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This handbooks series aims to integrate knowledge of communication structures and processes. It is global in orientation, dedicated to cultural and epistemological diversity as well as different scholarly approaches. The series features volumes on ´messages, codes and channels´, ´mode of address: communication situations and context´, ´methodology in communication science´ and ´application areas´. The latter features volumes devoted to a large range of specialist areas of communication science. The series as a whole aims at meeting the needs of undergraduates, postgraduates, academics and researchers across the area of communication studies.

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The primary goal of the volume on "Visual Communication" is to provide a collection of high quality, accessible papers that offer an overview of the different academic approaches to Visual Communication, the different theoretical perspectives on which they are based, the methods of analysis used and the different media and genre that have come under analysis. There is no such existing volume that draws together this range of closely related material generally found in much less related areas of research, including semiotics, art history, design, and new media theory.The volumehas a total of 34 individual chapters that are organized into two sections: theories and methods, and areas of visual analysis.The chapters are all written by quality theorists and researchers, with a view thattheresearchshould be accessible to non-specialists in their own field while at the same time maintaining a high quality of work.The volume contains an introduction, which plots and locates the different approaches contained in it within broader developments and history of approaches to visual communication across different disciplines as each has attempted to define its terrain sometimes through unique concepts and methods sometimes through those borrowed and modified from others.

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David Machin, Cardiff University, Wales, Great Britain.

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