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A communication perspective on the military: Interactions, messages, and discourses

2016; Oxford University Press; Volume: 66; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/jcom.12238

1460-2466

Lynn H. Turner,

Military History and Strategy

As many of the contributors to this groundbreaking collection note, the United States has been shaped and sustained through war. Over a million U.S. service members have died as a result of combat from the Revolutionary War through current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Countless others have returned home from combat with life-altering wounds, both physical and psychological (Knobloch & Wilson, 2015). Thus, military issues and the fact of war are both an historical legacy and an enduring reality for people in the United States. The book, A Communication Perspective on the Military, ably focuses our attention on the process of sensemaking about war. It is this emphasis on sense making that gives the collection its important communication perspective. The book is divided into three sections, each focusing on one other institution with which the military and communication practices intersect: family, media, and rhetorical culture. In so doing, this collection provides readers with a survey of the full range of communication literature focused on the military. This survey reveals the ways communication researchers currently examine the challenges and opportunities posed by military life. The book accomplishes this by taking a broad perspective, and drawing from literature in family communication, media studies, and rhetorical studies. The collection is unique in this approach, and it showcases a variety of methods and theoretical frameworks focused on a consistent topic: communication and the military. As Sahlstein Parcell (2015, p. 2) notes in her introductory chapter, she and her coeditor, Lynne Webb, were interested in understanding the military from the perspective that only communication scholars can provide: “the notion that communication is the most fundamentally human of all endeavors, that people employ talk and engage discourses to shape social realities, to motivate human behavior, and to interpret and construct meaning in their daily lives.” Thus, the book is notable for its ability to synthesize work across the discipline of communication.