"The Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation provides tools for managers and evaluators to address questions about the performance of public and nonprofit programs. Neatly integrating authoritative, high-level information with practicality and readability, this guide gives you the tools and process
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es you need to analyze your program's operations and outcomes more accurately. This new fourth edition has been thoroughly updated and revised, with new coverage of the latest evaluation methods, including: culturally responsive evaluation; adopting designs and tools to evaluate multi-service community change programs; using role playing to collect data; using cognitive interviewing to pre-test surveys; coding qualitative data. You'll discover robust analysis methods that produce a more accurate picture of program results, and learn how to trace causality back to the source to see how much of the outcome can be directly attributed to the program. Written by award-winning experts at the top of the field, this book also contains contributions from the leading evaluation authorities among academics and practitioners to provide the most comprehensive, up-to-date reference on the topic. Valid and reliable data constitute the bedrock of accurate analysis, and since funding relies more heavily on program analysis than ever before, you cannot afford to rely on weak or outdated methods. This book gives you expert insight and leading edge tools that help you paint a more accurate picture of your program's processes and results, including: obtaining valid, reliable, and credible performance data; engaging and working with stakeholders to design valuable evaluations and performance monitoring systems; assessing program outcomes and tracing desired outcomes to program activities; providing robust analyses of both quantitative and qualitative data" (Publisher description)
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"The 59 chapters in this volume, written by leading researchers from around the world, provide scholars and students with an engaging and authoritative survey of current thinking in media and gender research. The Companion includes the following features: With each chapter addressing a distinct, con
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crete set of issues, the volume includes research from around the world to engage readers in a broad array of global and transnational issues and intersectional perspectives. Authors address a series of important questions that have consequences for current and future thinking in the field, including postfeminism, sexual violence, masculinity, media industries, queer identities, video games, digital policy, media activism, sexualization, docusoaps, teen drama, cosmetic surgery, media Islamophobia, sport, telenovelas, news audiences, pornography, and social and mobile media." (Back cover)
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"The pioneering research process consisted of a review of relevant literature and in-depth interviews with 35 experts in the field connecting ICT4D with child-focused development, thus providing one of the most comprehensive overviews of the subjec
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t to date. The literature review focuses on the topics of extreme poverty, maternal and child health, nutrition, access to education, governance and accountability, and eParticipation, children and the internet. This provides a foundation for the eight analytical themes, which are grounded in the expert interviews with practitioners, policy makers and academics." (Executive summary)
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"The collection covers a wide range of topics: the emergence and evolution of the field; issues and challenges in cross-cultural and intercultural inquiry; cultural wisdom and communication practices in context; identity and intercultural competenc
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e in a multicultural society; the effects of globalization; and ethical considerations. Many readings first appeared outside the mainstream Western academy, and offer diverse theoretical lenses on culture and communication practices in the world community." (Publisher description)
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"Internet Studies has been one of the most dynamic and rapidly expanding interdisciplinary fields to emerge over the last decade. The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies has been designed to provide a resource in this area, bringing together scholarly perspectives on how the Internet has been studie
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d and how the research agenda should be pursued in the future. The book aims to focus on Internet Studies as an emerging field, each chapter seeking to provide a synthesis and critical assessment of the research in a particular area. Topics covered include social perspectives on the technology of the Internet; the Internet's role in everyday life and work; implications for communication, power, and influence; and the governance and regulation of the Internet. The book aims not only to help to strengthen research on the key questions, but also to shape research, policy, and practice across many disciplines that are finding the Internet and its political, economic, cultural, and other societal implications increasingly central to their own key areas of inquiry." (Publisher description)
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"Today, DIY- do-it-yourself - describes more than self-taught carpentry. Social media enables DIY citizens to organize and protest in new ways (as in Egypt's "Twitter revolution" of 2011) and to repurpose corporate content (or create new user-generated content) in order to offer political counternar
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ratives. This book examines the usefulness and limits of DIY citizenship, exploring the diverse forms of political participation and "critical making" that have emerged in recent years. The authors and artists in this collection describe DIY citizens whose activities range from activist fan blogging and video production to knitting and the creation of community gardens. Contributors examine DIY activism, describing new modes of civic engagement that include Harry Potter fan activism and the activities of the Yes Men. They consider DIY making in learning, culture, hacking, and the arts, including do-it-yourself media production and collaborative documentary making." (Back cover)
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"This study critically reflects on a schism evident in debates surrounding ‘humanitarian communication’. On one hand, it is approached as embodying an ideal of ethical practice. On the other, ideal humanitarianism is deployed as the grounds for a critique, whereby ‘humanitarian practice’ is
