Introduction to Communication Theory. What is communication?

Introduction to Communication Theory

What is communication?


• The term is complex and contested--


• The term is complex and contested—– we’ll look at different models of communication

and different ways of thinking about the relation between self and other and between people and the material world


The root of the word is “mun”



COMMUNICATION



COMMUNICATION

Related terms include:



COMMUNICATION

Related terms include: Mundane, municipality, communion, common,

mean, meaning, immunity, mutual, le monde, el mundo


COMMUNICATIONis

“With-worlding”


Communication is involved in all the ways people make and engage in “worlds” together.


We are “thrown” into an already meaningful world/reality, and we use language and other symbols to understand, maintain, repair, and sometimes transform that social reality.

What is Theory?

What is Theory?

Root of the word is related to the ancient Greek word for informed seeing.

What is Theory?

Root of the word is related to the ancient Greek word for informed seeing.

The original “theorists” were people paid by the city to travel to distant places, witness the rituals and customs of other cultures, and report back on their experiences.

What is Theory?

We use the word today to refer to scientific or academic worldviews or models (e.g., the theory of evolution, or the wave theory of light).

What is Theory?

In our class, we’ll argue that everyday people use implicit theories all the time to help attend to the world and coordinate action.

What is Theory?

In our class, we’ll argue that everyday people use implicit theories all the time to help attend to the world.

Theories, in this sense, are implicit cultural scripts that enable action (but always contain limits and blind spots).

What is Theory?

Theories are like lenses that allow you to focus on this, but not that.

What is Theory?

Theories are like lenses that allow you to focus on this, but not that.

As with the original meaning, they are ways of seeing.


COMMUNICATIONis

“With-worlding”

Rejecting the Sender-Receiver model of Communication


There is another, more narrow way of thinking about what communication is, know as the sender-receiver or transmission or conduit model.


This is one of our implicit, commonsense theories about communication—it is, unfortunately, very limited and ultimately creates more problems than it solves

John Locke (1632-1704)

Locke and the individual


Locke sought to protect the rights and private property of the individual—and this included the private contents of the person’s mind.


He used the word “communication” to describe the way that ideas and experience might pass between private minds using words.


He used the word “communication” to describe the way that ideas and experience might pass between private minds using words.

Prior to Locke’s use of the term, communication referred to the sharing of any kind of substance, whether “spiritual” or “material”

Rejecting the Sender-Receiver Model


Locke’s model was incredibly influential and has shaped most people’s implicit theory (way of seeing) about communication.


Locke’s model was incredibly influential and has shaped most people’s implicit theory (way of seeing) about communication.

But it is flawed in some serious ways that we’ll explore in this class.

What is this thing?

Theory as a Way of Seeing


The meaningfulness of a thing is determined by our way of seeing, which is shaped by our specific project.


Theory helps us direct our attention to what matters in the situation and enables us to act.


Theory helps us direct our attention to what matters in the situation and enables us to act.

Our theories, however, always contain blind spots and cover alternatives.


Key question:

Do our given theories help us to solve the problems we are facing?


Note that the sender-receiver model doesn’t really grasp that basic “chair” problem:

We don’t just get a sense impression, encode it into words, send it out to a receiver, who decodes it back into a sense impression


CAT DOG TREE SQUIRREL


Our theories are not like mirrors that reflect the world as it is… they are more like lenses that allow us to focus on some things at the expense of others.


Our theories are not like mirrors that reflect the world as it is… they are more like lenses that allow us to focus on some things at the expense of others. (the plant/animal distinction is one such lens that both reveals and conceals)


And note how commonsense meanings are often arbitrary, constructed and enforced by people in power, and consented to by people who might benefit from an alternative way of seeing.

Introduction to Communication Theory. What is communication?

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