This textbook examines the Internet as a communication system - the single most pervasive, involving, and global communication system ever created by human beings, with a host of political, economic, cognitive, and sociocultural implications. The Internet crosses all cultural boundaries and is the fastest growing global communication system ever witnessed. The text explores the ways in which the technology of the Internet, beyond its specific content, possesses its own message-generating capabilities that dramatically and decisively affect its users. Focusing on the power of media theories, the text explains, describes, interprets, and evaluates the Internet in insightful, useful, and thoughtful ways. The concepts, processes, functions, and outcomes of the Internet as a global communication technology are used as a way of testing the validity and reliability of media theories, and media theories are used as a way of identifying the powers and limitations of the Internet as a communication system. An overview of the Internet's past and anticipated future is provided

This textbook examines the Internet as a communication system - the single most pervasive, involving, and global communication system ever created by human beings, with a host of political, economic, cognitive, and sociocultural implications. The Internet crosses all cultural boundaries and is the fastest growing global communication system ever witnessed. The text explores the ways in which the technology of the Internet, beyond its specific content, possesses its own message-generating capabilities that dramatically and decisively affect its users. Focusing on the power of media theories, the text explains, describes, interprets, and evaluates the Internet in insightful, useful, and thoughtful ways. The concepts, processes, functions, and outcomes of the Internet as a global communication technology are used as a way of testing the validity and reliability of media theories, and media theories are used as a way of identifying the powers and limitations of the Internet as a communication system. An overview of the Internet's past and anticipated future is provided

Teaching communication criticism is an art, an aesthetic performance, a skill, and a practice that must be adapted to the specific and unique personalities of the students within a classroom. In publication for over four decades, Introduction to Communication Criticism: Methods, Systems Analysis, and Societal Transformations explores the degree to which methods of communication criticism can be used to enhance the conceptual power and understandings of students, motivates them to explore the nature of symbol-using on their own, and presents how they can improve their critical communication and symbol-using skills. No longer an anthology of readings, the new edition of Introduction to Communication Criticism is a full-featured textbook. This metamorphosis of delivery and content includes student friendly pedagogical features such as Chapter objectives, key terms, exercises, and more. Featuring new authors James W. Chesebro, David T. McMahan, and Dale A. Bertelsen, Introduction to Communication Criticism: Presents the basic vocabulary and principles of communication criticism. Discusses three orientations (Communication methods, societal transformations, and communication systems) to communication criticism. Examines the role of communication technologies as a relatively new mode of criticism and speculates about the future of communication criticism.