The Routledge Handbook of Applied Communication Research provides a state-of-the-art review of communication scholarship that addresses real-world concerns, issues, and problems. This comprehensive examination of applied communication research, including its foundations, research methods employed, significant issues confronted, important contexts in which such research has been conducted, and overviews of some exemplary programs of applied communication research, shows how such research has and can make a difference in the world and in people's lives.

The sections and chapters in this Handbook:

• explain what constitutes applied communication scholarship, encompassing a wide range of approaches and clarifying relationships among theoretical perspectives, methodological procedures, and applied practices
• demonstrate the breadth and depth of applied communication scholarship
• review and synthesize literature about applied communication areas and topics in coherent, innovative, and pedagogically sound ways
• set agendas for future applied communication scholarship.

Unique to this volume are chapters presenting exemplary programs of applied communication research that demonstrate the principles and practices of such scholarship, written by the scholars who conducted the programs.

As an impressive benchmark in the ongoing growth and development of communication scholarship, editors Lawrence R. Frey and Kenneth N. Cissna provide an exceptional resource that will help new and experienced scholars alike to understand, appreciate, and conduct high-quality communication research that can positively affect people's lives.

Lawrence R. Frey (PhD, University of Kansas, 1979) is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on applied communication, quantitative and qualitative research methods, and group interaction. His applied communication scholarship focuses on communication activism, social justice, community studies, and health communication. He is the author or editor of 15 books, 3 special journal issues, and more than 65 journal articles and book chapters; and the recipient of 14 awards for scholarship, including the 2000 Gerald M. Phillips Award for Distinguished Applied Communication Scholarship from the National Communication Association (NCA).

Kenneth N. Cissna (PhD, University of Denver, 1975) is a professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in interpersonal communication, group communication, and dialogue theory and practice. He has published scores of scholarly book chapters and journal articles, and five books. He served as editor of the Journal of Applied Communication Research and of the Southern Communication Journal, and is past president of both the Florida Communication Association and the Southern States Communication Association (SSCA). His awards include SSCA's 2007 T. Earle Johnson--Edwin Paget Distinguished Service Award and NCA's 2008 Gerald M. Phillips Award for Distinguished Applied Communication Scholarship.