Communication as .: Perspectives on Theory

What does it mean to argue that communication is organizing? Or ritual? Or failure? What is at stake in choosing one metaphor or stance over another? What is gained and what is lost - for the field, for the theories themselves, and especially for humans communicating in everyday contexts? In Communication as...: Perspectives on Theory, editors Gregory J. Shepherd, Jeffrey St. John, and Ted Striphas bring together a collection of 27 essays that explores the wide range of theorizing about communication, cutting across all lines of traditional division in the field.

The essays in this text are written by leading scholars in the field of communication theory, with each scholar employing a particular stance or perspective on what communication theory is and how it functions. In essays that are brief, argumentative, and forceful, the scholars propose their perspective as a primary or essential way of viewing communication with decided benefits over other views.
 
Key Features:

• Compares and contrasts different metaphorical views on the theory and practice of communication, challenging students to develop their own argument about communication theory
• Promotes an alternative way of examining communication problems - through the engaged interplay of a diversity of positions - encouraging readers to think through contemporary problems and questions in the field
• Compels readers to confront competing theoretical positions and their consequences head-on rather than outlining theories in ways that might separate them from their real-world consequences

Communication as... is an excellent textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on communication theory in the fields of Communication, Journalism, Sociology, and Psychology.

 

Jeffrey St. John (Ph.D., University of Washington) is Assistant Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University. His published work includes essays on legal argument, critical rhetoric, the construction of self at sites of public controversy, and the reception of contested terms- including "tolerance" and "civility"- in public culture. He teaches undergraduate courses in public advocacy, free speech, communication theory, and political rhetoric, and graduate courses in communication theory and public deliberation. His current research projects include a mapping of the rhetorical geography of "moral values" voting patterns (with his colleague Jerry Miller) and a study of mimesis and public memory in contemporary fiction.

Gregory J. Shepherd (Ph.D., University of Illinois) is Professor and Dean of the School of Communication at the University of Miami.  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.

Ted Striphas (Ph.D., University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, 2002) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Culture, Indiana University.  His primary research interests include media historiography, cultural studies, Marxism, and communication theory.  At present he is at work on a cultural history of the U.S. book industry tentatively entitled, Equipment for Living: Everyday Book Culture in the Making.  He also is co-editor (with Kembrew McLeod) of a forthcoming special issue of the journal Cultural Studies on the politics of intellectual properties.  His work has appeared in, among other places, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Cultural Studies, The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, Social Epistemology, and Television and New Media. He is a 2004 recipient of the Gerald R. Miller Outstanding Dissertation Award from the National Communication Association.