Pew Report on Generational Differences in Online Activity

Just released, Generations Online in 2009, from Pew Intenet & American Life Project. This report tracks internet use across generations.

From the Report's Overview:

"...the biggest online trend is that, while the very youngest and oldest cohorts may differ, certain key internet uses are becoming more uniformly popular across all age groups. These online activities include seeking health information, purchasing products, making travel reservations, and downloading podcasts.

Even in areas that are still dominated by Millennials, older generations are making notable gains. While the youngest generations are still significantly more likely to use social network sites, the fastest growth has come from internet users 74 and older: social network site usage for this oldest cohort has quadrupled since 2008, from 4% to 16%.

The primary adult data in this report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans' use of the Internet. The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International between April 29 and May 30, 2010, among a sample of 2,252 adults ages 18 and older, including 744 reached on a cell phone. Interviews were conducted in English."

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers

Remember, however meagerly we go about our daily lives, the Library of Congress is relentlessly building its digital tower of historical newspapers. Just this past week it uploaded a new batch of titles into Chronicling America, bringing its current total number of pages to 3.1 million, 414 newspapers from 23 states between 1899-1922. Chronicling America newspapers can be searched with words or phrases; or, for a broader, more regional approach, once can search by one or more states. Of course, this being the Library of Congress, this database is an open web resource, available to all, no UPenn status required.

Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

Two New Reference Books on Social Movement Media, Political Communication

Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media, edited by John D. H. Downing (Sage, 2010). A one-volume encyclopedia featuring over 250 essays on the role of media in social movements in the 20th and 21st centuries. "Thematic essays address selected issues such as human rights media, indigenous peoples' media, and environmentalist media, and on key concepts widely used in the field such as alternative media, citizens' media, and community media. The encyclopedia engages with all communication media: broadcasting, print, cinema, the Internet, popular song, street theater, graffiti, and dance" (publisher's website).

Key themes include: Cinema, Television, and Video; Cultural Contestations; Feminist Media; Gay and Lesbian Media; Human Rights Media; Independence Movement Media; Indigenous Peoples' Media; Information Policy Activism; Internet;Labor Media; News; Performance Art Media; Popular Song; Press; Radio; and Regions.

**********************************************************************************

Sourcebook for Political Communication Research:Methods, Measures, and Analytical Techniques, by Erik P. Bucy, R. Lance Holbert (Routledge, 2010).

"...covers the major analytical techniques used in political communication research, including surveys, experiments, content analysis, discourse analysis (focus groups and textual analysis), network and deliberation analysis, comparative study designs, statistical analysis, and measurement issues. It also includes such innovations as the use of advanced statistical techniques, and addresses digital media as a means through which to disseminate as well as study political communication. It considers the use of methods adapted from other disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, and neuroscience." --Publisher's website

Look for the chapter co-authored by Kathleen Hall Jamieson with Kate Kenski (ASC alum '06) and Jeffrey Gottfried (ASC PhD candidate) titled: The Rolling Cross-Section: Design and Utility for Political Research.

Both these title can be found at in ASC Reference.

Searching Pictures in Lexis-Nexis?

Doesn't seem possible does it? Since there are hardly any images in Lexis-Nexis Academic documents. All true, but when an image is included in an article it is tagged with metadata that is maintained and can be searched on. As Jennifer Matheny explains in a Lexis-Nexis Wiki post a couple months back:

Are you curious to see how many newspapers re-ran an Annie Liebovitz photo on a particular day? Do you want to know how many Getty Images are used by newspapers this month? Use the GRAPHIC section in your search!

On the Power Search form, select a publication or a group file. Then, the Add Section search should pop up. Select "GRAPHIC" from the drop-down box. Type in your term and click the blue Add to Search button.

Of course you still can't view the pictures but sometimes all you want are counts, pictures of Palin versus pictures of Biden, for instance, or such search results provide an interim step for locating pictures elsewhere--on microfilm or electronic files that offer page facsimiles.

Special issue of Topia

"Cultures of Militarization" is the topic of a special double issue of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies (23-24, 2010).

This special double issue adds perspective to the rampant militarization of everyday civilian culture. Edited by Jody Berland (York University) and Blake Fitzpatrick (Ryerson University), "Cultures of Militarization" features contributions from twenty-two international scholars and artists whose work investigates the processes through which military presence is normalized or critiqued in private, public and national narratives.

Articles

Introduction: Cultures of Militarization and the Military-Cultural Complex (the editors)

A.L. McCready Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round Public Discourse, National Identity and the War: Neoliberal Militarization and the Yellow Ribbon Campaign in Canada

Howard Fremeth Searching for the Militarization of Canadian Culture: The Rise of a Military-Cultural Memory Network

Carole R. McKenna Canadian and American Cultures of Militarism: Coping Mechanisms in a Military-Industrial-Service-Complex

Uli Linke Fortress Europe: Globalization, Militarization and the Policing of the Interior Borderland

Markus Kienscherf Plugging Cultural Knowledge into the U.S. Military Machine: The Neo-Orientalist Logic of Counterinsurgency

Neil Balan Corrective for Cultural Studies: Beyond the Militarization Thesis to the New Military Intelligence

Erin Riley Operation Nunalivut - Photo Essay

Susan Cahill Conflict(ing) Narratives: Representations of War in "The Battleground Project" and the Performative Potential of its Audience

Marc Lafleur Tracing the Absent-Present of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in America as Sensuous Encounter: Notes on (Nuclear) Ruins

Mary Alemany-Galway Peter Jackson's use of Hollywood Film Genres in The Lord of the Rings and New Zealand's Anti-nuclear Stance

Stuart Allan and Kari Anden-Papadopoulos Come on, let us shoot! : Wikileaks, Militarization and Journalism

Bill Burns Extraterritorial prison plans and a play list in the style of IKEA - Art Work

David Clearwater Living in a Militarized Culture: War, Games and the Experience of U.S. Empire

Ian Roderick Mil-bot Fetishism: The Pataphysics of Military Robots

Mary Sterpa King Preparing the Instantaneous Battlespace: a Cultural Examination of Network Centric Warfare

Gary Genosko The Terrorist Entrepreneur

James R. Compton Fear and Spectacle on the Planet of Slums

Christopher Dornan Unknown Soldiers: On the Comparative Absence of the Military from Canadian Entertainment Film and Television

Jim Daems "i wish war wud fuck off:" bill bissett's Critique of the Military-Cultural Complex"

Darin Barney Miserable Priests and Ordinary Cowards: On Being a Professor

This issue is available in print at the ASC Library.

December CommQuote

Our quote this month features a profoundly hilarious take on interpersonal communication. Leave it to The New Yorker (December 6, 2010). The cartoonist is Bruce Eric Kaplan.

"Did you remember to do everything I asked, even the small things I said in passing that didn't sound like real requests?"