Transcript Introduction to Communication Theory

Introduction to Communication
Theory
What is communication?
What is communication?
• The term is complex and contested--
What is communication?
• 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
What is communication?
The root of the word is “mun”
What is communication?
The root of the word is “mun”
COMMUNICATION
What is communication?
The root of the word is “mun”
COMMUNICATION
Related terms include:
What is communication?
The root of the word is “mun”
COMMUNICATION
Related terms include:
Mundane, municipality, communion, common,
mean, meaning, immunity, mutual, le monde,
el mundo
What is communication?
COMMUNICATION
is
“With-worlding”
What is communication?
Communication is involved in all the ways
people make and engage in “worlds” together.
What is communication?
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.
What is communication?
COMMUNICATION
is
“With-worlding”
Rejecting the Sender-Receiver model
of Communication
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.
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.
Rejecting the Sender-Receiver model
of Communication
Rejecting the Sender-Receiver model
of Communication
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 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.
Locke and the individual
He used the word “communication” to describe
the way that ideas and experience might pass
between private minds using words.
Locke and the individual
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
Rejecting the Sender-Receiver Model
Locke’s model was incredibly influential and has
shaped most people’s implicit theory (way of
seeing) about communication.
Rejecting the Sender-Receiver Model
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
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 as a Way of Seeing
Theory helps us direct our attention to what
matters in the situation and enables us to act.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
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.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Key question:
Do our given theories help us to solve the
problems we are facing?
Theory as a Way of Seeing
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
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Theory as a Way of Seeing
CAT
DOG
TREE SQUIRREL
Theory as a Way of Seeing
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.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
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)
Theory as a Way of Seeing
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.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Note: the lesson here is not that anything goes,
or that it is all in your head, or that all ways of
seeing the world are equally valid.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Rather, it is that our projects and assumptions
shape what we see and do and leave us more
or less responsive to the world.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
You probably believe the “theory” that the earth
is curved, but you don’t operationalize that
theory when you measure for a curtain rod.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
You probably believe the “theory” that the earth
is curved, but you don’t operationalize that
theory when you measure for a curtain rod.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Your bathroom may or may not be designed
with a germ theory of disease as an
organizational principle.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Speaking of bathrooms… are your public
bathrooms designed with a theory about
gender as the organizing principle?
Window-bashing
Window-Bashing
Window-Bashing
Repetitively using an old (once useful) theory in
a situation for which it is no longer useful.
Window-Bashing
The theories may have been perfectly suited to
solve the old problem; but they fail in new
situations
Window-Bashing
Think of some everyday examples!
Window-Bashing
Again:
1. Ask, what is the theory that drives the practice?
2. What problem was that theory designed to
solve? (For what role/culture did it develop)?
3. How has the world changed in ways that make
the theory no longer adequate?
Window-Bashing
Our theory-driven orientation to the world can
lead to Undesired Repetitive Practices (URPS)
or “window-bashing” that leave us less able to
solve our problems collectively and creatively.
Interdependence and Pluralism
• In homogenous (same-genus) cultures we
often share many implicit assumptions and
theories about the world
Interdependence and Pluralism
• In homogenous (same genus) cultures we
often share many implicit assumptions and
theories about the world
• In heterogeneous (different genus) cultures
we often do not share implicit assumptions
and theories
Interdependence and Pluralism
• When our implicit theories are not shared, do
we:
Interdependence and Pluralism
• When our implicit theories are not shared, do
we:
1. Fight harder for our way of seeing
Interdependence and Pluralism
• When our implicit theories are not shared, do
we:
1. Fight harder for our way of seeing
2. Submit/consent to the other’s way
Interdependence and Pluralism
• When our implicit theories are not shared, do
we:
1. Fight harder for our way of seeing
2. Submit/consent to the other’s way
3. Negotiate a new collective theory
Three types of assumptions
Three types of assumptions
• Ontological:
Three types of assumptions
• Ontological: assumptions about the basic
nature of the world
Three types of assumptions
• Ontological: assumptions about the basic
nature of the world
– Are there innate differences between people of
different races or genders? Are some people
“naturally” violent? Are there some things we do
because of “human nature”?
