Has there ever been a study of dogs barking and communications.
Frequently when one dog on the block starts it becomes a chain
reaction?

Scientifically, it's known as 'The Midnight Howl'.

Dodie Smith did an excellent study in her dissertation 'A Hundred and
One Dalmations'.

Or was it 'The Lady and a Tramp'?

It wasn?t ?The Hound of Baskerville?, either.
Recently read about a man who has spent twenty years studying dogs?
barking  (or was it some other kind of animal?) and thinks they
communicate with more meaning than generally supposed (He?d have to,
after investing his career in the subject, and who?s going to prove
him wrong?).
That is serious!  
But I am not sure if it was dogs and have no idea where he lives, and
my brief search of German sites didn't tell me either, but lots of
other stuff:  that dogs and wolves don't bark the same language, that
wolves have 60 "facial" expressions to communicate with each other,
that animals are telepathic with humans (who needs to bark if you can
do that?!), and so on.
Sorry.
The more important question (already asked a couple of weeks ago, and
not answered, but 28 comments) is how to make the dogs stop barking.

Myoarin might be thinking of Dr. Michael W. Fox, who has written
several books on the topic of canine behaviour and language (and many
other books on related and non-related topics).
http://tedeboy.tripod.com/drmichaelwfox/id2.html

Maybe:  nomen est omen
Would he have studied lions if his name had been Lion,
or birds if his name had been Bird or Byrd  -  Hi byrd-ga!

I am sure there is a study but I don't know the name of the group,
just heard about it on an animal chat site. I live in a very rural
area, and we have coone dogs and cyotes and dogs about at about 1/2
mile intervels. My dogs have diferent barks for different things.
Coone dog bays make them resentful, Cyote howls make them agressively
protective, racoones make them furious, other dogs make them
territorial, Bad weather makes them apprehensive, strange cars get
them excited and the postman makes them hungry. I don't even have to
look outside now to know which it is, thier tone of bark is thier
communication to the other dog in the area (and me) what is going on
here at our place...it's like an early warning system. I have a
mini-farm and I'm the mother of 6 children, I'm not Dr. Dolittle but I
do have an understanding of animals. If you wish to check the
legitimacy of my claim, check my webpage:
http://amazingracecatz.expage.com Children and animals are my passion.
I understand both.