Description:Although political communication is a relatively new academic discipline, it is rapidly assuming a mature role in scholarship. The editors present examples of that scholarship in this book. Three areas of political communication in the 1980s that capture the rich variety of problems, techniques, controversies, and literature are included: “Current Perspectives on the Spiral of Silence”; “Computers and Political Communication: Analyses and Applications,” which examines ways in which computer technology helps to shape what we learn and how we apply political communication; and “Dimensions of Political Communication Analysis in the 1980s,” which presents six essays on current theory and research.