Special Issues Roundup

The Journal of Mass Media Ethics (Volume 22, Numbers 2&3, 2007) is devoted to Moral Philosophy under the editorship of Christopher Meyers. Articles tackle John Stuart Mill, utilitarianism, ethical reasoning, virtue ethics applied to journalists,Immanuel Kant and transparency, and Immanuel Kant on moral education.

Continuum (Voume 21, Number 2, June 2007) features Mobile Phone Cultures. Its issue editor is Gerard Goggin.

A special issue of The Journal of Advertising (Volume 36, Number 2, Summer 2007) is on Social Responsibility in Advertising, guest edited by Michael J. Polonsky and Michael R. Hyman. Included are articles on the effects of warning-label placement in print ads, the use of humor to mask deceptive advertising, and consumer responses to corporate social responsibility initiatives.

The Asian Journal of Communication (Volume 17, Number 2, June 2007) is devoted to Media and politics in Post-handover Hong Kong, guest editors: Joseph M. Chan and Francis L.F. Lee.

But as we approach the dog days of August...the Canadian
Journal of Communication gets the award for running the most summer-sea-breezy piece to cross my desk. Authored by Jaigris Hodson and Phillip Vannini of Royal Roads University, it's titled Island Time: The Media Logic and Ritual of Ferry Commuting on Gabriola Island, BC.

Abstract
Drawing upon ethnographic data collected among residents of Gabriola Island, British Columbia, this article analyzes the meanings associated with the movement of the MV Quinsam—the primary means of transportation onto and off the island—and with the ritual of ferry commuting. By focusing on the logic of the ferry as a medium of communication and on the ritualistic aspects of commuting and by combining a symbolic interactionist perspective with the media theory of Harold Innis, the authors reflect on how the Gabriola Island ferry shapes islanders’ sense of time and thus experiences of lived culture.