What are the relationships between news media and public relations? What happens when a negative event seems to destroy many years of corporation's good reputation? Is credibility really a transferable value? Are public relation activities social and intangible issues? How to use media management and public relations to reverse a corporate and/or personal image tarnished by the media? What is the "mud machine" in political communication and how to contrast it? How to measure and evaluate communication quality? What is the AVE method? Many and apparently different questions, concerning several topics. But all framed in a fundamental question: Is it possible to assess communication? And how? This book tries to give some answers, presenting theoretical approaches, methodologies and case histories coming from public relations, media studies, political communication. An innovative approach to important but still poorly analysed issues in Communication Studies.