Genosko, Gary. Remodelling Communication: From WWII to WWW. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2012. Pp. 161. ISBN 978-1-44264434-2 (cloth) $40.00; 978-1-4426-1583-0 (paper) $22.95; 978-1-4426-9972-4 (eBook) $22.95.
This book tackles a challenging issue of tracing the communication models from the beginning of the field of communication to the present. The focus is not so much on theories as on models, or the way theory connects with data that may test theory. In other words, models are for doing and not in themselves for thinking about communication. Genosko says, for example: "Models are productive--they do something--in the sense that they are designed to do, or have structures that, generate data about systems they represent .... The relationship between models and the systems they represent is sometimes called the validity relation where validity encompasses replication of systemic data, predictive capacity, and structural correspondence with the system at issue" (p. 7). But this quote is simply the...