A superb historical analysis of the philosophical and technological forces that led to the development of communication genres and processes in the modern American corporation.

Communication and Control: Tools, Systems, and New Dimensions advocates a systems view of human communication in a time of intelligent, learning machines. This edited collection sheds new light on things as mundane yet still profoundly consequential (and seemingly “low-tech”) as push buttons, pagers, and telemarketing systems. Contributors also investigate aspects of “remote control” related to education, organizational design, artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, drones, and even binge-watching on Netflix. In line with a systems view, the collection takes up a media ecological view. This work will be of interest to students, scholars, and researchers in communication, new media, and technology.

Tracing the development of communication markets and the regulation of international communications from the 1840s through World War I, Jill Hills examines the political, technological, and economic forces at work during the formative century of global communication. Hills analyzes power relations within the arena of global communications from the inception of the telegraph through the successive technologies of submarine telegraph cables, ship-to-shore wireless, broadcast radio, shortwave wireless, the telephone, and movies with sound. As she shows, global communication began to overtake transportation as an economic, political, and social force after the inception of the telegraph, which shifted communications from national to international. From that point on, information was a commodity and ownership of the communications infrastructure became valuable as the means of distributing information. The struggle for control of that infrastructure occurred in part because British control of communications hindered the growing economic power of the United States. Hills outlines the technological advancements and regulations that allowed the United States to challenge British hegemony and enter the global communications market. She demonstrates that control of global communication was part of a complex web of relations between and within the government and corporations of Britain and the United States. Detailing the interplay between American federal regulation and economic power, Hills shows how these forces shaped communications technologies and illuminates the contemporary systems of power in global communications.

What's the most common family form today? In what ways can we define "family" that ensure it is inclusive of all family forms? Despite the current diverse nature of family forms, which functions are fulfilled by the family regardless of its makeup> In what ways do family members function to nurture and control each other through their changing roles and rules to maintain their family identity? Family Communication examines the role communication plays in family development and maintenance--from a consideration of what constitutes a "family" (according to various governmental, religious, and social science orientations), to the initiation of dating relationships and romantic commitment, to adding and raising socio-emotionally competent children. Also explored are the roles that communication plays in maintaining intimacy and closeness in the family and in managing family conflicts and tensions. In addition, unique emphasis is given to how cognitions and emotions influence communication outcomes in the family. Despite the diversity of family forms today, families all share one thing in common--they all include some form of nurturing and control: support and development and behavior control and limitations; nurturing communication to encourage intimacy development and maintenance and controlling communication to resolve conflict and change undesirable behavior. By organizing the study of family communication around the concepts of nurturing and control, author Beth Le Poire emphasizes the central role that communication plays in both families if origin and newly formed families.

A classic and influential work that laid the theoretical foundations for information theory and a timely text for contemporary informations theorists and practitioners. With the influential book Cybernetics, first published in 1948, Norbert Wiener laid the theoretical foundations for the multidisciplinary field of cybernetics, the study of controlling the flow of information in systems with feedback loops, be they biological, mechanical, cognitive, or social. At the core of Wiener's theory is the message (information), sent and responded to (feedback); the functionality of a machine, organism, or society depends on the quality of messages. Information corrupted by noise prevents homeostasis, or equilibrium. And yet Cybernetics is as philosophical as it is technical, with the first chapter devoted to Newtonian and Bergsonian time and the philosophical mixed with the technical throughout. This book brings the 1961 second edition back into print, with new forewords by Doug Hill and Sanjoy Mitter. Contemporary readers of Cybernetics will marvel at Wiener's prescience—his warnings against “noise,” his disdain for “hucksters” and “gadget worshipers,” and his view of the mass media as the single greatest anti-homeostatic force in society. This edition of Cybernetics gives a new generation access to a classic text.

In the belief that power is something that is negotiated by participants in the instructional process and with the goal of understanding how communication and power interact, this book looks at power and instruction in many different ways. Drawing from the lessons of the social sciences generally, it examines research that has been conducted by instructional communication specialists, looks at newer approaches to power, presents a status report on what is now known, and points to the divergent directions that offer opportunities for future scholarship.

Communication Management is an edited volume of chapters written by scholars researching various areas of marketing and management sciences. It presents several issues of marketing management within the limits of marketing communication. Starting from the issue of communication channels and basic sensory apparatus for processing information and stimuli, the book continues with a description of the issue of social media in the time of accelerated digitization. The last chapter introduces the reader to the issue of marketing communication in a sharply non-standard environment. The topic itself creates the opportunity to seek qualitative knowledge for future in-depth research into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on both national and transnational economies.