Dialogue: Theorizing Difference in Communication Studies

Dialogue: Theorizing Difference in Communication Studies is the first anthology of work on dialogic approaches to communication that offers a state-of-the-art collection of original essays in this emerging research area. Editors Rob Anderson, Leslie A. Baxter, and Kenneth N. Cissna have gathered the most respected scholars in the field to describe their research projects, discuss critical elements of dialogue, and anticipate the evolution of the study of dialogue. With a foreword by Julia T. Wood, contributors include James R. Taylor, Stanley Deetz and Jennifer Simpson, Sheila Mc Namee and John Shotter, and Mark Mc Phail.

Sixteen original essays from leading North American academics describe recent research on dialogic approaches to the study of communication. Contributions in the first section trace the intellectual history of dialogic theory and delineate relationships among dialogic philosophers. Other topics include, for example, a discussion of dialogue as the search for sustainable organizational co-orientation, and an examination of the reasons why dialogic approaches have been neglected in mass media studies. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Rob Anderson, professor of communication and professor of international studies at Saint Louis University, teaches and learns about dialogue in campus settings, interpersonal relationships, and media institutions. His articles on these topics have appeared since 1972 in journals from a variety of disciplines. A vigorous advocate of the dialogue of coauthorship, Rob's ten books include texts in communication theory and interviewing, as well as scholarly studies of public dialogue in contemporary journalism and intellectual history--The Conversation of Journalism (Praeger, 1994), The Reach of Dialogue (Hampton Press, 1994), The Martin Buber-Carl Rogers Dialogue (SUNY, 1997), and Moments of Meeting (SUNY, 2002). He believes the following to be therapeutic: Quiet dinners with Dona, sitting on the porch, watching soccer, Miles Davis on the stereo, and classes that talk back.

Kenneth N. Cissna is professor of communication at the University of South Florida. He is the author (with Rob Anderson) of Moments of Meeting: Buber, Rogers, and the Potential for Public Dialogue (SUNY, 2002) and The Martin Buber-Carl Rogers Dialogue: A New Transcript with Commentary (SUNY, 1997) as well as a monograph on "The Rhetoric of Public Dialogue" in Communication Research Trends (also with Meghan Clune, 2003). His edited book Applied Communication in the 21^st Century (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995) won the Outstanding Book award from the Applied Communication Division of the National Communication Association. He edited the Journal of Applied Communication Research and the Southern CommunicationJournal, and is past president of the Florida Communication Association. Currently, he serves as Vice President Elect of the Southern States Communication Association.

Leslie A. Baxter (Ph.D. & M.S., University of Oregon [doctorate: interpersonal communication and research methodology; master's: mass communication]; B.S., Lewis and Clark College) is considered one of the top research scholars in communication studies, well known for both her qualitative and quantitative work. She is co-editor of SAGE's forthcoming text Dialogue: Theorizing Difference in Communication Studies, co-author of Wadsworth's forthcoming The Basics of Communication Research (with Earl Babbie; which I commissioned her for in 1995), and editor of Erlbaum's Dialectical Approaches to Studying Personal Relationships. Her book Relating: Dialogues and Dialectics won the 1997 G.R. Miller Book Award from NCA. In 2002, she was named the first recipient of the Legacy Theory Award in honor of her relational dialectics theory being "a theory that has left a legacy for the field." She was the president of the Western States Communication Association from 1997-98 and sits or has sat on the following editorial journals boards: Communication Reports; Communication Theory; Journal of Communication; Review of Communication; Journal of Family Communication; Journal of Social and Personal Relationships; Western Journal of Communication; Southern Journal of Communication; Communication Monographs; Human Communication Research; Personal Relationships; Journal of Applied Communication Research; Communication Education.