Books by "Stephen W. Littlejohn"
3 books found
Theories of Human Communication
by Stephen W. Littlejohn, Karen A. Foss, John G. Oetzel
2021 · Waveland Press
For over forty years, Theories of Human Communication has facilitated the understanding of the theories that define the discipline of communication. The authors present a comprehensive summary of major communication theories, current research, extensions, and applications in a thoughtfully organized and engaging style. Part I of the extensively updated twelfth edition sets the stage for how to think about and study communication. The first chapter establishes the foundations of communication theory. The next chapter reviews four frameworks for organizing the theories and their contributions to the nature of inquiry. Part II covers theories centered around the communicator, message, medium, and communication with the nonhuman. Part III addresses theories related to communication contexts—relationship, group, organization, health, culture, and society. “From the Source” contributions from theorists provide insight into the inspirations, motivations, and goals behind the theories. Online instructor’s resource materials include sample syllabi, key terms, exam questions, and text graphics. The theories include those important for their continuing influence in the field as well as emerging theories that encourage thinking about issues in new ways. For a reasonable price, readers are able to explore the patterns, trends, trajectories, and intricacies of the landscape of communication theory and will have an invaluable resource for future reference.
Moral Conflict, the subject of this book is passionate and difficult to resolve. Responses that are normally effective such as explaining, persuading, and compromising can make matters worse and drive people further apart in such conflicts. Moral conflicts occur when incommensurate social realities come to clash. Disputes about abortion, religion in politics and education, legal rights for homosexuals, and environmental politics are issues in which well-intentioned parties have created polarized and diverse patterns of communication. The most virtuous actions of each side not only fail, but widen the schism. Such conflicts require us to find forms of communication that go beyond our normal ways of dealing with disagreement. In an original synthesis of communication theory and their own research, W. Barnett Pearce and Stephen W. Littlejohn describe a dialectical tension between the expression and suppression of conflict that can be transcended in ways that lead to personal growth and productive patterns of social action. In Moral Conflict several projects are described as practical examples of these new ways of working through difficult struggles.