Engaging Discourse 2 0

Engaging Discourse 2. 0

Discourse 2.0

Our everyday lives are increasingly being lived through electronic media, which are changing our interactions and our communications in ways that we are only beginning to understand. In Discourse 2.0: Language and New Media, editors Deborah Tannen and Anna Marie Trester team up with top scholars in the field to shed light on the ways language is being used in, and shaped by, these new media contexts. Topics explored include: how Web 2.0 can be conceptualized and theorized; the role of English on the worldwide web; how use of social media such as Facebook and texting shape communication with family and friends; electronic discourse and assessment in educational and other settings; multimodality and the "participatory spectacle" in Web 2.0; asynchronicity and turn-taking; ways that we engage with technology including reading on-screen and on paper; and how all of these processes interplay with meaning-making. Students, professionals, and individuals will discover that Discourse 2.0 offers a rich source of insight into these new forms of discourse that are pervasive in our lives.

The Politics of Size

This book presents an unprecedented opportunity for people to hear from a simultaneously ostracized, ridiculed, and ignored group: fat Americans. Find out how the members of this very diverse group of people describe their actual lived experiences, quality of life, hopes and dreams, and demands. Our society is body-size obsessed. The result? An environment where "fat people" are consistently shunned and discussed disparagingly behind their backs. Although fat people typically bear the brunt of the institutionalized oppression around being oversized, pervasive closeminded attitudes about body size in America affect everyone of all sizes—from people who are shamed for being too thin to those whose lives revolve around the fear of becoming fat. This book talks about a topic that is important to all readers, regardless of their physical size, providing an anthology of first-person accounts of what it's like to be part of the fat-acceptance movement and on the front lines of activism in the "war on obesity." The Politics of Size: Perspectives from the Fat Acceptance Movement supplies a frank discussion of the issues surrounding being fat and the associated health concerns—both physical and mental—and reframes the discussion about obesity from a medical issue to a social one. The essays serve to correct misinformation about obesity and fat people that is commonly accepted by the general public, such as the idea that "fat" and "healthy" are mutually exclusive. Subject matter covered includes fat-friendly workplace policies; fat dating experiences; and the intersections of being fat and also a person of color, a person with disabilities, a transgender person, or a member of another sub-group of society.