Taylor and Francis Kaufer, D: Communication at A Distance

"...an essential read for the professional writing specialist interested in theory and a challenging read for those interested in research....it offers a wonderful new way of looking at the social role of texts in scientific communities and other organizations....This is a challenging book, provoking and productive. It has much to say--and suggests many topics and problems--if the reader happens to be contemplating any research on writing that takes into account social context (organizational or other), or is interested in the sociology of science, the history of print, or rhetoric as social construction."—Technical Communication Quarterly"...an excellent new book which offers a middle ground approach to context, actually attempting to operationalize a fragment of it. The importance of [the authors'] work rests on two features: a stunning synthesis of existing literatures on communication theory (especially with regard to print), and a lucid demonstration that formal simulations of communication in context are both possible and fruitful....In both scope and precision it easily outstrips most other current attempts at communication theory. The range of historical and theoretical material synthesized is impressive, as is its deployment in support of their theory....[It] must be regarded as an extremely important book, one that should bring together in discussion members of communication departments who don't think they share a common vocabulary or problematic, and in so doing could exert a decisive influence in the field."—Quarterly Journal of Speech"...provides a nearly endless source of clearly stated and well-justified hypotheses, ready for systematic testing in modern organizations with a variety of communication media....This rich text has so much to offer that one could benefit from it in different ways with repeated readings."—Administrative Science Quarterly"The scope of this book is quite ambitious....it makes some important general points that apply to today