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.