Introduction

One word in the communication lexicon that needs some boundaries is "critical." Applied to a variety of areas of communication studies, "critical" takes on the meanings, among others, of "crucial," "perilous," "serious," "negative," and "pertaining to criticism" (as in reviews). Thus, one might hear that a critical (crucial) area of communication research is agenda setting, or that the field is in a critical (perilous) state, or that such and such scholar is just being critical (negative). Obviously, these usages do not reflect what we mean by "critical" here.