Countersignatures in Communication Pedagogy

Communication is a broad field that goes by various names, including communication studies and media and communications. Work in this field seeks to understand the multiple relations between communication and social and cultural life. It explores written and spoken communication, print, audio and visual media, and digital technologies, including the Internet and mobile communications. As technology changes, so do the roles that media play. As McQuail remarks (2010), 'forms of communication infuse activities of leisure, work, conversation, and lifestyle' (p. 4). Mass media such as film, television, and the press provide important means of 'cultural representation and expression,' defining social realities and influencing modern formations of personal and cultural identity (p. 4) and significantly shaping the nature of political discourse. Media and communications also have important economic dimensions. (For instance, the film and television industries require structures of funding, production, and distribution, which in turn affect patterns of screen form and content.) As McQuail suggests, many topics arise in the communications field, which no 'single set of methods' can handle (p. 5). Thus, communication is a multidisciplinary area of study, in which varying approaches-different media, culture, politics, economics, and others-interact. This chapter will outline theoretical developments in this field, highlighting values and ways of thinking that scholars share across these approaches.