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This handbooks series aims to integrate knowledge of communication structures and processes. It is global in orientation, dedicated to cultural and epistemological diversity as well as different scholarly approaches. The series features volumes on ´messages, codes and channels´, ´mode of address: communication situations and context´, ´methodology in communication science´ and ´application areas´. The latter features volumes devoted to a large range of specialist areas of communication science. The series as a whole aims at meeting the needs of undergraduates, postgraduates, academics and researchers across the area of communication studies.

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Open publication This unique volume offers an overview of the diversity in research on communication: including perspectives from biology, sociality, economics, norms and human development. It includes general social science and humanities approaches to communication, from systems theory to cultural theory, as well as perspectives more specifically related to communication acts, such as linguistics and cognition. The volume also features chapters on the participants and various elements in communication processes, on possible effects and on wider consequences of mediation [with technical media].The scope of the contributions is global, and the volume is relevant to both the empirical and the philosophical traditions in human sciences. Designed as a stand-alone collection to engage undergraduates as well as postgraduates and academics, this is also the first book in, and an introduction to, the de Gruyter Mouton multi-volume Handbooks of Communication Science.

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Peter J. Schulz, University of Lugano, Italy;Paul Cobley, London Metropolitan University, UK.

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