Those of us from the discipline of communication studies have long
believed that communication is prior to all other fields of inquiry. In
several other forums I have argued that the essence of politics is "talk"
or human interaction. ¹ Such interaction may be formal or informal, verbal
or nonverbal, public or private, but always persuasive, forcing us con-
sciously or subconsciously to interpret, to evaluate, and to act. Com-
munication is the vehicle for human action.

From this perspective, it is not surprising that Aristotle recognized
the natural kinship of politics and communication in his writings Politics
and Rhetoric. In the former, he establishes that humans are "political
beings [who] alone of the animals [are] furnished with the faculty of
language." ² And in the latter, he begins his systematic analysis of dis-
course by proclaiming that "rhetorical study, in its strict sense, is con-
cerned with the modes of persuasion." ³ Thus, it was recognized over
two thousand years ago that politics and communication go hand in
hand because they are essential parts of human nature.

Back in 1981, Dan Nimmo and Keith Sanders proclaimed that political
communication was an emerging field. ⁴ Although its origin, as noted,
dates back centuries, a "self-consciously cross-disciplinary" focus began
in the late 1950s. Thousands of books and articles later, colleges and
universities offer a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses in
the area in such diverse departments as communication, mass com-
munication, journalism, political science, and sociology. ⁵ In Nimmo and
Sanders's early assessment, the "key areas of inquiry" included rhetor-
ical analysis, propaganda analysis, attitude change studies, voting stud-
ies, government and the news media, functional and systems analyses,

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