Patricia M. Sias - Böcker

This collection assesses the condition of civic dialogue in our avowedly participatory democracy and suggests specific educational, institutional, and individual actions to enhance the contemporary public debate of social and political issues. An interdisciplinary group of distinguished scholars examines current problems and potential improvements in areas such as citizenship education, media literacy, critical viewing skills, civic journalism, the internet and democratic dialogue, media coverage of political campaigns, the recovery of excluded cultural voices, and citizen engagement in media and electoral processes.The book is divided into four parts: the first summarizes many of the predominant criticisms leveled at what passes for democratic debate in America today. Each of the next three parts focuses on specific areas for potential enhancement: public education, the mass media, and citizen awareness. The Public Voice in a Democracy at Risk offers important insights for scholars, students, and citizens interested in fostering participatory democracy.

"Organizing Relationships makes a contribution to the discipline in its treatment of this area from multiple perspectives, in its deliberate engagement/suggestions of future research directions, and its functional purpose of bringing together extant research on this important topic in a coherent and organized way. It adds cumulatively to our knowledge of organizational communication and relationships, it fits within the horizon of the established parameters of our field while opening new areas for engagement, and, moreover, it is a very interesting read. It will, no doubt, become a touchstone for the field of organizational communication."                                  —Janie Hardin Fritz, Duquesne University "This book represents an important step to a relational approach to organizational behavior (communication) by pulling together many different areas/types of relationships. It will be a 'must' book to anyone who teaches relationships in organization or broadly relational/applied organizational communication." —Jaesub Lee, University of Houston The first book in the field to provide a comprehensive, interdisciplinary treatment of workplace relationships, Organizing Relationships: Traditional and Emerging Perspectives on Workplace Relationships explores both negative and positive workplace relationships, including supervisor–subordinate relationships, peer relationships, workplace friendships, romantic workplace relationships, and customer–client relationships. Author Patricia M. Silas, a recognized scholar in the field, examines workplace relationships from multiple theoretical perspectives, including postpositivism, social construction theory, critical theory, and structuration theory. She helps readers understand the unique influences of the workplace on relationship processes and dynamics. Key Features

Examines the role of workplace relationships as information-sharing, resource-distributing, decision-making, and support systems and highlights their importance to both organizational and individual well-being Includes cases in each chapter that demonstrate the usefulness of approaching real-world workplace problems and issues from multiple perspectives Helps readers broaden and enrich the ways they think about workplace relationships and their roles in organizational processes Provides an innovative agenda for future research

Organizing Relationships is appropriate for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in Workplace Relationships, Relational Communication, Applied Interpersonal Communication, Organizational Communication, Communication Management, Operations/Human Resource Management, Organizational Psychology, and Organizational Sociology.