Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz (Eds.

)
Theories and Models of Communication
Handbooks of
Communication Science

Edited by
Peter J. Schulz and Paul Cobley

Volume 1
Theories and
Models of
Communication
Edited by
Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz

DE GRUYTER
MOUTON
The publication of this series has been partly funded by the Università della Svizzera
italiana – University of Lugano.

ISBN: 978-3-11-024044-3
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 Contents
Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series v

Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz

1 Introduction 1

William F. Eadie and Robin Goret

2 Theories and models of communication: foundations and heritage 17

I Theories and models

Robert T. Craig
3 Constructing theories in communication research 39

Richard L. Lanigan
4 Information theories 59

Dirk Baecker
5 Systemic theories of communication 85

Philip Lieberman
6 Biological and neurological bases of communication 101

Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha

7 Economic bases of communication 123

Cees J. Hamelink
8 Normative bases for communication 147

Christopher Tindale
9 Models of communicative efficiency 163

John O. Greene and Elizabeth Dorrance Hall

10 Cognitive theories of communication 181

Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt and Colwyn Trevarthen

11 Theories of the development of human communication 199

Paul Cobley
12 Semiotic models of communication 223
x Contents

Tim Wharton
13 Linguistic action theories of communication 241

Adrian Bangerter and Eric Mayor

14 Interactional theories of communication 257

Lijiang Shen
15 Communication as persuasion 273

Patricia Moy and Brandon J. Bosch

16 Theories of public opinion 289

David Crowley
17 Mediation theory 309

Kim Christian Schrøder

18 Socio-cultural models of communication 327

II Components of communication

Charles C. Self
19 Who 351

Dale Hample
20 What 369

Pamela J. Shoemaker, Jaime Riccio and Philip R. Johnson

21 Whom 383

Davide Bolchini and Amy Shirong Lu

22 Channel 397

Mary Beth Oliver, Julia K. Woolley and Anthony M. Limperos

23 Effects 411

Biographical sketches 425

Index 431
Preface to Handbooks of Communication
Science series
This volume is part of the series Handbooks of Communication Science, published
from 2012 onwards by de Gruyter Mouton. When our generation of scholars was in
their undergraduate years, and one happened to be studying communication, a
series like this one was hard to imagine. There was, in fact, such a dearth of basic
and reference literature that trying to make one’s way in communication studies
as our generation did would be unimaginable to today’s undergraduates in the
field. In truth, there was simply nothing much to turn to when you needed to cast
a first glance at the key objects in the field of communication. The situation in the
United States was slightly different; nevertheless, it is only within the last genera-
tion that the basic literature has really proliferated there.
What one did when looking for an overview or just a quick reference was to
turn to social science books in general, or to the handbooks or textbooks from the
neighbouring disciplines such as psychology, sociology, political science, linguis-
tics, and probably other fields. That situation has changed dramatically. There
are more textbooks available on some subjects than even the most industrious
undergraduate can read. The representative key multi-volume International Ency-
clopedia of Communication has now been available for some years. Overviews of
subfields of communication exist in abundance. There is no longer a dearth for
the curious undergraduate, who might nevertheless overlook the abundance of
printed material and Google whatever he or she wants to know, to find a suitable
Wikipedia entry within seconds.
‘Overview literature’ in an academic discipline serves to draw a balance. There
has been a demand and a necessity to draw that balance in the field of communica-
tion and it is an indicator of the maturing of the discipline. Our project of a multi-
volume series of Handbooks of Communication Science is a part of this coming-of-
age movement of the field. It is certainly one of the largest endeavours of its kind
within communication sciences, with almost two dozen volumes already planned.
But it is also unique in its combination of several things.
The series is a major publishing venture which aims to offer a portrait of the
current state of the art in the study of communication. But it seeks to do more
than just assemble our knowledge of communication structures and processes; it
seeks to integrate this knowledge. It does so by offering comprehensive articles in
all the volumes instead of small entries in the style of an encyclopedia. An exten-
sive index in each Handbook in the series, serves the encyclopedic task of find
relevant specific pieces of information. There are already several handbooks in
sub-disciplines of communication sciences such as political communication, meth-
odology, organisational communication – but none so far has tried to comprehen-
sively cover the discipline as a whole.
vi Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series

For all that it is maturing, communication as a discipline is still young and

one of its benefits is that it derives its theories and methods from a great variety
of work in other, and often older, disciplines. One consequence of this is that there
is a variety of approaches and traditions in the field. For the Handbooks in this
series, this has created two necessities: commitment to a pluralism of approaches,
and a commitment to honour the scholarly traditions of current work and its intel-
lectual roots in the knowledge in earlier times.
There is really no single object of communication sciences. However, if one
were to posit one possible object it might be the human communicative act – often
conceived as “someone communicates something to someone else.” This is the
departure point for much study of communication and, in consonance with such
study, it is also the departure point for this series of Handbooks. As such, the series
does not attempt to adopt the untenable position of understanding communication
sciences as the study of everything that can be conceived as communicating.
Rather, while acknowledging that the study of communication must be multi-
faceted or fragmented, it also recognizes two very general approaches to communi-
cation which can be distinguished as: a) the semiotic or linguistic approach associ-
ated particularly with the humanities and developed especially where the Romance
languages have been dominant and b) a quantitative approach associated with the
hard and the social sciences and developed, especially, within an Anglo-German
tradition. Although the relationship between these two approaches and between
theory and research has not always been straightforward, the series does not privi-
lege one above the other. In being committed to a plurality of approaches it
assumes that different camps have something to tell each other. In this way, the
Handbooks aspire to be relevant for all approaches to communication. The specific
designation “communication science” for the Handbooks should be taken to indi-
cate this commitment to plurality; like “the study of communication,” it merely
designates the disciplined, methodologically informed, institutionalized study of
(human) communication.
On an operational level, the series aims at meeting the needs of undergradu-
ates, postgraduates, academics and researchers across the area of communication
studies. Integrating knowledge of communication structures and processes, it is
dedicated to cultural and epistemological diversity, covering work originating from
around the globe and applying very different scholarly approaches. To this end,
the series is divided into 6 sections: “Theories and Models of Communication”,
“Messages, Codes and Channels”, “Mode of Address, Communicative Situations
and Contexts”, “Methodologies”, “Application areas” and “Futures”. As readers
will see, the first four sections are fixed; yet it is in the nature of our field that the
“Application areas” will expand. It is inevitable that the futures for the field prom-
ise to be intriguing with their proximity to the key concerns of human existence
on this planet (and even beyond), with the continuing prospect in communication
sciences that that future is increasingly susceptible of prediction.
 Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series vii

Note: administration on this series has been funded by the Università della
Svizzera italiana – University of Lugano. Thanks go to the president of the univer-
sity, Professor Piero Martinoli, as well as to the administration director, Albino
Zgraggen.

Peter J. Schulz, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano

Paul Cobley, London Metropolitan University
Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz
1 Introduction
Abstract: This essay introduces the current volume and also gives a sense of its
contents in relation to the entire series of Handbooks of Communication Science. It
considers two broad definitions of communication and the problems of the
‘objects’ of communication science. It gives a sense of how the terms ‘theory’ and
‘model’ are used in the volume as well as some of the dilemmas that have existed
in the field in respect of theory.

Keywords: Communication, definitions, theories, theory, models, research, object,

science, interdisciplinarity

1 Defining communication and defining

communication sciences
This volume is the inaugural handbook in the multiple-volume Handbooks of Com-
munication Science – a major publishing venture which aims to offer a portrait of
the current ‘state of the art’ in the study of communication. It was thought appro-
priate, then, that the first volume in the series of handbooks presented the main
models and theories of communication, thus producing a sense of the frame in
which much of the study of communication takes place. Yet, even before theories
and models are considered, there needs to be an awareness of the problems
involved in defining the object of communication science, in delineating the
breadth of the domain of study and even the naming of the discipline which is
devoted to research in that domain.
Definitions of communication commonly refer to etymology. Usually, this
involves noting that the Latin root of ‘communication’ – communicare – means ‘to
share’ or ‘to be in relation with’ and has its own relations in English to ‘common,’
‘commune,’ and ‘community,’ suggesting an act of ‘bringing together.’ (cf. Cobley
2008, Rosengren 2000: 1; Schement 1993: 11; Beattie 1981: 34). Yet, this seemingly
inclusive and broad definition of communication is not the only one that arises
from the invocation of etymology. Peters (2008; cf. Peters 1996 and Craig 2000),
somewhat differently, notes that ‘communication’ arises from the Latin noun com-
municatio, meaning a ‘sharing’ or ‘imparting’: arguably, this has little relation to
terms such as union or unity, but rather links to the Latin munus (duty, gift). As
such, its root senses have to do with change, exchange, and goods possessed by a
number of people. These differently inflected senses of the roots of ‘communica-
tion’ have consequences for the way that the object of ‘communication science’ is
2 Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz

conceived; but before expanding on this, let us consider how communication study
has been understood.
Communication study is very much a modern discipline; yet it also has a long
tradition and deep roots in philosophy and rhetoric. It was only in the twentieth
century that it developed into an organized field with its own institutional history,
its own appointed professors and academic journals. At this point, ‘communication
science’ developed out of several traditions, including those of the also recently
developing psychology and sociology. Like these disciplines, it has a proliferation
of foci. The National Communication Association (NCA) in the United States sees
communication study as a discipline focusing on:

how humans use verbal and nonverbal messages to create meaning in various contexts (from
two person groups to mass audiences) across cultures using a variety of channels and media.
The discipline is especially interested in the impact of those messages on human behavior.
Communication as a discipline includes the study of communication in interpersonal relation-
ships, groups, organizations, and across cultures; rhetorical theory and criticism; performance
studies; argumentation and persuasion; technologically mediated communication; and popu-
lar culture. (http://www.natcom.org, accessed 20 April 2012)

What is important here, firstly, is that communication study is envisaged as a

discipline in its own right, in the same way that psychology and sociology have
become. This status was not achieved without struggle – Donsbach (2006: 439)
cites the famous 1930 statement by Tönnies on the proposal for the establishment
of ‘press research’ alongside sociology in the German academic system: “Why
would we need press research within sociology? We don’t need a chicken or duck
science within biology.” Contemplating this leads to two further observations
about communication study as a field – its interdisciplinarity (Cooren 2012; Living-
stone 2009) and its similarities with sociology – which will be considered further
below. Secondly, the range of communication, the proliferation of communication
science’s foci – across interpersonal relationships, groups, organizations, cul-
tures – is crucial: communication study is no more to be defined solely as the
study of mass media as it is to be depicted as focused on isolated linguistic
exchanges between individuals.
Although it is already a broad church and may have to become ever more
Catholic in its embrace of communicative phenomena in the future, communica-
tion science is not the study of everything that can be conceived as communicating.
Instead, it can be described in terms of two very general approaches to its object
which have come to a head in the last 100 years:
– a semiotic or linguistic approach associated particularly with the humanities
and developed especially where the Romance languages have been domi-
nant;
– a quantitative approach associated with the hard and the social sciences and
developed, especially, within an Anglo-German tradition.
 Introduction 3

These two broad approaches have informed investigation into communication both
at the level of forming the discipline’s theory as well as its actual collection of data.
Yet, the relationship between these approaches and between theory and research
has not always been straightforward. Furthermore, the relationship has unfolded
in the West largely independent of Asiatic culture and its different conceptions of
the act of communication. The key factors in this uneven development are inherent
in communication study and intimately connected; they concern both communica-
tion study's fragmentation and its object.
Before considering these, a few words should be offered on the designation
‘communication science.’ In the last century and a half, many disciplines have
claimed ‘scientific’ status for themselves. Often, the claim is made to bolster that
discipline, giving it a reputation for truth and rigour that it may not necessarily
deserve. The claim has sometimes assisted institutionalization of disciplines,
underpinning the establishment of university departments and the winning of
grants for research in the area. On the other hand, and often as a backlash, the
term ‘science’ has sometimes been considered derogatory or precisely indicative of
an undeserved status. Particularly in the ‘postmodern’ moment in which science
has been one of the ‘grand’ or ‘metanarratives’ (Lyotard 1984) to which people have
expressed credulity, it has been assumed not only that science does not embody a
narrative of progress but that it is open to question for its self-justifications, its
vacillations, its uncertainty, its sexist and other ideological pre-dispositions. There
is understandable resistance, therefore, to the term ‘communication science.’ Yet,
the study of communication has not just been the province of Anglophone acade-
mia. Indeed, arguably its major constituency is in Germany. Certainly, communica-
tion study is pursued at a consolidated institutional level not just in the UK and
North America but in a number of European countries and, increasingly, in Asia.
In these areas ‘science’ tends to have a connotation which differs from that of the
English term and is associated, instead, simply with disciplinary rigour and the
virtues of the higher learning in general, in contrast to, say, anecdotal or journalis-
tic accounts of phenomena. As such, ‘communication science,’ like ‘the study of
communication,’ designates the disciplined, methodologically informed, institu-
tionalized study of communication rather than the guaranteed path to truth and
progress (see also Craig, Chapter 3). However, it is clear that one problem regarding
how communication science derives or constructs its models – a problem that
informs the concern over the designation ‘science’ – arises over communication
study’s object and its fragmentation.

1.1 Communication science and its objects

A concern about communication science as a discipline is its very fragmentation.

It is a domain made up of many sub-domains and sub-disciplines. This is undenia-
4 Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz

ble; yet the domain of communication has all the attributes that render it an estab-
lished discipline. It is an institutionalized field, with journals, associations, depart-
mental structures, professorial chairs and all the paraphernalia contributing to the
organization of attempts to maintain quality of investigation and scientific status.
As with any other rigorous discipline, one can find out about its key issues by
consulting a large number of core journals, esteemed and peer-reviewed, as well
as journals that may have less esteem for varying reasons. The discipline, like any
other, monitors rigour in its research methods which are recognized by numerous
national research councils. In Europe, the subject area is well embedded in univer-
sities in countries such as Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden,
Norway, Spain, parts of Italy, Switzerland, Austria (with the UK as an anomalous
case where, notwithstanding the London School of Economics, communication
study has not formally embedded itself in the elite universities, although media
studies is strong in a number of other UK universities). The European Communica-
tion and Research Association (ECREA), is the result of a merger of a number of
relatively powerful communication associations across Europe. In the USA, com-
munication science is professionally organized by the National Communication
Association (NCA) and international organizations, including the International
Communication Association (ICA). In Africa, the most prominent communication
association is probably the South African Communication Association (SACOMM).
In Asia, besides several national organizations, there is the Pacific and Asian Com-
munication Association (PACA). It should be remembered, though, that communi-
cation study is not just concentrated in the work of professional societies and
institutional structures. At the margins of the field and domain there is much work
that is not easily assimilated into professional concerns and, in some cases, is not
currently easy to assimilate into the project of communication science as a whole.
Examples might include the output of researchers and teachers working on scripts,
some journalism, creative writing, some aspects of communicative efficiency, and
so on.
This last point has a direct bearing on the conceptualizing of communication
science and how it develops theories and models in that it raises the issue of what
might be the object of this discipline. If we were to compare communication sci-
ence with medicine, the immediate impression is that the latter seems to have a
clearer, defined sense of its object – there may be some local debate about what
medicine’s object is, but there is a clear consensus regarding what medicine is not
about. Communication study is different: there is no clear consensus regarding its
object and, indeed, it is constantly compelled to chase new objects. In a case of
appendicitis, medicine will employ such procedures as diagnosis, prognosis, sur-
gery, medical and biochemical analysis of the inflammation and so on (notwith-
standing the possibility of interrogating the matter with reference to medical sociol-
ogy, health psychology and other means allied to medicine). What is outstanding
is that in such cases medicine has a clear sense of pathology (one can say this to
 Introduction 5

an extent about psychology, too). As such, appendicitis is palpably ‘bad,’ an ‘evil’

that demands cure or amelioration. However, the equivalent situation does not
hold in communication science. Many people, including communication research-
ers and teachers, may believe that the communication phenomenon of pornogra-
phy is ‘bad’; but there is certainly no consensus on this issue. For communication
science, it is still difficult to arrive at a foolproof definition of pornography. In the
second place, a definitive account of the ‘effects’ – if any – of pornography on all
people, of all different kinds, is a long way away. The object of communication
science is therefore underdetermined and inescapably so. Furthermore, there are
numerous reasons for this. If we take an example from the foundation of medicine,
we know that Hippocrates (1983 [c. 430–330 bc]: 185) advanced medical science
by observing that a symptom exists as such when it is found to be identical in
Delos, Scythia and in Libya. Where the object of communications is concerned,
the opposite is the case: the object will be subject to sometimes significantly differ-
ent degrees of difference according to geography and context. This is the reason,
too, that the study of communication can never be organized according to the
implementation of just one method, typically either adopted from a social science
template or from a humanities one. The frequently extreme variation and richness
of the cultural context in which communication takes place dictates that a diverse
set of methods is crucial to the task of attempting to unravel the nature of commu-
nication in different places and contexts. This is not to say that the object of com-
munication science can be simply summed up as ‘cultural signs’ or ‘signs in con-
text.’ Whilst these are dominant in communication science, there are also
endeavours which serve to illustrate the illusory basis of the nature/culture divide.
One of these is the investigation of communication disorders (Rieber 1981; Damico
et al. 2010); another is biosemiotics (see Cobley, Chapter 12).
Unlike medicine, then, it is difficult to say what communication science is not
about. Communication is sufficiently general that it suffuses other disciplines or
objects. This is so to the extent that it is even easy to find examples in which the
interaction of cells or other organic entities are said to be involved in ‘communica-
tion.’ Often, this term is used in a self-consciously metaphorical way. Yet, on the
same level, it would be strange to encounter a sociology of neurons or the philoso-
phy of metals. Communication science, of course, is not alone in having a diverse
profusion of objects. Because of their focus on objects which change according to
issues of sociality, geography, time, and context, both communication and sociol-
ogy, despite their many differences, are fragmented. Communication science and
psychology, again with many differences, have a slightly different experience of
fragmentation, with the latter discipline being fragmented in some areas and uni-
fied in others. There is really no single object of communication science. However,
if one were to posit one possible object it might be the human communicative act –
often conceived as “someone communicates something to someone else”. This, of
course, is the thread of one of the most fundamental models of communication
6 Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz

offered by Lasswell (1948: 37): “Who says what to whom in what channel and with
what effect?” Of course, it is well known that Lasswell’s model leaves out all man-
ner of noise and contextual matters as well as embedding assumptions such as
that there is necessarily any ‘effect’ in communications. The contributions in Sec-
tion 2 of this volume, ‘Components of communication,’ are very much alive to this
fact and point out the most salient shortcomings of the model where relevant.
Indeed, we might add that in addition to questioning the character of the ‘who,’
‘what,’ ‘whom,’ ‘channel’ and ‘effect,’ it would not be impossible to make a credi-
ble argument about the way in which the elements in between – ‘says’ (glottocen-
tric), ‘to’ (attributing intentionality), ‘in’ (a spatial metaphor privileging dissemina-
tion over representation), ‘and with what’ (assuming an attuned destination) – are
open to criticism because they do not account for the entirety of the vicissitudes
of communications. Nevertheless, as a hook for discussion and as a short
mnemonic for recalling the general object of communication science, Lasswell’s
formula still serves.
There is a problem, though, with too great a degree of generality in the study
of communication. The idea of ‘pan-communication,’ for example – the belief that
everything communicates in some way or another – is one possible position that
could be taken in communication. However, it is not desirable for this series of
Handbooks nor, we believe, for communication science as a whole. There are a
number of reasons for this. Firstly, it is not clear that everything does communi-
cate. There are some objects which harbour the potential to communicate but sel-
dom do play a part in the world of communication; there are also things which
remain resolutely on the fringes of experience and are not considered in their
capacity – however limited – to communicate. More importantly, a pan-communi-
cation perspective tends to prevent rather than promote investigation; it presents
an unlimited array of objects about which it is difficult say anything regarding
what unifies them or in what way they are related. As with all academic work,
communication science is compelled to identify common features and patterns
which will illuminate the workings of its objects. Indeed, in the etymologically-
inflected definitions at the commencement of this Introduction, there are clear
imperatives with respect to this task. One definition – invoking ‘community’ and
‘bringing together’ – tends towards a proliferation of communication science’s
objects; the other – focusing on exchange, gift, participation and the way that a
municipal impulse creates an event – lends itself to a more specific set of contextu-
alized objects or processes. At the root of communication science, to be sure, it is
possible that a broad conception of communication would be tenable. This would
include communication among animals and plants. However, communication sci-
entists have been mindful of the fact that the entire field would be untenable if its
central conception of communication was too broad. The way that communication
science has so far manifested itself has meant that the key concern has been with
human communication. There remains a residual concern about the extent to
 Introduction 7

which there is continuity of communication, from plants, through animals, to

humans, plus a concomitant concern that ‘communication’ as applied to say, cells,
is merely ‘metaphorical’ but, as yet, this has not been developed. Yet, it should
be qualified that, insofar as communication science takes as its object human
communication, the act of ‘communication’ is not reified. What the study of com-
munication is concerned with is not communication as a material and ‘finished’
entity. Rather, it is concerned with the manifold nature of human behaviour in
communication. Stating this does not amount to sympathy with the discredited
project of ‘behaviourism,’ nor is it an alignment with the so-called behavioural
sciences. Instead, it indicates that the object of communication science is an empir-
ical entity which, far from being stable and consisting of matter, is susceptible to
the vagaries of changes in human behaviour and historical forces.

1.2 Defining communication theories and models

One of the great achievements in the definition of communication science in recent

years has been the International Encyclopedia of Communication in 12 volumes
(2008) edited by Wolfgang Donsbach. It represents a major step in the task of
establishing a sense of the range of objects of communication science. However,
in its definition of terms and outlining of topics, it is not necessarily designed to
offer a sense of ongoing research, the ‘state of the art’ in communication science
or an overview of the materials that will equip the field to meet future challenges.
We see the present series of Handbooks of which the current volume is the first as
the next step in the Encyclopedia’s synoptic work. Important to the current project
is the constitution of the field – for this reason, the editors of the other Handbooks
and the contributors to this volume are leading and agenda-setting scholars. The
task for this volume, ahead of the other Handbooks, is to consider the rough struc-
ture for the field that arises from the range of its pursuits (intercultural communi-
cation, organizational communication, broadcasting and so forth), to set this
against the areas of communication science that are established globally (the study
of communicative competence, rhetoric, political communication including ‘influ-
ence,’ ‘persuasion,’ etc., commercial communication, also including ‘influence,’
‘persuasion,’ etc., the study of media) and rising fields such as the study of com-
munication technology or health communication, and to focus on the key models/
theories that have developed sometimes from specific areas but have had conse-
quences for communication study as a whole. To do this, of course, we need to
have an understanding of what constitutes a ‘model’ or ‘theory.’ As a field, commu-
nication science has been very profligate in its spawning and naming of theories
locally. Part of this volume’s remit is to decide what a ‘theory’ or ‘model’ is as well
as presenting the most important of these.
As a start, we can describe a model as a simplified picture of a part of the real
world. It represents characteristics of reality, but only some of them. Like a picture,
8 Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz

a model is much simpler than the phenomena it is supposed to represent or

explain. For example, a model of an aeroplane resembles the real aeroplane with
respect to some parts of an aeroplane – wings, tail, wheels, etc. – although it is
likely to miss other characteristics – for example, wing flaps and slats. Considering
the model, we can learn something about the size or the proportion of wings and
fuselage, but this would not necessarily tell us anything about its speed (see also
Lanigan, Chapter 4).
In a similar manner, a theory is supposed to represent or explain the phenom-
ena to which it refers. There are plenty of definitions of what a theory is. Some
scholars describe theory as a symbolic construction (Kaplan 1964: 296), others as
“a set of interrelated constructs (concepts), definitions, and propositions that
present a systematic view of phenomena by specifying relations among variables,
with the purpose of explaining and predicting the phenomena” (Kerlinger and Lee
2000: 11). What is common in these as well as in other definitions is the fundamen-
tal idea that a theory consists of abstract or concrete concepts or constructs that
function as representations or means by which we are able to understand and
handle the complex reality. Concepts are “building blocks” (Jaccard and Jacoby
2010: 10) for all thinking and understanding of the physical and social world
around us, regardless of whether these blocks are used by scientists or non-scien-
tists. In addition, a theory implies a statement about relationships between the
concepts or constructs that are inherent to it. There are different types of such
statements. These may connect concepts and constructs; in addition, many theo-
ries in the social sciences include either relational or causal statements. A rela-
tional statement describes the association or correlation between concepts. In prac-
tice, it means that the existence of one concept conveys information about the
existence of another concept. A causal statement, in contrast, means that one
concept is considered to be the cause of a second concept. Despite the fact that
theories differ in many respects and have been classified in different types of theo-
ries, at the core of all theories stands the fundamental idea of a set of statements
about the relationship between concepts or constructs (Jaccard and Jacoby
2010: 28). Something very similar applies also to models: they always include con-
cepts, constructs and the relations between them. This is why, in this volume, both
terms, theory and model, are used interchangeably.
From this perspective, scientific knowledge of a discipline is basically nothing
more than a corpus of theoretical statements in the aforementioned sense. Theoriz-
ing or modelling includes the conceptualization of phenomena in terms of a set of
concepts or constructs and relationships among them. Learning what a discipline
is about and what is the common wisdom in this field means studying its major
theories and models. That is what this first volume of the Handbooks series intends
to do.
Yet, it should be acknowledged that while theories have arisen in different
areas of communication science, the work of forging theory is far from over. In an
 Introduction 9

essay that has lost none of its acumen since it was written more than 20 years ago,
Charles Berger (1991) asked (and answered!) the question of why there have been
so few genuine communication theories. He found that certain historical legacies,
a fixation on methodology at the expense of theory and risk aversion on the part
of researchers had made theory parochial and almost utterly context-dependent.
Not that much has changed since Berger’s essay and scholars in the field still
struggle with the shortage of theories, for which new explanations were found
since Berger described his. Many theories in the field have been borrowed from
other disciplines, mainly from sociology, social psychology and political science,
and adapted to the needs and interests of communication science. And, as Berger
notes, communication science has not yet exported as much as it has imported
from other fields; as such, communication research has not yet become an autono-
mous scientific enterprise with its own theoretical frameworks. What often hap-
pened was that communication theorists refined existing theoretical frameworks
from other disciplines rather than developing their own which then could have
been embraced by other disciplines.
The question of why theories are so important in the field leads us to one
additional observation. Communication science provides us with extensive knowl-
edge about the world in which we live. Such knowledge of what happened in the
past, what is happening right now and what will happen in the future would,
however, be incomplete if it did not also tell us why certain events are likely to
happen. So, communication theories provide us with an explanation for the phe-
nomena they also describe (hopefully accurately). In fact, the explanation of
observed phenomena is at the core of any theory. Once we are able to explain why
certain things happen, this will also allow us, at least to a certain extent, to predict
what is likely to happen in the future (see also Cobley, Chapter 12). Both explana-
tion and prediction are constitutive parts of a theory. Both function as guidance
regarding our understanding of some aspects of our experience: they allow us to
say, with a high degree of probability, what is going to occur and re-occur. With
respect to this explanatory power it is not difficult to understand why communica-
tion science continues to claim that the field needs mainly theory-based research.
Theories are good or useful to the extent that they explain, allow us to predict
and to the extent that they fit our experience of events and reality. Theories may
be rejected simply because they do not fit, meaning they do not make sense in
light of our experience, or lack credibility. In the 1990s especially, postmodernism
questioned the basic assumption in communication theory, which is based on the
idea of fit – that is, the correspondence between the relations of concepts and
constructs as conceived in theories, on the one side, and the empirical data that
more or less fit these concepts and relations on the other side. Postmodern think-
ing, in opposition to this idea, holds that correspondence or ‘consensus’ are intrin-
sically modernist notions that lead to totalitarian and totalizing ways of thinking.
Indeed, postmodernism implies that there cannot be one correspondence or con-
10 Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz

sensus but, instead, that there are many possible correspondences which are often
in conflict with others. Additionally, postmodernism rejects the idea of a reason-
ing, rational subject at the centre of any theory and replaces it with an ‘individual’
that is conceived of as a product of various discursive practices and knowledge
structures. Without discussing the details of this critical approach toward theory,
it should be sufficient to mention at this point that by the same token that post-
modernism criticizes the traditional idea of theory, it also tends to imply that its
own approach – based on the recognition of numerous contingent forces – is some-
how more ‘fitting’. Ultimately, this prevents communication science from develop-
ing sounder theories and ‘fits’ in the future. It threatens to be the end of a number
of fields, but especially communication science. This is the case not so much
because of postmodernism’s critique of consensus and empirical certainty; rather,
it is because of the way that postmodernism has attempted to encourage communi-
cation theory to shut up shop and to fall back on the risk aversion and fixation on
methodology that Berger so cogently delineated. One of the objectives of the cur-
rent book is to contribute to ensuring that this does not happen.

1.3 Theories and models in the field

The way that theories and models are figured in this volume corresponds to the
way in which the series of Handbooks has been conceived. The series aims to
integrate knowledge of communication structures and processes, not to split them
into little pieces. It is committed to a pluralistic approach to the field, both in terms
of theories and methods. It is supposed to document the current state of knowledge
in the field, whilst also describing the intellectual roots of that knowledge. It seeks
a coherent terminology whilst acknowledging that this is not possible in all instan-
ces. And it embraces any theory or model that can enlighten communication proc-
esses.
Following the present volume on theories and models of communication, the
Handbooks are divided into five areas, the last being a single volume on the futures
for communication science. The first area of volumes is on messages, codes and
channels. Issues to do with these feature strongly in the current volume: the essays
in this volume loosely arranged around Lasswell’s formula for communication
study necessarily consider the message (especially ‘What’) and channel. The chan-
nel, of course, takes in communication technology, verbality, nonverbality, and
other visual communication. Code is particularly important in considering commu-
nication because it has common and specialized definitions, involving either a very
specific function or a more varied one associated with the many different forms of
communication – verbal, nonverbal, specifically visual and connected to different
communication technologies (see also Cobley, Chapter 12). Moreover, we must con-
sider where and how the messages, channels and codes of communication are
 Introduction 11

studied. The centrality of verbal communication to communication science derives

to a great extent from its institutionalization. The history of the study of nonverbal
communication is marked by its almost total lack of institutionalization globally.
Visual communication (as opposed to, say, auditory communication) is an example
of an area that has become institutionalized for specific historical reasons. The
study of communication technology is remarkable for its rapid institutionalization
and the fact that it is related to other endeavours by virtue of involving investiga-
tion of the extensions of human processes.
Models and theories of communication also need to attempt to account for
the matters in the third section of volumes within this series: mode of address,
communicative situations and contexts. Any kind of communication takes place in
a given context – narrow, broad, intermediate, rule-bound – its mode. It is through
mode (conceived in this way) that some traditions in communication science come
together: interpersonal communication, small group communication, mass com-
munication. Additionally, if one compares speech communication and mass com-
munication, it is notable that they have much in common and study can be carried
out on this basis. Yet, if the communication situation changes – for example, if
the communication is taking place during a war – the comparison can be rendered
invalid. Thus, there are fluctuating differences and similarities in interpersonal
communication, mass communication and organizational communication that
theories and models must take into account.
Communication is also studied according to a range of methodologies which
have been developed in the history of communication science for their honed abil-
ity to address questions that arise from both communication in specific areas and
communication across a number of areas. Commonly in research the object and
method are intertwined. However, it should be remembered that what one finds is
not always entirely determined by how one looks for it – sometimes research in a
specific area of communications throws up unanticipated empirical developments.
Some developments in some areas (obvious examples are developing technologies
or burgeoning social networks) will create new research areas. So, whether one is
carrying out research using quantitative or qualitative research methods in a par-
ticular area of the communication landscape, theories and models are not extrane-
ous. If studying the rapid growth of online social networks in the last decade, then
the body of work on network theory (see Chapters 4, 5, 12 and 19 by Lanigan,
Baecker, Cobley and Self respectively) should have enabled at least some contextu-
alizing projection regarding the growth of contemporary social networking. In line
with theory, as well as with new objects, research methods sometimes have to be
adjusted. This may go hand-in-hand with the development of new (sub)fields and
with consequent effects on the methodology of research in those (sub)fields. Jour-
nals and publications in the field are usually taxed with the task of representing
new methods and developments.
As has been noted, one of the dilemmas facing theories and models of commu-
nication is that the objects of communications seem to proliferate to such an extent
12 Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz

that they have created the impression of a very fragmented field. Even with the
task of successfully representing the ‘state of the art,’ which is central to this
Handbooks series, there is the problem of rapidly developing (sub)fields or ‘appli-
cation areas’ before the series is finally complete. The growth of new areas with
features that have not been anticipated can undermine communication models.
This is especially the case in the present when it is clear that communication
technology and its availability has meant that there are ‘amateur’ or ‘domestic’
producers of prominent communications (for example, citizen journalists) who
would, in previous decades, be considered as mere consumers. This upsets, among
other things, models of the audience in communications (see Chapter 21, Shoe-
maker, Riccio and Johnson). Thus, the ‘application areas’ in this series of Hand-
books will be covered by volumes on Health Communication, Educational/Instruc-
tional Communication, Science Communication, Journalism and others. However,
it may be necessary to supplement these in the coming years with volumes on
such fast developing areas as crisis communication.
Even at this stage, communication science is still a youthful field and the fact
that vibrancy is problematic for the development of completely watertight theories
and models is a small price to pay for the knowledge of human behaviour that its
research yields. Ultimately, while theory is a conceptualization of phenomena in
terms of a set of concepts or constructs and relationships among them, it is also a
map helping those outside and within the field to find their way round.

2 Organization of the volume

Each of the essays in this volume begins with an abstract foreshadowing what is
to follow. For quicker reference, still, on the collection of essays as a whole and
how to use the volume, some comments are offered here.
Following this Introduction which has focused on communication study and
its objects as a theoretical foundational matter for theories and models, Eadie and
Goret’s Chapter 2 presents a historically-orientated overview of that matter. The
volume is then divided into two sections. The first of these features 17 contributions
which present the key theories or models of communication. The second section
is made up of some short and more focused chapters on ‘components’ of communi-
cation. The classic, five-point model of Lasswell has been taken as the departure
point for this project: so there are chapters on how ‘Who’ has been conceived in
communication study, as well as ‘What,’ ‘Whom,’ ‘Channel’ and ‘Effect.’ As has
been seen, Lasswell’s model is far from being the final word on the components
of communication and, as the chapters will show, even while serving as a basis,
the model has had to be adapted or pronounced as lacking full adequacy in the
face of communication’s mutability, fragmentation, geographical and contextual
situatedness.
 Introduction 13

The section on ‘Theories and models’ begins with Craig’s (Chapter 3) discus-
sion of how theories and models are actually constructed in communication sci-
ence. It gives a strong sense of the way that this takes place in the context of
different disciplines. This is then followed by chapters that discuss particular
models from specific areas of the study of communication or that have fed into
contemporary communication science. Lanigan’s chapter (Chapter 4) pits informa-
tion theory and its model of signification against communication theory with its
model of meaning. Following this, Baecker’s chapter (Chapter 5) outlines systemic
theories of communication in the wake of Shannon and Weaver’s 1949 model.
The next three chapters find models in the ‘bases’ of communication. Lieber-
man’s (Chapter 6) is concerned with the motor control, cognitive flexibility and
creativity that give rise to communication in primates. Siegert and von Rimscha
(Chapter 7) review networks and regulation as well as their consequences in con-
sidering the economic bases of communication while Hamelink (Chapter 8) gives
an overview of the key issues that make up the normative bases of human commu-
nication: fairness in speech, freedom of speech, responsibility, confidentiality and
truth in communication.
In Chapter 9, Tindale considers the ways in which communication has been
shown to be ‘efficient’ by way of the traditions of argumentation and rhetoric, plus
more recent evaluations of the communication process by research into Artificial
Intelligence. Chapter 10, by Greene and Dorrance Hall surveys the range of cogni-
tive theories of communication, showing how they have sometimes been comple-
mentary and sometimes competing, and offering some syntheses. Then Trevarthen
and Delafield-Butt (Chapter 11), consider the evidence in human development
which indicates that learning of communication, particularly ‘language,’ takes
place from the ante-natal stage onwards.
The three chapters that follow outline traditions that have had a considerable
(sometimes unacknowledged) influence on communication. Chapter 12 by Cobley
traces the way in which models of communication in semiotics, especially those
giving rise to ‘code’ and ‘text,’ have contributed to communication science. Whar-
ton (Chapter 13) discusses the bases of pragmatics or action-orientated theories of
communication. Bangerter and Mayor (Chapter 14) then go on to consider the influ-
ence of the action-orientation in attempts in communication science to understand
the relations of communication and cognition.
In the more demonstrably public environment of communication are the fol-
lowing four chapters. Through the consideration of a range of findings from areas
including cognitive dissonance, computational theories, dual process models and
affectively-orientated theories, Shen (Chapter 15) discusses the way in which com-
munication has been conceived in terms of its possibility to shape, reinforce, or
change the responses others. Moy and Bosch (Chapter 16) discuss not only how
public communication is theorized but also how it might be underpinned by norm-
ative models of what constitutes ‘the public.’ Chapter 17 concentrates more on
14 Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz

media, with Crowley’s essay on meditation theories as explorations not just of

media but also symbolic exchange and interaction. Finally in this section, Chap-
ter 18 by Schrøder gives an account of socio-cultural models of communication in
which the central exemplar is so-called ‘British cultural studies’ and, within that,
Hall’s formulation of the encoding/decoding model.
Section 2 addresses the components of communication within a loosely Lass-
wellian frame. Chapter 19 by Self considers ‘Who’ in relation to ‘strong effects,’
‘limited effects,’ ‘structural effects’ and ‘semiotic effects’ models. Chapter 20 on
‘What’ sees Hample considering the message in terms of the way that arguments
are constructed. ‘Whom’ (Chapter 21) by Shoemaker, Riccio and Johnson looks at
the ways in which audiences have been conceptualized over the last century and
points to the way that models of audiences proposed by researchers have often
been problematic because they have paid too little attention to change. In the
essay on ‘Channel’ (Chapter 22), Bolchini and Lu see their subject in terms of the
‘instrumentation’ of communication and they analyse it in general terms and with
reference to contemporary interactive media and the internet. Finally, Oliver, Lim-
peros and Woolley (Chapter 23) interrogate models of ‘effect,’ identifying three
broad classes: cumulative, immediate and interpretative.
The chapters in the volume have been designed to be read on their own or in
groups with other chapters in the volume or as a whole statement, along with the
Introduction, of the current constitution of theory in communication science. The
chapters cross-reference each other at different stages in order to reduce repetition
and to provide easy access to fuller discussions of various issues. However, there
is some necessary repetition – for example, the topic of ‘effects’ crops up in a
number of places because it has played such a key role in ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘whom,’
‘channel’ and fields such as ‘public communication.’ Each chapter encourages
research beyond the confines of this volume by offering suggestions for further
reading.

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William F. Eadie and Robin Goret
2 Theories and models of communication:
foundations and heritage
Abstract: This chapter charts the historical influences on the theories and models
that shaped the communication discipline. It illustrates the importance of U.S. and
European scholars from not only the beginnings of the communication discipline,
but including those who were pre-eminent in other academic disciplines such as
sociology, psychology, political science and journalism, as well as examining
emerging scholarship from Asia that focuses on understanding cultural differences
through communication theories. The chapter traces the foundations and heritage
of communication study from five perspectives: (1) communication as shaper of
public opinion; (2) communication as language use; (3) communication as infor-
mation transmission; (4) communication as developer of relationships; and
(5) communication as definer, interpreter, and critic of culture.

Keywords: Public opinion, media messages, agenda setting theory, cultivation

theory, language, cultural studies, rhetoric, general semantics, symbolic interac-
tionism, relational communication

Communication study seems inherently multi-disciplinary, drawing theory and

sharing concepts from psychology, sociology, political science and other social
sciences. Indeed, many of the scholars who are considered pre-eminent in commu-
nication were not from the discipline of communication itself and the fact that
their work shaped communication theory was a by-product and not the original
intent of their work (Delia 1987; Rogers 1994).
Communication has deep roots as an area of inquiry, but its history as an
academic discipline is relatively brief. The most comprehensive ancient texts on
communication to which we have access are those of the Greek and Roman socie-
ties. In both societies, communication is defined as synonymous with rhetoric,
although that term was contested between Plato and Aristotle. Plato, according to
Peters’s (1999) analysis, defined rhetoric as fostering the ability for humans to
connect as eros, or at a soulful level through stylish and poetic language, while
Aristotle’s ideas about rhetoric are generally seen as explaining how humans influ-
ence each other ethically in public fora. Aristotle’s ideas were frequently seen as
cornerstones of democratic deliberation, while Plato’s ideas provided a foundation
for the study of literature. The differences between them were sometimes simplified
to style (“mere rhetoric”) vs. substance (rhetoric as an ancient and noble art).
Nevertheless, major philosophers tended to write about rhetoric at least in passing.
Rhetoric evolved distinctly from communication for at least half of the twentieth
century, but eventually the two areas of study came to rival each other.
18 William F. Eadie and Robin Goret

Communication’s history is also somewhat contentious, as a communication

disciplinary story starts with sociology and social psychology and then co-mingles
with the study of journalism and speech before emerging as the dominant force in
the stories of both of the latter (Eadie 2011). The study of communication developed
primarily in the United States, though with considerable influence from European
thinkers. In this chapter, we will trace some of the historical influences on contem-
porary thought in the communication discipline. In doing so, we will draw on the
influence of U. S. and European scholars on the development of our ideas about
communication phenomena, and we will touch on some emerging scholarship
from Asia that shows potential for understanding cultural differences through com-
munication ideas.
In structuring this chapter, we need to take into account differing ideas about
the nature of communication. So, we will organize our survey around five broad
categories of communication phenomena: (1) communication as shaper of public
opinion; (2) communication as language use; (3) communication as information
transmission; (4) communication as developer of relationships; and (5) communi-
cation as definer, interpreter, and critic of culture.

1 Communication as shaper of public opinion

Communication’s roots in the formation of public opinion stem from the develop-
ment of sociology as a discipline, primarily at the University of Chicago. Deliber-
ately located in the midst of a working class urban neighborhood, the university
took as its mission the study of its surroundings as a laboratory for societal
improvement. Robert Park, the head of the nascent program that would come to
define the university’s mission, recognized early the role that communication tech-
nology could play in society. Park’s (1922, 1952) theories of mass communication
became the basis for his colleagues to begin to think, from a variety of perspectives,
about how a variety of communication phenomena interacted with the formation
and maintenance of society.
It was a journalist who brought the idea of public opinion into focus, however.
Newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann chose to write for public, rather than schol-
arly consumption, but the thorough and eloquent manner in which he expressed
his ideas led scholars to value his work. Lippmann’s (1922) book, Public Opinion,
became a touchstone for scholarship for many years to come.
Following World War I, concern arose in particular about the role of propa-
ganda in shaping public opinion. Political scientist Harold Lasswell (1927) became
an early advocate for studying how media could be used, particularly by govern-
ments, to influence public opinion through biased or incomplete messages. Media
were looked on as powerful forces that could potentially affect large numbers of
people in similar ways. The wide-spread panic that set in following the Halloween
 Theories and models of communication: foundations and heritage 19

radio broadcast of, The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells’ story re-told as a series of
radio news broadcasts, was seen as an example of the power of media to act as a
“hypodermic needle” (Lowery and DeFleur 1995; Pooley 2006; Rogers 1994), inject-
ing a powerful drug into the public consciousness.
Concern about the rise of Nazism and Fascism in Europe led to the first con-
certed research efforts in both mediated and face-to-face communication, in the
1930s. Interestingly, many of the scholars who participated in these efforts were
European émigrés who sought to escape those two political movements. As outsid-
ers (including Jews, who suffered under anti-Semitic attitudes then prevalent at
major U. S. universities) these scholars found ways of supporting themselves by
doing practical research on problems deemed to be of great interest either to U. S.
corporations or to the government. From this research, which eventually was iden-
tified with social psychology, came a tradition of quantitative study of communica-
tion behavior.
During World War II, the U. S. government gathered scholars together in Wash-
ington, DC, to provide collective brainpower for managing the war effort and the
sacrifices that were necessary at home. Research on propaganda and public opin-
ion had already been underway in the 1920s and 1930s, and Paul Lazarsfeld and
his associates’ (1944) study of the 1940 election (see below for details) had
debunked the idea that mass media messages had direct effects on voting behavior.
Rather, these effects were often modulated by pre-existing attitudes, such as politi-
cal party allegiances, and by interactions with influential people (who were labeled
“opinion leaders”). Research conducted on group interaction as a tool of persua-
sion (e.g., Lewin 1943) demonstrated that commonly-held attitudes could be modi-
fied if “good of the whole” pressures were applied. All in all, research efforts during
World War II set the stage for an explosion of communication study in the years
following the end of the war.
Lazarsfeld and the Office of Radio Research studied how political advertise-
ments during the presidential campaign of 1940 affected voters in Erie County,
Ohio. This study, according to Lazarsfeld (1969: 330), was not originally intended
to focus on voting habits but, instead, to test “a program of the Department of
Agriculture, since its innovations made major changes in American behavior and …
this Department … developed the most extensive use of the radio in support of its
policies.”
The Erie County study examined the changes in voters’ opinions over a period
of several months, expecting to find that the media messages they were exposed
to had a direct effect on their voting behavior. Instead of showing a direct effect,
however, the analysis of the results showed that voting decisions were completely
unrelated to the messages the audience had heard (Barton 2001; Jeřábek 2001;
Rogers 1994). These findings completely contradicted the prevailing thought of the
day. The study further showed that opinion leaders developed their ideas through
a variety of sources that included the media, and then influenced the members
20 William F. Eadie and Robin Goret

of their community through their social interactions. The voters who Lazarsfeld
interviewed inevitably pointed to these influential individuals as the source of their
information and the main influence on their voting decisions. This finding led
Lazarsfeld to propose that there was another level of communication other than
the media (Lowery and DeFleur 1995), a process he called the two-step flow of
communication.
After Lazarsfeld’s large-scale case study demonstrated that media messages
played only a small role in directly influencing election results, research in this
area for a number of years focused on conditions where media messages would
play more or less of a role than face-to-face influence in the formation of public
opinion. It was not until McCombs and Shaw (1972) produced data causing the re-
thinking of the small-effects paradigm that research shifted to what these authors
dubbed “the agenda-setting function of media.” This function links press coverage
with public ratings of importance with issues, and a study of the 1968 U. S. presi-
dential election found a high correlation between these two items, given a three-
week lag time. While these findings did not negate Lazarsfeld’s idea of two-step
flow, they identified for the first time a powerful direct effect for media messages
on public opinion. Rather than persuade people or tell them what to think, argued
the researchers, media tell them what is important to think about.
A companion theory, Cultivation (Gerbner 1973), argued that large effects from
media could be generated based on the amount of time spent consuming media.
Heavy users of media tended to distort perceptions of society to fit with media
content to a far greater extent than did light users. For example, individuals who
heavily consume news and news analysis from a particular point of view (e.g., in
the U. S., Fox News or MSNBC) will be likely to distort news events to a greater
extent than those who spent little to no time consuming content from these sta-
tions. While Cultivation Theory had uses outside of public opinion research, it,
too, was a crack in the formulation that media had but small effect on public
opinion.
In later developments, agenda-setting theorists demonstrated that media mes-
sages also had the capability to influence how individuals think about topics. In
particular, these theorists developed the concepts of “framing” and “priming” to
describe this process. Framing refers to the means by which media messages are
presented. Frames provide salience for particular aspects of the message that have
been selected by its creator to shape it from a specific perspective (Entman 1993).
So, a news story about a crime can be framed from the perspectives of the victim,
the perpetrator, or the investigating police officer and the same details can yield
different impressions of the event. Priming, on the other hand, relates to how
media messages are constructed to indicate to audiences what elements are impor-
tant to use in judging the value of an object. To provide an example, a news
analysis is priming its readers when its author states that performance on main-
taining a healthy national economy is the most important element for forming
 Theories and models of communication: foundations and heritage 21

judgments about the performance of U. S. presidents when they run for re-election.
Such an analysis may cause its readers to overlook other measures of presidential
performance and focus only on economic viability. President Ronald Reagan, who
was a master of priming rhetoric, famously asked American voters whether they
were better off than four years previously as a cornerstone of his campaign for a
second term. Americans agreed overwhelmingly that they were and returned Mr.
Reagan to office in a landslide vote.
The study of communication as a shaper of public opinion has focused pri-
marily on means by which media messages influence the public’s perceptions of
issues and events. Research on how mediated and face-to-face communication
combine to change behavior has integrated public opinion research with other
communication phenomena to produce promising means for promoting individual
and social good. These models have been used primarily to create campaigns for
the betterment of individual and public health (e.g., Cappella 2006; Donohew et
al. 1998).

2 Communication as language use

The turn of the twentieth century brought with it not only the investigation of
stimulus and response as a direct cause of behavior but also an interest in philo-
sophical quarters in how language is constructed and used. Early twentieth century
interest in language use developed in both Europe and in the U.S. The study of
language represented the variety of interests of the day, including interest in the
nature of reality and the relationship of language to culture.
For example, Ferdinand de Saussure, working in Europe, and Charles Sanders
Peirce, working in the U. S., are credited with formulating the theory of semiotics.
Saussure was a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Geneva in the first
decade of the twentieth century. He posited that linguistics would eventually be
incorporated into a then unheard of science called semiology (later named semiot-
ics), the term being derived from the Greek word semeion. Saussure argued that
language is a system made up of linguistic signs that join a concept and a sound
image. The sign, according to Saussure (1916/2000), is a psychological construct
with a number of distinct properties which include arbitrariness.
Another approach to semiotics was undertaken by Roland Barthes who acted
as an influential filter for Saussure’s teachings. In particular, Barthes extended
Saussure, developing the dual nature of the sign for the study of nonverbal commu-
nication, as well as language. In Barthes’s (1957) volume, Mythologies, the over-
arching theme is that the majority of experiences a person has at a social or per-
sonal level begin with the linguistic sign – media artifacts, identity, narrative,
communication with others, and so on. But linguistic behavior as a structure of
experience derives far less from personal exchange than with how language is
22 William F. Eadie and Robin Goret

conveyed to the personal level from the public level, where lies the locus of social
control, including control over language itself (Barthes 2000).
In fact, according to Barthes, linguistic signs with a forceful social meaning
are not necessarily ‘clear’ but are rather ambiguous or deceptive in some way.
Thus linguistic signs, as attributes of culture, lend themselves to ‘myth’, a ‘lan-
guage’ devoted to the “decorative display of the what-goes-without-saying” which
prevents the imposing “at the outset [of] a full meaning which it is impossible to
distort” (Barthes 2000: 11, 132). Language may be unclear in a variety of ways,
either because it is poetic or because it works by analogy. The key idea, for Barthes,
is that language “lends itself to multiple contingencies” (132). Semiologists engage
in this interpretive act, and it is up to the reader of myths to reveal their necessary
function. That is because “in a language, the sign is arbitrary: nothing compels
the acoustic image tree ‘naturally’ to mean the concept tree” (126). Instead, Barthes
posited, there is a motivation for the sign to mean whatever it means from the
habits and the traditions of the community of language users in which the word
appears.
Where language use is intent on signifying a cultural meaning there is
undoubtedly intent to affect the psychological experience of that meaning (Barthes
2000). Motivation, Barthes argued, is essential “to the very duplicity of myth: myth
plays on the analogy between meaning and form, there is no myth without moti-
vated form” (126). Barthes cited the innumerable images that the media use to
convey a social message, to imply, without directly pronouncing, the superiority
of a Eurocentric and bourgeois worldview. The communicated image conforms to
what Barthes termed the “very principle of myth: it transforms history into
nature …[and] is not read as a motive, but as a reason” (129). In due course, he
argued, values get conveyed with the authority of facts, all in the service of social
control. Only when the receivers that would be recognized as decoders of language
themselves effect language change is social control likely to shift. Thus, the “bour-
geoisie hides the fact that it is the bourgeoisie and thereby produces myth; revolu-
tion announces itself openly as revolution and thereby abolishes myth” (146). (See
also Chapter 12, Cobley.)
Somewhat in contrast to Barthes, interest in language use by Vygotsky (1971:
originally published in 1934) and Ayer (1936) drew upon logical positivism and
empiricism as a means of explaining the relationship of language to reality. Vygot-
sky saw language development as a function of experience with one’s environment,
using language to associate objects with thoughts and feelings. Ayer proposed the
use of language as a means of verifying the logic of one’s environment. Language
in itself is not verifiable, but it can be used to understand what may be verified
empirically.
A desire for empirical verification also pervaded the development of General
Semantics, which started out as a theory of language use and became more a
philosophy of communication than anything else. Begun by a Polish engineer
 Theories and models of communication: foundations and heritage 23

named Alfred Korzybski (1933) and popularized in the U. S. by S. I. Hayakawa

(1941), General Semantics began with the observation that language was not a
logical system and ended by advocating for a series of devices designed to make
communication based on language that was concrete, as opposed to abstract. Gen-
eral Semanticists envisioned a communication system with as little ambiguity as
possible so as to promote understanding and thereby reduce conflict, particularly
conflict between nations. The proposed system was based on a set of tools that
would continually remind language users to aim for the lowest possible level of
abstraction in both speech and writing.
Peirce’s (cf. 1878) work on the philosophical movement known as pragmatism
influenced a number of U. S. scholars interested in language use. Among those
were John Dewey, whose book, How We Think (1910), became the basis for teaching
generations of students the basics of collective decision-making, and George Her-
bert Mead, whose book, Mind, Self, and Society (1934, a posthumous rendering
of his theory, based on lecture notes and working papers) became a basis for
understanding how individuals interact with society through the use of signs and
symbols. Mead and Dewey were colleagues at the University of Chicago for a time,
and their interactions with each other and with colleagues were instrumental in
developing the perspective that became known as the Chicago School of Sociology.
Communication scholars eventually pursued with gusto Mead’s ideas about
what was eventually called symbolic interactionism (Blumer 1969). Symbolic inter-
actionism held that individual behavior was a function of the repertoire of roles
available to an individual, as well as how that person diagnosed what role might be
appropriate for a particular situation. Hart and Burks’s (1972) concept of rhetorical
sensitivity provided an early example of the influence of symbolic interactionism
in communication study, as these authors combined rhetorical message-generation
principles with symbolic interaction’s emphasis on role-taking and adaptation.
Eventually, symbolic interactionism gave way to social construction, as communi-
cation scholars adapted the work of psychologist Kenneth Gergen (1992, 1999) for
use in communication research. Social construction derived from the work of Ber-
ger and Luckmann (1966), who argued that communication is dependent on inter-
subjective meaning that operates at a societal level but is subject to re-negotiation
within individual and group relationships.
Kenneth Burke was a literary theorist whose ideas would prove to be highly
influential in understanding of the rhetorical aspects of language use. Burke
described language as a tool used by people to communicate and rationalize at a
far deeper level than could be done by words themselves. Burke focused on the
symbols people created to name things in his understanding of language. Accord-
ing to Holland (1955) when rhetoricians analyzed speeches, they tended to look at
three aspects – what was said, why it was said and how it was said. Burke however,
would argue that Holland’s formulation did not go far enough and that a primary
goal of criticism was to use “all [language instruments] that there is to use” (Burke,
24 William F. Eadie and Robin Goret

1941: 23). For Burke, speeches were only one aspect of language instruments and
he argued that a rhetoricians should not limit themselves to spoken text.
Burke proposed the Dramatist Pentad Theory, which analyzes events through
five essential elements: “what was done (act), when or where it was done (scene),
who did it (agent), how he did it (agency), and why (purpose)” (Burke 1945: xv).
He adapted his terms of analysis from the theater in order to account for motiva-
tion, which he took to be a decisive category for the explanation of rhetorical
events. Burke held that language is created hierarchically, that it reinforces hierar-
chies, and that humans cling to hierarchies to bring order to their lives through
symbolic actions. Language for Burke is always layered with emotion. Every word
is layered with judgment, attitude and feelings, and Burke further argued that
because of this complexity, language functions either to bring people together or
to separate them. When people identify with the language and symbols that a
speaker is using, this bringing-together process creates what Burke called “consub-
stantiality.” Like many scholars of language use, Burke’s influence crossed disci-
plines. Communication scholars poring over Burke’s work continue to find insights
that reveal how language use not only communicates but can also influence com-
municators.
Of course, the study of language use overlaps with linguistics, including both
its sub-fields of psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Yet, communication schol-
arship tends to focus more on the pragmatics of language use, as well as the effects
of such use, while linguistics often focuses more on structure and function of
language.

3 Communication as information transmission

Major strands of theory and research appeared in the U. S. following World War II.
Most of them focused on information and transmission, or in other words, how to
get a message from Point A to Point B in the most intact fashion possible. The key
works associated with this perspective came from engineering, and the technologi-
cal problems that drove the theorizing concerned the modernizing of the telephone
system and the development of high speed computers that could process a great
deal of information in a short span of time. Two books stood out in particular:
Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver’s (1949) The Mathematical Theory of Commu-
nication and Norbert Wiener’s (1948) Cybernetics. Shannon and Weaver developed
a theory that defined information as the reduction of uncertainty, and their pri-
mary concern revolved around how much “noise” (pure uncertainty) in any trans-
mission could be tolerated before the message would be transmitted inaccurately.
Wiener’s work described the reduction of uncertainty in systems through feedback
that would indicate a change of course was needed. Wiener’s scholarship on the
control of systems was instrumental in developing computers, which were popu-
 Theories and models of communication: foundations and heritage 25

larly known as “thinking machines.” Scholars who built on Shannon and Wiener’s
work attempted to model communication based on transmission of information,
moderated by feedback. Some scholars (cf. Dupuy 2000) believed that these theo-
ries could be used to model thought, about which little was then known.
Indeed, a great deal of theory and research in communication and media based
itself on the transmission model and continued to do so after the appearance of
information theory and cybernetics. Two post-World War II research programs illus-
trated this approach. The first was the Yale Communication and Attitude Change
Program, directed by Carl Hovland. Hovland had been one of the scholars who
worked on propaganda research for the Federal government during World War II,
and after the war he focused his efforts on understanding how people were influ-
enced by other people and their messages to change their attitudes. According to
McGuire’s (1996) review of that period, Hovland succeeded because he was able to
attract top-notch faculty and graduate students to work on the project and because
his management style allowed for creativity of theory development while still keep-
ing research focused on the overriding goal. Hovland’s efforts made attitude change
the major topic for social psychological research during the 1950s and 1960s.
The second came via the leadership of Wilbur Schramm, another veteran of
the Federal government’s propaganda research program. Schramm moved to Wash-
ington, DC, from the University of Iowa, where he was head of the famed Iowa
Writers’ Workshop. When the propaganda project ended, Schramm wanted to
return to Iowa, but his position with the Writers’ Workshop had been filled.
Instead, Iowa asked Schramm to head its journalism school, and Schramm
accepted the position with the condition that he be allowed to start an institute
for communication research. Schramm’s institute spurred the beginning of the field
of journalism’s association with mass communication scholarship, as opposed to
scholarship about journalism itself. Under Schramm’s tutelage, Iowa scholars and
others attempted to take the theoretical work from information theory and social
psychology and apply it more directly to understanding communication phenom-
ena. Journalism scholars were joined in this effort by scholars from the field of
speech who were energized both by Kurt Lewin’s work on group dynamics and the
Yale Group’s scholarship on individual credibility in promoting attitude change.
Schramm became a proselytizer for communication scholarship, and he began
institutes at the University of Illinois and Stanford before affiliating with an insti-
tute in Hawaii after retirement (Rogers 1994).
Such models of communication as transmission began to break down in the
1960s. David Berlo’s (1960) book, The Process of Communication, for example, pre-
sented what was then a traditionally linear transmission model of information flow
but added the idea that communication was dynamic and cyclical and that
research efforts to measure simple effects would ultimately fall short. Berlo urged
scholars to account for process in their research, but he did not provide a clear
means for so doing. It would take some years before scholars began to devise ways
26 William F. Eadie and Robin Goret

to measure communication as interaction and thus to downplay effects research.

Indeed, measuring process can be a complex task, as illustrated by Luhmann’s
(2000) mathematical theorizing about the cyclic nature of media news.
In media research, the transmission model found continued life as part of
research using Social Learning Theory and later, Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura
1986). Research conducted under the theme of learning the audience’s uses and
gratifications of media (Blumler and Katz 1974) later found the transmission model
amenable for some time before succumbing to criticism that audiences were more
active than the approach gave them credit (e.g., Reinhard and Dervin 2009).
But, the information transmission approach was not only about movement of
data from one point to another. Shannon and Weaver’s (1949) theory, for example,
also focused on how information functioned either to increase or decrease entropy,
or the level of uncertainty within a system. As Wiener (1948) noted, uncertainty is
present in every system and is a healthy element, causing the system to self-correct
via the use of negative feedback. Two different theorists applied this principle to
specific situations, creating examples of a turn away from the development of
grand theories of communication and moving toward more contained theories that
provided more focused opportunities for testing. The first was Berger’s Uncertainty
Reduction Theory (Berger and Calabrese 1975), which was focused on communica-
tion between individuals who were just beginning a relationship. Drawing on infor-
mation theory’s central tenet that individuals process information for the purpose
of reducing uncertainty, Berger and Calabrese laid out a set of variables such as
amount of verbal communication, nonverbal affiliative expressiveness, informa-
tion-seeking behavior, intimacy content of messages, reciprocity of information
sharing, perceived similarity and liking between communicators, and degree of
perceived shared communication networks. From these variables, the authors drew
eight axioms and twenty-one theorems that served as the basis for a program of
research that has continued through the present day.
A second use of the uncertainty principle emerged from the work of Karl Weick.
An organizational psychologist, Weick (1969) proposed that organizing is a process
that involves reducing uncertainty through the negotiation of organizational goals
and routines. While previous theorists had assumed that organizations were
formed to achieve goals, Weick contended that organizational goals evolved out of
interaction among the organization’s members. Weick called the process of individ-
ual negotiation with the organization and its members “sensemaking,” and he
proposed that organizations were loosely-coupled systems where collective mean-
ings of messages and actions evolved over time. Weick’s notions were radical in
that they ignored organizational hierarchies in favor of the power of informal net-
works to define and influence collective thought and actions. Communication
scholars eagerly embraced Weick’s ideas about organizations and have used his
sensemaking principle as a means of studying organizational culture, oftentimes
employing qualitative data such as stories (e.g., Smircich and Calás 1987).
 Theories and models of communication: foundations and heritage 27

The information transmission model remains a dominant one in communica-

tion scholarship, though its nature has become more process-like and less linear
over time.

4 Communication as developer of relationships

Relational communication scholarship emerged from a variety of sources, includ-
ing anthropology, social and clinical psychology, social work and family studies,
and systems analysis. It is likely that scholars from a number of disciplines influ-
enced each other as common problems overlapped. For example, Schramm (1997),
who was working on propaganda research during World War II in Washington, DC,
shared a carpool with anthropologist Margaret Mead, who was working on conserv-
ing food for the war effort and whose program funded Kurt Lewin’s (1948) work
on using groups to solidify cooperation from homemakers to use what they might
consider to be “inferior” cuts of meat in preparing meals for their families. Mead,
in turn, was married to Gregory Bateson, whose work on family systems in the
post-World War II era would develop the idea that double binds (communications
where meaning was made deliberately unclear) were a basis for relational pathol-
ogy (Bateson, et al. 1956).
Behavioral researchers approached relationships as a matter of perception
(e.g., Heider 1946; Thibaut and Kelley 1959), while clinical psychologists defined
relational intimacy in terms of degrees of authenticity (e.g., Buber 1947; Rogers
1961) and degree to which being in relationship with others allowed individuals to
self-actualize (Maslow 1943) (see also Chapter 14, Bangerter and Mayor). In fact,
Peters (1999), in his intellectual history of the idea of communication, argued that
all curiosity about communication arises from a desire for connection at a number
of levels: another’s soul and/or intellect, which we cannot directly experience;
those entities (such as plants and animals) that do not use symbols; and connec-
tion that is distinguished by authenticity that the participants do experience. The
two groups often found themselves at cross-purposes, and they disagreed substan-
tially about the nature of the phenomena they were studying.
Building on Bateson’s work, Watzlawick et al. (1967) devised the basis of a
formal theory of relational communication. In particular, the group’s five axioms
became the cornerstone of a number of research programs: (1) “one cannot not
communicate”; (2) “every communication has a content and relationship aspect
such that the latter classifies the former and is therefore a meta-communication”;
(3) “the nature of a relationship is dependent on the punctuation of the partners’
communication procedures”; (4) “human communication involves both digital and
analogic modalities”; and (5) “inter-human communication procedures are either
symmetric or complementary, depending on whether the relationship of the part-
ners is based on differences or parity”. Dubbed “the interactional view,” Watzlaw-
28 William F. Eadie and Robin Goret

ick et al.’s work led the study of communication in relationships away from both
competing emphases: variable analysis and psychic connection.
The end of variable analysis did not spell the end of quantitative approaches to
relational communication, however. Instead, quantitative research sought to blend
verbal and nonverbal elements of communication behavior so as to demonstrate
how those elements combine to produce interactive meaning. An exemplar of such
an approach, Burgoon’s (1978) Expectancy Violations Theory, proved to be a model
of the genre. Burgoon revised her theory often and sometimes substantially based
on the data she collected (c.f., Burgoon and Hale 1988), and the result of persist-
ence and a willingness to reinterpret her findings has made the theory one of the
most respected and robust of its type.
Relational communication has also been studied qualitatively, through inter-
views, personal narratives, and ethnographic approaches. An exemplar of a theory
emerging from such study is Relational Dialectics Theory, which was developed by
Leslie Baxter and her associates (e.g., Baxter and Montgomery 1996). Derived from
the work of philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (1986), the theory proposed that relation-
ships are developed out of the push and pull of interaction. Some of the contradic-
tory dynamics that the theory has studied are: (1) autonomy vs. connectedness
(i.e., how much “I” and how much “we” are needed by relational partners);
(2) favoritism vs. impartiality (i.e., how much is each partner treated “fairly,” as
opposed to how much each partner is valued as “special”); (3) openness vs. closed-
ness (i.e., how much information is disclosed between partners, as opposed to how
much information is kept private); (4) novelty vs. predictability (i.e., how much
the relationship feels exciting and new, as opposed to how much it feels comforta-
ble and old); and (5) instrumentality vs. affection (i.e., how much continuing the
relationship is based on tangible rewards, as opposed to how much continuing the
relationship is based on emotional rewards).
Relational communication replaced the former “interpersonal communication”
as the designator for communication in face-to-face settings. The term implies that
it is the relationship that is being studied, not the face-to-face context, and this
subtle change in focus has made a great deal of difference in how theorizing in
this approach to communication study has proceeded.

5 Communication as definer, interpreter, and

critic of culture
The early works of the Frankfurt School, specifically critical theory, laid the foun-
dation that led toward one of several paradigm shifts in communication theory
during the post-World War II era. According to Jay (1973, 1980), Rogers (1994), Tar
(1977) and others, critical theory is the term that refers to a specific tradition of
 Theories and models of communication: foundations and heritage 29

thought that originated with Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer,
and Walter Benjamin in the 1930s at the Frankfurt School and the Institute of
Social Research in Germany. This theory synthesizes ideas advanced by Karl Marx
and Sigmund Freud and positions media as having the potential to advance the
agenda of the bourgeois while controlling the proletariat (Jay 1973; Tar 1977). Cel-
ikates (2006) posited that critical theory makes it possible for one to understand
what is really happening in social reality and to explain these actions in terms of
such constructs as socioeconomic structures and who in society has the power.
Critical theory, Celikates (2006) further argued, questions and analyzes media, the
production of media, and its agents (see also Chapter 18, Schrøder).
Not all critical models of communication followed the Frankfurt School line. In
the early 1960s at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, a group of
scholars founded the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (producing a body of
work that later became synonymous with British Cultural Studies) because they had
a desire to understand the changes in post-war British society within the structure of
“a long retrospective historical glance” (Hall, 1992: 16). Hall (1980) argued that Cul-
tural Studies “defines ‘culture’ as both the meanings and values which arise amongst
distinctive social groups and classes on the basis of their given historical conditions
and relationships, through which they ‘handle’ and respond to the conditions of exis-
tence” (63). An essential element of the new paradigm was to redefine and refocus the
meaning of communication itself. Hall (1992) cited the practice of analyzing commu-
nication as similar to a circle of activity. The emerging idea was to think of communi-
cation as “structure produced and sustained through the articulation of linked but
distinctive moments – production, circulation, distribution/consumption, reproduc-
tion” (128). This idea came to be known as structuralism (not to be confused with the
same term applied to anthropology and linguistics) and had its roots not just in Marx-
ist theory but in early semiotic theory, particularly the code-semiotics of Eco (Hall,
1980) (see also Chapter 12, Cobley). For Hall, though, there were inherent problems in
the idea of structuralism such that the content of ideas gives way to patterns of ideas
that may be contained in a communication, as well as the means or conventions,
whether literary, linguistic, or social, by which the ideas are encoded and function
toward making meaning.
The encoding of a communication event is only part of the process of commu-
nication itself, carrying no essential meaning without an audience (or receiver) to
decode what the meaning is and, by decoding the message, the audience con-
structs the meaning. Hall (1992) provided the example of a TV news broadcast,
which has an impact on the society in which the encoded message is transmitted
only when the meanings are decoded. Drawing on the work of sociologist Frank
Parkin, as well as semiotician Umberto Eco, Hall posited that there were three
types of readings of meanings of a message when it was decoded. The dominant
or preferred reading is produced by those whose status favors the preferred read-
ings and therefore do not question the dominant ideology; the negotiated readings
30 William F. Eadie and Robin Goret

are produced by those who interpret the preferred reading as it is aligned with
their societal status; and the oppositional readings are produced by those whose
social status puts them in direct conflict with the dominant ideology.
Embedded in the foundation of British Cultural Studies is the work of Antonio
Gramsci, specifically Gramsci’s extension of the Marxist concept of hegemony.
Gramsci argued that the bourgeois retained power not just through political, eco-
nomic or violent control of the masses but ideologically through a cultural power
that conveyed that the values of the “haves” are common sense values for all of
society. If the working class believed they have the same values as the “haves” in
society, they would maintain the status quo and not work to change society for
the betterment of the working class. Gramsci also noted that “common sense is
not something rigid and immobile, but is continually transforming itself” (Hall
1982: 73). Stuart Hall and the British Centre for Cultural Studies applied Gramsci’s
theory of cultural hegemony to the examination of racial representations in the
media by illustrating racist stereotypes that Hall called the “grammar of race”
embedded in early films of the twentieth century (Hall 1995: 21) (see also Chap-
ter 18, Schrøder).
Jürgen Habermas, a student of Theodor Adorno, added further to the foundation
laid by the Frankfurt School and the British Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.
During his tenure at the Frankfurt School, Habermas focused his research on how a
new public sphere materialized during both the age of Enlightenment and the French
Revolution in Europe and the American Revolution in the United States and how this
new public sphere encouraged political discourse and closely examined language,
meaning, and understanding during political discourse (Habermas 1973, 1974, 1984,
1989; Jay 1973; Kellner 2000; Wiggerhaus 1994). Habermas (1974) posited that access
to the public sphere was granted to all citizens and that the dialogue about political
power did not always exist, it “grew out of a specific phase of bourgeois society and
could enter into the order of the bourgeois constitutional state only as a result of a
particular constellation of interests” (50). Using the U.S. wars in both Vietnam and
the Gulf Wars as examples, Habermas developed the view that public opinion and
understanding of the wars were primarily shaped by “the demonstrative rationality of
the military planning, and the unparalleled presence of the media” (Habermas,
1994: 6). The “encoding” objectives of those in power were, in Habermas’ view,
involved in managing how much information and precisely what information to dis-
pense to the general public in a way that was meant to influence public opinion and
to install a “staged reality” that existed not just for the general public, but for the
“mediators” of public information as well. The act of installing a staged reality, Haber-
mas argued, transformed media from a place that aided rational discourse to one that
limited such discourse to what media corporations wished to discuss (see also Chap-
ter 5, Lanigan). Habermas also examined early theories of semantics and put forth the
theory of meaning. He argued that the “meaning of sentences, the understanding of
sentence meanings cannot be separated from language’s interest in relation to the
 Theories and models of communication: foundations and heritage 31

validity of statements” (1984: 276). Habermas further argued that by understanding

the validity of statements, a communicative action occurs. Habermas posited that
communicative action occurs when at least two parties “reach an understanding
about the action situation and their plans of action in order to coordinate their actions
by way of agreement” (86).
Besides the cultural studies approach, which often took societal critique as a
given (see also Chapter 18, Schrøder), theorizing and scholarship have also been
devoted to understanding communication across cultures or across groups within
cultures. Cultural anthropologist Edward T. Hall (1959, 1966) provided the genesis
of this scholarship with his sweeping ideas of types of culture (high context, low
context), space (Hall introduced the concept of proxemics and documented how
cultures vary in their use of space), and time (Hall originated the ideas of polychro-
mic and monochromic time). Much of the theorizing in this area of study built on
either the information transmission or the relational approach (c. f., Gudykunst
2005), but one attempt to develop a unique cultural perspective on communication
has come from the work of Guo Ming Chen. Chen, who splits his time between the
University of Rhode Island and the South China University of Technology, has
outlined in a series of articles (Chen 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2004, 2005, 2006)
a vision of communication based in several Asian concepts: harmony, the polarity
of the yin and the yang, the Tao, the I Ching, and Confucian spirituality. Assuming
Chen’s formulation is developed further through research, it could provide a new
direction for theorizing about how communication is culture-specific.

