Open Educational Resources (OER)

This book traces the historical evolution of media, from the early days of the printing press to today’s digital age, examining key developments such as the telegraph, radio, television, and the internet. It also covers critical theories that explain media’s impact on society, including the effects of advertising, the role of public relations, and the emergence of social media as a powerful force in modern communication.

This text overviews the time-tested conceptual foundations of the field, while incorporating the latest research and cutting-edge applications of these basics.

This textbook is targeted for Introduction to Human Communication courses that introduce students to the study of Communication. The underlying organization addresses the importance of students to be able to answer the question, “What is Communication Study?” in a way that captures the field of Communication appropriately.

The text provides an upper-level undergraduate introduction and explanation of the social and cognitive processes involved in human communication, focusing on how people create understanding.

The 14 chapters in this book cover topics typically taught in an undergraduate interpersonal communication course: family interactions, interpersonal dynamics, language, listening, nonverbal communication, and romantic relationships, as well as exploring emerging areas such as self-compassion, body positivity, and friendships.

This text provides an engaging overview of interpersonal communication grounded in theory, research, and practical application, with an eye to the lived experience of college students.

This e-book is designed to accompany the General Education course, COM 460 Interpersonal Communication and Group Dynamics at the University of New Hampshire.

This is an interdisciplinary textbook focused on communication in groups and teams. This textbook aims to provide students with theories, concepts, and skills they can put into practice to form and sustain successful groups across a variety of contexts.

A comprehensive introductory text, this book begins by defining intercultural communication and the roots of culture. It includes chapters on identity, verbal and nonverbal processes, culture shock, barriers and conflict, intercultural relationships and communication competence.

Exploring Public Speaking is a usable, zero-cost textbook for basic public speaking courses or courses that include basic public speaking skills as one of their primary learning outcomes. The free, open nature of the text means that instructors are able to use all or part of it, and add their own materials. Standout features include coverage of PowerPoint, audience analysis and responsiveness, ethics in public speaking, persuasion, special occasion speeches, and structure of speeches.

Introduction to Speech Communication is used to support teaching, learning and research for SPCH 2713 at Oklahoma State University (OSU). In addition to inclusion of original work authored by the editors to meet the needs of their course at OSU, the editors adapted portions of other OER.

The course is an introduction to the preparation and delivery of oral presentations in an extemporaneous style. Emphasis is on ethical research, critical and logical analysis, and organization of informative and persuasive presentations.

Speak Out, Call In: Public Speaking as Advocacy is a contemporary, interdisciplinary public speaking textbook that fuses rhetoric, critical/cultural studies, and performance to offer an up-to-date resource for students. With a focus on advocacy, this textbook invites students to consider public speaking as a political, purposeful form of information-sharing.

Arguing Using Critical Thinking focuses on teaching students argumentation skills with an emphasis on constructive conflict resolution. Through its 12 chapters the textbook explores all types of conflict from interpersonal disagreements to major policy decisions.

This is a practical guide to argumentation with strategies and templates for the kinds of assignments students will commonly encounter. It covers rhetorical concepts in everyday language and explores how arguments can build trust and move readers.

This Open Educational Resource (OER) brings together Open Access content from around the web and enhances it with dynamic video lectures about the core areas of theoretical linguistics (phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics), supplemented with discussion of psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic findings.

This book provides an introduction to the study of meaning in human language, from a linguistic perspective. It covers a fairly broad range of topics, including lexical semantics, compositional semantics, and pragmatics. The chapters are organized into six units: (1) Foundational concepts; (2) Word meanings; (3) Implicature (including indirect speech acts); (4) Compositional semantics; (5) Modals, conditionals, and causation; (6) Tense & aspect.

This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing. The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language.

This text is a compilation of 15 lessons about ethical obligations for media professionals. Beyond newsroom journalism, this online guidebook incorporates case examples about public relations and advertising. Chapter content includes audio, video, writing assignments, and interactive fill-in-the-blank quizzes.

This text provides a conceptual foundation for understanding the development, logic, and practice of journalism in the United States; describes some of the key challenges, tensions, and opportunities it has faced, is facing, and will likely face; and offers guidance to help individuals develop the skills needed engage in impactful journalism.

This textbook was created for beginning narrative journalists exploring the craft. It is inspired by the Narrative Journalism course at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and is intended to be used as a guide and handbook.

This book is intended to be a useful resource for anyone who thinks that they might be interested in becoming a data journalist, or in dabbling in data journalism. Through a collection of tips and techniques from leading journalists, professors, software developers, and data analysts, you’ll learn how data can be either the source of data journalism or a tool with which the story is told—or both.

What is data journalism? What is it for? What might it do? What opportunities and limitations does it present? Who and what is involved in making and making sense of it? This text answers those questions and more.