LSC CPSU (UNIV OF ARIZONA) Boxing Plato's Shadow: An Introduction to the Study of Human Communication

by Dues, Michael; Brown, Mary

• ISBN13: 9780072508611
• ISBN10: 0072508612
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-09-03
• Publisher: Learning Solutions

Summary

Designed to introduce students to the academic discipline of Communication, this brief, supplementary text describes the scope and methods of Communication Study, and sketches its history from the work of the early sophists to contemporary research efforts. The authors address the subject inclusively, arguing that Communication Study is a sound social science, a humanity, and a practical art. Discussions of methods are balanced, including quantitative and qualitative social science, and modern and postmodern critical approaches. The book helps explain why, despite its long and venerable history of scholarly endeavor, Communication continues to struggle for recognition of its legitimate place in the academy. Throughout, the authors emphasize the field's durability over more than two millennia and the merits of multiple systematic approaches to the study of communication.This book serves well in introductory Communication courses, and (as an overview) in methodology courses, and may also be useful for beginning graduate students as an orientation to the discipline.

Table of Contents

Foreword to Instructors

Note to the Students

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Beginning of Communication Study

A Market for Communication Knowledge and Skill

The Sophists

Plato's Shadow

Aristotle's Resolution

Boxing Plato's Shadow

Contributions of Plato and Socrates to the Study of Communication

Chapter 2 Communication Study from Aristotle's Time to the 20th Century

Rhetoric in Egypt and Rome

Rhetoric in Christian Europe

New Relevance for Rhetoric in England and the New World

Elocution

A Changing Academic World and the Birth of a New Discipline

Chapter 3 Humanistic Study of Communication in the 20th Century

Rhetorical Scholarship and the Practical Art of Speech

Rhetorical Theory Evolves

Hermeneutics and Postmodernism in Rhetorical Scholarship

Chapter 4 The Emerging Social Science of Communication Study

Social Science

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Social Science

Summary: The Nature of Social Science

Foundations of Social Science and Communication Study in the 19th Century

Early Scientific Study of Communications: 1920s to 1940s

Communication Research and World War II

The Growth of Communication Science after the War

Integrating Speech and Communication Study

Recent Trends in Communication Study

Chapter 5 Communication Study Today

The Value of Different Approaches

Challenges Facing Social Science

Challenges Facing Humanist Scholars

Areas of Specialization in Communication Research

Communication Study as Interdisciplinary Scholarship

Enduring Issues Confronting our Field

Communication Study and You