6 Concluding remarks
In 1999, Robert T. Craig summarized different theoretical strands in communication
scholarship into seven “traditions:” rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, cyber-
netic, sociopsychological, sociocultural, and critical. Craig (1999) defined the rhe-
torical tradition as considering communication to be a practical art; the semiotic
tradition as considering communication to be intersubjective mediation via signs;
the phenomenological tradition as considering communication to be the capacity
of experiencing otherness through authentic dialogue; the cybernetic tradition as
considering communication to be synonymous with information processing; the
sociopsychological tradition as considering communication to be expression, inter-
action and influence; the sociocultural tradition as considering communication to
be the means by which the social order may be (re)produced; and the critical
tradition as considering communication to be discursive reflection, particularly on
hegemonic ideological forces and how these might be critiqued. Each of these
traditions combines ontology and epistemology differently (Anderson and Baym
2004), making communication theory truly a “big tent” encompassing social scien-
ces, humanities, and arts (see also Chapter 3, Craig).
32 William F. Eadie and Robin Goret

Craig (1999) worried that scholars adhering to each of his traditions were suffi-
ciently different from each other that they potentially could not engage in dialogue
about what issues were important to communication as a discipline. Disciplinary
dialogue, Craig argued, is essential to growth, development, and ultimately to dis-
ciplinary health. While we have defined the major intellectual strands of communi-
cation in a slightly different manner than did Craig, we do not have the same
worries. There may be no such thing as COMMUNICATION THEORY, but there may
be many communication theories, each proceeding from a different understanding
of communication phenomena and each contributing to scholarship proceeding
from that understanding. There may be quarrels about which of these understand-
ings is “correct” (or, more likely, which might be considered “incorrect” or “inad-
equate”), but ultimately we find commonality through appreciating the variety of
different approaches and the scholarship they have produced. “Communication”
may turn out to be the wrong term to define what we are studying, but for the
moment it is good enough.

Further reading
Anderson, James A. & Geoffrey Baym. 2004. Philosophies and philosophic issues in
communication, 1994–2004. Journal of Communication 54. 589–615. doi:10.1093/joc/
54.4.589
Craig, Robert T. 1999. Communication theory as a field. Communication Theory 9. 117–161.
doi:10.1111/j.1468–2885.1999.tb00355.x
Eadie, William F. 2011. Stories we tell: Fragmentation and convergence in communication
disciplinary history. The Review of Communication 11. 161–176.
Peters, John Durham. 1999. Speaking into the air: A history of the idea of communication.
Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press
Rogers, Everett M. 1994. A history of communication study: A biographical approach. New York:
Free Press.

References
Anderson, J. A. & G. Baym. 2004. Philosophies and philosophic issues in communication,
1994–2004. Journal of Communication 54. 589–615. doi:10.1093/joc/54.4.589
Ayer, A. J. 1936. Language, truth and logic. London: Victor Gollancz [Reprinted by Penguin Books,
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I Theories and models
Robert T. Craig
3 Constructing theories in communication
research
Abstract: Diverse approaches to theory construction are distinguished by different
metatheoretical assumptions of epistemology, ontology, axiology and praxeology.
Two broad approaches are the empirical-scientific and critical-interpretive. A scien-
tific theory is a logically connected set of abstract statements from which empiri-
cally testable hypotheses and explanations can be derived. Models and paradigms
are distinguished from theories. Several approaches to scientific explanation and
theory development are discussed. Critical-interpretive approaches represent a con-
vergence of humanities and social science. Interpretive approaches emphasize the
heuristic function of theory, while critical approaches emphasize social change.
Postmodern critical-interpretive theory intervenes in societal discourses to decon-
struct or reconstruct social practices.

Keywords: Metatheory, epistemology, ontology, axiology, praxeology, empirical-

scientific approaches, scientific explanation, models and paradigms, critical-inter-
pretive approaches, practical theory

1 Introduction
This chapter presents an overview of theory construction in communication
research. The diversity of ideas in the field makes this a challenging task. Not only
are there many theories about communication and media, those theories represent
radically different intellectual styles, reflecting different assumptions about the
object of study, the nature of theory and the process of inquiry in general (Craig
1993, 1999). Indeed, the very idea that theories are discrete conceptual objects
“constructed” in some systematic way makes more sense in some views of commu-
nication theory than in others.
The diversity of theories in communication research has been influenced by
recent interdisciplinary trends; however, it is not only a product of recent develop-
ments. Theories relevant to communication and media sprang up independently
across the humanities and social sciences before a distinct field of communication
research took shape in the second half of the twentieth century. Rather than
appearing all at once ex nihilo or branching off from a single limb of the academic
tree, communication research developed lines of inquiry from many sources, and
even now the field continues to grow, in part, by incorporating new interdisciplin-
ary areas with their sometimes distinct theoretical approaches.
40 Robert T. Craig

The fragmented state of the field calls for broad awareness and careful reflec-
tion on practices of theory construction. This chapter introduces metatheory as an
effort to achieve a critical understanding of the diversity of theories in the field
and the fundamental choices involved in constructing theories. Following a general
introduction to metatheory, two current issues for communication theory are dis-
cussed, and diverse methods of theory construction are sketched within two broad
approaches.

2 Metatheory
Metatheory is a branch of theory that articulates and critiques the assumptions
underlying particular theories or kinds of theory. Every work of theory relies on
assumptions, some of which may be stated explicitly in the theory but most of
which are usually left implicit. Following Anderson (1996: 2; see also: Anderson
and Baym 2004; Craig 2009; Craig and Müller 2007: 55–62; cf. Fiske and Shweder
1986: 3), four kinds of metatheoretical assumptions can be distinguished: assump-
tions about fundamental characteristics of the objects that are theorized (ontol-
ogy), about the basis for claims regarding a theory’s truth or validity (epistemol-
ogy), about normative practices for generating, presenting and using theories
(praxeology), and about the values that determine the worth of a theory (axiology).
Approaches to theory construction that are often loosely described as “episte-
mologies” can be shown to differ complexly across all types of metatheoretical
assumptions (Craig 2009). As a matter of convenience, this chapter distinguishes
two broad approaches: empirical-scientific and critical-interpretive, each of which
spans many differences. However, there can be no single, all-purpose scheme for
classifying theories. Theories can be distinguished and grouped to highlight par-
ticular metatheoretical issues important for theory construction. Two of those
important issues for communication theory will be introduced before surveying the
major approaches to theory construction. The first issue concerns communication’s
ontological status as a process of information transmission or as the social consti-
tution of meaning. The second issue concerns communication theory’s epistemo-
logical status as either universal or culturally specific.

2.1 An ontological issue: what is a communication theory?

Communication is still commonly understood as a process in which some content

(thought, information) is transmitted from a sender through a medium or channel
to a receiver. Although a transmitted message may be called “a communication,”
it acquires that status only by virtue of being transmitted. In this common view,
communication can also refer to the activity of communicating, which consists
 Constructing theories in communication research 41

entirely of transmitting and receiving messages. Communication is “successful”

insofar as the content is not lost or distorted in the transmission process (the
message received equals the message sent). From a transmission view it thus
makes perfect sense to say that two parties in conflict are communicating success-
fully if they decode each other’s messages correctly, even though they continue to
disagree. If communication is transmission, then theories of communication
should explain the sources, processes and effects of transmission, or in Harold
Lasswell’s classic formula, “Who Says What in Which Channel to Whom With What
Effect?” (Lasswell 1948: 37).
The transmission model has been critiqued by communication theorists who
propose instead versions of what can be called a constitutive model of communica-
tion. By separating content from transmission and limiting communication to the
latter, the transmission model reduces communication to a merely technical pro-
cess. This, the critics argue, is an ontological mistake. It fails to acknowledge the
essentially symbolic and dialogical quality of human existence (Shepherd 1993). It
assumes that senders, receivers, and meaningful content all exist independently
prior to the event of transmission, ignoring that all of these elements are actually
produced (constituted) symbolically in ongoing human interaction (Deetz 1994;
Pearce 2007). Accordingly, and in contrast to Lasswell’s linear model, James W.
Carey famously defined communication as “a symbolic process whereby reality is
produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed” (Carey 2009: 19).
The ontological difference between transmission and constitutive models of
communication makes a significant difference for the role of theory construction.
In the transmission view, the primary role of theory is to explain the causes and
effects of message exchange, often by reference to psychological mechanisms that
influence behavior. In a constitutive view, the role of theory is to conceptualize
symbolic models that not only describe the communication process but also oper-
ate within the communication process to produce the reality of communication
itself. Communication exists in varied cultural forms, which are in-formed by
models of communication that formal theories can explicate, develop, critique,
and potentially transform. Hence, the relation between communication theory and
practice is reflexive, or mutually constitutive, and the role of theory is “to create a
particular corner of culture – culture that determines, in part, the kind of commu-
nicative world we inhabit” (Carey 2009: 29).
Further developing this idea, Craig (1999; see also: Craig 2007a; Craig and
Müller 2007) has contributed a “constitutive metamodel” of communication theory
in which seven main traditions are distinguished with regard to their ontological
assumptions concerning the form in which communication exists as a lifeworld
phenomenon. For theories in the rhetorical tradition, communication is a practical
art of discourse that can be cultivated by study and practice. Theories in the semi-
otic tradition take communication to be a process of signification that mediates
subjectivities. In the phenomenological tradition, communication is an experiential
42 Robert T. Craig

encounter of self and other. In the cybernetic tradition, communication exists in the
flow of information. In the sociopsychological tradition, it exists in the behavioral
interaction among cognitively advanced biological organisms. In the sociocultural
tradition, it exists in social and cultural patterns that allow coordinated interaction
among members. Finally, in the critical tradition, it exists in the potential for dis-
cursive reflection, the questioning of assumptions. From the standpoint of the con-
stitutive metamodel, each tradition of communication theory provides resources
for both describing and producing the reality of communication in practical dis-
course.

2.2 An epistemological issue: universal or culture-specific

theories?

The problem of Eurocentric cultural bias in communication theory has received

increasing attention in recent years (Miike and Chen 2007; Wang 2011; Wang and
Kuo 2010). The traditions of communication theory identified by Craig (1999) all
originated in European thought, and most current theories of communication and
media have been developed by North American and European scholars working in
those traditions. Although it has been understood for some time that distinct theo-
ries of communication can be derived from nonwestern thought traditions (Dissan-
ayake 1988; Kincaid 1987) those ideas have received relatively little attention, even
by Asian communication scholars. Communication research around the world has
relied on western theories and methods. On a superficial interpretation, the prob-
lem is simply that Asian and non-Asian scholars both should be more attentive to
the potential contributions of nonwestern ideas. The deeper problem of epistemol-
ogy becomes apparent when we ask what the nature of those contributions might
be.
The fundamental question is whether theories of communication can express
universal principles that apply to all cultures, or whether the phenomenon of com-
munication is so culturally variable (an ontological assumption) that specific theo-
ries are needed for each culture. If theories can be universally valid, then the
problem of cultural bias is simply a neglect of relevant ideas, and nonwestern
theories potentially contribute to a body of communication theory that applies
everywhere. If theories must be culture-specific, then the current reliance on west-
ern theories and methods by nonwestern communication researchers represents a
form of cultural domination that can only be overcome by replacing those alien
theories with ones that are grounded in local cultures, such as “Asiacentric” (Miike
2010) theories for Asian cultures.
Of course, several intermediate positions between these two extremes are both
conceivable and well represented in the recent debates. The impulse of theory is
always to generalize, but generalizations can be broader or narrower in scope.
 Constructing theories in communication research 43

From an empirical-scientific standpoint, cross-cultural comparative research may

capture generalizations that apply broadly, perhaps even universally, and may also
capture differences that require different theoretical explanations. Kim (2002)
argued in this vein that several scientific communication theories largely developed
in North America simply fail to explain Asian communication behavior because
they are based on culture-bound western individualistic assumptions about the
psychology of self-construal.
Everyone in the recent debates tends to agree that we must avoid essentializing
cultures. Cultures are not uniform, static, or permanently walled off from one
another. Critical-interpretive approaches, which tend to embrace the ontology of
communication as constitutive, see communication theory as contributing to ongo-
ing discourses in which culture is not just explained but also created. In that view,
the problem of cultural bias in communication theory (Craig 2007b) is not that
theories must be restricted to particular cultures but that the global discourse on
communication theory has been excessively one-sided. If our knowledge of com-
munication cannot take the form of a universal theory, it can still be informed by
a multicultural conversation in which all would have much to learn.

2.3 Theory construction: two themes with variations

Theory construction is a practical activity that takes different forms according to

the praxeological conventions of institutionalized academic fields and networks of
scholars. Thus, “theory” has a very different range of meanings in physics than it
does in sociology or literary studies. The family resemblance among these forms
of theory is marked by characteristics such as abstractness, generality, relevance
to an object of study, and careful argumentation. The differences among fields can
be attributed in part to their different objects of study: a theory of black holes
differs from a theory of hip-hop culture by virtue of the different ways we can
know those objects. In this regard, the praxeology of theory expresses principles
of ontology and epistemology. However, the differences among disciplines are also
due to the specific interests with which they approach any object of study: black
holes can be theorized as a cultural metaphor, and something of hip-hop dancing
can be explained by laws of physics. Interests can be articulated in terms of value,
and so practices of theory construction are also expressions of axiology: by what
values should we judge the worth of a theory? What, then, are the purposes of
theory, and the goals of theory construction? The conventional practices of scien-
tific and scholarly communities make some assumptions about existence, knowl-
edge and value more relevant than others to problems of theory construction.
Communication research follows a wide range of approaches, as we have
noted. It is useful for present purposes to group those approaches under the two
main headings of empirical-scientific and critical-interpretive inquiry, while recog-
44 Robert T. Craig

nizing that there is much variety in each category, that the two categories overlap
(interpretive social science traditionally straddles the two), and that some theoreti-
cal approaches are not easily placed with either. A strong case can be made that
there are three main types of theory oriented respectively to fundamental human
interests in goal-directed action, intersubjective understanding, and emancipation
(Habermas 1971). One can argue further for practical theory as a fourth main
approach that integrates the other three with the distinct purpose of cultivating
communicative praxis (Craig 1989, 2009). However, as was just illustrated by the
debates over transmission versus constitutive models and universal versus cultural-
specific theories, the distinction between empirical-scientific and critical-interpre-
tive approaches captures what is undoubtedly an important dimension on which
the field of communication theory tends to polarize (Craig and Müller 2007: 496;
see also Anderson 1996).

3 Empirical-scientific approaches
The term communication science connotes a conception of communication research
as an autonomous empirical social science discipline distinct from the broader
field of communication and media, which also includes humanistic studies (Berger
et al. 2010: 6). Commentaries on the state of communication science over the last
several decades have continued to note the relative paucity of original scientific
theories contributed by communication scientists themselves (e.g., Berger 1991;
Wiemann et al. 1988). Instead, communication science has tended to import theo-
ries from other disciplines, a pattern that is understandable in light of the field’s
interdisciplinary origins but needs to be overcome in order to achieve theoretical
integration as a scientific discipline (Berger et al. 2010: 7). The perceived need for
original theories in the field has stimulated interest in explicit methods of theory
construction, an interest that is not unique to communication science but one that
has cyclically waxed and waned among the social sciences for more than half a
century.
Although we have been using the term theory construction in a broad sense
that includes all forms of theory, there is a long established literature on theory
construction that has accumulated a body of principles, models, and methods spe-
cifically for the creation of scientific theory in the social sciences (some prominent
examples: Bell 2008; Blalock 1969; Dubin 1969; Kaplan 1964; Weick 1989; Zetter-
berg 1965). Trends in the philosophy of science around the middle of the last
century emphasized the importance of systematic theory development, rather than
sheer fact gathering, in the growth of scientific knowledge. Spectacular advances in
natural science, especially theoretical physics, revealed by comparison the relative
absence or weakness of theories in the social sciences. In response to the apparent
need for better theories, theory building began to have a more prominent role
 Constructing theories in communication research 45

in the methodological training of some social scientists. The literature on theory

construction grew rapidly in the 1960s but tapered off in the following decades.
Little new material appeared in sociology after 1990, according to Murray and
Markovsky (2007), who anticipated, however, a revival of interest in the topic.
Interest among communication scientists has continued since the 1970s, and they
have contributed several texts (Anderson 1996; Casmir 1994; Hawes 1975; Pavitt
2001; Shoemaker et al. 2004).
The following sections draw upon the literature of scientific theory construc-
tion to outline the characteristics and functions of theory, the role of models and
paradigms in theory development, and variations and disputes within the empiri-
cal-scientific approach.

3.1 Theories and explanations

A scientific theory can be defined as a logically connected set of abstract statements

from which empirically testable hypotheses and explanations can be derived.
Social science theories vary in formality from relatively discursive verbal presenta-
tions to formal axiomatic or mathematical systems. An important function of theo-
ries is to explain the regularity of empirical phenomena with reference to the func-
tional or causal processes that produce them. Successful scientific explanations
enable researchers to understand, statistically predict, and potentially control the
occurrence of empirical events. The sine qua non of scientific theory is testability
or falsifiability (Popper 1959): the concepts and statements comprising a theory
must be explicated with sufficient operational clarity to allow empirical testing of
derived hypotheses. Careful explication of theoretical concepts is thus a key
element in scientific theory construction (Chaffee 1996). Scientific knowledge is
expected to grow as research reveals gaps and errors in existing theories, thus
stimulating the invention of new and better theories.
Scientific theories are distinguished both from isolated empirical generaliza-
tions and speculative philosophical theories. Isolated generalizations (e.g., stating
that media exposure correlates with some demographic variable) fail to provide
understanding with reference to general explanatory principles, while all-encom-
passing philosophical systems, famously characterized by C. Wright Mills as
“grand theory” (Mills 1959: 25–49), tend to be vague and untestable by empirical
methods. In response to this problem, Merton (1957) called for theories of the mid-
dle range that would be optimally designed to guide empirical inquiry. Such theo-
ries provide explanations that are both sufficiently abstract to cover a wide range
of phenomena and yet sufficiently clear and logically structured to suggest an
abundance of empirical hypotheses for researchers to test. Cultivation theory (Gerb-
ner 1969) in mass communication and uncertainty reduction theory (Berger and
Calabrese 1975) in interpersonal communication can be mentioned as home-grown
46 Robert T. Craig

examples of middle-range theory in communication science, both of which have

been highly fertile for empirical research and subsequent theorizing. Notably,
uncertainty reduction theory was originally presented in the form of an axiomatic
system comprising seven axioms and 21 formally derived theorems (Berger and
Calabrese 1975).
Among the functions of scientific theory are description, prediction, explana-
tion, and control. Explanation is arguably the most important function but philoso-
phers of science have disputed over how to define it. Pavitt (2000, 2001: 133–154,
2010) has reviewed this debate and proposed a realist approach to explanation,
which will be summarized briefly. A good scientific explanation makes patterns of
events understandable by showing that they conform to a general principle that
also explains a wide range of other events. A realist explanation is one that goes
beyond variable analysis or logical deduction to describe the actual process that
produces events. This realist epistemology recognizes two main kinds of explana-
tions: causal (how events are produced by underlying micro-structures and proc-
esses) and functional (what events accomplish for the larger systems in which
they occur). Pavitt (2010) goes on to distinguish several explanatory principles
and models typically used in communication science. Communication theories are
classified by explanatory principles as hedonistic (pleasure seeking), understand-
ing-driven, consistency-driven, goal-driven, process-driven, or functional. Pavitt
(2010: 41) maintains that the underlying micro-processes that explain communica-
tion behavior must be psychological, sociological, or biological because “commu-
nication cannot explain itself”, but this conclusion can be questioned on the
grounds that communication occurs at multiple levels so that one level can poten-
tially be explained by another level. For example, underlying micro-processes of
interpersonal communication have traditionally been used to explain media effects
and diffusion phenomena (e.g., Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955).
Several criteria can be used to assess the quality of an empirical-scientific
theory. Empirical support is essential, of course: to what extent have predictive
hypotheses derived from the theory been confirmed by methodologically sound
empirical research? Additional criteria include scope (the range of phenomena the
theory explains), and precision (the exactness of the theory’s predictions). Theories
are also evaluated by aesthetic criteria such as simplicity and elegance: given two
theories of equivalent scope, precision, and empirical support, the simplest expla-
nation is preferred. A final criterion to be mentioned here is heuristic value. That
is, even a theory that is somewhat weak by other standards may be valued for its
fertility as a source of concepts and questions to stimulate further inquiry.

3.2 Models and paradigms

Although the terms model and theory are sometimes treated as equivalent, this
usage occludes an important distinction. A model is a representation of a phenom-
 Constructing theories in communication research 47

enon. An empirical-scientific theory is an explanation of a phenomenon. How the

two are related has been a matter of dispute (Hawes 1975: 109–123; Kaplan
1964: 263–266; Pavitt 2000: 130–131). Insofar as a theory must represent the phe-
nomenon of interest in some way, it can be said that every theory includes a model
or at least has a conceptual form that can be modeled. However, not every model
is a theory because not every model provides a principled explanation for the
structure or process represented.
Several types of models can be distinguished. Pavitt (2010: 38) provides a recent
classification. Physical models that reproduce the physical appearance or function-
ing of something (like a model airplane) are rarely used in communication
research. (Network models that physically correspond to actual message flows
might be an exception.) Much more common are conceptual models such as struc-
tural path diagrams that model the relations among a set of variables or process
diagrams that depict the main components and stages of a process. Finally there
are formal models that simulate processes through mathematical equations or com-
putational algorithms. Formal models tend to be highly valued in theoretical
approaches that place more value on predictive accuracy than realist explanation
(e.g., Blalock 1969; Fink 1993; Woelfel and Fink 1980).
Conceptual models are often constructed in early phases of inquiry as heuristic
devices, rough representations designed to suggest important components, rela-
tionships, and processes for study. Several heuristic models of communication
were published in the 1940s through 60s. The components of communication in
Lasswell’s (1948) classic verbal model organize one part of this handbook. Other
early and influential models were those of Shannon and Weaver, Berlo, Gerbner,
Westley and MacLean, and Dance (McQuail 2008: 3144–3145).
A concept related to models is that of a paradigm. This term is often used to
refer to standard research frameworks (concepts, methods, procedures) that are
used in particular fields or programs of research (e.g., the diffusion paradigm).
Kuhn’s (1970) influential work in the history and philosophy of science gave the
concept of paradigm a deeper theoretical significance. Kuhn argued that scientific
disciplines develop through a cyclical series of stages, punctuated by “revolutions”
in which a single paradigm (a coherent set of fundamental assumptions, theories,
and research exemplars) comes to dominate the field. A new, pre-paradigmatic
science is typically preoccupied with random fact gathering and philosophical
arguments. A mature, normal science is dominated by a single paradigm that facili-
tates rapid advances in the field. Critics may point out anomalies (such as incon-
sistent empirical findings) in the dominant paradigm but most of their proposed
alternatives do not gain wide acceptance. Occasionally, however, a new proposal
begins to pose a serious challenge and the science then enters a crisis stage of
intense conflict, a scientific revolution, in which the new paradigm is adopted en
masse by younger scientists and eventually takes over the field.
A Kuhnian interpretation of communication science would suggest that we are
still an immature, pre-paradigmatic field that will become a more productive and
48 Robert T. Craig

rapidly advancing normal science discipline only if we are able to agree on a single
paradigm. In the 1980s this idea inspired a push for theoretical integration, but
agreement on a paradigm has been an elusive goal. Instead, the “paradigm dia-
logues” (theme of the International Communication Association’s 1985 annual con-
ference; see Dervin et al. 1989) only intensified the conflicts among theoretical
perspectives, some of which challenged the very idea of an empirical science. Com-
munication scientists seem to have largely abandoned the search for a single disci-
plinary paradigm, opting instead for what Craig (1999: 123) referred to as productive
fragmentation: many middle-range theories, models, and paradigms, both home-
grown and borrowed from other fields, guiding many productive programs of
empirical research that may have little in common beyond a shared commitment
to scientific method.

3.3 Metatheoretical issues and approaches

While there is broad agreement on many aspects of scientific theory construction,

various theoretical approaches to communication science can be distinguished.
Some differences arise from epistemological assumptions. A realist epistemology,
as was mentioned, assumes that the underlying causal mechanisms that produce
events can be known. Realism can be distinguished from more skeptical alterna-
tives such as instrumentalism and perspectivism (or constructivism). Instrumental-
ism rejects the assumption that scientific concepts (e.g., “attitude”) correspond to
real entities in the world and assumes only that concepts can be useful for explain-
ing and predicting empirical observations. Influenced by Kuhn and others, perspec-
tivism holds that phenomena cannot be known independently of our theories
because the perspective (paradigm) in which a theory is constructed determines
how empirical data will be interpreted.
A classic ontological issue in social scientific theory construction concerns the
reality of collective social entities. Do “societies” or “groups” or “networks” really
exist and function as distinct units (holism) or are these merely collections of indi-
viduals that can only be understood in terms of individual behavior (reductionism,
or more specifically, methodological individualism)? Reductionist assumptions
favor cognitive, psychological or biological strategies of theoretical explanation,
whereas holist assumptions favor macro-structural, systems, or group process
explanations. In an interesting example of the last-mentioned approach, Poole
(2007) has argued that the small group should be the fundamental unit of commu-
nication research.
A final difference to be mentioned concerns an issue in the praxeology of
theory construction: whether theories should be constructed as coherent wholes
and then tested empirically or whether they should be built up inductively through
a course of empirical studies. An example of the latter approach that has been
 Constructing theories in communication research 49

extensively used in some areas of communication research is the grounded theory

methodology first presented by Glaser and Strauss (1967), and developed in various
ways by them and others (Bryant and Charmaz 2007). Those developments include
postmodern and social constructionist forms of grounded theory that would better
be regarded as critical-interpretive in orientation, rather than empirical-scientific.

4 Critical-interpretive approaches
To the extent that theory construction goes on in humanistic studies, it generally
follows what we are calling critical-interpretive approaches, but those approaches
are not limited to the humanities. The category also includes critical-interpretive
theorizing by social scientists. The distinction between humanities and critical-
interpretive social science is a matter partly of traditional subject matter and partly
of intellectual style but is increasingly unclear in many fields as the two traditions
converge in subject matter, method, and theory.
Traditionally, the humanities have engaged in the documentation, interpreta-
tion, and appreciation of historically significant events and artifacts. In this enter-
prise they have sometimes had trade with philosophical theories and methods of
hermeneutics (interpretation), poetics (aesthetics), semiotics, and rhetoric, among
others, but the humanities typically have not been regarded as fields of substantive
theory in their own right. Some areas of humanistic scholarship have been rigor-
ously scientific in their use of technical methods such as textual criticism and
stylistic analysis. Their purpose, however, has usually been ideographic (under-
standing historical particulars) rather than nomothetic (discovering universal
laws). They have often been (and sometimes still are) disdainful of theory for its
tendency to reduce the rich texture of historical experience to thin and poorly
grounded abstractions.
Interpretive social science similarly has tended to downplay the role of theory
as a goal of inquiry, in contrast to empirical-scientific approaches for which
explanatory theory is the ultimate goal. Like humanistic studies, interpretive social
science is predominately ideographic rather than nomothetic in purpose; it seeks
intersubjective understanding (verstehen), rather than causal explanation (erklä-
ren). In contrast to the humanities, interpretive social science has primarily studied
ordinary life in contemporary societies rather than prominent historical events or
works of art, often uses explicitly elaborated qualitative empirical methods (such
as ethnography and, more recently, discourse analysis) rather than historiographic
or less formalized critical methods, and tends to favor empirical description and
to shy away from normative critical judgment. However, the overlap between
humanities and social science has increased greatly in the last several decades as
social scientists have turned to humanistic cultural theory and textual methods
while both have turned to critical and postmodern social theory and studies of
50 Robert T. Craig

contemporary culture. In much of current critical/cultural studies of communica-

tion and media, the distinction no longer seems very relevant (see, for examples:
Durham and Kellner 2006).
The following sections draw upon previous formulations (Craig 1989; 2009;
Craig and Müller 2007) to distinguish several critical-interpretive approaches to
theory construction, including traditional interpretive and critical approaches,
newer approaches that blend interpretive and critical inquiry from a stance of
postmodern reflexivity, and practical theory approaches that extend postmodern
reflexivity from critical deconstruction to positive reconstruction of communicative
practices.

4.1 Interpretive approaches

The roots of the interpretive tradition can be traced to the distinction between the
human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften) and natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften)
introduced by the German historian and philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1883/
1989: 56–72) and further developed in the sociological theory of Max Weber (1904/
1949). In this view, human action cannot be explained by reducing it to simple
causal mechanisms like chemical reactions. Humans are self-interpreting beings
who act on the basis of some understanding of what they are doing. Those under-
standings vary among individuals and groups and change over time but are not
random. A particular action or product of action (artifact) can be interpreted by
seeing how it participates in a patterned whole, such as a plan of action, a culture,
an artistic genre, or an historical movement. The human sciences (including both
the humanities and non-positivistic social science) can be thought of as formalized
extensions of the everyday interpretive practices by which humans make sense of
each other’s words and actions in order to coordinate their activities (Habermas
1971). Whereas everyday interpretation serves immediate practical needs, the
human sciences extend the scope of human understanding to encompass the widest
possible range of cultures, social situations, texts, and artifacts of the past and
present.
Numerous praxeological traditions of interpretive inquiry (such as conversa-
tion analysis, ethnography, ethnomethodology, historiography, narrative inquiry,
psychoanalysis, and rhetorical criticism) all relate to theory in different ways and
rely on different metatheoretical assumptions. The following discussion of interpre-
tive theory construction necessarily glosses over most of those differences.
Interpretive approaches to theory construction primarily emphasize the heuristic
functions of theory. Although theories do not provide generalizable causal explana-
tions, they do provide conceptual frames or reference points that can assist in inter-
preting particular situations. Weber (1904/1949: 89–112) referred to these theoretical
reference points as ideal types. The symbolic interactionist Herbert Blumer (1954: 7)
 Constructing theories in communication research 51

proposed a related idea of sensitizing concepts. The ideal type of bureaucracy will
serve as an example. Every organization has a unique structure and culture that
requires interpretation, but the theoretical concept of bureaucracy provides a useful
reference point for characterizing that uniqueness with regard to the specific ways
in which a particular organization resembles or deviates from the ideal type.
Rather than seeking a single best explanation, interpretative approaches tend
to see value in multiple theories that can illuminate different aspects of a situation.
For example, cultural studies scholars Durham and Kellner (2006) characterize
theories as “optics, or ways of seeing” that “center attention on phenomena and
their connections to the broader society and a wide range of institutions, dis-
courses, and practices” (2006: xi). They go on to argue, “Multiplying theories and
methods at one’s disposal aids in grasping diverse dimensions of an object, in
making more and better connections, and thus provides a richer and more compre-
hensive understanding of cultural artifacts or practices under scrutiny” (Durham
and Kellner 2006: xii; see also Craig 1999).
One other interpretive approach to theory building will be mentioned. Because
interpretation works by placing particular objects in patterned wholes, abstract
concepts (theories) of those larger patterns can serve as both starting points and
outcomes of inquiry. Among the hoped-for contributions of nonwestern communi-
cation theories is to conceptualize the distinct communicative practices of Asian
cultures, thus rendering their meaning sharable and universalizable (Miike 2010).
Carbaugh and Hastings (1992) proposed a four-phase model of theory construction
for ethnographies of communication: (1) developing a basic orientation to commu-
nication, (2) conceptualizing specific kinds of communicative activity, (3) formulat-
ing the general way in which communication is patterned within a socioculturally
situated community, and (4) evaluating the general theory (basic orientation or
communicative activity type) from the vantage point of the situated case.

4.2 Critical approaches

The essential purpose of critical theory is social change, which in Max Hork-
heimer’s (1937/2002) classic neo-Marxist formulation, it hopes to achieve by pursu-
ing a critical analysis of society as a whole, revealing systems of class domination
and the ideologies that uphold them, thus showing the way to political resistance
by the dominated groups. Theories of political economy in the Marxist tradition
critique unjust conditions masked by the ideology of capitalism. The neo-Marxist
Frankfurt School, of which Horkheimer was a leading member, contributed to criti-
cal theories of media and culture (e.g., Horkheimer and Adorno 1947/1976). Jürgen
Habermas (1984–1987, and in many other works), the most prominent current theo-
rist in the Frankfurt School tradition, has developed a different critical theory
based on an ideal of free and open rational discourse that reveals the ways in
which actual communication processes are distorted by power.
52 Robert T. Craig

Recent work by Fuchs (2009) has sought to revive a Marxist approach to com-
munication and media theory. Jansen (2002) approaches classic critical theory
from a feminist stance. Other current strands of critical scholarship depart from
classic critical theory to critique the oppressive consequences of dominant ideol-
ogies of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and other social identity attributions,
with varying emphasis – all forms of theory committed to social change as a pri-
mary goal (Durham and Kellner 2006 provide a range of exemplars). However,
many of these current strands disagree with neo-Marxist materialism as well as
Habermas’s ontology of rational discourse. Instead, they embrace postmodern
metatheoretical assumptions.

4.3 Postmodern reflexivity and practical theory

Postmodern theory has taken a radically reflexive turn that rejects modernist
assumptions such as the ontology of the autonomous rational mind, the epistemo-
logical separation between truth and power, and the ontological assumption that
language can express stable meanings and personal identities (Mumby 1997). Criti-
cal and interpretive work across the humanities and social sciences has converged
toward a range of metatheoretical stances that Anderson (1996: 55–60) has charac-
terized as constructive empiricism and postmodern empiricism. While the latter
involves a more radical deconstruction of knowledge claims, both stances regard
theory as a form of discursive intervention that goes beyond explanation and inter-
pretation to influence society, potentially inducing change (the postmodern turn of
interpretive social science can be traced through many of the chapters in Rabinow
and Sullivan 1987).
The idea that theory influences the phenomena theorized characterizes the criti-
cal tradition in general. Horkheimer’s original statement affirmed that critical theory
“is part of the development of society” and consciously works to change the reality
that it theorizes (Horkheimer 1937/2002: 229). This assumes, however, that critical
theory must provide a correct description of the material reality of society in order to
promote change, whereas postmodern critical-interpretive approaches assume that
the meaning of a material reality can be influenced by the very act of describing it.
Rather than one correct description there can be many, more or less adequate inter-
pretations that not only give different views of reality but constitute different practi-
cal orientations to it (Craig 1999). Works of theory are rhetorical interventions in soci-
etal discourses, the influence of which depends on their reception.
While holding on to the axiological assumption that the worth of a theory is
determined by its potential to change society in valued ways, postmodern critical-
interpretive approaches tend to adopt one of two broad strategies of theory con-
struction that will be labeled deconstruction and reconstruction, albeit with the
caveat that other writers have used these terms differently.
 Constructing theories in communication research 53

The typical postmodernist approach is deconstruction. Deconstruction is not

generally accomplished by crafting discrete conceptual objects known as theories,
but rather by discursive interventions that question and undermine the dominant
assumptions of any practice. As the literary theorist Jonathan Culler defines it,
theory is “an open-ended corpus of writings,” the purpose of which is “to undo,
through a contesting of premises and postulates, what you thought you knew, so
that there may appear to be no real accumulation of knowledge or expertise”
(Culler 1994: 15). Another prominent literary theorist, Terry Eagleton, similarly
defines theory as “critical self-reflection” which forces us “into a new self-con-
sciousness of what we are doing … because we can no longer take these practices
for granted” (Eagleton 2004: 27).
The larger purpose of deconstruction is not confusion for its own sake but
rather to liberate us from unexamined assumptions, thereby opening avenues of
change. Deconstructive theory does not assert normative claims; its purpose is
emancipatory, not prescriptive. Society is bound by dominant ideological assump-
tions about matters such as race, class, and gender that have to be undermined
so that other views, now suppressed, can flourish. As other assumptions become
dominant, they too must be questioned, for liberation is only sustained by endless
reflexive questioning.
The less common postmodern critical-interpretive strategy is reconstruction.
Rather than only offering a negative critique of assumptions, reconstruction offers
positive alternatives, critical interpretations that envision possible ways in which a
social practice could be normatively better than it is. Taylor’s (1985) idea of self-
defining theory is consistent with this strategy, as is Carey’s (2009) reflexive view
of theory. Craig (1989, 1999) and others have pursued this strategy in the form of
practical theory. Craig and Tracy (1995) have developed a theory construction
method of grounded practical theory, which builds from critical-interpretive studies
of communicative practices toward a normative reconstruction of practices on three
interrelated levels of problems, techniques, and situated philosophical ideals. A
closely related approach is design theory (Aakhus and Jackson 2005), which is an
effort to design communicative practices in line with normative theoretical models.
Barge and Craig (2009) treat grounded practical theory and design theory as
exemplars of a broader approach to practical theory as engaged reflection, which they
distinguish from two other approaches. Practical theory as mapping (which can be
pursued from empirical-scientific as well as critical-interpretive approaches) concep-
tualizes practical problems, communicative strategies, and the empirical consequen-
ces of performing particular communicative strategies. Finally, practical theory as
transformative practice approaches theorizing as a process of elaborating the com-
munication abilities of both practical theorists and research participants through the
practical theorist’s own active participation in helping others to solve communica-
tion problems. The theory of coordinated management of meaning (Pearce and
Cronen 1980; Pearce 2007) exemplifies practical theory as transformative practice.
54 Robert T. Craig

5 Conclusion
We have seen that many diverse approaches to theory construction are pursued in
communication and media studies. Each approach has its metatheoretical ration-
ale but many of them are incompatible. A great divide seems to separate empirical-
scientific from interpretive-critical approaches, which polarize the field. The devel-
opment of specialized expertise would seem to require that each scholar concen-
trate on one approach and have limited knowledge of others. Even with some
awareness of other approaches, intellectual disagreements along with tempera-
mental and political differences may tend to promote polarization. While this tend-
ency may be likely, there is good reason to resist it and to cultivate some apprecia-
tion of work that goes on across the great divide, based on recognition of the
limitations and occasional fallibility of one’s own assumptions and the plausible
merit of others for occasionally learning something of interest.

Further reading
Anderson, James A. 1996. Communication Theory: Epistemological Foundations. New York:
The Guilford Press.
Craig, Robert T. & Heidi L. Müller (eds.). 2007. Theorizing Communication: Readings Across
Traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Littlejohn, Stephen W. & Karen A. Foss (eds.). 2009. Encyclopedia of Communication Theory.
2 volumes. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Pavitt, Charles. 2001. The Philosophy of Science and Communication Theory. Huntington, NY:
Nova Science Publishers.
Reed, Isaac Ariail. 2011. Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the Use of Theory in the Human
Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Richard L. Lanigan
4 Information theories
Abstract: This chapter describes information theory and signification in compari-
son to communication theory and meaning by looking at a number of definitions
offered through semiotics, linguistics, and mathematics. Information theory used
by machines is compared to communication theory used by humans by looking at
historically evolved models. Each of these key models explain the evolving relation
of information to human, animal and machine, particularly in respect to conscious-
ness and embodiment. Finally, the essay offers some comments on the status of
information in the development of what is often taken to be the pinnacle of con-
temporary communication technology, the internet.

Keywords: Communicology, model and theory, phenomenology, semiotics, signs,

signals, signification, meaning, Roman Jakobson

1 Definitions
The concept of “information” ranges from facts we reference in conversation to the
mathematical specification of electrical impulses in computers. To gain a general
understanding of the varying uses of the term, we can define basic concepts and
then examine some key theories of how these ideas are organized into explanations
of the most basic of all human behaviors: communication. We communicate with
one another because we surmise basic human values (decisions displayed in
behavior) from the things we say and do with others. Our speech and gestures
convey meanings, so the most fundamental understanding of information is the
meaning we interpret in human comportment.
The meaning of human interaction is the paradigm for all theories and models
of communication. Yet semantics – interpreted meaning – is irrelevant for studying
information as a mathematical phenomenon – signal behavior – in electrical engi-
neering. Unfortunately, the warning by mathematician Claude Shannon (1948,
1993a,b,c), inventor of information theory, against drawing analogies between
information and communication processes has been ignored for decades (Gleick
2011: 242, 416). The meaning problem was suggested to Shannon by Margaret Mead
during his first public lecture on the theory at the Macy Foundation Conference
on Cybernetics held 22–23 March 1950 in New York City. In short, information
theory studies the signifying physical properties of electrical signals, whereas com-
munication theory studies the meaning of human interaction. Note, however, that
this signification – meaning distinction is only one of 52 basic differentiations iden-
60 Richard L. Lanigan

tified between information and communication (Marcus 1974). The most relevant
of these distinctions are discussed in the Roman Jakobson model below.
This chapter will address information theory by looking at a number of defini-
tions offered through semiotics, linguistics, and mathematics. It will then consider
information theory and a number of information/communication models. Each of
these sheds light on the relations of information to human, animal and machine,
particularly in respect of consciousness and embodiment. Finally, the chapter will
offers some comments on the status of information in the development of what is
often taken to be the pinnacle of contemporary communication technology, the
internet.

1.1 Semiotics: semantics, syntactics, pragmatics

The field pre-eminently associated with signification is semiotics (Krampen 1997).

Semiotics is the science of understanding representation, i.e., how human beings
express their thoughts and feelings in an external form perceptible to others. What
is perceived constitutes a sign that stands in place of an idea or emotion. The sign
codes or re-presents the original item. Charles S. Peirce (1931, 2: 247) suggests there
are three basic ways to do this: (1) an icon is a sign that denotes the whole charac-
ter of the original perception, e.g., a statue of a person; (2) an index is a sign that
points to the original characteristics of a perception, e.g., dark clouds that suggest
rain; and (3) a symbol is a sign that we associate, by cultural rule, with the original
perception, e.g., your name reminds us of you.
One major division of semiotics is semantics, the interpretation of the meaning
we associate with any type of sign. In communication, we cross-check all codes
used and not used to preform this complex human cognition (Cherry [1957]
1978: 233). Syntactics is the relation or structure that articulates strings of signs
into systems, e.g., words into sentences into paragraphs. Last, pragmatics is the
way we use sign-systems for various purposes, e.g., making a statement into a
question by tone of voice: “You are doing WHAT?”.

1.1.1 Signs versus signals

One fundamental difference between information theory and communication
theory is the basic unit being studied, the thing perceived in its behavior. First,
let’s remember that a human being is the observer, the source of perception. We
use our bodies to perceive ourselves (internally and externally) and our environ-
mental world (Merleau-Ponty 1945). What we perceive are signs. These signs are
never isolated, but are part of sign-systems or codes (see Chapter 12, Cobley).
Human codes are (1) synergistic (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts)
and (2) embodied (all our body senses are integrated simultaneously) at three logi-
 Information theories 61

cal levels: the expression and perception of (1) Affect or emotion, (2) Cognition or
thought, and (3) Conation or purposeful action. We have a signal when we perceive
the presence and absence of signs, and their movement to determine if they are
static or dynamic. Electrical signals are a good example. They constitute the physi-
cal system in the human brain and we use our mind to symbolically measure them,
often with the mediation of machines. For example, computing machines use elec-
trical impulses or their absence (icon) to indicate (index) a meaning assigned to
them (symbol) by a human observer. Once properly programmed by a person, one
machine can mediate another machine, and so on, to simulate simple items of
human memory and action. In short, computers and similar machines manipulate
meaningless signal units, whereas human beings use signs to code meaning, i.e.,
make information into communication by creating complex relationships among
represented signs. “Signs become necessary when the circulation of information
within an organism is replaced by communication between organisms” (Lotman
1990: 68). There are two fundamental ways to code such meanings: Linguistics
and Mathematics.

1.1.2 Language: grammar, rhetoric, logic

The modern discursive foundations of language and mathematics were elaborated
in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance with the development of the famous Seven
Liberal Arts, linguistically marked in most universities today as the “College of Arts
and Sciences.” The Scholastics taught as primary the human science pedagogy of
the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic) followed secondarily by the natural science
practices of the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy) in the Medi-
eval universities, principally at L’Université de Paris.
Because Greek and Latin were the languages of literate people at this time,
their characteristics and structure became the guideline for writing rules about the
socially effective use of ordinary speech, whether spoken or written. Hence, social
rules of usage emerged at three levels of thought (Kristeva 1989). The first level
meaning rules were called grammar and specified what classes or types of words
could be used, especially in relation to each other. Second level meaning rules of
rhetoric concern the articulation of words into utterances or sentences for effective
expression to a listener or reader (Lanigan 1984). When the phonetics of speech
(tone) are employed, the articulation is a focus on tropes of speech. Whereas per-
ceptual impression in writing (style) refers to figures of language (Lotman 1990: 49).
Third level meaning rules in logic consist of combining the rules of grammar and
rhetoric as metarules. This is to say, the articulation of words is compared (as a
structural process) to the articulation of sentences. In writing, the paragraph is
such a product of articulation. These metalinguistic functions are the basis of all
human reasoning about choices and contexts: “Rhetoric, therefore (like logic, from
another point of view), reflects a universal principle both of the individual con-
sciousness and of the collective consciousness (culture)” (Lotman 1990: 48).
62 Richard L. Lanigan

Effectively, what was taught was a concept of information as symbolic logic,

while the logic of meaningful utterances is known as rhetorical logic. Where there
is no meaning reference to language, but only the use of numbers or algebraic
notation, it is known as mathematical logic.

1.2 Mathematics: signals, information modeling, informatics

From a mathematical point of view, information is an algorithm, i.e., a step by step

procedure that solves a probability problem in a finite linear sequence of steps
(Cherry [1957] 1978: 228–231). Each step is a “bit” of information that indicates a
binary (either/or) choice by means of the presence or absence of an electrical signal
in a machine circuit. The critical signification of such a bit is that we understand
its probable place in the sequence of choices, not whether the choice was right or
wrong, meaningful or not! Thus, a “no” (incorrect) answer gives just as much
“information” as a “yes” (correct) answer. In short, signal information is merely a
syntax of signals without any semantics or pragmatics that could make it equal to
a human language. To make the signal into a sign with meaning and use value, a
human being must code the signal by making it represent a sign, e.g., a symbol in
the Latin alphabet like “Y” (meaning “Yes”) or “N” (meaning “No”). Umberto Eco’s
(1976: 32–55) famous “Watergate Model” demonstrates how human beings need to
convert information theory into communication theory by adding sign semantics
and pragmatics to such a signal syntax.

2 Theories
2.1 Information Theory (IT)

IT is technically a mathematical algorithm and specifies the constraints on a signal

mediation as the number of mediations increases. This is simply a capacity prob-
lem applied to a particular physical channel, such as the capacity of a metal or
fiber optic telephone line to carry multiple signals (phone calls) at the same time.
In fact, Claude Shannon (1948; 1993a) was concerned with this electrical engineer-
ing problem while working at the Bell Telephone Laboratories when he formulated
the advanced mathematics of IT.
For our purposes, IT is best described as an applied logic and is easier to
understand in non-mathematical terms as the signification problem of making
choices and understanding the context for those decisions. Simply put, IT only
allows choices in a given context. IT is based on a discrete Closed System of Signal
Rules: (1) Context is already given as data; (2) All choices are digital (either/or
logic) and must be signaled by either “Yes” or “No”; and (3) Choices have no
 Information theories 63

meaning, they just reduce uncertainty in signifying the next choice. Thus, significa-
tion “informs” how to choose, not what a choice means. The system signification
rules for the operation of IT are illustrated by a conversation between Warren and
Claude:

2.2 Communication Theory (CT)

Communication is technically an account of how human beings use semiotic sys-

tems, especially language, to symbolize their interactive thinking, speaking, and
bodily practices, i.e., behavior as culture. Keep in mind that there are “verbal sys-
tems” or eidetic codes (linguistics, mathematics, and logics) as well as “nonverbal
64 Richard L. Lanigan

systems” or empirical codes: proxemics (space), chronemics (time), ocularics

(sight), kinesics (action), haptics (tactile), vocalics (sound), and olfactorics (smell/
taste); all codes are explicated in Lanigan (2010b,c).
Following the same approach that was used for the discussion of information
theory, Communication Theory is best explicated as an applied logic and is easier
to understand in language terms as the meaning problem of making choices and
understanding the context for those discourse decisions. Simply put, CT allows the
choice of a context. CT is based on a discrete System of Sign Rules: (1) Context is
taken by Choice made; (2) Normal analog rules (both/and logic) of discourse oper-
ate; (3) Answers have meaning, they constitute intentionality (consciousness)
about both the choice made and those not made. Thus, interactive discourse com-
municates what a choice means in its context, not how to choose. Most impor-
tantly, human beings simultaneously know all the choices not made that are still
available to make (we can take another choice, i.e., change our mind, reverse
course, etc.). “To speak essentially is not to say yes or no, but to make something
exist linguistically. To speak supposes the use of contingency and the absurd”
(Merleau-Ponty 2003: 164).
The system meaning rules of logic application for CT are illustrated by a con-
versation between Roman and Juri:

3 Models
Models are abbreviated, usually diagrammed, presentations of theories. While the
pictorial presentation is a useful visual aid to comprehension, it is critical to
remember there is a large body of published research that explains the conceptual
content of the model. Assuming what visual models mean, as opposed to under-
standing the published theory, is a major problem in the diffusion of misinforma-
 Information theories 65

tion about the nature and process of human communication behavior. There are
hundreds of models of communication that specify individual formats and events
of communication, many associated with the history of mass media. But, there are
very few theories of communication that comprehensively explain all possibilities
of communication at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, and cultural levels.
The key historical developmental of modern theories is explicated in the following
models.

3.1 Karl Bühler: 1934 Model

Bühler’s ([1934] 1982a: 30; 1982b) Organon Model of human communication derives
from Plato’s argument in the Cratylus “that language is an organum for the one to
inform the other of something about the things.” Bühler’s ([1934] 1982a: 13)
approach builds linguistic science into the logic foundation constituted by Edmund
Husserl’s ([1922] 1970) intersubjective phenomenology as articulated in the Logical
Investigations and especially in the Cartesian Meditations.

Figure 1: Bühler’s Organon Model

Bühler (1982b: 34–37) specifies the concepts in the Fig. 1:

The circle in the middle symbolizes the concrete acoustic phenomenon. Three variable factors
in it go to give it the rank of a sign [= s] in three different manners. The sides of the inscribed
triangle symbolize these three factors. In one way the triangle encloses less than the circle
66 Richard L. Lanigan

(thus illustrating the principle of abstractive relevance). In another way it goes beyond the
circle to indicate that what is given to the senses always receives an apperceptive complement.
The parallel lines symbolize the semantic functions of the (complex) language sign [= s]. It is
a symbol by virtue of its coordination to objects and states of affairs, a symptom (Anzeichen,
indicium: index) by virtue of its dependence on the sender, whose inner state it expresses, and
a signal by virtue of its appeal to the hearer, whose inner or outer behaviour it directs as do
other communicative signs.

The semantic relations are indicated by “the terms expression (Ausdruck), appeal
(Appell) and representation.” Bühler (1982b: 37–38) is describing interpersonal
communication where

each of the two participants has his own position in the make-up of the speech situation,
namely the sender as the agent of the act of speaking, as the subject of the speech action on
the one hand, and the receiver as the one spoken to, as the addressee of the speech action on
the other hand. They are not simply a part of what the message is about, rather they are the
partners in an exchange, and ultimately this is the reason why it is possible that the sound as
a medial product has a specific significative relationship to each, to the one and to the other
severally.

Up until 1982, the only account of Bühler’s model available in English was that
by Leo Zawadowski (1975). Per Durst-Andersen (2009) provides a clear linguistic
explication of Bühler’s model in terms of a correlation to C. S. Peirce’s semiotics
that expands the previous discussion of grammar, rhetoric, and logic as elements
of communication theory.

3.2 Claude Elwood Shannon: 1948 model

James Gleick (2011) offers a comprehensive history of the notion of information

articulated by Claude Shannon (1948, 1993a,b,c). The model we know as informa-
tion theory (IT) stimulated many subsequent variations that appear in all manner
of books on just about every topic of communication and media. All are variations
on the following diagram that Shannon (1948: 31, 34, 35) specifies as a “schematic
diagram of a general communication system” as found in “computing machines”
or “telephone exchanges.” Shannon’s model is directed at solving the problem of
“noise in the channel” when an electrical signal is transmitted from one machine
to another. The small unlabeled box in the middle of the diagram represents the
physical channel, such as a telephone line, fiber optic cable, or computer chip. By
comparison in human communication (CT), “when we use the term ‘medium’,
rather than ‘channel’, we are concerned not with the actual transmission of signals,
but with the systematic functional and structural differences between written and
spoken language” (Lyons 1977: I, 69) or network levels of language use, such as
human groups (McFeat 1974: 22, 40).
Shannon begins his technical presentation of the mathematical model with
this warning:
 Information theories 67

The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly
or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning;
that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or concep-
tual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering prob-
lem. The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set of possible
messages. The system must be designed to operate for each possible selection, not just the one
which will be actually chosen since this is unknown at the time of design (Shannon 1948: 31).

Figure 2: Claude Elwood Shannon’s model

There are two important facts here: (1) meaning is not part of the theory and (2)
the chosen message is unknown. Here, also, we must understand that “certain
physical or conceptual entities” refers to human writing/speaking or language, the
system of meaning. When we take the requirement for meaning into account, the
diagram must be modified to account for a human observer who has a command
of a natural language. While it is possible to have one machine monitor another
machine (e.g., the internet) there will always have to be a human observer to build,
maintain, use, and supply language to the machine (Ruesch 1953: 55). Ultimately,
the “correction data” will always be a natural human language (syntactics, seman-
tics, pragmatics) as specified in Figure 3 by Shannon (1949: 68).

Figure 3: Shannon’s “correction data”

68 Richard L. Lanigan

3.3 Jürgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson: 1951 model

The human science response to the Shannon IT model was made initially by Jürgen
Ruesch and Gregory Bateson (1951), a psychiatrist and an anthropologist respec-
tively, with an explicit CT account of the human observer – the language using
human being. Ruesch and Bateson specify that human communication operates
on four ascending embedded network levels of complexity: Level I is intrapersonal
communication (embodied consciousness), Level II is interpersonal communica-
tion (dyadic interaction), Level III group communication (social interaction), and
Level IV cultural communication (inter-group culture). As a direct comparison to
the Shannon model, Ruesch and Bateson (1951: 277, Table D.) designate each net-
work according to (1) Origin of the Message, (2) Sender, (3) Channels (4) Receiver,
and (5) Destination of Message. The communication process involves (1) evaluating,
(2) sending, (3) “channel” [= medium] chosen, and (4) receiving. Note that the
process begins with the observer evaluating the message (the part external to the
Shannon model). All these elements of the model are presented in Fig. 2 (1951: 275).
A summary version of the theory is Ruesch (1953).

Figure 4: Jürgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson’s 1951 model

 Information theories 69

3.4 Roman Osipovîch Jakobson: 1958 model

Jakobson’s communication theory is the most comprehensive ever developed, rang-

ing from phonology in consciousness to practice in culture. The theory builds on
the “rhetorical branch of linguistics” because “distinctiveness and redundancy, far
from being arbitrary assumptions of the investigator [as in IT], are objectively
present and delimited in language [as in CT]” and thereby “establishes a clear-cut
demarcation between the theory of communication and of information” (Jakobson
1960b: 571–573). By this time, as Gleick (2011: 268) notes, “In the social sciences,
the direct influence of information theorists had passed it peak. The specialized
mathematics had less and less to contribute to psychology and more and more to
computer science.”
Jakobson’s (1960a: 21–27) model of communication (Fig. 5) presents both six
ELEMENTS and six respective [functions]. Note that the Addresser – Addressee are
horizontal to indicate a primary syntagmatic relationship, whereas the paradig-
matic relationship is shown vertically by the Context and Message pair in opposi-
tion to the Contact and Code pair. Note that the functions and elements are also
incorporated into the Alexander Model which is seen in Fig. 6 below.

Figure 5: Jakobson’s human communication model

The Addresser is the human, embodied origin of communication and in conse-

quence is not a mechanical “sender” or “signal source,” but the expressive constitu-
tion of emotion. In linguistic terms, the Addresser is the verbal 1st Person (persona)
who is speaking. The person may be the psychic voice the Greeks called mythos, or
the persona whose oral speaking is audible as the interpretant logos of a person.
As such, the Addresser gives (data) a Message that constitutes a Code and selects
a Context for Contact (“choice of context” or analogue logic). Lotman (1994: 22)
provides a detailed analysis of the motivation that occurs between message and
70 Richard L. Lanigan

code, code and message, in the formation of discourse as practice and communica-
tion as culture.
The Addressee element of communication is basically the reverse phenomeno-
logical intentionality of the Addresser. The Addressee is the human, embodied
origin of culture and, in consequence, is not a mechanical “receiver” or “signal
destination,” but the interpretive constitution of conation. In linguistic terms, the
Addressee is the verbal 2nd Person (persona) who is spoken to. The person for
whom aural listening is audible (oral) becomes the interpretant logos (a precon-
scious social practice or habitus) for the psychic voice that the Greeks called hexis,
or the self embodied practice of culture. As such, the Addressee takes (capta) a
Code that constitutes a Message and selects a Contact for Context (“context of
choice” or digital logic).
Context is the referential function of the communicative act in which significa-
tion is denotative within a cognitive system of meaning. In linguistic terms, Context
is the 3rd person, someone or something spoken of. It is crucial to recall that Jakob-
son rejects Saussure’s notion of an arbitrary sign (signifier in opposition to signi-
fied). Rather, Jakobson demonstrates that communication is a “choice of context”
such that signs have a relative, but necessary, motivation to one another (signifier
in apposition to signified). As Holenstein (1974: 157) explains Jakobson’s use of
Peircian semiotics, a sign’s “own constitution reflects the relational structure of
the thing represented,” Hence we have Peirce’s preferred name for the sign as a
representamen. The notion of “representation” is a key problematic and thematic
in all Postmodern discussions of intentionality in the human sciences.
Contact is the phatic function operating in human communication such that a
physical (interpersonal) and psychological (embodied, intrapersonal) connection
is established between the Addresser and the Addressee. The best eidetic/empirical
example in linguistics is the concept of an emblem. An emblem is the anthropolo-
gist’s name for a word that stands in place of a gesture, or, the gesture that replaces
a verbal message (this is also an example of code switching). The emblem is a
sign with a culturally known interpretant that moves from (1) physical contact
(signification) between Addresser and Addressee to (2) mutual psychic sharing
(meaning).
The Message displays the phenomenology of the poetic function in communica-
tion. Rather than a mundane reference to poetry, the essence of poiesis is the
shifting of verbal elements exterior to the system of language in which case you
have rhetoric, or, interior to the system of language in which case you have poetic.
While there is a long, detailed phonological analysis that is relevant at this point
(i.e., the nature of distinctive and redundancy phonetic features), we must be con-
tent to explain the poetic function in verbal communication as paradigmatic and
syntagmatic reversal of words as units in sentences.
For example, once you know the words in a sentence by grammatical function,
any word in that category can replace any other word. In the sentence, “The cat
 Information theories 71

ate the dog.” you immediately see that if you are a dog lover the message can be
reversed as “The dog ate the cat.” Moreover, you immediately also know that any
noun in the sentence can be replaced by a pronoun, and, any verb can substitute
for any other verb. The vertical (paradigmatic) and horizontal (syntagmatic) word
shifts can be remembered as a whole set, what Jakobson calls the “Prague Prism”
(Holenstein 1974: 31, 139) or ever expanding matrix, hence, Ruesch and Bateson’s
(1951) use of “social matrix” in the subtitle of their book.
Jakobson concludes that messages are unique in language because human
speaking (parole) consists of: (1) a linguistic utterance, (2) language as an individ-
ual, private property, and (3) the individualizing, centrifugal aspect of language
(where centrifugal means the agency of moving from individual out to group, from
person into culture). Message interpretation relies on perceiving the diachronic
(“then and there” historical sequences) of verbal or nonverbal usage. Egocentric
cultures, typically Western, stress the importance of messages over codes, individu-
als over groups (Lanigan 2011b).
The concept of a Code entails the understanding of the metalinguistic, glossing,
or rubric function in communication. Every communication system, verbal or non-
verbal, has both an object language (discourse about extralinguistic entities) and
a metalanguage (discourse about linguistic entities) that specify synchronic rela-
tionships (“here and now” existential moments). Linguists refer to this code phe-
nomenon as “double articulation,” since an utterance or gesture refers both to
itself as an entity (the agency function) and beyond itself to its context in a system
(the efficacy function). Jakobson also judges that codes are unique in language
because social language (langue) consists of (1) linguistic norm, (2) language as
supraindividual, social endowment, and (3) the unifying, centripetal aspect of lan-
guage (where centripetal means the efficacy of moving from group to individual,
from culture to person). Sociocentric cultures, typically Eastern, stress the impor-
tance of codes over messages, groups over individuals (Lanigan 2011b).
Most people experience the complexity of the metalinguistic function when
they look up a word (message) in a dictionary (code) only to find themselves
referred to other words (message in the same code), thus acting to no avail in an
unknown code. With an encyclopedia, the name (code) of a concept, person, place
is described in a narrative (message) where the sought after name becomes a con-
cept among related ideas. The Dictionary or IT Model of the message-to-code proc-
essing is often compared to the Encyclopedia or CT Model of code-to-message proc-
essing (Eco 1976: 98–100).

3.5 Hubert Griggs Alexander: 1967 model

Alexander’s ([1967] 1988, 1968, 1969) communication model is philosophic in

orientation with the goal of explicating how human thinking operates as rational-
72 Richard L. Lanigan

ity through the agency of language and logic as suggested by leading Western
philosophers and linguists. At Yale University for his Ph.D., his teachers were
Wilbur Urban, Edward Sapir (1931), and Ernst Cassirer ([1957] 1995) and he was
a classmate of Benjamin Lee Whorf (1952) which helps explain this orientation
(Lanigan 2011a). The model is formalized with notation to show all the complex
semiotic relationships being considered, especially the connection between sym-
bol and referent. The diagram, Fig. 6, is modified to show the corresponding
elements and functions of the Roman Jakobson Model which are indicated as
[bracketed terms].

Figure 6: Hubert Griggs Alexander’s model

Symbolic Notation:
E1 = The Background Experience and Attitude of the Communicator.
CC1 = The Concept of the Communicator.
S1 = The Symbol(s) used by the Communicator.
R1 = The Referent(s) as Perceived or Imagined by the Communicator.
S2 = The Symbol(s) as Understood by the Communicatee.
R2 = The Referent(s) as Perceived or Imagined by the Communicatee.
CC2 = The Concept of the Communicatee.
E2 = The Background Experience and Attitude of the Communicatee.
Tr = The Transmitting Device, Mechanism, Medium of Expression.
Rc = The Receiving Device, Mechanism, Medium of Perception.
? = The Mediation Possibility of a Relationship as Response (Verbal), Reaction (Nonverbal).
a – i= Specific Boundary Relationships that are Necessary (validity) and Sufficient (reliability)
Conditions in the Communicological Process.
---- = Space/Place and Time/Moment Link, Connection, Relationship.

Alexander focuses on the communication concept that is a complex semiotic rela-

tionship moving from human experience (awareness) to referents for that experi-
 Information theories 73

ence (awareness of awareness) on to the symbols (representation of awareness of

awareness) used as a signification of the experience. A special focus of the model
is the fact, first noted by Jakobson, that the Communicator encoding process is
reversed in decoding by the Communicatee. Decoding involves moving from symbol
to referent to experience as the constitution of meaning. This reversal (poetic func-
tion) is a key component of Jakobson’s idea of motivated redundancy in which the
symbol is psychologically distinct in every usage (CT) for a human being as opposed
to physically identical repetition that is arbitrary (IT) for a machine. Jakobson’s new
definition of redundancy also resolves many classic philosophical paradoxes based
on the hypostatization of ideal referents.
The explanatory power of Alexander’s model is best understood by an exami-
nation of the key relations points marked (a) through (i) in the Encoding, Transmit-
ting, and Decoding phases. These are points at which a functional failure in human
communication can take place which we recognize as misunderstanding – the
failure of proper concept formation. The failure points are examined in order
together with suggestive examples.

3.5.1 Failures in communicator conceiving and encoding

Encoding is primarily the process of creating a signification in the language system
and contextual nonverbal behavior where a personal message is constructed using
synergistic parts of the cultural code. The signification is often referred to as a
denotation or extensional term (Alexander [1967] 1988: 85–88).
(a) Referent: Epistemic-Pragmatic Failure occurs by the Communicator forming
the wrong idea which maybe due to [1] unclear perceptions (e.g., mistaking a
“cat” for a “dog”), [2] improper conceptualizing (e.g., mistaking a cardinal
[“1”] for an ordinal [“first”] number), or [3] the wrong application of a prop-
erly conceived Idea (e.g., taking the planet Earth to be a perfect sphere).
(b) Experience: Epistemic-Emotive Failure because of preconceptions on the part
of the Communicator that may be due to [1] a lack of appropriate background
experience or [2] an inadequate education.
(c) Symbol: Semiotic-Semantic Failure in Encoding (using the wrong symbols)
may be due to: [1] an inadequate knowledge of the symbol system (e.g., say-
ing “dog” when one means “cat”) or [2] using ambiguous symbols, or sym-
bols that are apt to be unfamiliar to the Communicatee, either intentionally
(deception) or not (mistake).

3.5.2 Failures due to expression (Transmitting) and perception (Receiving)

(d) Physiological Failures of the Communicator (e.g., mis-articulation, stuttering).
(e) Mechanical Failures in Transmitting and Receiving (e.g., mispronunciation,
aberrant sounds, background noise, static).
74 Richard L. Lanigan

(f) Physiological Failures of the Communicatee (e.g., being hard of hearing, con-
fused by an unfamiliar accent, contradiction between word and gesture).

3.5.3 Failures in Decoding and discovering the correct Referent

Decoding is primarily the Communicatee process of creating a meaning in the lan-
guage system and contextual nonverbal behavior where the cultural code is used
to construct a personal message. The meaning is typically referred to as a connota-
tion or intensional term (Alexander [1967] 1988: 85–88). Among human beings, this
open system process is curvilinear, while in machines the closed system process is
linear (Ruesch 1953: 50). Hence, encoding as a channel code signification is never
an equivalent process to decoding medium message meaning – as Margaret Mead
and Claude Shannon warned!
(g) Symbol: Semiotic-Semantic Failure in Decoding (using the wrong concept for
the symbols received) may be due to: [1] Inadequate knowledge of the sym-
bol system used by the Communicator (e.g., hearing a foreign or unfamiliar
language); or, [2] Not recognizing all of the implications of the symbols used
(e.g., not detecting irony in the speaker’s tone of voice).
(h) Experience: Epistemic-Emotive Failure because of preconceptions on the part
of the Communicatee (e.g., having a misconception of geographical orienta-
tion, which leads to a failure to understand directions; or, having no experi-
ence with an object which is being described to one).
(i) Referent: Epistemic-Pragmatic Failure in Finding the Correct Referent (e.g.,
failure to get from the correct, but too general, concept to a specific referent
such as not knowing that “Betty” refers to a pet dog, not a person).

4 Communication
Communication science is fundamentally the study of organisms and their environ-
ment. On that premise, a distinction is made on the basis of systems complexity
among humans, animal, and machines. The complexity levels are best character-
ized semiotically in the sense that human beings synergistically embody iconic,
indexical, and symbolic systems in both time and space (Merleau-Ponty 2003).
Animals and machines do not (Dreyfus [1972] 1992).

4.1 Human

Throughout history there has been an enduring consensus about human communi-
cation that is captured by Jürgen Ruesch (1972: 127):
 Information theories 75

The word ‘communication’ will be used here in a very broad sense to include all the procedures
by which one mind affects another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech,
but also music, the pictorial arts, the theatre, the ballet, and in fact, all human behavior.

The unique human ability to use symbols to hold meaning in consciousness is

referred to as “time binding” and our parallel ability to locate that same meaning
in language (speech and writing) is called “space binding” (Korzybski 1926; Lani-
gan 1997b).

4.2 Animal

Research on animal communication is generally known as zoosemiotics (Sebeok

1977). In the case of animals, various species display a range of specific capacities
to use iconic or indexical signs, but not both. None have symbol capacity, primarily
because of the inability to pass specific signs from one generation to the next.
While there is evidence of passing a general biological capacity for sign produc-
tion/recognition from one to a second generation only, there is no intergenerational
learning and no doutero learning (the symbol capacity of learning how to learn).
Thus Margaret Mead (1970: 2) specifies “that the continuity of all cultures depends
on the living presence of at least three generations.”

4.3 Machine

Machine communication is usually associated with current technologies for manip-

ulating indexical signs. Beginning first with the primitive technology of drum
beats, then hand held flags, and then the electrical signals of Morse Code on the
telegraph or sound simulation on the telephone, human technology is now at the
computer stage with “wireless” signal connections on a global scale. While tech-
nology forms continue to evolve and integrate (e.g., iMac computer, iPhone, and
iTablet synchronized as Mobile.me in the iCloud), the major contribution of
machine communication to human users is the increased opportunity for techno-
logically extended interaction using existing symbol systems (i.e., language and
audio-visual records).

5 Communicology
Communicology is the science of human communication (DeVito 1978: v; Lanigan
1988, 1992, 2008a,b; Flusser 1996, 2002). This theoretical and applied approach to
the study of human communication uses the combination of semiotics (cultural
codes) and phenomenology (embodied consciousness) to explicate communication
76 Richard L. Lanigan

theory (CT) and information theory (IT) as logics of verbal and nonverbal interac-
tion (Lanigan 1997a,b). The approach stresses the priority of CT as the logical
context for IT. This is to say as a theorem of logic, (1) a Choice of Context as a
combinatory analog apposition always precedes (2) a Context of Choice as a disjunc-
tive digital opposition is the distinguishing characteristic of human thought and
speech (Wilden [1972] 1980, 1987).
Communicology can be summarized easily as a semiotic logic of discourse and
practice:

IF the formation rules are DISCOURSE:

Rule 1: Things included in the system (Both—And analog logic).
Rule 2: Things excluded from the system (Either—Or digital logic).
THEN the transformation rules are PRACTICE:
Rule 3: Things excluded from the system can be Things included in the system (Paradigmatic
Axis of poetic function).
Rule 4: Things included in the system can be Things excluded from the system. (Syntagmatic
axis of poetic function) (cf. Lanigan (2005: 421–435).

