Comm Theories

INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION THEORIES

•Revolution in communication technology

•Media convergence

•Social theories

•Individual theories often have different objectives:

•To guide the decision making of political and social elites

•To seek transformation of the status quo

•Active versus passive audiences

•Theory

•Communication Theory

DIFFERENT WAYS TO STUDY COMMUNICATION THEORY

•Four eras of media theory

•McQuail’s four kinds of communication theories

•Communication theory viewpoints

•Perspectives on communication theories

•Genres of communication theory

•Communication metatheory

•Levels of communication

FOUR ERAS OF MEDIA THEORY

1. Era of mass society theory

* Later half of the 19th century

* Mass society theory

* Media undermine the traditional social order

* Fallacies of both technology critics and advocates

- mass society notions exaggerated the ability of media to quickly undermine social order

- technology advocates failed to acknowledge damaging consequences from applying technology


2. Emergence of scientific perspective on mass communication

* During 1930’s

* Time of Paul Lazarsfeld

3. Era of Limited Effects

* media playing limited role in the lives of individuals and the larger society

* During the 1960s


4. Era of cultural criticisms

* US researchers vs. European researchers

* Neomarxists

* British cultural studies

* Deterministic assumptions---

* Cultural criticism- collection of perspectives concerned with conflict of interests in society and the ways communication perpetuates domination of one group over the other.

CRITICAL QUESTIONS

* Where do you stand on the fundamental issues of media impact? From among the four eras of communication theory, from which era you are in favor of? Explain why you say so.

* How do you describe your self as a media audience? Are you a passive or an active audience? Provide concrete example/s to support your claim.

MCQUAIL’S FOUR KINDS OF COMMUNICATION THEORIES

1. Social scientific theory- based on and guide empirical research

2. Normative theory- explains how ideal media ought to operate within a specific system of social values

3. Operational theory- how media operates to meet specific needs

4. Everyday theory- refers to the knowledge and ideas all of us have by simple virtue of engaging in mediated communication

COMMUNICATION THEORY FRAMEWORK

1. Mechanistic- perfect transaction of a message from the sender to the receiver

2. Psychological- act of sending a message to a receiver, and the feelings and thoughts of the receiver

3. Social constructionist- product of the interactants sharing and creating meaning

4. Systematic- new message created via “through put”

PERSPECTIVES ON COMMUNICATION THEORY

• Scientific method vs. humanistic method

• Objectivity vs. subjectivity

• To reduce human difference in what is observed vs. to understand individual subjective response

• “Out there” vs. “In here”

• Consensus vs. Interpretations


• Reasons why the implementation of the scientific method a difficult task for social researchers:

1. Most of the significant and interesting forms of human behavior are quite difficult to measure

2. Human behavior is exceedingly complex

3. Humans have goals and are self-reflexive

4. Simple notion of causality is sometimes troubling when it is applied to ourselves.


• SOCIAL SCIENCES

• Social scholars make human beings the object of study. To understand human behavior, scholars must observe it. Observation must be objective as possible.

• Communication as a social science approach

CRITERIA FOR A GOOD COMMUNICATION THEORY

• Scientific criteria:

a. Explanatory power- do the propositions of the theory enable us to explain as much of the communication phenomenon as possible?

b. Predictive power- do the propositions of the theory enable us to forecast future events and outcome?

c. Parsimony- does the theory contain as few propositions as possible to explain the communication phenomenon?


d. Testability- can the propositions of the theory be tested?

e. Internal consistency- the propositions that comprise the theory should not contradict each other.

f. Heuristic potential- the propositions that comprise the theory should suggest further hypotheses to be tested through research.


• Aesthetic criteria:

a. New understanding- does the theory provide us with new and fresh insights into the nature of the human condition?

b. Societal value- does the theory help us to improve the human condition in some substantive ways?

c. Aesthetic appeal- does the theory capture our interest and imagination?

d. Community agreement- is the theory accepted and supported by like-minded scholars?

GENRES OF COMMUNICATION THEORY

1. Structural and functional theories

* Designate the beliefs that social structures are real and function in any ways that can be observed objectively.

* Structuralism (rooted in linguistics) vs. functionalism (rooted in biology)

* Features of structural-functional approach:

- Assume stability over time– synchrony rather than diachrony

- Share a belief in independent reality


2. Cognitive and behavioral theories

* Primary difference is their focus and history

* Cognitivism vs. behaviorism

* Cognitive theory of communication- addresses the way people evaluate such message and it might predict the kinds of information that would have an impact on how people think

3. Interactionist theory

* View social life as a process of interaction.

* View communication as the glue of the society.


4. Interpretive theories

* Describe the process by which understanding occurs

* Goal of interpretation to uncover the ways people actually understand their own experience

* Subjectivism or the preeminence of individual experience


5. Critical theories

* Focus on the issues of inequality and oppression

* Conflict of interest in society

COMMUNICATION METATHEORY

• Metatheory- theory about theory

• Addresses the questions– what, how and in what form

• Three major themes:

1. Epistemology- branch of philosophy that studies knowledge or how people know what they claim to know

- To what extent can knowledge exist before experience?

- To what extent can knowledge be certain?


- By what process does knowledge arise?

* Four positions:

a. mentalism or rationalism- power of human mind

b. empiricism- perception

c. constructivism- what they project themselves into what they experience

d. social constructionism- knowledge is product of symbolic interaction


- Is knowledge best conceived in parts or wholes?

a. Gestaltists

b. Analysts

- To what extent is knowledge explicit?


2. Ontology- possesses the question of what exactly it is the theorists is examining

- To what extent do humans make real choices?

a. determinists- passive

b. pragmatists- plan their behavior

c. middle positions- they make choices

- Is human behavior best understood in terms of states or traits?

a. States view- humans change/ dynamic

b. Trait view- humans are consistent


- Is human experience primarily individual or social?

a. Individual- behavior as individualistic

b. Social- humans cannot be understood apart from their relationships with other groups

- To what extent is communication contextualized?

* Behavior is affected by both general and situational factors

- Actional vs. nonactional theories

a. Actional- individual create meaning

b. Nonactional- behavior is determined by the environment


3. Axiology- concerned with what values drive a theorist to develop a theory

- Can theory be value free?

- To what extent does the practice of inquiry influence that which is studied?

- To what extent should scholarship attempt to achieve social change?

a. Value conscious scholarship- direct values on positive ways

b. Value neutral scholarship- science is aloof in values

LEVELS OF COMMUNICATION THEORY

• Communication always occur in context

• 8 clusters:

a. Interpersonal Communication and Relations

b. Organizational Communications

c. Mass Media

d. Communication, Culture and Technology

e. Communication Processes and Mass Society

LEVELS OF COMMUNICATION THEORY

f. Health communication

g. Language theories and linguistics

h. Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing and Consumer Behavior

ASSIGNMENT

* Give five communication theories under the Interpersonal Communication and Relations cluster.

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Comm Theories