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seen as compromised by exigencies and political-economic influence. Drawing on the testimony of humanitarian communication practitioners within major international agencies, we argue this also reflects a felt tension within the field, where practitioners are very aware of the practical constraints and material influences to which they are subject. In both cases, however, an assumed opposition between the ‘practical’ and the ‘ethical’ tends to position ‘humanitarian ethics’ as an ahistorical ideal that stands apart from, and acts as a check on, instrumental action. This paper argues that a more historically grounded analysis suggests a more complex interrelationship between ethical and instrumental concerns." (Abstract)
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"Global and regional networks of investigative journalists, backed by donors and fueled by globalization and an explosion in data and communications technology, are growing increasingly effective and sophisticated. Journalists are linking up as never before to collaborate on stories involving intern
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ational crime, unaccountable businesses, environmental degradation, safety and health problems, and other hard-to-report issues. Strategic investments into investigative journalism programs can have significant positive impact in a wide range of countries, including those in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Such funding will be most effective if it is long term and integrated into broader initiatives that include legal reform and freedom of information. Despite its frontline role in fostering accountability, battling corruption, and raising media standards, investigative reporting receives relatively little support - about 2 percent of global media development funding by major donors. Nonprofit investigative reporting organizations, now numbering 106 in 47 countries, have been pivotal drivers of the global spread of investigative journalism. These include reporting centers, training institutes, professional associations, grant-making groups, and online networks." (Executive summary)
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"Promotion of healthy behaviors and prevention of disease are inextricably linked to cultural understandings of health and well-being. Health communication scholarship and practice can substantially and strategically contribute to people living safer, healthier, and happier lives. This book represen
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ts a concrete step in that direction by establishing a strategic framework for guiding global and local health practices. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the volume includes state-of-the-art theories that can be applied to health communication interventions and practical guidelines about how to design, implement, and evaluate effective health communication interventions. Few books have synthesized such a broad range of theories and strategies of health communication that are applicable globally, and also provided clear advice about how to apply such strategies. This volume combines academic research and field experience, guided by past and future research agendas and on-the-ground implementation opportunities." (Publisher description)
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"In this fully revised and expanded Fourth Edition, Ronald E. Rice and Charles K. Atkin provide readers with a comprehensive, up-to-date look into the field of public communication campaigns. Updated to reflect the latest theories and research, thi
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s text extends coverage to new areas, including sun protection, organ donation, human rights, social norms, corporate social responsibility, condom use, ocean sustainability, fear messages, and digital games. Classic chapters include updates on topics such as campaign history, theoretical foundations, formative evaluation, systems approaches, input-output persuasion matrix, design and evaluation, meta-analysis, and sense-making methodology." (Publisher description)
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"While Internet access to certain sites is blocked in some parts of the world, these restrictions are often circumvented using proxies outside the censored region. Often these proxies are blocked as soon as they are discovered. In this paper we propose a browser-based proxy creation system that gene
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rates a large number of short-lived proxies. Clients using the system seamlessly hop from one proxy to the next as these browserbased proxies appear and disappear. We discuss a number of technical challenges that had to be overcome for this system to work and report on its performance and security. We show that browser-based short-lived proxies provide adequate bandwidth for video delivery and argue that blocking them can be challenging." (Abstract)
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"The Handbook of Comparative Communication Research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of comparative communication research. It fills an obvious gap in the literature and offers an extensive and interdisciplinary discussion of the general approach of comparative research, its prospect an
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d problems as well as its applications in crucial sub-fields of communications. The first part of the volume charts the state of the art in the field; the second section introduces relevant areas of communication studies where the comparative approach has been successfully applied in recent years; the third part offers an analytical review of conceptual and methodological issues; and the last section proposes a roadmap for future research." (Publisher description)
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"This edited collection provides a much-needed interdisciplinary contextualisation of amateur media before and after Web 2.0. Surveying the institutional, economic and legal construction of the amateur media producer via a series of case studies, it features contributions from experts in the fields
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of law, economics and media studies. Each section of the book contains a detailed case study on a selected topic, followed by two further pieces providing additional analysis and commentary. Using an extraordinary array of case studies and examples, from YouTube to online games, from subtitling communities to reality TV, the book is neither a celebration of amateur production nor a denunciation of the demise of professional media industries. Rather, this book presents a critical dialogue across law and the humanities, exploring the dynamic tensions and interdependencies between amateur and professional creative production." (Publisher description)
