New Reference Titles

Here are some decent new reference works in the field from three different publishers.

Encyclopedia of Health Communication, editor-in-chief Teresa L. Thompson (Sage, 2014). A three-volume work of nearly 600 articles including such topics as theories and research traditions, evaluation and assessment, cultural complexities, high risk and special populations, message design and campaigns, provider/patient interaction issues; media issues, and more. Besides the extensive index, the Appendices include a Resource Guide to key books, journals and websites pertinent to health communication.

Global Handbooks in Media and Communication Research

Wiley-Blackwell has an excellent series of handbooks in global communication. You can check out  intro matter and Table of contents for these works at Wiley Online Library (General Communication & Media Studies). (You will probably want to browse here for other online communication titles besides these, some available in full text.) At this date, the four handbooks below are at the Annenberg Library and not accessible online. 

The Handbook of Political Economy of Communications, edited by Janet Wasko, Graham Murdock, and Helena Sousa (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014).

 

The Handbook of Media Audiences, edited by Virginia Nightingale
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2014).

The Handbook of Development Communication and Social Change, edited by Karin Gwinn Wilkins, Thomas Tufte, and Rafael Obregon
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2014).

  

The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy, edited by Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014).

The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities, edited by Peter Adey, David Bissell, Kevin Hannam, Peter Merriman, and Mim Sheller (Routledge, 2014).
"Illustrates disciplinary trends and pathways, from migration studies and transport history to communications research, featuring methodological innovations and developments and conceptual histories - from feminist theory to tourist studies. It explores the dominant figures of mobility, from children to soldiers and the mobility impaired; the disparate materialities of mobility such as flows of water and waste to the vectors of viruses; key infrastructures such as logistics systems to the informal services of megacity slums, and the important mobility events around which our world turns; from going on vacation to the commute, to the catastrophic disruption of mobility systems."

Indexing of Open Access Journals in Communication

The latest issue of Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian (Jan-March 2014) features research targeted directly at our field,  Open Access Journals in Communication Studies: Indexing in Five Commercial Databases by Sonia Poulin and Robert Tomaszewski. The five databases the authors look at are: Communication Abstracts, Communication and Mass Media Complete (CMMC), Web of Science, Scopus, and EBSCO's Academic Search Complete.

ABSTRACT
This study investigates the degree of indexing of gold open access (OA) journals within the field of communication studies in five major commercial bibliographical databases commonly subscribed to by academic libraries and used by researchers and students. Results of the study indicate that 32 percent of the 147 gold OA journals identified were indexed in the five target databases. The communication studies databases provided the most complete indexing, while among the multidisciplinary databases, Scopus provided more coverage, compared to Academic Search Complete and Web of Science.

May CommQuote

Hooray for May.  This month's quote goes to poet Vijay Seshadri. The poem is titled New Media and comes from his latest collection 3 Sections.

"Anyone concerned about the state of American poetry should put aside his or her thesis notes and pick up a copy of 3 Sections. . . . Mr.Seshadri is talented and assured enough to lay his self-consciousness bare on the page with a generous, fluid, avuncular wit reminiscent of W.H. Auden." —The American Reader


New Media

Why I wanted to escape experience is nobody's business but my own,
but I always believed I could if I could

put experience into words.
Now I know better.
Now I know words are experience.

"But ah thought kills me that I am not thought"
"2 People Search for YOU"
"In the beginning there was the . . ."
"re: Miss Exotic World"
"I Want Us To Executed Transaction"

It's not the thing,
there is no thing,
there's no thing in itself,
there's nothing but what's said about the thing,
there are no things but words

about the things 
said over and over,
perching, grooming their wings,
on the subject lines.

--from: 3 Sections, by Vijay Seshadri (Graywolf Press, 3013). p20