Note that discourse and practice constitute an open curvilinear system in human
thought, whereas a closed machine memory system must always be linear, hence
cannot simultaneously process an analog and digital logic in apposition – which
is what human cognition does (Lanigan 1988: 184–193; Ruesch 1953: 50).
It is a fact that only the human mind can engage this theorem in which both
the chosen and not chosen are the binary boundary condition (analog logic) for
choosing to either choose or not choose (digital logic) as the choice made. In CT
the binary combination choice is an apposition of meaning that constitutes the
context, whereas the binary disjunction context is an opposition that constitutes
the choice as a signification (Durst-Andersen 2009: 59). Bühler ([1934] 1982a: 438–
451) defines the linguistic apposition as anaphoric deixis: a continuous structure
of relationship in which the sign presence (words in a sentence) projects a combi-
nation with the sign absence (words not used, but in paradigmatic and syntagmatic
relation) in a synergism which we reduce to the concept of “contexts” (words in
specific possible sentences that are recognized as intended by the speaker).
A simple conversation example of anaphoric deixis is a person (listener) who
finishes the sentences of another person (deixis) after only the first few words
(anaphora) are spoken by the speaker. Edmund Husserl ([1922] 1970: 18) refers
to this communicological phenomenon as a case of “transcendental sociological
[intersubjective] phenomenology having reference to a manifest multiplicity of con-
scious subjects communicating with one another.” Roman Jakobson (1962–2002;
Holenstein [1974] 1976: 138–139) specifies these same communicological character-
istics of all human discourse, that he calls poetic function, as the reversibility poten-
tial of (1) vertical paradigmatic distinctive features (selection, substitution, similar-
ity, metaphor) and (2) horizontal syntagmatic redundancy features (combination,
contexture, contiguity, metonymy).
 Information theories 77

In Western cultures this communicology logic of apposition prior to opposition

is described as non-Aristotelian or postmodern logic (Lanigan 2008a) and in Asia
it is known as correlation logic (Chang 1938, 1946; Jiang 2002; Lanigan 2011b; Nis-
bett 2003). To summarize, human symbolic capacity (represented empirically in
spoken language) is the ability to make time and space binding logics by combining
an analog and digital logic at the same time in the same place – a physical impossi-
bility for an animal or machine because an electrical signal cannot both be and
not be at the same time and place, but that is the very definition of a symbol! And,
symbolic capacity is the very definition of being human (Urban [1939] 1971: 21).

5.1 Consciousness

The human mind has consciousness as a product of pre-consciousness, which we

have discussed as time and space binding in verbal and nonverbal communication.
Human beings, unlike animals and machines, function on three simultaneous
levels of consciousness that integrate both expression and perception of (1) Affect
or emotion, (2) Cognition or thought, and (3) Conation or purposeful action. The
scholastic philosophers in the Middle Ages designated the three levels by the
respective Latin terms: (1) Capta, (2) Data, and (3) Acta, which today are still in
use to varying extents. In the specific context of communication, human conscious-
ness thus functions as a simultaneous integration of (1) Awareness, or Precon-
sciousness, (2) Awareness of Awareness, or Consciousness, and (3) Representation
of Awareness of Awareness, or variously, Nonconsciousness, Subconsciousness,
Unconsciousness. Charles S. Peirce (1931–1958: 1.530–544) provides a useful refer-
ence system for these three levels by referring to them as Firstness, Secondness,
and Thirdness. Thus from the perspective of the cultural development of speech as
language, human Awareness becomes the syntactic code of “grammar” in verbal
communication expressing iconic signs of expression-perception. In turn, Aware-
ness of Awareness becomes the semantic code of “rhetoric” illustrating indexical
signs of expression-perception. Last, the Representation of Awareness of Aware-
ness becomes the pragmatic code of the “logic” expression of the symbolic signs
of perception. Peirce (1931–1958: 7.585) provides a simple, but explicit summary”:
“A man has consciousness; a word has not.”

5.2 Embodiment

Following the proofs offered by Merleau-Ponty (1945) for human embodiment as

the source of human expression and perception, Hubert Dreyfus ([1972] 1992 : 236)
reminds us that communication interaction and meaning is founded on our under-
standing of the practical activity of the human body: “what distinguishes persons
78 Richard L. Lanigan

from machines, no matter how cleverly constructed, is not a detached, universal

immaterial soul but an involved, situated, material body.” Consciousness as the
human mind in the synergistic body is the source and context for communication
(Lanigan 2010a; Weiss and Haber 1999).

5.3 Information, Communication, and the Future of ‘Intelligent’

Machines

Machines can be programmed by creating artificial “languages” (mathematical

algorithms) to match closed system signals to the symbol open systems that we
know as human languages (Ruesch 1953: 49–50). This is information modeling.
Once such a model is in place (e.g., a machine version of “English”), another model
can be constructed for “French.” Then a third model can be constructed to trans-
late the machine “English” into machine “French.” This process is known as pri-
mary, secondary, and tertiary modeling in general systems theory (Kull 2010; Lani-
gan 1988: 184).
Once you start to create models for “searching” specific terms in the combined
models, you need a complex hierarchy and network of computers to store, sort,
classify, and retrieve bits. Complexity studies is concerned with how to do this and
is most familiar to us as the Internet system of models called the World Wide Web.
Of course, we can do the same thing with internets that we do with models and
this level of metacoding is called Informatics. We are presently at the point of
developing Internet 2.0 to work with Internet 1.0. If we can continue to develop
high order complex systems in this way to achieve an even higher level of complex-
ity, then it will be called “Internet 3.0.” Whether or not this level of development
is possible at all is a matter of great controversy and is referred to as the problem
of the Semantic Web. So far, basic negative critiques of the attempt to move from
machine syntax to the level of human semantics (by computers) and pragmatics
(by robotics) dominate the debate by demonstrating that the key requirements of
synergism and embodiment cannot be represented in machines (Dreyfus [1972]
1992: 165, 237, 2001; Searle 1983, 1984, 1995). As Merleau-Ponty (2003: 163) summa-
rizes: “The enumeration of possible combinations does nothing to help us under-
stand the very act by which language takes on a meaning.”
The Semantic Web is still confronting the original problems faced by informa-
tion theory: “Level A. How accurately can the symbols of communication be trans-
mitted? (The technical problem). Level B. How precisely do the transmitted symbols
convey the desired meaning? (The semantic problem). Level C. How effectively
does the received meaning affect conduct in the desired way? (The effectiveness
problem).” (Weaver 1949: 4). In semiotic terms, (A) is the signal transmission prob-
lem as a matter of Syntactics, (B) is the sign meaning problem of Semantics, and
(C) is the symbol expression and perception effectiveness problem of Pragmatics.
 Information theories 79

Despite the extraordinary advances that have been made in computer technology
in terms of storage capacity and signal transmission efficiency, computer science
and the associated “cognitive sciences” are still working at Level A on fundamental
issues of signal accuracy. By comparison, the paradigm discussed in this essay is
the one we are currently using: human language (verbal and nonverbal communi-
cation) that already functions at Levels A, B, and C with an embodied, synergistic,
analog logic base that simply cannot be duplicated by a machine or an animal.

Further reading
Alexander, Hubert G. [1967]. 1988. The Language and Logic of Philosophy. Lanham, MD:
University Press of America.
Krampen, Martin. 1997. Communication Models and Semiosis. In: Roland Posner, Klaus Robering,
Thomas A. Sebeok (eds.), “Model of Semiotik:”, Ein Handbuch zu den zeichentheoretischen
Grundlagen von Natur und Kultur, Vol. 1, 4 vols. 247–287. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.
Lanigan, Richard L. 1992. The Human Science of Communicology: A Phenomenology of Discourse
in Foucault and Merleau-Ponty. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.
Ruesch, Jürgen & Gregory Bateson. 1951. Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry.
New York: W. W. Norton, reprint edn. 1968, 1987.

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Dirk Baecker
5 Systemic theories of communication
Abstract: Systemic theories of communication proceed from a deconstruction of
Shannon’s and Weaver’s mathematical theory and transmission model of commu-
nication. Referring to the unresolved question of the identity of a message for
different observers they instead develop a selection model of communication. In
order to overcome the engineering model of signaling (rather than communication)
offered by Shannon and Weaver systemic theories drop the assumption of a given
set of possible messages any one message is considered to be selected from, and
instead assume that the set of possible messages is to be constructed by the partici-
pants in communication as much as the single message then to be selected from
that constructed set, also known as the context.

Keywords: Autology, communication, form, message, network, observer, selection,

society, systemic theory

1 Transmission
Systemic theories of communication proceed from a deconstruction of Claude E.
Shannon’s and Warren Weaver’s transmission model of communication (Shannon
and Weaver 1948: 7 and 34) (Fig. 1):

Figure 1: Shannon’s and Weaver’s schematic diagram of a general communication system

There are few models in science that have caused more misunderstandings than
this one. The model is to be found in Weaver’s introduction and the opening pages
of Shannon’s first chapter. The purpose of the model seems to be to enable the
reader to focus on the engineering question of how to make sure that a signal
transmitted can be received as that signal by a receiver, despite noise from a noise
86 Dirk Baecker

source. Shannon’s core idea had been to use concepts of statistical mechanics for
ensuring that possible distortions by interference from the noise source can be
corrected by the receiver. Any message reaching the receiver was to be understood
as “one selected from a set of possible messages” (Shannon and Weaver 1948: 31)
so that the receiver had only to calculate the probabilities of possible messages in
order to substitute a possibly distorted one by a probably correct one.
Shannon’s stroke of genius was to waive any attempt to let receivers know the
substantial ‘meaning’ of a message, letting them focus instead on the relational
‘information’ supplied by it with respect to other messages already received or
still expected. There is therefore never just one message but always many, all
from a “set of possible messages” (Shannon and Weaver 1948) so that one is to
be determined by the probability of all others. Norbert Wiener, a close collabora-
tor of Shannon at the time, insisted on the fundamentality of this idea. He under-
lined that cybernetics takes its starting point from the same concept of statistical
mechanics, which for him consists in “the resolution of a complex contingency
into an infinite sequence of more special contingencies – a first, a second, a
third, and so on – each of which has a known probability” (Wiener 1948: 46).
There is a nice paradox hidden in this formula, namely that sums of probability
zero lead to probability one (Wiener 1948; 46/7), but we will not go into that
here.
Shannon emphasized that his ‘mathematical theory of communication’ is rele-
vant only for understanding and solving the engineering problem of signal trans-
mission. He refrained from any implication the solution of this problem could have
for understanding the ‘semantic aspects of communication’. Indeed, he originally
presented not ‘the’ but ‘a’ mathematical theory of communication (Shannon 1948),
leaving the selection of the bolder definite article to Weaver, who put the book
together out of Shannon’s papers. But Shannon’s reluctance to generalize his
theory could not prevent his and Weaver’s ideas on ‘communication’ from being
quickly and enthusiastically received as well as fervently rejected by social scien-
tists (e.g., as regards reception, Jakobson 1981; Bense 1969; and with respect to
rejection, Hayles 1999). The same happened to Wiener. He rejected the application
of cybernetics to social systems due to the lack of sufficiently long runs of statisti-
cal data describing such systems (Wiener 1948: 24–5). But this warning could not
prevent cybernetic ideas about ‘communication and control’ based on a calculus
of contingencies, as it were, becoming prominent in many areas of the social scien-
ces, much as Shannon’s and Weaver’s model had.
The problem with Shannon’s and Weaver’s diagram was that ‘transmitter’ and
‘receiver’ are personalized as the ‘sender’ and ‘receiver’ of messages, thus picturing
communication as the transmission of messages from one person to another using
a channel, which even though posing problems about choosing the right code in
encoding and decoding messages and, although possibly distorted by unknown
noise, nevertheless let messages travel in orderly fashion from one point to the
 Systemic theories of communication 87

other. The two boxes representing ‘information source’ and ‘destination’ were
meanwhile discarded as rather enigmatic references, possibly to the ‘conscious-
ness’ of the people involved in communication. Weaver, to be sure, did his best to
foster the misunderstanding by saying, for instance, that ‘communication’ is one of
several “procedures by which one mind may affect another” (Shannon and Weaver
1948: 3) and, in distinction to Shannon, by addressing not only ‘technical,’ but
also ‘semantic’ and ‘effectiveness problems’ (Shannon and Weaver 1948: 4). He
even mused about selecting not just a message but a “desired” one out of a set of
possible messages (Shannon and Weaver 1948: 7). This he considered a point worth
coming back to, for it showed the way beyond selection and statistical calculation
to ‘desires’, to the receiver’s purposes, aims, and motives. Not least, he emphasized
that Shannon’s warning to treat the semantic aspect as irrelevant to the engineer-
ing aspect does not necessarily mean that the engineering problems are irrelevant
to the semantics (Shannon and Weaver 1948: 8).
I think that he was right in this emphasis. But the engineering problems are not
relevant to semantics since in engineering we are concerned only with messages as
signals traveling along a channel. They become relevant when we consider the
possibility of generalizing the selection model of communication inherent in Shan-
non’s statistical definition of information (Baecker 1997).

2 The observer
In the co-authored book, Shannon quotes two papers in the first paragraph of his
chapter, one on ‘telegraph speed’ (Harry Nyquist), the other on ‘transmission of infor-
mation’ (Ralph Hartley), both of which had already looked at the ‘signal-to-noise
ratio,’ leaving him only to add some ideas on noise and, nota bene, on the statistical
structure of the original message. In what is possibly the most important and most
deceptive statement in the chapter, he goes on to say in the second paragraph: “The
fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either
exactly or approximately a message selected at another point” (Shannon and Weaver
1948: 31). One could write volumes about any of the words in this exposition, and
Michel Serres in fact did so (Serres 1968–1980; 1982), but we will focus only on ‘repro-
duction.’ That the problem of communication is one of reproduction could have been
the most obvious indicator of the theory dealing with the engineering problem of how
to make sure that the signal sent is the same as the signal received. As a matter of
fact, however, this statement, even if not quoted literally, became the mantra of all
communication theorists in search of ways to ensure that communication success-
fully transmits the meaning the sender has in mind to the receiver seeking to under-
stand this meaning. Keep the channel clean or, better, domination-free (Habermas
1984), make sure that everybody is both reasonably enlightened and well-intentioned,
and everything will be just fine. Communication will be possible and will be able to
88 Dirk Baecker

sort out the fate of mankind, or so the reasoning went (see also Chapter 2, Eadie and
Goret, Chapter 13, Wharton and Chapter 14, Bangerter and Mayor).
The problem of this well-meaning reading of the sentence is that it neglects
what any philosopher and any cognitive scientist knows: that minds and hearts
are closed to one another (if not to themselves as well) (see only Locke 1959, vol.
II: 8–14), that communication is there to replace understanding (thus enabling it,
even if at the price of possible mendacity and deception) (Schleiermacher 1995;
Schlegel 1997), and that the fascinating questions arise when we begin to inquire
into how minds (and bodies) participate in communication (see only, possibly after
having read about Johannes Peter Müller’s or similar neurophysiological research,
Nietzsche 2006). Even worse, this reading overlooks a more fundamental concep-
tual issue implied by the sentence. The ‘reproduction’ of a message selected at one
point at another would mean that someone knows what the message is if its identi-
cal reproduction is to be verified. Who is in this position? Who can state that the
message reproduced here is identical to that selected there? Certainly not the
sender and not the receiver, if for a moment we maintain this misleading personali-
zation, for both know only about their own selections. It may be an external
observer, but who is this external observer, and how is s/he involved in the trans-
mission of the information? Do we need some divine or secular authority invented
precisely for the purpose of telling us that we have indeed correctly reproduced
our messages, let alone understood each other well?
Shannon’s genius, once again, consists in anticipating the very problem of the
impossibility of verifying the identity of the two messages–the first selected at
one point, the second at another–transmitted via a possibly distorted channel and
chancing on a receiver who is possibly uncertain about how to deal with decoding.
Indeed, Shannon explicitly states the problem without offering a solution. In his
second chapter, where he introduces the concept of channels containing noise, he
presents us with a ‘correction system’ whose key innovation may indeed be the
introduction of the observer (Shannon and Weaver 1948: 68):

Figure 2: Shannon’s schematic diagram of a correction system

 Systemic theories of communication 89

This is a prime example of self-deconstruction of a model, if there ever was

one. The most interesting detail apart from the introduction of the observer is the
correction of M' to M by a ‘correcting device’ instructed by the ‘observer.’ The
corrected M, however, then exits to the right of the diagram and off the page with
no indication of who could be interested in it, who the receiver, let alone the
destination, is. Note, however, that the riddle of this diagram in parts at least is to
be unlocked easily as soon as one looks at the scheme of a “general secrecy sys-
tem” which Shannon had pictured in his classified 1946 paper on ‘A Mathematical
Theory of Cryptography’ (declassified as Shannon 1949). Here (Shannon 1949: 661)
the observer is the enemy cryptanalyst and the question is how to avoid being
deciphered and how to pass on the message:

Figure 3: Shannon’s schematic of a general secrecy system

It should also be noted that in Fig. 2 (as in Fig. 3) the noise source has disappeared,
leaving the observer in a position to state the difference between M and M' without
necessarily having to explain how this difference, let alone its detection, came about.
It is the ‘observer’ (whether he, she or it) that states and corrects the difference and
also has the means to do so: a ‘correction device’ operating within the transmission
channel, whoever may then be interested in the outcome of its operations.
The deconstruction of the schematic general communication system diagram
consists in singling out that the diagram presupposes the identity of two messages
nobody within the system can verify to the effect that it becomes impossible to know
whether any transmission, let alone the transmission of a message reproduced at one
point as the message selected at another point, has in fact taken place.
An observer is needed to know about the difference between the message
selected and the message reproduced. A correction device is needed to correct a
distorted message. And no-one knows who is involved in receiving the corrected
message, or who might want to know about the whole process of sending, distort-
ing, and correcting the message, if not the ominous observer again.
90 Dirk Baecker

3 Selection
Systemic theories of communication replace transmission with selection (MacKay
1969) and the identity of the message with recursivity (von Foerster 1980). To do
this, they introduce a notion of ‘system,’ which is necessary to show how messages
relate to information source, transmitter, receiver, and destination through recur-
sive instead of causal connection (Pask 1970; Krippendorff 1994). ‘System’ is to be
distinguished from ‘environment,’ which is a proxy for the noise source. The notion
of channel then involves structural coupling instead of operational coupling
between the distinctions which the transmitter and receiver use to encode and
decode messages. Structural coupling occurs when complex units relate to each
other to deal with their own complexity; operational coupling is where the opera-
tions of one system recursively reproduce each other (Maturana 1975; Luhmann
1992a). The one observer presented by Shannon’s correction system is multiplied
and distributed throughout the system. And the notion of technically given sets of
possible messages (‘alphabets’) is considered a particular case of the more general
case of the systemic construction, production, and reproduction of sets of possible
messages (‘frames’) (Baecker 2005).
However, the one condition for doing all this is to keep Shannon’s seminal
concept, namely the statistical mechanics notion that information is the relation
of one message to a set of possible other messages. The information content of any
message is given by the change in the probability of all other possible messages
in relation with the first. This decisive step from a substantial to a relational defini-
tion of information – much in line with both Gottlob Frege’s notion of the meaning
of a word residing in the proposition using that word and Ferdinand de Saussure’s
notion of the semantic elements of language being differences with other elements
(Frege 1980; de Saussure 1986) – was grasped early on by Gregory Bateson, who
made a first attempt at generalizing Shannon’s theory, claiming that communica-
tion was not the transmission of information but “the creation of redundancy or
patterning” (Bateson 1972: 412; see also Watzlawick et al. 1967).
The relational concept of information is all important because it is the relation-
ship of redundancy to variety (or the signal-to-noise ratio) that is both produced
by the system of communication and guides it. A system of communication can
thus be defined in terms of the following concepts:
– A message is one selected from a set of possible messages.
– Any unit participating in a system of communication is an observer using its
own distinctions to identify messages and sets of possible messages they can
be selected from.
– The system of communication is produced by a message identified by a unit
participating in that system and selectively and recursively attributed to
another unit, to a set of possible messages, and to possible sources of noise,
all three constituting a network without boundaries.
 Systemic theories of communication 91

– The reproduction of the system consists in dealing with variety in such a way
that redundancy is maintained. This redundancy distinguishes the system
from everything else, i.e. from the environment. Variety and redundancy
describe the relation of any message to sets of possible messages distributed
with the network of messages, units, sets of possible messages, and noise
sources.

This definition does not stipulate what kinds of message are produced by the sys-
tem, whether gestures in facial and bodily expression, images within other images,
words within sentences, numbers within calculations, or any mix of these within
a multimedia combination. Note that a definition of ‘things’ consisting of rigid
couplings of some elements within ‘media’ consisting of loose couplings of the
same elements (Heider 1926) fits neatly with this definition of systemic communica-
tion but has the advantage of not requiring a statistical definition of the set of
possible messages, or ‘medium.’
The definition does not stipulate what kinds of entity or unit participate as
long as they are able to make their distinctions and select their messages, be they
spirits, devils, animals, plants, humans, or machines. There is an interesting termi-
nological choice to be made: to talk about ‘entities’ means to assume something
substantial brought with them to communication, while the notion of ‘unit’ takes
those to depend on further units and their common class to actually turn them
into a ‘unit.’ On the one hand, we are dealing with a circular definition of commu-
nication, and on the other with entities taking part in communication while not
being reducible to that communication. This is why Georg Simmel, for instance,
posited that individuals had in part to be non-sociable to take part in processes of
socialization (Simmel 1950).
Moreover, the given definition of a system of communication is open with
respect to the emergence of a system of communication; any message can start it
as long as there is a set of possible messages from which the initiating message can
be considered to have been selected, and thus further, related messages. Luhmann
emphasizes that any selection whatsoever of information, utterance or understand-
ing can start a communication as long as it finds the two elements with which to
synthesize, even if this start necessarily and paradoxically refers back to some
previous communication (thus highlighting its link to, and switch from, ‘society’)
(Luhmann 1995). Note that this idea combines high arbitrariness of initiative with
strict constraint of constitution. The bootstrapping of communication is due to
communication being its own bottleneck.
Finally, our definition does not stipulate a specific balance between redun-
dancy and variety; rigidly repeating almost the same meaning is just as possible
as the most flexible dynamics of almost always different meaning. The little word
‘almost’ is decisive since without it the system would become either a machine or
chaos, both of which are defined by a lack of any possibility for selection.
92 Dirk Baecker

The definition of a system of communication given here is therefore autological

because it is as relational as the system it defines. It fulfills Heinz von Foerster’s
demand for any formalism of communication not to contain symbols representing
communicabilia: communication cannot be proved by the existence of anything
that demands communication (von Foerster 1974). Instead, communication may be
proved by proving the production and reproduction of messages to be possible.
This production and reproduction relying on a relationship of redundancy to vari-
ety, or signal to noise, is called the ‘system.’
If the definition of a system of communication is not substantial but relational,
two other features are essential. We can call them ‘recursivity’ and ‘sociality.’
‘Recursivity’ means that there is never just one message to be communicated and
never just one unit of communication participating but always an indefinite num-
ber of messages and an indefinite number of units, even if most structuring and
cultivating of communication (i.e. building expectations to produce ‘structure’ and
valuing and revaluing expectations to constitute ‘culture’) consists in restricting
the number of both possible messages and possible units. But without the recursiv-
ity of a message referring via selective memory to previous messages and via select-
ive anticipation and expectation to coming messages, there would be no set of
possible messages from which to select in order to identify the message in the first
place.
It is thus interesting to use the mathematics of recursive functions, including
non-linear dynamics, to prove the general possibility of communication in terms
of eigen-values or attractors appearing within these recursions. What the vernacu-
lar calls the ‘objects’ and ‘subjects’ of communication, and the purpose and
frames, and indeed the sets of possible messages, are examples of these eigen-
values (von Foerster 1974, 1980).
‘Sociality’ means that the interplay of units participating in communication as
observers making their distinctions and selections is characterized by both inde-
pendence and dependence of and among these units. Any communication (produc-
tion of a message relating to possible other messages) necessarily begins by both
accepting another unit to make its selections in accordance with its own distinc-
tions and by trying to restrict these selections by offering frames that define the
set of possible messages desired by the first unit. A system of communication as
defined here presupposes that the units participating in it are free to choose and
nevertheless choose to participate. Communication presupposes units that do not
have to communicate. This is why structures and cultures have to emerge that
make it both attractive to participate, i.e. which recruit the units participating in
communication, and that make it possible at any time to either leave communica-
tion or give it a completely unexpected turn, which nevertheless has to be recur-
sively reconnected.
Because of this principle of ‘sociality’ Heinz von Foerster calls for any systemic
theory of communication to accept a basic hermeneutic principle: that the listener
 Systemic theories of communication 93

not the speaker determines the information of the message (von Foerster and Pörk-
sen 2002). And Niklas Luhmann speaks about the ‘improbability’ of any communi-
cation, whose social, i.e. multiple, constitution compels it to find, define, negoti-
ate, and maintain its attractiveness for all units participating all on its own to make
a generally improbable communication specifically, situationally, and temporarily
probable (Luhmann 1992b, 1995). Communication comes about if there is the possi-
bility to reject it, or, demonstrating indifference, to avoid, neglect, and ignore it.

4 Error correction
Such a relational rather than substantial definition of communication brings with
it the difficulty of empirically determining whether communication takes place or
not. Certainly, no single message causes the set of possible messages from which
it is selected to be produced, let alone the next message that might refer to it.
There is therefore no option to prove communication empirically by determining
its causal mechanism, since there is none. If there is any mechanism at all, it is
again a selective and relational one, involving the loose coupling of organisms that
always have their range of choice and not the tight coupling that, as it were, links
cause and effect.
Donald MacKay, for instance, assumes that there is a mechanism of communi-
cation which ensures that any communication refers to both individuals taking
part, as there is never a change in the ‘goal-complex’ of the one, induced by com-
munication, that is not linked to a change in the ‘goal-complex’ of the other
(MacKay 1969). But that means that empirical research so important for evidence-
based sciences encounters some difficulties with the notion of communication.
How is one to ascertain a change in the goal-complex of an individual? It certainly
does not help that systemic theories ever since Gregory Bateson’s epistemological
inquiries doubt the empirical provability of causality as well, since any causality
depends on an observer selecting certain causes (but which ones?) to cause (but
how?) certain selected effects (again, which ones?) (Bateson 1972). The concern
provoked by this objection among the various schools of empirical research
prompts them to insist even more strongly on evidence to back assumptions that
theoretical notions have reference to some reality.
Systemic theories of communication do not assume that communication is
something one can point out to skeptical observers to ‘see for themselves.’ Instead,
the concept of communication is an explanatory principle, or ‘metadatum’ (Bagley
1968), which helps to frame and order observations into more ambitious and
sophisticated descriptions that declare an observer’s perspective on some complex
reality. The same holds for all other concepts of systems theory, beginning with
‘system’ and ‘environment,’ not to mention ‘function,’ ‘boundary,’ ‘code,’ or ‘form.’
To assume that any word, just because it is there, must refer to a real thing would
94 Dirk Baecker

be to fall victim to the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness,” as Alfred North White-

head put it (Whitehead 1967: 19–20). In fact, once again, words are determined
relationally, not substantially.
Yet, this does not mean that systems theorists are not themselves interested in
evidence. Pure belief is satisfactory only in resignation. Systems theories ask for
evidence that consists in a description organized on these explanatory principles
that tells more about the world and enhances our ability to deal with it. But such
a criterion can soon turn into a self-serving ideology, enabling a school to celebrate
its proceedings without anybody else understanding what the gains may be. Thus,
even systems theorists, in pursuing their research, need some more tangible clue
as to whether they are on track or not. In their early attempt to introduce Shan-
non’s insights to the social sciences and, in fact, to psychiatry, Jürgen Ruesch and
Gregory Bateson have been among the few to identify such a clue (Ruesch and
Bateson 1951). It is very simple. They ask for error correction. As soon as an
observer is able to watch two units possibly engaged in communication who refer
to each others’ behavior by first addressing errors and then correcting them, they
may indeed be correctly assumed to be engaged in communication. Of course,
this criterion presupposes that Shannon’s observer watching the ‘transmission’ of
messages is in fact to be multiplied such that the position of this observer describes
the position of any unit engaged in this communication, including that of external
observers engaged in research.

5 Unities of difference
We conclude this chapter with a look at a few concepts of communication that
have the advantage of keeping in touch with Shannon’s relational definition of
information and with Wiener’s idea of a system referring to many and possibly
recursively interlinked contingencies to deal with this world.
The concepts in question are double closure, autopoiesis, social system, and
form. Each deals differently with the fundamental challenge of any systemic theory
of communication that is, to combine the operation of a message changing the
state of the world with the distribution of elements that are both produced by this
operation and necessary to support it.
Take ‘double closure’ first. The concept of double closure was introduced by
von Foerster to describe the self-organization of a complex system that reproduces
operationally (first closure) because it is able to regulate or program how this
reproduction proceeds (second closure) (von Foerster 1973). While first closure
eliminates an element of freedom in the system by requiring any end to an opera-
tion to be the beginning of another, second closure adds an element of freedom in
the choice of structures and cultures for determining the next operation. As far as
communication is concerned, this means that messages must indeed be selected
 Systemic theories of communication 95

to reproduce a system, but (in relation to the facticity of the selection) the system
is relatively free in choosing the sets of possible messages from which one is to be
selected. Programs or – in more sociological terms – structures and cultures
emerge that describe what has proved helpful in reproduction and what is valued
as still desirable over other possible structures. Note that possible self-descriptions
of the system are established on the level of second closure, allowing confusions,
illusions, ideologies, discourses, and semantics to develop that take a rather sim-
plistic stance towards the complexity of the sheer reproduction of operations on
the first closure level. Since first and second closure are loosely coupled, it is
interesting for communication research to inquire into the function of structures
and cultures, to compare them, and, in its own illusory and delusory account, to
highlight their contingency.
The concept of ‘autopoiesis’ invented by Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco
J. Varela is closely related to this idea of double closure (Maturana and Varela
1980). It distinguishes between the elements of a system producing the network of
elements of the system, on the one hand, and the network of the elements of the
system, on the other. This way a distinction can be drawn between the elements
operationally reproducing, via ‘organizational closure,’ the system, on one hand,
and the ‘structures’ contributing to this reproduction while being materialized in
most diverse empirical forms, on the other. Operational reproduction, that is the
actual linking of one element to another to bring forth a third, remains inaccessible
to both the system and the observer because it involves a self-reference that is still
systems theory’s most axiomatic assumption. Yet the network structuring reproduc-
tion is fairly well observable empirically. The network of elements playing some
role in reproduction is accessible to an observer who can even try to become
involved in this reproduction.
In communication, the network consists of observers and of links between
them which, because they change what the observer can see, may be considered
observers themselves. Harrison C. White (1992) proposed a corresponding network
concept – albeit without reference to systems theories of communication – empha-
sizing that any element of the network gets its identity from both successful and
failed attempts at controlling other elements. Moreover, the overall dynamics of
networks are switching operations since no element fails to gain a different per-
spective on both itself and its connecting links when it switches to another element
or link from where to observe the network.
The ‘social system’ is Niklas Luhmann’s version of a systemic theory of commu-
nication. It is much in line with the ideas of double closure and of autopoiesis, yet
looks more closely at the ‘social’ conditions of an emerging system of communica-
tion. ‘Communication’ is taken to be the basic element of the system, emerging as
the both improbable and fragile synthesis of utterance, information, and under-
standing, all attributions of the system itself, producing self-simplifying descrip-
tions of ‘actions’ (including ‘individuals’ and their ‘intentions’) whose recurrence
96 Dirk Baecker

is taken to infer ‘structures’ and ‘cultures,’ ‘traditions’ and ‘conventions,’ if not the
‘system’ itself. The message together with the set of possible messages and the
selection from this set is called ‘meaning,’ meaning being the possibility to switch
from an actual meaningful state of the world to potential other meaningful states
of the world (Luhmann 1990).
At least four features assure the internal restlessness of the social system.
There is, first, the multiple constitution of communication always addressing sev-
eral participants who can only artificially be taken as one (i.e. a ‘collectivity’, for
instance a ‘class’ in school) and all of whom can withdraw at any time. There is,
second, the self-reference of communication addressing an always elusive self.
Third, there is the temporal nature of the elements, which appear and disappear
as events, emphasizing the inherent improbability of the communication and the
necessity to assure continuation right now.
The fourth feature is called ‘society.’ ‘Society’ is Luhmann’s term for all kinds
of disturbances of and by communication to be expected while society organizes
itself into recurrent patterns and frames (Luhmann 1997). He chooses this term to
draw attention to the reflexive nature of a theory of social systems, since it is
a theory elaborated inside society, analyzing society from a distance even while
participating in it. The theory is developed in communication even if author and
reader may feel quite alone in their world; it must therefore exhibit an understand-
ing of the nature of a society that allows such a thing, i.e. the writing and reading
of such a theory. To quote Warren McCulloch (1965; see Luhmann 1997): ‘What is
a society such that it has a theory describing it?’
Society is also a term that draws attention to the fact that, contrary to a wide-
spread belief in the communication sciences, not all communication is either face-
to-face or mass or strategic communication, such that, apart from face-to-face com-
munication, most communication, as this belief would have it, is “speaking into
the air” and must be reminded of its not only fleeting but disembodied and thus
somehow inhuman nature (Peters 1999). Quite to the contrary, most communica-
tion mixes indexicality and contextuality, present and absent references and par-
ticipants, bodies and ideas, stories and projects, giving ample space to distinctions
in communication research between interaction, organization, and society. If
switching is pervasive, present references to other, absent, and potential meaning
must come first; it must therefore be asked what structures and cultures enable
communication agencies such as families, groups of peers, couples, people in line,
offices, firms, schools, armies, parties, and others to produce and handle this mix-
ing, crossing, and switching (see, also, Chapter 2, Eadie and Goret).
Finally, a last concept to capture the both operational and distributive nature
of communication is George Spencer-Brown’s notion of form (Spencer-Brown 1969).
‘Form’ is the answer to the question of how one operation can encompass the
focus on itself, the problem of finding a next operation, and the knowledge of a
world in which this operation takes place. The answer to this question is that we
 Systemic theories of communication 97

are dealing with operations of distinction whose form we can describe. They have
an inside, an outside, a dividing line between inside and outside, and a space in
which they occur. Thus, any one-valued or, to quote Gordon Pask (1981: 270, albeit
with respect to ‘understanding’), “sharp-valued” operation of distinction has, in
its simplest form, four values to it: indicated inside, unmarked outside, severance,
and space. There are more complicated forms of form possible, since distinctions
may concatenate in different ways and also re-enter into themselves, producing
forms that produce and live in recursive functions. The value of severance, not
being among the things indicated nor part of the unmarked outside, indicates the
observer actually drawing the distinction (Bateson 1972: 454–471), thus turning the
whole calculus of form into a calculus of self-reference.
Luhmann introduced this notion of form into social systems theory and started
to rebuild his theory of society according to its scheme (Luhmann 1997). With
regard to communication, this means that any communication can be considered
an operation of distinction (a selective message) that indicates something in differ-
ence to something else, which may or not be specified, so that further operations
of distinction can choose to affirm or reject the indication, crossing the distinction
to look at its outside, or re-entering the distinction into itself to inquire about the
observer drawing it or about the possibility of distinguishing what had not previ-
ously been distinguished.
Using Spencer-Brown’s notation, this reads as follows. Any simple operation
of communication (if it ever is simple) draws a distinction which indicates on its
inside a distinguished term, m:

This communication attracts the attention of a second-order observer (who may be

the first observer observing himself) either to the included indication, m, or to the
excluded outside of the distinction, the unmarked state, n:

The second-order observer seeking communication with the first-order observer

may then invite the latter or some third party to reflect on the possibility of distin-
guishing m from n, thus re-entering the distinction into the distinction:
98 Dirk Baecker

Note that Spencer-Brown’s form matches precisely the relational understand-

ing of information put forward by Shannon, since any indication (or message) m
is to be considered a distinction (or selection) from a set of possible other messa-
ges, either to be determined, n, or to be left unmarked. With Spencer-Brown, how-
ever, the mathematical theory of communication becomes self-contained. Any dis-
tinction tells us about the observer drawing it, a marked state indicated by it, and
an unmarked state necessarily accompanying it, such that the marked state may
at any moment become uneasily informed by the ignorance that comes with it.
Systemic theories of communication may then go on to consider further forms
of communication as operational, structural, or cultural specifications of the first
form (Baecker 2005), thus venturing into a kind of empirical communication
research always seeking contact with some complexity out there and reflecting on
the distinctions of its own being used.
If systemic theories of communication consist in deconstructing the transmis-
sion model of communication, emphasizing the selection model instead, and if the
statistical mechanics theory of communication can reliably be generalized towards
a systems theory of communication by dropping the assumption of given sets of
possible messages, then Spencer-Brown’s form seems the appropriate candidate to
underline what systemic theories of communication are about and to foster the
next generation of communication models. This ‘form’ seems fit to model opera-
tion, context, and switch without ever losing sight of the elusive self of the observer
doing the operation.

Acknowledgment: English language editing by Rhodes Barrett.

Further reading
Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine. Reprint Chicago, IL:
Chicago UP, 2000.
Luhmann, Niklas. 1995. Social Systems, Bednarz, John (trans.). Stanford, CA: Stanford UP.
Serres, Michel. 1982. The Parasite, Schehr, Lawrence R. (trans.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
UP.
Shannon, Claude E. & Warren Weaver. 1948. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana,
IL: Illinois UP. Reprint 1963.
Watzlawick, Paul, Janet H. Beavin & Don D. Jackson. 1967. Pragmatics of Human Communication:
A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. New York: Norton.
 Systemic theories of communication 99

References
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Cybernetica 1 (2). 83–99.
Baecker, Dirk. 1997. Bringing Communication Back into Cybernetics. Systemica: Journal of the
Dutch Systems Group 11. 11–28.
Baecker, Dirk. 2005. Form und Formen der Kommunikation. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Bagley, Philip. 1968. Extension of Programming Language Concepts. Philadelphia, PA: University
of City Science Center.
Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine. Reprint Chicago, IL:
Chicago UP, 2000.
Bense, Max. 1969. Einführung in die informationstheoretische Ästhetik: Grundlegung und
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de Saussure, Ferdinand. 1986. Course in General Linguistics. Harris, Roy (trans. and annotation).
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Pask, Gordon. 1981. Organizational Closure of Potentially Conscious Systems. In: Milan Zeleny
(ed.), Autopoiesis: A Theory of Living Organization, 265–308. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Peters, John Durham. 1999. Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication.
Chicago, IL: Chicago UP.
Ruesch, Jürgen & Gregory Bateson. 1951. Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry.
New York: Norton. Reprint 1987.
Schlegel, Friedrich. 1997. On Incomprehensibility. In: J. Schulte-Sasse (eds. and trans.), Theory as
Practice: A Critical Anthology of Early German Romantic Writings, 118–127. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 1995. Friedrich Schleiermacher’s ‘Toward a Theory of Sociable
Conduct’, and Essays in Its Intellectual-Cultural Context. Richardson, Ruth Drucilla (ed. and
trans.). Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
Serres, Michel. 1968–1980. Hermès. Vol. 1: La communication. Vol. 2: L’interférence. Vol. 3:
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UP.
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Journal 28: 656–715.
Shannon, Claude E. & Warren Weaver. 1948. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana,
IL: Illinois UP. Reprint 1963.
Simmel, Georg. 1950. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Wolff, Kurt H. (ed., trans. and introduction).
Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Spencer-Brown, George. 1969. Laws of Form. London: Allen & Unwin.
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Philip Lieberman
6 Biological and neurological bases of
communication
Abstract: The unique human tongue permits the production of “quantal” sounds
that enhance the robustness of human speech. Neural circuits linking areas of the
cortex with the basal ganglia and other subcortical structures regulate motor con-
trol, including speech. Similar circuits involving prefrontal cortex regulate lan-
guage and aspects of cognition involving “executive control” – including working
memory and cognitive flexibility. These circuits are similar to those of non-human
primates. The evolution of enhanced human motor control, cognitive flexibility,
and creativity 260,000 years ago appears to derive from a selective sweep of the
FOXP2 human transcriptional factor that increased synaptic plasticity and connec-
tivity in the basal ganglia.

Keywords: Basal ganglia, human tongue, neural circuits, speech, language, cogni-
tive flexibility, evolution, FOXP2

The biological and neurological bases of human communication derive from attrib-
utes that we share with other species, modifications of organs that had different
functions in other species, and novel factors that differentiate humans from all
other species.

1 Gesture
Charles Darwin (1872) called attention to the expression of emotion in humans and
other species using similar means. The facial musculature of apes and humans is
similar and many innate facial expressions of emotion are similar. Darwin also
called attention to body movement such as shrugs. Humans and apes both employ
manual gestures as communicative elements. The anatomy, physiology, and neural
control necessary to produce these gestures is shared by humans and chimpanzees.
Chimpanzees raised from birth in a human setting were able to produce about 150
words using the dynamic manual gestures of American Sign Language (Gardner
and Gardner 1969, 1984). Studies, such as those of McNeill (1985), demonstrate
that manual gestures complement linguistic information constituting a manual sig-
nal keyed to phrase structure and salience. Darwin and many subsequent investi-
gators have stressed the innate nature of these communicative signals. However,
as McNeill pointed out other ‘emblematic’ gestures, such as signaling ‘yes’ by
102 Philip Lieberman

either vertical or horizontal head movements are culturally transmitted and vary
from one culture to the next.

2 Vocal communication and speech

Darwin (1872) also emphasized the role of vocal signals in conveying emotion. A
brief explanation of how human speech is produced is in order to understand
both the aspects of vocal communication shared by humans and other species,
such as the ‘isolation cries’ produced by mammalian infants, other vocal signals
that signal distress, positive affect or stress, and the unique characteristics of
human speech.

Fig. 1: Human speech anatomy

Explicit studies of speech production can be traced back to the closing years of
the eighteenth century and are summarized in Johannes Müller’s 1848 Physiology
of the sense, voice and muscular motion with the mental faculties. The title of Mül-
ler’s book was prescient. As we shall see, current studies show that similar neural
circuits regulate speech motor control and the range of cognitive capacities sub-
 Biological and neurological bases of communication 103

sumed by the term ‘executive control’ – comprehending the meaning of a sentence,

short-term ‘working memory,’ planning ahead, and cognitive flexibility.
Although speech anatomy is often equated with the larynx, that is not the
case. The human larynx (often called the ‘voice-box’) generates a periodic source
of energy for vowels and consonants such as [m] and [v]. The larynx is a complex
structure that sits on top of the trachea – the ‘windpipe’ that leads upwards from
the lungs. The vocal ‘cords’ (sometimes called ‘vocal folds’) act as valves that can
interrupt the flow of air from or into your lungs. They are moved apart to open the
air passage during quiet respiration. Phonation occurs when the vocal cords are
moved closer together and are tensioned by the laryngeal muscles. The airflow out
from the lungs then sets them into motion and the vocal cords rapidly close and
open, producing puffs of air that are the source of acoustic energy for phonated
vowels, such as those normally occurring in English and ‘voiced’ consonants such
as [m] and [v] of the words ma and vat. The rate, i.e. the ‘fundamental frequency’
(F0), at which the vocal cords open and close depends on the pressure of alveolar
air in the lungs, the tension placed on the vocal cords and the mass of the vocal
cords.
The average F0 is perceived as the ‘pitch’ of a speaker’s voice. The fundamental
frequency of phonation for adult males, who generally have larger larynges than
most adult women, can vary from about 60 Hz to 200 Hz. The unit ‘hertz’ (Hz) is
a measure of frequency – the number of events per second. Adult women and
children can have F0s ranging up to and exceeding 500 Hz. Periodic (actually
quasi-periodic phonation) has acoustic energy at ‘harmonics,’ integral multiples of
the fundamental frequency of phonation. For example, if F0 were 100 Hz, acoustic
energy could be present at 200Hz, 300 Hz, 400 Hz, 500 Hz, and so on. Depending
on how abruptly the vocal cords open and close, energy falls off as frequency
increases to a greater or lesser degree.
But the larynx would not produce any sound, without the alveolar air pressure
generated in the lungs. Our lungs are the result of evolutionary tinkering. As Dar-
win pointed out, our lungs reflect the evolutionary process by which an organ is
modified for some other purpose. Deep in On the origin of species Darwin notes
that an,

organ might be modified for some other and quite distinct purpose. The illustration of the
swimbladder in fishes is a good one, because it shows us that an organ originally constructed
for one purpose, namely flotation, may be converted into one for a wholly different purpose,
namely respiration. (Darwin [1859] 1964: 190)

Advanced fish, such as those that are usually seen in fishbowls, have internal
swimbladders that are inflated or deflated by transferring air from the fish’s gills.
This increases or decreases the fish’s body size so as to change the quantity of
water displaced at a given depth allowing the fish to hover, with minimal move-
ments of its flippers. The net result of the evolutionary process that crafted our
104 Philip Lieberman

lungs is that when we talk, we must execute a complex set of motor gestures that
entails having neural capacities that take into account the length of the sentence
that we intend to say, before we utter a sound.

3 Control of alveolar air pressure

Darwin on his voyage on the British survey ship, Beagle, to South America
observed lungfish, living fossils, close in form to the starting point of the swim-
bladder to lung conversion process. We have two elastic lung sacks that are inflated
indirectly so as to increase the water that we would displace if we were aquatic.
There is no direct connection between any of the muscles that inflate the two
elastic lung sacks that take in air during inspiration or expel air during expiration.
Inspiratory muscles in your abdomen and chest can act to increase the volume of
your body. In turn, the lung sacks expand, lowering their internal air pressure so
that atmospheric air at a higher pressure flows into them during inspiration. The
‘elastic recoil’ of the two expanded lung sacks then forces air out during expiration
(Bouhuys 1974).
During quiet respiration the elastic lung sacks act as springs, generating maxi-
mum alveolar pressure at the start of expiration. The alveolar air pressure then
gradually falls. It’s as though you blew up a balloon and then let it go. The balloon
would start by flying around fast, then slow down as it deflates, and finally fall to
the ground. Talking or singing would be problematic if the alveolar pressure pat-
tern that occurs during quiet respiration was not modulated. The high initial pres-
sure would blow the vocal cords apart, precluding phonation. As the alveolar air
pressure fell, the fundamental frequency of phonation would fall. What instead
occurs when people talk is that before uttering a word, they ‘program’ an inspira-
tory muscle command plan that starts by maximally opposing (holding back) the
elastic lung-sack spring force using the same ‘inspiratory’ muscles that expand
their lungs during inspiration. The hold-back, braking function gradually falls,
matching the falling lung-sack elastic force to achieve relative stable, level alveolar
air pressure. The elastic lung sack hold-back function depends on the length of
the sentence that you intend to say. People also anticipate the length of the sen-
tence that they intend to say by inflating their lungs to a greater degree before the
start of a long sentence (Lieberman and Lieberman 1973). Similar maneuvers occur
during singing. Complicated? It is the result of evolutionary tinkering with swim
bladders to ‘make’ lungs.

4 The larynx
The human larynx also has a long evolutionary history. In lungfish it sealed the
pathway into the lungs when the fish swam under water. Victor Negus’s 1949 book
 Biological and neurological bases of communication 105

summarizes his studies of the many changes that modified larynges for phonation.
The larynx essentially is a ‘transducer,’ converting the almost inaudible flow of air
out of the lungs into an acoustic source that is within the range of frequencies that
the human auditory system can hear. The normal human respiratory rate is about
12 cycles per minute. This equals a frequency of 0.2 Hz, far below the 15 to 20 Hz
lower frequency limit of the human auditory system. Frogs and virtually all mam-
mals communicate vocally using acoustic signals generated by their larynges.
The F0 contour and amplitude of phonation typically varies as a person speaks,
yielding a prosodic signal that can transmit both emotional and referential linguis-
tic information. Prosody also provides information that identifies a specific lan-
guage, dialect or individual.

5 Formant frequencies
Although short F0 contours, lexical tones, play a role in specifying words in many
languages, for example, the Chinese languages, the vowels and consonants that
make up words are largely determined by formant frequencies. As Müller (1848)
pointed out, the airway above the larynx selectively allows maximum energy
through it at certain frequencies, termed formant frequencies. This airway, the
supralaryngeal vocal tract (SVT), acts as an acoustic filter, similar to an organ pipe.
The difference between an organ and human speech producing anatomy is that
we have one ‘pipe’ – the SVT – that continually changes its shape as we move our
lips, tongue, and move our larynx up or down when we talk. The different shapes
change the SVT’s filtering characteristics, producing a continual change in the
formant frequency pattern (Chiba and Kayiyama 1941; Fant 1960). We’ll return to
this critical aspect of human speech, which yields its signal advantage over other
vocal signals – a data transmission rate that is about ten times faster.
Pipe organs work in much the same manner. The note that you hear when the
organist presses a key is the product of the organ pipe acting as an acoustic filter
on a source of sound energy. The energy source is similar for all the pipes. You
can produce any vowel or phonated consonant with the same laryngeal source.
The phonetic distinctions result from setting up diferent SVT shapes.
A useful analogy is to consider the manner by which tinted sunglasses color
the world. The tint of the sunglasses results from a ‘source’ of light (electromag-
netic) energy being ‘filtered’ by the sunglasses’ colored lenses. The dye in the
sunglasses’ lenses acts as a filter, allowing maximum light energy to pass through
at specific frequencies that result in your seeing the world before you tinted yellow,
green, or whatever sunglass color you selected. The sunglasses’ lenses don’t pro-
vide any light energy; the ‘source’ of light energy is sunlight that has equal energy
across range of electromagnetic frequencies that our visual system sees as white.
If the sunglasses’ lenses remove light energy at high electromagnetic frequencies,
106 Philip Lieberman

the result is a reddish tint. If energy is removed at low frequencies, the result is a
bluish tint.

6 The unique human tongue

The human tongue is very peculiar. Charles Darwin first raised the question of why
we have peculiar tongues. In the first edition of On the Origin of Species, he noted
“The strange fact that every particle of food and drink which we swallow has to
pass over the orifice of the trachea, with some risk of falling into the lungs …”
(Darwin [1859] 1964: 191).
The reason for our being susceptible to choking on food when we swallow is
that the shape and position of the human tongue has been modified in the course
of evolution to produce vowels that minimize errors in understanding what some-
one is trying to communicate. Your tongue also allows you to be somewhat sloppier
when you produce the vowel sounds that make speech communication less suscep-
tible to confusion. The human tongue has moved down into the throat, carrying
the larynx down with it into a position that makes us uniquely susceptible to
choking when we eat. Victor Negus’s (1949) studies showed that at birth your
tongue was similar to an ape’s. It was adapted for swallowing. The human tongue’s
shape and position in the neck gradually changes until sometime between age six
and eight years it is unlike that of any other creature on earth and has the capabil-
ity to produce the full range of human speech (Lieberman et al. 2001).

7 Drinking and eating

If you cannot drink or eat, being able to talk is irrelevant. At birth, in newborn humans
the tongue is positioned almost entirely in the mouth and the larynx is close to the
opening into the nose. This arrangement allows newborn infants to simultaneously
suckle milk and breathe. The infant larynx rises and locks in the nasal passageway
like a small periscope, sealed off from the liquid pathway while water, milk and soft
solids move past on either side of the raised larynx. Apes, dogs, cats, and other mam-
mals have similar tongues and mouths throughout life. That’s why dogs and cats can
slurp away without stopping to breathe until their bowls are emptied. Newborn
humans are obligate nose breathers until about the age of three or four months when
tongue, throat, and skull anatomy begin to change. Anatomy and neural control are
matched to facilitate an infant’s being able to feed without risking choking.
When it comes to swallowing solid food, apes and other animals have an advan-
tage over adult humans. Their tongues first propel food along the roof of the mouth,
past the larynx and into the esophageal pathway leading to the stomach. Swallowing
 Biological and neurological bases of communication 107

and breathing patterns differ profoundly in humans and nonhuman primates (Lieber-
man 2011: 295–302). In nonhuman primates the pharynx forms a ‘tube within a tube’
in which air flows directly from the lungs through the nose. The larynx, the entry to
the inner air pathway lies within the opening to the nose, sealed off from the outer
tube through which liquids and soft solids are swallowed. Two soft tissue ‘flaps’ – the
epiglottis and velum which overlap each other, seal off the raised larynx from the food
pathway when drinking. When swallowing solid food, the epiglottis is flipped down
and breathing stops momentarily for all adult mammals, including humans. The
increased risk of choking faced by humans derives from the human tongue gradually
changing its shape and migrating down into the pharynx in the first six to eight years
of life, carrying the larynx down with it. Humans older than eight must pull the larynx
and the hyoid bone which supports the larynx forward and upwards to get it out of
the trajectory of solid bits of food that are forcefully propelled down our pharyngeal
air-food pathway – while simultaneously moving the epiglottis down to cover the lar-
ynx. About 500,000 people in the United States suffer from swallowing disorders (dys-
phagia) which results from failing to coordinate these complex maneuvers. Despite
the introduction of the Heimlich maneuver, which attempts to clear the larynx by
applying pressure to the abdomen to compress the lungs, ‘popping-out’ a blocked lar-
ynx, asphyxiation from food lodging in the larynx still remains the fourth largest
cause of accidental death in the United States (National Safety Council 2009).

8 The human supralaryngeal vocal tract

The ontogenetic development of the human SVT was first studied by Negus (1949).
Subsequent studies (e.g., Crelin 1973; Bosma, 1975; Lieberman and McCarthy 1999;
Lieberman et al. 2001; Vorperian et al. 2005; Lieberman and McCarthy 2007) show
that the length of the oral cavity is reduced in the first two years after birth by a
process of differential bone growth that moved the hard palate (the roof of the
mouth) backwards. The tongue begins to move down into the pharynx carrying
the hyoid bone and the larynx down with it. (The larynx is suspended from the
hyoid.) As the tongue descends into the pharynx, the length of the neck gradually
increases to accommodate the lower position of the larynx. A short neck and a
low larynx would preclude swallowing (Lieberman 2006; Lieberman and McCarthy
2007).
This developmental process yields the species-specific human vocal tract in
which half of the tongue is positioned in the mouth, half in the pharynx. The
posterior, back contour of the human tongue has become circular and the oral
‘horizontal’ SVTh and pharyngeal ‘vertical’ SVTv segments of the tongue meet at
a right angle. In contrast, at the start of the developmental process in newborn
human infants, the proportion of the tongue, SVTh, in the oral ‘horizontal’ part of
the infant oral cavity, relative to the part of the tongue, SVTv, in the short ‘vertical’
108 Philip Lieberman

pharynx is 1.5 when the larynx is at its lowest position during forceful vocalizations
in the Truby et al. (1965) cineradiographic study of human infant cry.

9 Quantal vowels
Computer-modeling studies reveal the functional significance of the developmental
changes that occur in humans. They show that newborn human and non-human
SVTs cannot produce the full range of human speech (Lieberman et al. 1969, 1972;
Carre et al. 1995; de Boer 2010). It is impossible to produce the vowels [i], [u], and
[a] (the vowels of the words see, do, and ma). These vowels are among the few
attested ‘universals’ of human language (Greenberg 1963). Experiments aimed at
establishing the least error prone vowels for computer-implemented speech recog-
nition systems showed that [i] and [u] had the lowest chance of being confused
with other vowels when human listeners were unfamiliar with the voice of the
speaker to whom they were listening. In 10,000 trials [i] was confused two times,
[u] six times (Peterson and Barney 1952). Other vowels were confused hundreds of
times in the 1950 study and in Hillenbrand et al. (1995), which replicated it using
computer-implemented acoustic analysis that did not exist in the 1950s.
Kenneth Stevens (1972) provided part of the answer to why the vowels [i], [u],
and [a] make human speech a more effective means of vocal communication. Stev-
ens showed that the species-specific human SVT produce the ten-to-one midpoint
area function discontinuities that are necessary to produce the vowels [i], [u], and
[a], which Stevens termed ‘quantal.’ In the species-specific human vocal tract, the
back contour of the tongue is almost circular. Half of the tongue, SVTv is positioned
in the pharynx, half of the tongue SVTh is positioned in the oral cavity. SVTv and
SVTh meet at an approximate right angle, owing to the tongue’s posterior circular
shape. The extrinsic muscles of the tongue, muscles firmly anchored in bone, thus
can move the undeformed tongue to form abrupt midpoint ten-to-one discontinui-
ties in the cross-sectional area of the SVT. Stevens, using both computer-modeling
and physical models of the SVT having the shapes of strange woodwind instru-
ments, showed that these abrupt midpoint discontinuities were necessary to pro-
duce the quantal vowels.
Fig. 1 presents a sketch of an adult human supralaryngeal vocal tract. The
quantal vowels are perceptually salient owing to the convergence of two formant
frequencies which yields spectral peaks to differentiate spoken words. A visual
analogy would be using signal flags that had saturated colors in place of the pale
colors equivalent to other vowels. The formant frequency patterns of quantal vow-
els also do not shift when tongue position varies slightly about the midpoint –
speakers can be sloppy and produce the ‘same’ vowel. In 1978 Terrance Nearey
showed that the vowel [i], and to a lesser degree the vowel [u], had another prop-
erty that explained why they were almost never confused with another vowel. The
 Biological and neurological bases of communication 109

vowel [i] is an optimal signal for determining the length of a speaker’s vocal tract –
a necessary step in the complex process of recovering the linguistic content from
the acoustic signals that convey speech (Nearey 1978). Human listeners, as well as
the computer systems used in telephone systems that attempt to recognize what
you’re saying on a telephone, have to guess at the length of your SVT. This is
necessary because the formant frequencies for a speaker having a very short SVT
will differ from those produced by a speaker having a long SVT for the same word.
We don’t notice this. A person who has a short SVT will produce the same words
as a person having a long SVT with higher formant frequencies, but our brains
unconsciously compensate for the frequency differences and we ‘hear’ the same
words. Nearey (1978) showed that we unconsciously estimate the length of a
speaker’s SVT to accomplish this feat. The vowel [i] is the optimal vowel for doing
this.
The ‘quantal’ vowels [i], [u], and [a], cannot be produced unless SVTv and
SVTh have equal lengths and can meet at a right angle. That entails having an
adult-like human tongue. In contrast, all other non-quantal vowels can be pro-
duced by the ‘normal’ non-human primate SVTs first described by Negus (1949).
Properly designed computer modeling studies calculate the formant frequency pat-
terns that would result from changing the shape of a SVT so as to produce a
particular cross-sectional area function. The SVT’s cross-sectional area function
determines the formant frequency pattern (Chiba and Kajiyama 1941; Fant 1960).
The constraints imposed by tongue shape and SVT proportions, the limits on the
deformation of a relatively thin tongue located in the oral cavity, preclude produc-
ing the 10:1 midpoint changes in cross-sectional area that are necessary to produce
quantal vowels (Stevens, 1972). In the case of humans, X-ray data that reveal the
midsaggital shape of the airway and MRIs (images formed using Magnetic Reso-
nance Imaging technology) that yield the cross-sectional area function are used to
determine the range of possible SVT shapes. The computed SVT shaped can then
be compared with these data. The resulting computed range of vowels then can be
compared with actual acoustic measurements to validate the modeling technique.
Vowels are most often modeled because subjects can hold still to obtain MRI
images of the cross-sectional SVT area function.
In contrast, as de Boer and Fitch (2010) point out, the computer modeling
studies of L-J Boe and his colleagues which have disputed the unique properties
of the human tongue are inherently flawed because the modeling technique used
in these studies, the VLAM procedure, fails to take account of the anatomical con-
straints imposed on the SVTs ostensibly modeled. The VLAM computer algorithms
inherently reshape any SVT whatsoever into that of an adult human (specifically
those of the elderly Frenchwomen who form the VLAM database). When the VLAM
computed vowel range for infants and young children is compared with the vowels
that are actually produced, it is apparent that it incorrectly includes quantal vowels
that never occur (Buhr 1980) This discrepancy is also apparent in data of the Ser-
110 Philip Lieberman

khane et al. (2007) study which attempted to use the VLAM technique to study the
vowel repertoires of human infants and young children.

10 Consonants and speech encoding

The mix of consonants and vowels that marks human speech provides the basis
for one of its central advantages over the vocal communications of other living
species – its high rate of data transmission. Studies of the acoustic cues that spec-
ify stop consonants, such as the sounds [b] or [p] of words bat and pat, or [t], [d]
(of the words to and do) and the initial consonants of the words cat and go revealed
this effect – termed encoding in the seminal paper, Perception of the speech code,
published in 1967 by Alvin Liberman and his colleagues.
Stop consonants are formed by the lips or tongue closing off the SVT (stopping
it up) and then abruptly releasing the closure. English has three series of stop
consonants, labial which involve lip movements, tongue blade, or tongue body
movements momentarily obstructing the SVT. The distinction between the labial
(lip-produced) stop consonants [b] and [p], rests on the time that elapses between
the ‘burst’ of sound that occurs when the lips open and the start of phonation.
The interval between the burst and phonation for the ‘short-lag’ [b] is less than
25 msec. (a msec. = 1/1000 of a second). The interval for the long lag [p] exceeds
25 msec. Leigh Lisker and Arthur Abramson, in 1964, had analyzed the stop conso-
nants of many languages from around the world. They found that every language
used similar time intervals, which they termed voice-onset-time (VOT), to differenti-
ate stop consonants. In English, VOT differences differentiate short lag [b], [d], and
[g] from long-lag [p], [t], and [k]. The stop consonants [t] [d], [g], and [k] of the
words to, do, go, and come are formed by obstructing the VOT with the tongue. A
third VOT category ‘prevoicing,’ which isn’t used in English, involves starting phon-
ation before the stop consonant’s release-burst. Spanish, for example, uses pre-
voicing for the stop consonant of words beginning with the letter b.
Other continuent consonants, such as the sounds [s] and [f] of the words sat
and fat, involve constricting the SVT to the degree that air turbulence results in a
‘noise-source’ being generated at the constriction. Distinctions in duration also
play a part in specifying other consonants and all vowels. The vowel of the word
bat, for example, is much longer than the vowel of the word bit.
As we talk, we merge the formant frequency patterns that define individual
consonants and vowels. This process is not a deficiency – it instead provides the
high data transmission rate that makes speech the default phonetic mode of
human language. This became apparent when the Haskins Laboratories was
attempting to build a machine that would ‘read’ printed texts aloud to blind peo-
ple. Linguists for thousands of years, since the time of Sanskrit scholars, had con-
ceived of speech consisting of a string of ‘phonemes,’ segments that defined words.
 Biological and neurological bases of communication 111

It was thought that words were composed of phonemes (roughly equivalent to the
letters of the alphabet) similar to beads on a string. Much to everyone’s surprise,
it proved impossible to isolate any sounds that corresponded to letters that could
be permuted to form words. It, for example, should have been possible to isolate
the phoneme [t] from a tape recording of someone saying the word too, where it
occurs before the sound [u] (the phonetic symbol used by linguists that is the
equivalent of the letters oo). However, when the segment of recording tape that
should have corresponded to the ‘pure’ [t] was isolated and linked to the vowel [i]
segmented from the word tea, the resulting signal was incomprehensible. It
became evident that there were no ‘pure’ speech sounds because formant fre-
quency patterns of the hypothetical independent phonemes were melded together
into syllables and words.
For example, the formant frequency patterns that convey the ‘phonemes’ [t],
[ɪ], and [p] of the word tip are melded together into one syllable. As the tongue
moves from its position against the roof of the mouth (the palate) to produce the
syllable-initial ‘stop’ consonant [t], a formant frequency pattern is produced that
transitions into that of the [ɪ] vowel, and then to the final stop consonant [p].
Human speakers plan ahead. If you instead say the word too (in phonetic notation
[tu]) your lips are already protruding and narrowing for the [u] vowel. But this
apparent sloppiness of speech is its inherent communicative value. When people
listen to a stream of individual sounds, the sounds fuse into a buzz at rates exceed-
ing 15 sounds per second. At slower rates it still is almost impossible to make out
what the sounds are (Lieberman et al. 1967). The Haskins speech research group
found that formant frequency melding, which they termed ‘encoding’ speech,
allows humans to transmit phonetic distinctions at rates of up to 20 to 30 ‘seg-
ments’ per second.
Human speech is an ‘encoded’ signal in which information is transmitted at
the slower syllable rate and then decoded into phonemes. At the slow non-speech
rate, you would forget the beginning of this sentence if it were spoken, before you
came to its end. Speech thus plays a critical role in human language, making it
possible to communicate thoughts in long sentences having complex syntax pro-
ductive. Encoding appears to differ somewhat from language to language. For
example, Swedish speakers plan ahead for a longer interval at the start of a syllable
than English speakers (Lubker and Gay 1982). The minimal encoding unit for
speech is a syllable, but encoding effects have longer spans. Alphabetic orthogra-
phy perhaps leads us to believe that words can be formed by permutable pho-
nemes, but orthography that codes entire words, such as Chinese, are used by
more than a billion people.

11 When did the human tongue evolve?

The time depth for the evolution of the human tongue must extend well before the
period before humans migrated out of Africa at least 80,000 years ago. The fully
112 Philip Lieberman

modern humans who settled in Eurrope in the Upper Paleolithic era some
40,000 years ago had fully modern human tongues and SVTs. However, sub-Saha-
ran Africans also have fully modern tongues and SVTs, placing its evolution in
Africa well before the Upper Paleolithic (Lieberman and McCarthy 2007). In light
of the negative consequences of having a human tongue, the neural bases for
speech motor control must have been present before the mutations that resulted
in the species-specific human tongue were retained. Thus as Lieberman and Crelin
noted in 1971, Neanderthals who did not have human tongues and SVTs must have
talked, albeit with less indelibility.

12 The neural bases of speech and language

The neural bases of speech and language reflect the gradual aggregation of Natural
Selection, which involves small steps, plus the abrupt changes that can result from
mutations as well as the process that Darwin noted, where an ‘organ’ can take up
a new function. Both cortical and subcortical structures regulate human speech
production and are involved in speech perception and in producing and compre-
hending sentences. As is the case in anatomy, some of the neural bases of human
speech have a long evolutionary history. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) can be
traced back to Therapsids, mammal-like reptiles who appeared in the age of the
dinosaurs. The ACC, as is the case for other neural structures, is connected to other
parts of the brain in neural circuits. When neural circuits involving the ACC are cut
in infant monkeys, the monkeys are unable to produce the mammalian ‘isolation
call’ that signals their need for attention. Lesions in monkey mothers cause them
to be inattentive to their infants (Newman and Maclean 1982). Studies of the effects
of Parkinson disease (PD), which affects the basal ganglia, largely sparing cortex
(Jellinger 1990), show that the role of the ACC has shifted in humans to more gen-
eral aspects of attention and laryngeal control. The neural circuit linking the ACC
and basal ganglia can degrade in PD, resulting in hypophonation, reduced laryngeal
output, and apathy – a general loss of intentional resources (Cummings 1993).
The effects of PD also refutes claims for humans having a unique neural circuit
for laryngeal control that bypasses the basal ganglia (Deacon 1997; Fitch 2010). The
claim is based on two flawed studies that attempted to study human subjects using
a tracer techniques developed for studies on animals that involves sacrificing the
animal (c.f. Lieberman 2012). If this hypothetical neural circuit that bypassed the
basal ganglia pathway actually existed, Parkinson disease would have no effect on
laryngeal control or attention. The issue had been resolved by Noninvasive Diffusion
Tenor Imaging (DTI) which traces out neural pathways. DTI shows that humans
make use of the cortical to basal ganglia neural circuits similar to those found in
other species (Lehericy et al. 2004) to control motor behavior, including laryngeal
activity, as well as a range of cognitive tasks, and other aspects of behavior.
 Biological and neurological bases of communication 113

13 Cortical-basal ganglia circuits and human

speech, language, and cognition
Over the course of three centuries, repeated attempts to teach apes to talk have
failed. As noted above this cannot be ascribed to any anatomical limitations. The
computer modeling studies of Lieberman et al. (1969, 1972) showed that monkeys
and apes had SVTs that were capable of producing the formant frequency patterns
that specify all non-quantal vowels and most consonants. However, acoustic analy-
ses (e.g., Lieberman 1968) show that they don’t.
It thus is clear that non-human primates must lack the neural mechanisms
that allow humans to learn and produce the complex motor commands that are
necessary to produce speech. The conclusion that might follow is that monkeys
and apes don’t have a functioning Broca’s area, the traditional language speech
organ. However, it has become clear that the traditional Broca-Wernicke language
organ theory is wrong.
The traditional Broca-Wernicke theory, which has been repeated in book after
book, paper after paper, claims that Broca’s area in the left hemisphere of the
frontal part of neocortex (the outer layer of the human brain) controls speech
production. Wernicke’s area, a posterior (rear) part of the neocortex, is the brain’s
hypothetical speech comprehension organ. The evidence for this theory was flawed
from the start. In 1861 Paul Broca published his study of a stroke victim, nick-
named ‘Tan’ by Broca because he was unable to utter more than a single syllable
that to Broca’s ear sounded like word ‘tan.’ The patient soon died. Though Broca
never performed a post-mortem autopsy of the patient’s brain he ascribed Tan’s
inability to talk to damage to a particular area of the patient’s cortex, that has
since been termed Broca’s area.
Broca also had examined a second patient who had similar speech deficits. In
this case, Broca performed an autopsy that revealed damage extending into the
basal ganglia. The brains of both patients were preserved in alcohol. A high-resolu-
tion postmortem MRI (Dronkers et al. 2007) of patient Tan’s brain shows cortical
damage extending well beyond the part of the brain identified by Broca as the seat
of language, and massive damage to the basal ganglia, other subcortical structures
and pathways connecting cortical and subcortical neural structures.
In 1874, Karl Wernicke studied a stroke patient who had difficulty comprehend-
ing speech and had damage to the rear, posterior temporal, region of the cortex.
Wernicke decided that this area was the brain’s speech comprehension organ.
Since spoken language entails both comprehending and producing speech, Licht-
heim in 1885 proposed a cortical pathway linking Broca’s and Wernicke’s area.
Thus Brocas and Wernicke’s cortical areas became the neural bases of human
language, supposedly devoted to language and language alone.
Doubts were expressed from the 1920s onwards. Marie (1926), basing his con-
clusions on autopsies of stroke victims, proposed that Broca’s syndrome instead
114 Philip Lieberman

derived from damage to the basal ganglia. In the 1970s CT scans allowed neurolo-
gists to readily establish the pattern of brain damage that resulted in Broca’s and
Wernicke’s aphasic syndromes. The syndromes – the patterns of possible deficits
are real – but they do not derive from brain damage localized to these cortical
areas. Patients typically recovered or had minor problems, when Broca’s and Wer-
nicke’s areas were completely destroyed, so long as the subcortical structures of
the brain were intact. Naeser et al. (1982) noted the aphasic symptoms and signs
of patients who had suffered brain damage that spared cortex altogether, but dam-
aged the basal ganglia and pathways to it in neural circuits that link cortical areas
through the basal ganglia, thalamus and other subcortical structures. The position
expressed by Stuss and Benson in their 1986 book, The frontal lobes, directed at
aphasiologists, is that aphasia never occurs, absent subcortical damage.
Over the course of the twentieth century, it also became apparent that patients
who had suffered brain damage that resulted in aphasia, permanent loss of some
aspect of linguistic ability, also had cognitive deficits. Kurt Goldstein, in his 1948
book, based on observations of patients over the course of decades, characterized
aphasia as a loss of the ‘abstract capacity.’ Aphasic patients lost cognitive flexibil-
ity as well as language. Converging evidence from studies of the effects of Parkin-
son disease, focal damage to the basal ganglia, and neuroimaging studies of neuro-
logically intact ‘normal’ subjects, shows that neural circuits linking activity in
cortical areas through the basal ganglia provide the basis for many of the qualities
that differentiate us from animals.
The basal ganglia are buried deep within the human brain. The caudate
nucleus and putamen, two adjacent structures, are the principal input structures
of the basal ganglia. The putamen receives a stream of sensory information from
other parts of the brain. It also monitors the completion of motor and cognitive
acts. The caudate nucleus is active in a range of cognitive tasks. The globus palli-
dus is the output structure for information. The information stream then is chan-
neled to the thalamus and other subcortical structures.
Neuroimaging studies of intact ‘normal’ subjects are gradually resolving the
manner by which these circuits regulate both complex motor activity such as that
involved in talking, cognitive tasks, and emotional regulation. For example, medial
ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex participate in the range of cognitive
tasks subsumed under the term ‘executive control’ (Duncan and Owen 2000). The
‘local’ operations in different cortical areas and subcortical structures differ. How-
ever, the circuits are not domain-specific – they are not modules devoted solely to
language motor control or emotion. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(fMRI) studies such as those of Oury Monchi’s research group (Monchi et al. 2001,
2006, 2007; Simard et al. 2011) show these that basal-ganglia circuits involving
ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex participate in the cognitive behav-
iors subsumed under the cover term ‘executive control.’ These include working
memory tasks involving recalling information, semantic association tasks, judg-
 Biological and neurological bases of communication 115

Fig. 2: The basal ganglia

ments of phonetic similarity, matching cards to different criteria such as color or

shape, planning ahead, and cognitive flexibility – changing the direction of a
thought process. Similar circuits linking motor cortex and the basal ganglia control
motor acts, including the rapid, coordinated sequences that are necessary to pro-
duce speech.
The local operations of the basal ganglia in circuits regulating motor control
and cognitive executive control became apparent in studies of Parkinson disease
(PD). Marsden and Obeso (1994: 889), reviewing the results of brain surgery
intended to alleviate the motor and cognitive deficits of PD concluded that the
basal ganglia perform several local operations. “They first… promote automatic
execution of routine movement by facilitating the desired cortically driven move-
ments and suppressing unwanted muscular activity.” The basal ganglia act as a
controller that ensures that each step of a motor act is carried out, before activating
and monitoring the next step. Studies using micro-electrodes in monkeys and mice
confirm this local motor control operations (Aldridge and Berridge 2003).
Marsden and Obeso (1994: 889) also observed a second local basal ganglia
operation in, “… unusual circumstances to reorder the cortical control of move-
116 Philip Lieberman

ment.” Noting the cognitive inflexibility that frequently marks PD (Flowers and
Robertson 1985), Marsden and Obeso (1994: 893) concluded that, “…the basal gan-
glia are an elaborate machine, within the overall frontal lobe distributed system,
that allow routine thought and action, but which respond to new circumstances
to allow a change in direction of ideas and movement.”

