American Communication Research

This book captures the essence of a never-to-be-repeated glimpse at the history of media research. It offers a unique examination of the origins, meaning, and impact of media and communication research in America, with links to European antecedents. Based on a high-level seminar series at Columbia University's Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, the book features work by leading scholars, researchers, and media executives. Participants in the series have called the program "heroic and unprecedented." The book encompasses essays, commentaries, and reports by such leading figures as William McGuire, Elihu Katz, and Leo Bogart, plus posthumous reports by Wilbur Schramm, Malcolm Beville, and Hilde Himmelweit. It also contains original insights on the collaboration of Frank Stanton, Paul Lazarfeld, and Robert K. Merton.

In this critical examination of the beginnings of mass communications research in the United States, written from the perspective of an educational historian, Timothy Glander uses archival materials that have not been widely studied to document, contextualize, and interpret the dominant expressions of this field during the time in which it became rooted in American academic life, and tries to give articulation to the larger historical forces that gave the field its fundamental purposes. By mid-century, mass communications researchers had become recognized as experts in describing the effects of the mass media on learning and other social behavior. However, the conditions that promoted and sustained their authority as experts have not been adequately explored. This study analyzes the ideological and historical forces giving rise to, and shaping, their research. Until this study, the history of communications research has been written almost entirely from within the field of communications studies and, as a result, has tended to refrain from asking troubling foundational questions about the origins of the field or to entertain how its emergence shaped educational discourse during the post-World War II period. By examining the intersection between the individual biographies of key leaders in the communications field (Wilbur Schramm, Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, Hadley Cantril, Stuart Dodd, and others) and the larger historical context in which they lived and worked, this book aims to tell part of the story of how the field of communications became divorced from the field of education. The book also examines the work of significant voices on the rise of mass communications study (including C. Wright Mills, William W. Biddle, Paul Goodman, and others) who theorized about the emergence of a mass society. It concludes with a discussion of the contemporary relevance of the theory of a mass society to educational thought and practice.

Considered by most to be the founder of the field of communication studies, Wilbur Schramm could not be more qualified to write The Beginnings of Communication Study in America. This momentous new work acknowledges the seminal contributions of four inspirational scientists whose theories and methods were the foundation for the discipline called communication: Harold D. Lasswell, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Kurt Lewin, and Carl I. Hovland. This final collection of Wilbur Schramm's perspective in its unfinished form, contains many of his personal insights on the field of communication. The editors have supplemented this volume posthumously by providing a chapter that completes the story of how communication study spread among U.S. Universities, and also contains an exceptional account of the story of Schramm himself, as the founder of communication, and the widespread agreement on his preeminence. The Beginnings of Communication Study in America will fulfill a great need for students, and researchers in mass communication, communication theory, and speech who are interested on the origins and history of communication study, and the significance of Wilbur Schramm's work [Publisher description].

In this compelling anthology, editor Ronald L. Jackson II explores constitutive aspects of African American communication behaviors as they relate to how African Americans define themselves culturally. Readers benefit from a plethora of research on African Americans related to almost every area of communication inquiry, including theory and identity; language, performance, and rhetoric; interpersonal relationships; gendered contexts; organizational and instructional contexts; and mass mediated contexts. Endowing the field with an intellectual legacy of issues, challenges, needs, and paradigms, African American Communication and Identities is ideal for undergraduate and graduate students in Communication Studies and African American Studies courses. This volume is also an excellent reader for advanced courses in intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication, race relations, and interethnic communication.

Now in its third edition, this text examines how African Americans personally and culturally define themselves and how that definition informs their communication habits, practices, and norms. This edition includes new chapters that highlight discussions of gender and sexuality, intersectional differences, contemporary social movements, and digital and mediated communication. The book is ideally suited for advanced students and scholars in intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, communication theory, African American/Black studies, gender studies, and family studies.

The International History of Communication Study maps the growth of media and communication studies around the world. Drawing out transnational flows of ideas, institutions, publications, and people, it offers the most comprehensive picture to date of the global history of communication research and education. This volume reaches into national and regional areas that have not received much attention in the scholarship until now, including Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East alongside Europe and North America. It also covers communication study outside of academic settings: in international organizations like UNESCO, and among commercial and civic groups. It moves beyond the traditional canon to cover work by forgotten figures, including women scholars in the field and those outside of the United States and Europe, and it situates them all within the broader geopolitical, institutional, and intellectual landscapes that have shaped communication study globally. Intended for scholars and graduate students in communication, media studies, and journalism, this volume pushes the history of communication study in new directions by taking an aggressively international and comparative perspective on the historiography of the field. Methodologically and conceptually, the volume breaks new ground in bringing comparative, transnational, and global frames to bear, and puts under the spotlight what has heretofore only lingered in the penumbra of the history of communication study.

The development of communication studies has been a lively process of adoption and integration of theoretical constructs from Pragmatism, Critical Theory and Cultural Studies. Critical Communication Studies describes the intellectual and professional forces that have shaped research interests and formed alliances in the pursuit of particular goals. Hanno Hardt reflects on the need to come to terms with the role of history in academic work and locates the intellectual history within the context of competing social theories. The book provides a substantive foundation for understanding the field and will be a major text in all courses dealing with communication history and theory.

Communication research is evolving and changing in a world of online journals, open-access, and new ways of obtaining data and conducting experiments via the Internet. Although there are generic encyclopedias describing basic social science research methodologies in general, until now there has been no comprehensive A-to-Z reference work exploring methods specific to communication and media studies. Our entries, authored by key figures in the field, focus on special considerations when applied specifically to communication research, accompanied by engaging examples from the literature of communication, journalism, and media studies. Entries cover every step of the research process, from the creative development of research topics and questions to literature reviews, selection of best methods (whether quantitative, qualitative, or mixed) for analyzing research results and publishing research findings, whether in traditional media or via new media outlets. In addition to expected entries covering the basics of theories and methods traditionally used in communication research, other entries discuss important trends influencing the future of that research, including contemporary practical issues students will face in communication professions, the influences of globalization on research, use of new recording technologies in fieldwork, and the challenges and opportunities related to studying online multi-media environments. Email, texting, cellphone video, and blogging are shown not only as topics of research but also as means of collecting and analyzing data. Still other entries delve into considerations of accountability, copyright, confidentiality, data ownership and security, privacy, and other aspects of conducting an ethical research program. Features: 652 signed entries are contained in an authoritative work spanning four volumes available in choice of electronic or print formats. Although organized A-to-Z, front matter includes a Reader’s Guide grouping entries thematically to help students interested in a specific aspect of communication research to more easily locate directly related entries. Back matter includes a Chronology of the development of the field of communication research; a Resource Guide to classic books, journals, and associations; a Glossary introducing the terminology of the field; and a detailed Index. Entries conclude with References/Further Readings and Cross-References to related entries to guide students further in their research journeys. The Index, Reader’s Guide themes, and Cross-References combine to provide robust search-and-browse in the e-version.