referencebooks (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} referencebooks) wrote,@ 2006-06-01 14:00:00 |
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| Entry tags: | communication, information science, library science, media |
Encyclopedia of Communication and Information
Encyclopedia of Communication and Information
Edited by Jorge Reina Schement
Published by Macmillan Reference, 2001
This encyclopedia is in three 8.5" by 11" volumes and runs to a total of 1161 pages including the lengthy index, plus a preferatory section. The book is printed in larger type.
Like most other Macmillan reference books, this is a useful and fairly comprehensive but less than heavyweight work intended for a wide audience of students and researchers. Communication Studies, Media Studies, and Information Studies are the domains covered by this interdisciplinary work. Twenty different academic disciplines and professions are mentioned in the preface as being related to the subject of the encyclopedia.
This encyclopedia has 280 entries in an alphabetical arrangement. The preface identifies eight categories into which these entries fall. They are:
- Careers (e.g. journalist, librarian, publicist)
- Information science (e.g. human-computer interaction, information storage and retrieval)
- Information technologies (e.g. broadband, the Internet, radio)
- Literacy (e.g. computer literacy, media literacy)
- Institutional studies (e.g. elections, information society, law, media history)
- Interpersonal communication (e.g. groups, relationships, rhetoric)
- Library science (e.g. cataloging, text-based literacy)
- Media effects (e.g. advertising, opinion formation)
For a better idea of what's covered, here is the full list of entries in the "M" sequence, which has more entries than most of the alphabetic sequences:
- Machlup, Fritz
- Magazine Industry
- Magazine Industry, Careers in
- Magazine Industry, History of
- Magazine Industry, Production Process of
- Management Information Systems
- Marconi, Guglielmo
- Marketing Research, Careers in
- McLuhan, Herbert Marshall
- Mead, George Herbert
- Méliès, George
- Mills, C. Wright
- Minorities and the Media
- Models of Communication
- Mood Effects and Media Exposure
- Moore, Anne Carroll
- Morse, Samuel F. B.
- Murrow, Edward R.
- Museums
- Music, Popular
Entries are typically a couple of pages in length. The writing is clear but not as in-depth as one might like.
It is interesting to see a reference book that brings together these disciplines (media and communication studies, information studies) in this way. My feeling is that it is such a broad domain covering so much knowledge that either a much bigger encyclopedia (in the range of ten volumes or more) or a more narrowly focused encyclopedia is really in order. The problem with this one is that it gives noticeably shallow coverage in attempting to serve people in a number of disciplines. In bringing this information together in place, though, it does make an interesting argument for a disciplinary grouping of knowledge.
This is an interesting reference book but not as useful as it ought to be on account of its relative lack of depth.