13.1 Transcriptional factors

But this leads to seeming mystery – if it is the case that humans and apes have
similar cortical-basal ganglia circuits, why can we talk and why is a human writing
this essay, instead of an ape? Why are humans so unpredictable? Why do humans
spend a good deal of time on seemingly unproductive activates such as art and
music? The answer to all of these questions is beginning to emerge from studies
of the effects of transcriptional factors, genes that affect the expression of other
genes during development.
About 98–99% of human and chimpanzee genes are identical (The Chimpan-
zee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium 2005). However, the remaining 1–2%
appear to be transcriptional factors. One that has received a great deal of attention
is, FOXP2 human, a gene that differs from the version found in chimpanzees,
FOXP2 chimp. A ‘selective sweep’ which resulted in FOXP2 human spreading
throughout the human population was initially thought to have occurred in the
last 200,000 years (Enard et al. 2002). Selective sweeps occur when a gene results
in a significant advantage in the Darwinian ‘struggle for existence’ – an individ-
ual’s having more surviving children. Subsequently, the human form of FOXP2 was
found in one Neanderthal fossil (Krause et al. 2007) which may push the date back
to between 370–450,000 years ago when humans and Neanderthals last share a
common ancestor (Green et al. 2010).
The behavioral and neural effects of FOXP2 human on humans have gradually
becoming clear. A pattern of speech, language and cognitive deficits was first dis-
covered in the K E family, a large multigenerational family living in London in
which some members had only one functional copy of the FOXP2 gene. It was
almost impossible to understand the affected members of the family. Deficits
occurred in comprehending English sentences such as Tom was kissed by Susan,
or sentences that had relative clauses. Neuroimaging studies showed anomalies in
subcortical brain structures. The basal ganglia’s putamin was abnormally small.
Different versions of the FOXP2 gene are present in all mammals and birds.
The human and mouse versions of FOXP2 act on similar parts of the body and brain
during embryological development (Lai et al. 2001). FOXP2 affects the formation of
the lungs, various muscles, and in the brain, the basal ganglia, other subcortical
structures, and layer VI of the cortex. Further studies show that the human version
of FOXP2 ramps up information transfer and associative learning in the basal gan-
 Biological and neurological bases of communication 117

glia. Increased synaptic plasticity in the neurons affected by FOXP2 human

(medium spiny neurons) in the basal ganglia and substantia nigra, another struc-
ture in cortical-basal circuits (Alexander et al 1986; Cummings 1993), enhances
associative motor learning in mice (Jin and Costa 2010).
The effect of increased synaptic plasticity in enhancing learning is consistent
with our general knowledge of the bases of associative learning. The synapses that
transfer information from one neuron to another are the mechanism by which the
brain learns the relations that hold between seemingly unrelated phenomena
(Hebb 1949). Studies, ranging from electrophysiologic recordings of neuronal activ-
ity in the basal ganglia of mice and other animals as they learn tasks (Graybiel
1995; Mirenowicz and Schultz 1996; Jin and Costa 2010) to studies of PD patients
(Lange et al. 1992, Monchi et al. 2007) and birds (Brainard and Doupe 2000), show
that the basal ganglia play a critical role in associative learning, planning and
executing motor acts including motor control for vocal communication.
Other transcriptional factors are involved in upgrading information transfer in
the human brain. Konopka et al. (2009) found that the greatest effect of FOXP2 on
human genes was to ‘upregulate’ genes in the caudate nucleus – the basal ganglia
structure that fMRI studies of the Monchi group in Montreal show is the neural
‘engine’ involved in changing the direction of a thought process. The Konopka
study concluded that 61 human genes whose expression was ‘upregulated’ by the
human form of FOXP2 act on the human brain. Pruess et al. (2004) noted that
most or all of the genes expressed in the brain that are known to differ between
chimpanzees and humans are ‘upregulated.’ Green et al. (2010) identified ‘highly
accelerated regions’ (HAR) of the human genome that differ from the Neanderthal
genome that appear to be associated with cognition, as well as with mental illness
The neural bases of speech and language are commingled with other aspects of
human behavior – cognition and emotional regulation. Determining these neural
substrates remains a work in progress.

Further reading
Lieberman, P. 2006. Toward an evolutionary biology of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press
Lieberman, P. 2012. Vocal tract anatomy and the neural bases of talking. Journal of Phonetics.
Lieberman, P. 2013. The Unpredictable Species: How Our Brains Evolved so that We, Not Genes,
Control How We Think and Behave. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Reimers-Kipping, S., S. Hevers, S. Paabo & W. Enard. 2011. Humanized Foxp2 specifically allects
cortico-basal ganglia circuits. Neuroscience 175. 75–84.
118 Philip Lieberman

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Alexander, G.E., M.R. DeLong & P. L. Strick. 1986. Parallel organization of segregated circuits
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Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha
7 Economic bases of communication
Abstract: This chapter provides a general introduction to the essential economic
issues of communication, both interpersonal and mediated. It covers economic
concepts and methods relevant to the field. The focus is on mass communication
and media economics, however featured concepts such as network effects and
issues of regulation are also relevant for interpersonal communication. Further-
more it discusses concentration, internationalization, and convergence as three
fundamental developments in media systems that tend to blur clear cut distinc-
tions between media technologies and areas of research.

Keywords: Media markets, good characteristics, media regulation, business

models, value-chain, network effects, media concentration, convergence, interna-
tionalization

Economic considerations related to communication generally focus on mass com-

munication and mass media. Media economics has a long research tradition,
although different periods were dominated by different theoretical approaches. For
example, in Europe, critical political theory approaches dominated the 1970s
through the late 1980s. In the 1990s, though, media economics research started
to use traditional economic and management theories, models, and concepts of
neoclassical and institutional economics. Economic considerations are less com-
mon in the context of interpersonal or group communication. For a long time,
research on telecommunications did not refer to communication science explicitly.
Taking the research history into account, the following article focuses on
media economics but also briefly covers aspects of interpersonal communication.
The article is divided into four sections and starts with a general introduction to
the essential economic issues of communication, both interpersonal and mediated.
Section 2 covers economic concepts and methods relevant to the field. The discus-
sion will focus on mass communication and media economics, although concepts
such as network effects and issues of regulation are also relevant for interpersonal
communication. Section 3 discusses concentration, internationalization, and con-
vergence as three fundamental developments in media systems that tend to blur
clear cut distinctions between media technologies research. Section 4 provides an
overview and outlook to conclude the article.
124 Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha

1 Fundamental economic challenges in

communication
Interpersonal communication is a precondition of any economic activity. Before
any kind of transaction can take place, individuals must communicate even if they
do so as the representative of a larger corporate body. Information must be avail-
able for markets to be functional (Baumol and Blinder 2006: 195), and more often
than not, it is gathered through interpersonal communication be it face-to-face or
mediated through a carrier medium. Individuals negotiate prices or discuss how a
task is to be carried out. The expectancy-value theory (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975)
addresses the question of how much effort should be made to make a persuasive
message credible. It suggests that the persuasiveness of a suggestion equals the
promised value (or harm) multiplied by the perceived probability of its occurrence.
The Harvard concept (Fisher and Ury 1981) also offers an economic perspective on
interpersonal communication as it tries to make personal negotiations both suc-
cessful and efficient. However, usually interpersonal communication itself is not
the traded matter; only personal counselors or psychologists get paid for the act of
interpersonal communication. Thus, when analyzing communication, economists
usually concentrate on mediated communication, or mass communication.
In modern societies, successful mass communication relies on mass media
systems that meet important socio-political and cultural expectations. Society
expects the media to provide information, to entertain people, to create publicity
for various issues, to criticize, and, to a certain extent, control activities and protag-
onists, in particular those concerning politics and the economy. Some researchers
doubt a commercial media system relying on free markets and market-oriented
media companies can meet these expectations. Instead of quality news coverage
that supports the political debate, society might then have to face “news that’s fit
to sell” (Hamilton 2004) or “market-driven journalism” (McManus 1994). The
debate on the commercialization of the media (Croteau and Hoynes 2001; Gandy
2004; Picard 2004, 2005a; Siegert 2001b, 2003; McQuail 1998; Bagdikian 2000;
Napoli and Gillis 2006) addresses this issue and discusses the consequences of
market considerations becoming ever more important in the daily work of media
organizations. Following the arguments of the commercialization debate tends to
result in media production that does not serve the public interest. However, it is
also discussed whether media brand reputation as an institutional arrangement
could help media markets to better work in respect of the public interest (Siegert
et al. 2008; Siegert et al. 2011).
In addition, the importance of a functioning mass media system is only partly
reflected in the economic size of the industry. The percentage that the media con-
tributes to the gross domestic product (GDP) differs according to the market defini-
tion (see Section 2.2) from 0.21% for broadcast media in Germany in 2009 (ALM
 Economic bases of communication 125

2010) to 6.0% for copyright-based industries in the United States in 2002 (Siwek
2004: 3). These numbers only represent the economic dimension of the media,
and thus tremendously underestimate the significance of the industry for society.
Luhmann (1996: 9) stated: “What we know about our society, indeed the world in
which we live, we learn from the mass media”. Therefore, any account of the media
as economic good must also pay respect to the importance of the media as a
cultural good that shapes our opinions, influences our values and norms, and
provides us with conversation topics to build social capital. The dual character as
economic and cultural good poses a challenge to regulation (see Section 2.4).1
Both interpersonal and mass communication markets show large externalities
due to network effects (see Section 2.6). Thus, business models in communication
are routinely based on two-sided markets and mixed funding (see Section 2.5).

2 Economic concepts and models

In this section, we will discuss economic concepts and models mainly focusing on
mass communication. However, many of the presented concepts are relevant for
interpersonal communication too, and this will be pointed out where appropriate.

2.1 Media as economic good

Most introductions to media economics mention the unique characteristics of

media goods, which exert major influence on how media markets work and what
kinds of strategies fit in media business (Doyle 2002: 11; Kiefer 2005: 130–160;
Picard 1989: 17–19, 2005b; Heinrich 2010: 25–43).2
Taking ‘packaged and delivered content’ as a starting point, it is discussed
throughout the literature whether media goods are public goods and/or merit
goods and how to handle externalities. These characteristics are sources of the
inefficiency of resource allocation and consequential of market failure (see Sec-
tion 2.4). Public goods are non-excludable (exclusion of potential users is either

1 The difference between media as economic and as cultural good is also important in the
production of media. A special characteristic about media products is the level of dedication and
commitment that the content producers – be it journalists or film directors – show toward their
work. Creative workers care about their product (Caves 2000: 3), and thus value not only the
monetary compensation, but also a creative satisfaction.
2 Most authors refer to the packaged and delivered content as media good. Only a few contri-
butions include access to audiences as marketed service, and almost none consider that the key
characteristics change along the value chain. We like to address this problem simply by
mentioning that on the business-to-business market, where content producers deal with media
distributors, the traded good does not feature most of the listed unique characteristics.
126 Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha

impractical or impossible), which leads to free rider problems, and are non-rival-
rous (consumption by one person does not lessen the amount available for others),
which makes exclusion inefficient. In particular, free-to-air broadcasting is said to
be a public good.
Putatively, the consumption of media content can have positive external
effects, such as citizens being well-informed and making enlightened choices, as
well as negative external effects, such as citizens exhibiting violent behavior. Both
effects are not included in the price of media content: society either benefits from
it or has to pay for it. Society expects the media to provide content with positive
external effects, but unfortunately this content often does not generate a great
consumer demand. In a normal market relationship, profit-maximizing suppliers
therefore would fail to meet society’s demand for such a service. This does not
mean that merit goods will not be offered in a market with profit-maximizing sup-
pliers, but the socially desirable output level will be higher than the market effi-
cient output level (Demsetz 1970). That makes part of the media content a merit
good.
Furthermore, the media industry is characterized by high first copy costs, econ-
omies of scale, and economies of scope. High first copy costs imply that fixed costs
of media production are high and independent of the amount of copies made,
while variable costs are relatively low. This tends to result in decreasing the average
fixed costs by increasing output (economies of scale). Due to the costs of physical
production and distribution of copies, this effect is stronger in the audiovisual
industry than in the print publishing industry and is most powerful concerning
digital production and distribution. To sum up, large scale production is more
efficient than small-scale production (Picard 1989: 62). Economies of scope “arise
when there are some shared overheads for two or more related products to be
produced and sold jointly, rather than separately. Savings may arise if specialist
inputs gathered for one product can be re-used in another” (Doyle 2002: 13–14).
Additionally, media goods are characterized as experience and credence goods.
Entertainment is regarded as an experience good, or a good with unknown charac-
teristics whose quality and utility can only be judged after being used several times
(Nelson 1970). Journalistic information, however, is regarded as a credence good.
Credence good markets are characterized by asymmetric information between sell-
ers and consumers (Darby and Karni 1973). Users are unable to fully measure the
quality of media content. For example, they cannot judge whether information
provided by a news broadcast meets journalistic quality standards because the
background work, selection, investigation, and effective workload remain ‘invisi-
ble,’ or cannot be accessed for monitoring, and could only be evaluated by com-
pletely repeating the journalistic inquiry. Altogether, media users tend to rely on
external information and market signals such as reputation and brand (Heinrich
and Lobigs 2003; Lobigs 2004; Siegert 2001a, 2006a). Charging users for an experi-
ence good or a credence good is difficult. People might not be willing to pay before
 Economic bases of communication 127

they can access the good, and if they have experienced it they most likely will not
want to pay for something they already experienced. This renders indirect financ-
ing through advertising an expeditious alternative.
Last but not least, uncertainty in the media production process and copyright
problems are also characteristics that lead to imitation rather than innovation as
a preferred strategy of media companies. The characteristics of media content do
have consequences regarding financing. In the media business, frequently revenue
is not immediately connected to transactions. Readers often pay a subscription fee
for their newspaper; advertisers pay for advertising space and assumed attention
but cannot be sure that anybody will see it. The license fee for public service
broadcasters has to be paid independently from the use of the public channels.

2.2 Defining relevant media markets

Defining the relevant market involves clarifying the market structure and is closely
related to the state of competition. Usually four types of competitive market struc-
ture are differentiated: perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly,
and monopoly. Following the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) paradigm,
analyzing the market structure includes at least the number of sellers and buyers,
product differentiation, cost structures, vertical integration, and barriers to entry
for new competitors. The market structure determines the state of competition, the
context for strategies, and the resulting performance of companies (Scherer 1980;
Chan-Olmsted 2006: 163).
It is essential to define the relevant market in order to assess its market power
and the intensity of competition in a (media) market, as well as to align (media)
strategies with the competitive environment. “Defining a market involves specify-
ing the good/service markets involved and combining that description with a spe-
cific geographic market description” (Picard 1989: 17). The generally used ‘relevant
market concept’ is based on the substitutability of goods or services; from the
average consumer’s perspective, (media) products and services can easily replace
one another and compete in the same market.
Throughout the literature on media economics and media management, it is
given that most media companies operate in a dual-product market by participat-
ing in an audience market as well as in an advertising market (see Section 2.3).
However, the different media are not fully interchangeable with one another due
to technological standards, product differences, and usage patterns. Therefore, it
once was assumed that different media technologies (newspaper, magazines, tele-
vision, and radio) do not compete with each other, whereas companies dealing
with the same media do (intramedia competition). Among changing technological
standards, though, consumer tastes and usage patterns have led to increasing
intermedia competition and also challenged the precise definition of the relevant
128 Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha

market. The topics covered and the corresponding target groups increasingly deter-
mine the boundaries of media markets rather than media technologies.
In addition, it is important to clarify the geographical dimension of media
markets. Due to the interests of audiences, some media firms market their outlets
locally or regionally, yet others sell them nationwide or, in some cases, internation-
ally. Global media outlets are an exception, although the activities of transnational
corporations force competition on an international level (Gershon 2006; Sánchez-
Tabernero 2006). The geographical dimension is only one factor that influences
the size of a media market; it refers partly to the size of the audience that could
be interested in a certain media outlet. However, media outlets are also closely
connected to certain geographical areas for cultural and political reasons. They
relate to a certain political system’s events and actors, to languages, to different
patterns of media usage, and to a common cultural identity. The market size, on
the other hand, is important because of the effectiveness of key economic charac-
teristics of media products (fixed cost degression, economies of scale, partly econo-
mies of scope). The bigger the market in which a media company operates, the
more effective are these characteristics – operating in a big market is a competitive
advantage. Small media markets are a key characteristic of so-called small coun-
tries and therefore foster regulation (see Section 2.4).

2.3 Dual-product market

Some media technologies such as books or recorded music rely almost entirely on
direct sales to recipients. Producers offer one product in one market and the audi-
ence’s interest should be their only benchmark. However, more often than not,
media are financed simultaneously from several different sources. A newspaper
publisher derives revenue from the copy price as well as from advertising sales. A
public broadcaster might add some advertising revenue to its license fee, but a
free-to-air TV channel might rely almost entirely on advertising revenue. In these
cases, media firms operate in a dual-product market (Picard 1989), which means
that media firms produce and market one product – content – in an effort to
simultaneously produce and market a second product – audience attention. Econo-
mists speak of a two-sided market (Rochet and Tirole 2006) where the business
model considers viewers as a loss leader, which in turn attracts advertisers. Success
or failure in the market for audience contacts is a function of success or failure in
the market of content for recipients, and vice versa. A broadcaster or publisher
that fails to attract a reasonably large or demographically desirable audience has
a relatively unappealing product to sell in the advertising market. The same broad-
caster or publisher therefore will not have the financial resources (relative to its
competitors) to produce content capable of attracting a larger or more desirable
audience since prices for readers or viewers are subsidized (Kaiser and Wright
 Economic bases of communication 129

2006). Thus, the audience and advertising markets are tightly intertwined, even if
all revenue is derived from the advertising market.
This dual-product market would not work, though, without well-established
and accepted commercial audience research (Ang 1991; Siegert 1993: 15; Ettema
and Whitney 1994; Webster et al. 2006; Frey-Vor et al. 2008). Therefore, commercial
audience research is discussed as an indispensible market information system
(Phalen 1998). It measures, segments, and rates the audience of past programs and
provides estimates of the future audience. As a result, it makes the invisible and
sometimes unknown audience visible and marketable to advertisers. Ratings are
one of the most common examples of commercial audience research and have
found their way into popular culture.

2.4 Market failure and regulation

Broadcast media in particular are regarded as a prime example of a public good

(see Section 2.1). The characteristics of public goods lead to market failure because,
if no one can be excluded from the use of a commodity, people will try to get a
free ride and the willingness to pay will converge to zero. If the consumption of a
commodity by one person does not restrict availability for others, the commodity
is not scarce, and thus, again, it is impossible to discriminate using the price
mechanism. In most European countries, legislators introduced public service
media to address market failure, which ensured that consumers pay for the media
via the license fee or taxes while maximizing the public good to society’s benefit
(Graham 1999). Commercial broadcasters address the market failure by bringing in
the advertising industry as a middle man. In this model, the broadcaster actually
does not want to exclude anybody from consumption since the objective is to gen-
erate the most attention among recipients.
Technological progress rendered the issue of market failure partly obsolete
once it became possible to exclude potential free riders using digital rights manage-
ment or scrambled signals. Digitization also has increased the available supply
and freed the medium from the limits of linearity. However, even in the digital
media industry of the twenty-first century, public service media still exist because
in addition to the public good character, an even more powerful argument for
regulation lies in the merit good character of the media (Ward 2006). Media are
said to feature positive externalities in wide areas of society with social benefits
clearly exceeding private ones. Governments that identify a merit good with its
positive impact on society usually introduce measures that maximize the consump-
tion and supply of the desirable good or service, which is done by subsidies. In
the case of broadcasting, the instrument of choice is the introduction of public
service media; for newspapers and magazines, common measures include indirect
measures, such as a reduced sales tax, and direct measures, such as reduced distri-
130 Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha

bution fees (Fernández Alonso et al. 2006: 2). In the audiovisual sector, almost
every developed country offers some form of subsidies in the shape of film funding
schemes.
Public service media in small countries gain an outstanding importance. Small
countries are characterized by small media markets and a shortage of resources.
As a consequence, there are special constraints for small states: dependence and
vulnerability (Trappel 1991; Meier and Trappel 1992; Siegert 2006b). Furthermore,
small states struggle at times to protect their cultural heritage when confronted
with the dominance of international content and content from larger neighboring
states. Therefore, regulation in small states tends to interfere more directly with
the content while allowing cross-media ownership for national champions (Puppis
2009). Also, public service media in small states are expected to support cultural
national identity.
Providing platforms for interpersonal communication usually also involves
dealing with regulation. Since network effects are deemed positive for society, reg-
ulators demand universal service for everybody and may set a low price for a basic
service in order to include every citizen in the communication network. Communi-
cation networks often have the character of a natural monopoly which makes regu-
lation even more necessary to prevent excessive tariffs (Meyer et al. 1980).

2.5 Business and revenue models

Business models connect media economics to media management by describing

underlying characteristics of the industry sector that enable commerce in the prod-
uct or service. Thus, media business models are not so much about daily business
activities, but a fundamental concept of how the business can operate, what inter-
faces it offers for other industries, and what trade relations and financial interac-
tions render it potentially successful. They can be described as structural design
of the relevant flows of information, services, and, finally, products, and include
an account of the necessary business activities and their reciprocal importance
(Picard 2002). A business model consists of several submodels: procurement; mar-
ket (demand, competition); goods and services; service offerings; distribution; and
capital (funding, revenue). Additionally, a business model should include a
description of the potential benefits of the various business actors and the sources
of revenue. This constitutes the revenue model, which addresses questions regard-
ing how revenue can be retrieved and from what sources, as well as what amount
is necessary to finance the ongoing operations.
Revenue models can be distinguished by direct and indirect sources of revenue
(Zerdick et al. 2000: 25) or by separating the relevant markets in which an organiza-
tion is engaged (Wirtz 2009: 78). These two typologies can be applied both to mass
communication and interpersonal communication platforms.
 Economic bases of communication 131

In the first perspective, direct financing is most often obtained from the users,
while indirect financing can be derived from companies (advertising) or the state
(subsidies). The other perspective differentiates three markets where revenue can
be realized: content markets, audience/user markets, and advertising markets. On
content markets, media organizations trade licenses and exploitation rights, and
the ‘non-rivalrousness’ of media use creates secondary markets. A broadcaster can
sell the rights to a successful TV show to a different territory, or a publisher can
license the concept of a successful magazine to another country. In addition, servi-
ces and merchandise might be sold. It has nothing in common with interpersonal
communication since usually it consists of inputs from two partners who will not
bill each other for the words spoken during a conversation. From an economic
perspective, issues of interpersonal communication mostly concern how to provide
a platform where the communication takes place and then gain profit from operat-
ing that platform. Platforms for interpersonal communication do not need to be
based on a technological network, but can be a coffee house where people meet
for a hot drink and a chat. Overall, if we neglect the content market, interpersonal
and mass communication have the same business models on the user and advertis-
ing markets. According to the concept of two-sided markets (Rochet and Tirole
2006), both markets are interdependent and connected via the price mechanism.
Changes in price on the audience/user market influence the demand on the adver-
tising market, and vice versa.
When looking at mass communication advertising markets, different advertis-
ing formats with associated recipient attention or recipient information can be
sold. New means of interpersonal communication such as email services, chat
rooms, and social networks on the Internet employ the same funding scheme as
most mass media: selling attention to advertisers and selling consumer profiles to
marketers. However, the quality of contact might be better than in mass media,
and targeting of advertisements can be improved as social media networks struggle
to capitalize on the attention of users.3 In the context of interpersonal communica-
tion, advertising might be considered even more intrusive when used as part of
mass media content. We see the same tendencies toward ad avoidance on the
consumer side, as well as the blending of content and advertising on the side of
the platform providers and advertisers.
However, advertising does not constitute the only opportunity to bundle com-
munication with another product or service to realize an indirect means of funding.

3 Recently, a new form of predominantly interpersonal communication (social online networks)

has changed marketing since they enable corporations to establish quasi-interpersonal communi-
cations with potential consumers. In a social media network, the concept of a brand personality
(Aaker 1997) is enlivened because it becomes possible to make friends with a brand and interact
and communicate with it as if it were a real person (Burns 2010). In the course, brand communi-
cation becomes part of other interpersonal communications, for instance, when individuals pass
on funny clips from a viral marketing campaign (Bauer et al. 2008).
132 Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha

In the coffee house example mentioned earlier, the platform for interpersonal com-
munication is funded by the price of a cup of coffee. Another example would be
the price of Internet access that includes a personal email address. Because the
platform is funded indirectly, though, providers have to make sure that the unpaid
part of the bundle is not over used. Thus, Internet service providers introduce
email quotas, and the coffee house’s host might ask a lingering patron to either
order another drink or leave, opening up the table for a new paying customer.
A network or platform operator who enables interpersonal communication can
exclude potential users, and thus is able to charge whenever the network is used.
This can be based on time or distance, e.g., when a telephone provider charges by
the minute or a postal service sets different prices for letters to foreign countries
depending on the distance required for delivery. As with newspapers, single pay-
ments can be replaced by subscriptions. Telephone providers in most countries
now offer flat rates that allow users to use the network more or less without limits.
Subscription models require that the average usage time results in costs below the
net costs. Flat fees are a means to improve the capacity utilization if network costs
are fixed. The same is true in the context of mass communication. Recipients can
be charged for access to media or for media use. Again, there are subscription
models that make the cash flow more predictable and also single payments for
items in high demand that can seek a premium due to a willingness to pay. How-
ever, the merit good character of some media implies that the totaled individual
willingness to pay cannot cover the production costs. Since the public has an
interest in these media offerings, the state is an important fourth source of revenue
or cost reduction. The media is considered important and influential for the politi-
cal and cultural development and cohesion of a society, so in many countries the
state supports the media by introducing a license fee to finance a public broad-
caster (e.g., UK) or financing it directly through tax money (e.g., Spain). Most coun-
tries have reduced tax rates for media products and often the distribution is spon-
sored through subsidized postal fees. Film producers often enjoy tax breaks or
even receive substantial direct financial contributions.
While interpersonal communication is predominantly financed directly
through transmission charges, most media companies use mixed financing to
spread risks while avoiding dependencies. The respective contribution of each reve-
nue source depends on good characteristics as well as competition (Kind et al.
2009).

2.6 Added value and value chain

The concept of added value is derived from macroeconomic accounting where it is

used to measure the contribution of an industry to the GDP. To analyze the per-
formance of the media as an industry sector, market boundaries must be defined
 Economic bases of communication 133

(see Section 2.2) and relations to other sectors up- and downstream need to be
clarified. We can speak of a division of labor on an industry level, which in microe-
conomics can be described as value chain. The concept was introduced to business
management by Porter (1985) as a succession of discrete activities for a firm operat-
ing in a specific industry. The products are taken through each of these activities
and gain value every time they conclude a step. The chain of activities lends more
added value to the product than the sum of added values of all activities.
The value chain can be used as a means to define markets – all firms on the
same level compete with each other. It can also be used to conceptualize business
models since it defines the interfaces between different steps in development from
idea to reception. Typically the value chain for the media industry cannot use
the element of the original concept with inbound logistics, operations, outbound
logistics, marketing and sales, and service accompanied by overarching support
activities such as infrastructure, human resources, technology, and procurement.
With predominantly intangible input factors and output terms of classic inventory
management become murky. Furthermore, the duality of the media as content and
advertising vehicle complicates the structure (Wirtz 2009).

Fig. 1: Generic value chain in the media industry

There used to be distinct value chains for different media technologies with little,
if any, overlapping between them. Changes in the technology and in the way the
industry is organized have blurred the boundaries between technology-specific
value chains and created a more generic multimedia value chain (see Fig. 1). Tech-
nological progress allows for disintermediation, or the systematic canceling of cer-
tain steps in the value chain. For example, electronic media such as radio and
television do not have to be printed and copied, but can be directly distributed.
Musicians who sell their recordings directly via the Internet skip procurement and
integrate production, and if they use their own web site instead of platforms such
as iTunes, they can even leap the packaging step. Convergence (see Section 3.2)
has made this research perspective more complicated and less easily applicable.

2.7 Network effects and network externalities

Media content is often produced in networks by combining the expertise of differ-

ent media workers. It is distributed using transmission networks and consumed by
134 Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha

recipients who use media content as conversation subjects in their social networks.
Thus, networks matter in media economics. Network goods differ from other goods
concerning the value creation because of network externalities; consumers decid-
ing between substitutable goods consider how their decision will affect others and
how the decision of others will affect them. The utility that a user derives from the
consumption of a network good increases with the number of others consuming
the good (Katz and Shapiro 1985).
Generally, we can differentiate between direct and indirect network effects. In
the first case, consumption externalities result from a direct physical effect of the
number of purchasers on the product quality. A classic example would be a tele-
phone network where the utility that a consumer derives from joining the network
by buying access from the operator depends directly on the number of others who
have already joined the network. Indirect network effects do not require a physical
connection. When more consumers buy a certain kind of hardware, it increases
the likelihood that a wide variety of different kinds of compatible software will be
available for it. This phenomenon can be observed each time different standards
for a new medium compete for user acceptance. For example, when consumers
decide between HD-DVD or Blu-ray player disc technology, their individual deci-
sions make one format more attractive than the other, since the home entertain-
ment industry is likely to offer more movies in the more widely adopted format.
The utility of a product increases with the greater availability of compatible com-
plementary products.
For media content, an externality lies in the consumer capital for discussing
common experiences when recipients have shared the experience of a certain con-
tent. But the case in point of network effects is the dual-product marketplace of
traditional media (see Section 2.3). For users, network effects can lead to a lock-in
due to high switching cost. For instance, a fan of a certain daily soap opera benefits
from the fact that a large number of viewers watch the same show, and thus they
have a common conversation topic. So this viewer might hesitate to switch to a
competing soap airing at the same time because in addition to learning new char-
acters and plotlines, s/he would not be able to talk about the new experience with
those still watching the first show. Therefore, media companies can use network
effects to tie the customers to their products.
However, network effects wear out as a network enlarges (Leibenstein 1950).
The marginal benefit of one new user is much higher in a small network than in
a big one. With the penetration of a phone network at almost 100%, the value of
that phone network does not further increase with a new installation.
Externalities result in economies of scale on the demand side. Larger compa-
nies with larger networks benefit more from externalities, thus their existence is a
strong driver of concentration (see Section 3.1). This most often leads to natural
monopolies in the case of broadcasting and telecommunication infrastructure (Pos-
ner 1969) since new entrants to the market cannot compete with the incumbent
operator in terms of cost advantages and utility for users.
 Economic bases of communication 135

3 Fundamental developments in media systems

3.1 Media concentration

Media goods feature several traits that make consolidation and concentration
attractive. Since media content is unique, the costs of development are high. Con-
sumers constantly demand novelty and their interests often are hard to predict, so
production is risky. This means that being big is attractive in the industry. Econo-
mies of scale and scope lead to higher efficiency in larger companies. The advan-
tage of size rests in the possible offset of risk and in the maximization of exploita-
tion of content rights, especially in unit cost savings when first copy costs can be
distributed over more copies. Furthermore, size brings about important advantages
such as negotiation power with advertisers and improved access to capital. The
latter proves important when new markets open up. Since the 1980s, only large
companies have had the financial strength to enter the new broadcasting and tele-
communication markets introduced when media policy ended a public service
monopoly in much of the developed world (Picard 1998).
However, what is considered good from an entrepreneurial perspective might
not be in the best interest of the society as a whole. Media concentration is
regarded as a possible threat to diversity of ideas, tastes, and opinions. On the
contrary, media diversity and media pluralism are considered prerequisites for
effective freedom of expression and information (Meier and Trappel 1998). Even if
we only consider economic aspects, though, concentration is not in the best inter-
est of consumers. When the level of concentration reduces competition, it leads to
higher prices, fewer choices, and poorer service for consumers. Concentration gives
dominant firms control over resources that can be used against smaller firms in a
competitive marketplace.
Concentration is not a new phenomenon. During the 1950s and 1960s, a con-
solidation of newspapers in several western European countries triggered extensive
research (Aufermann and Heilmann 1970), but the deregulation of the audiovisual
sector in Europe since the 1980s has pronounced the issue. Publishers expanded
their operations to the TV sector, and thus claimed a bigger share of the media
and opinion market as a whole. The professionalization of advertising and the
emergence of huge international advertising networks serving brands that expand
internationally have increased the pressure among media firms to grow and build
market power.
We need to distinguish between different aspects of what is called media con-
centration:
– Horizontal concentration or mono-media concentration (Meier and Trappel
1998) looks at distinct media markets separated by geography or the means
of distribution, e.g., the development of the market shares of British national
newspapers. From an economic perspective, only horizontal concentration
actually describes a concentration.
136 Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha

– Vertical integration considers the effect of mergers and acquisitions on the con-
centration of power of one corporation across the value chain (see Section 2.6). If
a TV network buys a big production company, this increases concentration nei-
ther in the broadcasting market nor in the production market. However, it
increases the market power of that corporation and transforms a transparent
exchange relationship on the market into internal affairs of that corporation.
– Cross-media or multimedia concentration (Sánchez-Tabernero 1993: 16) consid-
ers the media market as a whole where mergers and acquisitions among differ-
ent media technologies (e.g., newspapers and broadcasters) not only create syn-
ergies but also increase market power in the overall ‘market’ of public opinion.
– Conglomerate concentration may occur when surplus capital from one industry
seeks new business opportunities, or when new markets that open require con-
siderable investment. The latter was the case when broadcasting was deregu-
lated in France and Italy and commercial broadcasters were financed by banks
or construction companies. For conglomerate concentration, different misgiv-
ings emerge. While the level of competition within the media market might not
be reduced, chances are that the conglomerate tries to use its media ownership
to influence the media content in its own best interest.

For cross-media concentration, the question arises: to what extent are the markets
actually separated? Consumers as well as advertisers might use different media as
substitutes so that they form a common relevant market. Thus, the concentration
of ownership does not always imply less diversity in content. When two newspa-
pers in the same region merge, it is likely that the content of the merged newspaper
is less diverse. However, if a newspaper from another region, or if the dominant
national TV chain buys a regional newspaper, neither the size of the staff nor the
diversity of the content in that market have to change.
In markets for communication infrastructure, there is a tendency toward a
natural monopoly. The high costs of setting up a cable infrastructure or of running
a satellite distribution system prohibit the building of two competing networks.
While there usually is competition between different distribution channels, each
channel is run by a regional monopolist. In this context, it is evident that techno-
logical progress can at times reduce the potentially harmful effect of concentration.
The development of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology enabled telephone
operators to compete with cable operators, not only in the new field of data traffic,
but also in the market for TV distribution. The Internet has vastly expanded the
news sources available to recipients. Citizens living in a region with a monopolist
newspaper can read newspapers from other regions online or access firsthand
information from other sources within their region. Technology leads to fragmenta-
tion, so owning several media outlets does not necessarily lead to concentration,
but can be regarded as a means to retain market share. Depending on the market
in question, concentration is not always on the rise.
 Economic bases of communication 137

Media concentration policy tries to control the potentially harmful effects of

media concentration. Policy instruments differ widely between different countries;
however, some measures seem to be prevalent. Either the number of media outlets
or the market share that may be controlled by a single company is limited. Often
cross-media ownership also is limited, meaning that a dominant player in one
media technology may not expand into another to keep competition between the
two genres alive.
However, studies about the effect of media concentration policy in general,
and press concentration in particular, suggest that the measures are not effective.
In some cases, there are even unintended outcomes ultimately favoring big inte-
grated media corporations (Tunstall 1996; Knoche 1997).

3.2 Convergence

Changing technological standards challenge the body of acquired knowledge con-

cerning media markets, value chains, and media business models. They provide
the bases for variation and innovation on different levels – mostly analyzed by
using the convergence concept. The concept of media convergence has multiple
meanings and includes various changes in media’s environments and behavior.
Across the literature (e.g., overview by Wirth 2006; articles in IJMM 2003, No. 1 or
the journal Convergence), convergence is seen as a multidimensional process that
comprehends:
– Technological convergence (e.g., innovation, digitization, standardization)
– Economic convergence (e.g., merging of formerly divided markets, reconfigu-
ration of value chains)
– Social convergence/convergence in media usage (e.g., consumer preferences
and behavior)
– Cultural convergence (e.g., cross-media storytelling and mutual interrelated
content)
– Policy convergence (e.g., deregulation, liberalization, convergence of formerly
separate regulatory bodies and models)
– Global convergence (e.g., internationalization of strategies and content)

Additionally, the various dimensions should not be regarded as isolated, but rather
as co-evolutionary developments (Latzer 1997). Some authors doubted whether
consumer preferences and behavior would change (Stipp 1999; Höflich 1999). How-
ever, recent research results show that the use of online content increases and
affects the use of traditional media and the definition of media markets (Gerhards
and Klingler 2007; de Waal et al. 2005; Cole 2004; van Eimeren and Frees 2009).
From the perspective of media companies, convergence appears as reconfigura-
tion of value chains and, following Wirth (2006), searching for synergy, increasing
138 Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha

mergers and acquisition activities, and repurposing content on new media plat-
forms. As discussed, value chains of the telecommunication industry, IT industry,
and media industry merge into a convergent value chain. Telecom, IT, and media
companies develop new business segments and pursue cross-media strategies.
They increasingly operate in a common convergent market and have to face new
competitors with different backgrounds, as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2: Convergent value chains and markets

The rise of the Internet in particular has affected the business model of traditional
media companies and gave a boost to free content. Although the demand for free
content is high, the revenue model unfortunately does not pay off for media com-
panies. Against the background of the last two economic crises (2000/2001: the
burst of the so-called dotcom bubble, and 2008/2009: the worldwide financial
crisis) media companies continuously complained about their role as producers of
high-quality journalism without receiving adequate funding. While traditional
media companies have to pay for the immense costs of good media coverage, Apple
and Google realize profits with ad search and online advertising.

3.3 Internationalization

In recent decades, the media industry has evolved from clearly separated markets,
in which family-owned businesses arranged themselves in a setting of low competi-
tion, to an international industry (Smith 1991; Demers 2002). Bertelsmann, for
instance, was founded in 1835 as a publisher in North Rhine-Westphalia and now
has about 500 newspaper and magazine titles in 30 countries, holds TV and radio
stations in ten European countries, and produces TV content in 22 countries and
licenses content in 150 countries.
 Economic bases of communication 139

Internationalization is driven by two factors. First, media companies have an

interest in expanding across borders; second, media recipients have a certain inter-
est in foreign content (Sánchez-Tabernero 2006). Saturated national markets and
barriers to cross-ownership force growing media companies to enter foreign mar-
kets. Generally, there are three strategies to enter a foreign market (Hafstrand
1995). The simplest way is to export ready-made media products. While this
requires only small investments to achieve economies of scale, it is only feasible
when the market entered is nearby and similar in culture and demand structure.
This way of internationalization is common between neighboring countries sharing
the same language, e.g., French media in Belgium, or German media in Austria
and Switzerland. Another option is foreign direct investment, either in the form of
joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, or greenfield, i.e., starting a new opera-
tion from scratch (Gershon 2000). Foreign direct investment provides a high degree
of control but requires a similarly high level of resources and commitment. The
strong cultural component of the media industry renders a greenfield strategy less
attractive since it does not allow building from knowledge of the new market. The
third strategy is licensing where a firm in the host country is permitted to use
a (intangible) property of the licensor such as trademarks, patents, production
techniques, or content templates. Licensing requires very little investment, but it
does not allow for generating revenue from production and marketing in the host
country. Even more important, licensing includes a transfer of know-how that also
might be utilized beyond the licensed product, and thus could strengthen possible
competitors.
Apart from the upsides in terms of economies of scale and scope and new growth
opportunities, internationalization also poses some problems for media companies.
Media content is highly dependent on the cultural context. For instance, only a frac-
tion of news content can be reused in other markets since most news broadcasts are
relevant only in a certain market and recipients, as well as advertisers, are interested
in local, regional or national content (Reid et al. 2005; Aldridge 2003). Entertainment
content generally travels more easily, although cultural and linguistic borders exist
as well. Supported by powerful global distribution and marketing, Hollywood movies
are quite successful in foreign markets, and the very basic storylines of Latin Ameri-
can telenovelas make them universally deployable.
Nevertheless, there is a cultural discount for media content. Since media con-
tent distributed in a foreign market does not completely address the cultural frame-
work, it will most likely draw a smaller audience, and thus be less valuable
(McFadyen et al. 2000). Non-fiction programming is harder to transfer from one
market to another due to its reliance on personalities (show host, celebrity guests,
etc.). In this case, the strategy of choice is licensing, rather than exporting content.
The emergence of an international trade in TV formats is a visible outcome of this
relationship (Moran and Malbon 2006; Altmeppen et al. 2007). Instead of exporting
complete shows, trade takes place via show templates that define game concept,
140 Gabriele Siegert and Bjørn von Rimscha

the actor setting, and the dramaturgy. A format proven successful in one market
offers reduced risk and required time to market in other markets while allowing
for adjustments of the concept to local customs. This phenomenon is not limited
to TV formats such as ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire?’ (Freedman 2001), but also
happens with print magazines (Hafstrand 1995).
The other driving factor of internationalization is found in the recipients’ inter-
ests. Cairncross (1997) diagnosed a “death of distance” where space is no longer
the determining factor for social, information, and commercial relationships. Dis-
tance has become relative and this means the audience market becomes segmented
by interests rather than by geographic factors. The “long tail” (Anderson 2006) for
cultural goods can only work in a much expanded marketplace. Audience demand
that was too obscure in the traditional media market becomes a viable market
niche when search engines and recommendation systems allow recipients to find
products outside of their geographic area. Of course, cultural and linguistic bound-
aries still remain, but with reduced cost for logistics, especially for digital products,
exporting media content at a global scale is feasible even for specialized content.

4 Outlook
The fundamental importance of communication in modern societies is attended by
the public interest in the economic bases of communication and the respective
industry. Due to the various characteristics of interpersonal and mass communica-
tion, neither markets nor business models work as they do in other industries. The
economics and management of media and communication are affected by the pub-
lic and merit good character; the experience and credence good character of media
content, externalities, and network effects; and economies of scale and scope. Fur-
thermore, concentration, convergence, and internationalization tendencies not
only challenge the media industry but the respective research and literature. It is
an ongoing discussion whether the combination of characteristics makes it impos-
sible for a commercial media system to serve the public interest, or whether there
is a way to link quality and profit.

Further reading
Bagdikian, Ben H. 2000. The Media Monopoly, 6th edn. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Doyle, Gillian. 2002. Understanding Media Economics. London: Sage Publications.
Picard, Robert G. 2002. The Economics and Financing of Media Companies. New York: Fordham
University Press.
Sánchez-Tabernero, Alfonso. 1993. Media Concentration in Europe: Commercial Enterprise and the
Public Interest. Düsseldorf: European Institute for the Media.
 Economic bases of communication 141

Wirth, Michael O. 2006. Issues in media convergence. In: Alan B. Albarran, Sylvia M. Chan-
Olmsted and Michael O. Wirth (eds.), Handbook of Media Management and Economics, 445–
462. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Cees J. Hamelink
8 Normative bases for communication
Abstract: In this chapter the most prominent normative standards for human com-
munication are presented. These are the standards of fairness in speech, freedom
of speech, responsibility, confidentiality and truth in communication. The most
important sources of normative rules for human communication are listed in the
text, described in detail, and their most important provisions quoted.

Keywords: Fair speech, free speech, truth, confidentiality, privacy, international

law, professional codes of conduct

1 Norms for communicative action

With the growing complexity of human societies essential standards of behaviour
evolved to enable human beings to live together and not destroy each other. Also
for the guidance of human communicative action normative standards – that sug-
gest what to do and what not to do – were developed. Very prominent among these
were standards based upon the norms of fairness in speech, freedom of speech,
responsibility, confidentiality and truth in communication. In discussing these
standards that find their origin in codes of morality and law the most important
sources of normative rules for human communication will be named, described
and quoted.

2 Fair speech
Among the first normative rules were instructions that vizier Ptah Hotep in the
fifth Egyptian Dynasty (3580–3536 bc) gave for wise men to convey to their sons.
Several of these rules have normative implications for how people should speak
with each other. A general norm of human speech is that it be fair. This means
people should be humble in speaking and listening, that they should refrain from
speaking in an evil way, not use vile words, and not be angry when a debater does
not agree with them. They should beware of making enmity by their words and
perverting the truth. They should not engage in gossip or extravagant speech, real-
ize that silence is more profitable than abundance of speech and they should speak
as true friends. As early as the Bronze Age (the third millennium bc) the rulers
that were intent on civilizations living together and not destroying each other
engaged in cultural diplomacy. Their emissaries who conveyed messages and
148 Cees J. Hamelink

brought learning back were instructed by their kings that their communicative
behaviour should be guided by modest and respectful speech.
This age-old normative guidance for communication expresses what, more
recently in human history, became the key standard in the catalogue of moral
values that the international community formulated after the Second World War.
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) respect for “human dignity”
is the basis for human interaction. One way to concretize this essential notion of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations 1948) is to define it as
the rejection of all forms of human humiliation. Human humiliation would include
acts such as:
– de-individualization of people – where people’s personal identity is under-
mined, their sense of personal significance is taken away, they are reduced
to numbers, cases, or files, and they are treated as group members and not
as individuals;
– discrimination against people, treating them according to judgements about
superior versus inferior social positions. This is where ’inferior‘ people are
excluded from the social privileges the ‘superior’ people enjoy;
– disempowerment of people by denying them ‘agency’ – where people are
treated as if they lack the capacity of independent choice and action;
– degrading of people by forcing them into dependent positions in which they
efface their own dignity and exhibit servile behaviour. This is where people
are scared in ways that make them lose control over their behaviour (dirtying
themselves for example), and make them beg on their knees for approval,
blessing or forgiveness.

Since the discourse of international human rights has established that ‘all people
matter,’ no one should be excluded from the maxim by which one must treat other
human beings in non-humiliating ways. This implies the moral commandment
against modalities of communication that treat people in humiliating ways.

3 Free speech
Early in human history the idea emerged that in order to maximally profit from
the human communicative capacity the freedom of the word should be promoted
and protected. Since the development of language there was always the idea that
without the freedom to speak it would render meaningless the fact that humans
are language-using animals. Concern about the freedom of information is reported
as early as 350 bc when the Greek statesman and orator Demosthenes said that
taking away the freedom of expression is one of the greatest calamities for human
beings. Socrates reminded his judges of the great importance of free speech and
free reflection. Despite a level of intolerance of free thought, such philosophical
 Normative bases for communication 149

schools as the Stoics, the Epicureans and the Sceptics developed and claimed for
themselves a large measure of intellectual freedom. Roman historian Tacitus
(55–116) complimented the emperor Trajan for the felicitous times when one could
freely express whatever one wanted to say.
Throughout the Middle Age the heretics claimed their right to free thought and
its expression. Against the secular suppression of the freedom of expression, John
Milton published his Areopagitica in 1644. In this famous speech to the Parliament
of England on the liberty of unlicensed printing, Milton claimed: “Truth needs no
licensing to make her victorious.” In 1695, the Regulation of Printing Act against
which he spoke was revoked. Interestingly enough, Milton’s plea for freedom of
printing did not apply to Roman Catholics as he felt one should not extend princi-
ples of tolerance to those who are intolerant.
In Sweden in 1766 an Order on the Freedom of the Printing Press was enacted
as formal law, including the rights of access to public information. The oldest
catalogue of fundamental rights (in the sense of human rights and civil rights that
possess a higher legal force) is the Declaration of Rights, preceding the constitution
of the state of Virginia, in 1776. Here the freedom of expression was formulated as
press freedom, “That the freedom of the Press is one of the greatest bulwarks of
liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.” Following the
Anglo-Saxon tradition, the French Declaration on human and citizen rights (Décla-
ration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen) was formulated in 1789. This declaration
went beyond the Virginia declaration in stating that the unrestrained communica-
tion of thoughts or opinions is one of the most precious rights of man; every citizen
may speak, write and publish freely, provided he [sic] is responsible for the abuse
of this liberty, in the cases determined by law. Then, in 1791, the US Bill of Rights
stated in Article I, the famous provision that “Congress shall make no law…abridg-
ing the freedom of speech, or of the press.” (Hamelink, 1994: 150–151). In nine-
teenth century legislation on fundamental rights the right to freedom of informa-
tion emerged in many countries and the freedom of the press, primarily in the
form of the prohibition of censorship, became a central issue. This was reflected
in many national constitutions.
Until the twentieth century the concern about freedom of information
remained almost exclusively a domestic affair. Interestingly enough, when the
League of Nations focused on the problems of false news and propaganda in the
early twentieth century, it did not address the protection of freedom of expression.
The UNESCO Constitution, adopted in 1945, was the first multilateral instrument
to reflect the concern for the freedom of information. To promote the implementa-
tion of this concern, a special division of ‘free flow of information’ was established
in the secretariat in Paris.
In 1946, the delegation of the Philippines presented to the UN General Assem-
bly a proposal for a resolution on an international conference on issues dealing
with the press. This became UNGA Res. 59 (I) which was adopted unanimously in
150 Cees J. Hamelink

late 1946. According to the resolution the purpose of the conference would be to
address the rights, obligations and practices which should be included in the con-
cept of freedom of information. The resolution called freedom of information, “the
touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.” It
described the freedom of information as “the right to gather, transmit and publish
news anywhere and everywhere without fetters.”
In 1948, the United Nations convened an international conference on the Free-
dom of Information. Following the conference one of the articles of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights was dedicated to the freedom of expression. This
became the well-known Article 19 which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom
of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any
media and regardless of ‘frontiers’.”
Crucially, the authors of Article 19 constructed freedom of information with
reference to five components. The first is the classical defence of the freedom of
expression. The second is the freedom to hold opinions. This provision was formu-
lated as protection against brainwashing, against the forced imposition of a politi-
cal conviction. The third is the freedom to gather information. This reflected the
interests of international news agencies to secure freedom for foreign correspond-
ents. The fourth is the freedom of reception. This has to be understood as a
response to the prohibition on receiving foreign broadcasts during the war. The
fifth is the right to impart information and ideas. This is a recognition of the free-
dom of distribution in addition to the freedom of expression. The formulation of
Article 19 offered important guidance for later international documents that articu-
lated the concern about freedom of information. Important illustrations are the
European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freed-
oms (1950) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966). The
latter stated the matter as follows:
1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.
2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall
include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all
kinds regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form
of art, or through any other media of his choice.

Other statements of the norm of freedom in communication from the period

include the American Convention on Human Rights (1969) and the African Charter
on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981). Significantly, the Convention on the Rights
of the Child (adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November,
1989) extended the principle of freedom in communication to young people. In
Article 13, it states that

The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either
 Normative bases for communication 151

orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s
choice.

There are also a number of freedom of communication provisions in professional

codes: the IFJ Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists (the Bordeaux
Code, adopted by 1954 World Congress of the IFJ and amended by the 1986 World
Congress), the Resolutions by the Second World Meeting of Journalists, 1960; the
Charter for a Free Press, World Press Freedom Committee, 1992. These declarations
and these codes, then, from Demosthenes onwards, form the basis of communica-
tion according to the norm of free speech.

4 Responsibility
In many societies rulers have been opposed to the norm of free speech. The ‘power
elites’ in various ages exercised censorship to protect their interests as they per-
ceived free thought to be dangerous to their authority. The idea that people should
be free to think and speak as they wish and should have access to information
and knowledge as they need, was (and is) often seen by authoritative intellectual
and political elites as undesirable. The powerful of all ages and societies have
tended to prefer the standard of control. Without adequate control the free speech
of common people could only mean trouble.
Control over communication was known and widely used in the ancient Egyp-
tian, Sumerian, Greek and Roman societies. In Egypt, the ruling class censored
what knowledge could be made available. When the medium of communication in
ancient Egypt (2700–2600 bc) shifted from stone to papyrus, the scribe became a
highly honoured magistrate and member of a privileged profession. The art of
writing was held in high esteem and the scribe “was included in the upper classes
of kings, priests, nobles, and, generals…” (Innis, 1972: 16). He became part of the
ruling class that monopolized knowledge. In classical Athens Socrates was silenced
for exercising free speech. By the time of Socrates’s trial, censorship was extensive
in Greece. There were charges of blasphemy against the philosophers Anaxagoras
and Protagoras. In the Roman empire, emperor Augustus was probably the first
political leader to promote a law that prohibited libellous writing.
In early Christianity, the apostle Paul advocated burning the books of adversa-
ries (Acts 19:19). With the adoption of the Christian faith by Emperor Constantine
the Great (313), freedom of religious thought began to be violently suppressed.
Heretical thought was punished by cruel torturing and death. During the Middle
Ages the Christian Church fought a bitter battle against any form of heterodoxy.
Heretics – men, women and even children – were hanged and burned. To effec-
tively organize the ruthless suppression of heresy, Pope Gregory IX established a
special institution of persecution in 1233, the Inquisition. In 1493, the Inquisition
152 Cees J. Hamelink

in Venice issued the first list of books banned by the Church. In 1559, the Index
Librorum Prohibitorum was made binding for all Roman Catholics and was admin-
istered by the Inquisition. The case of Copernicus’s (1473–1543) publication, On
the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres, is a famous one from this period. The book
was not published until after his death to avoid persecution by the Church. In
1616, the Church put the book on its index of prohibited books. Galileo Galilei
(1564–1642) made his own Copernican worldview public and was made to retract
this under the threat of torture. Only in 1967 did the Catholic Church stop its efforts
to proscribe texts by authors such as Erasmus, Descartes, Rousseau, Voltaire, New-
ton, Milton, Kant, Spinoza, Pascal, Comte, Freud and Sartre.
The protagonists of the Reformation were no less interested in control than
their Catholic opponents were. In sixteenth century Geneva, heavy censorship was
exercised by John Calvin who was famous for his extreme intolerance. Also, theolo-
gian Martin Luther had little difficulty with suppressing the freedom of thought.
He was quite opposed to liberty of conscience and held that Anabaptists should
be put to the sword. Jansen writes:

As early as 1525 he invoked the assistance of censorship regulations in Saxony and Branden-
berg to suppress the ‘pernicious doctrines’ of the Anabaptists and Zwinglians….Melanchton,
Calvin, and Zwingli subsequently enforced censorial controls that were far more restrictive
that any instituted by Rome or by Luther. (Jansen 1991: 53)

Secular powers followed these examples and issued forms of regulation to control
free expression. Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250) issued legislation in which burn-
ing at the stake became the popular way of punishing the heresy of free thinkers.
In France, King Henry II (1519–1559) declared printing without official permission
punishable by death. The official rationale was greatly inspired by Thomas Hob-
bes’s reflections in his Leviathan (1651) where he extended state sovereignty to the
opinions and persuasions of the governed. An example of such sovereign control
was the English Regulation of Printing Act. This licensing law provided for a sys-
tem of censorship through licences for printing and publishing.
Nineteenth century regulation of international postal and telegraph traffic
introduced among its basic norms and rules the freedom of transit and free passage
of messages. In the world’s first international communication conventions (the
1874 Treaty of Berne that founded the General Postal Union and the Berne Tele-
graph Convention of 1858 that founded the International Telegraph Union) the
freedom of communication was provided but at the same time also restricted as
states reserved the right to interfere with free message passage in case of threats
to state security, violations of national laws or danger to public order and morals.
This tension between freedom and interference remained a much debated topic
among politicians, regulators, content carriers and users over the years. Since the
late nineteenth century, media content has been an issue of international concern.
The ambiguity of the freedom of content versus the need to interfere with this
 Normative bases for communication 153

freedom posed a challenge for attempts at global governance. On the side of free-
dom of content, one finds classical civil and political rights arguments in favour
of ‘free speech.’ On the side of interference, there are arguments about ‘national
sovereignty’ and about the responsibility of speech vis-à-vis the rights and reputa-
tions of others. The ‘free speech’ argument promotes an unhindered flow of messa-
ges into and out of countries. The sovereignty argument provides for protective
measures against flows of messages that may impede autonomous control over
social and cultural development. The ‘responsible speech’ argument claims the
right to protection against the harmful effects of such free flows. Historically, then,
the norm of communication based on free speech has always had its obverse: the
norm of censorship.
Debates on freedom of information have always had an association with reflec-
tions and viewpoints on the social responsibility of the media of mass communica-
tion. The key normative provisions on freedom of information permit freedom of
expression ‘without fetters,’ but also bind this to other human rights standards.
The clear recognition of the right to freedom of information as a basic human right
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was positioned in a stand-
ard-setting instrument that also asked for the existence of an international order
in which the rights of the individual can be fully realized (Article 28 of the UDHR).
This implies that the right to freedom of speech is linked with the concern for a
responsible use of communication. This linkage laid the basis for a controversy in
which one normative position emphasized the free flow principle, whereas another
normative position stressed the social responsibility principle. The UNESCO Consti-
tution already featured a tension between the two approaches. It accepted the
principle of a free exchange of ideas and knowledge, but it also stressed the need
to develop and use the means of communication toward a mutual understanding
among nations and to create an improved factual knowledge of each other. This
could also be seen in the post-war development of the professional field. The Inter-
national Federation of Journalists of Allied or Free Countries (IFJAFC) convened a
World Congress of Journalists in Copenhagen in June, 1946. This congress was
attended by some 165 delegates from 21 countries. In the invitation letter the Execu-
tive Committee of the IFJAFC indicated that among the purposes of the congress,
was “to discuss methods of assuring the freedom of the press” (Kubka and Norden-
streng, 1986: 10). The discussions largely focused on the establishment of a new
international professional organization, a provisional constitution was unani-
mously adopted and the International Organization of Journalists was created. Spe-
cial attention was given to the debate on the liberty of the press and at the end of
the Congress a Statement of Principle on the freedom of the press was adopted:
“The International Congress of Journalists affirms that freedom of the press is a
fundamental principle of democracy and can function only if channels of informa-
tion and the means of dissemination of news are made available to all.” The State-
ment stressed:
154 Cees J. Hamelink

the responsibility of every working journalist to assist by every means in his power the devel-
opment of international friendship and understanding and instructed the Executive Committee
to examine the various codes of professional ethics adopted by national bodies, particularly
in respect of any journalist deliberately and knowingly spreading – whether by press or radio
or news agencies – false information designed to poison the good relations between countries
and peoples. (Kubka and Nordenstreng 1986: 10)

This social responsibility dimension was even more forcefully present in the resolu-
tion on press and peace that stated that:

this congress considers the cementing of lasting international peace and security the para-
mount aim of humanity, and calls upon all the 130,000 members of the IOJ to do their utmost
in support of the work of international understanding and co-operation entrusted to the United
Nations.” (Kubka and Nordenstreng 1986: 10)

As the Cold War was already by 1948 a key dimension of world politics, the norm
of social responsibility and the free flow principle clashed in the early UN debates
largely in line with East/West ideological confrontations. In 1947, the Yugoslav
delegation, for example, proposed legislation in the UN General Assembly to
“restrict false and tendentious reports calculated to aggravate relations between
nations, provoke conflicts and incite to war.” This was unacceptable to the Western
delegations and eventually a compromise text (proposed by France) was adopted
that recommended the study of measures, “to combat, within the limits of constitu-
tional procedures, the publication of false or distorted reports likely to injure
friendly relations between states” (UNGA Resolution 127(II)).
The free speech norm is, like other human rights norms far from absolute and
its exercise can be subject to limitations. This obviously implies the risk of abuse
by those actors (and particularly governments) who are intent on curbing free
speech. Limitations could easily erode the significance of a normative standard.
For this reason a threefold test has been developed in international law to assess
the permissibility of limitations. These must be provided by law. They must serve
purposes expressly stated in international agreements and they must be shown to
be necessary in a democratic society. The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of
information has expressed concern about the tendency of governments to invoke
Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in justification
of the suspension of free speech. This Article lists the human rights provisions that
are non-derogable. This means that under no circumstance, not even in times of
war, can they be suspended. The right to freedom of expression is not listed in
Article 4. However, the Human Rights Committee, in its General Comment No. 29
(CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.11), has identified the conditions to be met for a State to
invoke article 4(1) of the Covenant to limit certain rights enshrined in its provisions,
including the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Inter alia, the measures
must be strictly limited in time, provided for in a law, necessary for public safety
or public order, serve a legitimate purpose, not impair the essence of the right and
conform with the principle of proportionality.
 Normative bases for communication 155

Over the years, the international community and individual national govern-
ments have repeatedly tried – not very successfully – to establish governance
mechanisms (rules and institutions) to deal with the ‘freedom versus responsibil-
ity’ issue. The Broadcasting Convention of 1936 (International Convention Concern-
ing the Use of Broadcasting in the Cause of Peace, signed at Geneva, 23 September
1936) contains the following indicative articles:

Article 1
The High Contracting Parties mutually undertake to prohibit and, if occasion arises, to stop
without delay the broadcasting within their respective territories of any transmission which to
the detriment of good international understanding is of such a character as to incite the popu-
lation of any territory to acts incompatible with the internal order or the security of a territory
of a High Contracting Party.

Article 2
The High Contracting Parties mutually undertake to ensure that transmissions from stations
within their respective territories shall not constitute an incitement either to war against
another High Contracting party or to acts likely to lead thereto.

Article 3
The High Contracting parties mutually undertake to prohibit and, if occasion arises, to stop
without delay within their respective territories any transmission likely to harm good interna-
tional understanding by statements the incorrectness of which is or ought to be known to the
persons responsible for the broadcast.
They further mutually undertake to ensure that any transmission likely to harm good interna-
tional understanding by incorrect statements shall be rectified at the earliest possible moment
by the most effective means, even if the incorrectness has become apparent only after the
broadcast has taken place.

Article 4
The High Contracting Parties mutually undertake to ensure, especially in time of crisis, that
stations within their respective territories shall broadcast information concerning international
relations the accuracy of which shall have been verified – and that by all means within their
power – by the persons responsible for broadcasting the information.

Other provisions have been offered in a similar vein. There are the Resolutions of
the United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information, 1948:

Resolution 4
To facilitate the solution of the economic, social and humanitarian problems of the world as
a whole through the free interchange of information bearing on such problems;
To help promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms without discrimination;
To help maintain international peace and security.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights notes that the exercise of
the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of Article 19 (on freedom) carries with it
special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restric-
tions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
156 Cees J. Hamelink

For respect of the rights or reputations of others;

For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or
morals.

Thus

Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.

Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimina-
tion, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.

And, again, as rights of freedom are extended to children, so is the norm of respon-
sibility in communication. The Convention on the Rights of the Child states that
the exercise of the right to freedom may be subject to certain restrictions, but these
shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

For respect of the rights or reputations of others; or

For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or
morals.

Furthermore, the issue of responsibility and freedom in communication is

broached in terms of colonialism and international conflict. The UNESCO Declara-
tion on Fundamental Principles Concerning the Contribution of International
Understanding, to the Promotion of Human Rights and to Countering Racialism,
Apartheid and Incitement to War proclaimed by the General Conference of the
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization at its 20th session,
on 28 November 1978 has the following key article:

Article 3. With a view to the strengthening of peace and international understanding, to pro-
moting human rights and to countering racialism, apartheid and incitement to war, the mass
media throughout the world, by reason of their role, contribute to promoting human rights, in
particular by giving expression to oppressed peoples who struggle against colonialism, neo-
colonialism, foreign occupation and all forms of racial discrimination and oppression and who
are unable to make their voices heard within their own territories.

The international community has not managed to develop a satisfactory answer to

these questions. Striking a balance between the standard of freedom of information
and the standard of responsible speech and national sovereignty turned out to
be too difficult a challenge! Again, there are also a number of responsibility-of-
communication provisions in professional codes IFJ Declaration of Principles on
the Conduct of Journalists, 1954; Resolutions by the Second World Meeting of Jour-
nalists, 1960; International Principles of Professional Ethics in Journalism, 1988.
The tension in these normative bases of communication is perennial.
 Normative bases for communication 157

5 Confidentiality
This normative basis emerged with the Platonic recognition of a dualism between
a visible material body and an invisible immaterial soul. What people think takes
place in the soul and is thus hidden from others. Human reason resides in a private
sphere and should only be revealed in word or conduct with the person’s consent.
This private sphere or ‘inner life’ became, over the ages, a prime target for surveil-
lance by clerical and secular authorities. Against these intrusions John Stuart Mill
claimed for the “inward domain of consciousness” an absolute freedom (Mill in
Robson 1966: 16).
The experience of a private inner realm was (and continues to be) variegated
across cultures and ages but nonetheless possesses – universally – a set of key
dimensions. There is a physical dimension (the need of bodily integrity) and a
territorial dimension which was well articulated by William Pitt (1776) when he
wrote about the cottage of the poorest man: “It may be frail, its roof may shake;
the wind may blow through; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King
of England may not enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined
tenement” (quoted in Barth, 1961: 73). From these core dimensions the notion of a
‘private sphere’ extended to any space where individuals encountered others. The
first legal articulation of the need to protect this sphere came from the American
lawyers, Warren and Brandeis in a famous article in the Harvard Law Review (‘The
right to privacy’). They wrote “For years there has been a feeling that the law must
afford some remedy for the unauthorized circulation of portraits of private persons;
and the evil of the invasion of privacy by the newspapers, has long been keenly
felt” (Warren and Brandeis 1890: 195–6). Warren and Brandeis described the right
to privacy as “the right to be let alone.” This right to privacy includes those commu-
nicative acts that take place in the private sphere where participants deem it essen-
tial that their exchanges remain confidential. This is particularly clear in encoun-
ters between medical, legal or clerical professionals and their patients/clients.
Outside the private sphere, the right to privacy operates as informational privacy:
the right to the protection of data collected, stored and used in connection with
private persons.
Since the nineteenth century the norm of confidentiality in communications
has been codified in national and international legislation. In the Universal Decla-
ration of Human Rights (1948) the norm of confidentiality was established in Arti-
cle 12 that provides that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with
his privacy, family, home or correspondence….” This is affirmed in the Interna-
tional Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and again extended to children
by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). The norm of confidentiality is
however constantly challenged by ordinary human curiosity and increasingly, also,
by the administrative requirements of modern states (for example, the tax bureauc-
158 Cees J. Hamelink

racy and the law enforcement system), the commercial interest in acquiring and
selling personal data and the widespread availability of surveillance technology.
Many countries have introduced privacy laws and special rules for the protection
of doctor-patient or attorney-client exchanges.
The pledge of confidentiality in communication in the medical profession goes
back to the Hippocratic Oath which is often rendered as, “Whatsoever things I see
or hear concerning the life of men, in my attendance on the sick or even apart
therefrom, which ought not to be noised about, I shall keep silence thereon, count-
ing such things to be as sacred secrets” (around 400 bc). Most recently, the protec-
tion of professional confidentiality in journalism has become a challenging issue
that was decided by the European Court of Human Rights in favour of the recogni-
tion of professional secrecy, albeit under special circumstances (the Goodwin
arrest of 27 March 1996). When the first international treaty to deal with global
communication was signed (the International Telegraph Convention) in 1985 the
confidentiality of correspondence across national borders was secured. At the same
time, however, governments reserved the right to interfere with any message they
considered dangerous for state security or in violation of national laws, public
order or morality. Again, then, the normative bases of communication are double-
sided: a similar tension as can be found between freedom and responsibility in
communication developed between the right to confidentiality and the right of
states to interfere in private communications.

6 Truth
Possibly the oldest source for the standard of truth in communication is found in
the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue) that were given through Moses to the
Hebrew people. One of these commandments provides that one shall bear no false
witness. Although it is contested whether this contains a general prohibition to lie
it would seem to refer to an admonition to speak the truth at least in legal matters.
A moral rule against lying is certainly very articulate in Old Testament texts such
as Psalm 5 that commands that “you destroy those who tell lies” or the book
Leviticus (Leviticus 19:11) where God gives Moses the rule that says “Do not lie and
Do not deceive one another. ” And in the New Testament (in John 8:44) it is written
said about Satan “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out
your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the
truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language,
for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Also in other religions, like the Islam, we
find a strong moral preference for speaking the truth.
These norms of truth sound obvious but they are complicated in the light of
the fact that much human interaction is characterized by deception. Lies are impor-
tant tools in human communication. People lie much of the time throughout his-
 Normative bases for communication 159

tory, across cultures, irrespective of social class or education in relations between

parents and children, employers and employees and among lovers. Deceptive com-
munication occurs in politics, business and science. Also the modern mass media
are often associated with false, biased and disported communications about the
world’s events. Against this reality various legal and professional instruments have
provided the normative guidance that communication should be true. Notably, the
Resolutions of the United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information, 1948,
UN General Assembly Resolution 127 (II) laid down provisions for the press. Here,
the emphasis was on a consensus of professionals to prevent false reporting. The
IFJ Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists (the Bordeaux Code),
built upon this professional consensus by highlighting the following articles:

Article 1.
Respect for truth and for the right of the public to truth is the first duty of the journalist.

Article 3.
The journalist shall report only in accordance with facts of which he/she knows the origin.
The journalist shall not suppress essential information or falsify documents.

The Second World Meeting of Journalists, 1960 resulted in resolutions concerning

professional ethics:

We believe that the ethics of journalism requires every journalist today to fight against the
distortion of the truth and to oppose all attempts at falsification, misinformation and slander.

While the ‘Mexico Declaration’ adopted by Representatives of International and

Regional Organizations of Professional Journalists in 1980 stated as Principle II,
‘The journalist’s social responsibility’:

The foremost task of the journalist is to serve this right to true and authentic information,
information understood as a social need and not commodity, which means that the journalist
shares responsibility for the information transmitted and is thus accountable not only to those
controlling the media but ultimately to the public at large, including various social interests.

Similar declarations were made on ethics and responsibility in the International

Principles of Professional Ethics in Journalism adopted by the Council of the Inter-
national Catholic Union of the Press, 1988, and the ‘Code of Athens.’
Journalism, however, was not the only part of the media where fidelity to truth
developed as a normative basis of communication in the modern period. Advertis-
ing, especially, has been subject to measures designed to ensure conformity with
truth. Most significantly the International Code of Advertising Practice as revised
and adopted by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in 1973 declared as
one of its basic principles that

All advertising should be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Every advertisement should be
prepared with a due sense of social responsibility and should conform to the principles of fair
160 Cees J. Hamelink

competition, as generally accepted in business. No advertisement should be such as to impair

public confidence in advertising.

These landmark legal and professional provisions offer a picture of some of the
issues that, to varying degrees, have been taken for granted in the modern world
but which have often involved considerable human struggle to establish.

7 Conclusion
Throughout history, normative rules have been formulated for human communica-
tion. Essential standards of communicative action are that it should be fair, free,
responsible and true. The international community has developed instruments
both as binding law and as voluntary professional codes to address the standards
of freedom, responsibility, confidentiality and truth. The norm of respectful and
fair communication has not been articulated in formal laws or codes of conducts.
This may be understandable since rules on fair speech cannot be formulated as
an enforceable legal instruction and their concrete application is largely dependent
upon the pedagogical instructions that wise people convey to their sons and
daughters. It may well be, however, that exactly the standard of fair and respectful
communication is quintessential to finding an adequate response to the experience
of communication in interpersonal interaction and in public media (in news, enter-
tainment and advertising) that treat people in de-individualizing, discriminating,
disempowering and degrading ways.

Further reading
Casmir, Fred L. 1997. Ethics in intercultural and international communication. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Christians, Clifford G., John P. Ferré & P. Mark Fackler (eds.). 1993. Good news. social ethics and
the press. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Christians, Clifford & Lee Wilkins (eds.). 2009. The handbook of media ethics. London: Routledge.
Moore, Roy L. 1999. Mass communication law and ethics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Pattyn, Bart (ed.). 2000. Media ethics: opening social dialogue. Leuven: Peeters Publishers.

References
Barth, Alan. 1961. The price of liberty. New York: The Viking Press.
Hamelink, Cees J. 1994. The politics of world communication. London: Sage.
Hamelink, Cees J. 2004. Human rights for communicators. Cresskill: Hampton Press.
 Normative bases for communication 161

Innis, Harold. A. 1972. Empire and communications. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Jansen, Sue C. 1991. Censorship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kubka, Jiri & Kaarle Nordenstreng. 1986. Useful recollections. Part II. Prague: International
Organization of Journalists.
Milton, John. 1644. Aeropagitica. London: MacMillan (limited edition, 1915).
Robson, John M. (ed.). 1966. John Stuart Mill: a selection of his works. Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press.
Warren, Samuel D. & Louis D. Brandeis. 1890. The right to privacy. Harvard Law Review. IV:
193–220.
Christopher Tindale
9 Models of communicative efficiency
Abstract: This chapter explores the close relationships between good communica-
tion and the traditions of rhetoric and argumentation, from their Aristotelian roots
through to contemporary theories of reasoning and dialectics. While this core nar-
rative is concerned primarily with communication in the Greco-Roman tradition
and between human agents, the closing section draws on recent scholarship in
expanding the discussions to include Asian schools and the impact of artificial
intelligence on communication.

Keywords: Argumentation, Asian tradition, dialectics, Greco-Roman tradition,

informal logic, rhetoric

1 Introduction
Part of the social nature of human animals involves the practiced ability to commu-
nicate in a range of different ways, whether to express needs, issue requests or
commands, or attempt to solicit the agreement of others. We cannot avoid such
activities and, contrary to what the tradition of the isolated Cartesian ego suggests,
they are the foundations from which we emerge as self-conscious agents. Not all
communication is effective, however, and beyond the needs of mere expression, to
function well in society we need to develop in ourselves the abilities to influence
others through the clear articulation of claims and persuasive discourse. To such
ends, this chapter is concerned mainly with the traditions of argumentation and
rhetoric, principally as these have been developed in Western cultures, but also
with some attention to the emerging fields of Asian argumentation and rhetoric.
It may seem strange to link communicative efficiency with argumentation and
rhetoric in this way, because arguing is often associated with quarreling and rheto-
ric tied to the exploitation of audiences. On these terms, clear communication
would seem to be the first casualty. But these are narrow conceptions of both
argumentation and rhetoric and a moment’s consideration should indicate the
close relationships between good communication, argumentation, and rhetoric. Of
importance to both argumentation and rhetoric is the audience for whom the dis-
course is intended. When we enter debates, negotiate agreements, investigate
hypotheses together, deliberate over choices in deciding how to act, and solicit the
assent of others, we use argumentation and rhetoric. And when we use these well,
we communicate effectively by achieving such ends of communication in mutually
satisfactory ways.
164 Christopher Tindale

The situations in which argumentation and rhetoric are used, then, are not
restricted to those that are characterized by disagreements. They include situations
in which ideas are reinforced. Proposals are introduced and reviewed coopera-
tively, and parties endeavor to achieve understanding even when the starting
points from which they each begin are far apart. Communication faces its greatest
challenges in these last kinds of cases, particularly when values and terms are not
held in common. But the traditions of argumentation theory and rhetoric are rich
in ideas and strategies to address even the most intractable problems. And the fact
that we can successfully communicate both our common understandings and our
disagreements, and operate so well in societies where major values are continu-
ously contested, is testimony to the strengths of the traditions employed and the
tools they contain.
The chapter traces the modern traditions of rhetoric and argumentation that
exemplify communicative efficiency to their common Aristotelian root. To this end,
the Section 2 details Aristotle’s account of how humans should proceed in order
to communicate effectively. This account, while modified through the ages, is still
recognizable in contemporary theories, and we see the truth of this in Section 3
on communication and reasoning. Three dominant models of argumentation reflect
the Aristotelian triad of rhetoric, dialectic, and logic. The chapter section considers
at least one significant position under each of these headings. The Section 4
expands the discussion to explain ways in which these ideas have been taken up
in new technology, particularly work on artificial intelligence, and also considers
similar approaches to communicative efficiency that have been recognized in the
Asian tradition.

2 Communicative efficiency and the rhetorical

tradition
In the West, we are the fortunate inheritors of the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradi-
tion, one in which argumentation plays important roles, but which is quite distinct
in its own terms and so can be explored first. Recent work on rhetorical theories
has pushed beyond the limits of rhetoric’s past as it responds to the situations and
problems cast up by contemporary society, but all of this is rooted in the history
of rhetoric and can only be fully understood on its terms.
Traditionally, rhetoric is understood as the use of language to bring about
persuasion. Although there may be as many current definitions as there are theo-
rists, to understand how rhetoric bears on central questions of communication we
can stay with this traditional view. Aristotle (384–322 bc) is instrumental in giving
substance to this understanding, defining rhetoric as the “ability to see the avail-
able means of persuasion” (Aristotle 2007: I,2,1). Important in this statement is the
insight that there are both practical and theoretical components to the enterprise.
 Models of communicative efficiency 165

There is attention to the means of persuading, but also the ability to ‘see’ these
means. This seeing (theorin) is related to the terms used for both ‘theory’ and
‘theatre,’ and the idea of some spectacle captured in the mind’s eye, where it can
be reviewed and understood is presented to us. Such theorizing, Aristotle believed,
set his account apart from many of his predecessors and contemporaries who pro-
duced handbooks on rhetoric (Kennedy 1963) but without the attention to detail
for which Aristotle would become so influential. While most aspects of Aristotle’s
treatment were present in the argumentative and rhetorical practices of his prede-
cessors (Schiappa 1999; Tindale 2010), no one had approached them with Aris-
totle’s philosophical rigor.
Central to Aristotle’s account of efficient communication, and all subsequent
treatments, is the idea of audience: that body of people that the speaker aims to
persuade through her or his discourse. His ideas of audience influenced the way
he viewed rhetoric, judging there to be three genres corresponding to three basic
audiences: the deliberative, the judicial (or forensic), and the epideictic. Under the
first, a speaker encourages an audience to deliberate about the right course of
action to pursue. Aristotle here sees audiences as judges about future events,
engaging their ideas by drawing examples from their experience. This rhetoric
lends itself well to political situations. The second genre expects the audience to
judge the past and come to some kinds of truths about it. Different types of evi-
dence must be used here to communicate what the speaker has in mind. The third
genre is often judged by commentators to be the grab bag into which everything
else is placed (although the twentieth century theorist Chaim Perelman (1982)
claimed that this was the most fundamental genre). Epideictic rhetoric is one that
conveys and explores values. It is characterized by praise and blame and well
illustrated in the funeral speech. This audience is a spectator. But one that in
watching and listening learns the values of the community and is encouraged to
emulate them and avoid values that conflict with them.
Another important aspect of Aristotle’s account which further reflects his
appreciation of the importance of audience is his treatment of ‘proofs,’ again pre-
sented as a triad of ideas: logos, ethos, and pathos. These three can be understood
in terms of the three central components of any rhetorical communication: the
speaker (ethos), the audience (pathos), and the discourse that joins them (logos).
As rhetorical proofs, each of these is involved in the process of bringing about
persuasion. The rhetorical logos captures the way reasoning is packaged as an
argumentative product at the heart of communication. Logos best encourages per-
suasion in the form of the enthymeme or example, which invites the audience’s
involvement in drawing a conclusion. Something in the background of the audi-
ence is drawn on or assumed in the choice of example or construction of the
enthymeme. The audience provides that component thus completing the reasoning
in a way that personalizes it for them. As contemporary advertisers appreciate
when exploiting the deductive principle, a message is far more persuasive if the
166 Christopher Tindale

audience believes they have drawn the conclusion for themselves. Told that bigger
burgers are better burgers and that a national chain sells bigger burgers, audiences
do not also need to be told that the same chain’s burgers are better. They can
draw that conclusion for themselves. Something similar is assumed in Aristotle’s
rhetorical logos.
The importance of ethos is recognized whenever a message is listened to
because of who is delivering it. Aristotle tells us that we are more likely to believe
fair-minded people, and so speakers are advised to communicate this attitude
through what they say. Character, on these terms, is constructed through the speech
itself, showing something of the power of words to create trust and credibility.
Aristotle lays little stress on the effect that prior reputation has, but Cicero later
added the importance of a person’s achievements and reputation, and we would
now naturally include such matters under the label of ‘ethos.’
The third ‘proof’ – pathos – builds on the insight that audiences form different
judgments about an issue depending on their emotional state. We do not judge the
same way when we are angry as when we are calm or feeling pity. Logicians have
attempted to drive a wedge between reason and emotion, but Aristotle was not
sympathetic to this. Rhetoric aims at the whole person, not some isolated part
located in the ‘reason.’ Thus, an effective speaker must learn the nature of the
emotions, and how to stimulate them in an audience. At this point, if not earlier,
we might see the specter of exploitation lurking in the background. But Aristotle
associates rhetoric with ethics, and believes that a speaker should foster the quali-
ties of good will (eunoia), practical wisdom (phronesis), and virtue (arête), and will
be more persuasive if these qualities are active in them.1 So, the emotional
responses that are stimulated in an audience are appropriate to the situation. Feel-
ing pity at the sight of an earthquake victim is an appropriate response and pre-
pares the right kind of judgment for the action that should follow.
A traditional way of viewing rhetoric is in terms of adornment, and perhaps
nothing more than this. Certainly, style and arrangement are important to the
Aristotelian account. But as he turns to them in the last book of the Rhetoric, they
are presented in terms of the core ideas. While we do not find a full theory of
figuration, for example, that will characterize later accounts, Aristotle sets the
groundwork for such theories in his recognition that how something is said is as
important as who says it, what is said, and to whom it is said. Thus, he takes a
trope like metaphor and explores ways in which communication is made more
effective when words carry a different meaning from one context to another – a
semantic change. And he takes a figure like the antithesis and notes how it encour-
ages an audience to complete an idea when cola are juxtaposed so that if told ‘we
trust those we like, and we like ...’ we can add ‘those we trust.’ Here, the feature

1 The idea of rhetoric having a fundamental ethical character is central to the thinking of
Quintilian for whom rhetoric was the art of a good citizen speaking well.
 Models of communicative efficiency 167

is built on a syntactic structure. Subsequent theories of rhetoric construct consider-

able lists of rhetorical figures, each designed when used correctly to make ideas
present to an audience.2
Later theories adapt other central components of the Aristotelian account (see
Kennedy 1972). Cicero (106–43 bc), for example, recognizes the importance of
logos, ethos, and pathos, while adjusting the focus of the first two and giving
particular emphasis to the third. Like Aristotle, Cicero believes a speaker must have
a full knowledge of the emotions in order to communicate effectively, and he
devotes a lengthy discussion of his mature work on rhetoric – De Oratore – to this.
In part this is so important because Cicero also values the centrality of the audi-
ence, captured in the idea of the sensus communis, or sense of community (Cicero
1976: I.iii.12). This is the language of everyday life and the worst mistake a speaker
can make is to ignore it. There is much else to recommend Cicero’s treatment of
rhetoric, both in the early De Inventione, written when he was only nineteen, and
in the mature work. Perhaps of chief interest are his five divisions of the cannons
of oratory: invention, arrangement, expression, memory, and delivery. These cover
the full range of rhetorical considerations from the discovery of arguments through
to the ways in which the body and voice are controlled in the delivery.
One important feature of Aristotle’s account that Cicero adopts and clarifies is
his system of argument schemes or topoi. Aristotle had been vague on the nature
of topoi, treating the subject as if his readers readily understood what he meant
by the term ‘topos.’ Thus, Cicero’s account is useful both in its own right and in
the way it sheds light on its predecessor. For Cicero a topos or topic is the region
from which an argument is drawn. That is, there are commonplaces both general
and specific that are shared by speakers and audiences, and making use of these
a speaker might communicate more effectively with her audience because of the
ground that they share. Cicero (1949) divides topics between those that are
attached to the subject of interest and those that are drawn from outside of it. Of
those drawn from within he notes that they are distributed under many heads and
lists relations to the subject “either by nature, or by their form, or by their resem-
blance to one another, or by their differences, or by their contrariety to one
another, or by adjuncts, or by their antecedents, or by their consequents, or by
what is opposed to each of them, or by causes, or by effects, or by a comparison
with what is greater, or equal, or less” (Topics, Cicero 1949: 3). Arguments drawn

2 The Roman writer Longinus (c. 213–273 ad), gave advice about the use of figures of speech,
stressing that a figure is most effective when it goes unnoticed, an idea that would later be
echoed by Chaim Perelman. Figures for Longinus are related to the arousing of feelings in an
audience (see Vickers 1988: 310). Not until the work of Peter Ramus (1515–1572) and his
associates, however, is the prior history of tropes and figures organized in an economical manner
(see Conley 1990: 131).
168 Christopher Tindale

from outside, however, “are deduced chiefly from authority” (Topics, Cicero
1949: 4).3
While Cicero was the exemplary speaker and theorist of rhetoric, Quintilian
(ce 35–100) stands out as its most successful teacher. Together with the anony-
mous Rhetorica ad Herennium they influenced the teaching of rhetoric in Europe
up until the time of the American Revolution (Herrick 2001: 92). In Institutes of
Oratory (1959) Quintilian developed Cicero’s topical system for discovering argu-
ments into a means of teaching argumentation. Rather than treating them as
mnemonic devices, he associated them with habits of thought that students would
develop through constant practice. But in these, as in many of the earlier matters,
we see the close connections in the tradition of rhetoric and argumentation.4

3 Communication and reasoning: argumentation

While argumentation as a discipline has received the most theoretical attention
since several key texts were published in the middle of the last century (Perelman
and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958 [1969]; Toulmin 1958), its roots stretch back to Aristotle’s
triadic approach that distinguishes the rhetorical, dialectical, and logical. Each of
these captures ways in which argumentation promotes communicative efficiency.
Habermas (1984) expressed this triad in terms of process, procedure, and prod-
uct (see also Wenzel 1979). With the rhetorical, as was suggested in Section 2,
attention is paid to the argumentative communications between arguer and audi-
ence. Questions are raised about the nature of the audience, along with the charac-
ter and interests of the arguer and the background circumstances of the argument.
These components contribute to a fuller understanding of the argumentative con-
text. The dialectical sense of argument focuses attention on exchanges within a
dialogue and the moves involved. Dialogues of interest include the quarrel, the
negotiation, the debate, and the inquiry. Theorists who study the dialectical sense
of argument uncover and devise rules governing the correct procedures by which
such arguments should be conducted. Finally, the logical approach stresses the
product of statements expressed in the relationship of premises to conclusions.
This sense receives the attention of logicians, both formal and informal. While the
structure of arguments is important in this approach, a further component of inter-

3 See Rubinelli (2009) for a discussion of the relations between Aristotle’s treatment of the topoi
and that of Cicero.
4 Of course, important developments in the history of rhetoric do not end with the Greek and
Roman thinkers. A rich tradition develops through the Renaissance and Enlightenment and into
contemporary discussions. But little of this can be covered in this short survey and attention is
being given to the foundations on which much else is built. As will be seen, rhetorical questions
continue to be relevant in contemporary treatments of argumentation.
 Models of communicative efficiency 169

est concerns the intention behind arguments, namely to convince others to accept
the proposition advanced as the conclusion.
Few approaches to argumentation attempt to integrate all three perspectives.
An exception to this is Habermas himself, who insists “[a]t no single one of these
analytic levels can the very idea intrinsic to argumentative speech be adequately
developed” (Habermas 1984: 26). This forms the basis of his critique of other theo-
ries of argument, such as Stephen Toulmin’s (that we will consider in Section 3.3),
who is challenged for failing to address the levels of procedure and process
(1984: 34). Habermas’s theory of communicative action, in which his theory of
argumentation is embedded, is discussed in Chapter 2, Eadie and Goret and Chap-
ter 3, Craig in this volume. In this section, we will explore models of argumentation
that take one of these three approaches as basic, and thus serve to illustrate what
is involved in each case.

5
3.1 Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca and the New Rhetoric

The appearance in 1958 of La Nouvelle Rhétorique marked an attempt to develop a

model of rhetorical argumentation based on Aristotle’s ideas. Elsewhere, Perelman
explains that the object of the new rhetoric was to amplify and extend Aristotle’s
work (Perelman 1982: 4). Grounded also on a jurisprudential model, the aim was
a “logic of value” that would “show that philosophers cannot do without a rhetori-
cal conception of reason” (Perelman 1979: 42). From the outset Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca separate the realm of argumentation from demonstration with its
self-evident truths. Unlike demonstration, argumentation deals with what is always
open to question – the uncertainties of everyday existence. It is here that problems
of communication might most readily arise and so clear means of developing argu-
mentation need to be provided to combat such situations.
As we would expect, this is an audience-centered account, with audience
understood as that individual or group who the arguer intends to influence with
arguments.6 No longer is the account restricted to the speeches of orators, but is
expanded to include the audiences of written communications. The new rhetoric
engages three types of audience: the self-deliberator who is the audience for her
or his own arguments; the single hearer who forms the audience in dialogical
encounters; and the universal audience that provides some standard of objectivity
behind or within each particular audience that is addressed. From the perspective
of efficient communication, each of these three basic audiences offers questions,
challenges, and insights. The self-deliberator does not seem like any other audi-

5 Citations are to the English translation (1969).

6 This is a limitation to the account, since it would seem to overlook audiences for argumen-
tation – like those who engage historical arguments – who could never have been anticipated by
the arguer.
170 Christopher Tindale

ence because it is, in theory, better known, with none of its beliefs and motivations
hidden; and the single hearer helps us understand how an argument can be con-
trolled to bring about mutually satisfactory results. But the universal audience
seems as vague as the self-deliberator is clear, and stands as Perelman’s most
difficult idea. It is important to consider carefully what it can contribute to argu-
mentation.
Part of the difficulty commentators have with this concept is the different ways
in which it is expressed. Since the other party to a dialogue and the self-deliberator
can “never amount to more than floating incarnations of this universal audience”
(Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958 [1969]: 31), it must provide “a norm for objec-
tive argumentation.” As such it is “an audience attuned to reason” (Perelman
1979: 57); or “those who are disposed to hear [the philosopher] and are capable of
following his argumentation” (Perelman 1982: 17). These statements seem restrict-
ive, and given that “everyone constitutes the universal audience from what he
knows of his fellow men” (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958 [1969]: 33), it has
led to charges of relativism (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1995).
What Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca do not have in mind is a model of univer-
sality traditionally popular with philosophers; one that stands outside of time and
place as a constant measure of what is reasonable. Their universal audience is
embedded in real audiences, since each ‘individual, each culture’ has a personal
conception of it. It emerges as a standard of what is reasonable that is alive in
particular audiences and which is activated as a check against the unreasonable.
The assumption here is that the reasonable is not a fixed idea but one that moves
and progresses across time and within communities. When we reflect on our own
communities we recognize that we no longer accept as reasonable what once was
seen as so. In our own time, we have seen attitudes to the environment change in
this way. It would be unusual – and judged unreasonable – to see a pedestrian
simply drop wastepaper on the ground. Not so long ago such behavior would have
been accepted. How such changes in attitude towards the reasonable come about
is through argumentation, and this assumes that we must be able to stand aside
from our prejudices and special interests and judge things from an ‘objective’ per-
spective. And on the basis of such reviews, we change our minds.
For Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca argumentation is aimed at inducing or
increasing the mind’s adherence to theses presented to it for its assent. ‘Adherence’
is a complex idea here because, as the theory develops, it involves not just the
mind but encompasses the entire person. The aim is not purely intellectual adher-
ence, but the inciting of an action or creating a disposition to act (see Tindale
2010b). One set of adherences is the starting point of argumentation and involves
the initial communication between arguer and audience predicated on commonali-
ties of meaning or belief. This is the level of agreement of basic premises, those
premises which need no further support and can be taken as given. Thus, initially,
an arguer employs techniques to recognize adherence, looking for ‘tokens’ of its
 Models of communicative efficiency 171

presence. Through the process of argumentation, the audience is moved from that
initial base of agreement to another set of adherences that is brought to exist.
It may be more difficult to find tokens of this second set of adherence, since
this involves the determination of the strength of arguments. On the one hand, it
looks as if adherence should be measured by the actions of the audience, as those
actions and audience are intended by the arguer. Hence, Perelman and Olbrechts-
Tyteca (1958 [1969]: 49) speak of ongoing argumentation until the desired action
is actually performed. And thus adherence can be measured by how audiences
behave: what obstacles they overcome, what sacrifices they make, and so on. But
this, as the authors concede, leads to a hazard: since the adherence can always be
reinforced, we cannot be sure when to measure the effectiveness of the argumenta-
tion. If audience uptake is the only criterion, we may be premature in judging the
quality of the argumentation or left unable to decide.
Focus on the effectiveness of argumentation as the sole criterion of strength
can obscure the full weight of the proposals and lead to the kind of dismissive
judgments we see from some of the new rhetoric’s critics. Such a focus overlooks
the way this issue is brought to the fore in one of the key questions of The New
Rhetoric: “Is a strong argument an effective argument which gains the adherence
of the audience, or is it a valid argument, which ought to gain it?” (Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958 [1969]: 463). Just posing the question in this way puts us
outside the chronology of argumentative events where we are left waiting for the
tokens of efficacy. Here, we might appraise the argumentation in terms of how
well the arguer has mustered the elements that should bring about adherence,
given what is known of the audience. Here, Perelman (1979: 58) observes that “the
philosopher must argue in such a manner that his discourse can achieve the adhe-
sion of the universal audience.” Because the quality of a discourse cannot be
judged by its efficacy alone, this more objective standard of reasonableness is
important.
The value of adherence can be seen as an extension of the Aristotelian rhetori-
cal account, with its recognition of the importance of understanding audiences
and creating in them a disposition to act in certain ways. Other Aristotelian
elements appear in the attention given to character considerations and to the
importance of logos, understood as the use of quasi-logical arguments. These are
arguments that assume an understanding of validity found in formal thinking, but
apply that understanding to everyday argumentation that lacks the certainty and
rigor of the formal. Thus, for example, incompatibility is a type of quasi-logical
argument that resembles contradiction but is less rigorous and requires an assess-
ment of the context in which it arises to be identified and evaluated.
Another feature of the new rhetoric project that bears on this as a model of
communicative efficiency is the importance given to achieving communion with
an audience by making the objects of discourse present to the mind. This is one
way in which the project makes use of the tradition of figuration, since many
172 Christopher Tindale

rhetorical figures can be employed to activate and focus ideas in the mind of the
audience (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958 [1969]: 171–179).
Perelman provides a comprehensive model of rhetorical argumentation with
strong Aristotelian roots, organized around a central concern with the communica-
tion between arguers and audiences. Other rhetorical models continue this empha-
sis, but none captures the range of Perelman’s ideas (see Tindale 1999, 2004).7

3.2 Grice and the pragma-dialecticians

Dialectical models of argumentation concentrate on the procedures involved, usu-

ally presenting them in terms of maxims or rules to govern good practice. Two
such approaches offered by the philosopher Paul Grice and the Dutch school of
pragma-dialectics illustrate this approach.
Grice (1913–1988) does not present a full model of argumentation but his work
on logic and conversation is rooted in dialectics and he was one of the first philoso-
phers to take seriously the business of offering advice – in the form of maxims –
for capturing the procedures involved in effective communication.
The Cooperative Principle with its associated sense of implicature, forms the
heart of Grice’s seminal paper, ‘Logic and conversation’ (Grice 1989: 22–40). Talk-
ing is a goal-oriented activity and so its purposes may be better achieved in some
ways than in others, depending on the goal involved. People are advised to make
their contributions to a conversation such as is required by the purpose of the
conversation, and the stage involved. This is the Cooperative Principle. This Princi-
ple, and the primary maxims associated with it, are presented and discussed by
Tim Wharton in his chapter on ‘Linguistic action theories of communication’ in
this volume. So the discussion here will focus on further aspects of Grice’s prag-
matics related to his dialectical model of argumentation and its role in communica-
tive efficiency.
Of the four maxims that Grice introduces (quantity, quality, relation, and man-
ner), the last of these may be judged most important for our purposes because of
the way in which Grice supplements it. In the paper ‘Presupposition and conversa-
tional implicature’ (Grice 1989: 269–282), Grice is concerned with the way that
some assertions invite a denial of all or part of what has been said. In this respect,
he suggests adding to his maxims one which governs such invitations: “Frame
whatever you say in the form most suitable for any reply that would be regarded
as appropriate”; or “Facilitate in your form of expression the appropriate reply”
(1989: 273). This is an important addition on a number of fronts, most particularly
because it constitutes an explicit movement toward the audience. What is said is

7 Critics also identity a failure to include all Aristotle’s insights, such as those regarding pathos
(Gross and Dearin 2003).
 Models of communicative efficiency 173

said not just with an audience in mind, but in anticipation of a response from that
audience. Among other things, this means that a speaker must have quite a clear
idea of who that audience is and what range of responses is likely to follow. The
maxim does not imagine a passive audience receiving messages, but one actively
engaged in the exchange of conversation.
In asking what reasons we have for believing that people cooperate in ways
suggested by the Cooperative Principle, Grice falls back onto experiential ground.
It is “just a well-recognized empirical fact that people do behave in these ways”
(Grice 1989: 29), although he admits he should provide further proof that people
not only do follow the principle but that it is reasonable for them to do so. Essen-
tially, a later examination of reasons and reasonableness (Grice 2001) meets this
requirement: we derive satisfaction or happiness in general from exercising those
capacities that allow us to function as widely as possible under human living
conditions. In the context of the discussion in (Grice 1989) we can understand
that cooperation provides a satisfaction stemming from the exercise of excellences
developing in us as rational beings. The actual discussion phrases things a little
differently in terms of interests: “anyone who cares about the goals that are central
to conversation/communication (such as giving and receiving information, influ-
encing and being influenced by others) must be expected to have an interest, given
suitable circumstances, in participation in talk exchanges that will be profitable
only on the assumption that they are conducted in general accordance with the
Cooperative Principle and maxims” (Grice 1989: 30).
Grice’s work did much to clarify the distinction between semantics and prag-
matics, but one of its primary influences remains on argumentation theory and the
ideas on communication that underlie it (see Kauffeld 1998). Douglas Walton sees
in Grice the idea that parameters of reasonable dialogue are unstated conventions
in realistic argumentation (Walton 1989: 33n1), and Grice has also been seen as an
influence on the development of informal logic (van Eemeren et al. 1996).
A more conscious development of the dialectical approach to argumentation
is illustrated in the theory of pragma-dialectics from the Amsterdam School, initi-
ated by Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst (1984, 1992, 2004), and devel-
oped by van Eemeren (2010) alone and with Peter Houtlosser (van Eemeren and
Houtlosser 1999, 2000, 2002) and others.
Pragma-dialecticians conceive of all argumentation as part of a critical discus-
sion aimed at resolving differences of opinion. They approach this through the
identification and clarification of certain procedural rules, thus conforming to the
dialectical perspective’s interest in argument as procedure. One rule, for example,
requires someone who advances a standpoint to defend it if requested; another
requires the correct application of an argumentation scheme before a standpoint
can be regarded as conclusively defended. The rules govern four stages of dispute
resolution: a confrontation stage, an opening stage, and argumentation stage, and
a concluding stage.
174 Christopher Tindale

Pragma-dialectics is an exemplary model of communicative efficiency. It aims

to be normative and disambiguate language so as to facilitate understanding and,
hence, agreement. In fact, the rules employed can be seen as ‘communication
rules’ drawing on some of Grice’s insights into verbal communication and interac-
tion (van Eemeren 2010: 16). This follows from the observation that argumentation
is a “communicative act complex” (27). Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2005) intro-
duce the idea of an “activity type” to describe the different domains of communica-
tive activity in which argumentation operates. These activity types are conventional
practices that meet and reflect the needs in specific domains of communication
(van Eemeren 2010: 139). So, for example, a domain such as legal communication
is characterized by adjudication as the genre of communicative activity, with court
proceedings, arbitration and summoning as the corresponding activity types. This
organizing of types within domains recalls something of Toulmin’s field-approach
addressed below.

3.3 Toulmin and informal logic

If we accept something of Perelman’s divide between demonstration and argumen-

tation, where demonstration captures the self-evident reasoning of formal logic,
then the types of logic that will interest us in the logical approach to argumentation
will be informal or ordinary logics.
Pioneers in the development and dissemination of informal logic, Ralph John-
son and J. Anthony Blair describe it as: “the normative study of argument. It is the
area of logic which seeks to develop standards, criteria and procedures for the
interpretation, evaluation and construction of arguments and argumentation used
in natural language” (Blair and Johnson 1987: 148). At the heart of this definition
is the product of argumentation – the argument. But rather than a product that
has been torn from the ebb and flow of an argumentative exchange, the ‘informal’
argument is considered within the context of its origin with many features of that
context deemed relevant for the analysis and evaluation of the argument. It matters
who the parties are and what was trying to be achieved in the argument. Thus,
an argument scheme like the ad hominem will bring the person essentially into
consideration as it is decided whether the attack on the person is relevant given
the circumstances involved.
Stephen Toulmin (1922–2009) has an ambiguous relationship with informal
logic and commentators are often unsure whether or not to include him. But inso-
far as he has presented a complete non-formal theory with clear implications for
communicative efficiency, and his model is widely adopted by the American
Speech and Communication community,8 then it deserves consideration.

8 Douglas Ehninger and Wayne Brockriede (1960) introduced the field of communication to
Toulmin’s work, popularizing its use as a method for working with public discourse and as a
logical model for use in rhetorical situations.
 Models of communicative efficiency 175

Toulmin asks what makes arguments work and how are their contents commu-
nicated effectively? He rejects the idea that argumentation can be evaluated solely
using universal norms based on logical form. Instead, he introduces as a technical
term the idea of a field of argument and explores the norms related to different
fields (law would be such a field) and deciding what things about the form and
merit of an argument are field-variable and what field-independent (Toulmin
1958: 14–15).
The ‘Toulmin model’ of argument uses the terms ‘claim,’ ‘data,’ ‘backing,’ and
‘warrant’ to describe an argument’s components. Essentially, this means that the
evidence provided for a claim is more varied and complex than in other logical
models. The claim is based on a set of data, but the use of that data is justified by
a warrant that links the data and claim. In some cases the warrant itself will
require some authoritative support, and this is provided by the backing. In this
way, Toulmin achieves what had been accomplished in different ways in the rhe-
torical and dialectical models – he establishes basic ‘premises’ on which an argu-
ment is grounded, a ground that is assumed acceptable by the audience and that
requires no further support.9 This grounds the communication of arguments in a
common foundation and this facilitates the introduction of new elements which
an audience is being asked to embrace.

4 Conclusion: wider applications and sources for

argumentation and rhetoric
As the foregoing indicates, the traditions of argumentation and rhetoric have pro-
vided important models of communicative efficiency. These models have essen-
tially been those of the Greco-Roman world brought into contemporary discussion
by a range of theoretical approaches. They have also been concerned primarily
with communication between human agents. More recent scholarship has chal-
lenged the prejudices and limits inherent in these traditions.
Attention has been turned, for example, to different traditions coming out of
India and Asia. While Hamblin (1970) paid some attention to Indian logic in his
study of fallacies, he overlooked the way that so much Indian philosophy employs
narrative as an efficient way to communicate ideas. Western thinkers have also
begun to pay more attention to the role of narratives in argumentation, and draw-
ing on this Indian source proposes to enrich and extend that understanding
(Stroud 2004).
Asian rhetoric and argumentation also has traditions that are relevant to con-
siderations of communicative efficiency, but that have been largely overlooked in

9 For an extended example in which Toulmin employs and illustrates all these terms see Toulmin
(1958: 92–99). The full model employs the further terms ‘rebuttal’ and ‘qualifier.’
176 Christopher Tindale

the West. They are now getting important if limited attention (See Jensen 1987;
Wang 2004). This research proceeds with a cautious desire not to impose Western
conceptions on Asian rhetoric and argumentation, but much of the current work
almost necessarily begins from a Western standpoint and approaches the subject
in a comparative manner. Thus, Mary Garrett (1993) explores pathos in light of
Chinese rhetoric and the importance of emotion in communicating positions, and
Jensen (1992) explains the practices of Asian argumentation in terms understand-
able to a Western audience. But there is much more to gather from these sources
as more scholars turn their attention to the East.
Another growing area of scholarship explores relations between communica-
tion, argumentation, and artificial intelligence and ways in which new media like
the Internet affect the roles rhetoric and argumentation play in communicative
efficiency. The work of informal logician Douglas Walton has been widely
embraced by computer scientists looking to use tools like argumentation schemes
(Walton et al. 2008) to develop systems that will model natural language argumen-
tation. Walton himself is involved in this work (see Reed and Walton 2005), arguing
at one point that the influence of argumentation on artificial intelligence has devel-
oped within a framework consistent with pragma-dialectics (Walton and Godden
2006). Overall this innovative work pushes for a model of scheme-based communi-
cation reflective of the Aristotelian and Ciceronian use of topics. It is a model
that combines the work of computer scientists with advanced understandings in
argumentation theory to further effective communication.
A lot of attention has also been devoted to the ways in which new media
enhance the communication processes that employ rhetoric and argumentation.
Chief among these is the use of the Internet to reach diverse audiences that could
never have been imagined by earlier communicators. The Obama presidential cam-
paign of 2008 incorporated new media in communicating its messages and
responding quickly to counter-messages. Such speed in communication is one of
the key advantages of such media. Balanced by the disadvantage of the loss of a
clearly identifiable audience whose responses can be measured and accommo-
dated.
Barbara Warnick’s (2007) book is among several innovative treatments of the
use of rhetoric online. She addresses the importance of analyzing rhetorical activity
on the web, especially as this is expressed through political campaigns. Clearly,
this is a field that will and should continue to attract the attention of rhetoric and
argumentation theorists interested in these disciplines as models of communicative
efficiency.
In many ways, the virtual world, like the traditions of the East, is a realm
untested by the standards of Western rhetoric and argumentation, and so its prom-
ise for improving communication remains unclear. While these traditions have
played a fundamental role in how we have understood ourselves as communica-
tors, they also stand to be reassessed as these new areas of communicative experi-
 Models of communicative efficiency 177

ence are explored. The results will enrich not just our understanding of the powers
inherent in rhetoric and argumentation to foster models of communicative effi-
ciency but also of ourselves as social agents negotiating the terms of our encoun-
ters.

Further reading
Blair, J. A. 2011. Groundwork in the Theory of Argumentation. New York: Springer.
Fahnestock, J. 2011. Rhetorical Style: The Uses of Language in Persuasion. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Mercier, H. & D. Sperber. 2011. Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2). 57–74.

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MA: Loeb Classical Library.
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Cicero. 1976. De Inventione, Hubbell, H. M. (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library.
Conley, T. M. 1990. Rhetoric in the European Tradition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
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John O. Greene and Elizabeth Dorrance Hall
10 Cognitive theories of communication
Abstract: Over the last three decades cognitivism has remained among the domi-
nant theoretical perspectives in the field of communication. In point of fact, how-
ever, the domain of “cognitive theories of communication” encompasses a variety
of only-partially-overlapping approaches to theorizing. In an effort to impose some
conceptual order on this broad and diverse set of theories, functionalism/human
information processing is employed as a reference point for characterizing other
cognitive approaches, including: lay cognitivism, social cognition, and neurosci-
ence. Exemplars of each sort of theory are examined, and promising areas for
future theorizing are discussed.

Keywords: Associative networks, cognitivism, embodied cognition, functionalism,

human information processing, interpersonal transcendence, social cognition,
neuroscience

1 Introduction
The essential warrant underlying the rise of cognitive theories of communication
is the simple notion that understanding communication processes can be advanced
by examining the nature of the mind (and mental processes). This fundamental
assumption might appear to be incontrovertible (particularly at this point in the
historical development of the communication discipline), but it is useful at the
outset to remind ourselves of the degree to which the realm of the mental interpen-
etrates that of the social. Indeed, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, without
cognition there is no communication. And, regardless of the particular communica-
tion domain of interest, be it interpersonal communication, rhetoric, mass commu-
nication, or what have you, always at the core one confronts issues of meaning
(e.g., significance and sense-making), memory (e.g., information acquisition and
skill development), and action (e.g., verbal and nonverbal message behavior, vot-
ing and purchase decisions).
It is quite natural, then, that in pursuit of their various research interests,
communication scholars would seek the insights afforded by taking into account
these foundational mental operations. Indeed, this “cognitive turn” can be seen in
the pioneering work of people like Lasswell, Hovland, and their contemporaries
whose analyses of mass media influences predate even the emergence of depart-
ments of communication in American universities (see Carey 1996; Delia 1987;
Schramm 1997). For these early researchers the fact that the mass media did not
produce uniform, pervasive effects necessitated a concern with individual informa-
182 John O. Greene and Elizabeth Dorrance Hall

tion processing reflected in conceptions of attention, attitudes, stereotypes, and

the like.1
But if there is a sense in which the adoption of a cognitive perspective
was early and obvious, there is another in which this move among communica-
tion scholars has been a relatively recent development. Indeed, “cognitive sci-
ence” is itself a relative newcomer to the panoply of social and behavioral
sciences. While the field of experimental psychology began to develop in the
late nineteenth century, and social and developmental psychology in the early
part of the twentieth, George A. Miller put the date of inception of cognitive
science as September 11, 1956 (the second day of the Symposium on Information
Theory held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; see Gardner 1985: 28).
To our knowledge, the earliest examinations of cognitive science and human
information processing in the field of communication proper can be dated to
about 1970 and the years immediately following (see: Craig 1978; Miller 1969,
1976). And it was not until the 1980s that cognitive approaches to various
communicative phenomena became commonplace (see Berger 2005; Roskos-
Ewoldsen and Monahan 2007). Since that time, however, various stripes of
cognitivism have remained among the dominant theoretical perspectives in the
field (see Craig 1999; Hamilton and Nowak 2005; Knapp and Daly 2011; Nuss-
baum and Friedrich 2005; Powers 1995).

2 Mapping the domain

There are numerous ways that one might seek to organize a discussion of cognitive
theories of communication (e.g., by communication sub-discipline – theories of
interpersonal processes, mass communication processes, etc.; by processing sys-
tem – attention, working memory, long-term memory, etc.; by conceptions of theo-
retical formalisms – scripts, production systems, etc.). In point of fact, the domain
of “cognitive theories of communication” is tremendously broad and encompasses
a variety of only-partially-overlapping approaches to theorizing. One might think
of these various theoretical perspectives as “fuzzy sets,” with central exemplars,
but no clearly defined boundaries. Our approach here, then, is to begin by describ-
ing one particular approach to cognitive theorizing – a conceptual lodestar as it
were – which can then be used as a reference point for mapping the constellation
of other theoretical perspectives.

1 It is equally germane that this same time period witnessed the development of the nascent
discipline of social psychology which reflected a similar embrace of mental constructs in
exploring interpersonal and group dynamics (see Jones 1998).
 Cognitive theories of communication 183

2.1 Canonical cognitive science: functionalism and human

information processing

We take as our point of departure the meta-theoretical stance that is most widely
held among cognitive scientists, that of functionalism (see Churchland 1992; Flana-
gan 1991). Functionalism can be seen as a reaction to the various strands of behav-
iorism that dominated experimental psychology in the United States during the
first half of the twentieth century. The behaviorists, in pursuit of an objective sci-
ence of psychology, dismissed appeals to mental states and processes in favor of
analyses based solely on observables (i.e., stimuli and responses).
In contrast, the essence of functionalism is to posit a model of the mental
system that links stimulus inputs to outputs. Beyond a commitment to focusing
on, rather than eschewing, mental states and events, a second key feature of the
functionalist perspective is that models of the processing system are cast at the
level of mind rather than brain. In other words, rather than focusing on underlying
neurophysiological processes, the primary concern is with understanding the
nature of the functions the information processing system must execute in order to
perform as it does (e.g., if people are able to retain information over some extended
span of time, then the mind must include some sort of long-term memory system
capable of carrying out this function).
The philosophical commitments of functionalism are most fully expressed in
the human information processing (HIP) approach to research and theory construc-
tion. At the heart of the HIP project is the notion of mind as a representational
system (or more correctly, as a series of representational subsystems). Simply put,
the conception is of: (1) a series of processing stages linking inputs to responses,
(2) where at each stage, information, represented in some form, is subjected to the
dedicated process(es) characteristic of that subsystem. To illustrate, a general HIP
model might include the following subsystems:
– Sensory registers – very short-term buffers that hold information in veridical
(i.e., uninterpreted) form prior to processing by subsequent systems.
– Pattern recognition – a system that draws upon information in both sensory
buffers and long-term memory to permit identification of visual (e.g., edges
and curves, faces) and auditory patterns (e.g., phonemes, prosodic features).
– Long-term memory – a system that retains various sorts of information, in
various formats, potentially over spans of years. Among the distinctions com-
monly drawn between LTM subsystems is that between declarative and pro-
cedural memory, where the former is held to be the repository of knowledge
that, i.e., the factual knowledge that one has acquired about the world, and
the latter, the store of knowledge how, i.e., memory representations relevant
to skills such as speaking, interaction regulation, and so on. The declarative
memory subsystem can be further partitioned into episodic and semantic
stores. Episodic memory is the repository of the events (or episodes) of one’s
184 John O. Greene and Elizabeth Dorrance Hall

life (e.g., the first kiss, yesterday’s conversation over lunch). Semantic mem-
ory, in contrast, is the site of acquired information that has been abstracted
from specific episodes – such as the names of one’s friends, and most espe-
cially, word meanings.
– Working memory – a system that is limited in capacity and/or duration,
where information is actively manipulated, and whose contents are typically
held to be consciously available. Working memory is the site of message plan-
ning and rehearsal, rumination over the events of the day, and reflections on
the mass media content one has encountered.
– Effector system – the site of overt response generation. It is here that motor
programs for speech and movement are assembled and executed.

Embracing the conception of mind as a representational system brings to the fore

two essential features of fully developed functional/HIP models. The first of these,
structure, involves the question of how information is represented in some cognitive
stage (or subsystem). To illustrate, information in long-term declarative memory
may be represented in a network structure with nodes corresponding to concepts
and associative links representing relationships between those concepts (see Sec-
tion 2.3). Or, to cite other common examples, schemata – structures that organize
knowledge about categories (e.g., “conservatives,” “electric cars”) and scripts –
long-term memory representations of familiar sequences of events (e.g., “passing
through airport security,” “ordering coffee at Starbucks”).
The second component of functional models, process, involves specification of
the nature and characteristics of the mechanisms by which cognitive content is
utilized or transformed. To continue the associative network example, because any
specific memory (e.g., memories of one’s wedding or the birth of his or her first
child) is not always the focus of our consciousness, functional models typically
invoke conceptions of an activation process that serves to bring memory content
to mind. Similarly, information processing models that invoke conceptions of sche-
mata and scripts usually also incorporate notions of structure activation and “slot
filling” – i.e., inserting the specific details of one’s present situation into the gener-
alized specifications in long-term memory.
Because functional/HIP theories are cast at the level of mind rather than brain,
such theories are not formulated (or tested) by inspection of physical structures
and events (e.g., areas of the brain, synaptic firings, etc.). Instead, functional
models are formulated via the method of “transcendental inference” (Flanagan
1991). In essence, the aim is to posit a system of structures and processes that can
account for observed input-output regularities. For example, it is well established
that people have very limited memory for the specific words of a message, but
memory for the gist or meaning of messages tends to be quite good. This regularity
led to the development of models which hold that information is represented in
memory as “propositions” (i.e., meaning units) rather than as words and word
orders (e.g., Anderson 1976; Frederiksen 1975).
 Cognitive theories of communication 185

Because transcendental inference proceeds from analysis of input-output rela-

tionships, cognitive science is characterized by experimental methods that are
remarkably clever in their efforts to manipulate stimulus features and in identifying
and isolating characteristics of the responses to those stimuli. Cataloguing cogni-
tivists’ techniques for manipulating stimulus inputs in theoretically meaningful
ways may be a nearly impossible project, and certainly it is one beyond the scope
of this chapter. On the output side of the system, however, it is possible to identify
the most common tools at the theorist’s disposal (see Greene 1988, 2008), includ-
ing verbal reports of thought processes, memory assessments (e.g., recognition and
recall), temporal measures (e.g., reaction time, time to task completion), and analy-
sis of performance errors (e.g., speech errors). By their very nature, functional/HIP
models are said to be indeterminate because it is possible to develop multiple
alternative models to account for the same input-output regularities. That is, given
one specification of structures, and processes operating over the content repre-
sented in those structures, it is possible to develop another (actually, many other)
structure-process model(s) that would yield the same predictions.
While the overarching project of functionalism/HIP is to specify the nature of
the stages that link inputs to responses, no theorist sets for him- or herself such
an ambitious task. Rather, individual theories are developed to explain the opera-
tion of an information-processing subsystem, or combination of subsystems, that
give rise to the particular behavioral phenomena of interest. Moreover, within the
overarching functionalism/HIP framework it is possible to discern two very general
approaches to theory building, characterized on one hand by theories that accord
explanatory prominence to specifications of cognitive structures, and on the other
by theories in which the explanatory “heavy lifting” is located in conceptions of
process. At the risk of putting too fine a point on the issue, the distinction hinges
on whether the content of the subsystem of interest is thought to be stored or
computed. But again, the issue is one of relative emphasis: fully developed HIP
models incorporate specifications of both structure and process; nevertheless it is
possible to discern those theories whose primary explanatory power is located in
conceptions of what and how information is stored and those where explanatory
insights stem from specifications of process(es). To illustrate, let us consider an
exemplar of each sort, both pertaining to message production.
Drawing on an earlier model of message behavior developed by Herrmann
(1983), O’Keefe and Lambert (1995) propose that message production involves
selection of relevant facts from one’s long-term store of knowledge. These facts are
activated on the basis of one’s goals and construal of the situation, and comprise
the “propositional base,” or intended meaning of an utterance. Some further sub-
set of the propositional base, then, is selected as the “semantic input” to overt
message production. Here, then, we find an exemplar of approaches to theorizing
that accord emphasis to what is stored rather than to computation: the speaker is
assumed to possess preformed ideas, and message production involves winnowing
186 John O. Greene and Elizabeth Dorrance Hall

a series of these ideas for overt articulation. (To be fair, both O’Keefe and Lambert
and Herrmann do acknowledge that the content of the propositional base may not
always consist of established ideational content, and instead, may in some cases
be actively constructed, but neither theory offers any insight about the nature of
this construction process.)
In contrast to models like that of O’Keefe and Lambert, other HIP theories
accord greater explanatory prominence to the processes that operate over those
structures. An example of a theory of the latter sort is found in second generation
action assembly theory (AAT2; Greene 1997). This theory was developed as a model
of the output system that gives rise to covert (i.e., thoughts) and overt (i.e., verbal
and nonverbal) behaviors, and in particular, the theory is concerned with the fact
that people are able to formulate novel, creative thoughts and actions.
At the foundation of the theory is the conception of a “procedural record” –
basically an associative-network structure that preserves relationships between
features of action, outcomes, and situations – that, as in most network models, is
activated when an individual encounters conditions that correspond to the features
represented in that record. AAT2 departs from functional/HIP models that accord
a primary role to storage in that activation of action features represented in pro-
cedural records, like turning the ignition key of an automobile, only sets in motion
the operation of the output system. From the perspective of AAT2, even the sim-
plest behavior consists of the integration of a great many action features. As a
computation-primacy HIP model, then, AAT2 gives emphasis to specifying the
nature of the “assembly” process by which elemental action features are inte-
grated – a process characterized as “coalition formation” – to form configurations
of thought and action that an individual has never encountered or produced before.
With functionalism/HIP as a reference point, then, let us consider the larger
landscape of cognitive theories of communication.

2.2 Lay cognitivism

Just on the horizon from our functionalism vantage point is the scholarly tradition
of invoking cognitive terms to ground and make sense of communication processes.
This sphere is characterized by appeals to everyday notions of “perception”, “com-
prehension,” “memory,” “thought,” “belief,” “learning,” and so on – and where,
as is depicted in Fig. 1, the underpinning philosophical foundation is that of “folk
psychology” (Churchland 1992). Here we find inquiry grounded, sometimes
informed, and in some cases even motivated, by conceptions of terms that are a
part of the vernacular. As an exemplar we might point to Plato’s Phaedrus which
centers on the role of memory and (cognitive) deliberation in communicative dis-
course. Other examples abound in areas of inquiry as seemingly removed from
cognitive science as critical and interpretive theory. Indeed, this stance can be seen
 Cognitive theories of communication 187

to infuse the entire field of communication, and even where authors do not explic-
itly invoke the terms of lay (latent?) cognitivism, a probing question or two con-
cerning their work will elicit just such terminology.

Fig. 1: The constellation of cognitive theories of communication

2.3 Social cognition

Distinct from the tradition of invoking (or assuming) everyday cognitive terms is
the broad sweep of scholarly inquiry that falls under the rubric of “social cogni-
tion.” Most generally, social cognitive theories are concerned with how people
make sense of their environment (including their message environment), others,
and themselves (see Fiske and Taylor 1991; Jones 1998). This is a very broad set,
indeed, and one that, like functionalism/HIP, is comprised of various “fuzzy sub-
sets.” For present purposes, however, let us restrict discussion to two general theo-
retical orientations that fall under the heading of “social cognition” – the first in
which the focus and emphasis of theorizing is on explicating various cognitive
processes (“process-primacy social cognition”), and the second where theorizing
188 John O. Greene and Elizabeth Dorrance Hall

centers on description of structure-process systems (“structure-process social cog-

nition”).2
Process-primacy social cognition (nearest to the “lay cognition” fuzzy set),
includes the constellation of concepts and theories that constitute the historical
foundations of social cognition. Here are located the various instantiations of cog-
nitive dissonance theory, social perception and attribution theories, social learning
theory, theories of group influence, social comparison theory, and so on (see Jones
1998). The distinction between the exemplars of lay cognitivism and those of theo-
ries of this sort is that, in the latter, cognitive concepts take on a primary theoreti-
cal or explanatory focus. Thus, lay cognitivists may make reference to “self-con-
cept” or “attitudes,” as examples, but in the traditions of social cognition, the
nature of the self and attitudes are a central focus of theorizing. As exemplars
of the process-primacy fuzzy subset, let us consider three particularly prominent
theories, one focused on attitude change, the second on the link between attitudes
and behavior, and the last on social perception processes.
The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) is one of a class of theories developed
to address seeming anomalies in studies of persuasion and attitude change (see
Petty and Wegener 1998). These “dual-process” theories posit that people may
engage in effortful scrutiny and analysis of the evidence and arguments in a mes-
sage, or they may rely on simple heuristics and “rules of thumb.” According to the
ELM, both types of processing are typically at work, but the relative influence of
analytic (or “central”) versus heuristic (or “peripheral”) processing is determined,
in large part, by an individual’s motivation and ability to process a message. Thus,
messages that are personally relevant or that pertain to topics one is knowledgea-
ble about are more likely to generate message-relevant thoughts, or “elaborations.”

2 There is a third, very common, variant of social cognitive theorizing in communication that
merits note in this context. In truth, this approach is probably as much a presentational
convention as a distinct approach to theory building, so despite its ubiquity, we have opted to
relegate it to a footnote, recognizing that specific instantiations of theories of this type may be
roughly categorized as either “process-primacy” or “structure-process” models. In the spirit of
HIP approaches, “white-boxology” or “box-and-arrow” models specify some sequence of
processing stages underlying the cognitive, affective/emotional, or behavioral phenomena of
interest (but in almost all cases, rather than a strictly linear ordering, these models incorporate
recursive paths that feed back to prior stages). Such models may be more or less elaborate,
specifying few or many processing steps (and the detail in specification of processes at each
step also varies considerably). A typical example of a more parsimonious formulation is found in
Dillard’s (2008) presentation of the Goals-Plans-Action (G-P-A) theory of message production
which identifies just five processing steps (“goal assessment,” “decision to engage,” “plan
generation,” “plan selection,” and “tactic implementation,”) along with a short-term buffer
system, to explicate goal-relevant message behavior. At the other extreme of the elegance/
parsimony continuum are models such as those surveyed by Hamilton (2007) in his review of
theories of persuasive message processing where some frameworks invoke dozens of cognitive
states and processes.
 Cognitive theories of communication 189

The ELM further posits that attitudes established via central processing are more
likely to persist, influence behavior, and to be resistant to counter-persuasion.
A second example of theories in this fuzzy subset grew out of the common
empirical observation that attitudes are often only weakly predictive of attitude-
relevant behaviors. As an initial attempt to address this issue, Fishbein (e.g., Fish-
bein and Ajzen 1975) developed the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) which,
among other contributions, introduced the idea that the link between attitudes
about some target and behavior toward that target is mediated by intention to
perform the behavior. These intentions, in turn, were held to be a function of
attitudes toward the behavior and social normative pressures. The TRA was subse-
quently extended in Ajzen’s (e.g., 1991) Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The key
move in the TPB was to posit that, in addition to attitudes toward the behavior
and subjective social norms, there is a third factor, perceived behavioral control,
at work. In essence, perceived behavioral control involves the ease or difficulty of
performing the behavior in question. The upshot of the theory, then, is that inten-
tions to perform a behavior will be increased when an individual has a positive
attitude toward the behavior, when the person perceives that he or she can success-
fully execute that behavior, and when the behavior is expected and approved by
others.
A third important exemplar of process-primacy theorizing is found in uncer-
tainty reduction theory (URT; Berger and Bradac 1982). This theory proposes that
human beings have a fundamental social motivation to reduce uncertainty about
themselves and others. This motivation is heightened under certain conditions,
including circumstances where people expect continued interaction with another,
when others act in unusual ways, and when another has the ability to dispense
rewards and punishments. The theory further specifies three broad classes of strat-
egies that people may employ to reduce uncertainty: passive (e.g., simply observing
another), active (i.e., taking action to learn about another without actually talking
to him or her), and interactive (i.e., communicating with the target person). In later
treatments of URT (e.g., Berger 1997), various linguistic devices for dealing with
conditions of uncertainty are also specified.
As should be apparent from our exposition of the ELM, TPB, and URT, the
focus of social cognitive theories of this sort is on explicating various mental proc-
esses, and issues of structure are accorded less (if any) consideration. In contrast,
a second constellation of theories in the social cognition fuzzy set, more in the
tradition of functionalism/HIP, incorporates both structure and process specifica-
tions. Three exemplars illustrate theorizing of this type; two we have selected
because they represent the most common approach to structure-process social cog-
nitive theorizing, and the third because it exemplifies other theoretical possibili-
ties.
Communication theorists commonly acknowledge that people produce messa-
ges in pursuit of various goals (e.g., to persuade, to build relationships, etc.), but
190 John O. Greene and Elizabeth Dorrance Hall

whence come those goals? (see also Chapter 14, Bangerter and Mayor). Wilson’s
(e.g., 1995) cognitive rules model was developed to address just this question. Wil-
son posits an associative network, like those mentioned above, where the nodes
(or concepts) represent situational features, social roles, properties of interpersonal
relationships, desired outcomes, and so on. Also as is typical for associative net-
work models, the theory assumes a spreading activation process such that excita-
tion of one node spreads to other associated nodes. The upshot is that encounter-
ing situational and relational conditions that correspond to those represented in a
particular network serves to activate a representation of what to do in that situa-
tion. The greater the fit between one’s current situation and the features repre-
sented in some particular structure, the more highly activated that structure will
be. When activation exceeds some threshold level, a goal is thought to be triggered.
And, finally, as is also common in associative network approaches, the cognitive
rules model maintains that the associative links in a network vary in strength,
where strength is a function of recency of activation. As a result, some goals may
become chronically accessible as the structures in which they are embedded
become increasingly stronger.
A second instantiation of associative network theorizing is found in attitude
accessibility theory (see Roskos-Ewoldsen 1997). In this theory, concepts repre-
sented in memory are linked to various evaluative responses, as, for example, a
person associating “Adolf Hitler” with “revulsion.” When the associative link
between a concept and evaluative response is sufficiently strong, reactions to pre-
sentations of that concept are fast and cognitively effortless. Moreover, borrowing
from the ELM discussed above, more accessible attitudes are posited to lead to
central-route processing and greater attitude – behavior consistency.
Our third example, Berger’s (e.g., 1997) work on message planning, illustrates
a very different approach to structure-process social cognitive theorizing. Plans are
typically thought to consist of a specification of some initial state, a desired end
state, and a series of steps or sub-goals linking the two. Berger proposes that plans
vary in complexity, where complexity reflects both the level of detail and the num-
ber of contingencies represented in the plan. He further specifies factors that will
affect plan complexity (e.g., level of motivation to accomplish some goal; extensive-
ness of a person’s knowledge relevant to pursuit of the goal) and behavioral conse-
quences of enacting more and less complex plans. A second important set of ideas
put forward by Berger concerns the nature of plan revisions made in response to
thwarting. Beginning with the standard conception of plans as hierarchical struc-
tures where abstract conceptions at upper levels are specified at successively more
concrete levels, he introduces the “hierarchy principle” which posits that, ceteris
paribus, in the face of initial failure, people will first seek to modify low-level
properties of their actions, and only with continued thwarting will they endeavor
to alter higher level components of their plans.
 Cognitive theories of communication 191

2.4 Neuroscience

A fourth fuzzy set in the cognitive constellation involves theories cast at the level
of neural structures and processes. In contrast to folk psychology and functional-
ism, then, the underpinning philosophical stance here is one or another version
of materialism (see Churchland 1992). As is true of each of the other approaches
we’ve examined here, the neuroscience fuzzy set is, itself, comprised of various
subsets. At the rightmost edges of the set depicted in Fig. 1 are studies of brain
function that bear on communication only insofar as they are concerned with defi-
cits stemming from neural disorders and injury (e.g., autism, aphasia). More cen-
trally, there is the sphere of “computational neuroscience,” or, more generally,
“cognitive neuroscience” (see Schwartz 1990) which, like functionalism/HIP is con-
cerned with issues of information processing (e.g., pattern recognition, memory,
etc.), but, in contrast to the latter, seeks to understand these phenomena at the
level of brain rather than mind.
Among the projects of cognitive neuroscience that are of greatest relevance to
communication theorists is the work on mirror neurons (see Gallese 2009). These
are neurons that fire not only when a person performs some motor task, but also
when he or she simply observes someone else performing that task. Such neurons
may play a role in language acquisition (see Theoret and Pascual-Leone 2002), and
empathy, rapport, and interpersonal bonding (see Cappella and Schreiber 2006).
A second cluster in the cognitive neuroscience realm consists of studies of adrenal
functioning, particularly cortisol, in response to stressful social situations and
events (see Dickerson and Kemeny 2004). Yet another emerging research nexus
involves examination of brain metabolism in response to message inputs via
recourse to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Examples of studies of
this sort include investigations of responses to mass media content (see Anderson
and Murray 2006) and processing facial expressions of emotion (see Phelps 2006).
One final fuzzy subset of note here is that of “social neuroscience” (see Cacioppo
2002), where early studies have indicated that social mentation (e.g., deliberating
about the actions or motives of others) is associated with patterns of brain activity
that are distinct from those associated with other types of thought.

3 Unfinished business
The discussion to this point should make clear that the realm of “cognitive theories
of communication” is both extensive and diverse, and this has necessitated that
we paint in very broad strokes in attempting to address the topic in a conceptually
coherent and meaningful way. Moreover, from all the possible theories we might
have chosen to examine, we have been selective in choosing as our exemplars
those that are especially illustrative of some point of emphasis or that have been
192 John O. Greene and Elizabeth Dorrance Hall

particularly influential in shaping understandings of communication processes.

But in so doing we have omitted examination of several important traditions of
research and theory, and any chapter purporting to survey the domain ought at
least to apprise the reader of what did not find its way into our treatment (and
point him or her to some resource for further research). Space permitting, then,
the map depicted in Fig. 1 could be augmented with additional fuzzy sets, subsets,
and exemplars, including the following: communication-skill acquisition (see
Greene 2003), discourse processing (Kintsch 1992), cognitive development and lan-
guage acquisition (see Clark 2003), decision-making and problem-solving (see
Holyoak and Morrison 2005), affect and emotion (see de Houwer and Hermans
2010), and self-concept, self-presentation, and self-regulation (see Baumeister
1998).
Each of these topics, and others we might have as easily included, is a focus
of longstanding traditions of research and theorizing. Let us conclude, though, by
examining some other perspectives and approaches that have not, to date, had the
same degree of impact in theorizing about communication, but that might assume
greater prominence in the future.

3.1 Embodied cognition

As described above, HIP and social cognitive approaches to theorizing about com-
munication have traditionally reflected a functionalist foundation in that they
eschew physical terms in favor of accounts cast at the level of mind. And, as we’ve
seen, grounded in materialism, neuroscience focuses primarily on brain structures
and processes. Embodied cognition extends the materialist project beyond the
brain in that bodily states, including sensory systems and muscle movements and
configurations, are seen to impact perception, memory, and other aspects of infor-
mation processing (see Prinz 2002). Thus, studies show, for example, that inducing
subjects to nod their heads up and down facilitates positive thoughts and impedes
the converse (Wells and Petty 1980), and that people find cartoons funnier when
they hold a pencil horizontally in their lips, approximating the muscle configura-
tion of a smile (Strack et al. 1988). Scholars in the field of communication proper
have not made extensive inroads in applying the concepts of embodied cognition
in their theorizing to this point, but researchers in cognate disciplines have made
growing use of this framework in exploring phenomena like persuasive message
processing (see Bohner and Dickel 2011) and emotion (see Barrett 2006) that are
of central concern to people in the field.

3.2 Conjoint mentation

We noted in the introduction to this chapter that cognitivism has remained among
the most influential approaches to theorizing about communication processes for
 Cognitive theories of communication 193

the last 30 years. That said, cognitivism has not been without its critics. Among
the earliest (and most often echoed) critiques is that cognitive theorizing is too
individualistic – that in focusing on conceptions of individual information process-
ors, cognitivism distorts what are fundamentally social processes (see: Harre 1981;
Sampson 1981). As one of your authors has noted elsewhere (Greene and Herbers
2011), arguments on either side of this issue highlight a tension between thinking
of people as “cognizers” or “communicators” – as the site of input, memory, and
output systems, or as social actors inextricably linked to others. It is certainly true
that, historically, cognitive science has given emphasis to analysis of individual
information processing, but it need not necessarily be so. Here and there we find
attempts to theorize the “cognitive communicator” – to address the socially embed-
ded, interactive nature of thought.
As our final exemplar, then, we would point to Greene and Herbers’s (2011)
theory of “interpersonal transcendence.” In their view, transcendence is a state of
maximal interpersonal engagement, characterized by experiences of mutuality,
joint discovery, and play. Interactions of this sort are memorable, exhilarating, and
seemingly, rare. The thrust of the theory is to explicate the cognitive mechanisms
by which one’s actions spur the thoughts and actions of his or her interlocutor.
Drawing on the action assembly theory (AAT2) discussed in Section 2.1, the theory
of interpersonal transcendence locates the foundations of conjoint mentation in
properties of activation of long-term memory structures, the assembly of activated
information, and the nature of executive processes that keep self-focused ideations
at bay.

4 Conclusion
A key component of our attempt to trace the contours of the constellation of “cog-
nitive theories of communication” is the identification of the three underlying
meta-theoretical perspectives depicted in Fig. 1. Thus, theorizing about the cogni-
tive bases of message processing and production can be seen to be grounded in
the everyday terms and concepts afforded by folk psychology, formulations cast in
functional terms, or by recourse to neurophysiological states and processes. At the
same time, we have tried to emphasize that the lines between these various stances
are blurred, and that, in the realm of science and theory (rather than meta-theory),
each blends into the others.
As a final note we would point to a fourth conceptual perspective relevant
to the issues at hand. Generative realism (see Greene 1994) is a meta-theoretical
framework developed within the broader commitments of transcendental realist
conceptions of scientific theory which hold that behavioral phenomena are the
result of the complex interplay of various causal mechanisms and that the essential
project of science is to describe those mechanisms (see Bhaskar 1978; Manicas and
194 John O. Greene and Elizabeth Dorrance Hall

Secord 1983). A central claim of generative realism, then, is that people are not
social beings, nor psychological beings, or even physiological beings. Rather, it is
more appropriate to conceive of persons as, simultaneously, all three, and the task
of theories of human behavior is to explicate the mechanisms by which the social,
psychological, and physiological interact. But, obviously, the project of generative
realism would blur even more the distinctions that we have tried to sketch here,
and future writers attempting to survey the realm of cognitive theories of communi-
cation and impose some meaningful conceptual organization on that body of work
may find that task even more complex and daunting than have we.

Further reading
Berger, Charles R. & Nicholas A. Palomares. 2011. Knowledge structures and social interaction. In:
Mark L. Knapp and John A. Daly (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Interpersonal Communication,
4th edn, 169–200. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Greene, John O. 2008. Information processing. In: Wolfgang Donsbach (ed.), The International
Encyclopedia of Communication, Volume 5, 2238–2249. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Greene, John O. & Melanie Morgan. 2009. Cognition and information processing. In: William F.
Eadie (ed.), 21st Century Communication: A Reference Handbook, Volume 1, 110–118.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Roskos-Ewoldsen, David R. & Jennifer L. Monahan (eds.). 2007. Communication and Social
Cognition: Theories and Methods. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Wilson, Steven R., John O. Greene & James Price Dillard (eds.). 2000. Special issue: Message
production: Progress, challenges, and prospects. Communication Theory 10 (2).

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Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt and Colwyn Trevarthen
11 Theories of the development of human
communication
Abstract: We consider evidence for innate motives for sharing rituals and symbols
from animal semiotics, developmental neurobiology, physiology of prospective
motor control, affective neuroscience and infant communication. Mastery of speech
and language depends on polyrhythmic movements in narrative activities of many
forms. Infants display intentional activity with feeling and sensitivity for the con-
tingent reactions of other persons. Talk shares many of its generative powers with
music and the other ‘imitative arts.’ Its special adaptations concern the capacity
to produce and learn an endless range of sounds to label discrete learned under-
standings, topics and projects of intended movement.

Keywords: Motives, emotions, creativity, infant development, intersubjectivity,

cooperative awareness, narrative, ritual, meaning, musicality

1 Introduction: creating a human self: from

intercellular cooperation to the shared
imagination of culture
1.1 Making persistent individuals

This paper describes anticipatory adaptations of body and brain that create learn-
ing of communication, particularly the learning of language. Inborn endowments
for expressive movement enable human infants to share intentions, experiences
and emotional evaluations, including esthetic and long before they speak, moral
feelings about ‘self-with-other’ experiences. Expressive actions of young children
motivate shared experience in conversation and eager cooperation in imaginative
projects. These actions will mediate in the transmission of artificial practices,
beliefs and techniques between individuals throughout life, and build knowledge
and skills between generations.
We seek to give a more natural scientific foundation to abstract speculations
in psychology and linguistics about how a child is led to learn words and to under-
stand what they mean – not only what purposes and facts spoken words specify,
but also how they ‘feel’ in live transmission. Prevailing theories of innate cognitive
programs for discrimination and generation of the semantic and syntactical func-
tions of text ignore the motivating and affective roots. They do not adequately
200 Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt and Colwyn Trevarthen

reflect either the knowledge we have about vocal and postural communication in
animals, or the development of unique vocal and gestural communication skills in
human beings before they are able to speak. They disregard the capacity these
expressive ways of moving have for cultivation into symbolic representations of
projects, imaginative ideas and acquired knowledge (Merker 2009a; Trevarthen et
al. 2011). They neglect the functional social space of meaning (Halliday and Matthi-
essen 2004) and the poetic/emotional ‘languages within language’ (Fónagy 2001),
which guide the mastery of communication in early childhood (Bråten 1998, 2009).
They regard emotional expression as a manifestation of stresses in regulation of
the body and of information processing, not as integral with the causal motivators
of adaptive action and experience (cf. Panksepp 1998, 2003; Panksepp and Trevar-
then 2009; Trevarthen 2009).
We examine how the organic or biological and psychological foundations of
ideas carried in language emerge before birth in the body-with-brain and its feel-
ing-full activities. We look for the antecedent developmental states and tendencies,
from conception through gestation, to trace how the first movements and their
intentions and affections become shared as imaginative narrative projects and
enriched with consciousness of valued meaning (Bruner 1990; Trevarthen and
Delafield-Butt 2011). First, however, we are concerned with the nature of self-regu-
lating systems in general, and how developing life forms, as agents, demonstrate
general evolutionary principles of creativity and cooperation.

