A Century Of Communication Studies

This volume chronicles the development of communication studies as a discipline, providing a history of the field and identifying opportunities for future growth. Editors Pat J. Gehrke and William M. Keith have assembled an exceptional list of communication scholars who, in the thirteen chapters contained in this book, cover the breadth and depth of the field. Organized around themes and concepts that have enduring historical significance and wide appeal across numerous subfields of communication, A Century of Communication Studies bridges research and pedagogy, addressing themes that connect classroom practice and publication. Published in the 100th anniversary year of the National Communication Association, this collection highlights the evolution of communication studies and will serve future generations of scholars as a window into not only our past but also the field’s collective possibilities.

The discipline of communication has grown in popularity from the time professors of journalism and speech decided, in the mid-1960s, that the term "communication" was an excellent general descriptor for the theory and research that each group aspired to create. Over time, the two groups grew closer and recognized significant overlap in their theoretical and research interests, but there were also differences in their traditions that kept them apart. While both groups agreed that communication is a practical discipline, journalism professors focused a great deal of their attention on the education of media professionals. Speech professors, on the other hand, often were more oriented to the liberal arts and valued the fact that communication could be approached from a variety of traditions, including the arts, humanities, social sciences, and even the sciences. A key term in 21st Century communication, however, is convergence. Not only are media and technology converging with each other to produce new means of communicating, but individuals are increasingly using both new and existing communication tools to create new forms of communication. This convergence forces the various "camps" within the communication discipline to draw upon each other′s theories and research methods to keep up with explaining the rapidly changing communication environment. This convergence of ideas and theories provides a space to challenge conventional ways of thinking about the communication discipline, and that′s the goal of the SAGE 21st Century Reference Series volumes on Communication. General Editor William F. Eadie has sought to honor the diversity of the study of communication but also integrate that diversity into a coherent form, dividing communication study into four basic properties: 1) processes, 2) forms and types of communication, 3) characteristics to consider in creating messages, and 4) relationships between communicators. Via 100 chapters, this 2-volume set (available in both print and electronic formats) highlights the most important topics, issues, questions, and debates any student obtaining a degree in the field of communication ought to have mastered for effectiveness in the 21st Century. The purpose is to provide undergraduate majors with an authoritative reference source that will serve their research needs going forward in this exciting field with more detailed information than encyclopedia entries but not as much jargon, detail or density as a journal article or a research handbook chapter. Comprehensive coverage captures all the major themes and subfields within communication. For instance, Volume 1 themes include the discipline of communication, approaches to the study of communication, key processes of communication, forms and types of communication, key characteristics of messages, key communication relationships, factors affecting communication, and challenges and opportunities for communication. Themes in Volume 2 are media as communication, communication as a profession, journalism, public relations, advertising, and media management. Authoritative content is provided by a stellar casts of authors who bring diverse approaches, diverse styles, and different points of view. Curricular-driven emphasis provides students with initial footholds on topics of interest in researching for term papers, in preparing for GREs, in consulting to determine directions to take in pursuing a senior thesis, graduate degree, career, etc. Uniform chapter structures make it easy for students to locate key information, with a more-or-less common chapter format of Introduction, Theory, Methods, Applications, Comparisons, Future Directions, Summary, Bibliography & Suggestions for Further Reading, and Cross References. Availability in print and electronic formats provides students with convenient, easy access.

A Century of Transformation: Studies in Honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Eastern Communication Association celebrates the anniversary of communication as a formally organized professional academic discipline. To mark this occasion, the Eastern Communication Association has compiled a volume of essays examining the many different aspects of the discipline, its history, and its future. The only book of its kind, this landmark anthology covers a multitude of topics, including approaches to studying communication, reviews of the current status of the discipline's major branches, and transformations that the field has experienced throughout its 100-year history. Edited by James W. Chesebro, this volume contains essays written by venerable researchers and professors, alongside selections from some of the field's upcoming leaders. Intended to serve as an analysis of both the past and future of the communication discipline, A Century of Transformation is a valuable resource for capstone courses in communication. It is also captivating reading for anyone interested in the history, growth, and development of the discipline.

