ABSTRACT

This chapter provides a map of the landscape of family communication research and theory by presenting an overview of family communication research from 2004–2015 and offering implications for the future of family communication research. One can see evidence of the practical goal of understanding and improving the human condition throughout the study of communication. Although families have been a central part of human history and investigated across many disciplines, the study of family in the communication discipline is relatively young. Family communication scholars focus largely on communication as a symbolic process humans use to create meaning. Thinking about family communication in this way, communication is much more than transmitting a message from one to others. The growth in family communication created a very positive development of needing to make hard choices among theories being used and developed.