referencebooks

Encyclopedia of Communication and Information

Edited by Jorge Reina Schement

Published by Macmillan Reference, 2001

This encyclopedia is in three 8.5" by 11" volumes and runs to a total of 1161 pages including the lengthy index, plus a preferatory section. The book is printed in larger type.

Like most other Macmillan reference books, this is a useful and fairly comprehensive but less than heavyweight work intended for a wide audience of students and researchers. Communication Studies, Media Studies, and Information Studies are the domains covered by this interdisciplinary work. Twenty different academic disciplines and professions are mentioned in the preface as being related to the subject of the encyclopedia.

This encyclopedia has 280 entries in an alphabetical arrangement. The preface identifies eight categories into which these entries fall. They are:

1. Careers (e.g. journalist, librarian, publicist)
   
2. Information science (e.g. human-computer interaction, information storage and retrieval)
   
3. Information technologies (e.g. broadband, the Internet, radio)
   
4. Literacy (e.g. computer literacy, media literacy)
   
5. Institutional studies (e.g. elections, information society, law, media history)
   
6. Interpersonal communication (e.g. groups, relationships, rhetoric)
   
7. Library science (e.g. cataloging, text-based literacy)
   
8. Media effects (e.g. advertising, opinion formation)
   

For a better idea of what's covered, here is the full list of entries in the "M" sequence, which has more entries than most of the alphabetic sequences:

• Machlup, Fritz
  
• Magazine Industry
  
• Magazine Industry, Careers in
  
• Magazine Industry, History of
  
• Magazine Industry, Production Process of
  
• Management Information Systems
  
• Marconi, Guglielmo
  
• Marketing Research, Careers in
  
• McLuhan, Herbert Marshall
  
• Mead, George Herbert
  
• Méliès, George
  
• Mills, C. Wright
  
• Minorities and the Media
  
• Models of Communication
  
• Mood Effects and Media Exposure
  
• Moore, Anne Carroll
  
• Morse, Samuel F. B.
  
• Murrow, Edward R.
  
• Museums
  
• Music, Popular
  

Entries are typically a couple of pages in length. The writing is clear but not as in-depth as one might like.

It is interesting to see a reference book that brings together these disciplines (media and communication studies, information studies) in this way. My feeling is that it is such a broad domain covering so much knowledge that either a much bigger encyclopedia (in the range of ten volumes or more) or a more narrowly focused encyclopedia is really in order. The problem with this one is that it gives noticeably shallow coverage in attempting to serve people in a number of disciplines. In bringing this information together in place, though, it does make an interesting argument for a disciplinary grouping of knowledge.

This is an interesting reference book but not as useful as it ought to be on account of its relative lack of depth.

Violence and the Media: A Reference Handbook

By David Newton

Published by ABC-CLIO in their Contemporary World Issues series, 1996.

This is a 6" by 9" hardcover book running to 254 pages including a glossary and an index, plus a brief preface.

The preface says,

"The purpose of this book is to provide resources with which readers can develop a better understanding of the issue of violence in the mass media. The first chapter is devoted to a general review of the issue, its historical background, and the major questions involved in the debate over violence in the mass media. The second chapter provides a chronology of important events that have taken place over the past two centuries. Chapter 3 contains biographical sketches of some important figures in the long controversy over the place and effects of violence in the mass media. Chapter 4 is composed of important documents such as laws, regulations, court decisions, industry standards, and policy statements relating to the subject of violence in the mass media. Chapter 5 contains a list of organizations interested in and working on the topic of violence in the mass media. Chapter 6 and 7 provide lists, respectively, of print and nonprint resources on the subject of violence in the mass media. Finally, a glossary of important terms used in discussions of this topic follows the last chapter of the book."

The text in this book manages to be highly informative and thought provoking while using a level of English prose that would be accessible to high school students. This makes it really useful in a lot of undergraduate college settings where it's difficult to get students to read anything "hard" or where many of them are underprepared. It seems most useful for public libraries supporting high school homework assignments and college libraries supporting Freshman composition classes. It's a well enough done book performing a necessary function. The other books in this series are also like that.

Dictionary of Worldwide Gestures, Second Edition

By Betty J. Bäuml and Franz H. Bäuml.

Published by Scarecrow Press, 1997.

This is a 6" by 9" clothbound book running to 510 pages including the "index of significances" and the bibliography.

