Mihai Coman was born in Fagaras, Romania, in 1953, graduated from the College of Letters within the University of Bucharest in 1976, and attained his Ph.D. in Letters in 1985. He has been a teacher in a Romanian high school (1976-1982), journalist (1982-1989), and publisher (1989-1990). He was the first Dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication Studies at the University of Bucharest and the first coordinator of doctoral studies in communications. Dr. Coman is considered to be the founder of journalism and communication education in Romania. Until 1989, he specialized in cultural anthropology studies of Romanian folklore. He has published four volumes of mythology studies (The Sources of Myth, 1980; The Sister of Sun, 1983; Mythos and Epos, 1985; The Point and the Spiral, 1992) and a vast synthesis on animal mythology (The Romanian Mythological Bestiary, 1986, 1988, with a second edition published in 1996). Other of his mythology studies have appeared in scientific journals, including L'Ethnologie Francaise, Etudes Indo-Europeennes, and Kurier. After 1989, he published the reference volume Introduction to Mass Communication, and he coordinated the two volumes of the Journalism Handbook, which sold more than 20, 000 copies. In the 1990s, he began to elaborate the theoretical and analytical framework of mass media anthropology through studies published in scientific journals, such as the francophone Reseaux, MediaPouvoirs, and Communication, or in collections, such as La Transition en Roumanie: Communication et Qualité de la Vie (edited by Roger Tessier, 1995); Valeriana: Essays on Human Communication in Honour of Valery Pissarek (edited by J. M. Pomorskiego & Z. Bajki, 1996); 2001 Bogues: Globalisme et Pluralisme (Vol. 1: TIC et Societé, edited by Bernard Miege & Gaetan Tremblay, 2003); and INA: Television, Memoire et Identité Nationale (2003). In 2003, as a synthesis of these investigations, he published Pour une Anthropologie des Medias.

He has also published numerous scientific studies in journals and books dedicated to the transformations in the mass media in postcommunist countries, including “Romänischer Journalismus in einer Übergangspériode,” in Medienlandschaft im Umbruch, 1994; “The Third Elite,”Media'95, 1996; “Les Journalistes Roumains et Leur Idéologie Professionelle,” in Télé-révolutions Culturelles: Chine, Europe Centrale, Russie, 1998; “Developments in Journalism Theory about Media ‘Transition’ in Central and Eastern Europe” (1990-1999), in Journalism Studies, 2000; and Media in Romania (a Sourcebook), 2004.

Dr. Coman was Visiting Professor at Institut fur Journalistik, Dortmund University, Germany (2000-2001); at the Department of Communication of the University Stendhal, Grenoble, France (1998-1999); at the Department of Communication of the University Paris XIII, France (1996); at the Department of Communication, University of Quebec at Montreal (1993); and a Fulbright researcher at the Department of Communication, California State University, Chico (1999). He is a member of several international organizations [Page 344](American Association of Anthropology, Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication, International Association of Mass Communication Research, International Communication Association) and is on the editorial boards of communication journals such as Reseaux, Communication, and Journalism Studies. Dr. Coman may be reached at mcoman@fjsc.ro.

Eric W. Rothenbuhler is Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University. He was previously Director of Graduate Media Studies at New School University (2001-2004) and on the faculty of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa (1985-2001). At the University of Iowa, he was an affiliated faculty member with American Studies and faculty advisor to the student radio station, KRUI, 89.7 FM, where he had a weekly radio show on the history of rhythm and blues. He earned his doctorate at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California in 1985 and his B.A. and M.A. from Ohio State University. He has been a visiting faculty member at the University of Kansas (twice), Scholar in Residence at the Center for Advanced Study in Telecommunication at Ohio State University, and has participated in doctoral workshops and teaching seminars at the Universities of Dortmund, Ljubljana, and Oslo.

Dr. Rothenbuhler's research and teaching address communication systems ranging from ritual through community to media industries. His dissertation research on the living room celebration of the 1984 Olympic Games provided the first statistically representative evidence for television audience behavior and attitudes consistent with the theory of media events. This work was published in Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, and other outlets. His work on decision-making processes and industrial market structures in the radio and music businesses, in a series of articles beginning in 1982 in Journal of Communication; Communication Research; Media, Culture, and Society; and several books, is also widely cited. This work continues with research on American radio in the 1950s, in collaboration with Tom McCourt, and has so far produced an article in The Radio Journal and a forthcoming book manuscript. Dr. Rothenbuhler's essay “Symbolic Disorder and Repair After Witnessing 9/11” is being translated and published in France, as was an earlier essay with John Peters, “The Reality of Construction.” Part of his work on the posthumous career and reputation of the American blues musician Robert Johnson is forthcoming in a book chapter called “The Strange Career of Robert Johnson's Records.” Dr. Rothenbuhler is the author of Ritual Communication: From Everyday Conversation to Mediated Ceremony (1988), which has been translated into Polish (2004). With Greg Shepherd, he coedited Communication and Community (2001). He was Review and Criticism Editor for the Journal of Communication (1997-1999) and has authored or coauthored more than 50 articles, chapters, essays, and reviews on media, ritual, community, media industries, popular music, and communication theory.