Distinctive Qualities in Communication Research

ISBN-13: 9780415990264 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 120 str.

Donal Carbaugh;Patrice M. Buzzanell

Opis

This timely volume provides an in-depth look at why the field of communication is so central in initiatives for social impact around the world. In Distinctive Qualities in Communication Research, editors Donal Carbaugh and Patrice M. Buzzanell bring together scholars with varied and productive approaches to communication to address the question of what distinguishes communication research from similar studies in other disciplines. Each contributor responds to the question: "What makes your research communication research? How does your program of inquiry treat communication not simply as data, but as its primary theoretical concern?" Their responses are the heart of this book. The questions addressed and answered herein define the qualities that set research in communication apart from work in related fields, such as social psychology, linguistics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. The book begins and ends by looking across these studies generally, bringing into view not only the specific possibilities in the study of communication today, but also what such study contributes generally to understanding human problems, social relations, and communities. This volume provides an invaluable resource for graduate students beginning their study in communication; academics needing to define the distinctive contributions that communication research makes; and administrators who want to understand the scope and breadth of work in communication. It provides an invaluable resource for defining the role of communication research in the academic community and the contributions it makes to the study of human interaction.

Recenzje

Robert Craig, Colorado: "This volume brings together several of the top people in the field of communication, along with several administrator and funding agency commentators, to reflect on the field’s distinctive qualities. The description suggests a well organized volume, and the uniformly high stature of the authors suggests it will be a substantive volume at a general level (given its relatively short length). It is certainly relevant to the discipline, offering several ways of answering the endlessly repeated "What is communication (studies)?" question. The idea of a short, high quality book that we could recommend to administrators as well as colleagues and students curious about the field is attractive."