Traditions of Communication Theory

Multiple theories and perspectives will

always characterize the field of
communication studies.
Lacking a unifying theory, the field can
be divided into seven traditions
We will omit one of them , the
cybernetic

The Semiotic Tradition

focuses on signs and symbols.

Communication is the application of signs to
bridge the worlds of individuals
The basic concept unifying this tradition is the
sign, sometimes referred to as symbol,
defined as a stimulus for designating
something other than itself.
Semiotics, exploring the importance of signs
and symbols as they are used, is the focus of
many communication theories.

Semiotics is often divided into three

areas

Semantics addresses what a sign stands for.

Dictionaries are semantic reference books; they tell us
what a sign means.
Syntactics is the relationships among signs.
Signs rarely stand alone. They are almost always
part of a larger sign system referred to as codes.
Codes are organized rules that designate what
different signs stand for.
Pragmatics studies the practical use and effects of
signs.

The Phenomenological Tradition

is the process of knowing through direct

experience. It is the way in which humans
come to understand the world.
Phenomenon refers to the appearance of an
object, event or condition in ones perception.
Makes actual lived experience the basic data
of reality.
Stanley Deetz summarizes three basic
principles

Stanley Deetz
Knowledge is conscious.
How one relates to a thing determines its
meaning for that person.
Language is the vehicle for meaning

The process of interpretation is central to most

phenomenological thought.

Unlike the semiotic tradition, where

interpretation is separate from reality, in
the phenomenological tradition
interpretation forms what is real for the
person.
Interpretation emerges from a
hermeneutic circle in which interpreters
constantly go back and forth between
experience and assigning meaning.

Three general schools of thought make up

the phenomenological tradition

Classical phenomenology, associated

with Edward Husserl the founder of
modern phenomenology, is highly
objective and claims the world can be
experienced, through bracketing, the
putting aside of bias without the knower
bringing his or her own categories to
bear.

Most contemporary phenomenology rejects

the objectivist view

and subscribes to the teachings of Maurice

Merleau-Ponty. The phenomenology of
perception posits that we can only know
things through our personal, subjective
relationship to these things.
Hermeneutic phenomenology, the
interpretation of being, extends the subjective
tradition even further by incorporating
communication: Communication is the vehicle
by which you assign meaning to your
experience.

The Cybernetic Tradition

El skippo

The Cybernetic Tradition

is a very common approach in the study
of communication, the behavioral
sciences, and all social sciences at
large. It focuses on the individual in
social interaction with others as the
definition of the communicator.
This tradition emphasizes psychological
variables, individual effects,
personalities, perception, and cognition.

Most of the current work in this

tradition
dominated by persuasion and attitude
change in communication, accentuating
message processing, strategies,
reception and effects.
Most theories in this tradition are
cognitive in orientation, providing insights
into the way human beings process
information.

The sociopsychological tradition can be

divided into three large branches.

Behavioral, associated with a stimulusresponse approach, concentrates on how

people actually behave in communication
situations.
Cognitive, the mental operations used in
managing information that leads to behavioral
outputs, is much more in vogue today because
many see the behavioral as too simplistic.
Communibiology is the study of
communication from a biological perspective.

The Sociocultural Tradition

addresses the ways our understandings, meanings,

norms, roles, and rules are worked interactively in
communication.
This tradition holds that reality is not an objective set of
arrangements outside us but is constructed through a
process of communicating in groups, society, and
cultures.
Sociocultural focuses on patterns of interactions rather
than individual characteristics or mental modes.
Knowledge is highly interpretive and constructed

There are a number of contributing lines of

work within this tradition.

Symbolic interactionism from the work of

George Mead, emphasizes the idea that social
structures and meaning is created and
maintained within social interactions.
Social constructionism, or the social
construction of reality investigates how
human knowledge is constructed through
social interaction and argues that the nature of
the world is less important than the language
used to name and discuss it.
Sociolinguistics is the study of language and
culture.

Closely related to sociolinguistics

is the work of Luddwig Wittgenstein and his

philosophy of language which suggests the
meaning of language depends on its actual
use.
Language as used in ordinary life is a
language game because people follow rules
to do things with language.
John Austin refers to the practical use of
language as speech acts, the idea that when
we speak we are actually performing an act.

Ethnography,

the observation of how actual social

groups come to build meaning through
their linguistic and non-linguistic
behaviors, is another perspective within
the sociocultural tradition.

The Critical Tradition

examines how power, privilege and
oppression are the products of certain
forms of communication.
While there are several varieties of
critical social science, they are all
normative and share three essential
features

three essential features.

They seek to understand 1)the taken-for-

granted systems, 2)power structures and

3)beliefs- or ideologies that dominate
society.
They are interested in uncovering
oppressive social conditions and power
arrangements in order to promote
emancipation.
They attempt to fuse theory and action

While critical theory falls within the modernist

paradigm, there are three additional branches that
break with modernity in various ways.
Postmodernism came about as the information
age emerged from the industrial society, as the
production of commodities gave way to the
manipulation of knowledge.
Today this line of work is most associated with
cultural studies
Cultural studies theorists share an interest in the
ideologies that dominate a culture and focus on
social change and how it is inhibited by group
and class relations.
Cultural studies places great value on the
marginalized and the ordinary

Poststructuralism, another postmodernist impulse, is

centered on the study of signs and symbols.

Unlike structuralism, poststructuralism

seeks to deconstruct the study of signs

rather than generate a unified theory.
It favors a plurality of methodologies and
focuses on the instability of meaning in
texts.

Postcolonial theory refers to the study of all

cultures affected by the imperial process.
Feminist studies

is another influential
area within the critical tradition. It
examines, critiques, and challenges the
assumptions about and experiences of
gender that pervade all aspects of life.