1.2 Self-generated activity, context, and cooperative adaptation

in natural phenomena

Scientific description and measurement reveals that any enduring substance or

system requires cooperation, both between its elements, and with its environment.
Adaptive, self-organizing connectedness and rhythmic harmonies of process and
form give rise to a unique organization in living organisms (Whitehead 1929; Prigo-
gine and Stengers 1984). The self-sustaining dynamic relationships between its
elements, their mutual active values, are also creative. They determine the develop-
ment or ‘ontogeny’ of that kind of being – how it will interact with different condi-
tions to sustain its individual being. Anticipatory adaptations cope with probable
change in circumstances – as Whitehead says, even inorganic ‘organisms’ “create
their own environment” (Whitehead 1929: 138).
A living organism sustains its creative form of organization by processes of
growth and activity, challenging its relationship with the environment. From this
we infer that the function of intelligence in the regulation of the vitality of an
animal, including its communication of purposes, feelings, and understandings to
other individuals in a shared world for cooperative goals, is to create and propagate
its ways of moving to use its accessible world in self-sustaining ways. Regulation
 Theories of the development of human communication 201

of vitality and agency of the body is the adaptive function of the animal’s nervous
system, in all its parts, and as a whole sensory-motor Self (Sherrington 1906;
Merker 2005; Packard 2006; Northoff and Panksepp 2008).

1.3 Ontogenesis of intelligent life forms and their societies

Living organisms grow and survive in epigenetically regulated relations with their
surroundings, changing expression of their genes in creative response to circum-
stances, reproducing bodies and life histories that both ‘expect’ and ‘depend on’
environmental opportunities for their vitality (Bateson 1894; Whitehead 1929;
Bateson 1980). The molecular ecology within and between living cells can only
thrive if the systems and organs of the life form they are within also thrive, function
and develop as they are adapted to do. The dynamic neural regulations in an
animal organism have inner and outer aspects of ‘self-related processing’ (Northoff
and Panksepp 2008), and a child thrives only if it inspires the human world with
a love generated by a powerful desire to meet the child’s needs for survival and
development (Narváez et al. 2011). There is an inborn collaboration between a
supportive ecology inside each animal, the ‘milieu interne’ of Claude Bernard
(1865), and an arousal of instincts for behavioral engagements with media and
agents outside the body. These together, the self-maintenance of vital states and the
action in the world, provide the essential adaptive structure for psychobiological
development and the success of animals and humans and of their societies. Human
societies depend on the impulses of young children to find parental companions,
and to inspire affection and playful desires for sharing experiences and making
them meaningful. The natural motives in child and parent are complementary ‘co-
adaptations’ for the life of human society (Bateson 1979; Narváez et al. 2011).
In the development of this human child the principle of creative and coopera-
tive vitality is repeated over all the scales of organization of the units of vitality,
from beginnings in the fertilized egg, through the tissues and organs of embryo,
fetus, and developing child, to participation in the social organization of a culture,
drawing on accumulated knowledge and skills (Trevarthen et al. 2006).

1.4 Consciousness is the prospective control of agency,

generated for coordination and regulation of movement

Animals as embodied and motivated agents are coherent and self-regulated. Their
bodies are prepared to move with prospective control in an awareness of space and
time that is created for integrated guidance of their limbs and senses (von Hofsten
1993; von Hofsten 2004; Lee 2005). They act intelligently, with affective evaluation
of what they are doing in the immediate present, what they may do in the more
202 Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt and Colwyn Trevarthen

distant future, and what they remember having done in the past. This ‘life world’
in action (von Uexküll 1957) can be elaborated by learning, but it cannot be created
by learning – it learns in order to grow. Humans exhibit exceptionally rich ‘auto-
noesis’ or the making of a ‘personal life history’ (Tulving 2002), as well as cultural
‘socionoesis’ or the making of a ‘habitus’ of meaning by ‘story-telling’ (Bruner
1990, 2003; Trevarthen 2011a).
The brain is formed to be the generator of an intentional and feeling-full con-
sciousness in an individual. Its spontaneous activity ‘knows’ ahead in time what
any of its movement will do or lead to, ‘expects’ the effects of stimuli in a ‘body-
centered world,’ and can ‘project’ or ‘associate’ its experience of vital physiological
arousal and need onto items of experience to give situations and objects affecting
qualities or feelings (Sherrington 1906; Lashley 1951; Sperry 1952; von Holst and
von St. Paul 1960; Gibson 1966; Bernstein 1967; Damásio 2010). The evidence from
embryogenesis confirms that the integrative neural mechanism is mapped early in
development to excite prospective movement in integrated command of the form
and functions of the body, with its environment-directed effectors and receptors
and internal felt needs. In this behavior field, different innate adaptive modes of
activity and awareness (Trevarthen 1986a), different ‘arousals’ of awareness with
feeling (Pfaff 2006; Stern 2010), guide complementary functions between percep-
tions – of objects and agents in the environment, of body movement, and of inter-
nal vital physiological need – to give ‘self-related processing’ (Sherrington 1906;
Northoff and Panksepp 2008; Panksepp and Northoff 2009).
The actions of the animal sustain physiological wellbeing by guiding locomo-
tion through the media of the surrounding world with selective attention to local
objects identified for their life-giving potencies as good (i.e., to be sought for and
taken up), bad (i.e., dangerous, to be avoided) or neutral (i.e., safe to ignore).
These embodied principles of evaluation can be transmitted as signals to other
individuals if they are endowed with the same sensory capacities enabling a sym-
pathetic ‘mirroring’ of rhythmic patterns of body movement and inner regulatory
dynamics (von Uexküll 1957; Trevarthen 1986b; Bråten 2009).
A child’s movements powerfully communicate to other human beings the
inborn regulatory process of the human mind and their acquired modifications
(Aitken and Trevarthen 1997; Bråten and Trevarthen 2007; Panksepp and Trevar-
then 2009). They display the ‘motor images’ which assist the planning of their
efficient mastery of the mechanics of a heavy moving body with complex limbs
(Bernstein 1967), the spontaneous ‘serial ordering’ of their movements in body-
related space and time (Lashley 1951) and the ‘prospective control’ of the reach
and force of their individual actions in this space-time field (Lee 2005, 2009). When
we move with grace and purpose we assimilate sensory input to guide output of
our nervous system by a process that aims to control the future experience of
our behavior. This process becomes communicative by transfer of action-related
information between intra- and inter-subjective realms (Trevarthen 1986b; Gallese
 Theories of the development of human communication 203

2001; Sinigaglia and Rizzolatti 2011; Trevarthen et al. 2011). Learned complexes of
gesture become habits of individual action and of cooperation in shared, cultural
experience, including the imitative arts of music, theatre, and dance, which, with
poetry and song, bring the referential communication of language back to its inter-
personal and self-sensing foundations (Fónagy 2001; Malloch and Trevarthen
2009).

1.5 Communication in the making of animal society, human

culture, and language

The principles of animal semiosis, or social signalling, elucidated by Jacob von

Uexküll (von Uexküll, 1926) were developed by Sebeok (1977: 1994) as a science of
‘semiotics.’ They affirm an evolutionary theory of human symbolic communication
and the social foundations of language (Halliday 1978; Rommetveit 1998), and they
elucidate how the special human aptitudes for invention of art and technology
grow from the creative and cooperative abilities of expression and response which
infants show (Stern et al. 1985; Trevarthen and Logotheti 1987; Trevarthen 1990;
Reddy 2008; Stern 2010). Human beings transform their environment by projects
and structures they invent: “The tool kit of any culture can be described as a set
of prosthetic devices by which human beings can exceed or even redefine the
‘natural limits’ of human functioning” (Bruner 1990). Infants and children are
ready for this cultural creativity (Trevarthen 2011a). They share an imaginative and
highly emotional life in intimate and playful attachments with parents, peers, and
neighbours. Language amplifies and extends the intrinsic impulses and feelings
for co-operative functioning, and becomes an historically elaborated descriptive
and informative ‘tool’ for making shared projects more effective by describing flex-
ible inventive forms of social coordination, perspective-taking and joint action
(Tylén et al. 2010).
Cooperative rituals of art and technique support group mastery of the environ-
ment by expanding shared imagination as a history (Turner 1982; Turner and Bru-
ner 1986; Donald 2001). The building of cultural knowledge is aided by carrying
messages through many generations in symbolic activities, products, and lan-
guage, transforming intelligence about the uses and qualities of the world and how
individuals perceive one another and share purposes and feelings (Darwin 1872;
Vygotsky 1978; Bruner 1990; Bråten 1998, 2009). Speech and language depend on
new motor skills and a special human enthusiasm for elaborate ritual and vocal
learning (Merker 2009a, b, 2012; MacNeilage 2008; MacNeilage 2011), and on emo-
tional communication in the ‘musicality’ of gesture and vocalization (Bloom 2002;
Lüdtke 2011). In art, technology and language, these adaptations expand the capac-
ity for communication of experiences and inventions through different ‘loci of con-
cern,’ from the immediate present realm of space and time, to future events, to
204 Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt and Colwyn Trevarthen

remembered pasts, and to imagined, mythical or theoretical times and places

(Donaldson 1992).

2 Cooperative vitality in the creation and nurture

of a human communicative self before birth: The
first 60 days: cells cooperate to build tissues
and organs of an embryo human being
A human life begins with the creative act of two individuals coming together in
intimacy, disengaged from practical concerns, with eagerness for life and joy in
the risk of shared bodies, in impulsive activity that sends the sperms of the male
toward the ova inside the female. Their hormonal mechanisms and physiological
arousal systems are powerfully engaged (Pfaff 2006). The fertilized human egg
joins with a mother’s body that is adapted to protect and aid the formations of the
body and brain of a new form of primate. The creation of a new human life shows
cooperation at all the levels of biological organization (Trevarthen et al. 2006).
Cells produced by division of the fertilized egg regulate their gene activity
by reciprocal, cooperative systems that govern how their populations will divide,
migrate, and differentiate (Waddington 1940). ‘Sense data’ appropriated between
neighbouring cells through diffusible bio-molecules, surface-surface contact, and
mechanical tensions activate patterns of genes, which determine how cells will
aggregate to form tissues and organs with different functions (Edelman 1988). The
polarized body is formed with sensitive head end and active posterior, and nervous
and humoral regulations of a variety of arousals for world-related action and pres-
ervation of internal vitality, and their timing (Trevarthen et al. 2006). The central
nervous system is integrated as the coordinator of a being that, though still immo-
bile and insensitive, is formed for the joys and fears of a future mobile life in
intelligent engagement with the environment (Beddington and Robertson 1999).
Collaboration between the germ layers of the embryo begins early in embryo-
genesis, as each tissue “needs the help of its sister travellers…” (Pander 1817). The
endoderm forms the digestive tract that appropriates and digests food; the meso-
derm becomes the visceral organs, muscles, and bone that make up the bulk of
the body with its transformative and life-sustaining functions; and the ectoderm
forms both the skin and all of the nervous tissue of the sense organs, brain, and
peripheral nervous system with its sensory and motor components, somatic and
visceral (Hamilton et al. 1962). Both brain and skin are adapted for selective
engagement with the outside world and for protecting and regulating the energy
balance of vitality inside.
 Theories of the development of human communication 205

3 The fetus develops organs for life in an

imaginative cultural world
3.1 Growth of centrencephalic systems for intentions, emotions
and conscious agency

According to the ‘centrencephalic’ theory of consciousness, first presented by Pen-

field and Jasper (1954), the midbrain, though anatomically sub-cortical, is function-
ally supra-cortical. The sub-cortical upper brain stem and midbrain territories
between the hypothalamus and superior colliculi are responsible for emotionally
charged states of our core, embodied ‘anoetic’ conscious agency (Vandekerckhove
and Panksepp 2011), which serve basic generation of action, orientations to experi-
ence and emotional appraisals. These primary mental functions ontogenetically
and functionally precede cortically-mediated cognitive ones. Cognition may
enhance and assist with additional ‘tools’ for use by this core control system and
its expansion in learning adaptation to external realities, but the primary motives
and evaluations remain sub-cortically-mediated. Expression of this core conscious-
ness makes intersubjective engagements of action and awareness possible (Watt
2004).
The centrencephalic theory is confirmed by studies of the growth of intelligent
activity and ‘self-related processing’ in the human embryo. The first integrative
pathways of the brain are in the core of the brain stem and midbrain (Windle 1970),
and the earliest whole body movements, though undifferentiated in their goals, are
coherent and rhythmic in time (Lecanuet et al. 1995). When sensory input develops,
there is evidence, not just of reflex response to stimuli, but of the intrinsic generation
of prospective control of more individuated actions, before the neocortex is func-
tional. In the third trimester of gestation, when the cerebral neocortex is beginning
formation of functional networks, movements show guidance by touch, by taste
and by responses to the sounds of the mother’s voice, with learning.
After birth the infant’s conscious activity soon exhibits what Sherrington (1906)
called ‘projicience’ of sight and hearing to anticipate the location and properties of
objects external to the body, and evaluation or ‘affective appraisal’ of those proper-
ties in relation to vital processes. The former are dependent on neocortex, but the
latter are created in subcortical systems. A newborn infant has well-developed coor-
dination of the body, expression of vital needs, and means for selective communica-
tion with the affectionate attentions of the mother and by engaging with her com-
plementary adaptations for affectionate response to the infant’s needs (Als 1995).
The role of the cerebral cortex, in imaginative identification and memorizing of
features of the environment and of objects, and for refined sensory control of com-
plex movements of manipulation and articulation of vocalizations, is critical for
adaptation of practical activities and for communication by language learned in the
years after birth. But the prenatal development of subjective and intersubjective
206 Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt and Colwyn Trevarthen

motives demonstrates that the ‘intentional core’ and ‘seat of consciousness,’ with
emotional regulation of purposeful action and its communication, should not be
identified with a learned ‘executive’ function of the cerebral cortices, as cognitive
science proposes. Specifications for a body-centered neural field for perceptual gui-
dance of whole-body action forms a scaffold for higher mental processes and more
complex patterns of action, which are laid down in the fetal period by growth of
additional structures of body and brain for sensory regulation of movements in an
unstimulating, highly-controlled intrauterine environment (Trevarthen 1985). The
first motor, sensory, and interneuronal connections in humans at 35 to 40 days
form a basic nerve network in advance of any receptor excitation.

3.2 Fetal syntax: signs of self-generated feelings and

imaginative intentions in the first and second trimesters of
gestation

After two months gestation the developing child already has body parts adapted
for forms of action, awareness, and communication characteristic of the human
species (Hamilton et al. 1962; Trevarthen 1985). Organs of selective awareness and
communicative expression – mobile head, eyes, face, and vocal system – are differ-
entiated and approximate to their adult forms. The first spontaneous body move-
ments occur at this time (de Vries et al. 1982; Prechtl 1986). Cycles and rhythmical
or pulsating bursts of movement of the early fetus indicate autogenous, i.e. ‘self-
generated,’ pacemaker systems that will animate perception of time and give tempo
to later acts of communication (Wolff 1966; Osborne 2009; Trevarthen 2009).
After three months, information from eyes, ears, nose, and mouth is carried in
an impulse code and mapped out in central nerve circuits specified to relate move-
ments in one body-related behavior field (Trevarthen 1985). The precocious appear-
ance of adaptively organized reaching and touching movements with postural con-
trol and accompanied by compensatory eye movements, indicates that the first
organized efferent-afferent neural feedback loops, carrying signals from the brain
to excite the peripheral motor effect and reflecting back sensations, are those repre-
senting a whole-Self-sensing system that controls the coordinated displacement of
many body parts. Organized whole-body or body-part movements of the early fetus
include ‘bicycling’ of the legs, turning the body in the womb, reaching to touch
the placental and umbilical cord, and reaching to parts of the fetus’s own body or
a twin fetus (de Vries et al. 1982; Piontelli 1992, 2010). All confirm that the fetal
motor actions are enacted with prospective, Self-sensing control.
It is particularly important in relation to conversational skills that fetal arm
movements may be aimed so the hands can feel the face and head (Piontelli 2010).
Studies of fetal behavior using real-time ultrasonography demonstrate exploratory
sensation-testing movements from as early as ten weeks, when innervated areas –
 Theories of the development of human communication 207

lips, cheeks, ears, and parietal bone – are frequently touched by the hands, the
fingers of which are themselves richly innervated with sensory fibers. These
touches create autostimulatory feed-back; the action creates contact between the
fingers and head, giving simultaneously a proprioceptive response, sensation of
touch in the fingers, and sensation of touch in the innervated region. This action-
generated loop may be considered as the precursor of intersubjective ‘self-other’
regulatory processes from which communication of mental states develops. Fetuses
explore the boundary of the innervated and uninnervated regions at the anterior
fontanel of the forehead, testing the differences in feed-back either side of the
boundary (Piontelli 2010: 61–67).
Later in fetal development, other explorations of self and environment can be
observed as the hands touch the eyes, the mouth, the uterine wall, and so on. And
individual ‘habits’ appear, such as a propensity to fondle the umbilical cord,
scratch at the placenta, or to make twin-directed movements (Piontelli 1992, 2002;
Jakobovits 2009). Self-touching actions continue throughout life as restless gestural
‘self adaptors’ (Ekman and Friesen 1969), also very evident in animated face-to-
face conversation (Kendon 1980). They express a dynamic sense of self that com-
municates changing states of mind.
At two months of gestation the cortex has no neural cells and thalamo-cortical
projections are just starting to grow (Larroche 1981; Hevner 2000), but there is
sufficient sensory and motor nervous connectivity for dynamic proprioceptive
motor control (Okado 1980). At 3½ months, quantified kinematic analyses indicate
that fine movements of hands and fingers guided by sensitive touch, show a
sequential patterning with modulation of arousal state that may give a grounding
for ‘narrative imagination,’ and ultrasound recordings of twin fetuses at 4½
months show regulations that distinguish movements of self-exploration from
those directed to a twin, and this is taken to confirm a primary ‘social awareness’
(Castiello et al. 2010). Certainly, by 5½ months the kinematic form of the arm
movements of single fetuses confirms that ‘imaginative’ and ‘self-aware’ motor
planning is operative (Zoia et al. 2007). This natural history of human movement
appears to confirm the suggestion by Lashley (1951: 122) that propositional thought
may depend on the spontaneous syntactic ordering of movements.
Movements are not only directed to engage with the external inanimate world
or the body of the Self. Facial expressions in fetuses and movements of distress
and curious exploration give evidence of emotions of discomfort or pleasure that
may be adapted for communicating feelings. In the third trimester, separate move-
ments of the facial muscles visualized by 4D ultrasound develop into complexes
that define a ‘cry face gestalt’ or a ‘laughter gestalt,’ expressing emotions that will
communicate powerfully after birth in the regulation of parental care (Reissland et
al. 2011). Maternal hunger with depletion of energy supply to the fetus drives ‘anx-
ious’ patterns of fetal movement. There is consensus in modern pediatrics that by
24 weeks the fetus should be considered a conscious agent deserving the same
208 Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt and Colwyn Trevarthen

standard of medical care as adults (Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecolo-

gists 2010). The mid-term human fetus has the foundations for the space-time
defining functions of intention in action, and for the emotional regulation of
esthetic relations with the objective world and moral relations with other persons.
When considering the emergence of consciousness, it is important to note,
however, that the special sense organs, having attained their basic function-spe-
cific form in the late embryo, are cut off from stimulation by morphological
changes in the early fetal period (Hamilton et al. 1962; Trevarthen 1985). While a
self-regulating mobility is clearly functioning, the organs that will explore the rich
variety of experiences after birth have no function. The eyelids grow over the cor-
nea to fuse at 7½ weeks. They reopen at six months. The ear ossicles develop
within a spongy mesoderm that remains to block transmission until the last fetal
months, when a cavity forms around the ossicles. The tympanic cavity remains
obliterated by endodermal thickening and swelling and is excavated shortly after
birth in association with changes that accompany the onset of pulmonary respira-
tion. Auditory discrimination appears possible only in the last trimester. From the
second to sixth gestational months the nostrils are closed by epithelial plugs.
At six months, the fetus awakens to a sensible world and the neurological and
metabolic processes are sufficiently advanced for survival in an incubator, or with
vital support from ventro-ventral contact with a parent’s body in ‘kangarooing.’
The change to this level of competence is a sudden one, the six-month-old fetus
having achieved a characteristic state of sensori-motor readiness, including the
fundamental controls for seeing. During the eighth and ninth lunar months, the
infant develops muscle tone from lower to upper limbs and assumes a comfortable
rest posture, but mobility is less than at early stages of prematurity. This is when
the developing child takes the first steps to cooperate purposefully with another
human being in regulation of arousal and appraisal of experiences.
Neuroblast production to establish the neocortex is maximum at 20 weeks,
mid-gestation (Trevarthen 2004). Sensory, motor and motivational representations
in the cortex, and that will carry cognitive advancements, are mapped out, and its
cells impregnated with affinities for connection with their complementary subcorti-
cal systems. It is important that the first developing regions – in the parietal,
temporal and frontal cortices – are the same ones that will undergo massive elabo-
ration throughout life. Just these are uniquely enlarged in Homo sapiens sapiens,
compared to earlier evolved Homo (Bruner 2010). They are the tissues for cultural
learning, and they include areas for language learning.

3.3. Fetal sensitivity: rapid brain and muscle development for

cultural learning and preparation for engagement in the
third trimester of gestation

Between 24 and 40 weeks gestation the human head grows more than the body as
the delicately layered neocortical sheet expands. The positions and interconnec-
 Theories of the development of human communication 209

tions of its neurons depend not only upon input from the sensory relay nuclei of
the thalamus, but especially from the motivation systems of the core Self already
developed (Northoff and Panksepp 2008). Cortical dendrites proliferate with the
support of abundant interneuronal glia cells. These multiply at an accelerating rate
toward a climax two weeks after term, accompanying the proliferation of dendrites
and the development of synaptic fields (Trevarthen 2004).
The cortex develops its characteristic folds in the final ten weeks before birth
and the patterning of gyri shows differences between the hemispheres characteris-
tic of humans, which reflect asymmetries in sub-cortical self-regulating systems,
the right side of the brain being more self-related or proprioceptive and the left
being more discriminatory of environmental affordances and eventually directed
to learn adaptive articulations of the hands and of vocal activity (Trevarthen 1996).
Importantly, areas later to be essential for perceiving and producing sounds of
words are evident in the left hemisphere at 30 weeks. Complementary enlarge-
ments in the right hemisphere are adapted for both visual and auditory evaluations
of other persons’ expressions and identity.
The late fetus is in a quiescent state, but can be awakened and can learn. At
seven months it shows cardiac accelerations and startles to sounds. While general
body movements decrease, respiratory movements increase, as do face, tongue
movements, smiling, eye movements, and hand gestures. All these are forms of
action that will serve not only in self-regulation, but in expression of self-related
states for intimate communication and for learning language. Fetuses interact with
the mother’s movements and uterine contractures and, after 25 weeks, can learn
her voice, a process that engages the right cerebral hemisphere (DeCasper and
Prescott 2009). There are also motor reactions to rhythmic sounds, such as the
bass pulse of dance music, and melodies that the mother attends to frequently or
performs on a musical instrument can be learned.
The last trimester is critical for elaboration of asymmetries of cerebral function
adapted for cultural learning. First it will be necessary to form an intimate attach-
ment with a caregiver, normally the mother, whose hormonal changes support
special affectionate ways of acting that match the newborn’s needs. The right hemi-
sphere orbito-frontal system motivates affective communication with the musical
prosody of infant-directed parental speech (Schore 2011), and the left orbito-frontal
cortex has a complementary adaptation for generation of affective signals by the
infant (Trevarthen 1996).
Beneath the cerebral cortex the brain generates fundamental rhythms for self-
synchrony of movements of body parts and inter-synchrony in exchanges of signals
of motives and emotions from other humans (Buzsáki 2006), including the faster
components that become essential for the learning of manipulative skills and the
rapidly articulated movements of language or gestural signing (Condon and Sander
1974; Trevarthen et al. 2011). Brain rhythms enable the fetus to move in coordina-
tion with the sounds of music and to learn certain melodies or musical narrations
210 Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt and Colwyn Trevarthen

(Malloch 1999; Gratier and Trevarthen 2008). They also favor a selective sensitivity
to expressive features that identify the mother’s voice, which is mediated by the
right hemisphere (Panksepp and Trevarthen 2009; Turner and Ioannides 2009).
Respiratory movements and amniotic breathing appear several weeks before birth,
and heart rate changes have been coordinated with phases of motor activity from
24 weeks (James et al. 1995). This is indicative of the formation of a prospective
control of autonomic state coupled to readiness for muscular activity on the envi-
ronment, a feature of brain function, which Jeannerod (Jeannerod 1994) has cited
as evidence for the formation of cerebral ‘motor images’ underlying conscious
awareness and purposeful movement.

3.4 Proof of human impulses for self-expression and

communication from the development of premature infants

Infants born four months before term can develop well if given ventro-ventral, skin-
to skin contact in ‘kangarooing,’ which compensates for the loss of the intimate
amphoteronomic support provided within the mother’s body (Als 1995). Compari-
sons with traditional artificial intensive care confirm that kangaroo care benefits
both infant and mother for intimacy of interaction and maternal feeding, reduces
maternal distress, and leads to better development of communication through
infancy (Tallandini and Scalembra 2006). A recording made of a prematurely born
infant in intimate body contact of ‘kangarooing’ with the father’s body demon-
strates that vocal expression and exchange by simple ‘coo’ sounds is possible at
32 weeks, and the timing of the alternating sounds of infant and father matches
that of normal syllables and phrases in fully articulate speech (Trevarthen 1999).
From the eighth month and through the first six weeks after full term birth,
the neonate’s mind is in a quiescent state, well-coordinated but mostly in a deep
sleep, able to cooperate with support, comforting and breast feeding, but with
limited curiosity for the new much richer environment.

4 The infant’s initiative toward cultural learning

and language
4.1 Infant intentional communication as groundwork for the
interpersonal and practical functions of language

Immediately after birth, a healthy full-term infant may be attractively active, alert,
and responsive – orienting to the mother’s voice, showing interest and affection
with well-directed movements of the whole body, of the eyes and face and of the
 Theories of the development of human communication 211

gesturing hands. The baby may imitate expressions of head and eyes, face and
mouth, voice or hands, and become involved in a dialogue with an attentive and
affectionate parent, actively seeking a gently regulated imitative exchange with a
responsive partner (Nagy and Molnar 2004; Nagy 2011). Accurate observations
prove that the infant has innate prospective awareness and curiosity as a coherent
self, and special intuitions for sharing activities and experiences. Human beings
are born with both ‘subjectivity’ and ‘intersubjectivity’ (Trevarthen 1979, 1998;
Nagy 2008). Demonstration of the capacity for active interest and communication
has transformed neonatal care (Brazelton 1979). The increased activity in response
to approach by a parent who offers eye-contact, gentle touching and the modulated
vocalizations of motherese, the seeking of communication and imitative responses
between them, confirm that the human brain is innately convivial and adapted for
learning language (Papoušek 1994). Cyclic sequences of movement become orches-
trated to make ‘narratives’ that express internal regulations of vitality with an
innate time sense (Wittmann 2009).
Within a few weeks the ‘protoconversational’ behavior is more quickly regu-
lated by improvements in visual and auditory awareness and, in interaction with
the adult behaviors this development attracts, the infant can take a precisely regu-
lated part in a rhythmic exchange of visible and audible signals of vitality and
relational emotions. The capacity for this sustained communication has been
called ‘primary intersubjectivity’ (Bateson 1979, Trevarthen 1979). By three months
an intimate attachment with the mother is consolidated by increased playfulness
with body movements and sounds, and games with the infant become attractive
to the father and other family members as well. The play takes increasingly ritual
forms in body games and song that attract interest and attuned response from the
infant. A ‘proto-habitus’ of performances develops through the first semester, and
the infant starts to adapt to the particular cultural forms of body expression and
voice, learning to reproduce ‘performances’ for appreciation by others (Gratier
2003; Gratier and Trevarthen 2008). The baby becomes increasingly demonstrative,
seductive and self-conscious as ‘self-other’ awareness grows (Reddy 2008). This is
a development of an ‘anoetic’ emotional consciousness of self and of other persons
that requires no rational or articulate ‘theory of mind,’ the later development of
which is artificial and optional (Panksepp and Northoff 2009).
By seven months more vigorous and more rapid rhythmic movements begin –
banging with the hands, but also syllabic babbling, which appears to be the innate
repetitive motor function that made learning of speech possible, as Darwin pro-
posed (Darwin 1872; MacNeilage 2008, 2011). The infant is also demonstrating a
more intense awareness of the quality of response from a partner who seeks inti-
mate communication, showing wary attention or distress and withdrawal if
approached too directly by a stranger who ‘does not know the game’ (Trevarthen
2005; Reddy 2008). This manifestation of heightened temperament in sociability
appears just before a striking change at nine months in the infant’s willingness to
212 Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt and Colwyn Trevarthen

share a task that requires shared actions on objects in cooperative work (Trevarthen
and Hubley 1978; Hubley and Trevarthen 1979). In preceding weeks, eagerness to
look for, grasp, and manipulate has been incorporated in person-person-object
games with ‘toys.’ The infant’s capacities to express shifting interests with move-
ments of head, eyes and hands being recruited in intersubjectively created rituals
of narration (Merker 2009b). This joint performance has clear foundations in the
spontaneous indicative and narrating movements of pointing with eyes and hands
evident from birth (Trevarthen et al. 2011).
Throughout early development, a matching hierarchical set of rhythms of
movement facilitates coordination of motives and actions between infant and
adult. Perturbation tests prove that the infant is sensitive to both the affective
quality of a parent’s expressions and to their contingent timing (Murray and Trevar-
then 1985). The spontaneous movements of the infant demonstrate self-synchrony
between body parts, and in communication infant and parent show precise inter-
synchrony (Condon and Sander 1974). Musical acoustic analysis of vocal exchanges
in proto-conversations and singing play has demonstrated that the rhythmic and
melodic patterns of music originate in an innate ‘communicative musicality’ that
makes possible the close cooperation of human companionship (Merker 2009b).
Difficulties due to abnormal development of motive processes in the infant, or to
emotional disorder in the mother, are marked by loss of responsive musicality
(Cooper and Murray 1998; Field 2010), and the principles of this fundamental pat-
terning of human sound making by body movement are applied with benefit in
therapy and teaching (Malloch and Trevarthen 2009). Musical forms of communi-
cation support language learning at later stages of life as well (Ludke 2009).

4.2 Proto-language as a social/emotional advance, animated

by development of left hemisphere skills for discretization
and serial ordering of learned vocal sounds and gestures
of narration

Infants begin to combine learned vocalizations and gestures after the first birthday
to make utterances that imitate simplified adult speech. A normally developing
child soon names persons, objects, and actions, and responds to words, especially
to their own name and the name of familiar persons and pets. By the end of the
second year a rapid accumulation of a vocabulary begins and the child begins to
use serial combinations of words. From this point one can study the development
of true language (McNeill 1970; Locke 1993). Clearly it depends on the biological
adaptations of the human body and brain for narrating the purposeful and emo-
tionally valued experiences and achievements of life with other speaking human
beings (Lenneberg 1967; Bruner 1983). It shows systematic distortion in develop-
mental disorders such as autism, which offer additional evidence of an age related
 Theories of the development of human communication 213

process governing the growth and differentiation of intersubjective awareness and

shared agency (Trevarthen and Aitken 2003; Trevarthen et al. 2006; Saint-Georges
et al. 2010). The linguist Michael Halliday (1975) developed a socio-linguistic theory
sensitive to the expressiveness of nonverbal vocalizations and gestures to chart the
progress of his son to fluent use of words through the first two years. He identified
these developmental phases:
Birth to 9 months, ‘protoconversation,’ changing to ‘conversation’
– 10 to 15 months, ‘proto-language,’ changing to ‘language’
– 15 to 20 months, ‘proto-narrative and dialogue’ changing to ‘narrative and
dialogue,’
– and, after 20 months, ‘proto-discourse.’

Similar transitions in representations leading to language, with varied interpreta-

tions, usually led by cognitive or linguistic theory, have been charted by Bates
(1979) and Nelson (1996). Bruner (1990) and Rogoff (2003), who are interested in
the interpersonal context of story-making and the learning of meaning, note that
the purposes and procedures in narrating with young children may vary greatly
across cultures. Gestures add metaphorical richness to conversational speech at all
ages (Goldin-Meadow and McNeill 1999) constituting a component of all languages,
complementary to speech (McNeill 2005). A deaf baby may substitute learning of
contrived hand movements for spoken words, mastering hand sign language
through comparable ages (Volterra 1981; Petitto and Marentette 1991). Donaldson
(1992) gives an account of the growth of modes of narrative and explanation by
expansion of the imagination and purposefulness or ‘locus of concern’ in late
infancy and pre-school years, which development is reflected in the utterances of
children before they develop what she calls the ‘construct mode’ of mind around
three or four years. Hobson (2002) describes in similar terms how the foundations
of thought are built in the affective communications of infancy, and Lüdtke (2011)
reviews the evidence that relational emotions play a key role at all stages of semi-
otic and linguistic development and in language learning and language therapy.
The change from intuitive sharing of actions and feelings in intimate affection-
ate attachment to family and friends to mastery of the skills of a culture and its
speaking is animated by growth of the brain with development of regulation of
intentions and awareness in the left cerebral cortex. For several years the creative
and cooperative imagination of the child, which was apparent at birth, remains
the primary motivator for cultural learning, before formal teaching in the tools
of culture and its social institutions can be accepted and effective (Halliday and
Matthiessen 2004; Bateman et al. 2010; Trevarthen 2011b). At no point is develop-
ment of mastery of language independent of the emotional regulation of human
initiative and its sharing. Natural language is an artful tool for extending the innate
motives for cooperative awareness and cultural learning, not just an abstract tech-
nical system of symbols for artificial representation and logical explanation (Reid
1764).
214 Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt and Colwyn Trevarthen

5 Conclusion
To understand how language can share intentions, experiences, and feelings,
and how it must be represented widely in the brain, we recognize that the
sense of words is transmitted to a child initially by rhythmically patterned
movement of the whole body, and is taken up by perceptive response to other
persons’ self-related feelings for their experiences and prospects of action.
Language is a function of intersubjective resonance of conscious embodied
agency and esthetic and moral emotions. All these requirements have manifes-
tations in a newborn infant, and they can be traced back to species-specific
organic and psychological capacities emerging in the human embryo and fetus.
We are made for sympathetic cooperative creativity, and we learn words to
define its purposes.
A new research field of research focusing on the actions of emotional,
embodied communication and their development is challenging developmental
psychologists, psychiatrists, cognitive neuroscientists, sociologists, anthropolo-
gists, and philosophers, as well as language scientists, to combine their knowl-
edge and methods to discover, in detail, how gesture and voice become discret-
ized as syllables, words, and phrases, and how they are serially ordered to
make meaningful propositional narrations. We will need to study more closely
how movements are made and sensed in affective company for joint meaning-
making, and to follow them through all the stages by which language is
prepared for, mastered and elaborated. This work promises a new understand-
ing of how language evolved, taking into account its rich embodied origins in
the feeling and sharing of states of mind in rhythmic musicality of agency in
the human brain and body.

Further reading
Bråten, Stein. 2009. The Intersubjective Mirror in Infant Learning and Evolution of Speech.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Bruner, Jerome S. 1990. Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Malloch, Stephen & Colwyn Trevarthen (eds.). 2009. Communicative Musicality: Exploring the
Basis of Human Companionship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reddy, Vasudevi. 2008. How Infants Know Minds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Stern, Daniel N. 2010. Forms of Vitality: Exploring Dynamic Experience in Psychology, the Arts,
Psychotherapy and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Theories of the development of human communication 215

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Paul Cobley
12 Semiotic models of communication
Abstract: This chapter outlines the way semiotics has offered models that have
made a contribution to defining communication science. Broadly, it identifies a
period in twentieth-century sign study in which semiology provided a model for
understanding communication. Two of the central features of this model were the
notion of a fixed (linguistic) ‘code’ and the concept of the ‘text.’ The chapter goes
on to discuss how the fixed ‘code’ was loosened and superseded by a model of
communication which focused on communication of all kinds (verbal and non-
verbal). The chapter suggests some consequences of semiotic models for communi-
cation research.

Keywords: Semiology, semiotics, code, myth, text, cultural anthropology, interpre-

tant, encoding/decoding, nonverbal communication, biosemiotics

1 Introduction
Semiotic models of communication have endured a curious history of centrality
and marginality. This is the case even in the last century in which communication
science – as a largely institutionalized discipline – and semiotics – as a barely
institutionalized one – have come to the fore. A number of the contributions to
the present volume attest to the influence of semiotically-orientated thinking about
communication. Yet, at the same time, semiotic models are also a chimera, drifting
into ill-defined view and then out into the wilderness. One reason for this, paradox-
ically, is that semiotics, in the guise of a glottocentric semiology, became fashiona-
ble in a number of academic fields in the West in the late 1960s and mid-1970s.
As such, semiotics was always vulnerable to falling out of fashion and being
blamed for all sorts of ills in communication study (particularly in textual and
cultural analysis) of which semiotics as a whole was not actually guilty (for exam-
ple, bracketing audiences, reception and political economy). The initial success of
semiotics in communication science fixed a limited view of what semiotic models
actually offer, often promoting, instead, a linguistic version of ‘codes’ plus the task
of unravelling them to reveal ideology (see also Chapter 18, Schrøder).

2 Semiotics, linguistics, communication

Although a great deal of contemporary communication science is closely related
to mass communications and media and these are the areas that have most often
224 Paul Cobley

spawned the kind of models that are defined and outlined in the current volume,
both semiotics and communication science have had close relations to linguistics.
Indeed, they have relations to a specific strand of linguistics: not the tradition of
American linguistics from Whitney through the anthropological linguists (Boas,
Sapir, Whorf), behaviourists (Bloomfield), American structuralists (Harris) to
Chomsky and the post-Chomskyans, but the Saussurean, and sometimes code-
orientated, linguistics that, arguably, remains current today in the form of Critical
Discourse Analysis and systemic functional linguistics (see Chapter 18, Schrøder).
This latter has been of comparable importance to some kinds of communication
theory as, for example, the pragmatics approach that takes its inspiration from
Austin and Grice (see Chapter 13, Wharton and Chapter 14, Bangerter and Mayor).
The key name associated with code-orientated linguistics, particularly during the
fashionable days of semiology, is that of the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure
(1857–1913).
Saussure’s contribution to communication theory is principally to be found in
his Cours de linguistique générale (Course in General Linguistics 1916; translated
into English in 1959 and 1983), although since the discovery of Saussure’s original
notes for his course at the University of Geneva, his entire oeuvre has undergone
positive reassessment (see Bouissac 2010; Sanders 2004; Harris 2006). The original
book of Saussure’s Cours, based on the notes of his students, projects ‘semiology,’
“a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life” (1983: 15). This
entails a study of signs which, rather than just tracking the ways in which they
have been used to refer to objects from one epoch to the next, institutes a ‘synchro-
nic’ interrogation of the very conditions upon which signs operate. From the begin-
ning, despite the call for a general sign science, Saussure focused on the linguistic
sign. This feature of communication he sees as a “two-sided psychological entity”
and not as a “link between a thing and a name, but between a concept and a
sound pattern” (1983: 66). Referring to the sound pattern as the signifiant and the
concept as the signifié, Saussure insisted that there was a signifié bound to each
signifiant but that the reasons for their binding was not natural or pre-ordained.
This is, for him, the most fundamental characteristic of the sign: that the relation
in it is arbitrary.
Saussure’s concomitant emphasis on the language system (langue) underlying
sign use derives precisely from the principle of arbitrariness. What binds this sys-
tem is the sum of differences that occur between linguistic signs, none of which
can rely on a natural process of ‘meaning’ but, rather, consist of the ‘values’ gener-
ated by each other’s arbitrary relation between sound pattern and concept. As
such, instances of linguistic communication – parole – in all their richness and
variegation, are not to be analyzed simply in terms of a semantic link that it might
be assumed their individual signs enjoy with the objects to which they refer but,
rather, within the frame of a relationship of difference to all the other linguistic
signs in langue. Saussurean semiology is not principally concerned with how signs
 Semiotic models of communication 225

indicate or communicate about specific objects; instead, its focus is how regimes
of communication, somewhat removed from specific objects, are sustained and
perpetuated.
The consequences of the Saussurean perspective were initially felt most
strongly in linguistics (Harris 2001: 118) through the work of Karcevskij, Jakobson,
Bühler, and Vološinov, extended by Louis Hjelmslev and the Copenhagen School
of linguistics, for whom the Saussurean dictum that “langue is a form and not a
substance” was to be taken to its logical conclusion (Hjelmslev 1970), and techni-
cally developed into a more systematic semiology (Buyssens 1967, Prieto 1968). It
was from these developments that Saussure’s linguistics started to find applica-
tions outside the field of spoken discourse. The early work of Roland Barthes marks
him, perhaps, as heir to Hjelmslev as much as to Saussure. This is particularly
clear in some of Barthes’s formulations such as ‘denotation,’ ‘connotation’ and
‘metalanguage,’ although Barthes ultimately saw himself initiating Saussure’s
vaunted project of a semiology.
In Elements of Semiology (1964, translated into English 1967), Barthes pre-
sented an amalgam of his own work on fashion plus a primer of Saussurean lin-
guistics. Barthes’s earlier volume Mythologies (1957, translated into English 1973),
had grafted a Saussurean theory onto a series of articles on popular culture that
Barthes had penned for mainstream magazines in the mid-1950s. Each essay in the
volume dealt with a ‘mythology’ of French life – wrestling, the haircuts of the
Roman characters in Mankiewicz’s film of Julius Caesar, the face of Garbo, steack
frites, striptease, the New Citroën and the brain of Einstein – providing evidence
for Barthes that “myth is a language” (Barthes 1973: 11). In a loose way, the topics
of the essays, individual mythologies, were presented as instances of parole ema-
nating from a basis in a general ‘myth’ or langue. Yet, as a conclusion to the articles
which comprised the body of the book, Mythologies also contained an essay at the
end called ‘Myth today.’ Here, it was suggested that the myth that creates specific
mythologies produces a further two levels of signification. The first level of this
system Barthes called the language-object: “it is the language which myth gets
hold of in order to build its own system” (1973: 115). This level is the domain of
the signifiant (sound pattern) and signifié (mental concept). For Barthes, this level
is where straightforward indicating takes place: denotation. The second level, on
the other hand, is metalanguage: a language that speaks about the first level. The
level of metalanguage is constituted by connotation and Barthes suggests that it is
cynical because it relies on the level of denotation to naturalize any ideological
proposition which it embodies. As such, a communication of a black soldier salut-
ing the French flag in the 1950s, for example, is suffused by connotative potential
which immediately strikes the viewer as an image of the loyalty of the colonial
subject; but the flagrantly mendacious nature of this ideological communication is
tempered by the ‘reasonable’ denotation which depicts the scene ‘as it happened.’
So influential was this early incarnation of semiology that it almost made Saus-
surean sign theory synonymous with the analysis of everyday phenomena. Mythol-
226 Paul Cobley

ogies can be said to have achieved two things for this area of communication
theory. Firstly, it provided a Saussurean/Hjelmslevean model for the analysis of
manifold nonverbal, rather than just verbal, communication. Secondly, it trans-
formed unconsidered trifles of daily life into complex texts to be read by competent
readers. In his writings on photography from the 1960s (see Barthes 1977a), Barthes
also made a significant contribution to communication study by showing how vari-
ous features of the photographic repertoire were not so much instruments of the
process of denotation but, instead, a means of promoting connotations. As in ‘Myth
today,’ he exposed, with the help of Hjelmslev, the way in which an ‘expression
plane’ and ‘content plane’ of signs can combine to form a new ‘expression plane’;
or, put another way, how one sign repertoire transforms into another one. This
indicated a feature of the reading process which had been seldom theorized hith-
erto: that readers, viewers, audiences were likely to alight on the connotations of
some communications ‘prior to’ considering denotations. In consuming an adver-
tisement, for example, the full connotative power of the text would be to the fore
whilst the denotative sign system (or ‘expression’ and ‘content’ planes) beneath
might be given only scant regard or disregarded altogether by the audience.
As with the ‘mythologies’ in Barthes’s earlier essays, the denotative sign’s role
is not merely a ‘secondary’ one. Indeed, it is essential to the photographic message
especially. In photography, it enacts a motivated relationship – where there is a
strong connection between the sign and what it signifies through, for example,
resemblance – often as if photography’s denotative power is in the service of ‘vali-
dating’ the injustice of the connotative sign, establishing the latter’s literalness
and helping to ground ideology. If it was not clear from the analysis of ‘myth’
offered by Barthes in Mythologies, then Elements of Semiology makes it apparent
that central to his theory of the sign is the way that the sign can be not simply an
ideological vehicle but is, in fact, ideological through and through. In general, the
procedure to expose this action of cultural signs is probably what most character-
ized semiotic models of communication when semiotics in general was a fashion.
In short, semiotic models promoted the scrutiny of surface phenomena in order to
reveal deeper, hidden agendas or, drawing on information theories (see Chapter 4,
Lanigan), to reveal the ‘code’ beneath the manifest ‘message.’

3 Semiotics as a code model of communication

Yet, the revealing of a semiotic code was more complicated than even Barthes had
allowed. Eco elaborated on the matter in the influential volume translated into
English in 1976 as A Theory of Semiotics. In a curious synthesis of emerging cur-
rents on communication which looks almost untenable today, A Theory of Semiot-
ics suggested a semiotic model of communication based on a theory of codes and
a theory of sign production. Along the way, it discussed technical semiotic issues –
 Semiotic models of communication 227

the status of the referent (from Ogden and Richards), the icon-index-symbol triad
(from Peirce but largely established by Jakobson), the translation of ‘expression’
and ‘content’ planes (Hjelmslev), denotation and connotation (Hjelmslev again)
and ‘unlimited semiosis’ (derived from Peirce) – that were to become standard in
the teaching of communications and media in English-speaking universities in the
ensuing decades (see Fiske 1990; Bignell 1997; Dyer 1982; Hartley 1982; etc.). Most
importantly, it explicitly addressed and opened up aspects of the theory of codes
which, in communication science in general, had been unspoken or neglected. Eco
begins his discussion of codes with the example of an engineer in charge of a water
gate between two mountains who needs to know when the water level behind the
gate is becoming dangerously high. The engineer places a buoy in the watershed;
when the water rises to danger level, this activates a transmitter which emits an
electrical signal through a channel which reaches a receiver downriver; the receiver
then converts the signal into a readable message for a destination apparatus. This
allows Eco (1976: 36–7) to demonstrate that, under the designation ‘code,’ the
engineer has four different phenomena to consider:
(a) a set of signals ruled by combinatory laws (bearing in mind that these laws
are not naturally or determinately connected to states of water – the engi-
neer could use such laws to send signals down the channel to express pas-
sion to a lover);
(b) a set of states (of the water); these could have been conveyed by almost any
kind of signal provided they reach the destination in a form which becomes
intelligible;
(c) a set of behavioural responses at the destination (these can be independent
of how a) and b) are composed);
(d) a rule coupling some items from the a) system with some from b) and c)
(this rule establishes that an array of specific signals refers to specific states
of water or, put another way, a syntactic arrangement refers to a semantic
configuration; alternatively, it may be the case that the array of signals corre-
sponds to a specific response without the need to explicitly consider the
semantic configuration.

For Eco, only the rule in (d) can really be called a code. However, he points out
that combinatory principles that feature in (a), (b), and (c) are often taken for
codes. This is consistently the case when such phrases as ‘the legal code,’ ‘code
of practice,’ ‘behavioural code’ are in such wide circulation. Yet, what Eco’s semiot-
ics makes clear for the study of communication is that ‘code’ should strictly be
taken as a ‘holistic’ phenomenon in which a rule binds not just the sign-vehicle to
the object to which it refers but also binds it to any response that might arise
irrespective of the reference to the object becoming explicit. At most, (a), (b) and
(c) are to be taken as ‘s-codes’ – systems or ‘structures’ that subsist independently
of any communicative purpose. They can be studied by information theory (see
228 Paul Cobley

Chapter 4, Lanigan and Chapter 5, Baecker); but they only command attention
from communication science when they exist within a communicative rule or code,
(d) (Eco 1976: 38–46).
The other basis of Eco’s theory of codes for semiotics concerns the character
of codes (and s-codes) in interaction or ‘sign-functions.’ Rather than the ‘referential
function’ by which a sign refers in a more or less direct way to an object in the
world, in a synthesis of Saussurean and information theory perspectives Eco
stresses the way in which signs refer to other signs or ‘cultural units’: “Every
attempt to establish what the referent of a sign is forces us to define the referent in
terms of an abstract entity which moreover is only a cultural convention” (Eco
1976: 66; emphasis in the original). Saussure’s signifié was always a ‘mental con-
cept’ rather than an object in the world and its relation with the signifiant always
arbitrary. Thus, the ‘meaning’ of a term for Eco can only ever be a ‘cultural unit’
(1976: 67) or, at most, a psychological one. Moreover, this movement from one
sign or cultural unit to another entails that signs are seen to work, along with
communication, in a chain, a phenomenon that Eco discusses in terms of Peirce’s
conception of the interpretant (1976: 68–72). Most importantly, Eco casts semiotics
as a “substitute for cultural anthropology” (1976: 27), bequeathing to communica-
tion science a model of communication which is orientated to the vicissitudes of
culture rather than fixated on the possibility of referentiality. This bequest is criti-
cally revisited in Section 6, ‘After coding.’

4 Text and textuality

If semiotics’ concept of code is considered to be one contribution to communica-
tion science, then this is tempered somewhat by the fact that associated or proto-
type uses of code already existed in information theory or in communication theory
after Shannon and Weaver (see Chapter 5, Baecker) and, earlier, in the field of
cryptography. The most enduring contribution of semiotics to communication sci-
ence is its general model of textuality or, in short, its concept of the ‘text.’ Eco
(1976: 57) indicates the centrality of text when he states that “a single sign-vehicle
conveys many intertwined contents and therefore what is commonly called a ‘mes-
sage’ is in fact a text whose content is multileveled discourse”. This statement
offers a sense of the way in which the semiotic notion of text stands between two
polarities. On the one hand, there is the conception of ‘message’ in information
theory which is concerned with the process of transmission and for which any
meaning that accrues is of no real consequence (see, for example, Shannon and
Weaver 1949). On the other hand, there is the belief in the ‘work’ or the opus
which suffused the humanities and framed messages in terms of authorial intent,
richness of allusion and, often, the possibility of full transmission or pure commu-
nication.
 Semiotic models of communication 229

Initially, the notion of text was not necessarily seen in relation to overcoded
communications and undercoded messages. Barthes’s 1971 essay, ‘From work to
text’ (translated into English in 1977), is often taken as programmatic, yet it is
principally associated with the working through of the notion of text as a support
to the ‘radical’ writing practices of the Tel Quel group. The idea of the text actually
has a slightly older provenance in the synchronic perspective that developed,
alongside the spread of Saussure’s thought, in the first half of the twentieth cen-
tury. It can be found in Propp’s (1968 [1927]) The Morphology of the Folktale, then
later in the work of the structural anthropologist, Lévi-Strauss. Famously, Propp
analyzed 100 Russian folk stories, examining their underlying commonalities and
identifying 31 functions characterizing the tales. Lévi-Strauss (for example, 1977)
analyzed the ‘structure’ of myth, re-casting narratives as structural groupings.
Through the work of these, as well as a number of other analysts of literature and
myth who sought to uncover synchronic textual principles – Greimas, Bremond,
Todorov, and the field that became known as narratology (Cobley 2004) – the
possibility of a disinterested analysis of literary and other works developed. Bar-
thes summed up this position in his 1966 essay, ‘Introduction to the structural
analysis of narratives,’ as akin to that of Saussure “seeking to extract a principle
of classification and a central focus” (Barthes 1977c: 80) amidst bewildering heter-
ogeneity. Certainly, the key issue for these theorists was, as it was for Eco, the
problem of analyzing chains of signs. Often concerned with literature, but from a
linguistic perspective, inevitably these theorists developed “the notion of text, a
discursive unit higher than or interior to the sentence, yet still structurally different
from it” (Barthes 1981: 34). Text, then, could be summed up simply as ‘a string of
signs.’ It can be concluded that the concept effectively neutralized the overcoded,
value-centric confection of the literary work as well as, perhaps, the idea of a full,
intentional ‘communication.’ Yet, the notion of text amounted to more than this
because it did not simply revert to the mechanical concept, central to information
theory, of an undercoded transmitted message.
Another semiotician and inaugurator of the concept of text, Juri Lotman (1982),
stressed that, as an entity, the text is, in its very nature, for someone and can
become for someone by inviting, in its very fabric, specific modes of reading. Lot-
man, conducting analyses in the environment of Soviet academia which demanded
focus on the national literature, nevertheless implied that the principles of textual
orientation to readership in the works of Pushkin and others are applicable across
the board in the service of a neutral demystification of literary texts. This, of
course, is not to say that a text is always successful because it is always accurately
targeted and coded according to a consensus, for “Non-understanding, incomplete
understanding, or misunderstanding are not side-products of the exchange of com-
munication but its very essence” (Lotman 1974: 302). The text is thus a part of a
translation, a re-encoding. As Barthes (1981: 42) was to put it, with slightly more
of a literary slant,
230 Paul Cobley

If the theory of the text tends to abolish the separation of genres and arts, this is because it
no longer considers works as mere ‘messages’, or even as ‘statements’ (that is, finished pro-
ducts, whose destiny would be sealed as soon as they are uttered), but as perpetual produc-
tions, enunciations, through which the subject continues to struggle; this subject is no doubt
that of the author, but also that of the reader. The theory of the text brings with it, then, the
promotion of a new epistemological object: the reading (an object virtually disdained by the
whole of classical criticism, which was essentially interested either in the person of the author,
or in the rules of manufacture of the work, and which never had any but the most meagre
conception of the reader, whose relation to the work was thought to be one of mere projection).

This ‘birth of the reader’ from the ‘text’ provided a further semiotic model for
communication and, especially, the study of the media.

5 Texts, encoding, decoding and the reader

The semiotic model of ‘text/reader’ in communications is perhaps best exemplified
by the ‘encoding/decoding’ approach devised by Stuart Hall. Growing out of ‘Brit-
ish cultural studies’ (see Chapter 18, Schrøder, for a fuller account), it is unsurpris-
ing that ‘encoding/decoding’ derives from Umberto Eco’s formulations regarding
codes – which, as Eco stated, equate semiotics with cultural anthropology – as well
as his commentaries on popular culture. What Hall did with sign study consisted of
a furthering of its bearing on political critique as adumbrated in Barthes’s work.
Hall’s essay, ‘Encoding and decoding in the television discourse’ (1973; often
reprinted in truncated form – for example, Hall et al. 1981) produced a fecund
synthesis of Barthesian semiology, Gramsci’s hegemony theory, a concept of state
apparatuses derived from Althusser, plus themes in the sociology of Frank Parkin,
to effect a powerful argument about violence on television. The co-opting of Par-
kin’s sociology, in particular, is interesting because it figured semiotics’ birth of
the reader in sociological terms as ‘dominant,’ ‘negotiated’ or ‘oppositional’ – that
is, a reading position that accepts the instilled codes that dominate the media text,
one that accepts some of the codes but rejects or is unsure of others, or one that
strenuously rejects them. This model is an echo, of course, of Lotman’s “Non-
understanding, incomplete understanding, or misunderstanding,” taking into
account that Lotman’s situation meant he was compelled to accentuate communi-
cative efficiency (see also Chapter 9, Tindale) rather than resistance. Yet Hall’s
model was to influence a generation of researchers into ‘cultural codes,’ forging
an orthodoxy for culturally-orientated communications and media studies which
has lasted decades, and to play a major part in directing media studies towards
audience analysis.
The research of David Morley on the reception of television programmes (1980)
explicitly implemented the dominant/negotiated/oppositional trichotomy, some-
times in a fashion that recapitulated the lessons of ‘uses and gratifications’
 Semiotic models of communication 231

approaches of earlier communication theory, but often in a more politically

informed manner. Subsequent studies tended to naturalize the text/reader or
encoding/decoding model to the extent that it was presented as simultaneously
groundbreaking and common wisdom. Hobson’s (1982) qualitative study of UK
soap opera viewers grew out of work with Hall at the Birmingham Centre for Con-
temporary Cultural Studies and led a pack of contemporary media audience studies
that included Morley (1986, 1992), Ang (1984, 1991, 1996), Radway (1984) Seiter et
al. (1989), Lull (1990), Gray (1992), Gillespie (1995), Hermes (1996), Nightingale
(1996) plus a revivified part-Uses and Gratifications cross-cultural study of Dallas
viewers by Liebes and Katz (1993).
Crucial to many of these studies of readers were methods and perspectives
borrowed from semiotically-informed anthropology. These aimed to procure greater
depth in the understandings of audience responses to texts or, put another way, a
‘thicker’ description (Geertz 1993). Semiotic models of textuality had also, predicta-
bly, influenced literary theory which was, by the early 1980s, attempting to take
into account ‘reader response’ and feeding back into general communication
theory (for example, Fish’s 1980 formulation of ‘interpretive communities’). As one
of the key progenitors of the conception of text, literary study was also one of
its beneficiaries. Yet, the model that literature had provided for the text/reader
relationship, and the encoding/decoding approach to such communications as
those offered by television programmes, was rapidly coming into question with the
advent of post-internet media in the early twenty-first century, especially Web 2.0.
These latter putatively entail more demonstrable activity (interactivity, for example)
which suggest that the text/audience relationship can once more be measured in
terms of use (click-throughs, favourites folders, history, for example – see Living-
stone 2004) and, arguably, involve a greater concealment of affective or emotional
dispositions in communication.

6 After coding
Decades before the influence of the ‘encoding/decoding’ model had started to wane
in communication science, semiotics had moved on from the belief in fixed codes
as an explanatory principle in communication. The fashionable moment of semiol-
ogy was superseded by a broader tradition of semiotics which was made manifest,
above all, by the work of the Hungarian polymath, Thomas A. Sebeok (1920–2001)
who was instrumental, too, in placing the work of the American logician, scientist
and philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) at the centre of sign study.
The fate of the concept of code in particular in post-Sebeokean semiotics is
instructive when considering the importance of semiotic models for communica-
tion science. In his final book, Sebeok (2001) repeatedly made reference to the five
major codes: the immune code, the genetic code, the metabolic code, the neural
232 Paul Cobley

code and, of course, the verbal code – the first four being precisely the codes that
Eco (1976: 21) had declared to be outside the remit of semiotics. Sebeok’s use of
the term ‘code’ had undergone evolution, with the decisive moment – both for
semiotics and for communication study – coinciding with Sebeok’s increasing
attention to non-human communication as he developed ‘zoosemiotics’ (see Cobley
in press). Despite his close involvement in the development of post-war communi-
cation and information theory, Sebeok initially proceeded in zoosemiotics not with
a concept of code drawn directly from those influences but from an information
theory-inflected post-Saussurean linguistics. He figured code as a set of ‘transfor-
mation rules’ (Sebeok 1965) known a priori by the addresser and addressee (Sebeok
1960), made up of “the atomic particles,” the “universal building blocks of lan-
guage … ‘distinctive features’” (Sebeok 1972: 86). Distinctive features were Jakob-
son’s base units of language, sounds in speech more fundamental than Saussure’s
phonemes and irreducible beyond their binary status (Fant et al. 1952; Jakobson
1976).
Yet Jakobson, and by association Sebeok, were guilty of what Roy Harris has,
from 1978 onwards, called the “fixed code fallacy” (see, for example, Harris
2003: 96). Like the majority of perspectives in the history of linguistics, the fallacy
fixated on ‘language’ rather than the study of ‘communication.’ Put in more infor-
mational terms, this perspective insists that a message is ineluctably dependent
on the code rather than the panoply of contextual factors impinging on communi-
cation at any one moment. As Sebeok continued his work on non-human commu-
nication, he moved away from ‘fixed’ codes towards a flexible version of coding.
In his later writings Sebeok referred to a proliferation of ‘cultural’ and ‘natural’
codes – from those in specific film genres to those in the social world of cats.
Contra Eco once more, Sebeok started to give more attention to the s-codes that
Eco had discussed. As early as 1970, Sebeok described different kinds of coding,
(not unproblematically) considering Mozart’s Don Giovanni to consist of a primary
code – “natural language”; a secondary code – libretto; a tertiary code – score;
and then the performance (see also Sebeok 1972: 164). He noted that the “need for
different kinds of theory at different levels of ‘coding’ appears to be a pressing
task” (1972: 112); and, in 1972, he posed a key question for current investigation,
“what is a sign, how does the environment and its turbulences impinge upon it,
how did it come about?” (1972: 4).
Although this question is not inapplicable to linguistic signs, it is clear that in
the development of semiotics it is associated with the move towards an under-
standing of semiosis that is not restricted to linguistic models. In particular, this
understanding is associated with the (re)discovery of the sign theory of Peirce. As
is well known, the most striking difference between the sign in Saussure and that
in Peirce is that the latter envisages a trichotomy consisting of a Sign or ‘Represen-
tamen,’ an Object and an ‘Interpretant.’ While this distinction is obvious, it is
nevertheless significant because it derives from a tradition of thinking much differ-
 Semiotic models of communication 233

ent from that of the relatively recently developed linguistics and, indeed, the his-
tory of thought as conceived since the Enlightenment. That a Representamen (a
sign-vehicle) can stand for an Object (something in the mind or something in the
world) is no more illuminating than a signifiant being tied to a signifié in the mind.
What is frequently considered the sign – the ‘relation’ between some ground and
some terminus – had already been discovered to be false by Latin thinkers.
The advance inherent in the triadic sign is that the Interpretant does two jobs.
Firstly, it sets up the sign relation: it is the establishment of a sign configuration
involving Representamen and Object. When a finger (Representamen) points at
something (Object), this is only a sign configuration if somebody else makes the
link between the pointing digit and the something that is ‘pointed to.’ This making
of the link is the Interpretant. If the finger pointed but was placed behind its
owner’s back, concealed from anyone else in that space, then there is no sign
configuration however much the finger points. Put another way, no Interpretant is
produced. The second feature of the Intrepretant consists in the way that any per-
son looking at what the finger points to is bound to produce another sign (e.g. the
finger points at the painting on the wall and the onlooker says: “Brueghel the
Elder”). So the Interpretant is another Representamen, “an equivalent sign, or
perhaps a more developed sign” (CP 2.228). The fact that the Interpretant becomes
in itself a sign or Representamen amounts to a sequence of an “interpretant becom-
ing in turn a sign, and so on ad infinitum” (CP 2.303). As has been seen, Eco
concluded from this that the sign is constituted by a chain; equally, it could be
said that the sign thus exists in a network of Interpretants (CP 1.339) whose bearing
is determined by prevailing circumstances. For the Latins, and then Peirce, the
sign is constituted by the relation of all three of its elements. As such, the sign is
not so much suprasubjective, like a coded entity; rather, it is constituted in a
fashion which renders it wholly susceptible to contextual factors. For the Latins,
in one set of circumstances the relation in a sign could be of the order of ens reale
(independent of mind for its existence), in another set it could be of ens rationis
(dependent on mind for its existence – see Deely 2001: 729).
The Peircean version of the sign, and the orientation in this tradition towards
forms of communication which were not just linguistic, produced an emergent
model for communication science and a number of ramifications. Firstly, the fixity
and rule-bound conception of code was loosened. Indeed, Sebeok’s later work
treated the term ‘code’ merely as a synonym for ‘interpretant’ (see, for example,
Sebeok 2001: 80 and 191 n. 13) as part of a pluralistic conception of codes which
was coupled with an as yet unspecified determining role of the genetic master
code. With the loosening of ‘code’ from its mooring in linguistics and human com-
munication, plus the realization that the overwhelming amount of communication
in the world is nonverbal, as opposed to a relatively minuscule amount of verbal
communication, Sebeok identified “terminological chaos in the sciences of com-
munication, which is manifoldly compounded when the multifarious message sys-
234 Paul Cobley

tems employed by millions of species of languageless creatures, as well as the

communicative processes inside organisms, are additionally taken into account”
(1991: 23). From his zoosemiotic period onwards, Sebeok continually attempted to
draw the attention of glottocentric communication theorists to the larger frame-
work in which human verbal communication is embedded. Peirce’s triadic version
of the sign, his typologies of sign functioning and the design of his sign theory to
cover all domains, provided the groundwork for Sebeok to make his work amount
to an outline of the way that semiosis is the criterial attribute of life (see Sebeok
2001; cf. Petrilli and Ponzio 2001). Semiotics, in this formulation, was not just a
method for understanding some artefacts of interest to arts and the humanities.
Rather, it evolved as the human means to think of signs as signs, whether they be
part of communication in films or novels, the aggressive expressions of animals or
the messages that pass between organisms as lowly as the humble cell. As Sebeok
(1997) demonstrates, when one starts to conceive of communication in these places
then the sheer number of transmissions of messages (between components in any
animal’s body, for example) becomes almost ineffable. This amounts to a major
re-orientation for communication. To be sure, the communication that takes place
in the sociopolitical sphere is of utmost importance: the future of this planet cur-
rently depends on it. However, the model of communication put forth by contem-
porary semiotics insists on the understanding that human affairs are only a small
part of what communication science’s proper object is.
The fast-growing field of ‘biosemiotics’ (Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok 1992; Hoff-
meyer 1996, 2008; Kull 2001; Barbieri 2007) is now making it ever more apparent
that the objects of biology are absolutely traversed by communicative processes
and, in turn, that communication theory can no longer eschew biological princi-
ples. One of the planks of biosemiotics in its investigation of semiosis across all
life is the concept of code duality (Hoffmeyer and Emmeche 2007: 27). Put briefly,
it indicates that there is a code for action and a code for memory in life. Because
organisms do not survive forever, they pass on signs as ‘versions’ of themselves,
making heredity into a matter of “semiotic survival” (Hoffmeyer and Emmeche
2007: 24). Action in a lifespan is dominated by analogue signs, changeable and
interpretable to different degrees; whereas “genetic memory works as read-only”
(Kull 2007: 8). The broader point that code duality seems to underline is that digital
codes (e.g. the notion of the ‘selfish gene’) have been imputed with an autonomous
character when, in fact, their sphere of efficacy is limited. Conversely, analogue
coding has acquired a reputation for independence and individualism when, in
fact, individuals are subject to species history, mortality and the need to sexually
reproduce (Hoffmeyer and Emmeche 2007: 51).
In his idea of ‘semiotic freedom’ Hoffmeyer (1996, 1998, 1999, 2008; Hoffmeyer
and Emmeche 2007) also indicates the capacity of a cell, organism, species to
distinguish parameters in its surroundings or its own interior and use them in
regard to significance. Such ‘freedom’ is very low at primitive levels and it is a
 Semiotic models of communication 235

species property and not an organismic property (Hoffmeyer 2009: 35); yet, biose-
mioticians would argue strenuously that it is still a matter of behavioural and
communicative change of a kind experienced by all organisms, including the
human.
Initially, driven by Sebeok, another key theory in biosemiotics which facilitates
an understanding of continuity across species concerns the organism’s Umwelt:
the ‘world’ of species according to their specific modelling devices, sensorium, or
semiotic capacity to apprehend things (von Uexküll 2001a, 2001b). The theory pos-
its that different species effectively inhabit ‘different worlds’ because the character
of the ‘world’ they apprehend is determined by the semiotic resources that are
available to them through their sensoria. A dog can apprehend sweetness in a bowl
of sugar, but it cannot measure the amount of sugar, gain a knowledge of the
history of sugar production or use the sugar in different recipes; a human can do
all of these and also listen to stories about sugar, but it cannot hear very high
pitched sounds like the dog can. The human inhabits an Umwelt characterized by
nonverbal and verbal communication according to the senses it possesses. Those
senses, of course, as the example of the dog’s ‘superior’ hearing demonstrates, are
not unlimited but, rather, specifically geared for the exigencies of survival.
The leading contemporary semiotic model of communication, then, is one
which, among other things,

– embeds human communication in the wider context of non-human (nonver-

bal) communication;
– sees communication not so much restricted by its fixed code-based nature
but rather in the potentialities of a network of interpretants;
– figures the ‘openness’ of analogue codes in relation to the restrictions of digi-
tal ones (such as the genetic code) and the restrictions of digital codes as viti-
ated by the capacity to enjoy differing degrees of ‘freedom’ within different
Umwelten.

The first of these, to some extent, goes hand-in-hand with the massive growth of
study of nonverbal communication since the 1960s (see, for example, Weitz 1974,
Knapp 1978, Kendon 1981, Poyatos 1983; Hall 1990; Beattie 2003; the Journal of
Nonverbal Behavior, 1976-present) and also the broad interest in the status of the
animal and its forms of communication which has developed in the last decade,
particularly in relation to posthumanism (see, for example, Baker 2000; Wolfe
2003; Fudge 2004; Wolfe 2010). The second has affinities with the influential
notion that contemporary communication exists within a network society in which
the self is at once plugged into a potentially global system of communications yet,
in the instrumentality of much communication, is rendered isolated or restricted
in developing global collectivity (see, for example, Castells 2005, 2009; van Dijk
2012). Such a situation – one of many potential situations for communication in
236 Paul Cobley

the present – arises from the loosening of codes in communications and a techno-
logical facilitation of the full force of the sign’s constitution in ‘relation’ and its
susceptibility to contextualization. The third provides a model of communication
which concerns both of these issues, such that communication is to be conceived
in terms of its ‘analogue’ code in which there are clear degrees of freedom, but
must also be conceived at the level of the species, governing which forms of com-
munication will benefit the project of survival.

7 Conclusion
One final observation should be offered in respect of the contemporary semiotic
model’s implications for research in communication. In semiology, in Barthes’s
interrogation of ‘mythologies’ and, explicitly, in Eco’s account of semiotics, there
is the alignment of semiotics with cultural anthropology. Indeed, in semiotics as
it emerged from the work of Sebeok and others, anthropology maintained a promi-
nent position, with numerous contributors from anthropology, the inaugural vol-
ume of the disciplinary field being a publication with a strong anthropological
bent (Sebeok et al. 1965) and Sebeok himself having spent many years pursuing
anthropological linguistics in the American tradition (see, for example, Sebeok and
Ingemann 1956). Yet, this seems to be at odds with the flavour of the work that
contemporary semiotics values. Taking its cue from Peirce’s focus on science as
the possibility of projection and the predictive capability of laws, along with his
theory of the potential engendered by the interpretant, the contemporary semiotic
model tries to incorporate a vis a prospecto, anticipating future developments and
considering even those potentialities that remain hidden. By contrast, anthropolog-
ical approaches are concerned with what peoples can be seen to do (or seen to
have done – with communication or anything else). The ‘encoding/decoding’
model harboured a predictive element in that it suggested ways in which certain
groups would deal with certain communications. However, the research that Hall
and his colleagues carried out was fixated on such phenomena as the spectacular
codes of subcultures, reporting their displays and what members of subcultures
said about themselves, but seldom venturing into private spaces or daring to pre-
dict how subculture participants’ communications would develop. For researchers
in the present, the discernment of the ‘uses’ of communications, and indeed the
study of subcultures, is a much more fraught affair punctuated by numerous obsta-
cles to procuring reliable data. So, one lesson for communication science that
semiotic models may hold is that not only do today’s communications require that
more research is conducted in the private space of communication (e.g. Livingstone
2009), but that research may be geared to anticipating the new contexts of the
network society and new forms of communication.
 Semiotic models of communication 237

Further reading
Cobley, Paul (ed.). 2010. The Routledge companion to semiotics. London: Routledge.
Craig, Robert T. 2008. Code. In: Wolfgang Donsbach (ed.), International encyclopedia of
communication, Volume 2, 529–532. Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Deely, John. 2010. Semiotics seen synchronically. New York: Legas.
Krampen, Martin. 1997. Communication models and semiosis. In: Roland Posner, Klaus Robering
and Thomas A. Sebeok (eds.) Ein Handbuch zu den zeichentheoretischen Grundlagen von
Natur und Kultur, Volume 1: 247–287. 4 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Sebeok, Thomas A. 1991. Communication. In: A Sign is Just a Sign, 22–35 Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.

