Renowned in the disciplines of political theory and philosophy, Hannah Arendt’s searing critiques of modernity continue to resonate in other fields of thought decades after she wrote them. In Communication Ethics in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt’s Rhetoric of Warning and Hope, author Ronald C. Arnett offers a groundbreaking examination of fifteen of Arendt’s major scholarly works, considering the German writer’s contributions to the areas of rhetoric and communication ethics for the first time. Arnett focuses on Arendt’s use of the phrase “dark times” to describe the mistakes of modernity, defined by Arendt as the post-Enlightenment social conditions, discourses, and processes ruled by principles of efficiency, progress, and individual autonomy. These principles, Arendt argues, have led humanity down a path of folly, banality, and hubris. Throughout his interpretive evaluation, Arnett illuminates the implications of Arendt’s persistent metaphor of “dark times” and engages the question, How might communication ethics counter the tenets of dark times and their consequences? A compelling study of Hannah Arendt’s most noteworthy works and their connections to the fields of rhetoric and communication ethics, Communication Ethics in Dark Times provides an illuminating introduction for students and scholars of communication ethics and rhetoric, and a tool with which experts may discover new insights, connections, and applications to these fields. Top Book Award for Philosophy of Communication Ethics by Communication Ethics Division of the National Communication Association, 2013

Innovative in its approach and content, Exploring Communication Ethics: Interviews with Influential Scholars in the Field enlivens the study of human communication ethics by presenting interviews conducted with nine communication ethics scholars along with an advanced literature review. The interviews provide accessible and insightful discussions of the philosophical and theoretical issues central to communication ethics, revealing insights about the scholars' experiences and thought processes unavailable elsewhere. This book is written for upper-level undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members interested in communication ethics from the perspective of human communication and rhetorical studies, philosophy, and sociology.

This volume occasions a dialogue between major authors in the field who engage in a conversation on cosmopolitanism and provinciality from a communication ethics perspective. There is no consensus on what constitutes communication ethics, cosmopolitanism, or provinciality: the task is more modest and diverse and began with contributors being asked what the bias of their work suggests or offers for understanding the theme Communication Ethics: Between Cosmopolitanism and Provinciality. Rather than responding authoritatively, each essay acknowledges the contributor's own work. This book offers no answers, but invites a conversation that is more akin to a beginning, a joining, an admission that there is more than «me», «us», or «my kind» of people, theory, or wisdom. The book will be an excellent resource for instructors and for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in communication.

Tenacious hope, the heart of a just and free society During the Enlightenment, Scottish intellectuals and administrators met the demands of profit and progress while shepherding concerns for self and other, individual and community, and family and work. Communication Ethics and Tenacious Hope captures the “unity of contraries,” offering the Scottish Enlightenment as an exemplar of tenacious hope countering the excesses of individualism. Ronald C. Arnett reveals two stories: the struggle between optimism and tenacious hope, and optimism’s ultimate triumph in the exclusion of difference and the reification of progress as an ultimate good. In chapters that detail the legacies of Lord Provost George Drummond, Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Reid, George Campbell, Adam Ferguson, and Sir Walter Scott, Arnett highlights the problematic nature of optimism and the ethical agency of tenacious hope. Arnett illustrates the creative union of education and administration, the ability to accept doubt within systems of knowledge and imagination, and an abiding connection to local soil. As principles of progress, free will, and capitalism swept Europe, proponents of optimism envisioned a world of consumerism and absolutes. In contrast, practitioners of tenacious hope embraced uncertainty and compassion as pragmatic necessities. This work continues Arnett’s scholarship, articulating the vital importance of communication ethics. Those seeking to discern and support a temporal sense of the good in this historical moment will find in this timely work the means to pursue, hold, and nourish tenacious hope. This insightful theorization of the Scottish Enlightenment distills the substance of a just and free society for meeting dangerous and uncertain times.

Ethics in communication and media has arguably reached a pivotal stage of maturity in the last decade, moving from disparate lines of inquiry to a theory-driven, interdisciplinary field presenting normative frameworks and philosophical explications for communicative practices. The intent of this volume is to present this maturation, to reflect the vibrant state of ethics theorizing and to illuminate promising pathways for future research.

Philosophy of Communication Ethics is a unique and timely contribution to the study of communication ethics. This series of essays articulates unequivocally the intimate connection between philosophy of communication and communication ethics. This scholarly volume assumes that there is a multiplicity of communication ethics. What distinguishes one communication ethic from another is the philosophy of communication in which a particular ethic is grounded. Philosophy of communication is the core ingredient for understanding the importance of and the difference between and among communication ethics. The position assumed by this collection is consistent with Alasdair MacIntyre’s insights on ethics. In A Short History of Ethics, he begins with one principal assertion—philosophy is subversive. If one cannot think philosophically, one cannot question taken-for-granted assumptions. In the case of communication ethics, to fail to think philosophically is to miss the bias, prejudice, and assumptions that constitute a given communication ethic.

Around the time this book is being written the world is faced with threats of terrorism, random shootings in various public places on a global scale, increased school violence especially in the United States, increased racial, ethnic, and religious tension worldwide as well as global forced displacement of people due to violence and human rights violations. Given this context, this project turns attention to the problematic of the “uprootedness of the modern man” in our age of technological advancement, globalization, and distraction. It introduces an innovative perspective to the study of communication ethics and the larger field of communication studies through an aesthetic ecology framework. The concept of aesthetic ecology refers to an environment that involves material, conceptual, and contemplative elements that are part of the ongoing dialogue between our sensuous and interpretive engagements in/with the world. Each chapter of this book explores an aspect of this aesthetic ecology in facilitating existential rootedness in connection to communication ethics.

Presents a new theory of media ethics that is explicitly international.

This volume chronicles the development of communication studies as a discipline, providing a history of the field and identifying opportunities for future growth. Editors Pat J. Gehrke and William M. Keith have assembled an exceptional list of communication scholars who, in the thirteen chapters contained in this book, cover the breadth and depth of the field. Organized around themes and concepts that have enduring historical significance and wide appeal across numerous subfields of communication, A Century of Communication Studies bridges research and pedagogy, addressing themes that connect classroom practice and publication. Published in the 100th anniversary year of the National Communication Association, this collection highlights the evolution of communication studies and will serve future generations of scholars as a window into not only our past but also the field’s collective possibilities.

Fr. Thomas Reese has observed that American Catholic dioceses are simultaneously mysterious and essential to the institutional health and vitality of American Catholicism. In recent years, as American Catholicism increasingly finds itself embroiled in scandal and conflict, this mysteriousness has given way to feelings of suspicion, frustration, and even contempt. How can American dioceses navigate this complex and often hostile social, cultural, and political environment? Several decades ago, J. Michael Sproule invited rhetorical and communication scholars to focus on institutions to increase our understanding of the profound role complex organizations play in contemporary life, assess the purpose and significance of communication in pursuit of their missions, and “give a human face to the otherwise institutional voice of corporate suasion.” Following Sproule, this book defines a new field called diocesan institutional rhetoric that strives to transform dioceses from structures characterized by closure and adversity into sites of hope-full, response-able, Spirit-led opportunity. Today, rhetorical and communication issues emerge everywhere in American Catholicism. Drawing together relevant literature in Catholic theology, philosophy of communication, and corporate communication scholarship—as well as over twelve years’ experience working as a communication professional in a diocesan chancery—this book helps diocesan leaders, scholars, and observers to think differently and more fruitfully about the future of American Catholic ecclesial leadership.