To paraphrase a philosopher, this book is an idea whose time has come. Like most ideas, this one took a long time coming. It was conceptualized as early as the mid-seventies when the first book of its kind, Philippine Mass Media in Perspective, by Gloria D. Feliciano and Crispulo J. Icban, was almost a decade old and getting outdated. Over the years after that, at seminars, workshops and conferences attended by Philippine communication educators, talk would inevitably wander into the area of locally authored textbooks in communication. Everyone would wax eloquent over the need for indigenous instructional materials, which are not only more relevant but less expensive for our Filipino students. But almost always, the heated discussion would be followed by freezing inaction. Invariably the excuse was no time. There were a few exceptions, to be sure, but for the first course in communication for our Filipino students, only one, a book of readings, has been put together since the Feliciano Icban book.