Synopses & Reviews
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.
Synopsis
This volume addresses communication and its roles in the problems and prospects of community, and is intended for scholars in communiation, cultural studies, and social psychology.
Table of Contents
Community and communication : the conceptual background /David Depew and John Durham Peters --Community as the interpersonal accomplishment of communication /Gregory J. Shepherd --Prosocial bias in theories of interpersonal communication competence : must good communication be nice? /Carey H. Adams --Talking community at 911 : the centrality of communication in coping with emotional labor /Sherianne Shuler --Feminist organizing and the construction of "alternative" community /Karen Lee Ashcraft --Community as a means of organizational control/Loril M. Gossett and Phillip K. Tompkins.