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Tim Wharton
13 Linguistic action theories of
communication
Abstract: Early work on the philosophy of language was unconcerned with lan-
guage as a tool for communication: the pioneers of ‘ideal’ language philosophy
were interested in how insights from logical languages might be applied to the
study of ‘language’ in a very general sense. This chapter traces the development of
a less formalized approach to meaning and communication based around linguistic
action. It discusses Austin’s speech act theory and Grice’s theories of conversation
and meaning and shows how this work laid the foundations not only for a more
action-oriented account of communication but also a more psychological view of
pragmatics.

Keywords: Action, speech act, Grice, conversation, maxims, implicature, relevance

theory, pragmatics

1 Introduction
The reason for concentrating on the study of speech acts is simply this: all linguistic communi-
cation involves linguistic acts (Searle 1969: 16).

Early work on the philosophy of language in the modern era was unconcerned
with language as a tool for communication: the pioneers of ‘ideal’ language phi-
losophy such as Frege, Russell, and Tarski were logicians, interested in how
insights from logical languages might be applied to the study of ‘language’ in a
very general sense. Carnap’s logical positivists took the approach to surprising
extremes. They suggested that a sentence that was incapable of being proven true
or false, was in essence meaningless. Much work in logical positivism thereafter
consisted in attempts to purify the philosophy of language by ridding it of unverifi-
able elements.
In the 1940s and 50s a group of Oxford philosophers began to question this
approach, arguing that it obscured the crucial features of language rather than
shed any light on them. They maintained that the truth-conditions of sentences
exist only in virtue of the linguistic act, or speech act,1 the sentence is used to

1 Though Austin and his colleagues are generally credited with laying the foundations of speech
act theory (and Searle 1969 with building on these foundations), the term ‘speech act’ pre-dated
1940s Oxford. See Schumann and Smith (1990) for analysis of the pre-history of speech act
theory, dating back to the work of Thomas Reid.
242 Tim Wharton

perform. The group became known as the ‘ordinary’ language philosophers and
among them we can single out J. Austin, P. Strawson, and H. P. Grice.
The aim of this chapter is to trace the development of a less formalized
approach based around linguistic action. Section 2 provides an outline of speech
act theory and shows how while it was originally considered to be an alternative
to the formal approach, the two approaches now happily co-exist. Section 3 shows
how Grice’s theories of conversation and meaning have laid the foundations not
only for a more action-oriented account but also a more psychological view of
pragmatics. Section 4 introduces relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995),
a cognitive theory of utterance interpretation inspired by Grice’s work and based
around the notion of ostensive linguistic (and non-linguistic) acts. The chapter
closes in Section 5 with some remarks on how a theory based on ostensive commu-
nicative acts might shed light on both the psychological and social domains –
linguistic action, after all, is what makes the psychological social – and how the
speech act conception of language as action spawned a whole range of other disci-
plines.

2 Speech act theory

The central idea behind speech act theory is that while ideal language philosophy
can tell you all sorts of things about sentence meaning, it misses the fact that
when we speak, we are performing actions. Austin’s response to the logical positiv-
ists was that you can’t reduce meaning to truth because many sentences both in
the language of philosophy and in everyday language aren’t intended to be true or
false: approaching them from the perspective of truth is to misunderstand com-
pletely what they’re doing. The most developed and sustained work in speech act
theory is Searle (1969). Since linguistic acts are understood in virtue of the inten-
tions behind them, a theory of language (and language use) – according to him –
should form part of a larger theory of action.
Some sentences are obvious candidates for the kind of thing speech act theo-
rists had in mind. Consider (1) and (2). Intuitively, neither of these can be said to
be true or false:

(1) Shall we dance?

(2) Leave me alone!

However, Austin identified a whole range of other sentences that don’t lend them-
selves to being analyzed in terms of truth and falsity. Examples (3)–(6) are taken
from Austin (1962: 5):
 Linguistic action theories of communication 243

(3) ‘I do2 (take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife)’ – as uttered in the
course of the marriage ceremony.

(4) ‘I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth’ – as uttered when smashing the
bottle against the stern.

(5) ‘I give and bequeath my watch to my brother’ – as occurring in a will.

(6) ‘I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow.’

Austin dubbed sentences such as those in (3)–(6) performative utterances. These

he contrasted with sentences/utterances that describe states of affairs in the world:
constatives. Consider (7) and (8) below:

(7) I bequeathed my watch to my brother.

(8) I bet him sixpence that it was going to rain today.

Example (7) describes or reports a particular state of affairs (the state of affairs
that at a particular time a certain individual bequeathed a watch to his brother,
presumably whilst drawing up a will). This can be sharply contrasted with (5),
which doesn’t describe the act of bequeathing at all. Rather, it is the act of
bequeathing. Example (8) describes the state of affairs in which the individual in
question made a bet concerning the weather with a particular person. This can be
contrasted with (6), which doesn’t describe an act of betting but is an act of betting.
The acts in question Austin called speech acts, hence ‘speech act theory’ and
speech act types.
The first two thirds of Austin’s book examines ways in which his constative/
performative distinction might be maintained. Might there be, for example, gram-
matical or syntactic criteria by which performatives can be identified? He con-
cluded there were not and looked for an explanation as to why. But as anyone
who has read How to Do Things with Words knows, the book has a twist in the
tale. Beneath the surface there is consideable guile and towards the end of the
book the argument takes a seismic shift. Having introduced the constative/perform-
ative distinction, and having used the latter as an argument against ideal language
philosophy, Austin decides that actually there is no systematic way to maintain it.
Moreover, he suggests that the distinction should be dropped! Once the distinction
is dropped, however, it becomes clear that Austin’s real claim is that all utterances,
not just the ones that he has called performatives, are used to perform speech acts.
He distinguished three main types of speech act that are performed when
someone says something: the first of these is the locutionary act, the act of saying

2 J. Urmson, who wrote the preface to the first edition, points out in a footnote that Austin’s
mistake, i.e. that the phrase ‘I do’ is not used in the wedding ceremony, was realized.
244 Tim Wharton

something; the second is the illocutionary act, the act performed in saying some-
thing: so in saying (10) I might be warning you (asserting, complaining, apologiz-
ing, commanding, requesting etc.); the third is the perlocutionary act, the one that
results in an actual effect on the hearer.
Speech act theory enabled philosophers to ask new questions. According to
one radical interpretation the study of meaning cannot be divorced from the study
of language use. Construed in this way speech act theory is an alternative to the
kind of formal approach advocated by ideal language philosophers. Austin (1962)
used the terms sentence and utterance interchangeably: this was because at the
time he wrote those words the modern distinction between sentences and utteran-
ces – or semantics and pragmatics – did not exist.
A more moderate interpretation would be that speech act theory could supple-
ment formal semantics. Put differently, while Austin’s intention was to say that
the study of semantics was, in effect, better construed as the study of pragmatics,
the real contribution of speech act theory was to confirm that when it comes to
the study of meaning, there are different levels to consider. In the late 60s, the
work of Paul Grice, himself one kind of ordinary language philosopher, suggested
ways in which the work of the formalists and the speech act theorists might finally
be reconciled.

3 Gricean pragmatics
3.1 Meaning

We may owe the term ‘pragmatics’ to Charles Morris (1938), but it is Paul Grice
who laid the foundations upon which modern pragmatic theories are built. His
work is generally regarded as being based around two theories: of meaning and
conversation. But the theories are far from distinct and it could be argued that the
latter is a component of the former (Neale 1992). Indeed, both theories formed part
of much a larger programme on reasons, reasoning and rationality (Grice 2001).
There has been little discussion of how Grice’s theories of conversation and mean-
ing fit into his larger programme (though see Chapman 2005 and Allott 2007),
largely – perhaps – due to the fact that this dimension of Grice’s work was only
published in 2001. His later work, however, can certainly be interpreted as a contin-
uation of his exploration into earlier themes. Grice was committed to seeing
humans as rational beings. We have reasons for our attitudes – and hence our
linguistic actions – and have evolved to interpret the behaviour of others in terms
of the reasons behind it. Moreover, the way we interpret the actions and utterances
of others constitutes in itself a form of reasoning. Thanks in no small part to Grice’s
work it is now increasingly recognized that verbal communication is more than a
simple coding-decoding process.
 Linguistic action theories of communication 245

For Grice meaning was to be understood in terms of propositional-attitude

psychology. Ultimately, the meaning of words reduced to the beliefs, desires and
intentions of communicators who uttered them. He began his 1957 paper ‘Meaning’
by distinguishing two types of meaning: natural meaning – see (9) below – and
non-natural meaning (meaningNN) – (10):

(9) Those spots mean measles.

(10) That remark means he has measles.

Grice’s principal concern was meaningNN, and in particular, how the kind of mean-
ing exemplified in (10) might be characterized in terms of the expression and
recognition of intentions. He moved through a series of carefully constructed exam-
ples in order to identify the kind of intentions are required. Having dismissed those
examples in which a person has an intention to inform someone of something, but
keeps that intention secret (the intention can therefore play no role), Grice turned
to a series of further examples, where the ‘communicator’ provides overt evidence
of their informative intention:

Clearly we must at least add that, for x to have meantNN anything, not merely must it have
been “uttered” with the intention of inducing a certain belief but also the utterer must have
intended the “audience” to recognize the intention behind the utterance. […]

(1) Herod presents Salome with the head of St. John the Baptist on a charger.

(2) Feeling faint, a child lets its mother see how pale it is (hoping that she may draw her
own conclusions and help).

(3) I leave the china my daughter has broken lying around for my wife to see. (1989: 218)

For Grice, however, a problem remained. There is still a sense in the above exam-
ples in which the communicator’s intentions are incidental to the audience’s
intended response. In (1), for example, Salome can infer that St. John the Baptist
is dead on the strength of the evidence presented and independently of any inten-
tions Herod has. Grice wanted to distinguish between drawing someone’s atten-
tion to a particular object or a certain type of behaviour overtly – ‘showing,’
which in his view did not amount to the object or behaviour meaningNN any-
thing – and something being meantNN by the object or behaviour in question, or
by the person responsible for using the object or behaviour in a certain meaning-
fulNN manner.
In any act carried out in which evidence is provided of an intention to convey
information there are two layers to be retrieved by the audience. First, there is the
information being pointed out, in Grice’s example (2), the fact that John the Baptist
is dead. Second, there is the information that this first layer is being pointed out
intentionally. Notice that in example (1) while Herod does indeed provide overt
246 Tim Wharton

evidence of an intention to inform, the first layer of information is derivable entirely

without reference to this intention. (2) and (3) work in the same way. Grice proposed
that for a case to count as one of meaningNN the first layer should not be entirely
derivable without reference to the second layer. Grice’s famous definition of mean-
ing is provided below (see Grice 1989: 92):

“U meant something by uttering x” is true if, for some audience A, U uttered x intending:

(1) A to produce a particular response r

(2) A to think (recognize) that U intends (1)

(3) A to fulfil (1) on the basis of his fulfilment of (2).

3.2 Conversation

It is probably true that when most people hear Grice’s name it is his work on the
Cooperative Principle and Maxims that comes to mind. By drawing a distinction
between the levels of what is said and implicature, Grice aimed to suggest ways in
which the essential differences between the ideal and ordinary philosophy move-
ments may be reconciled. In effect, he proposed a distinction between semantics,
the study of linguistic meaning, and pragmatics, the study of language use, a
distinction that allowed ideal and ordinary language philosophy to coexist.
Consider the exchange in (11) below. Bob, Karen and Mary work in the same
building:

(11) Bob: Is Mary still here?

Karen: Well, her door is open.

Karen’s response to Bob’s question is at best indirect. He has asked her a specific
question and rather than answer him directly she has responded with information
about a door. However, it is not hard to imagine a context in which Bob would
infer that Karen has implied – or ‘implicated’ – that Mary is still here. Grice wanted
to explain how it is that such inferences are so easily arrived at by hearers. His
idea was that communication is a cooperative activity, and when two or more
people are communicating, it is in both their interests to make the communication
go as smoothly as possible in order to achieve their mutual aim. Because communi-
cation is cooperative, speakers behave in certain predictable ways. In general, for
instance, a speaker is not going to say something that is totally irrelevant, or that
will not tell the hearer what he wants to know.
But Grice’s insight raises as many questions as it answers. What are these
predictable ways in which cooperative speakers behave? What counts as being
cooperative? Grice’s answer to this question was that the cooperative principle can
 Linguistic action theories of communication 247

be broken down into a number of different maxims of conversation – Quantity,

Quality, Relation and Manner. His idea was that speakers will, on the whole, make
sure that their conversational contributions comply with these maxims and, hence,
the Cooperative Principle. Grice presented the Cooperative Principle and maxims
as follows:

Cooperative Principle
Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted
purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.

Quantity maxims
1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the
exchange).
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Quality maxims
Supermaxim: Try to make your contribution one that is true.
1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Maxim of Relation
Be relevant.

Manner maxims
Supermaxim: Be perspicuous
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)
4. Be orderly (Grice 1989: 26–27).

Grice’s framework showed how hearers actually put the linguistic meaning of what
has been said together with the assumption that the speaker is being cooperative
(and therefore complying with the maxims), and any other necessary world knowl-
edge, in order to finally arrive at the intended interpretation of the utterance in
question.
Bob might, for example, wonder whether all Karen wants to communicate to
him is that the Mary’s door is still open. However, he will justifiably conclude that
this is not the case, on the grounds that if that was all she wanted to communicate,
it would not satisfy the maxims (and hence would fail to satisfy the Cooperative
Principle). For example, Karen’s utterance would fail to satisfy the Quantity maxim,
since it would not be as informative as is required for the current purposes of the
exchange. Nor would it satisfy the maxim of Relation, since her contribution would
not be relevant in the context of the exchange.
Bob assumes that Karen is obeying the cooperative principle and maxims,
and hence he will look for a way of interpreting her utterance such that these
apparent violations can be removed. If Karen is being cooperative, then she must
think that the fact that Mary’s door is open is informative and relevant in some
way as a response to Bob’s question. Bob knows that Mary closes her door before
248 Tim Wharton

she leaves work. Moreover, he knows (or at least presumes) that Karen is also
aware of these facts. He infers, then, that what she intended to communicate is
that because the door is open, Mary has still not left. This is the only way that
Karen’s utterance can be interpreted on the assumption that she is observing the
cooperative principle and maxims. Only in this way is her response both informa-
tive and relevant.
It is important not to confuse Grice’s claims about conversation with the much
stronger claim (which Grice certainly did not endorse) that all conversations are
cooperative, and that the maxims are always obeyed. Indeed, Grice listed four ways
in which the maxims may fail to be fulfilled. Perhaps the most well known of these
are cases in which rather than a maxim or maxims being apparently violated (as
in (10).), maxims are overtly violated. Consider (15).. Bob is talking to Karen about
their colleague Mary, who has been bad-mouthing them to others:

(15) Bob: She’s an absolute joy to work with.

It is perfectly obvious to Karen that Bob has said something he does not believe,
and Bob is well aware of this (and Karen is aware that Bob is aware of it). However,
he has done so overtly, and whilst he is clearly violating the first Quality maxim,
Karen will infer that he is at least still obeying the Cooperative Principle. Karen
will therefore search for another proposition related to the one Bob is expressing.
For Grice, the most obvious candidate in this case would be the opposite proposi-
tion to the one he has expressed, i.e. that Mary is impossible to work with. This
example involves the figurative interpretation of a case of irony. Other figures of
speech Grice characterized as relying on the flouting of maxims include metaphor,
hyperbole and meiosis (or understatement).
Grice’s work on conversation has been hugely influential. For many, the Coop-
erative Principle and maxims represent the dawn of modern pragmatics. Most peo-
ple working within pragmatics accept that hearers are guided in the interpretive
process by some sort of expectation that a speaker is meeting certain standards.
From this it follows that speakers behave in predictable ways and hearers can
therefore recognize the best hypothesis about the speaker’s meaning by arriving at
an interpretation that satisfies those expectations the speaker is aiming at, or
standards he or she is trying to meet. Neo-Gricean pragmatists view these stand-
ards in a way that remains quite faithful to Grice’s framework (Atlas 2005; Bach
1994, 1999, 2001; Gazdar 1979; Horn 1984, 1996, 2005; Levinson 1983, 2000). Whilst
doing away with Gricean maxims, Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/
1995) remains true to Grice’s original insights that communication is an inferential
activity, and that central to the process of utterance interpretation is the fact an
overt act of communication raises certain expectations in its audience.
 Linguistic action theories of communication 249

4 Relevance theory
Relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995, Blakemore 2002, Wilson and
Sperber 2004) combines aspects of a Gricean pragmatics with modern psychologi-
cal research and cognitive science to provide a cognitive-inferential pragmatic
framework. It takes as its domain a carefully defined sub-set of those cases that
might be referred to as instances of communication. ‘Communication’ itself is a
broad notion. Sebeok (1972: 39) remarks that “…all organic alliances presuppose a
measure of communication: Protozoa interchange signals; an aggregate of cells
becomes an organism by virtue of the fact that the component cells can influence
one another”. Construed in this way, a theory of pragmatics would indeed have to
be what Chomsky (2000) has termed a ‘theory of everything,’ and would need to
encompass every facet of human interaction definable as ‘communicative’: from
socio-cultural right down to sub-personal phenomena.
But relevance theory has a carefully delimited domain. It is not a ‘theory of
everything.’ In fact is not even a theory of communication per se, focusing as it
does on a sub-type of human communicative action: action by which a communi-
cator provides evidence that they intend to communicate something.3 Natural lan-
guage is seen as governed by a code, itself governed by an autonomous mental
grammar. Utterance interpretation, on the other hand, is a two-stage process. The
linguistically encoded logical form, which is the output of the mental grammar, is
simply a starting point for rich inferential processes guided by the expectation that
speakers conform to certain standards or expectations: that in (highly) intuitive
terms, an audience knows that a communicator has a good reason for providing
the stimulus which attracts attention to their intention to communicate, and that
that reason is a good enough one for an audience to attend to it. In contrast with
conscious, reflective reasoning, it is proposed that these inferential processes are
unconscious and fast, under-pinned by ‘fast and frugal heuristics’ of the kind cur-
rently gaining much currency in cognitive science (Gigerenzer et al. 1999).
Relevance theory is based on a definition of relevance and two general princi-
ples: a Cognitive and a Communicative Principle of Relevance (for a recent account
see Wilson and Sperber 2004). Relevance is characterized in cost-benefit terms, as
a property of inputs to cognitive processes, the benefits being positive cognitive
effects, and the cost the processing effort needed to achieve these effects. Other
things being equal, the greater the positive cognitive effects achieved by processing
an input in a context of available assumptions, and the smaller the processing
effort required, the greater the relevance of the input to the individual who proc-
esses it. The human disposition to search for relevance is seen as an evolved conse-
quence of the tendency toward greater efficiency in cognition. As Gigerenzer et al.

3 For discussion of the crucial differences between relevance-theoretic and Gricean intentions
see Wharton (2008).
250 Tim Wharton

(1999: 21) put it: “There is a point where too much information and too much
information processing can hurt. Cognition is the art of focusing on the relevant
and deliberately ignoring the rest.” And this disposition is one that is routinely
exploited in human communication. Speakers know that listeners pay attention
only to ostensive acts that are relevant enough, and so in order to attract and hold
an audience’s attention they should make their linguistic or non-linguistic acts
appear at least relevant enough to be worth processing. More precisely, the Com-
municative Principle of Relevance claims that by overtly displaying an intention to
inform – producing an utterance or other ostensive stimulus – a communicator
creates a presumption that the stimulus is at least relevant enough to be worth
processing, and moreover, the most relevant one compatible with her own abilities
and preferences.
In contrast with Grice, relevance theory aims at providing a characterization
of human overt intentional communication generally. Utterances, after all, are not
the only kind of ostensive actions, and a communicator might provide evidence of
her intention to inform by means of a look, a gesture, or even a natural sign such
as a facial expression. Ostensive actions are often a mixture of what Grice would
have called natural and non-natural meaning, and this is one of the reasons that
relevance theory does not attempt to draw the line that Grice wanted to between
deliberately and openly letting someone know and telling. There’s much more to
human communication than language.
Wharton (2009) provides an account of some of the implications redrawing
the domain of pragmatics in this way has. One of the most obvious is that focusing
on meaningNN has had the effect of excluding from pragmatics the overt showing
of spontaneously produced natural behaviours. But there seem to be clear cases
where the open showing of spontaneously produced natural signs and signals
makes a difference to the speaker’s meaning. Take, for example, an utterance of
(12):

(12) Peter is late.

If the utterer of (16) makes no attempt to conceal the spontaneous anger in her
facial expression and tone of voice, and hence ‘deliberately and openly shows’ it,
she would naturally be understood as meaning not only that Peter was late but
that she was angry that he was late. Grice’s framework appears to exclude such
spontaneous expressions of emotion from contributing to a speaker’s meaning.
Or consider the exchange in (13), uttered on the terrace of a restaurant:

(13) Jack: Shall we sit out here?

Lily (shivering ostensively): I’m cold.

Lily’s ostensive shiver accompanying her utterance of ‘I’m cold’ should be salient
enough to be picked out by Jack and used in his interpretation of the degree term
 Linguistic action theories of communication 251

‘cold.’ How much she is shivering will be treated as an indication of how cold she
feels, and, in effect, will calibrate the degree of coldness Jack understands her to
feel and to be expressing as part of her meaning. The fact that Lily has shivered
ostensively – shown, as well as told him she is cold – will motivate Jack’s search
for the ‘extra’ meaning Lily intends to convey in return for the extra processing
effort required. In this case, Jack would be entitled to understand Lily as implicat-
ing that she is definitely cold enough to want to go inside. In a parallel example,
Lily’s ostensive shiver accompanying her utterance of ‘It’s lovely on the terrace,
isn’t it?’ might provide Jack with a clue that she is being ironic, that actually she
hates it on the terrace and would prefer to go inside. In both cases, openly shown
natural behaviours affect the outcome of the interpretive process, guiding the
hearer to a certain range or type of conclusions.
It is worth underlining here that these natural behaviours not only help Jack
establish the implicit content of Lily’s utterance, but also contribute to the truth-
conditional content of the proposition he takes Lily to be expressing. The truth
conditions of her utterance of ‘I’m cold’ will vary according to the type or degree
of coldness she intends to communicate, which are indicated in her openly shown
natural behaviour.
Recall the characterization in the previous section. In any act carried out with
the intention of revealing an informative intention, there are two layers of informa-
tion to be retrieved. The first, basic layer is the information being pointed out, and
the second is the information that the first layer is being pointed out intentionally.
What makes an individual ostensive act a case of either ‘showing’ or meaningNN
is the precise nature of the evidence provided for the first layer. In cases of show-
ing, the evidence provided is relatively direct – Lily’s shiver, for example. In cases
of meaningNN, the evidence provided is relatively indirect – a linguistic utterance,
for example.
Most cases of showing, cases in which the evidence provided of the first layer
of information is fairly direct, still require an extra layer of inference before the
communicator’s full informative intention is recognized, and the extent to which
an audience is required to make this extra inference is a question of degree. Not
only can what is meantNN be regarded as a sub-set of what is intentionally commu-
nicated, but rather than the dichotomy Grice envisaged in his 1957 paper, there is
a continuum of cases between showing and meaningNN.
The continuum between showing and meaningNN has a variety of applications.
At various points along it, we can see the varying extents to which hearers are
required to consider speakers’ intentions in order to get from the evidence they
provide to the first, basic layer of information they are communicating. It therefore
provides a ‘snapshot’ of the types of evidence used in intentional communicative
acts and the role inference plays in them. At one extreme of the continuum lie
clear cases of spontaneous, natural display. At the other lie clear cases of linguistic
coding, where all the evidence provided for the first, basic layer is indirect. In
252 Tim Wharton

between lie a range of cases in which more or less direct ‘natural’ evidence and
more or less indirect coded evidence mix to various degrees: for example, in point-
ing and stylized expressions of emotion. Equally importantly, the continuum pro-
vides a theoretical tool which allows us to conceptualize more clearly the observa-
tion made above that ostensive stimuli are often highly complex composites of
different, inter-related behaviours which fall at various points between ‘showing’
and ‘meaningNN.’ In Wilson and Wharton (2006) these observations are brought to
bear on the analysis of prosody. Wharton (2009) applies them to nonverbal behav-
iours in general.4
I have also argued (Wharton 2003, 2009) that the continuum has diachronic
implications. When an interjection such as ‘yugh,’ for example, moves far enough
along the continuum, it may become linguistically productive (‘yucky,’ ‘yuckier,’
‘yuckiest’), and some of its uses may be properly linguistic. In many historical
linguistic accounts (Aitchison 1991, Lightfoot 1991) children are seen as converging
on the simplest grammar that reflects the practice of the speech community to
which they are exposed. The continuum could allow us to explore the idea that
pragmatic factors may affect this convergence, and to see language change in terms
of the micro-processes involved in the emergence of new encoded meanings. Lan-
guage change might then be characterized in terms of population-scale macro-
processes resulting from an accumulation of those micro-processes, leading to the
stabilization of new senses.

5 The psychological and the social

Much current work in evolutionary psychology conceives of the mind as an
adaptive toolbox, a set of dedicated cognitive mechanisms that evolved in small
incremental steps to meet problems in the environment (Barkow et al. 1995;
Sperber 2002). One way in which such mechanisms might improve overall
cognitive efficiency is by providing what Gigerenzer et al. (1999) call ‘fast and
frugal heuristics,’ which apply to a particular domain, and yield reliable conclu-
sions when applied to input from this domain. As Gigerenzer and Selten
(2002: 7) put it: “Heuristics are middle-ranged, that is, they work in a class of
situations… What we call the adaptive toolbox contains a number of these
“middle-range” tools, not a single hammer for all purposes.” On the face of
it, having to trust heuristics may seem disadvantageous, especially since they
are not foolproof. Gigerenzer and Selten (2002) suggest not. They ask us to
consider a thought experiment in which two teams are set the task of designing
a robot that can catch a ball. One team adopts an omniscientific approach and

4 In that book I also make a further distinction in cases of natural meaning between what I call
natural signs and natural signals.
 Linguistic action theories of communication 253

programmes a robot with knowledge of all the projected parabolas a ball might
follow, as well as a range of instruments to perform the calculations that will
get the robot to the right place to wait and catch the ball. The other team
study what baseball players actually do (the first team dismiss this idea
because, since sportsmen aren’t conscious of the measurements and calcula-
tions they are using when they catch a ball). On the basis of this they pro-
gramme the robot to follow what has been called the gaze heuristic. A robot
programmed with such a heuristic does not move immediately the ball is
airborne. Instead, it makes a rough estimate of whether the ball is going to
land in front of it or behind it and then starts running in an appropriate
direction whilst fixing its gaze on the ball. From here it adjusts its running
speed so that the angle between the eye and the ball remains the same. Using
this method, the robot does not need to calculate where the ball will land.
Provided it can move quickly enough, it will catch the ball whilst it is running.
Many such heuristics have been identified: the recognition heuristic, by which
we tend to assign higher value to objects with which we are familiar; the contagion
heuristic, by which we tend to avoid contact with objects that have come into
contact with other objects we regard as contaminated. Emotions may be heuristics.
Faced with a dangerous animal, fear puts our body into the state it needs to be in to
either fight or run away: we don’t need to reason ourselves into feeling frightened,
although we sometimes try to reason our way out of it.
There are clear implications for pragmatics. After all, the central question is
how it is that hearers accurately and seemingly effortlessly infer speaker meaning.
Heuristics would seem an appropriate choice. Levinson (2000) makes use of what
he calls an ‘I’-heuristic, which yields default inferences in the form of conclusions
that are automatically drawn but may be overruled by contextual information.
Relevance theory’s approach sees cognition and communication as relying heavily
on a comprehension heuristic, which make it possible to pick out potentially rele-
vant inputs to cognitive processes and process them in a way that enhances their
relevance. So in example (13) it is Jack’s relevance-based comprehension heuristic
that picks out Lily’s salient behaviour.
A unique feature of, for example, Grice’s legacy is that it continues to reverber-
ate throughout a whole range of disciplines. During a presentation at Oxford in
September 2000, psychologist Alan Leslie remarked it was Grice’s paper ‘Meaning’
that was largely responsible for awakening his interest in Theory of Mind and
social cognition. But Grice gets credit within the social as well as the psychological
sphere. Sociolinguist John Gumperz (2001: 216) has gone on record as remarking
it is Grice “who lays the foundation of a truly social perspective on speaking”.
Opportunities for bridge building between the social and psychological sciences
are rare, but they should be embraced (though I have found they are often
resisted). Sperber and Wilson (1997: 145) are surely right when they say: “It is not
enough to define sociology as what sociologists usually do and psychology as what
254 Tim Wharton

psychologists usually do: such definitions show too much respect for institutional
boundaries.” With the exceptions of Brown and Levinson (1979, 1987), Enfield
(2003), Enfield and Levinson (2006a,b) researchers who adopt a sociolinguistic or
anthropological view have not so far been very interested in building on the foun-
dations of a ‘truly social perspective’ that Grice laid. How might such bridges be
built?
Earlier in this chapter, when I discussed possible implications of the show-
ing-meaningNN continuum for the analysis of language change, I noted that
the stabilization of new lexical senses might be characterized in terms of
population-scale macro-processes resulting from the accumulation of individual
micro-processes. Just as much work in historical linguistics is largely concerned
with the patterns of linguistic change themselves (though see Hopper and
Traugott [1993] 2003), so work in discourse analysis and sociolinguistics often
centres on social notions such as power relations and inequality, and examines
how they are manifested, reinforced and even constructed by discourse. As
Cameron (1997: 57) puts it: “Many sociolinguistic accounts offered within the
traditional quantitative paradigm presuppose that …there exist social categories,
structures, divisions, attitudes and identities which are marked, encoded or
expressed in language use.” But – to paraphrase Harold Garfinkel – people
are not ‘cultural dopes,’ passively and mindlessly producing utterances prede-
termined by such categories or structures, or their ethnicity, age, sex or social
class membership. We are intelligent social beings, capable of making strategic
use of language to confirm or contest such categories, structures, divisions etc.
What Franks (2011) calls ‘the circularity problem,’ that just as minds are
fundamental to culture, so to is culture fundamental to mind, will not go
away, but beginning to adopt ways in which we can approach the sociolinguis-
tic domain from a different perspective – starting with the minds of the
individuals who create the discourse, and treating macro-level sociolinguistic
phenomena as resulting from an accumulation of individual micro-level acts –
might yield interesting and worthwhile results. It may even be a small step to
providing the social sciences with a naturalistic ontology.
As for the legacy of Austin, Searle and other true speech act theorists, the
broader consequence of their work has been to legitimize the study of language or
discourse as-action. By analyzing the meaning of utterances in terms of the acts
they perform, speech act theory spawned a variety of approaches – including dis-
course analysis, variationist linguistics and conversation analysis – all of which
assume not only that these units of discourse have communicative functions, but
also that these functions can be meaningfully identified and labeled. As we have
seen, Austin’s motives were entirely philosophical, but he unwittingly laid the
foundations for a range of disciplines, many of which are discussed at more length
in other chapters within this volume.
 Linguistic action theories of communication 255

Further reading
Austin, John. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Grice, H. Paul. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Neale, Stephen. 1992. Paul Grice and the philosophy of language. Linguistics and Philosophy 15.
509–559.
Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson. 1986/1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Wharton, Tim. 2009. Pragmatics and Non-Verbal Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

References
Aitchison, Jean. 1991. Language change: Progress or decay? 2nd edn. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Allott, Nicholas. 2007. Relevance and rationality, unpublished thesis. University College London.
Atlas, Jay. 2005. Logic, Meaning, and Conversation: Semantical Underdeterminacy, Implicature
and their Interface. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Austin, John. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bach, Kent. 1994. Conversational impliciture. Mind and Language 9. 124–162.
Bach, Kent. 1999. The myth of conventional implicature. Linguistics and Philosophy 22: 327–366.
Bach, Kent. 2001. You don’t say? Synthese 127. 11–31.
Barkow, Jerome, Leda Cosmides & John Tooby. 1995. The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology
and the Generation of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blakemore, Diane. 2002. Relevance and Linguistic Meaning: The Semantics and Pragmartics of
Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, P. & S. Levinson. 1979. Social structure, groups, and interaction. In: K. R. Scherer and
H. Giles (eds.), Social markers in speech, 291–341. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, P. & S. Levinson. 1987. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cameron, Deborah. 1997. Demythologizing sociolinguistics. In: Nik Coupland and Adam Jaworski
(eds.), Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Coursebook. London: Macmillan Press Ltd.
Carston, Robyn. 2002. Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Chapman, Siobhan. 2005. Paul Grice, Philosopher and Linguist. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chomsky, Noam. 2000. New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Enfield, N. 2003. Linguistic Epidemiology: Semantics and Grammar of Language Contact in
Mainland South East Asia. London: Routledge.
Enfield, N. & S. Levinson (eds.). 2006a. Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition and
Interaction. New York: Berg Publishers.
Enfield, N. & S. Levinson. 2006b. Introduction: human sociality as a new interdisciplinary field.
In: N. Enfield and S. Levinson (eds.), Roots of Human Sociality, 1–35. New York: Berg
Publishers.
Franks, Bradley. 2011. Cognition and Culture: an Evolutionary Perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Gazdar, Gerald. 1979. Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition and Logical Form. London:
Academic Press.
256 Tim Wharton

Gigerenzer, Gerd & Reinhard Selten (eds.). 2002. Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gigerenzer, Gerd, Peter Todd and the ABC Research Group. 1999. Simple Heuristics that Make us
Smart. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grice, H. Paul. 1957. Meaning. Philosophical Review 66. 377–388.
Grice, H. Paul. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Grice, H. Paul & Richard Warner (ed.). 2001. Aspects of Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Grice, P. 2001. Aspects of Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Gumperz, John J. 2001. Interactional sociolinguistics: A personal perspective. In: D. Schiffrin,
D. Tannen and H. E. Hamilton (eds.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Malden, MA:
Blackwell.
Hopper, Paul & Elisabeth Traugott. 1993. [2003]. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Horn, Laurence. 1984. Towards a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q- and R-based
implicature. In: D. Schiffrin (ed.), Meaning, Form, and Use in Context: Linguistic Applications.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Horn, Laurence. 1996. Presupposition and implicature. In: S. Lappin (ed.), The Handbook of
Contemporary Semantic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
Horn, Laurence. 2005. The border wars: a neo-Gricean perspective. In: K. von Heusinger and
Ken Turner (eds.), Where Semantics Meets Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Levinson, Steven. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Levinson, Steven. 2000. Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational
Implicature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lightfoot, David. 1991. How to Set Parameters: Arguments from Language Change. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Morris, Charles. 1938. Foundations of the theory of signs. In: O. Neurath (ed.), International
Encyclopedia of Unified Science, volume 1, number 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press;
reprinted in Writings on the General Theory of Signs [1971]. The Hague: Mouton.
Neale, Stephen. 1992. Paul Grice and the philosophy of language. Linguistics and Philosophy, 15.
509–559.
Schumann, Karl & Barry Smith. 1990. Elements of speech act theory in the work of Thomas Reid.
History of Philosophy Quarterly 7. 40–66
Searle, John. 1969. Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sebeok, Thomas. 1972. Perspectives in Zoosemiotics. The Hague: Mouton.
Sperber, Dan. 2002. In defense of massive modularity. In: Emmanuel Dupoux (ed.), Language,
Brain and Cognitive Development: Essays in Honor of Jacques Mehler. Cambridge MA: MIT
Press.
Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson. 1986. /1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson. 1997. Remarks on relevance theory and the social sciences.
Multilingua 16. 145–151.
Wharton, Tim. 2003. Interjections, language and the ‘showing’/‘saying’ continuum. Pragmatics
and Cognition 11 (1). 39–91.
Wharton, Tim. 2008. Meaning and showing: Gricean intentions and relevance- theoretic
intentions. Intercultural Pragmatics 5 (2). 131–152.
Wharton, Tim. 2009. Pragmatics and Non-Verbal Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. 2004. Relevance Theory. In: Laurence Horn and Greg Ward (eds.),
The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wilson, Deirdre & Tim Wharton. 2006. Relevance and prosody. Journal of Pragmatics 38.
1559–1579.
Adrian Bangerter and Eric Mayor
14 Interactional theories of communication
Abstract: Conversational interaction is the primary means of communication in
everyday life. It serves to coordinate joint activities among individuals. But conver-
sation is itself a species of joint activity that gets coordinated in an ongoing, emer-
gent manner by participants. Participants coordinate on who participates in an
interaction, what roles participants will enact, actions to be performed, and their
timing and location. They achieve mutual understanding, or common ground, on
these aspects by signaling to each other their beliefs about the state of the conver-
sation on a moment-by-moment basis. We discuss examples of the myriad ways in
which various aspects of joint activities get coordinated.

Keywords: Conversation, social interaction, mutual understanding, common

ground, grounding, joint action, coordination

In this chapter, we describe a body of work developed in cognitive psychology and

related fields that systematically investigates the cognitive and social processes
involved in how people use language to communicate. This work builds on earlier
research in the philosophy of language (speech act theory; Austin 1962; Searle
1969), in pragmatics (Grice, 1975), in ethnomethodology and the microsociology of
interaction (Goffman 1967; Sacks et al. 1974), and in psycholinguistics (Clark and
Clark 1977). We draw in particular on Clark’s (1996) theory of language use. This
theory specifies the cognitive underpinnings of communication and describes in
detail the linguistic acts by which it is accomplished. By focusing on cognition and
communication, it is related to, but distinct from, other cognitive science
approaches such as cognitive linguistics, which investigate conceptual aspects of
language production and understanding as a cognitive process without looking at
actual communication (for example, how concepts like metaphors affect thought
and understanding; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980).
The research we describe is derived from detailed experimental and field stud-
ies (Clark and Bangerter 2004) of everyday conversation, especially in face-to-face
settings, but it has also been largely applied to other communicative media (Clark
and Brennan 1991). Interactive face-to-face conversation is the fundamental setting
in which humans communicate (Clark 1996), and thus is the paradigm case for
garnering important insights into the nature of communication.
A fundamental message is that conversation is primarily used to coordinate
joint activities among individuals. Another is that conversation is itself a species
of joint activity that gets coordinated on a moment-by-moment basis (Holtgraves
2002). We thus first describe the functions of communication (why we communi-
258 Adrian Bangerter and Eric Mayor

cate) followed by a broad discussion of mutual knowledge, or common ground,

which is the cognitive foundation of communication. We then discuss examples of
the myriad of ways we coordinate various aspects of conversations before conclud-
ing.

1 Why we communicate: coordinating joint action

Communication primarily serves to solve problems of cooperation, in other words
coordinating joint action. This is true for modern-day humans and is as well the
reason why language evolved. Indeed, human social life recurrently involves coop-
erating to reach goals that a group can achieve better than an individual. Compare
the outcomes attainable by a symphonic orchestra, a surgical team, or a group of
prehistoric hunters relative to those attainable by a single individual in each of
these domains. At the same time, cooperative enterprises pose the so-called
dilemma of cooperation (Smith 2010): individuals want to cooperate, but run the
risk of being deceived or exploited by their partners. Also, even if cooperation
partners are motivated by mutually benevolent intentions, they still need to figure
out how to coordinate their collaborative endeavor. The dilemma of cooperation,
then, poses two problems for would-be cooperators: a commitment problem (ensur-
ing all do their part) and a coordination problem (putting together individual efforts
in a sensible and efficient way). The human capacity for language use is a key
factor that facilitates the resolution of these two problems (Smith 2010). In general,
then, the selection pressures that have led to the evolution of language stem from
the intense sociality of human everyday life (Levinson 2006a), which naturally
predisposes humans towards cooperation, be it in sharing goods or information,
or in pooling efforts towards a common goal.
A prominent and dynamic field of research is how interactional ability devel-
ops during ontogenesis, as evidenced by research in child development, and phylo-
genesis, as evidenced by research in comparative psychology. The tendency to
cooperate, expressed in altruistic behavior from infancy onwards, is probably part
of our genetic makeup (Tomasello 2009). Unlike many other species, human inter-
action crucially involves interpreting the intentions behind another organism’s
behavior (rather than the behavior itself), as shown by humans’ ability to use
information from pointing gestures from the age of two years onwards (Povinelli
et al. 1997). Interpreting other basic signals of conspecifics’ intentions like gaze
also emerges early on in development. Children aged three to four interpret gaze
direction of others as evidence of cognitive states (Baron-Cohen and Cross 1992).
Interestingly, human morphological characteristics have likely evolved to reliably
signal gaze information. For example, the sclera (the ‘white’ of the eye) is a con-
spicuously unique characteristic of the human eye; many other species do not
have exposed sclera (Kobayashi and Kohshima 2001). This characteristic enhances
 Interactional theories of communication 259

gaze tracking and therefore plausibly evolved to facilitate detection of other

humans’ intentions (as mediated by their gaze) during interaction. More generally,
humans interpret others’ behavior by treating them as if they were animated by
intentions, in other words, they have a theory of mind about other conspecifics
(Astington et al. 1988). Not only that, but cooperative action implies that partici-
pants reciprocally try to display, recognize and act on each other’s intentions,
giving rise to shared or collective intentionality (Bratman 1992; Searle 1995; Tomas-
ello and Carpenter 2007).
The structure of human interaction is inextricably linked to this complex cogni-
tive processing of intentions. There is evidence for a basic structure to human
interaction that is relatively independent of cultural differences (Levinson 2006b).
Recently, Stivers et al. (2009) demonstrated a universal structure of turn-taking in
conversation, with a tendency to avoid both overlapping speech and silence. More-
over, human action consists of hierarchically embedded chains of action organized
in complex means-ends relationships (Miller et al. 1960; von Cranach et al. 1982).
The focus of this chapter will be to describe the link between these two aspects of
shared intentionality and joint activity. We do this in two main sections. We first
examine how participants solve the fundamental problems involved in coordinat-
ing joint activity, before describing how they coordinate specific aspects of joint
activities.

2 Solving the problem of coordinating joint activity

2.1 What is a joint activity?

A joint activity is composed of individual actions. For example, to perform a hand-

shake, Horatio and PJ each need to extend their own hand and grasp their part-
ner’s hand. Each extension and grasping movement is an individual action. But a
joint action is more than the sum of these two individual actions (Clark 1996).
Horatio and PJ need to coordinate the timing of their individual movements as well
as their extension so that their hands actually meet. Before even launching their
arms, they need to position their bodies facing each other. That is, when Horatio
and PJ perform their individual actions as part of a joint activity, they are respon-
sive to each other’s behavior, actively cooperating in signaling their intentions and
commitments in order to further the activity (Bratman 1992). In any joint activity,
participants need to solve at least five issues (Clark 2006: 135): who participates,
what roles they will enact, the actions to be performed, their timing and location.
In doing so, participants orient to two kinds of imperatives (Enfield 2006): an
informational or cognitive imperative and a social or affiliational imperative. The
cognitive imperative requires participants to keep track of their shared assumptions
about the state of the conversation. The affiliational imperative requires partici-
260 Adrian Bangerter and Eric Mayor

pants to perpetually maintain and display their relationship in the course of the
conversation. In particular, this entails avoiding conversational situations that may
threaten the face of one’s partner (Brown and Levinson 1987; Goffman 1955, 1967).
The handshake example illustrates the intense coordination of behavior that
makes joint activities possible. Thus, the basic actions of the handshake (the arm
movements and grasping) are themselves coordinated by a number of coordinating
actions (e.g., minute, split-second adaptations in trajectory and posture based on
visual feedback) (Clark 2006). Of course, a handshake is a trivial activity that even
inept individuals like Horatio and PJ can accomplish with ease in everyday life.
But how does a handshake relate to verbal conversation? A handshake is itself
typically a component part of a larger joint activity, namely greeting someone,
which is in turn a component part of a yet larger joint activity, namely a social
encounter. And, conversation is itself a form of joint activity. The twin cognitive
and social imperatives of coordinating intentions and relations that need to be
oriented to remain the same in a handshake and in a conversation, it is only the
means used to do so that may be different.

2.2 Common ground and grounding

Early theorists like Heider recognized the dynamic interplay or ‘give-and-take’

between participants in a conversation (Heider 1958: 34). Merleau-Ponty
(1945: 407) described the phenomenological experience of conversational intersub-
jectivity:

In the experience of a conversation, a common ground constitutes itself between the other
one and myself, my words and his are called out by the phase of the discussion, they insert
themselves in a common operation of which neither one of us is the sole creator. (…) Our
perspectives glide one into the other, we coexist within the same world.

Modern research in cognitive science and psycholinguistics has developed these

insights, nourished by field data from conversation analysis and philosophical
analysis of language. The concept that captures how conversational intersubjectiv-
ity is accomplished is common ground, or mutual knowledge (Clark 1996).
Technically, common ground is the sum total of beliefs that participants in a
conversation hold and also believe their partners to hold (Clark 1996). Krauss and
Fussell (1990: 112) define mutual knowledge as “knowledge that the communicat-
ing parties both share and know they share.” As such, common ground is different
from related concepts of shared knowledge in the social sciences like social repre-
sentations (Moscovici 1984) or widespread beliefs (Jaspars and Fraser 1984),
because shared knowledge is not necessarily known to be shared by communica-
tors.
Common ground gets built up by participants during conversation – a process
called grounding. How this is done is the object of a model proposed by Clark
 Interactional theories of communication 261

and Schaefer (1989). They argued that participants need to arrive at the shared
understanding that each new utterance they produce has been understood as
intended. There is a basic division of labor in this undertaking. Speakers try be
clear in expressing their intentions. Recipients (or addressees) try to display their
understanding of the speaker’s intent. Thus, both speaker and recipient work
together to arrive at the mutual belief that the recipient has understood what the
speaker has said. Clark and Schaefer (1989) proposed that common ground accu-
mulates by a unit called a contribution. Contributing to a conversation involves
two phases, a presentation and an acceptance phase. Excerpt (1) illustrates a con-
tribution that clearly features these phases (1989: 266):

(1) Presentation Phase:

A. is it . how much does Norman get off –
Acceptance Phase:
B. pardon
A. how much does Norman get off
B. oh, only Friday and Monday

This excerpt illustrates A asking B a question (A is male and B is female). Success-

fully asking a question is not something that A can do by himself. This is shown
by A’s initial attempt to ask a question (which constitutes the presentation phase)
which is unsuccessful, as evidenced by B’s display of lack of understanding (par-
don). This display is the beginning of the acceptance phase. In response to B’s
request, A repeats the question. B then utters oh. This is a sign she has understood
the question and constitutes the end of the acceptance phase: both A and B now
mutually believe A is asking a question and that they understand its content.
Excerpt 1 shows how contributing to a conversation can run into problems. B’s
pardon is an example of negative evidence, or evidence that she has not under-
stood A. But participants do not only react to signs of problems, but exchange
various kinds of positive evidence about their interpretations of their partners’
utterances. Depending on the costs associated with misunderstanding, this evi-
dence is more or less explicit. Clark and Schaefer (1989) describe five levels of
positive evidence, from least to most explicit. First, B can simply remain attentive
to A. Second, B can initiate the next relevant contribution, for example only Mon-
day and Friday in Excerpt (1). Third, B can acknowledge A’s utterance, e.g., by
yeah or uh huh or oh in Excerpt (1). Fourth, B can demonstrate that she has under-
stood A’s utterance, for example by paraphrasing it (so you mean that…). Fifth, and
most explicitly, B can repeat verbatim part or all of the utterance, as in repeating a
telephone number. These different kinds of positive evidence are ubiquitous in
conversation and illustrate how both speaker and addressee strive, moment-by-
moment, to communicate their construals of each other’s actions to each other (for
more on addressees, see Bavelas et al. 2000; Schober and Brennan 2003). Their
resulting common ground is the outcome of this activity.
262 Adrian Bangerter and Eric Mayor

3 Coordinating specific aspects of conversation

Grounding is a general process that is accomplished in conversation. In this sec-
tion, we describe how participants coordinate specific aspects of conversation,
focusing on how they refer to objects (audience design), how they coordinate turns
at talk, how they coordinate transitions within and between parts of activities, and
how they coordinate entering into and exiting from the conversation. All of these
aspects require moment-by-moment updating of common ground.

3.1 Coordinating reference: audience design

Common ground has implications for how participants in a joint activity speak
with each other. A recurrent observation is that participants systematically design
their messages to reflect what their addressees know. This phenomenon is called
recipient design (Garfinkel 1967) or audience design (Clark and Carlson 1982). It is
related to the classic sociolinguistic phenomenon of accommodation, for example
when participants adapt their accent in conversing with a co-member of a linguistic
community or when they adapt their lexical choices when addressing a child (Giles
and Coupland 1991).
Many studies have explored audience design, and they often focus on how
referring expressions are constructed. There are manifold ways to refer to any par-
ticular object. For example, the same pair of objects can be referred to as shoes,
brogue boots, or Doc Martens. The question is whether and how participants adapt
their choice of referring expressions to their partners. Research on audience design
in referring expressions relies heavily on an experimental paradigm called the
matching task (Krauss and Weinheimer 1964; Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs 1986). In this
task, two people (a director and a matcher) each have a set of identical cards. The
director’s cards are ordered in a particular sequence and the matcher’s cards are
ordered randomly. Director and matcher need to collaborate to get their cards in
the same order. Neither partner can see the other (e.g., they are separated by a
screen or do the task in different rooms), but can both talk freely. To complete the
task, they need to identify the cards according to figures depicted on them. The
figures are typically ambiguous, and thus, director and matcher have to describe
them to each other until they are sure they are talking about the same figure. The
task is typically repeated several times (e.g., between four and six times). With
increasing repetitions, partners require less and less verbal effort (i.e., less words,
less turns) to complete the task. This is due to a phenomenon called lexical
entrainment, by which director and matcher come to reuse the same expressions.
Excerpt (2) illustrates an example of referring expressions produced by a director
from six successive trials (Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs 1986: 12).
 Interactional theories of communication 263

(2) 1. All right, the next one looks like a person who’s ice skating, except they’re
sticking two arms out in front.
2. Um, the next one’s the person ice skating that has two arms?
3. The fourth one is the person ice skating, with two arms.
4. The next one’s the ice skater.
5. The fourth one’s the ice skater.
6. The ice skater.

This example is simplified relative to real dialogue in the matching task (for exam-
ple, the matcher’s contributions are not shown). The simplification makes it easier
to show several typical phenomena. First, participants progressively move from
describing figures to naming them. In describing a figure, participants refer to its
component parts (e.g., arms, legs) or to spatial perspectives (e.g., out in front).
They also use indefinite reference (a person rather than the person). Naming
involves definite reference and a label (the ice skater). Second, initial trials typically
involve multiple descriptions, often requiring several turns of presentation and
acceptance. Third, they also feature more disfluencies and filled pauses (words
like uh or um). Fourth, partners also tend to explicitly mark the uncertainty in their
descriptions using hedges (sort of, purplish) or use interrogative form (as in Trial
2). Fifth, matchers initially tend to ask more questions and produce more explicit
acknowledgments (Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs 1986).
These phenomena suggest that, in the course of repeatedly referring to the
same object, directors and matchers come to use a reduced set of terms to describe
that object. This in turn suggests that they become increasingly certain that terms
used (e.g., the ice skater) mean the same thing to both of them. In other words,
the term becomes part of their common ground, and this is reflected in the way
they design their utterances for each other. Subsequent studies have featured
manipulations where partners are changed mid-task. These studies make the key
demonstration that directors adapt their message formulation to specific address-
ees and thus change their formulations when the addressee changes. Thus, partici-
pants create partner-specific conceptual pacts about how to refer to objects (Hupet
and Chantraine 1992; Brennan and Clark 1996). Schober and Clark (1989) further
demonstrated that participating in the grounding process is crucial. They per-
formed a variation on the matching task featuring two matchers. One completed
the task together with a director, whereas the other (an overhearer) completed the
task later by listening to a tape recording of the other participants’ conversation.
The overhearer had substantial difficulties and made significantly more errors.
In sum, then, the common ground elaborated by participants who repeatedly
refer to the same objects affects their communication. Through the phenomena of
audience design and lexical entrainment, they accomplish referring in a much
more economical way. Common ground thus facilitates the coordination of under-
standing in conversation.
264 Adrian Bangerter and Eric Mayor

3.2 Coordinating turn-taking

A particularly well-studied problem in conversation is how participants coordinate

turns at talk. In their influential model of turn-taking, Sacks et al. (1974) proposed
a set of rules by which participants ostensibly abide in this endeavor, famously
distinguishing between two types of turn-allocation components: the current
speaker can either select the next speaker (e.g., by asking him or her a question),
or, if the current speaker relinquishes that prerogative, the next speaker can self-
select. Turn allocation is facilitated by the use of adjacency pairs, which are two
successive turns at talk, whereby the first one projects or constrains the second
one, for example, a greeting followed by another greeting, a question followed by
an answer, or an offer followed by acceptance.
Like so many conversational phenomena, the turn-taking problem is fascinat-
ing because it is apparently trivial but in reality complex. It can be defined as
avoiding two extremes. On the one hand, it is desirable to avoid long stretches of
silence in a conversation (Jefferson 1989). The next speaker should start speaking
as soon as possible after the previous speaker has stopped speaking. On the other
hand, it is also desirable to avoid overlapping speech. The next speaker should
not start speaking too soon. In a study of speaker transitions, De Ruiter et al.
(2006), found that 85% of the time, there was less than 750 milliseconds of either
silence or overlap, suggesting that people are very good at solving this problem in
everyday conversation. How do participants decide that the current speaker has
finished talking and therefore that the floor is available? Given that people are so
good at coordinating transitions, it seems impossible that they simply wait for the
current speaker to stop speaking. Rather, they try to predict when the current
speaker’s turn will end. The question then arises what sort of information they use
to make this prediction. Candidate sources of information in the verbal and para-
verbal modality include syntax (i.e., an upcoming syntactic completion point), lexi-
cal information, or intonation. In their study, De Ruiter et al. (2006) experimentally
modified speech recordings to either remove lexical and syntactic information,
keeping intonation intact, or intonational information, keeping lexical and syntac-
tic information intact. Participants then listened to the recordings and predicted
when speakers’ turns would end. Participants were worse in the condition where
lexical and syntactic information had been removed, suggesting that this informa-
tion is important to listeners in predicting turn endings.
Participants also may use particular words to signal their wish to take the floor
or to keep it. People in the role of the listener often produce acknowledgment
tokens, words like uh-huh, yeah, right, and the like, as well as other expressions
(e.g., oh really?, wow) that react to particular aspects of the speaker’s turn at talk,
but without in themselves constituting a turn. But these words are not equivalent.
Jefferson (1984) observed that while uh-huh was used in this function, yeah often
was followed by a bid for the floor (Drummond and Hopper 1993). Speakers, orient-
 Interactional theories of communication 265

ing to the affiliational imperative described above, are accountable to their part-
ners for taking the floor. As such, they need to keep speaking or relinquish the
floor. Often, however, they may need to interrupt themselves because they have
not yet sufficiently planned what they want to say (Clark and Wasow 1998). This
creates potential confusion: are they temporarily suspending their speech or relin-
quishing the floor? Clark and Fox Tree (2002) found that filler words like uh and
um that often precede speech suspensions reliably signal delays in speaking: uh
signals a minor pause, and um signals a major pause. Speakers can introduce
additional subtleties into this signal by elongating either uh or um. For example,
uhhh signals a longer pause than uh. Not only do speakers use these words differ-
ently, it also seems they aid comprehension by listeners. Brennan and Schober
(2001) tested comprehension of disfluent verbal instructions with fillers (Move to
the yel- uh, purple square) or without them (Move to the yel- purple square) and
found they helped listeners cancel the incorrect instruction, speeding up their com-
prehension.

3.3 Coordinating transitions within and between parts of joint

activities

Like any joint activity, conversations are composed of joint actions (Clark 1996).
For example, an adjacency pair is a minimal structural unit, or ‘building block’ of
a conversation. But participants do not just accumulate adjacency pairs in convers-
ing. They try to accomplish joint activities, and in doing so, they have to coordinate
transitions between parts of the joint activity (e.g., they have to maintain a shared
understanding of where they are in the task). Bangerter and Clark (2003) distin-
guished two basic kinds of transitions in joint activities. First, there are vertical
transitions, corresponding to entering (or starting) and exiting (or stopping) a part
of an activity. Second, there are horizontal transitions, corresponding to continuing
a next step within a particular activity. Participants can be explicit about which
part of the activity they propose to enter or exit (e.g., let’s move on to Point 3). They
may also use specialized acknowledgment tokens to coordinate these transitions in
a less explicit way. Bangerter and Clark (2003) investigated how people differen-
tially use such tokens to coordinate mutual understanding of progress within a
task, proposing that okay and all right are specialized for marking vertical transi-
tions and uh-huh or yeah (or right) are specialized for marking horizontal transi-
tions. Their propositions were supported across a variety of task settings. Excerpt
(3) Bangerter and Clark (2003: 213–214) illustrate the differential use of okay and
uh-huh for vertical and horizontal transitions respectively. Participants coordinated
the joint activity of building models made of Lego blocks. One participant, the
director (D, female), has to instruct the other, the builder (B, male) to construct a
model from another model only D can see (Clark and Krych 2004). D also cannot
see what B is doing.
266 Adrian Bangerter and Eric Mayor

(3) 1 D okay, take a blue two by four,

2 B uh-huh [takes block],
3 D put it on the red,
4 B uh-huh [gets ready to attach block at a location],
5 D so that it’s hanging over towards you by two.
6 B okay [attaches block at the location],
7 D okay, now take a [proceeds to describe next block].

In 1, D starts describing how to add a blue two by four to the model. This is a
vertical transition (i.e., starting a new part of the task). She prefaces this transition
using okay. In 2, B takes the block, and acknowledges this step with uh-huh (a
horizontal transition, i.e., continuing with the activity of adding this particular
block). In 3, D explains where to add the block – another horizontal transition
within this activity, which B acknowledges in 4 using uh-huh. Then, in 5, D
describes how to position the block. This is all the information B needs to complete
placement. He attaches the block in 6 and produces a vertical transition marker,
okay, displaying his understanding that fixing this particular block is completed,
and thereby exiting that part of the task. In 7, D enters the next part of the task –
another vertical transition, and again uses okay to preface this transition.

3.4 Coordinating transitions into and out of joint activities

Any joint activity can be analyzed into three distinct phases: an entry, a body,
and an exit phase (Clark 1996). Each phase arises out of participants’ efforts at
coordinating transitions into and out of joint activities (similarly to coordinating
transitions between parts of an activity as described above). The entry phase is
constituted by participants’ efforts to coordinate the possibility of the interaction
and its general purpose; it involves defining the relevant social identities for the
interaction and re-establishes continuity retrospectively towards any past interac-
tions the participants might have accomplished together. Once participants have
agreed on these elements, they can transit to the body, where they accomplish the
main business of the joint activity. Once this is done, participants need to coordi-
nate getting out of the joint activity; this constitutes the exit phase (Bangerter et
al. 2004). In this section, we discuss the coordination of entry and exit phases.
To enter a conversation, would-be participants first need to issue and respond
to a summons; this can be constituted by adjacency pairs or their nonverbal equiv-
alents, e.g., A dials B’s phone number and B picks up the phone to answer, or A
says excuse me and B says yes? They then need to define the relevant social identi-
ties and relations for the encounter. Defining oneself as PJ has other implications
for the construal of the encounter than defining oneself as Professor De Ruiter. If
participants know each other, they may re-establish some kind of continuity with
 Interactional theories of communication 267

past encounters, e.g., how’s things? or whassup? They then need to define the
business of the encounter. This usually entails a transition into the body of the
conversation (I’m calling about Horatio).
To end a conversation, participants first need to arrive at the mutual under-
standing that they are both ready to end the conversation (Schegloff and Sacks
1973). Arriving at this mutual understanding is not trivial. Indeed, a potential end-
ing entails recurring opportunities to discuss topics that have not yet been the
object of conversation, for instance because participants didn’t want to give them
the status of main topic. A solution to this dilemma is to signal one’s readiness to
end with pre-closings, as when one participant says okay and the other replies
okay (note that moving from the body to the exit phase is also a vertical transition).
Once the mutual understanding of readiness to end is established, participants
typically move through a set of ritualized actions. Endings are a point where a
relationship is vulnerable because they inaugurate an upcoming separation (Albert
and Kessler 1976). Participant typically justify the ending with reasons that are
external, i.e., over which they have no control (Albert and Kessler 1976), e.g., I
gotta go. This is done to protect the face (Brown and Levinson 1987) of the partner
and orient to the affiliational imperative described above. When ending conversa-
tions, participants often project continuity of the relationship into the future (e.g.,
Talk to you soon), and extend good wishes to each other, e.g., goodbye, bye, ciao,
auf Wiedersehen, au revoir and the like, in order to reaffirm ther social bonds
(Albert and Kessler 1978; Clark and French 1981). Excerpt (4) shows the ending of
a telephone conversation to illustrate the exit phase. It is taken from the Switch-
board corpus (Godfrey et al. 1992), a large set of telephone conversations.

(4) 1 B So those were things we liked.

2 A Well, sounds good.
3 B Okay. You have anything else to say?
4 A No, I think we covered everything.
5 B [Laughter] Okay, well thanks a lot.
6 A Well, thank you for being home [laughter].
7 B [Laughter] Okay.
8 A Okay, bye-bye.
9 B Bye-bye.

In 1 and 2, A and B are still engaged in topical talk. In 3 and 4, they jointly establish
their readiness to end the conversation. In 5 and 6, they thank each other. In 7
and 8, they use okay to mark the transition to the final step in the conversation,
an exchange of bye-bye (8 and 9). Just like a well-executed handshake, a nicely
coordinated exit phase will typically result in both participants hanging up at
roughly the same time.
268 Adrian Bangerter and Eric Mayor

4 Conclusion
In this chapter, we have explored the shared cognitive foundations of communica-
tion. We have treated communication, particularly its paradigm case, conversation,
as a joint activity. That is, conversation is both used to coordinate joint activity
and is itself a highly coordinated form of joint activity. We have started by examin-
ing the cooperative nature of human social life and the demands it places on
communication. Human communication is fundamentally about displaying, detect-
ing, and coordinating intentions in the context of joint activities and is oriented to
two imperatives; an informational and an affiliational imperative. We have
described the notion of common ground, or mutual understanding, and how it
accumulates in conversation and is used to facilitate subsequent conversations.
We also have explored audience design and how various aspects of conversation
including referring, turn-taking, transitions and entries and exits are coordinated.
Clark’s (1996) theory of language use is unique in linking the cognitive under-
pinnings of communication with a fine-grained analysis of the linguistic and non-
verbal behaviors by which participants coordinate joint activities. Such an
approach contributes to communication science in several ways. First, it bridges
work on language use seen as a purely cognitive process and work on language
use as a purely social process. Second, by focusing on the linguistic means by
which communication is accomplished, it offers a more detailed explication of key
notions that have all too often remained a ‘black box’ in the study of communica-
tion (e.g., ‘sender,’ ‘receiver,’ ‘understanding’). These contributions have made
Clark’s theory relevant and useful for many specific communicative domains, and
indeed, beyond the introductory notions and basic research we have reviewed here,
Clark’s theory has been widely applied to domains including survey methodology
(Schober and Conrad 2008), mediated communication (Clark and Brennan 1991;
Hancock and Dunham 2001) tutoring in education (Graesser et al. 1995), air-traffic
control communication (Morrow et al. 1994), and doctor-patient communication
(Bromme et al. 2005), to name but a few.

Further reading
Bangerter, Adrian & Herbert H. Clark. 2003. Navigating joint projects with dialogue. Cognitive
Science 27. 195–225.
Clark, Herbert H. 1996. Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clark, Herbert H. 1999. On the origins of conversation. Verbum 21. 147–161.
Holtgraves, Thomas M. 2002. Language as Social Action: Social Psychology and Language Use.
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Levinson, Stephen C. 2006. Cognition at the heart of human interaction. Discourse Studies 8. 85–
93.
 Interactional theories of communication 269

References
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Astington, Janet W., Paul L. Harris & David R. Olson (eds.). 1988. Developing Theories of Mind.
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Austin, John L. 1962. How to do things with words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Bangerter, Adrian, Herbert H. Clark & Anna R. Katz. 2004. Navigating joint projects in telephone
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Lijiang Shen
15 Communication as persuasion
Abstract: This chapter reviews persuasion as a form of communication, and
focuses on the social scientific study of persuasion since the mid-twentieth cen-
tury. The chapter provides an overview of some key theories and models of persua-
sion that focuses on the process of persuasion, including cognitively-oriented theo-
ries (cognitive dissonance, balance, congruity, computational theories, and dual
process models), and affectively-oriented theories (the drive model, parallel pro-
cess models, and discrete emotions models). This chapter also calls for a synergy
of cognition and affect in persuasion research.

Keywords: Persuasion, process, cognitive dissonance, balance, congruity, compu-

tational, dual process, cognition, emotion

1 Communication as persuasion
Persuasion is a ubiquitous form of human communication (O’Keefe 2009). Persua-
sion can be defined as communicative activity that is intended to shape, reinforce,
or change the responses of another, or others, in a given communication context
(Miller 1980/2002). Some scholars argue that core cases of persuasion are defined
by five elements: (a) persuasion occurs interpersonally rather than intra-person-
ally, (b) persuasion is intentional, (c) persuasion is symbolic, (d) persuasion is
non-coercive, and (e) there should be effects. Communication activity that might
miss some of these elements are considered as borderline cases of persuasion (Gass
and Seiter 2011). Persuasion can occur in different contexts depending on the num-
ber of communicators involved, synchronous or asynchronous, modality, media-
tion, and goals of participants: face-to-face persuasion, public persuasion, and
mass media persuasion.
The basic purpose of persuasion lies in “controlling the environment so as to
realize certain physical, economic, or social rewards from it.” (Miller and Steinberg
1975). Specifically, the function of persuasion can be: (a) acquisition of rewards
and benefits, where the desired and obtained outcomes correspond exactly;
(b) reality construction, where the purpose of persuasion is to define certain issues,
which in turn influences interpretations and evaluations, for example, the debate
on gay marriage largely depends on how marriage is defined; (c) impression man-
agement, which can take place at the interpersonal level (i.e., social relationships)
or at the organization level (i.e., public relationships), and (d) conflict resolution,
where the desired and obtained outcomes reflect compromise of the original
desires of the involved parties.
274 Lijiang Shen

Regardless of these features (response shaping, reinforcement or change, core

vs. borderline cases, context and function of persuasion), the nature of persuasion
can be better understood by examining the key theories and models of persuasion.
These theories and models not only specify the process of persuasion, but also
clarify how persuasion can work or fail, and provide guidance for effective message
design. The study of persuasion dates back to ancient Greece during the fifth cen-
tury BC, to classics of Plato and Aristotle (see, also, Chapter 9, Tindale). Aristotle
provided the first comprehensive theory of persuasion: effective persuasion should
be grounded in logos (logic), pathos (emotion), and ethos (source characteristics).
Aristotle’s perspective on persuasion had long-lasting impact on the study of per-
suasion throughout history (Pfau and Parrott 1993). However, social scientific stud-
ies of persuasion did not get started until the middle of the twentieth century.
Although one of the most exciting areas of persuasion research lies in examining
the impact of message style, structure, and content (Dillard and Pfau 2002), by
taking persuasion research seriously, one should study persuasion per se, that is,
the persuasion process (Burleson 1992). This chapter provides an overview of some
key theories and models in persuasion that focus on the process of persuasion. It is
not the goal of this chapter to offer a comprehensive review or update of persuasion
theories and models. More comprehensive and detailed review of advances in
theory and research are available in monographs and edited volumes of persuasion
literature (e.g., Dillard and Pfau 2002; O’Keefe 2002; Perloff 2010). Ever since the
persuasion research conducted by the Yale School in the 1950s (e.g., Hovland et
al. 1953), a variety of theories and models have been developed in persuasion
studies. Generally speaking, these theories and models can be viewed as cogni-
tively or affectively oriented. Within cognitive theories (see also Chapter 10, Greene
and Dorrance Hall), computational theories assume that individuals are rational
in their thinking, while the dual process models do not share those assumptions.
Within affective theories some view affect as dysfunctional; while others disagree.

2 Early cognitive theories of persuasion

The earliest social scientific research in persuasion was conducted by a group of
scholars at Yale University in the early 1950s, who looked at both cognition and
affect. Among the early cognitive theories of persuasion were the consistency theo-
ries. All of such theories are concerned with the relationship of cognitions in a
person’s mind. The basic assumption is that individuals prefer and strive to main-
tain/achieve consistency and harmony in their cognition. Inconsistency in cogni-
tion motivates individuals to change their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors to
restore consistency. Three such theories will be reviewed in this chapter: cognitive
dissonance theory, balance theory, and congruity theory.
 Communication as persuasion 275

2.1 Cognitive dissonance theory

One of the cognitive theories from the Yale group was Cognitive Dissonance Theory
(Festinger 1957). Cognitive dissonance is defined as a uncomfortable psychological
state caused by holding dissonant cognitions simultaneously. The original theory
proposes that the presence of cognitive inconsistency will evoke dissonance, the
magnitude of which is a positive function of the number and importance of disso-
nant cognitions, and a negative function of consonant cognitions. It is assumed
that reduction of cognitive dissonance is rewarding and satisfying. Hence, individu-
als are motivated to reduce or eliminate cognitive dissonance. Dissonance reduc-
tion will be altering the cognition that is least resistant to change, which has
implications for ways of creating lasting attitude, belief, and behavior change (see
Cooper 2005, Harmon-Jones 2002 for revisions and updates for the theory).
There are four major paradigms in research on cognitive dissonance. First, the
free choice paradigm (Brehm 1956). It is proposed that once a decision is made,
dissonance will be aroused. Difficult decisions lead to more dissonance than easier
ones because there is a greater proportion of dissonant cognition than consonant
cognition. Dissonance can be reduced by reducing dissonant cognition or adding
consonant cognition. Second, the induced compliance paradigm (Festinger and
Carlsmith 1959). This paradigm proposes that dissonance is aroused when an indi-
vidual does or says something that is inconsistent with an existing belief or atti-
tude. The pre-existing attitude and beliefs are dissonant with the behavior; while
the (promised) rewards and (threats of) punishments used to induce the compli-
ance are consonant with the behavior and function as external justifications. The
magnitude of dissonance is a negative function of external justification. To reduce
the dissonance, individuals tend to change the beliefs and attitudes such that they
will be consonant with the behavior (out of the induced compliance). Third, the
belief disconfirmation paradigm. In this paradigm (Festinger 1957), dissonance is
aroused when people are confronted with information that is inconsistent with
their beliefs. If the dissonance is not reduced by changing one’s belief, the disso-
nance can result in misperception or rejection or refutation of the information,
seeking support from others who share the beliefs, and attempting to persuade
others to restore consonance. Fourth, the hypocrisy paradigm (Aronson et al. 1991).
In this paradigm, individuals are induced to make a public statement that is attitu-
dinally consistent, then reminded of the fact that their past behavior was not con-
sistent with the statement. To reduce dissonance, individuals will either act in
accord with their statement, or change their attitude to be more consistent with
their past behavior.

2.2 Balance theory

Perception theories offer an alternative explanation to cognitive dissonance theory.

