The community should be seen as an essential focus for communication study since it (1) illustrates and tests the instrumental nature of human communication, (2) illustrates the delicate interplay of private and public communication, and (3) provides a unique context in which all human interactive units exert communication influence simultaneously. Community in this sense is best defined as a communication-engendered, psychological construct based upon consensual perceptions of common identity, interdependence, obligation, and efficacy. Community exists, then, when individuals sense that it exists as a result of their interactions with other individuals. What is not clear at present is what communication skills are minimally essential for the creation of community. What is clear is that there is opportunity for communicative research about how communication is or can be used instrumentally to sustain and enhance consensual perceptions of identity, interdependence and obligation, and efficacy among community residents. To argue the value of community study is nothing more than to urge that community as a level of social organization should be included in any effort to account for the complexity of human communicative behavior. (HOD)