Communications

There is much debate about the origins and history of the field of Communications. While many researchers point to a rhetorical origin in ancient Greece, others suggest the field is much newer, developing from psychology and propaganda studies of the 1940s. The discipline includes scholars exploring subtopics such as political communication, media effects, and organizational relationships. The field generally uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches, as well as developing a variety of mixed-methods techniques to understand social phenomena.

Russell W. Burns argues that the field of Communications developed from a need to explore the ways in which media influenced people to behave, support, or believe in a certain idea. Much of Communication studies investigates the idea of media and texts, such as newspaper discourses, social media messages, or radio transcripts. As the field has developed, it has investigated new technologies and media, including those still in their...