Book History is the annual journal of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Inc. (SHARP). Book History is devoted to every aspect of the history of the book, broadly defined as the history of the creation, dissemination, and the reception of script and print. Book History publishes research on the social, economic, and cultural history of authorship, editing, printing, the book arts, publishing, the book trade, periodicals, newspapers, ephemera, copyright, censorship, literary agents, libraries, literary criticism, canon formation, literacy, literacy education, reading habits, and reader response.

The ‘Milestones’ essays in Mass Communication and Society are reflective and analytical articles by the most notable scholars in the field. These classic essays address 21st century issues from the pioneers of media and communication studies, including Elihu Katz on new media and social movements, George Gerbner on cultivation analysis, and Dietram Scheufele on political communication. As technologies evolve and mass communication becomes mobilized and democratized - more individual and also more social - these landmark scholars provide ideas about how established theories may be applied in new ways, and how future research can expand our understanding of mass communication as its reach and effects grow ever larger. This book will be essential reading for both students and researchers of Mass Communications Research.

Media educators have long been debating the nature and purpose of media education. Issues relating to new technologies and the changing state of the media industry are ongoing concerns, but some of the most difficult questions go to the actual structure of media education itself: Is it best represented as an integrated field? Should it merge with other communication subfields, or potentially split into several separate fields? Media practitioners complicate matters further by questioning the necessity for media education at all. The continued consideration of and reaction to these issues will have a significant effect on media-related education and its associated practices. In Mass Media Education in Transition, Thomas Dickson gives careful consideration to the state of media education and its future directions. He provides a history of mass media-related education as well as an overview of the major issues affecting media education at the end of the 20th century. He incorporates the visions of media education leaders as to the possible directions the field may take in the next century and includes in his discussion information that has been previously unknown or not readily available to media educators. This volume provides a broad view of the major issues affecting all aspects of media education: print and broadcast journalism, advertising, public relations, and media studies. It also offers detailed insights as to the possibilities that lie ahead as the field continues to develop--a new professionalism, or a return to a prior vision of media-related education, or possibly something quite different.

A distinctive blend of history, geography, government, economics, and biculturalism meant that communication systems and the mass media evolved differently in Canada than in either the United States or Europe. Bringing together twenty-six articles that range in subject from colonial newspapers in the early 1800s to music television in the 1980s, Communication History in Canada provides the historical foundation for a thorough contextual analysis of modern-day media and communication in this country. From Marshall McLuhan and Harold Innis to Mary Vipond and Will Straw, the authors in this volume represent a wide cross-section of disciplines, including history, communication studies, sociology, journalism, political science, and film studies. Their essays are grouped in five sections: Time, Space, Technology, and Nation, which explores the relationship between media, society, and human thought; Postal Systems and Telecommunications, which centres on the telegraph, the telephone, and computers; Print Mass Media, which describes the origins and diffusion of newspapers and magazines, with a particular emphasis on commercialization through advertising and market research; Broadcast Media, which charts the rise of radio broadcasting in the inter-war years and of television broadcasting from the 1950s through the 1980s; and Cultural Industries, which examines film and sound recording.

The story of an academic discipline is usually conveyed in grand movements and long spans, but it can also be told through the lives of individual scholars, through the development of specialties, through the creation and change of departments, and through the formation and transformation of organizations. Using twelve histories of micro-dimensions of communication studies, this volume shows how sometimes small decisions, single scholars, individual departments, and marginalized voices can have dramatic roles in the history and future of an academic discipline. As a compilation of micro-histories with macro-lessons this volume stands alone in communication studies. Read as a companion to A Century of Communication Studies, the National Communication Association’s centennial volume, it offers rich detail, missing links, and local narratives that fully flesh out the discipline. In either case, no education in communication studies is complete without an understanding of the themes, challenges, and triumphs embodied by the twelve micro-histories offered in this book. This book was originally published as two special issues of Review of Communication.