This booklet, a discovery/work text, asks learners to take a careful look at the ways they participate in communication situations, at the form their participation in communication takes, and at the personal and societal consequences of communication. Laboratory activities focus on techniques of communication and on strategies for dealing with communication situations. Exercises and commentary are specifically addressed to the following questions concerning the mass media of human communication: What is the role of technology in human communication? Do mass communications media shape the realities they communicate? How do schools function as communication media? How do mass communications media promote control over communication within society? (KS)