Communication Criticism

Book excerpt: This introduction to criticism teaches students critical skills, whether examining television, fiction, nonfiction, visual arts, or oral and written discourse. Three introductory chapters provide a foundation to explore nine approaches to critical study. The perspectives presented bridge disciplinary boundaries and include: asking questions about how audiences process communication, understanding human symbol systems and social relations as vehicles for comprehending the world, value and narrative analysis, and psychoanalytic and ideological criticism. The discussions of using each approach contain questions critics are most likely to ask, assumptions governing the approach, an exploration of sample analyses that reveal vocabulary most frequently used, and a review of the problems encountered by critics.