Robert MacDougall – författare

Communication and Control: Tools, Systems, and New Dimensions advocates a systems view of human communication in a time of intelligent, learning machines. This edited collection sheds new light on things as mundane yet still profoundly consequential (and seemingly “low-tech”) as push buttons, pagers, and telemarketing systems. Contributors also investigate aspects of “remote control” related to education, organizational design, artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, drones, and even binge-watching on Netflix. In line with a systems view, the collection takes up a media ecological view. This work will be of interest to students, scholars, and researchers in communication, new media, and technology.

The Bell System dominated telecommunications in the United States and Canada for most of the twentieth century, but its monopoly was not inevitable. In the decades around 1900, ordinary citizens-farmers, doctors, small-town entrepreneurs-established tens of thousands of independent telephone systems, stringing their own wires to bring this new technology to the people. Managed by opportunists and idealists alike, these small businesses were motivated not only by profit but also by the promise of open communication as a weapon against monopoly capital and for protection of regional autonomy. As the Bell empire grew, independents fought fiercely to retain control of their local networks and companies-a struggle with an emerging corporate giant that has been almost entirely forgotten.The People's Network reconstructs the story of the telephone's contentious beginnings, exploring the interplay of political economy, business strategy, and social practice in the creation of modern North American telecommunications. Drawing from government documents in the United States and Canada, independent telephone journals and publications, and the archives of regional Bell operating companies and their rivals, Robert MacDougall locates the national debates over the meaning, use, and organization of the telephone industry as a turning point in the history of information networks. The competing businesses represented dueling political philosophies: regional versus national identity and local versus centralized power. Although independent telephone companies did not win their fight with big business, they fundamentally changed the way telecommunications were conceived.

Communicating Well: A Fundamental Toolkit offers a full conceptual framework to help students become skilled communicators in relationships, groups, as public speakers, and as media users.Conceived and authored by a diverse team of veteran communication professors, Communicating Well provides students a concise yet thought-provoking set of tools and tips for realizing their potential as communicators across settings.After introducing readers to the communication process, the book addresses how perceptions of self and others impact communication. Students are provided important tools for verbal and nonverbal communication, including ways to truly listen, and emerge better prepared for interviews, relationships, working in groups, public speaking, and skillfully using media. Additionally, this edition features new chapters on intercultural communication and mediated communication. The book features updated concepts of culture and social capital that are particularly relevant in today’s global world. Communicating Well is written for basic communication courses at the introductory college level. It can also be used for classes in psychology, sociology, and education, or any course that emphasizes the relational, social, and professional significance of communicating well.