Political Communication

Engineering Visions of Order in the Socialist World

Edited by Sarah Sanderson King & Donald P. Cushman

Subjects: Social Psychology
Series: SUNY series, Human Communication Processes
Paperback : 9780791412022, 212 pages, January 1993
Hardcover : 9780791412015, 212 pages, January 1993

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Table of contents

Preface

Contributors

PART I. INTRODUCTION

1. The Role of Communication in Engineering Political, Economic, and Social Institutions
Sarah S. King and Donald P. Cushman

PART II. NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON COMMUNICATION AND CHANGE

2. The Rhetoric of Circumstance: The Case of Poland, 1980-1990
Rowland Baughman and Andrjez Kozminski

3. Yugoslavia: Ethnic Dramas Without Denouement
Branislav Kovacic and Bozidar Travica

4. Communication and Power: A Short History of the Armenian National Movement
Lucig H. Danielian

5. Communication in the Failed Student Movement
Guo-Ping Fei and Xu Yu

PART III. IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNICATION AND RHETORIC

6. The Role of Mass Communication Processes in Producing Upheavals in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China
Robert E. Sanders

7. The Communication of Cultural Memory and the Reconstitution of Society
Gerard A. Hauser

8. Visions of Order in Poland, Yugoslavia, Armenia, and China
Donald P. Cushman and Sarah S. King

Description

Using the theatric metaphors of a passion play in Poland, simultaneous ethnic dramas in Yugoslavia, a heroic poem in Armenia, and a bunraku puppet play in the People's Republic of China, the authors of this book chronicle the massive confrontation by citizens through the Socialist Block with their communist governments in 1990-91. These historic and dynamic communication processes are analyzed and placed in theoretic perspective by three communication scholars from a political, rhetorical, and strategic interaction perspective.

Sarah Sanderson King is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Central Connecticut State University. She is the author of Human Communication as a Field of Study: Selected Contemporary Views, published by SUNY Press; Effective Communication Skills: An Interactional Approach; and Effective Communication: Theory into Action. Donald P. Cushman is Professor of Communication at the State University of New York at Albany. He has co-authored or edited three books including Organizational Communication: Issues, Problems, and Trends; Communication in Interpersonal Relationships, published by SUNY Press, and Message-Attitude-Behavior Relationships.

Reviews

"This book has a unique communication drama analysis which provides insight into complex political/economic/social changes in an important area of the world. The events happening now in communist countries would rank among the most significant changes of this century, and will have implications far into the next century as well. The book will prove of interest to scholars and students in many disciplines, including such diverse disciplines as communication, political science, and history, not to mention practitioners in politics, international business, and world trade. The analyses show both a careful attention to detail combined with an interpretive insight that is astute if not brilliant. " — Richard J. Dieker, Western Michigan University