Book Reviews
Author
Paddy Scannell, Communication and Media Research Institute University of Westminster, None
Speaking into the Air is, quite simply, the most original and thought provoking book on communication that I have read. It is dazzlingly and sometimes obscurely erudite yet with a clear and coherent argument that challenges our current commonsense views about communication. I am persuaded by this argument, though less so by the point at which John Durham Peters himself takes leave of it. That point seems to me to be oddly, uncomfortably, strange; something which, in itself, needs some explanation. It’s partly to do, I think, with the Americanness of the book and partly its religiousness. Neither of these two points, I hasten to add, are implied criticisms. But they might begin to account for its strangeness, for this is a weird and eccentric book, voyaging in strange seas of thought alone, far from the busy, crowded lanes down which the usual academic shipping travels.
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How to Cite: Scannell, P. (2004) “Love and Communication: A Review Essay”, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture. 1(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.205