Wiley-Blackwell is delighted to announce that Sociology Spotlight, a must-have free iPhone, iPad and iPod touch app, has now gone live in the iTunes App Store!

Download it for FREE on your iPad or iPhone – http://bit.ly/r47Owr

Watch the Video Trailer – http://bit.ly/pWvZt8

This exciting new app gives you the following community features at your fingertips, anywhere, anytime –

• Latest information on key Sociology conferences and latest conference tweets, CURRENT UPDATES FOR ASA2011
• A free, comprehensive Frommer’s travel guide to major conference locations – INCLUDES FREE FROMMER’S TRAVEL GUIDE TO LAS VEGAS AHEAD OF ASA
• Latest abstracts for Sociology articles and books, including the ability to ‘follow’ your favorite publications
• Latest news in and around the discipline from Sociology Lens
• Latest Special Issues, including free articles
• Latest Video Abstracts for Sociology articles
• Access to a series of Publishing Workshops, in audio and PDF format
• Customizable YouTube search tool to find educational videos
• A customizable search of scholarly literature, blogs and news articles related to Sociology
• Customizable Syllabi Search tool to find syllabi freely available on institutional websites, perfect for generating teaching ideas
• The ability to bookmark any content you see, email yourself a Reading List and share content via Facebook and Twitter
• The ability to add your own RSS feeds, allowing you to keep track of your favorite sources

This unique app shines a powerful spotlight on Sociology, enabling you to instantly read all the latest news and developments in your field. Whether you want to keep track of broad trends across the discipline or focus in on a subfield, Sociology Spotlight is an essential tool for your research and teaching.

If you like the app, please do review it in the iTunes App Store – this will mean your fellow Sociologists will also be able to harness the power of Sociology Spotlight.

Tell your friends and colleagues about the app by sharing this link on Facebook, Twitter or via email! –

http://bit.ly/r47Owr

Interdisciplinary research has much to offer scholars of different fields – widening perspectives and opening up avenues to new research. The burgeoning field of the geography and sociology of religion is one such field. As the global economy and increased migration result in more complex and rich societies, so the resultant intersections of cultures and faiths from across the world become more interesting and multifaceted.

In this Wiley-Blackwell Virtual Issue encompassing “Religion and Place”, we have sought to bring together articles from across a wide scope of journals and fields of research, which tackle how religion and place intersect and influence one another. A variety of religions, old and new, from all across the world are engaged with in this Virtual Issue, and the articles range from philosophical discussions to statistical analyses and intricate discussions of social policies and political strategies. Whether you are a geographer or a religious studies scholar, someone interested in international migration or sociology and anthropology, we hope that this Virtual Issue will inspire you and open up new ideas and encourage new debates across all disciplines.

Click on the sections below to read for FREE.

Watch the live webcast of Noam Chomsky’s ICA 2011 Closing Plenary session on Monday 30th May at 12pm EDT!

“Democracy, the Media, and the Responsibility of Scholars“

Go to http://www.wiley.com/college/wfn/breeze/index.html?icaonline

Chair
Larry Gross, U of Southern California, USA

Participant
Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Linguist Noam Chomsky is a trenchant critic of the mass media, which he tackled memorably in his 1988 book with Ed Herman, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. In the years since its publication Chomsky has continued to subject the media to the same critical scrutiny with which he has relentlessly analyzed and criticized the actions of nation states and corporations. In this session Chomsky will address the present state of the media and the threats to democracy posed by the corporate control of mainstream media. He will also discuss the landscape of information in the public interest in the age of the Internet, as blogs and now Wikileaks change the terms of engagement. Finally, he will address the responsibilities of intellectuals, scholars, and academics to participate in the struggle for true freedom of expression and information that is a precondition for the survival of democracy.

TWEET ABOUT THIS SESSION USING #ICA11

http://twitter.com/?q=icaboston2011#!/search/ica11

Watch the live webcast of the ICA 2011 Opening Plenary session today from 6pm EDT!

“Communication as the Discipline of the 21st Century”

Go to http://www.wiley.com/college/wfn/breeze/index.html?icaonline.

Chair
Larry Gross, U of Southern California, USA

Participant
Craig Calhoun, SSRC/ New York U, USA

Respondents
Susan J. Douglas, U of Michigan, USA Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics, UNITED KINGDOM John Durham Peters, U of Iowa, USA Joseph N. Cappella, U of Pennsylvania, USA Georgette Wang, National Chengchi U, TAIWAN

The 20th century witnessed the immense impact of communication technologies, from the spread of sound recording, motion pictures and radio as world-wide phenomena to the emergence of television as a dominant influence in nearly every institution, to the explosion of the Internet at the turn of the new century. If it once was possible, as many in the academy did and some still do, to view communication studies as peripheral to the central mission and focus of the academic universe, that is no longer a defensible position. Today, any credible model of the liberal arts must recognize the centrality of communication for any responsible educational program. In this plenary session, Craig Calhoun will address the contributions that communication scholarship can make to our understanding of the world today. Five distinguished communication scholars will then comment in response.

TWEET ABOUT THIS SESSION USING #ICA11!

http://twitter.com/?q=icaboston2011#!/search/ica11

Older Workers: The ‘Unavoidable Obligation’ of Extending Our Working Lives?
Sarah Vickerstaff

VIDEO ABSTRACT:

ARTICLE ABSTRACT:

Older workers are becoming an increasing topic of research interest and policy concern as the populations of Europe, the United States and many other countries age. Some commentators argue that living longer means that there will be an ‘unavoidable obligation’ to work for longer as well. This article considers the reasons for concern about an ageing workforce. It then looks at the different literatures, which seek to research and understand the position of older workers. It provides a snapshot of the work that those over 50 years of age in the UK currently do and poses the question of whether we want to work for longer or whether a culture of early retirement prevails. It concludes by arguing for a more fine grained understanding of the composition of the older worker cohort, differentiated by class, gender and race and for more research on flexible work, gradual retirement and managing health at work.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE!

Isn’t Every Crime a Hate Crime?: The Case for Hate Crime Laws
Randy Blazak

VIDEO ABSTRACT:

ARTICLE ABSTRACT:

The process to create hate crime laws in the United States has wrestled with the core issues of freedom of speech and greater harm. This article looks at the evolution of bias crime laws, culminating with President Obama’s signing of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009. The constitutionality of the laws is ‘discussed and suggestions for sociological research are made. Four elements of hate crime laws are discussed; criminality, intent, perception, and protected statuses. The logic of hate crime laws is based on the argument that hate crimes are a form of terrorism, designed to intimidate large groups of people. Readers should be familiar with the basic case for the existence of such laws.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE!