Others suggest that a ritual process of communication exists, one that one cannot artificially abstract from a particular historical and social context. Thus, communication remains an ill-defined concept, and while we may casually use the word with some frequency, it remains difficult to arrive at a precise definition agreeable to most of those who consider themselves communication scholars.
Communication stands so deeply rooted in human behaviors and the structures of society that scholars have difficulty thinking of it while exluding social or behavioral events. Since communication theory remains a relatively young field of inquiry, one probably cannot yet expect a conceptualization of communication which all or most of those who work in the area would share.
The first communication theorist
In the history of philosophy, Aristotle first addressed the problem of communication and attempted to work out a theory of it in The Rhetoric.
Mapping the theoretical landscape
A discipline gets defined in large part by its theoretical structure. But one might consider communication, at its present state, a field of inquiry rather than a fully-fledged discipline. Communication studies often borrow theories from other social sciences, while providing few examples of theories exported to other disciplines. What teachers present as communication theory at one institution will likely not resemble the communication theory taught within other communication schools. This theoretical variegation makes it difficult to come to terms with the field as a whole. That said, some common taxonomies exist that serve to divide up the range of communication research. Two common mappings involve contexts and assumptions.
Contexts
Many authors and researchers divide communication by what they sometimes called "contexts" or "levels", but which more often represent institutional histories. The study of communication in the US, while occurring within departments of psychology, sociology, linguistics, and anthropology (among others), generally developed from schools of rhetoric and from schools of journalism. While many of these have become "departments of communication", they often retain their historical roots, adhering largely to theories from speech communication in the former case, and from mass media in the latter. The great divide between speech communication and mass communication becomes complicated by a number of smaller sub-areas of communication research, including intercultural and international communication, small group communication, communication technology, policy and legal studies of communication, telecommunication, and work done under a variety of other labels. Some of these departments take a largely social-science perspective, others tend more heavily toward the humanities, and still others gear themselves more toward production and professional preparation.
These "levels" of communication provide some way of grouping communication theories, but inevitably, some theories and concepts leak from one area to another, or fail to find a home at all. In communication as a cohesive field of study, one would expect to see a cohesive set of theories, or at least a common understanding of the structure of the field, and this appears still in the process of developing.
Assumptions
Another way of dividing up the communication field emphasizes the assumptions that undergird particular theories, models, and approaches. While this approach also tends to have as its basis institutional divisions, theories within each of the seven "traditions" of communication theory that Robert Craig suggests tend to re-inforce one another, and retain the same ground epistemological and axiological assumptions. His traditions include:
Craig finds each of these clearly defined against the others, and remaining cohesive approaches to describing communicative behavior. As a taxonomic aid, these labels help to organize theory by its assumptions, and help researchers to understand why some theories may seem incommensurable.
While communication theorists very commonly use these two approaches, it seems that they decentralize the place of language and machines as communicative technologies. The idea (as Vygotsky argues) of communication as the primary tool of a species defined by its tools remains at the outskirts of communication theory. It finds some representation in the Toronto School of communication theory (alternatively sometimes called medium theory) as represented by the work of Innis, McLuhan, and others. It seems that the ways in which individuals and groups use the technologies of communication — and in some cases are used by them — remains central to what communication researchers do. The ideas that surround this, and in particular the place of persuasion, remain constants across both the "traditions" and "levels" of communication theory.
Some theorists
A list of people who have contributed to communication theory in its broadest sense might include:
See also
Bibliography
- Emory A Griffin, A first look at communication theory. 3rd edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997. ISBN 0-07-022822-1