The Handbook of Communication Ethics

The Handbook of Communication Ethics serves as a comprehensive guide to the study of communication and ethics. It brings together analyses and applications based on recognized ethical theories as well as those outside the traditional domain of ethics but which engage important questions of power, equality, and justice. The work herein encourages readers to make important connections between matters of social justice and ethical theory. This volume makes an unparalleled contribution to the literature of communication studies, through consolidating knowledge about the multiple relationships between communication and ethics; by systematically treating areas of application; and by introducing explicit and implicit examinations of communication ethics to one another.

The Handbook takes an international approach, analyzing diverse cultural contexts and comparative assessments. The chapters in this volume cover a wide range of theoretical perspectives on communication and ethics, including feminist, postmodern and postcolonial; engage with communication contexts such as interpersonal and small group communication, journalism, new media, visual communication, public relations, and marketing; and explore contemporary issues such as democracy, religion, secularism, the environment, trade, law, and economics. The chapters also consider the dialectical tensions between theory and practice; academic and popular discourses; universalism and particularism; the global and the local; and rationality and emotion.

An invaluable resource for scholars in communication and related disciplines, the Handbook also serves as a main point of reference in graduate and upper-division undergraduate courses in communication and ethics. It stands as an exceptionally comprehensive resource for the study of communication and ethics.

George Cheney (Ph.D., Purdue University, 1985) is the John T. Jones Centennial Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, he held faculty appointments at the Universities of Illinois, Colorado, Montana, and Utah. Also, he serves as Adjunct Professor of Management Communication at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He has (co-)authored or (co-)edited seven other books as well as 90 articles, chapters, and commentaries. He is a past chair of the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association; has been recognized for instruction, scholarship, and service; and maintains a strong commitment to community engagement.

Steve May (Ph.D., University of Utah, 1993) is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His books include The Debate Over Corporate Social Responsibility (with George Cheney and Juliet Roper), Case Studies in Organizational Communication: Ethical Perspectives and Practices and Engaging Organizational Communication Theory and Research: Multiple Perspectives (with Dennis Mumby). He is a Leadership Fellow at the Institute for the Arts and the Humanities and an Ethics Fellow at the Parr Center for Ethics. He was recently named a Houle Engaged Scholar by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Page Legacy Scholar by Pennsylvania State University. He is a past editor of Management Communication Quarterly and associate editor of The Journal of Applied Communication Research and The Journal of Business Communication.

Debashish Munshi (Ph.D., University of Waikato, 2000) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management Communication at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He is co-author of Reconfiguring Public Relations: Ecology, Equity, and Enterprise and co-editor of On the Edges of Development: Cultural Interventions. His work has also been published in a range of international journals including Management Communication Quarterly, New Media & Society, Business Communication Quarterly, Cultural Politics, Public Relations Review, Feminist Media Studies, Review of Communication, and Futures.