Da quando il World Wide Web – la Rete delle Reti – è entrato prepotentemente a far parte delle nostre vite, la nostra società sta sperimentando un cambiamento profondo. Ma come è cominciato tutto questo? Quando, come e perché il Web ha cessato di essere una semplice fonte di informazioni, per diventare uno strumento di interazione tra persone? E come si evolverà il Web nel futuro? Partendo dalle origini di Internet e del Web, il testo esamina in profondità le caratteristiche del Web 2.0, il Web Sociale; affronta poi il tema del Web del futuro prossimo, il Web 3.0 (Web Semantico), senza tralasciare l’evoluzione futura più remota, ossia il Web 4.0 (Web Ubiquo). Spiega come tutto ebbe inizio con la digitalizzazione, il presupposto fondamentale per fenomeni di grande attualità come la convergenza digitale e quella multimediale, la crossmedialità, la rimediazione digitale. Dal punto di vista più strettamente comunicazionale, il lavoro – nell’attribuire al Web una natura mediale – affronta il tema del passaggio dalla comunicazione tradizionale alla web communication, in tutte le sue declinazioni e modalità: la comunicazione screen to face asincrona e quella sincrona. Anche gli aspetti più concreti non vengono trascurati: un intero capitolo spiega come comunicare nel Web e fornisce utili indicazioni pratiche per fare web communication in modo efficace. La seconda parte del libro è dedicata a un’approfondita analisi delle tre aree mediali del Web di oggi: l’area della conoscenza e condivisione (dai motori di ricerca alle enciclopedie online, sino alla nuova didattica rappresentata dall’e-learning), l’area del business (e-commerce come strategia di e-business, marketing virale e web advertising come strumenti di web marketing) e l’area delle relazioni sociali (social media e blog, colonne portanti del Web 2.0). Il libro comprende oltre 30 focus, approfondimenti relativi a casi concreti – tutti legati al Web – di storie di successo o particolarmente significative. Prefazione di Marino Livolsi, sociologo e Presidente del Corso di Laurea in Scienze della Comunicazione, Facoltà di Psicologia, Università Vita – Salute San Raffaele, Milano.

The demand for academic coursework and corporate training programs using the Internet and computer-mediated communication networks increases daily. The development and implementation of these new programs requires that traditional teaching techniques and course work be significantly reworked. This handbook consists of 20 chapters authored by experts in the field of teaching in the online environment to adult students enrolled in graduate university degree programs, corporate training programs, and continuing education courses. The book is organized to first lay a conceptual and theoretical foundation for implementing any online learning program. Topics such as psychological and group dynamics, ethical issues, and curriculum design are covered in this section. Following the establishment of this essential framework are separate sections devoted to the practical issues specific to developing a program in either an academic or corporate environment. Whether building an online learning program from the ground up or making adjustments to improve the effectiveness of an existing program, this book is an invaluable resource.--From Amazon.

This detailed study of fire metaphors provides a deep understanding of the purposeful work of metaphor in discourse. It analyses how and why fire metaphors are used in discourses of awe (mythology and religion) and authority (political speeches and media reports). Fire serves as a productive and salient lexical field for metaphors that seek to create awe and impose authority. These metaphors offer a rich linguistic and conceptual resource for authors of mythologies, theologies, literature, speeches and journalism, and provide insight into the rich interplay of thought, language and culture. This book explores the purpose of fire metaphors in genres ranging from the Norse sagas to religious texts, from Shakespeare to British and American political speeches. Ultimately it arrives at an understanding of the rhetorical work that metaphor accomplishes in communicating evaluations and ideologies.

This volume focuses on the role language plays at all levels of the argumentation process. It explores the effects that specific linguistic choices may have in the production and the reception of arguments and in doing so, it moves beyond the first, necessary, descriptive stance provided by current literature on the topic. Each chapter provides an original take illuminating one or more of the following three issues: the range of linguistic resources language users draw on as they argue; how cognitive processes of meaning construction may influence argumentative practices; and which discursive devices can be used to fulfil a number of argumentative goals. The volume includes theoretical and empirical or applied stances, providing the reader both with state-of-the-art reflections on the relationship between argumentation and language, and with concrete examples of how this relationship plays out in naturally occurring argumentative practices, such as classroom interaction, and political, parliamentary or journalistic discourse. This is a very original, timely and welcome contribution to the study of argumentation conducted with the tools of the language sciences. The collection of papers relevantly tackles key linguistic, discursive and cognitive aspects of argumentative practices whose treatment is underrepresented in mainstream argumentation studies by offering new and exciting linguistically-grounded theoretical accounts. As such, the volume testifies both to the vigour of the linguistic current within the discipline and to the high standards of scholarly commitment and quality that the younger generation is pushing forward. Without question, this book marks an important milestone in the relationships between linguistics and argumentation theory. Christian Plantin, Professor Emeritus

Complete Atlas of the World, 3rd Edition is now fully revised and updated to reflect the latest changes in world geography, including the annexation of Crimea and the new nation of South Sudan. Bringing each featured landscape to life with detailed terrain models and color schemes and offering maps of unsurpassed quality, this atlas features four sections: a world overview, the main atlas, fact files on all the countries of the world, and an easy-to-reference index of all 100,000 place names. All maps enjoy a full double-page spread, with continents broken down into 330 carefully selected maps, including 100 city plans. You will also find a stimulating series of global thematic maps that explore Earth's place in the universe, its physical forms and processes, the living world, and the human condition. From Antarctica to Zambia, discover the Earth continent-by-continent with Complete Atlas of the World, 3rd Edition.