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How do parents and children care for each other when they are separated because of migration? The way in which transnational families maintain long-distance relationships has been revolutionised by the emergence of new media such as email, instant messaging, social networking sites, webcam and texting. A migrant mother can now call and text her left-behind children several times a day, peruse social networking sites and leave the webcam for 12 hours achieving a sense of co-presence. Drawing on a long-term ethnographic study of prolonged separation between migrant mothers and their children who remain in the Philippines, this book develops groundbreaking theory for understanding both new media and the nature of mediated relationships. It brings together the perspectives of both the mothers and children and shows how the very nature of family relationships is changing. New media, understood as an emerging environment of polymedia, have become integral to the way family relationships are enacted and experienced. The theory of polymedia extends beyond the poignant case study and is developed as a major contribution for understanding the interconnections between digital media and interpersonal relationships. \"[A] compelling read about the ‘connected transnational family’ … The most compelling aspect of this book, this reader would argue, is its simultaneous engagement with a broad range of entangled issues. It convincingly puts mothers/children, migration/communication, mediation/relationship, past/present/future as well as theory/research practice into close encounter throughout.\" - Nicole Shephard, LSE Review of Books \"Mirca Madianou and Daniel Miller seem to have formed a dream team when they embarked on their mutual research project on transnational families and the role of ICTs ... In my view, the book succeeds in what many authors fruitlessly pursue: deriving convincing theory from an abundance of vast qualitative data. It is a highly engaging book that is rich in detail without drowning the reader in it. Its empirical and theoretical innovations make it a highly recommended book for any scholar working on media and migration, long-distance communication and the increasingly complex media environments that enfold us.\" - Kevin Smets, Communications \"An exemplary and groundbreaking study, with contributions to theory and our understanding of polymedia in everyday life, this stands out as an extraordinary read on the technology of relationships.\" - Zizi Papacharissi, University of Illinois-Chicago, USA \"This fascinating, richly detailed book investigates the role that fluency across multiple digital platforms plays in enabling mothering and caring to be sustained at a distance. A genuine breakthrough.\" - Nick Couldry , Goldmiths, University of London, UK \"With deft weaving of interview material and theorization...Mirca Madianou and Daniel Miller have produced an important and useful theoretical intervention that advances our understanding of the social life of transnational communities.\" - Radha S. Hegde, Media, Culture, & Society Mirca Madianou is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester, UK. She is the author of Mediating the Nation and several articles on the social consequences of the media. Daniel Miller is Professor of Material Culture at the Department of Anthropology, University College London, UK. His most recent books include Tales from Facebook and Digital Anthropology (edited with Heather Horst). 1. Introduction 2. Philippines at the Forefront of Globalisation 3. The Hidden Motivations of Migration 4. Crafting Love: Letters and Cassettes 5. The Cultural Contradictions of Transnational Motherhood: The Mothers’ Perspective 6. The Children’s Perspective 7. Technologies of Relationships 8. Polymedia 9. A Theory of Mediated Relationships 10. Appendix: A Note on Method

The governance of global communications is consolidating as a field where innovative political practices of multi-actor collaboration are being experimented. Within this broad political landscape, the Internet governance domain is emerging as one of the most relevant areas where institutional and non-institutional actors are converging in order to reform collectively governance mechanisms that will determine the future developments of the Internet technology. This book adopts a network approach to study the progressive and collective construction of a new discourse on Internet governance fostered by the realization of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum, a new “space for multi-stakeholder policy-dialogue” (WSIS Tunis Agenda 2005, art. 72). Looking both at how semantic and social connections are created in the online and the offline discursive spaces, this book seeks to provide insights on how principles of democratic collaboration between institutional and non-institutional actors are translated into actual political dynamics; on how the global political agenda on the governance of the Internet comes to be shaped thanks to the provision of heterogeneous and sometimes opposite thematic inputs; and, finally, on how the roles of States, intergovernmental bodies, civil society entities in participatory supra-national politics are progressively being (re)defined. Starting form the Internet governance case study, this books aims at providing an alternative approach to the study of supra-national politics as well as of global communication governance processes: one that considers simultaneously contents and processes of political dynamics and examines how immaterial resources, such as information and communication, become a new field for multi-actor politics experiments, conflicts and network construction.

This volume inserts the place of the local in theorizing about language policies and practices in applied linguistics. While the effects of globalization around the world are being discussed in such diverse circles as corporations, law firms, and education, and while the spread of English has come to largely benefit those in positions of power, relatively little has been said about the impact of globalization at the local level, directly or indirectly. Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice is unique in focusing specifically on the outcomes of globalization in and among the communities affected by these changes. The authors make a case for why it is important for local social practices, communicative conventions, linguistic realities, and knowledge paradigms to actively inform language policies and practices for classrooms and communities in specific contexts, and to critically inform those pertaining to other communities. Engaging with the dominant paradigms in the discipline of applied linguistics, the chapters include research relating to second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, literacy, and language planning. The majority of chapters are case studies of specific contexts and communities, focused on situations of language teaching. Beyond their local contexts these studies are important for initiating discussion of their relevance for other, different communities and contexts. Taken together, the chapters in this book approach the task of reclaiming and making space for the local by means of negotiating with the present and the global. They illuminate the paradox that the local contains complex values of diversity, multilingualism, and plurality that can help to reconceive the multilingual society and education for postmodern times.

The lingua franca role of English, coupled with its status as the official language of ASEAN, has important implications for language policy and language education. These include the relationship between English, the respective national languages of ASEAN and thousands of local languages. How can the demand for English be balanced against the need for people to acquire their national language and mother tongue? While many will also need a regional lingua franca, they are learning English as the first foreign language from primary school in all ASEAN countries. Might not this early introduction of English threaten local languages and children’s ability to learn? Or can English be introduced and taught in such a way that it can complement local languages rather than replace them? The aim of this book is to explore questions such as these and then make recommendations on language policy and language education for regional policymakers. The book will be important for regional policymakers and language education professionals. It should also benefit language teachers, especially, but by no means exclusively, English language teachers. The book will be of interest to all who are interested in the development of English as an international language and the possible implications of this upon local languages and cultures.