This book draws on scholarship that in theoretical and practical terms focuses on the centrality of communication as a scholarly pursuit, as an intellectual enterprise and as a pervasive element of everyday life. The authors examine the history and present contours of the field, bringing new insight and clarity into the role communication plays in academic and scholarship.

This book draws on scholarship that in theoretical and practical terms focuses on the centrality of communication as a scholarly pursuit, as an intellectual enterprise and as an pervasive element of everyday life. The authors herein examine the history and present contours of the field, bringing new insight and clarity into the role communication plays in academic and scholarship. They engage in research that foregrounds communication not only teleologically but also ontologically. The chapters engage social, political, environmental and other issues with theoretical sophistication and methodological innovation. In so doing the authors have focused on critical challenges and issues and that communications is ideally positioned to examine, critique and illuminate. The work represented serves as a thought-provoking guide to the past, present and future of the field of communication.