Approaches/ Traditions of Communication Theory: Topic 3

Approaches/
Traditions of
Communication Theory
Topic 3
© 2018 MohdKhairieNorhafezahJamilahNuredayu/SCCA1023/172/3- 1
Learning Outcomes :
1 Identify school of thoughts in communication
theory.
2 Define the seven main traditions in

communication theory.
3 Describe various traditions in communication

theory.
Approach/Paradigm/Tradition
 The way or how one looks and develop the

process of knowing.
 Method used to acquire knowledge.
 The focus / perspective of a theory
General Traditions
Functionalism Structuralism Critical Culturalism

Communication Communication Communication Understanding
system enable behavior is as social communication
to stabilized the determined by
arrangement through
various
society and oppression. cultural
structures.
patterns &
structure.
Seven Traditions in Communication
1. Rhetorical Tradition
 Communication as artful public address.
 Emphasizes talk as a practical art.
 Reflects an interest in public speaking and its
societal functions.
 Involves elements pertaining to language.
 Acknowledges audience appeals.
1. Rhetorical Tradition
 Rhetoric
 The art of using all available means of persuasion,
focusing upon lines of argument, organization of
ideas, language use, and delivery in public speaking.
 Well into the twentieth century, the rhetorical theory
and advice from Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian,
and other Greco-Roman rhetors served as the main
source of wisdom about public speaking.
2. Semiotic Tradition
 Communication as the process of sharing meaning
through signs.
 Involves the study of signs.
 Meaning is achieved when we share a common
language.
 Values and belief structures are passed down from
previous generations.
2. Semiotic Tradition
Semiotics
• The study of verbal and nonverbal signs that can stand for
something else, and how their interpretation impacts society.
Symbols
• Arbitrary words and nonverbal signs; their meaning is learned
within a given culture/context.
• For semiologists, meaning doesn’t reside in words or other
symbols; meaning resides in people.
• Most theorists grounded in the semiotic tradition are trying
to explain and reduce the misunderstanding created by the
use of ambiguous symbols.
3. Phenomenological Tradition
 Communication as the Experience of Self and Others
Through Dialogue.
 Emphasizes experiencing otherness/uniqueness.
 Reflects personal interpretation of everyday life and
activities.
 Involves communication as attaining
authenticity/legitimacy.
3. Phenomenological Tradition
 Phenomenology
 Intentional analysis of everyday experience from the
standpoint of the person who is living it.
 Explores the possibility of understanding the experience
of self and others.
 Places great emphasis on people’s perception and their
interpretation of their own experience.
 An individual’s story is more important, and more
authoritative, than any research hypothesis or
communication axiom.
4. Cybernetic Tradition
 Communication as a System of Information
Processing
 Emphasizes information processing
 Reflects communication as information science
 Involves a broader, systemic viewpoint of
communication
 Cybernetics - The study of information processing,
feedback, and control in communication systems.
4. Cybernetic Tradition
 Reflects communication as information science - it
illustrates the way feedback makes information
processing possible in our heads and on our laptops.
 The concept of feedback anchored the cybernetic
tradition, which regards communication as the link
connecting the separate parts of any system, such as a
computer system, a family system, a media system, or a
system of social support.
 Theorists in the cybernetic tradition seek to answer such
questions as:
 How does the system work?
 What could change it? and ;
 How can we get the bugs out?
5. Socio-Psychological Tradition
 Communication as Interpersonal Interaction
and Influence
 Emphasizes on causal linking
 Reflects the notion that behavior is

influenced by one or more variables
 Uses experimental/longitudinal research
5. Socio-Psychological Tradition
• Believes that communication truths that can be
discovered by careful, systematic observation.
• Scholar look for cause-and-effect to predict the
results when people communicate.
Eg: Communication competence => self confidence
Comm style => communication/job satisfaction
• This tradition is the most prolific in generating

theory.
• Observe the specific phenomenon, situation or
scenario and try to analyse it.
Eg: Abnormal behavior / deviant/violence /vandalism
activity– explain the situation through observation
and duration,”
6. Socio-Cultural Tradition
 Communication as the Creation and Enactment
of Social Reality
 Emphasizes seeing from another’s view
 Acknowledges that shared cultural patterns and
social structures influence communication
 Involves viewing social order and reality as co-
created
6. Socio-Cultural Tradition
 The socio-cultural tradition is based on the premise
that as people talk, they produce and reproduce
culture.
 Suggest that our view of reality is strongly shaped
by the language we’ve used since we were infants.
 The assumption that words merely act as neutral
vehicles to carry meaning.
 Language actually structures our perception of
reality
7. Critical Tradition
 Communication as a Reflective Challenge of Unjust
Discourse
 Emphasizes advocacy of fairness
 Reflects a concern for injustice, oppression,
power, and inequality
 Involves a critique of the social order
 Critical theorists consistently challenge three features of
contemporary society:
1. The control of language to perpetuate power
imbalances. Critical theorists condemn any use of
words that inhibits emancipation.
2. The role of mass media in dulling sensitivity to
repression. Critical theorists see the “culture
industries” – the media as reproducing the dominant
ideology of a culture and distracting people from
recognizing the unjust distribution of power within
society.
3. Blind reliance on the scientific method and
uncritical acceptance of empirical findings. Critical
theorists are suspicious of empirical work that
scientists claim to be ideologically free, because
science is not the value-free pursuit of knowledge that
it claims to be.
Summary
 The seven traditions have deep roots in the field
of communication theory.
 Each tradition has its own way of defining
communication.
 However, they are closer together in their basic
assumptions.

Approaches/ Traditions of Communication Theory: Topic 3

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Approaches/

2 Define the seven main traditions in

3 Describe various traditions in communication

 The way or how one looks and develop the

 Method used to acquire knowledge.

 The focus / perspective of a theory

Functionalism Structuralism Critical Culturalism

 Emphasizes on causal linking

 Reflects the notion that behavior is

• This tradition is the most prolific in generating

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