Reference books don't get much odder than this. This book provides brief descriptions of culture-bound physical gestures and a literary citation supporting each. The book is arranged first by body part or pair or group of body parts involved in the gestures (so that sections have headings like "Arm, Hand," "Finger, Tooth," and "Knee, Lip") and then, within each section, by the emotion or message communicated by the gesture. So, on page 230 we are in the section "Foot," looking at descriptions of gestures signifying embarrassment, emphasis, engagement (to be married), etiquette, fatigue, fear, femininity, "finished," greeting, and impatience. The entry for "femininity" says,

"Standing with feet close together and one toe pointed inward. Narrow stances are regarded universally as feminine. Axtell, Gestures, p. 109. See Masculinity.

The entry here (in the section "Foot") for "Etiquette" says,

Men rise from a sitting position in the presence of a lady. 13th cent. Germany. Kudrun, st. 342, 1. Messengers rise when delivering a message. 13th cent. Germany. Kudrun, st. 768, 1-2. * Clicking the heels together, accompanied by a slight bow [Editors' note: this was the rule for middle and upper class men before World War II to signify "at your service" and in greeting ladies and superiors]. Germany; Austria. It is no longer common, except in parody of Prussian manners. Axtell, Gestures, p. 109. In general, standing with heels together and toes pointing out at a slight angle suggests the military stance of attention and therefore suggests attentiveness and respect. Axtell, ibid.

The "index of significance" leads you from words for emotions or other messages to sections of the book by body part, and is useful.

The collection of information about gestures in this book is impressive, because there are so many and because so many are obscure or obsolete. However, it does seem to have some shortcomings. The organization of the book is such that you can't look up a gesture you've seen but don't understand by some classification of the motions involved; the farthest you can get is to the body parts and then a long list of significances. Another shortcoming is that it doesn't attempt to provide information on the cultural range of a gesture. Sometimes a country will be named in relation to a literary source cited for the meaning of a gesture when that gesture has a broader geographic and cultural extent. Also, there is no attempt to distinguish between gestures that are culture-bound and, in a sense, linguistic and gestures that represent deeper, animal-level expressions of emotion, which are universal.

Taken together it's a very interesting and odd book.

The Encyclopedia of Propaganda

Edited by Robert Cole.

Published by Sharpe Reference, 1998.

This is a three volume set running to a total of 961 pages including the bibliography, plus nineteen pages of preferatory material and a twenty-three page index. The books measure 8" by 9.5".

The "Publisher's Note" begins: "This three-volume Encyclopedia of Propaganda offers 510 alphabetically ordered essays that cover the historical, political, sociological, cultural, and artistic aspects of the phenomenon of propaganda." Included are articles on artistic and literary issues; on books, films, songs, and artworks; on business and economics; on education and language; on government; on health and medicine; on historical events and eras; on media and journalism; on nations; on organizations; on ethnic movements; on individuals; on religion; and on general concepts in propaganda.

Articles about individuals tend to be about propagandists, political figures who used some propaganda, and theorists of propaganda. Political and social issues are discussed in terms of how propaganda has been used to influence people's opinions about them. Those two kinds of articles make up most of the book.

The articles range in length from single paragraphs to about three pages. The longer articles are generally signed by the contributor, and the shorter ones not. Entries begin with a brief sentence in italics defining the word before going on to discuss its meaning. The prose is clear, and the authors make a concerted effort to approach their topics as objectively as they can. The articles contain much useful information, including both general background and information having to do with propaganda. In fact, simply in the course of browsing I found some references to authors on an obscure topic that I've been wanting to read up on for a while (19th century Jewish anti-Zionism).

For a better sense of what's included, here is the full list of entries in the "E" sequence (one of the briefer sequences):

• Economic propaganda
  
• Education as a propaganda rationale
  
• Education as a propaganda tool
  
• Egypt
  
• El Salvador
  
• Ellul, Jacques
  
• Empire Marketing Board
  
• Equal Rights Amendment campaign
  
• Esperanto
  
• Espionage
  
• Ethics
  
• Ethiopia: Italian invasion
  
• Evangelists
  

I have to point out one major but very predictable flaw, and that is that commercial propaganda, today called advertising and public relations, is not given nearly the level of attention it warrants. There are entries for advertising, public relations, Edward Bernays, and a few other related topics, but these are few relative to amount of commercial propaganda to which we are constantly exposed. When the public relations industry was founded, the term "public relations" hadn't been invented yet, and practitioners called themselves propagandists, which is what they were and are. They themselves introduced and won acceptance for the term "public relations" after the word "propaganda" picked up a degree of negative connotation after World War II. That contemporary discussions of propaganda follow this linguistic change and mostly leave out public relations (and what I think this book should include are numerous discussions of specific PR firms, campaigns, and techniques) represents a massive victory for the industry. This is because it allows them to go about their work mostly invisibly, as our education in propaganda teaches us to be suspicious of political messages but not of the messages originating from PR firms, which are mostly perceived as entertainment and news.

That problem aside, it's a useful and informative resource.

The Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs

Edited by Leah A. Lievrouw and Sonia Livingstone.

Published by Sage Publications, 2002.

This is a clothbound book measuring 7" by 10" and running to 564 pages including the index, plus a detailed table of contents and contributors' biographies.

The book is meant to be an overview of the broad areas of social research having to do with new media, or information and communication technologies (ICTs). It is a "transdisciplinary" work, including essays by scholars from various social science disciplines (with a preponderance of communication studies faculty) on new media and its interrelationships with economic, political, behavioral, cultural and technological phenomena. It's not an encyclopedia but a survey of research.

It is divided into six parts, each with several chapters and a separate introduction. The parts are:

1. The Changing Social Landscape
   
2. Technology Design and Development
   
3. New Media and Organizing
   
4. Systems, Industries and Markets
   
5. Policy and Regulation
   
6. Culture and New Media
   

Opening the book at random, I near the beginning of the chapter in part 3 called "New Media and Organizing at the Group Level," looking at sections with the headings, "GCSS: Technologies that Mediate or Augment Within-Group Communication," "GISS: Supplementing Information Available to the Group," "GXSS: Supporting External Communication," "GPSS: Modifying the Group's Task Performance." This chapter "examines the role of new media at the group level of analysis." I can understand enough of it to see that it probably provides insights and certainly relates to issues I have encountered in working in online environments with groups in which I participate, but I find myself wishing I were more conversant in the field of communication studies. The prose is a somewhat technical and requires just a bit of background in the discipline. It's not a gap that would be nearly as difficult to overcome as with, say, an engineering handbook, but it does present at least a minor barrier for someone casually interested in the ways in which online communication affects the way people work together.

Despite being somewhat technical, this seems to be a very valuable reference work in a new and important field.

Encyclopedia of Human Emotions

Edited by David Levinson, James J. Ponzetti, Jr., and Peter F. Jorgensen

Published by Macmillan Reference USA, 1999.

This is a two-volume hardbound set measuring 9" by 11" and totaling 768 pages including the bibliography index and subject index, plus 18 pages of preferatory material.

This Encyclopedia brings together information from psychology, psychiatry, biology, sociology, anthropology, communication studies and other fields to summarize what we know about "the nature, causes, expression, and societal role of emotions - today, in the past, and across cultures."

There are 156 articles in the set, each signed by an expert whose institutional home is listed. The "S" sequence contains articles with the following titles:

• Sadness
  
• Sartre, Jean-Paul
  
• Satisfaction
  
• Seasonal Affective Disorder
  
• Self-Esteem
  
• Sensation Seeking and Risk Taking
  
• Shame
  
• Shyness
  
• Sin
  
• Smiling
  
• Sociology of Emotions
  
• Spinoza, Baruch
  
• Sports
  
• Stress
  
• Sullivan, Harry Stack
  
• Surprise
  
• Sympathy
  

The article on satisfaction is almost seven pages in length. It begins with a paragraph defining the emotion, and then has sections with the headings, "Satisfaction as a Concept;" "Satisfaction Compared to Related Concepts" (with subheadings "Pleasure," "Happiness," and "Joy,"); "Cross-Cultural Research on Satisfaction;" and "Conculsion." It finishes with see-also references to "Achievement Motivation," "Happiness," "Hope," "Motivation," and "Pleasure," followed by a bibliography of 44 items for further reading.

The textual discussion is non-technical and very informative. Most people's knowledge of emotions is intuitive, and it is almost surprising to see how much study has gone into human emotions in different disciplines and what the contours of our knowlege of emotion are.

Articles on related emotions, such as Envy and Jealousy, Shame and Guilt, Anxiety and Fear, and Sympathy and Empathy, are all written by different experts, which allows you to get different versions of the distinctions between them.

This is a very interesting encyclopedia, useful in many types of research. The odd thing about its subject matter is the unlikelihood of someone turning to it whose research might be helped by it, because of its focus on subjective experience rather than the outward realities that are usually in focus. People doing work in theatre, film, literature, art, persuasion, psychology and some other social science disciplines seem most likely (to me) to find a good use for this encyclopedia.

Field Guide to Gestures: How to Identify and Interpret Virtually Every Gesture Known to Man

By Nancy Armstrong and Melissa Wagner

Published by Quirk Books, 2003.

This is a full-color, thick, small-format paperback of 4.5" X 5.75".

This is a really fun book. It's a dictionary of gestures divided into seven sections for types of gestures, and a section in the middle with color photographs illustrating each gesture.

