DISENCHANTMENT, RE-ENCHANTMENT, AND ENCHANTMENT

Max Weber described the modern world as disenchanted. By contrast, some contemporary writers have said that postmodernism and other developments are re-enchanting the world. I put Weber and these writers alongside each other, and then undercut the discussion by considering a third possibility raised by some recent writers on theological aesthetics: that the world is still enchanted in certain ways. But this third point of view depends on a wide reading of the concept of "sacrament", and one very different from Weber's understanding.     

Bridging the Mass-Interpersonal Divide Synthesis Scholarship in HCR

Despite tremendous progress in communication research and theory, the history of the communication field has been marked by theoretical fragmentation, identity crises, and disciplinary isolation. Human Communication Research (HCR) has provided a forum for research that strengthens the discipline's legacy of theory construction as well as discussions about theory development. An important contribution was a 1988 symposium, where leading scholars examined the “false dichotomy” between mass and interpersonal communication research. Although the philosophical discussion has continued, innovation in communication technologies have challenged the traditional definitions of mass and interpersonal communication by blurring many of the practical distinctions. This article assesses HCR's contribution to synthesis scholarship and compares it to similar efforts in other national journals. It also examines how new communication technologies are intensifying the need for scholars to construct theory that transcends outmoded levels of analysis. This important theoretical discussion is viewed as central to the future of the field during its next 25 years.