"Love and Communication marks yet another chapter in Paddy Scannell's searching and brilliant investigations of media, communication, and everyday life. Working through ideas about language and talk, Scannell provides a fascinating account of what restores our trust in the goodness of daily, everyday life: faith, hope, and love. For a new generation of media scholars grappling with a digital world on edge, this book is an indispensable guide."Aswin Punathambekar, University of Virginia"This rare and special book is the synthesis of a career considering the most fundamental issues of communication. It brings together talk and communication, language and writing, radio and television, along with three worlds: God's world of yesterday, the human world of today, and the machine world of tomorrow."John Durham Peters, Yale University"Paddy Scannell's new thought-provoking book is a sort of intellectual and scholarly testament...this profound study is a great deal more than merely a summary of a prominent communications scholar's research and reflections. He also feels forced to explore hitherto largely ignored territory."VoegelinView
IntroductionPart OneTalk and communicationWriting and languageChapter One The Still Face ExperimentChapter Two Talk and writingChapter Three The wonder of the worldPart TwoMiraclesChapter Four Heidegger's teacupChapter Five MiraclesChapter Six Love and communicationReferences
Paddy Scannell is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan.