Communication and Community (Routledge Communication Series) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080583138X ISBN 13: 9780805831382

Publisher: Routledge, 2000

Synopsis

This distinctive volume combines synthetic theoretical essays and reports of original research to address the interrelations of communication and community in a wide variety of settings. Chapters address interpersonal conversation and communal relationships; journalism organizations and political reporting; media use and community participation; communication styles and alternative organizations; and computer networks and community building; among other topics. The contents offer synthetic literature reviews, philosophical essays, reports of original research, theory development, and criticism. While varying in theoretical perspective and research focus, each of the chapters also provides its own approach to the practice of communication and community. In this way, the book provides a recurrent thematic emphasis on the pragmatic consequences of theory and research for the activities of communication and living together in communities.

Taken as a whole, this collection illustrates that communication and community cannot be adequately analyzed in any context without considering other contexts, other levels of analysis, and other media and modes of communication. As such, it provides important insights for scholars, students, educators, and researchers concerned with communication across the full range of contexts, media, and modes.

About this title

About the Author:

Gregory J. Shepherd (Ph.D., University of Illinois) is Professor and Dean of the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University. His primary scholarly interests are in communication theory and American pragmatism. He is a winner of the Central States Communication Association Outstanding Young Teacher Award, as well as a W. T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. He is co-editor (with Eric Rothenbuhler) of Communication and Community (2001, LEA), and in addition to chapters in various edited volumes, his work has appeared in Communication Monographs, Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Communication Yearbook, Communication Studies, Southern Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journal of Social Psychology, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Research and Development in Education, and other scholarly publications.

Eric W. Rothenbuhler is Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University. He was previously Director of Graduate Media Studies at New School University (2001-04) and on the faculty of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa (1985-2001). At Iowa he was an affiliated faculty member with American Studies and faculty advisor to the student radio station, KRUI, 89.7 FM, where he also had a weekly radio show on the history of rhythm and blues. He earned his doctorate at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California in 1985 and the BA and MA from Ohio State University. He has been a visiting faculty member at the University of Kansas (twice), Scholar in Residence at the Center for Advanced Study in Telecommunication at Ohio State University, and has participated in doctoral workshops and teaching seminars at the Universities of Dortmund, Ljubljana, and Oslo.

Rothenbuhler s research and teaching address communication systems, ranging from ritual through community to media industries. His dissertation research on the living room celebration of the 1984 Olympic Games provided the first statistically representative evidence for television audience behavior and attitudes consistent with the theory of media events. This work was published in Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, and other outlets. His work on decision-making processes and industrial market structures in the radio and music businesses, in a series of articles beginning in 1982 in Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Media, Culture, and Society, and several books, is also widely cited. This work continues with research on American radio in the 1950s in collaboration with Tom McCourt, including an article in The Radio Journal and a forthcoming book manuscript. His essay Symbolic disorder and repair after witnessing 9/11 is being translated and published in France, as was an earlier essay with John Peters, The reality of construction. Part of his work on the posthumous career and reputation of the American blues musician Robert Johnson is forthcoming in a book chapter called The strange career of Robert Johnson s records.

Rothenbuhler is the author of Ritual communication: From everyday conversation to mediated ceremony (1988, Sage), which has been translated to Polish (2004), and co-editor (with Greg Shepherd) of Communication and Community (2001, LEA). He was Review and Criticism Editor for the Journal of Communication (1997-99) and author or co-author of over 50 articles, chapters, essays, or reviews on media, ritual, community, media industries, popular music, and communication theory.

Synopsis:

This text addresses the intricacies of the relationship between the complex terms of communication and community by bringing together both new and established voices from across the areas of communication studies to offer analyses of communication and community in diverse contexts. Taken together, the chapters offer a broad examination of the dynamics of communication and community which are often identified but are rarely theorized adequately. Because the relationship between communication and community is both powerful and subtle, many participants in the volume have ventured beyond their particular areas of specialty to consider fundamental questions: 1) What is community, and how has its accomplishment come to be considered problematic? 2) Why is community a current focus of attention? 3) What role does communication play in the construction, maintenance and destabilization of community? The volume is organized into two major sections devoted to interpersonal relations, organizations and community, and to media, the public and community.

This division replicates conventional thinking, following apparent distinctions between interpersonal and mediated, micro and macro, and between the issues of communal relations and of geographical communities. The editor's intent is to show, however, that communication and community cannot be adequately analyzed in any context without reference to other contexts, other levels of analysis, and other media and modes of communication.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 080583138X
• ISBN 13: 9780805831382
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 306
• Editor: Shepherd Gregory J., Rothenbuhler Eric W.