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"This 42 chapter volume represents the state of the art in visual research. It provides an introduction to the field for a variety of visual researchers: scholars and graduate students in art, sociology, anthropology, communication, education, cult
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ural studies, women's studies, ethnic studies, global studies and related social science and humanities disciplines. The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods encompasses the breadth and depth of the field, and points the way to future research possibilities. It illustrates “cutting edge” as well as long-standing and recognized practices. This text is not only “about” research, it is also an example of the way that the visual can be incorporated in data collection and the presentation of research findings." (Publisher description)
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"This book documents and analyzes transnational research on youth media production and distribution projects both in and out of school. With comprehensive theoretical analyses, notes, and bibliographies, each chapter includes a case study, illuminating the variety and diversity of youth media projec
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ts around the world. Contributors span multiple disciplines and regions, and their perspectives provide a rich and comparative resource for readers [...] An accompanying website provides a comprehensive and up-to-date list of programs, projects, research reports, and publications relating to youth media - an important resource for scholars and students in the field." (Back cover)
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"This book explores the journalism coming out of the Afghan war from the frontline and from the greater comfort of the library. It is an unusual hybrid: the testimony of some of the best frontline correspondents of our era, much of it placed in appropriate historical contexts, alongside detailed aca
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demic analysis – and much more. It ranges from the poppy fields of Helmand province to New York via the Iraq War and the modern rebirth of “embedding”. It mixes action, reflection and analysis and focuses on some of under-reported groups such as women and the humanitarian effort in Afghanistan.
It has its origin in a conference in Coventry in March 2010 put on as part of the university’s Coventry Conversations series (with financial support from the Pro Vice-Chancellor and the Dean of Business) in conjunction with the BBC College of Journalism and journalism.co.uk (the website forum for digitally active journalists). All of that conference can be seen and heard on bbc.co.uk/journalism and Coventry.ac.uk/itunesu. Many of the contributors to this book took part in that conference though some extra pieces have been specially commissioned. The war in Afghanistan will soon be coming up to its tenth anniversary.
Operation Enduring Freedom started on 7 October 2001 as a response to the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. Freedom in Afghanistan has far from endured in that decade. There are today 100,000-plus US troops, 10,000-plus British troops and 17,000 from ISAF allies – including Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Canada.
US intelligence admit that there are now fewer than 100 al-Qaeda (the reason for invading in the first place) fighters left in the country and that the Taliban could fight on for ever. British Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons on 14 June 2010 after his return from his first official visit to Afghanistan that it was only the presence of the ISAF troops that kept al-Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan in numbers. The West is fighting a phantom and desperately searching for an exit strategy. The trouble is they will leave behind an Afghan government scarred by illegitimacy, corruption and more. The Killing Fields will continue for a while yet. Journalism has escaped comparatively lightly – just nine Western journalists killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
Like all big stories, this war has attracted the cream of British journalistic talent especially the broadcast reporters. TV awards have been won on the field of battle by the new Brahmins – the war corrs parachuted in and out of Helmand. The idea for the conference and for the book took hold when I judged the Royal Television Society News Programme of the Year Awards for 2009. All entries featured front line action from their stars. Many of them have contributed to this book." (Pages 3-4)
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"Wide-ranging and interdisciplinary, this collection considers critical concepts shaping the field, such as migration, ethnicity, post-colonialism and cosmopolitanism. It also examines key intersecting agendas and themes, including political econom
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y, security, race, gender, and material and electronic culture. Original case studies of contemporary as well as classical diasporas are featured, mapping new directions in research and testing the usefulness of diaspora for analyzing the complexity of transnational lives today." (Publisher description)
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"The Handbook of Rhetoric and Public Address is a state-of-the-art companion to the field that showcases both the historical traditions and the future possibilities for public address scholarship in the twenty-first century. It focuses on public ad
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dress as both a subject matter and a critical perspective; mindful of the connections between the study of public address and the history of ideas; provides an historical overview of public address research and pedagogy, as well as a reassessment of contemporary public address scholarship by those most engaged in its practice; includes in-depth discussions of basic issues and controversies public address scholarship; explores the relationship between the study of public address and contemporary issues of civic engagement and democratic citizenship; reflects the diversity of views among public address scholars, advancing on-going discussions and debates over the goals and character of rhetorical scholarship." (Publisher description)
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