With more than 300 entries, these two volumes provide a one-stop source for a comprehensive overview of communication theory, offering current descriptions of theories as well as the background issues and concepts that comprise these theories. This is the first resource to summarize, in one place, the diversity of theory in the communication field. Key themes include: Applications and contexts; Critical orientations; Cultural orientations; Cybernetic and systems orientations; Feminist orientations; Group and organizational concepts; Information, media, and communication technology; International and global concepts; Interpersonal concepts; Non-Western orientations; Paradigms, traditions, and schools; Philosophical orientations; Psycho-cognitive orientations; Rhetorical orientations; Semiotic, linguistic, and discursive orientations; Social/interactional orientations; Theory, metatheory, methodology, and inquiry. - Publisher.