Routledge Handbook of Applied Communication Research. Lawrence R. Frey and Kenneth N. Cissna, eds. New York, NY: Routledge, 2009. 670 pp.
I don’t understand what the intended market for this book is. The word “handbook” in the title suggests it might be used in an introductory graduate research methods course. A handbook usually tells you how to do something. This book doesn’t.
The editors are, respectively, professors of communication at the universities of Colorado and South Florida. They both are winners of the Gerald M. Phillips Award for Distinguished Applied Communication Scholarship presented by the National Communication Association. They have collected thirty-five co-authors of the twenty-four chapters that make up this “handbook,” mostly faculty members in communication or communication studies programs.