truth enough to be willing to dive into the middle of a contemporary church division.
About this product: A new look at weak-convergence methods in metric spaces-from a master of probability theory In this new edition, Patrick Billingsley updates his classic work Convergence of Probability Measures to reflect developments of the past thirty years. Widely known for his straightforward approach and reader-friendly style, Dr. Billingsley presents a clear, precise, up-to-date account of probability limit theory in metric spaces. He incorporates many examples and applications that illustrate the power and utility of this theory in a range of disciplines-from analysis and number theory to statistics, engineering, economics, and population biology. With an emphasis on the simplicity of the mathematics and smooth transitions between topics, the Second Edition boasts major revisions of the sections on dependent random variables as well as new sections on relative measure, on lacunary trigonometric series, and on the Poisson-Dirichlet distribution as a description of the long cycles in permutations and the large divisors of integers. Assuming only standard measure-theoretic probability and metric-space topology, Convergence of Probability Measures provides statisticians and mathematicians with basic tools of probability theory as well as a springboard to the "industrial-strength" literature available today.
About this product: This anthology, edited by a professor of wild-life science and a professor of philosophy, offers the most current and comprehensive collection on the topic of environmental ethics available today. It surveys diverse approaches to environmental ethics by leading writers from a variety of disciplines, and provides an historical survey of thought on our responsibility to the environment. The perspectives are represented by their most articulate spokespersons and are accompanied by appraisals of their respective strengths and weaknesses. Chapter introductions, headnotes, discussion questions, and annotated bibliographies are provided. Twenty eight of the 64 articles are new. The new edition deletes those articles with which students had difficulty because they were hard to read and substitutes newer or better-written articles. All chapter introductions were revised to reflect changes in the field. New topics include biodiversity, ecological restoration, environmental justice, and genetic engineering. A new section in the appendix on conflict resolution was requested by students.
About this product: Imagine direct communication links between the human brain and machines, or tailored materials capable of adapting by themselves to changing environmental conditions, or computer chips and environmental sensors embedded into everyday clothing, or medical technologies that eliminate currently untreatable conditions such as blindness and paralysis. Now, imagine all of these developments occurring at the same time. The stuff of science fiction? Not So. These are actually the reasonable predictions of scientists attempting to forecast a few decades into the future based on the rapid pace of innovation.Author Stanley Schmidt-a physicist, a writer, and the editor of "Analog: Science Fiction and Fact" - explores these and many more amazing yet probable scenarios in this fascinating guide to the near future. He shows how past convergences have led to today's world, then considers tomorrow's main currents in biotechnology, cognitive science, information technology, and nanotechnology. Looking even further downstream he foresees both exciting and potentially dangerous developments: longer, healthier lives; cheap, generally available food, energy, and technology; reduced pollution and environmental stress; economic disruption during transitional periods; excessive power in too few hands; and, increased vulnerability from over-dependence on technology.Schmidt notes that even a routine technology such as the CAT scan is the result of three wholly separate innovations started many decades ago which recently converged: the X-ray, the computer, and advances in medicine. On a more ominous note, he also observes that the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was made possible by the malicious convergence of two separate trends in modern engineering and technology: the concentration of people in high rises within cities and the success of the passenger airline industry. The message is clear: the choices we make now will converge to create a near and distant future that will be almost unbelievably wonderful or unimaginably catastrophic, or both. This knowledgeable, fascinating glimpse into the future is a must read for everyone interested in technology, upcoming innovations in business, science fiction, and the future.
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