The sections are:

I. Arrival and Departure
II. Approval
III. Disapproval
IV. Mating
V. Offensive and Profane
VI. Just for Emphasis
VII. No Words Needed

It's most useful for browsing for fun or for finding gestures to add to your repertoire (if your new year's resolution was to talk more with your hands) than for finding out what someone meant by that hand motion, although it is possible to use it for that. This is because the entries are given in order of sections by the type of meaning, and then by the name of the gesture (e.g. "Live Long and Prosper," "The Fig," "Loser," "The Sizzle," "Money"), which you don't know if you don't know what a gesture means. The plates can tell you, but that requires a good browse.

A lot of these gestures are of recent invention and are a part of pop culture, and some are gestures that have been around for centuries but you may not ever have thought much about.

The book presents itself as being very multicultural. The faces in the section of color plates are multi-ethnic (and multi-generational) and some regional and national variations on the meanings of gestures are described in a special section for each gesture with the heading "region." However, I find the book to be mainly about the meaning of gestures in the United States. Gestures not in use in the United States aren't really included, and international variations on the meaning of gestures aren't very thorough. For instance, in the entry for "Nod 'Yes,'" it says that it is universal except in Greece, Bulgaria, the Baltic states, Turkey and Iran, where the gesture's meaning is reversed with shaking the head side to side. That's an interesting fact (if it's precisely true), but it leaves out the fact that in much of Asia, nodding the head up and down carries more of the meaning of "I hear and understand you" than "I assent or agree," something that can be quite confusing if it isn't known. So, the people who have put this book together are quite creative, but perhaps not academic authorities.

That said, there is a lot to be learned from this book. Did you know that the heavy metal "horns" gesture has an older and continuing meaning? It means, "Your wife is cheating on you." It also means, "Go Longhorns."

Dictionary of Media Literacy

By Art Silverblatt and Ellen M. Enright Eliceiri, eds.

Published by Greenwood Press, 1997.

This is a 6" X 9.5" hardbound book of 234 pages including the index and contributors' bios.

As the preface states, "The Dictionary of Media Literacy is a compilation of significant concepts, issues, organizations, people, and international developments in the field of media literacy."

The entries fall into two major categories, which are not separated: concepts and groups and individuals. The majority of the entries seem to fall into the category of groups and individuals, with numerous small, local initiatives described, as well as academics working in the field in various places around the world (the international scope is worth noting).

A sampling of the individuals included are Henk Hoekstra of the International Catholic Organization for Cinema and Audiovisuals, Denise Newfield of the Department of English at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Manuel Pinto, a former journalist who now teaches Media Eduation at the Teacher Training Center of Minho University in Braga, Portugal, each of whom is described in a paragraph or two.

The entries for concepts are often the longer entries, but not always. "Pleasure Perspective" is given a short paragraph, but it finishes with See Also references to Affective Response Analysis, Autobiographical Analysis Approach, and Identification Analysis. A sampling of other concepts and topics explained are Discourse Analysis, Communications Ecology, Narratology, Jolts, and Intertextuality.

The work represents an impressive collection of information, but seems to suffer a little from a limited vision of the scope of the discipline of media literacy. For example, there is no entry in the book for George Lakoff or for his conceptualization of the concept of framing. Admittedly, in 1997 Lakoff had not yet emerged as a popularizer of concepts useful in media literacy thinking, nor, perhaps, is he as important a thinker as many consider him to be, but by 1997 he had begun to apply his ideas from linguistics and cognitive science to questions of public rhetoric and media. The Dictionary would probably benefit from a somewhat wider scope, so that useful ideas from socio-linguistics could be included.

Medical Sign Language: Easily Understood Definitions of Commonly Used Medical, Dental and First Aid Terms, by W. Joseph Garcia, Director, Silent Environment Educational Kamp (sic), Ellensburg, Washington. Published by Charles C. Thomas, 1983.

This is essentially an English to American Sign Language bilingual medical dictionary, for use in a clinical setting or in education for medical practice. It's just over 700 pages long and in fairly large print with large illustrations for the ASL versions of various terms.

The illustrations are in simple line drawings with arrows showing the direction of hand movements. Most terms are shown in multiple drawings to show the multiple signs involved. From the perspective of someone who doesn't know any ASL I'd say they seem pretty understandable, and the "pronunciation" likely ends up no worse than what you'd get out of a typical phrasebook for any foreign language.

Besides being practical from a medical point of view, it's interesting to look through this book to get a glimpse of how ASL works. For example, the phrase "general anesthetic" is made up of the sign for "injection" followed by the sign for "sleep."

The pictures are accompanied by written descriptions of how to make the sign. Some of these are all you need to know. For example, here's the description of the sign for "uvula." "(1) The index finger of the right "one" hand points to the mouth. (2) With the mouth open, the right "one" hand points down and wiggles slightly as if imitating the uvula moving."