Origins and transformations: histories of communication study

This is a brief, interconnected review of some of the extensive work published in the last few years on the history of study into communication. It highlights in particular the expansion of this work to include international contexts and the examination of how teaching programmes as well as research activity have helped to institutionalize the area as one with a discrete, if much-debated, academic identity. Different originating contexts, historical links with professional practice and the impact of new media on the recent history both of teaching and research are among the themes addressed