Abstract
Communication is often seen axiomatically as a ‘good thing’. Problems, at work as at home and elsewhere, are frequently understood as arising from poor or insufficient communication. Indeed communication is sometimes seen as the very ‘stuff of life’. The MacBride Report (1980, cited in Crookall and Saunders, 1989) stated:Communication maintains and animates life. It is also the motor and expression of civilization ... it creates a common pool of ideas, strengthens the feeling of togetherness through exchange of messages and translates thought into action, reflecting every emotion and need from the humblest tasks of human survival to supreme manifestations of creativity – or destruction. Communication integrates knowledge, organization and power and runs as a thread linking the earliest memory of man [sic] to his noblest aspirations. (p. 6)
