Communication and Community

This text addresses the intricacies of the relationship between the complex terms of communication and community by bringing together both new and established voices from across the areas of communication studies to offer analyses of communication and community in diverse contexts. Taken together, the chapters offer a broad examination of the dynamics of communication and community which are often identified but are rarely theorized adequately. Because the relationship between communication and community is both powerful and subtle, many participants in the volume have ventured beyond their particular areas of specialty to consider fundamental questions: 1) What is community, and how has its accomplishment come to be considered problematic? 2) Why is community a current focus of attention? 3) What role does communication play in the construction, maintenance and destabilization of community? The volume is organized into two major sections devoted to interpersonal relations, organizations and community, and to media, the public and community. This division replicates conventional thinking, following apparent distinctions between interpersonal and mediated, micro and macro, and between the issues of communal relations and of geographical communities. The editor's intent is to show, however, that communication and community cannot be adequately analyzed in any context without reference to other contexts, other levels of analysis, and other media and modes of communication.