About the Editor
A Message from the Editor
"The publication of an encyclopedia is always an indicator that an academic field has reached a certain degree of maturity. The field and discipline of communication has been at this stage for a long while, and it has become time to summarize the vast body of scientific evidence for an international audience of students and practitioners. This product of an international network of scholars is also an indicator of the momentum that the field of communication has.
The International Encyclopedia of Communication is a project that has been developed by the International Communication Association (ICA) and Blackwell Publishing (in the meantime becoming Wiley-Blackwell), the publisher of most ICA journals and an ICA book series. Thus, the identity of ICA as the biggest international association in the field of communication has influenced the identity and content of this publication. As one can see in 1339 entries this identity is not a single and clearly defined one, but composed of a patchwork of subjects, theories and methodological approaches. This plurality within ICA finds its prolongation in the scope of these 11 volumes (plus one reference volume).
Of course, there will be many readers of this encyclopedia who - despite the volume of this project - do not find what they are looking for, or who find it written from a different perspective than the one they had expected. We anticipate this criticism and we are looking forward to it in order to improve the next editions in print and online. For now, this is what more than 1,000 scholars worldwide present as the best theories and methods and as the most relevant results in this fascinating and socially crucial field of communication.
As general editor I express my deep gratitude to all these colleagues who have in many different roles contributed to it. We did and we do our best to demonstrate to how much good communication research is in the public interest of all people. We hope that these volumes will help to spread our approaches and our evidence throughout the world and in many different spheres of society."
Wolfgang Donsbach, General Editor
Wolfgang Donsbach is Professor of Communication and founding director of the Department of Communication at Dresden University of Technology, Germany.
He received his PhD and his postdoctoral dissertation at the University of Mainz. Prior to his current position he taught at the universities of Dortmund, Mainz, and Berlin. 1989/90 he was a fellow at the Gannett Center for Media Studies, Columbia University, New York, 1999 Lombard Visiting Professor at Harvard University. From 1995 to 1996 he was president of the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) and from 2004 to 2005 president of the International Communication Association (ICA).
Donsbach is managing editor of the International Journal of Public Opinion Research and serves on the editorial boards of Communication Theory, Political Communication, The Harvard International Journal Press/Politics, JAVNOST The Public, and Communication. His main research interests are in journalism, political communication, and exposure to communication. He has published or edited 13 books and over 100 articles in academic journals.