Three types of assumptions
• Ontological: assumptions about the basic
nature of the world
– Are there innate differences between people of
different races or genders? Are some people
“naturally” violent? Are there some things we do
because of “human nature”?
– Ask: what are some of the basic assumptions
about the “nature” of things/roles at play in my
site.
Three types of assumptions
• Epistemological:
Three types of assumptions
• Epistemological: assumptions about
knowledge
Three types of assumptions
• Epistemological: assumptions about
knowledge
– How do we know and what counts as
authoritative knowledge? Do we trust scientists,
school teachers, priests, community leaders? Do
we only trust our own experiences?
Three types of assumptions
• Epistemological: assumptions about
knowledge
– How do we know and what counts as
authoritative knowledge? Do we trust scientists,
school teachers, priests, community leaders? Do
we only trust our own experiences?
– Ask: how do people in my site “know” what they
think they know? What happens when different
forms of knowing come into conflict?
Three types of assumptions
• Axiological:
Three types of assumptions
• Axiological: Assumptions about value, what is
good and right; assumptions about the kind of
world we want to pursue.
Three types of assumptions
• Axiological: Assumptions about value, what is
good and right; assumptions about the kind of
world we want to pursue.
– What counts as a good job, a good relationship, a
good parenting approach, an appropriate style of
dress or speech or conduct.
Three types of assumptions
• Axiological: Assumptions about value, what is
good and right; assumptions about the kind of
world we want to pursue.
– What counts as a good job, a good relationship, a
good parenting approach, an appropriate style of
dress or speech or conduct.
– Ask: what are the ends, principles, or goals that
drive action at my site…and what happens when
they are not made explicit and not mutually
shared?
Clash
• Clashes in underlying (often implicit and
unacknowledged) ontological,
epistemological, and axiological assumptions
drive conflict
Theory as a Way of Seeing
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, and the underlying
assumptions that drive it.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Theory helps us direct our attention to what
matters in the situation and enables us to act.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
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.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
And participants in a culture often implicitly
consent to use theories/rituals that are not in
their best interests.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Key questions:
What are the implicit
assumptions/rituals/cultural scripts that drive
a given interaction?
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Key questions:
What are the implicit
assumptions/rituals/cultural scripts that drive
a given interaction?
Are they helping to solve the problem, or should
they be revised?
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Key questions:
What are the implicit
assumptions/rituals/cultural scripts that drive
a given interaction?
Are they helping to solve the problem, or should
they be revised?
Theory as a Way of Seeing
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.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
So, as critical communication theorists, we ask:
what underlying theories/assumptions are
being operationalized to drive a given ritual or
project?
Theory as a Way of Seeing
So, as critical communication theorists, we ask:
what underlying theories/assumptions are
being operationalized to drive a given ritual or
project (and are these the best choices)?
Consider the position of the theorist
Consider the position of the theorist
You are an instrument for detecting cultural
scripts--
Consider the position of the theorist
You are an instrument for detecting cultural
scripts-Note the norms, rules, and assumptions that
underlying the rituals you observe.
Consider the position of the theorist
You are an instrument for detecting cultural
scripts-Note the norms, rules, and assumptions that
underlying the rituals you observe.
What are the taken-for-granted assumptions
about how we “do business” around site?
Consider the position of the theorist
Note: you can reveal those assumptions by
partially violating them and then observing
the response!
Consider the position of the theorist
Note, too, however: You will bring your own
assumptions and scripts to the scene and this
can color your observations (productively or
unproductively).
Theories are Ways of Seeing
Theories are Ways of Seeing
• Diversity in our implicit theories can be a
source of collective intelligence if we have
good participatory communication practices
Theories are Ways of Seeing
• Diversity in our implicit theories can be a
source of collective intelligence if we have
good participatory communication practices
• But we often fail to recognize and benefit
from others’ “ways of seeing.”
Theories are Ways of Seeing
Collaborative diversity can help us avoid
“window-bashing” if we create conditions in
which theories can be discussed openly with
different stakeholders having a relatively equal
opportunity for participation.
Theories are Ways of Seeing
This is a way of seeing communication theory as
part of a democratic ideal.