Encyclopedia of Communication Theory

Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of Communication Theory provides students and researchers with a comprehensive two-volume overview of contemporary communication theory. Reference librarians report that students frequently approach them seeking a source that will provide them with a quick overview of a particular theory or theorist - just enough to help them grasp the general concept or theory and its relation to the discipline as a whole. Communication scholars and teachers also occasionally need a quick reference for theories. Edited by the co-authors of the best-selling textbook on communication theory and drawing on the expertise of an advisory board of 10 international scholars and nearly 200 contributors from 10 countries, this work finally provides such a resource. More than 300 entries address topics related not only to paradigms, traditions, and schools, but also metatheory, methodology, inquiry, and applications and contexts. Entries cover several orientations, including psycho-cognitive; social-interactional; cybernetic and systems; cultural; critical; feminist; philosophical; rhetorical; semiotic, linguistic, and discursive; and non-Western. Concepts relate to interpersonal communication, groups and organizations, and media and mass communication. In sum, this encyclopedia offers the student of communication a sense of the history, development, and current status of the discipline, with an emphasis on the theories that comprise it.