Such theories proposed that instead of resulting from dissonance reduction, indi-
276 Lijiang Shen

viduals change their attitudes by observing their own as well as others’ behavior
and concluding what attitude must have caused them (i.e., attribution). Heider’s
(1958) balance theory is one member of such perception theories. Balance theory
assumes that individuals strive to maintain consistency in patterns of their liking
or disliking of objects. When liking and disliking are balanced, structures are sta-
ble; when they are imbalanced, structures are unstable and there is pressure to
change such that balance will be retained. Specifically, the patterns of perceived
relationships (liking or disliking) among three entities, person (P), another person
(O), and an object (X), could be either balanced or imbalanced. Imbalance may
be resolved by distancing oneself from the situation, or by changing one of the
relationships to achieve balance. For example, a person (P) who likes another per-
son (O) will be balanced by an attitude of the same valence toward an object (X).
On the other hand, there is imbalance when P like O, O likes X, but P dislikes X.
To reduce imbalance and achieve balance, P might distance himself/herself from
the situation, or change her/his own attitude toward X (i.e., becomes more posi-
tive), or change her/his liking toward O (i.e., O is not that great after all).

2.3 Congruity theory

Congruity theory (Osgood and Tannenbaum 1955) is one of the consistency theories
and was developed as an extension to Heider’s balance theory. Osgood and Tan-
nenbaum’s extension of the balance theory lies in that congruity theory is explicitly
oriented toward communication and persuasion. The other person (O) in balance
theory becomes a message source. The attitude object (X) is now a concept, and
the P is essentially the recipient of a persuasive message. Thus, the theory concerns
situations in which a Source makes an assertion about a Concept, and the audience
has attitudes toward the Source and the Concept. The only relationship that
remains the same is that the assertion of the Source about the Concept is either
positive (associative) or negative (disassociative). This theory holds that incongru-
ity (like imbalance) is unpleasant and motivates audiences to change their atti-
tudes. The congruity theory is also more specific regarding the direction and
amount of attitude change based on the audience’s attitude toward the concept
and toward the message source.

3 More recent developments in cognitive theories

of persuasion
Corresponding to trends in psychology, persuasion theories and models developed
in the 1960s and 1970s were cognitive in nature. The cognitive response theory of
persuasion (Greenwald 1968) attempts to understand how attitudes are formed and
 Communication as persuasion 277

changed in response to persuasive communication. The general premise of the

theory is that messages do not persuade, cognitive responses do. A cognitive
response is a thought generated in response to a persuasive message. The way
cognitive responses affect persuasion outcomes has to do with the way receivers
of the persuasive messages elaborate and integrate the information presented in
the message. Cognitive responses can be favorable (e.g., positive evaluation of the
message source, content, and advocacy), neutral (e.g., non-evaluative responses),
or unfavorable (e.g., counterarguments) toward the persuasive message. Dominant
cognitive response indexes the difference between favorable and unfavorable cog-
nitive responses a receiver generates toward a persuasive message. The cognitive
response theory posits that dominant cognition is the best predictor of attitude
change (Eagly and Chaiken 1993).
Other cognitive theories of persuasion share the general premise that individu-
als’ cognition determines attitude formation and change. However, there are also
substantial differences. The computational theories (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975,
2010; Ajzen 1991) assume that individuals engage in some fairly intensive mental
arithmetic to arrive at their attitudes or behaviors. Individuals are thus seen to
function like computers and to be quite rational: they scan all relevant or available
information and combine them and attitude and behaviors are certain functions
of these information. On the other hand, the dual process models (Petty et al. 1986;
Chaiken et al. 1989) posit that there exist two modes of message processing, one
effortful and the other superficial; and that the type and amount of thinking in
response to the persuasive messages that determine persuasion that follows. The
following sections review these more recent cognitive theories.

3.1 Theory of reasoned action

The theory of reasoned action (TRA; Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975, 2010) begins with
the observation that the best single predictor of a person’s voluntary action is
behavioral intention (Kim and Hunter 1993). In turn, TRA posits that behavioral
intentions are determined by two factors: attitude and subjective norms. Attitude
is a person’s evaluation of the action under consideration. Subjective norm is a
person’s beliefs about behavioral prescription held by another person in regard
the target person. Attitude is a function of two factors: beliefs (the likelihood of a
consequence happening), which is weighted by evaluations (the desirability of that
consequence). Subjective norms is a function of two factors as well: normative
belief (what the other person thinks the target person should or should not do),
which is weighted by motivation to comply (the extent to which the target person
wants to conform with the opinion of the particular person). Attitude and subjec-
tive norm can vary in their relative impact on intention – and this relative impact
may vary from behavior to behavior and from person to person. For a given behav-
278 Lijiang Shen

ior or audience, attitudinal considerations may weigh more heavily than normative
ones, but for a different behavior or audience, the reverse may be the case.

3.2 Theory of planned behavior

The theory of planned behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) is an extension to the TRA; the
TPB adds a third predictor of behavioral intentions, perceived behavioral control,
which is defined as individuals’ perception of their ability to perform a given
behavior. Perceived behavioral control, in turn, is determined by the total set of
control beliefs (i.e., beliefs about the presence of factors that may facilitate or
impede the behavior under consideration), weighted by the perceived power of the
control factor. In addition, perceived behavioral control may also have a direct
impact on behavior. Fig. 1 presents the factors and their relationships in TRA and
TPB.

Figure 1: Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behavior

Over 30 years of research on the computational theories have accumulated sub-

stantial evidence for the theories. Meta-analytic studies have consistently yielded
support for the relationship between behavioral intention and behavior, the com-
bined impact of attitude and subjective norms on behavioral intentions, and the
impact of perceived behavioral control on intention (see Hale et al. 2002 for a
summary of these meta-analytic findings). However, these findings are based on
multiple regression methods, which might not be optimal (Hankins et al. 2000)
and they only tested parts of the theories, instead of in their entirety. Albarracin
et al. (2001) adopted the structural equation modeling approach in their meta
analysis and provided further evidence for the two theories; while testing the two
 Communication as persuasion 279

theories in their entirety. However, when past behavior was entered in the model
as an exogenous variable, many of the paths became substantially smaller. The
impact of past behavior, as well as the impact of non-reasoned variables on behav-
ioral intention and behavior (e.g., moral obligations, self-identity, and affect, see
Hale et al. 2002 for a summary) suggest that TRA and TPB have limitations in their
scope. More recently, Fishbein (Fishbein and Cappella 2006; Fishbein and Yzer
2003) proposed an integrated model as an extension of TRA and TPB that incorpo-
rated factors not included in the original framework.

3.3 The dual process models

The dual process models (Petty and Cacioppo 1986; Chaiken et al. 1989) posit that
individuals do not always engage in intensive cognitive thinking in response to
persuasive communications. Both the elaboration likelihood model (ELM, Petty
and Cacioppo 1986) and the heuristic systematic model (HSM, Chaiken et al. 1989)
propose that there are two fundamentally different modes in which persuasion
takes place. Despite the obvious similarities, ELM and HSM are also substantially
distinctive from each other.
As a derivative of cognitive response theory, the elaboration likelihood model
(ELM) assumes that type and amount of cognitive response determine the type and
amount of persuasion that follow. ELM posits that elaboration likelihood deter-
mines the mode of persuasion. Elaboration likelihood refers to the probability that
a persuasive message will be cognitively elaborated. Elaboration likelihood forms
a continuum: when elaboration likelihood is high, persuasion occurs via the cen-
tral route, which is characterized by careful consideration of the message content
and argument strength. Individuals tend to scrutinize the argument carefully, ana-
lyze the logic in the message, weigh the evidence presented in the message, and
carefully evaluate the message advocacy. Persuasion that occurs via the central
route leads to strong and durable attitudes. When the elaboration likelihood is
low, persuasion takes places via the peripheral route, which is characterized by
hasty and superficial processing of cues from the message. Individuals tends to
pay attention to the message source or contextual cues. Persuasion via the periph-
eral route tends to produce flimsy and easily-changed attitudes.
Elaboration likelihood is a joint function of ability and motivation. Ability can
be dispositional (e.g., intelligence and prior background knowledge) or situational
(e.g., the presence of distraction). Motivation can also be dispositional (e.g., need
for cognition) or situational (e.g., receiver involvement, that is, the personal rele-
vance of the topic). For elaboration likelihood to be high and persuasion to occur
via central route, both ability and motivation to process the message have to be
high. When either ability or motivation is low, elaboration likelihood will be low
and persuasion takes places via the peripheral route.
280 Lijiang Shen

Compared to ELM, the heuristic systematic model (HSM) has specific assump-
tions: first, individuals are motivated to hold ‘correct’ attitudes that are useful in
a specific context. Second, cognitive thinking is effortful. Third, individuals have
limited cognitive capacity that can be allocated for message processing. HSM also
proposes two modes in which persuasion takes place. Systematic processing is
very similar to central route in ELM: it is data-driven and effortful; it requires high
cognitive capacity. On the other hand, heuristic processing is theory-driven and
effortless, which means it does not require much cognitive capacity. Heuristics are
simple knowledge structures, or implicit theories stored in one’s memory. Their
utilization in the persuasion process is a function of their availability (i.e., if the
knowledge structure is present), accessibility (i.e., readiness and easiness for
retrieval), and applicability (i.e., relevance of the knowledge structure) (Todorov
et al. 2002). Defined as such, heuristic processing and systematic processing are
qualitatively different; while the peripheral route and central route are quantita-
tively different (i.e., low vs. high elaboration).
Similar to ELM, HSM posits that systematic processing requires both high moti-
vation and ability. However, systematic processing and heuristic processing can
co-occur; while in ELM, central route and peripheral route seem to be mutually
exclusive, since elaboration cannot be high and low at the same time. The relation-
ship between systematic processing and heuristic processing can be additive (i.e.,
the two modes add to each other), attenuation (i.e., the impact of the two modes
are opposite in direction), or interactive (i.e., when the influence of heuristics
causes biased systematic processing). The mode of message processing is a func-
tion of two principles: (a) the least effort principle, that is, individuals are cognitive
misers; and (b) the sufficiency principle, that is, individuals will exert whatever
level of effort is required to attain a sufficient degree of judgmental confidence
that they have accomplished their processing goals.
HSM suggests that message processing can be (a) accuracy-motivated, when
the processing goal is to achieve valid attitudes that are consistent with reality; (b)
defense-motivated, when the processing goal is to reinforce beliefs congruent with
one’s self-interest and self-definition; and (c) impression-motivated, when the proc-
essing objective is to assess the social acceptance of alternative positions, and/or to
satisfy current social and interpersonal goals. Types of motivation is conceptually
independent of mode of processing. These goals can be attained via either system-
atic processing or heuristic processing, or co-occurrence of the two. In an effort to
extend the ELM, Slater (2002) argued that there exist other types of processing
goals and modes of processing: value-protective and value-affirmative processing,
which is similar to defense motivated processing in HSM; didactic processing and
information scanning, which is for knowledge acquisition; and hedonic processing,
which is for the purpose of entertainment. However, the latter two are less relevant
to persuasion, as defined earlier in the chapter.
 Communication as persuasion 281

4 Affective theories of persuasion

Affective theories of persuasion argue that in addition to cognitive responses, recip-
ients of persuasive communication also react affectively. These affective responses
can be the bases for persuasion. Such affect can be aroused by verbal content,
and/or by ancillary, stylistic material. As a more general term, affect subsumes
both emotion and mood (see Batson et al. 1992). It can be defined as the irreducible
non-cognitive aspect of feeling states (Frijda 1993), and the elemental process of
pleasure and activation (Russell and Feldman Barrett 1999). Moods can be defined
as affective states without a specific object and with a simple bipolar positive/
negative structure (Frijda 1993; Russell 2003). It is lasting, diffuse, and back-
grounded. On the other hand, emotions are fleeting, intense, and foregrounded.
They are more complex, and can be best understood in terms of prototypical emo-
tional episodes that unfold over time, involving (a) cognitive appraisal of the envi-
ronmental situation, (b) the physiological component of arousal, (c) motor expres-
sion, and (d) a motivational component, including behavioral readiness and
response. The physiological component, core affect, consists of valence and activa-
tion, which form the two orthogonal dimensions of a circumplex (Russell and Feld-
man Barrett 1999). Fear is the most studied emotion in persuasion research. One
camp of theories views fear as obstacle to persuasion and has to be reduced for
persuasion to occur: the drive model and the parallel response models. The other
camp takes the opposite view and posts that fear is conducive to persuasion.

4.1 The drive model

The basic assumption of the drive model is that fear is a drive that motivates people
to follow the recommendation in the persuasive message, either to adopt a certain
behavior so that potential threat can be avoided, or to stop certain behavior that
is harmful to one’s well-being. The drive model claims that the reduction of fear is
rewarding – it reinforces the learning and adoption of the recommended behavior.
According to the drive model, when fear is aroused the recipient will become moti-
vated to find a response to alleviate the negative emotion, just like people will be
motivated to get something to drink when they are thirsty and something to eat
when they are hungry. If the recipient perceives the recommendation in the mes-
sage as reassuring and capable of reducing the fear, it is more likely that s/he will
follow the recommendation. In return, the reduction of fear reinforces the adoption
of the recommendation. On the other hand, if the recipient does not perceive the
recommendation as reassuring and the message cannot successfully reduce the
aroused fear, that is when there is residual fear, the recipient will engage in some
sort of defensive reaction including denial of the threat or avoidance of the persua-
sive message (Hovland et al. 1953, Miller 1963).
282 Lijiang Shen

Janis (1967) extended the drive model. He argued that there is an optimal level
of fear arousal and the association between fear and persuasion is quadratic: a
persuasive message will have little effect if it does not arouse enough emotion of
fear. But excessive fear will lead to hypervigilance and hinder reception of the
message, which results in less persuasion, and even a backfire effect. And moder-
ate level of fear will bring about optimal persuasion in the recipients. Janis points
out that the optimal level of fear is not a fixed point on the continuum, and pro-
poses a family of curves to illustrate the fear-persuasion association.

4.2 The parallel response models

The parallel response model (PRM, Leventhal 1970) posits that there should be
both cognitive and emotional processes in response to persuasive communication.
The model claims that fear appeals will activate two primary processes in the
recipient: danger control and fear control. Danger control is “a problem-solving
process” (Leventhal 1970: 126) where (external) threat-relevant information in the
fear appeal message and (internal) coping behaviors and the effectiveness of these
coping behaviors are processed. The consequence of danger control can be instru-
mental – actions to avert the threat, and cognitive – attitude change and/or behav-
ioral intention. Fear control is an emotional process in which the recipient focuses
on internal emotional response (fear arousal) and strives to reduce the unpleasant
affect. The consequences of fear control include “avoidance reaction” and acts
that can “quiet internal signals” and “dull awareness of external danger,” which
interferes with the acceptance of the persuasive message (1970: 126). Leventhal
asserts that danger control and fear control are separate and independent of, but
can also compete and interfere with each other. The effectiveness of a fear-arousing
persuasive communication depends on whether danger control or fear control
dominates the other: when danger control dominates, the message is persuasive;
when fear control dominates, persuasion fails.
Witte (1992) extended Leventhal’s work in her Expanded Parallel Process Model
(EPPM). The key extension by Witte lies in that she strives to explicitly predict
when danger control and fear control will take place. The EPPM also suggests that
the cognitive evaluation of a fear-arousing message is a two-stage process. The
two-stage appraisal can lead to three different results depending on the perception
of the threat, fear arousal and perception of the efficacy of the recommendation,
which helps to explain the success and failure of fear appeal. The EPPM model
suggests that both cognitive and emotional variables have direct impact upon per-
suasion. The recipient first perceives and evaluates the threat in the fear appeal
message. If the recipient perceives the threat as not serious and/or they are not
susceptible to the threat, the evaluation and appraisal of the message will stop
here. The recipient will not be motivated to continue processing the fear appeal
 Communication as persuasion 283

message; the message will be ignored and there will be little or no persuasion.
When the threat is perceived as severe and susceptible, the recipient will become
scared. The consequent fear arousal motivates the recipient to take some kind of
action to reduce the fear, which depends on the perception of the recommendation
efficacy (both response efficacy and self-efficacy). If both response efficacy and
self-efficacy are high, the recipient will start the danger control process – follow
the recommendation to cope the threat and/or seek more information about the
threat and coping behavior. If either response efficacy or self-efficacy or both of
them are low, the recipient will start the fear control process. The recipient will
strive to reduce their fear through denial, defensive avoidance, or psychological
reactance.
Although Witte’s EPPM is more specific and explicated, the essential view on
the impact of fear on persuasion is similar to the drive model. That is, fear needs to
be reduced to be persuasive and the optimal level is moderate. Available empirical
evidence from meta analyses (Boster and Mongeau 1984; Mongeau 1998; Witte and
Allen 2000); however, did not provide support for such a view: The association
between fear and persuasion has been linear and positive in these meta analytic
studies. Dillard and Anderson (2004) directly tested the four possible ways in
which fear could influence persuasion: (a) the proclivity to experience fear, (b) the
rise from baseline to peak, (c) peak intensity, and (d) the decline from peak to
post-message fear. They found that both rise and peak measures of fear predicted
persuasion, but decline in fear had no impact. The EPPM also predicts an interac-
tion between threat components and efficacy components, which has not received
empirical evidence either: Witte and Allen (2000) concluded in their meta-analysis
that there were only main effects of the threat and efficacy components and that
additive model has received the strongest support.

4.3 Model of discrete emotions

The discrete emotions model is based on two premises: (a) a persuasive message
oftentimes arouses more than one emotions (Dillard and Peck 2000; Dillard et al.
1996) and (b) these distinctive emotions have differential impact on persuasion
based on their respective functions. Cognitive appraisal theories of emotions
(Scherer et al. 2001) suggest that individual’s emotions can be best understood in
terms of three features: function, action tendency, and valence.
First, given a particular appraisal of the person-environment relationship, an
emotion is the process of recruiting resources from various physiological, motiva-
tional, and cognitive subsystems such that they shift the organism into a state of
being designed to address the person-environment relationship (Lazarus 1991; Oat-
ley 1992). For example, the function of fear is to instigate efforts at self-protection,
whereas anger provides the motivational basis for subduing the offending stimu-
284 Lijiang Shen

lus. Each emotion has associated with it an action tendency of a specific form that
aligns with the function of that emotion. Although all action tendencies are some
forms of approach/engagement or inhibition/withdrawal, particular emotions pro-
duce particular variations on these two broad themes. Happiness and anger, for
instance, promote quite different types of engagement. And, although sadness and
fear may both be considered withdrawal emotions, their behavioral manifestations
are notably distinct: sadness is characterized by lethargy while tension is typical
of fear. Emotions may also be characterized in terms of valence. According to con-
temporary theories of emotion, negative emotions arise from the perception of that
the environment is in an incongruent relationship with the individual’s goals. In
contrast, when an individual judges that the current environment is likely to facili-
tate his or her goals, positive emotions result (Scherer et al. 2001; Lazarus 1991).
The discrete emotions model in persuasion posits that the persuasive impact of
each emotion is determined by its function and action tendency, rather than
valence. Dillard’s work (Dillard and Peck 2000, 2001; Shen and Dillard 2007) have
verified that discrete emotions have variable impact on persuasion: specifically,
the impact of fear, sadness, guilt and happiness are positive on persuasion; while
anger and contentment have a negative impact. The effectiveness of a persuasive
message, therefore, is a combined function of the multiple affective states it might
elicit, rather than based on a single emotion.
Discrete (message-irrelevant) emotions can also influence message processing.
Nabi’s (1999, 2002) cognitive functional model posits that the action tendencies of
emotions (i.e., approach vs. avoidance) might determine individuals’ attention to
persuasive messages and the depth of subsequent message processing. Such pre-
existing discrete emotions can also function as psychological frames (Nabi 2003)
such that they privilege information consistent with the action tendencies of emo-
tions in terms of accessibility; in turn, they exert influence on subsequent informa-
tion seeking and decision making.

5 A synergy of cognition and affect in persuasion

It should be noted that the more recent development in cognitive and affective
models of persuasion no longer considers just one type of influence while disre-
garding the other. As the latest extension to the computational theories, the inte-
grated model included affect as an exogenous factor that could exert influence to
the TRA and TPB variables. In the dual process model tradition, affect is considered
as a peripheral cue or a heuristic. On the other hand, cognitive processing of the
threat and recommendation information was considered as a precedent of fear and
danger control processes in the parallel responses model. The discrete emotions
model conceptualizes and tests the persuasive impact of emotions above and
beyond that of dominant cognition, which is considered as the best predictor of
 Communication as persuasion 285

persuasion in the cognitive response tradition. The cognitive-functional model sug-

gests that the impact of pre-existing emotions on persuasion is mediated by cogni-
tive processes. Put simply, these recent developments suggest that cognition and
affect interact with each other in the mechanism that underlie persuasion (see also
Kuhl 1986).
Communication researchers have realized that it is not sufficient to consider
either cognition or affect alone in the study of persuasion. Efforts have been made
in recent developments in communication research to investigate the joint force of
both cognitive and affective processes that precede persuasion (e.g., Stephenson
2003) and resistance to persuasion (e.g., Pfau et al. 2001). This effort is most salient
in recent developments in psychological reactance research. Psychological reac-
tance is often considered as the driving force behind the boomerang effect and
failure of persuasion. A series of recent studies on conceptualization and opera-
tionalization of psychological reactance have demonstrated considerable evidence
that the construct can be modeled as an amalgam of anger and negative cognition
(Dillard and Shen 2005; Quick and Stephenson 2007; Rains and Turner 2007).
There has been evidence that empathy, a mechanism that reduces psychological
reactance is also both cognitive and affective (Shen 2010). However, cognitive and
affect are phenomena that change rapidly (van Turennout et al. 1998), at a pace
that is beyond traditional measures of cognition and affect in communication
research. Better understanding of how cognition and affect interact to produce
persuasion outcomes would need further conceptualization and theorization, and
better empirical testing.

Further reading
Albarracin, Dolores, Blair T. Johnson & Mark P. Zanna (eds.). 2005. The handbook of attitudes.
Mahwah, NJ: LEA.
Aronson, Elliot, Carrie Fried & Jeff Stone. 1991. Overcoming denial and increasing the intention to
use condoms through the induction of hypocrisy. American Journal of Public Health 81 (12).
1636–1638.
Crano, William D. & Radmilla Prislin. 2005. Attitudes and Persuasion. Annual review of psychology
57. 345–374.
Dillard, James P. & Lijang Shen. in press. Handbook of persuasion: Developments in theory and
practice, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Eagly, Alice H. & Shelly Chaiken. 1993. The psychology of attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich Publishers.
286 Lijiang Shen

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Patricia Moy and Brandon J. Bosch
16 Theories of public opinion
Abstract: While the issue of citizen competency has vexed scholars throughout
history, the modern concepts of a mass public and mass media are relatively new.
Beginning with the seminal works of Lippmann and Dewey, we chart the evolving
theories of public opinion, from the “hypodermic needle” model of the early twen-
tieth century to the more psychologically oriented approach to media effects of
today. We argue that in addition to understanding how audiences process media
content, theories of public opinion must account for how media content is con-
structed and disseminated, which is complicated by the ever-changing nature of
our media landscape.

Keywords: Public opinion, mass media, gatekeeping, media effects

1 Introduction
Popular discourse about public opinion tends to revolve around key issues of the
day. Citizens bemusedly ask themselves how the public comes to hold a particular
view on a given issue. Voters anticipate how political candidates will strategize
and frame an issue to garner the most support possible. And individuals consume
news stories and read blogs on the internet, later taking advantage of comment
boxes to share their perspectives.
Academic endeavors related to public opinion focus on the same issues. They
examine the process by which information gets presented, how citizens learn about
issues, and the effects of this information on attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors.
However, scholarship on public opinion is not only empirical in nature: research
in this area is undergirded by a strong set of normative assumptions. For example,
who constitutes the public? What should the members of an ideal citizenry know
about politics and how engaged should they be in the political process? Should
an opinion grounded in emotion carry as much weight as an opinion based on
information?
In studying the aforementioned processes, public opinion scholars inextricably
link public opinion to the functioning of democratic society.1 Given this view of public

1 Theorists have noted that public opinion plays a major force regardless of the political system
in which one finds oneself. Invoking John Locke’s law of opinion, reputation, and fashion, Noelle-
Neumann (1995) specified how public opinion plays a critical role in promoting social integration.
This view of public opinion as a form of social control has allowed researchers to study public
opinion in small-group settings and other venues that are not ostensibly political in nature.
290 Patricia Moy and Brandon J. Bosch

opinion as instrumental for democratic processes, the theories covered in this chapter
encompass decades of scholarship that are based on distinctly different assumptions
of the public as members of a democratic system. In addition, particularly as studied
vis-à-vis communication, these theories focus on different outcomes, and as our
media landscape continues to evolve, the field must reconsider the impact of each.
Although the term “public opinion” was not coined until the mid-1700s (see Peters
1995 for a review), our point of departure is the early twentieth-century intellectual
debate between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey, whose differences in perspective
reflected longstanding debates and would trickle down through the decades to create
a rich corpus of literature. The Lippmann-Dewey debate is critical as its key concerns
are reflected in the various theories of public opinion, all of which involve media
effects. We review the key perspectives on media effects and public opinion theories
over the past century, and end with a discussion of how these theories need to be
revisited in light of an increasingly technologically oriented media environment.

2 Early twentieth-century perspectives

2.1 Views of the public: Lippmann vs. Dewey

From ancient Greece onward, citizen competence has been at the heart of many
debates about the public. Questions about whether citizens were sufficiently
knowledgeable to rule or whether governance should be left to Plato’s philosopher
kings have emerged consistently over the years. Indeed, this remained the crux of
how public intellectual Walter Lippmann and theorist John Dewey saw the public
in the early 1900s.
Lippmann, in his oft-cited books Public Opinion (1922) and The Phantom Public
(1925), painted a pejorative portrait of the public – one that was unable to process
information deeply or to behave rationally. In Public Opinion, Lippmann relied on
the allegory of the cave, from Book VII of Plato’s The Republic. In this story, a
group of men has been chained together in a cave since childhood. The chains
prevent them from moving their legs or turning their heads; consequently, they
are able to see only that which passes before them. And because a fire as well as
the mouth of the cave are behind them, the chained men see nothing but the
shadows cast upon the wall of the cave as others might walk by. The allegory
ends, “And if they were able to talk with one another, would they not suppose
that they were naming what was actually before them?”
Lippmann presented another allegory in Public Opinion, one set in 1914 at the
onset of the Great War. Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans lived on an island,
sufficiently remote that it received mail once every two months. When the mail
arrived in mid-September 1914, they learned how their respective countries had
been engaged in hostilities. “For six strange weeks they had acted as if they were
 Theories of public opinion 291

friends, when in fact they were enemies” (Lippmann 1922: 3). Lippmann used these
two examples to illustrate how indirectly citizens know the environment in which
they live. Acknowledging how “the real environment is altogether too big, too com-
plex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance,” he contended that citizens were
“not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permuta-
tions and combinations” (16). As a result, citizens are forced to rely on what they
can to create for themselves trustworthy pictures of the world beyond their reach.
Naturally, the mass media play a critical role in the construction of these pictures.
As much as citizens can use the media to learn about their unseen lifespace,
they inherently cannot process mediated information fully. Lippmann (1922: 30)
identified several factors as limiting access to the facts:

They are the artificial censorships, the limitations of social contact, the comparatively meager
time available in each day for paying attention to public affairs, the distortion arising because
events have to be compressed into very short messages, the difficulty of making a small
vocabulary express a complicated world, and finally the fear of facing those facts which would
seem to threaten the established routine of men’s lives.

Hence, his skepticism that citizens were able to contribute significantly to demo-
cratic processes.
Just as Aristotle’s view of the public was antithetical to Plato’s, Lippmann’s
perspective generated much response, most notably from philosopher and educa-
tion reformer John Dewey, who expressed considerably greater optimism regarding
the populace. Like Lippmann, he recognized that citizens were imperfect, but his
Aristotelean perspective emphasized the supremacy of public opinion as the best
safeguard to democracy (Bullert 1983). Is there potential to strengthen our citi-
zenry, and if so, how? Dewey, in his seminal work The Public and its Problems
(1927), argued that to help an entity “largely inchoate and unorganized” (109),
structural changes were needed: “The essential need… is the improvement of the
methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem
of the public” (208). Indeed, for Dewey, it was necessary to foster “conditions
under which the Great Society may become the Great Community” (147).
Dewey’s thinking reflected a profound concern with improving how citizens
learned and how they could reach their fullest potential. In his works (e.g., The
Logic of Inquiry, 1938), he advocated the use of logic, supported application of the
scientific method, and argued that the use of reasoning should be linked to policy
and social concerns.
Though most reviews of Lippmann and Dewey tend to juxtapose them as
almost diametrically opposite in thought, the two strands of thinking are aligned
with each other. As Sproule (1997: 97) noted, “Their ideas fed a view that the weak-
minded and dangerously neurotic public could not be trusted to take intelligent
political action without formal training, supported by quantitative assessment, in
how to think.” Nonetheless, this debate would transcend time and implicate the
views of how researchers saw citizens being influenced by messages they received.
292 Patricia Moy and Brandon J. Bosch

2.2 Media influences on public opinion

Studies that assess the extent to which messages shaped public opinion go lock-
step with studies of media effects in general. The earliest conceptions of media
effects were of powerful media exerting great impact on relatively passive audien-
ces, driven by both scholarship and the applied communication studies from which
the communication discipline was born. In this section, we discuss perspectives
that took hold in the first half of the twentieth century.

2.2.1 All-powerful media and propaganda effects

The earliest conceptions of media effects – as having direct, powerful effects –
emerged from a confluence of events. In the United States, the publication of Upton
Sinclair’s The Jungle in 1906 elicited a hue and cry from the mass American public
that led to the passage of federal acts and an oversight agency that ultimately
would become the Food and Drug Administration. Over two decades later, in 1929,
US researchers began to examine the effects of motion pictures on children and
youth. These Payne Fund studies, named after the sponsoring foundation, found
that young viewers emulated what they witnessed in these films (see Lowery and
DeFleur 1995). And in 1938, the radio broadcast of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds,
telling the story of Martians landing on Earth, produced panic as many listeners
believed the broadcast to reflect real-time reality (Cantril 1940).
Alongside these developments existed a growing body of research on propa-
ganda, particularly in the context of World War I. Harold Lasswell (1927: 214), in
his dissertation examining propaganda techniques used by all sides during this
global struggle, contended that modern war is fought not only on military and
economic fronts, but also on the propaganda front. After all, the countries at war
were motivated to rouse patriotic fervor, increase citizens’ commitment to the war,
and portray their enemies in a negative light and demoralize them.
Lasswell’s focus on propaganda highlighted as its primary goal the influencing
of opinion (see Welch 2003 for a range of definitions). Indeed, both propaganda
and public opinion involve phases of human behavior, with the former evoking
negative connotations. Doob’s (1948: 240) definition of propaganda considers it
“the attempt to affect the personalities and to control the behavior of individuals
toward ends considered unscientific or of doubtful value in a society at a particular
time.” Citing numerous channels through which propaganda can be transmitted –
newspapers, radio, books, plays – Doob illustrates that it is more than just a tool
for deployment in international conflicts.
Against this backdrop, it is no surprise that scholars began to gravitate toward
a view of the media as omnipotent. Contemporary academic discourse tends to use
different terms to describe the media power of this era – the “magic bullet” theory
or the “hypodermic needle” model, the latter of which some scholars claim derived
 Theories of public opinion 293

from the notion of immunizing an audience against propaganda (Chaffee and

Hochheimer 1985).

2.2.2 Two-step flow

The view of media as all-powerful lost traction as Klapper (1960: 8) summarized
two decades of research, concluding that “mass communication ordinarily does
not serve as a necessary and sufficient cause of audience effects, but rather func-
tions among and through a nexus of mediating factors and influences.” Resonating
with this view is the work of Paul Lazarsfeld and his colleagues at Columbia Uni-
versity’s Bureau of Applied Social Research, whose studies of various communities
revealed that mass media did not influence citizens’ behaviors directly, as would
be posited by the hypodermic needle or magic bullet models. Rather, media exerted
their influence on individuals by virtue of influencing key members of the public
identified as opinion leaders, people viewed by others to be influential.
This two-step flow of communication emerged across a number of settings. In
the political realm, as shown in Lazarsfeld et al.’s (1948) seminal study of citizens
in Erie County, Ohio, during the 1940 election, voters who changed their minds
during an election campaign or made up their minds late in the campaign were
more likely to mention being influenced by others. Citizens also reported greater
exposure to interpersonal discussion of politics than mediated coverage of politics.
In addition, those individuals identified as opinion leaders reported greater expo-
sure to the mass media than did their followers. Another community study based
on residents of Elmira, New York during the 1948 election season led researchers
to conclude that one’s social system mattered in decision-making (Berelson et al.
1954). This view would later be dubbed the “Columbia model” or sociological
model of voting.
Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955) built on the conclusions that emerged from these
two community studies, focusing on how personal influence worked in non-politi-
cal domains. They examined the process of influence in marketing, movie-going,
and fashion decisions as well as in the domain of public affairs. However, instead
of looking only at self-reports generated by disparate individuals, Katz and Lazars-
feld also studied the individuals whom opinion leaders considered their opinion
leaders and the sociodemographic and personality traits they possessed. In the
end, this study investigated the diffusion of an idea over time through the social
structure of an entire community (Katz 1957). Other early studies of opinion leader-
ship adopted innovative ways of shedding light on this concept: Merton (1949)
identified as opinion leaders those individuals whom a minimum of four people
had listed as shaping their opinions, and in their study of doctors, Menzel and
Katz (1955) found that the diffusion of a new drug could be traced through the
social structure of the medical community.
In reviewing these initial studies, Katz (1957: 72) noted that people may be
more influential than the media in changing opinions as personal influence is
294 Patricia Moy and Brandon J. Bosch

generally non-purposive, flexible, and trustworthy. These studies set the stage for
media and interpersonal communication to be viewed as competitive channels,
which others would later show to be more complementary than competitive (Chaf-
fee 1982; Rogers 1983).

3 Contemporary theories of public opinion

Coinciding with the cognitive turn in the social sciences in the 1970s, media schol-
arship moved away from the so-called “minimal effects” paradigm associated with
critiques made by Klapper (1960). With the advance of several new communication
theories and phenomena, scholars began to gravitate toward a return to all-power-
ful media (primarily as individuals turned to the media to help themselves define
social reality). Only later would they acknowledge the presence of contingent
media effects – that powerful media effects occurred some of the time for some
individuals. This section presents the key contemporary theories of media effects
on public opinion.

3.1 Agenda-setting

Entirely bypassed by the earlier scholarly focus on media persuasion (Kosicki

1993: 231), agenda-setting came to light in a landmark study by McCombs and
Shaw (1972), who found that the issues considered most important to Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, voters were also the same issues covered by news media in Chapel
Hill. Referencing the now-famous words of Bernard Cohen (1963: 13) that “the press
may not be successful all the time in telling people what to think, but it is stun-
ningly successful in telling its readers what to think about,” McCombs and Shaw
(1972) concluded that news media are capable of influencing the political agenda
of the public.
The several hundred studies of agenda-setting conducted in the four decades
since the Chapel Hill study indicate considerable robustness of the phenomenon.
Although studies tend to operationalize media coverage by analyzing easily acces-
sible newspaper coverage and correlating that coverage with survey data, experi-
mental research has shown that agenda-setting effects exist for televised content
as well (Iyengar and Kinder 1987). Researchers have investigated agenda-setting
effects for short-term issues as well as long-term national concerns such as the
1980s War on Drugs (Gonzenbach 1996); for news processed in hard-copy format
and online (Althaus and Tewksbury 2002; Schoenbach et al. 2005); for local and
non-local issues (Palmgreen and Clarke 1977); for entertainment content (Holbrook
and Hill 2005); for visual content (Coleman and Banning 2006); and across a wide
array of individual countries as well as comparatively (Peter 2003).
 Theories of public opinion 295

Despite the general robustness of agenda-setting effects, research has identi-

fied a number of factors that mitigate or enhance their magnitude. Some of these
factors have generated mixed findings, while others appear more consistently in
the literature. For instance, interpersonal discussion can enhance agenda-setting
effects (McLeod et al. 1974), dampen them (Atwater et al. 1985), or both (Wanta
and Wu 1992).
Level of issue obtrusiveness, however, has over the years emerged as a gener-
ally consistent and significant moderator of the media’s agenda-setting effects.
Namely, media coverage of unobtrusive issues – those issues with which individu-
als have little or no direct experience – will have stronger agenda-setting effects
as the public will need to rely more on the media for information about those
issues (Zucker 1978).
Related to the level of issue obtrusiveness, agenda-setting effects can be mod-
erated by one’s need for orientation (Weaver 1977), or the extent to which individu-
als are driven to situate and more fully understand an issue. Need for orientation
comprises two dimensions – relevance and uncertainty, with the former serving as
the initial necessary condition: people who do not perceive an issue to be relevant
will not need to orient themselves on this topic. However, among those who per-
ceive an issue to be relevant to them, there is variance in their levels of uncertainty
about that issue. Individuals who have all the information they need on a relevant
issue (or are low in uncertainty) will be lower in their need for orientation than
individuals who perceive an issue to be highly relevant yet have insufficient infor-
mation (see McCombs and Reynolds 2009 for a review). These patterns do not elide
the fact that even incidental exposure to media messages can have significant
consequences. As McCombs (2004) illustrates, the strength of agenda-setting
effects is not monotonic, increasing as media exposure increases; rather, it
approaches asymptote after a certain level of exposure.
Matthes (2006) called for the study of need for orientation toward not only
issues, but also facts (e.g., “I want to know many different sides about that topic”)
and journalistic evaluations (e.g., “I attach great importance to commentaries on
this issue”). The latter resonates with findings showing that audience members’
perceptions of media credibility and knowledge can moderate agenda-setting
effects (Miller and Krosnick 2000; Tsfati 2003; Wanta 1997).

3.2 Priming

Although the theory of agenda-setting specifies a relationship between media sali-

ence of an issue and public salience of that same issue, it says very little about
what individuals do with the media content to which they have been exposed.
Borrowing from psychologists, who define priming as “the fact that recently and
frequently activated ideas come to mind more easily than ideas that have not been
296 Patricia Moy and Brandon J. Bosch

activated” (Fiske and Taylor 1984: 231), communication scholars view this concept
as an extension of agenda-setting, referring to the power of media to effect
“changes in the standards that people use to make [political] evaluations” (Iyengar
and Kinder 1987: 63; brackets added).
Like agenda-setting, priming works because individuals tend to rely on mem-
ory-based processing of information. Rather than forming attitudes based on
impressions (sometimes called on-line processing, McGraw et al. 1990), individuals
tend to retrieve information that is more salient (Hastie and Park 1986). Scheufele
and Tewksbury (2007: 11) succinctly juxtaposed agenda-setting and framing: “By
making some issues more salient in people’s mind (agenda setting), mass media
can also shape the considerations that people take into account when making
judgments about political candidates or issues (priming).”
Studies of priming on topics not ostensibly related to public opinion have
found fertile ground in assessing media violence, sexual content in the media,
racial representations, and advertisements (Carpentier 2011). However, such con-
tent has strong implications for attitudes toward censorship, stereotyping, and con-
sumer purchase behaviors. In the public opinion domain, however, the criterion
variable of interest has tended to be judgments of politicians. In their seminal
study of the agenda-setting and priming effects of US television, Iyengar and Kin-
der (1987) found that the more attention paid to a specific problem, the more likely
that viewers incorporated what they knew about that problem when assessing the
President (see also Pan and Kosicki 1997, and for similar findings related to the
governor of Hong Kong, Willnat and Zhu 1996). Looking at evaluations of presiden-
tial performance, research has found that media coverage of an issue does increase
the ease with which related beliefs are accessed, but do not find priming effects.
Rather, politically knowledgeable citizens in the US who trust the media more infer
news coverage of that issue to reflect greater importance of that issue and therefore
tend to use that issue as a standard for evaluating the President (Miller and Kros-
nick 2000).
The literature on priming offers many nuanced findings. For instance, unlike
in studies of presidential evaluations, priming effects have not been found for
interest groups (McGraw and Ling 2003). And although many priming studies
assume that audiences use the dominant news agenda in their evaluations,
research shows that “big-message” effects are just one part of the story: recent
exposure to relevant content can generate priming effects, but cumulative exposure
plays a greater role (Althaus and Kim 2006).
With few exceptions, such as those examining public support for military con-
flicts (Althaus and Coe 2011), priming research today remains focused on formal
political actors, but has moved to other sites of political news. This shift is particu-
larly important, given that political news can appear in many forms (e.g., Entman
2005). In the United States, late-night comedies such as The Late Show with David
Letterman are found to influence which traits audiences use to evaluate presiden-
 Theories of public opinion 297

tial candidates (Moy et al. 2005), with documentaries (e.g., Fahrenheit 9–11, Holbert
and Hansen 2006) and fictional programming such as The West Wing (Holbert et
al. 2003) and NYPD Blue (Holbrook and Hill 2005) also able to shift the basis of
evaluations of presidents. These findings, however, are contingent on many indi-
vidual-level factors, including political ideology and political interest.

3.3 Framing

Often discussed in tandem with agenda-setting and priming, framing refers to

media influences based on what media coverage of an issue includes. Despite
being characterized as a “fractured paradigm” with “scattered conceptualization”
(Entman 1993: 51), framing enjoys generally consistent definitions. According to
Entman (1993: 52), framing highlights certain aspects of the world in a text “as to
promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation,
and/or treatment recommendation.” Similarly, Gamson and Modigliani (1987: 143)
define a frame as “a central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning to
an unfolding strip of events….The frame suggests what the controversy is about,
the essence of the issue.” Likewise, Reese (2001: 11) sees frames as “organizing
principles that are socially shared and persist over time, that work symbolically to
meaningfully structure the social world.” In short, scholars view frames as provid-
ing meaning about social phenomena through the highlighting and packaging of
information.
The bulk of research on framing effects has either identified types of frames
that exist or tested their effects. On the former front, one common dichotomization
involves episodic vs. thematic frames. Whereas episodic frames adopt a case-study
perspective on an issue or portray just one incident, thematic frames provide
greater contextualization and background, linking that particular incident to larger
concerns. Not surprisingly, individuals exposed to these frames differ in their attri-
bution of responsibility on political issues (Iyengar 1991): episodic frames lead
audience members to attribute responsibility of an issue to the individual involved,
while thematic frames increase the likelihood of blaming the government or society
at large.
Policy vs. strategy frames constitute another common way to differentiate news
frames. Usually appearing in the context of election coverage, policy frames focus
on substantive issues as well as issue-based information from candidates or parties
(Patterson 1993). Strategy frames, on the other hand, emphasize the sport of elect-
oral politics (Farnsworth and Lichter 2007). Often termed “horse-race coverage” –
which focuses on which candidate is winning or losing, and by how much – strat-
egy frames are charged with undermining the electoral process by diverting citi-
zens’ attention away from the issues that really matter (Cappella and Jamieson
1997; Patterson 1993), though others claim that the drama of horse-race coverage
298 Patricia Moy and Brandon J. Bosch

makes news coverage more memorable and can generate interest in a campaign
(Bartels 1988).
Because framing is inherent in media coverage, the range of studies in this
area is considerable (see, for example, the case studies in Reese et al. [2001] which
include examinations of media frames of political correctness and those of a mur-
der trial). Studies of individual-level framing effects, however, have examined gains
vs. losses (Tversky and Kahneman 1981) and ethical vs. material frames (Domke et
al. 1998); compared human interest, conflict, and personal consequence frames
(Price et al. 1997); and looked at similar frames including those emphasizing attri-
bution of responsibility or economics (Valkenburg et al. 1999). While these afore-
mentioned experimental studies highlight the effects of a particular type of frame,
other experiments test for the effects of framing of a specific incident. Notable
studies include framing a Ku Klux Klan rally as a free-speech issue vs. a disruption
of public order (Nelson et al. 1997) and framing the Supreme Court ruling of the
2000 U.S. presidential election as partisan and “stealing the election” vs. a princi-
pled vote based on legal considerations (Nicholson and Howard 2003). Findings
show that respective levels of support for the Ku Klux Klan and Supreme Court
differed depending on the frame to which study participants were exposed.
Framing influences how people understand issues, but their effects are contin-
gent on many individual-level factors. After all, in making sense of media messa-
ges, audience members not only consider to varying degrees media content, but
they also engage with each other interpersonally (Druckman and Nelson 2003;
Walsh 2004) and draw on their experiential knowledge (Gamson 1996).
Beyond the cognitive frames that affect citizens’ understanding of the specific
issue at hand (Iyengar 1991; Tversky and Kahneman 1981), the media can shape
audience members’ understanding of related concerns by adopting cultural
frames – frames that “don’t stop with organizing one story, but invite us to…[go]
beyond the immediate information” (Reese 2001: 12–13). One exemplar of a cultural
frame is the “war on terrorism” frame, which “offered a way…to construct a narra-
tive to make sense of a range of diverse stories about international security, civil
wars, and global conflict” (Norris et al. 2003: 15).
Although scholars differentiate framing from agenda-setting in that they see
the former as concerned with the quality and content of media coverage of an
issue and the latter as concerned with only the amount of coverage, some argue
that framing can be understood as another type of agenda-setting effect. In other
words, agenda setting can influence the public’s perception of salience of an issue
as well as how it understands that issue (McCombs 2004). Whether or not framing
is its own concern or another extension of agenda-setting seems to hinge on the
theoretical mechanisms. Some scholars stress that agenda-setting and priming
operate via accessibility, noting how exposure to media coverage about an issue
increases its accessibility in one’s mind, while framing effects are markedly differ-
ent, relying instead on applicability effects (e.g., Price and Tewksbury 1997). In
 Theories of public opinion 299

other words, when an issue is framed in terms of meaning, cause, solution, and
responsibility, “the primary effect of [that] frame is to render specific information,
images, or ideas applicable to [that] issue” (Tewksbury and Scheufele 2009: 21).

4 Conclusions
This chapter focused on key theories of public opinion as they implicate individual-
level effects on citizens’ attitudes, behaviors, and cognitions. Viewing these theo-
ries through this lens suggests a singularity or simplicity that simply does not exist.
Agenda-setting research has looked at how media agendas can set policy agendas
(Rogers et al. 1993) or other media’s agendas (Atwater et al. 1987), and framing
research has differentiated between frame-setting and frame-building (Scheufele
1999). Indeed, to truly understand public opinion, we must not only understand
the nature of the public and the assumptions that undergird research efforts, but
also the nature of mass media. This point was recognized early by Lippmann
(1922), whose views on the individual and news media led him to reject the possi-
bility of an informed mass public. Toward this end, we briefly review the literature
on key factors that feed into the construction of news, recognizing that, as Shoe-
maker and Reese (1996: 251) noted, “mass media content is a socially created prod-
uct, not a reflection of an objective reality” (see also Tuchman 1978).

4.1 A key caveat: the construction of media content

To begin, who determines what is news? What forces within the news media serve
as gatekeepers (White 1950) and what forces will shape how content gets pre-
sented? At the most micro level, journalists who create news stories and their
editors may unknowingly shape content. Their sociodemographics as well as politi-
cal views and training, and their perceptions of norms all have some bearing on
what and how content gets presented. For instance, newspapers with male mana-
ging editors produce more coverage of politics and national security over time,
while female-led newsrooms produce more indirect leads, a practice common in
the crafting of features or news features stories (Beam and DiCicco 2010). Similarly,
the relationship between journalists’ partisanship and their news decisions
appears not only in the United States, but also in Western Europe (Donsbach and
Patterson 2004). Differences exist across countries as well, particularly in terms of
professional norms: compared to British, Italian, Swedish, and German journalists,
American journalists most strongly advocate for a free press, and are more likely
to rely on interviews with newsmakers and citizens than on wire-service copy to
cover stories (Donsbach and Patterson 2004).
300 Patricia Moy and Brandon J. Bosch

Perhaps most salient as a professional norm of journalism (at least in the

United States) is that of objectivity, which holds that journalists should report
facts rather than values and present multiple perspectives on a story (Schudson
2001: 150). Paradoxically, this norm tends to introduce its own bias – an overreli-
ance on officials and, coupled with a need for newsworthy sources, encourages
indexing. Indexing occurs when the types of viewpoints presented in news media
tend to be calibrated to “the range of views expressed in mainstream government
debate about a given topic” (Bennett 1990: 106). The indexing hypothesis has
received empirical support (e.g., Livingston and Bennett 2003; Zaller and Chiu
1996), but has also been refined to account for the ability of presidential adminis-
trations to influence media coverage more than members of Congress (Entman
2004). However, other scholarship suggests that journalists are often relatively
autonomous in their reporting (Althaus 2003; Patterson 1993). Notably, journalists
appear to reject frames from elite politicians and interest groups in favor of framing
that heightens the dramatic elements of a news story (Callaghan and Schnell 2001),
highlighting the importance of ratings and economics in news production.
Indeed, economic factors need to be taken into account when considering how
media content is created (Sparrow 1999). For example, the division of labor associ-
ated with the newsbeat system maximizes the efficiency of news collection, though
this “news net” is typically cast around “big fish” such as prominent officials and
political leaders (Tuchman 1978). To avoid costly original research, journalists rely
on credible institutions and elite officials for information (Gans 1979; Sigal 1973).
Put differently, the “free” information provided by elite officials and institutions
essentially amounts to a subsidy to the news industry (Cook 2005; Fishman 1980).
Thus in the same way that news media are dependent upon advertising for reve-
nue, so are journalists dependent on credible sources.
Scholars have also pointed to the effects of media ownership and economics in
the production of media content. The study of the political economy of news media
is presaged by Marx and Engels’ (1845/2004: 64) comment that “the class which has
the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over
the means of mental production.” Some scholars argue that since news media organi-
zations are owned not only by wealthy individuals, but also by corporate conglomer-
ates and dependent upon corporate advertising, news media content will tend to
have a pro-corporate capitalism bias (Herman and Chomsky 1994; McChesney 2004;
Parenti 1992). However, much of the evidence in support of this claim is anecdotal in
nature. Moreover, a content analysis found only limited support of news media syn-
ergy bias, which occurs when news media outlets provide more favorable coverage
of products and businesses owned by the parent company (Williams 2002).
In fact, outside the realm of news media, many unfavorable depictions of cor-
porations exist in popular media. Lichter et al. (1997) find that business characters
were depicted negatively more often (55%) than non-business characters (31%) on
television. Whether it be linking capitalism with the murderous creature in Alien
 Theories of public opinion 301

(1979) and consumerism with mindless zombies in Dawn of the Dead (1978) (Ryan
and Kellner 1988), or simply depicting the mundane corporate workplace as a
threat to masculinity (Hunter 2003), capitalism often is shown in a threatening
light on film. Given the consistently negative depictions of labor unions in film
(Christensen and Haas 2005; Puette 1992), it makes more sense to think of mass
media as an arena of competing themes, rather than as articulating a single ideol-
ogy (Ryan and Kellner 1988).
Although cited as a potential motivation of corporate bias, the need for profits
can work to produce media critiques of capitalism. According to Kellner (1981: 40),
the profit motive can trump class ideology; for instance, “the short-term economic
interests of a network may lead them to broadcast news which puts in question
aspects of the socioeconomic order, thus jeopardizing their long-range economic
interests.” Focusing on the economic pressures facing news organizations, Hamil-
ton (2004) argues that network news programming has more “soft” news coverage
(focusing less on politics) and is liberal on social issues in order to appeal to
18–34 year-old females, who are a prime demographic for advertisers.
At the most macro level, the construction of news and media content in general
can be influenced by broader cultural forces. Entman (1993: 52) notes that along
with the communicator, text, and receiver, frames reside in culture. Similarly, Van
Gorp (2007) speaks of a “cultural stock of frames” from which both journalists and
audiences draw upon to make sense of the world. However, different views exist
regarding the actual influence of culture on news coverage: Hallin (1986) argues
that coverage is influenced by the cultural consensus surrounding that issue, while
Gans (1979) finds news content to be characterized by “enduring values” such as
ethnocentrism, individualism, small-town pastoralism, and responsible capitalism.
By referring to something resident in the surrounding culture, media frames have
“implicit cultural roots” (Tewksbury and Scheufele 2009: 23) and can resonate with
audience members (Gamson and Modigliani 1989).

4.2 Some final words about the changing face of public

opinion

Conceptualizations of agenda-setting, priming, and framing as media effects on

public opinion emerged in an era that was relatively simple compared to today’s
environment. But as citizens have turned increasingly to social media and other
online tools, the field has begun to question the extent to which one can separate
mass from interpersonal influences (Mutz and Young 2011) or even the directional-
ity of effects. Agenda-building, which identifies how specific entities can shape
the media’s agenda, now needs to explicitly include citizens as active newsmakers.
If media content is being crafted by the individuals that previously were being told
by the media what issues to think about, perhaps the theoretical premises of
302 Patricia Moy and Brandon J. Bosch

agenda-setting should be refined. Similarly, groups and individuals that previously

had difficulty finding voice through traditional media outlets now have the oppor-
tunity to create their own frames and bypass journalistic filters. If frame sponsor-
ship no longer belongs only to elites, and if citizens are setting frames for the
media, scholars should reconsider the extent to which hypothesizing about tradi-
tional (media-to-audience) framing effects is useful.
As our media landscape becomes more balkanized and fragmented, society
has witnessed an increase in selective exposure and a shift toward what Bennett
and Iyengar (2008) term “a new era of minimal effects.” Indeed, the long-held
stages of media effects described here are being questioned: Neuman and Guggen-
heim (2011) eschew categorizing effects in terms of their power on audience mem-
bers, proffering instead a six-stage model of media effects that turns on clusters of
theories. According to their typology, we have been operating, since 1996, under a
“new media theories” framework.
But what are new media? Today’s latest technology will likely lose novelty with
the appearance of the next one, but not before it has become fully integrated into
everyday politics. Information will continue to be sent for the sake of information;
messages will continue to be sent to mobilize others to take action; and non-
elites will continue using these technologies to join the swelling ranks of citizen-
journalists (Cooper 2010). Taken together, these acts of engagement signal how the
dichotomies of yore no longer hold. Social media have flattened hierarchies, and
media consumers have become producers. With this increased engagement in the
media, citizens can find virtually unlimited information on an issue. Unfortunately,
this proliferation of media can kindle distrust in sources that espouse dissonant
views from one’s own. These tensions call for a re-examination of how communica-
tion is defined. They also force a reconsideration of who is the source and who is
the receiver, and more importantly, how these new communication processes will
shape public opinion in a democracy.

Further reading
Bennett, W. Lance & Shanto Iyengar. 2008. A new era of minimal effects? The changing
foundations of political communication. Journal of Communication 58. 707–731.
Holbert, R. Lance, R. Kelly Garrett & Laurel S. Gleason. 2010. A new era of minimal effects? A
response to Bennett and Iyengar. Journal of Communication 60. 15–34.
Mutz, Diana C. & Lori Young. 2011. Communication and public opinion: Plus ça change? Public
Opinion Quarterly 75. 1018–1044.
Price, Vincent. 2011. Public opinion research in the new century: Reflections from a former POQ
editor. Public Opinion Quarterly 75. 846–853.
Shoemaker, Pamela J. & Stephen D. Reese. 1996. Mediating the Message: Theories of Influence
on Mass Media Content, 2nd edn. New York, NY: Longman.
 Theories of public opinion 303

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David Crowley
17 Mediation theory
Abstract: The medium concept, initially proposed in the work of Harold Innis and
Marshall McLuhan, has led to on-going efforts to account for the historical shifts
in media and to assess their impact on the mediation of experience and the chan-
neling of behavior. This chapter follows the medium concept through the latter
half of the twentieth century as it amalgamated aspects of social history and social
theory and more recently the cultural turn. Today changes and developments in
the post-mass media environment associated with the rise of a global internet have
rekindled interest in the medium concept and in mediation theory as a useful
orienting framework for understanding the emergence of new electronic embodi-
ments of symbolic exchange and interaction.

Keywords: Mediated information, medium concept, mediators, conditional embod-

iments, recursiveness, social feedback, temporality, electronic mediations

Today’s information environment poses a challenge to all those disciplines that

take some account of media, namely how to orient ourselves to a communicational
world in play. In recent decades we have witnessed the falling away of much of
our central media into something like a post-mass media condition. Overlapping
this and increasingly implicated in its fate has been the growth and intensification
of alternative electronic platforms for symbolic exchange and the continued blur-
ring at the interfaces of formerly discrete domains of production, dissemination,
and reception. Within the field of communication and media studies, as in areas
of related scholarship and in public policy forums, there is a felt need for
approaches that speak to these historic events in ways that inform our understand-
ing of these changes. This question – of how we account for historical shifts in
media and their impact on the mediation of experience and the channeling of
behavior – has long been at the core of a mediationist approach.
Mediation as a theme has figured in several areas of communication and media
studies. Whether we approach this thematic from some aspect of media ecology, as
communication history, in terms of media archeology, or even via science studies’
attention to the devices of observation, representation and transmission, there is
some defining common ground. To an extent all these approaches focus attention
on the distinctive technical modes of communication and take account of their
material embodiments as well as their uses and the broader social and institutional
consequences of their uptake.1 Accounting for the specificity of the medium is seen

1 I mean here material cultural embodiments. In social informatics and in fact since early
cybernetics we have worked with a ‘mix’ of electronic and non-electronic sources for information
310 David Crowley

as a necessary step for getting at how we as individuals and societies become

enmeshed in systematic webs of signification – those ubiquitous theaters of visual
and auditory expression that feed and drive so much of private and public experi-
ence and behavior – where they come from, what they do, how we participate,
and why it matters. This way of characterizing the organization of media as flowing
around and through a mix of informational and material technics is meant to draw
attention to the ‘message’ of the medium of communication itself. According to
mediationists, problematizing the medium in this way fills a gap – perhaps a blind
spot – in research strategies in the humanities and social sciences that prefer to
bracket questions about the medium entirely and to make do with assumptions
about the neutrality of technologies. It is also of course what that arch-student of
aphorisms and advocate for a mediation perspective, Marshall McLuhan (1964),
meant by “the medium is the message.”2
By focusing on the status of the medium, the mediation approach initially at
least offsets itself from other research strategies that prefer to bracket questions of
technology – and even technics more generally – within assumptions about the
neutrality of tools. In communication and media studies this bracketing establishes
a kind of technological neutral zone – usually linked in some way to the critique
of technological determinism – and as such it has had practical efficacy. It has
allowed practitioners to address the appeal and meaning of media products and
media institutions by focusing directly on the content of symbolic exchange, at the
role of information in the reproduction of behaviors and beliefs and at the self-
limiting context of actual readers, listeners, and viewers in assessing media’s
effects.3 Mediation theory by contrast brackets these questions in order to take
fuller account of the inscriptive context itself, at the assemblages of codes, conven-
tions, and practices around these inscriptive devices; and at how they emerge in
the first place, why they do or do not persist and with what consequences.4 This
places the mediationist approach between those scholarly preoccupations with
media messages and those scholarly preoccupations with what subjects do with

and their shifting balance. See Stanley N. Salthe (2011), Naturalizing Information. Information
2(3). 417–425. Special thanks to Maria Merkling Havens for advice and edits.
2 I am aware that there are other ways in which mediation has been proposed and explored in
relation to media. Some of these are noted below, but in this essay I wish to demonstrate that
there has been a sustaining theme in communication and media studies that begins with a
recognition and problematizing of the medium.
3 The classic statement in this regard is Wilbur Schramm et al. (1961) Television in the Lives of
Our Children. Schramm explicitly sets up print as reality-based and proposes to examine the
contrasting tendency of image-based televisual fare toward fantasy. It was this unexamined claim
to reality-based status for print that McLuhan singled out for criticism in The Gutenberg Galaxy.
4 In using terms such as “assemblages” I am following contemporary usage in the socio-
technical literature. See for instance Bruno Latour (1994), “On Technological Mediation.” Thanks
to Marco Adria for this reference.
 Mediation theory 311

them. As a theory of media, the focus is on control mechanisms as structured

agency, or, if that is too hard-edged, then directed interaction.
The appeal of the mediationist perspective in other disciplines has always
stirred controversy, especially the stronger versions emphasizing media’s enabling
and constraining ‘bias.’ However, the renewed scholarly engagement with examin-
ing the drivers of the modern and its continuing consequences – postmodern,
globalizing, electronic – attaches new urgency to accounting for the role of media
and its informational technics in this way. No less a social theorist than Anthony
Giddens, both in his writing on the theme of modernity and through talks delivered
at conferences of communication scholars, helped underscore that “(m)echanized
technologies of communication have dramatically influenced all aspects of globali-
zation…(and) form an essential element of the reflexivity of modernity and of the
discontinuities which have torn the modern away from the traditional” (Giddens,
1990).
Methodological issues have encouraged engagement with the theme of media-
tion as well. Robert Darnton has long called for historians to take greater account
of the backstage machinery of textual production and dissemination as part of
the task of vetting the status of textual information. As president of the American
Historical Association, Darnton (2000) was concerned about the reluctance of
some historians to look behind the historical documents at the information cir-
cuitry that gave rise to these documents in the first place. Along with other col-
leagues, many identified with histories of reading and histories of the book, he
laid out ambitious alternatives for dealing with the information context that is
attentive both to the interplay of communication modes – oral, written, and print
for instance – and to the embodiments of those modes – everything from charac-
teristics of paper manufacture, bindings, and layout to the tracking of buying,
selling, circulation, and readership – as well as the genealogy of the surviving
historical documents themselves through attention to the processes of collection,
storage and archiving. All of which follows the mediation theme in calling atten-
tion less to the what of information construal and more to the how of its making,
movement and access.
This is not to say that attention to a medium concept is only of recent vintage.
As a theme, it has been present since the eighteenth century, if not earlier. Plato
is regularly cited as acknowledging and indeed lamenting how the new mode of
writing was impacting and undermining the central strengths of Greek oral culture.
In Phaedrus and The Seventh Letter he explored the trade-offs when we move our
primary orientation from one modality to another. Plato may have sided rhetori-
cally with the oral tradition and the efficacies of bio-social memory as the embodi-
ment of choice, but he also grasps the autonomous embodiments of these modes
and gives us some early appreciation of writing as an inscriptive system with its
ability to fix oral expression, to disseminate captured speech, and to archive or
store it as content for future reference.
312 David Crowley

In a similar vein, Jean-Jacques Rousseau frequently mused about the organiz-

ing powers of language, the multiple ways in which oral and the literate forms
acted as containers to attract and to channel social interactions. From his eight-
eenth century perspective, Rousseau witnessed the enduring vibrancy of the thea-
tre, the rise of the novel, and the raging popularity of the new board games, all
demonstrating the power of such containers as vehicles for organizing social inter-
action and focusing behavior. By the nineteenth century, writing in the shadow of
Darwin’s inversion of the idea of human descent, the anthropologist Edward Bur-
net Tylor (1964) could take a deep look back at earlier non-western societies and
examine the choice of scripts and other notational tools as a source of insight into
past practices and beliefs.
By the early decades of the twentieth century, at least three broad themes can
be seen forming around the intellectual challenges posed by the new technologies
and realities of symbolic exchange. It was a time of vertiginous change – the rapid
spread of electrical signaling systems from nineteenth century beginnings and par-
allel developments in optical and acoustic machinery for the capture and reproduc-
tion of image and sound, followed in short order by the knitting together of audio-
visual formats first in cinema, then television. In the first of these thematic
responses, an urgency grew around the perceived loss of community in the face of
industrialization, urbanization, and the growth of mass communication. Where
some, such as Walter Lippmann, feared for the future of democratic politics as it
shifted toward a national stage and its mass media machinery (the concept of
persuasion as an organizing metaphor for media studies dates from this period)
others called for new approaches that would help tame these same challenges.
The philosophically informed pragmatism of the Chicago School exemplifies the
latter. In the decades after World War I, through the work of Robert Park and John
Dewey, coming to grips with the role of media in contemporary society became an
accepted idea in the academic landscape and in public debate. Park emphasized
the cognitive and institutional resources that media such as the newspaper provi-
sionally afforded a populace confronted by social change; and Dewey explicitly
saw eduction, including a nascent role for media literacy, as a counter-balance to
the wrenching dislocations of the modern.
A second theme turned attention toward the new material culture. The Frank-
furt School, displaced by the rise of Nazism from Germany to America in the 1930s,
provided an early concept of the emerging ‘cultural industries’ as they labeled the
organizational nexus of mass entertainment and its construction of the star system
and commercialized popular culture. While neither of these ‘schools’ would deal
directly with mediation or develop a concept of the medium, both did direct atten-
tion to the sea-change in the modes of communication and information. And one
scholarly associate, Walter Benjamin (2008), in a famous work first published in
1936, came suggestively close to formulating the mediating function in comparing
painting versus photography and theatre versus film.
 Mediation theory 313

A third theme, trans-Atlantic in articulation, developed from the growing pre-

occupations with material culture, added a stronger sense of culture as technology.
Today this theme can be identified with the origins of an ecological perspective in
the social sciences, including post-war communication studies (Strade and Lum
2000). Three figures are often mentioned as emblematic: Patrick Geddes, Lewis
Mumford, and Siegfried Giedion. All three advanced an understanding of the role
of communication/information in human settlement, how it is pooled and punctu-
ated and how it circulates in and through the social environment. Geddes was
among the first urban sociologists. He was a traveler and explorer of the great
American and European cities, and, for the last decade of his life, the urban areas
of India. Geddes grasped Dewey’s dilemma of the slipping away of forms of life
rooted in community and put forward a matching strategy. The city for him was
modernity’s grand experiment, conducted on a global scale, a laboratory of inter-
actions and information flows, where the self-organizing characteristics of neigh-
borhoods, associational relations and local organizations were the fruitful building
blocks of development, properly understood and supported. Like Dewey he advo-
cated for more access to life-long skills development. Geddes passionately dis-
sented from the prevailing wisdom of the day that argued that the circuitry of
urban worlds was best modernized by attending to and facilitating traffic flows.
For Geddes such results were especially disruptive of the human resources of cities
when, as urban planners or developers, we opted for a transportation rather than
a communications optic to inform our interventions in social and economic life.
To Geddes’s portrait of the interaction orders that punctuated urban space,
Lewis Mumford contributed the idea of punctuated time. In Civilization and Tech-
nics (Mumford 1934), he built directly on Geddes’s spatial organizing insights, argu-
ing that clock time, the result of the introduction of mechanical timekeeping into
medieval Europe, refigured the temporal rhythms of everyday life, especially as
religious and economic life assimilated their schedules to the force field of mechan-
ical time. Mumford saw this as a large scale instance of the technics of ‘autono-
mous technology,’ as daily life took on the directed interactions of a new time
regime. Mumford would later credit the printing press with an equivalent effect,
as the technics of printing became the primary vehicle and container for the pool-
ing and circulation of information of all kinds. These autonomous technics became
the machinery within Geddes’ grand urban experiment.
Siegfried Giedion pushed further. Resident in America during World War II,
Giedion set himself the task of documenting the deepening commitment he saw in
modern culture to objectified forms of subjectivity. In Mechanization Takes Com-
mand (Giedion 1948), seen as a founding work in the history of technology, Giedion
compiled a dense genealogy of technology’s absorption into the everyday. His
search was for the modern equivalent of earlier civilization’s screws, wheels, and
pulleys, transformed as he saw it into the technics of bathrooms, lit interiors,
parlors, kitchens, and eating areas of domestic space. These end-use spaces were
314 David Crowley

made possible by complex support systems: everything from the fabricating facili-
ties for the in-home infrastructure, to the assembly lines for the disassembly of
livestock carcasses for domestic food supply, to the optical and acoustic devices
that made the products for leisure-time use and so on – a vast compendium of the
domestic world as mediating objects. This was backstage accounting for the mod-
ern world’s at times awkward embrace of human-machine relationships, which
was transmuting the techno-scientific into the techno-cultural, for better or for
worse. The influences, however, ran in both directions; for Giedion the appeal and
rationalization of nineteenth century mechanization moved forward as it did
because the culture provided openings for, or resisted, its amalgamation. The con-
text mattered deeply. With this simple formula, Giedion sketched an approach for
examining how much the technologies of the everyday were the product of social
responses and how much the result of imposition. The communication flows that
ran between technology and culture and vice versa were structured and given the
force of agency by the assemblages of human technics arrayed around both their
building and their use. Mechanization Takes Command advanced an optimistic the-
sis that might well have alarmed Geddes and Mumford. It did nonetheless help
clarify the status of technologies as mutable and responsive to use: because follow-
ing the logic flow of Giedion’s argument the “mechanistic conception of the world”
should in principle be routinely undermined by how machines, developing in
active interplay with the social world, are nudged in the direction of becoming
increasingly mimetic instruments of human interaction.5
Evident in all of these works from the first half of the twentieth century is
growing appreciation of the backstage machinery of modern culture and society.
Absent is a robust sense of the scope and scale of the actual machinery of symbolic
mediation and its implications. Two unrelated projects, both incubated during
World War II and published by the early 1950s, provided a sense of that linkage:
firstly, a systematic concept of the medium of communication advanced by Harold
Innis and worked out by members of the Toronto School; and secondly, a concept
of information proposed initially by Claude Shannon and elaborated through the
work of the cybernetics group.6
Innis provided the first systematic work on the role of the medium and a provi-
sional account of media as information control. The concept of medium fell out of
his struggles to articulate it. Around him in the late 1940s were multiple if uncon-

5 Giedion’s work is enjoying something of a revival today. See the excellent classics revisited
essay by Arthur P. Molella (2002), Science moderne: Siegfried Giedion’s Space, Time and
Architecture and Mechanization Takes Command.
6 I do not deal with the work on information in this essay, except to note that both the medium
concept and the information concept can be seen as complementary developments in a theory of
mediation. Both deal with conditional embodiments of information, and both are articulated as
second order theories that propose ways to step back from the mangle of information content/
meaning issues while attending to the role of mediatory environments.
 Mediation theory 315

nected clues: archeologists looking at how inscriptive systems had organized

ancient worlds, classicists assessing the effects of the intrusion of alphabetic writ-
ing into the oral cultures of Western civilization, anthropologists and linguists
speculating about the differential cognitive effects of speech and writing, historical
sociologists sketching the interaction orders in human groups and settlements. The
medium concept was something as basic as the machinery of inscription and at
the same time more complex, as a way of looking at information conveyance that
placed the organizing effects well beyond the meaning of the messages themselves.
Innis proposed three ways to think about the medium concept: firstly, by tak-
ing account of the ease of inscription and allied to this the cost and the availability
of its raw materials (in the case of writing the use of clay, papyrus, parchment,
paper). Secondly, by accounting for the speed of circulation and for portability,
because all successful states and expansive empires, he argued, had needed to
efficiently move information around. And thirdly, in terms of persistence, the
capacity for information to endure in time and space. With each medium chosen
there would be trade-offs for inscription, dissemination, and persistence. The suc-
cess of statecraft, he believed, in no small measure rested upon how these vari-
ables were managed.
The medium concept then, with its material embodiments, the specificities of
its assemblages of actors, skills, tools, and practices, formed the underpinnings of
a theory of mediation which Innis applied to historical social change. In key works
all published at mid-century – Empire and Communication (Innis [1950] 1975), The
Bias of Communication (Innis [1951] 1995), and The Changing Concept of Time (Innis
[1952] 2003) – he outlined how major shifts in history roughly corresponded to
changes in the medium and technics of communication. The first of these shifts
was the deployment of viable systems of writing from ancient regimes through
early western societies. Then came the long period of mechanization of writing via
printing technologies, beginning in the fifteenth century. The third shift started in
the nineteenth century, when print was superseded by real time communication
at increasing distances through electro-mechanical signaling networks and their
subsequent integration with other devices for inscription and reproduction of
acoustic and optical content.
In the first two developments the movement of information is entwined with
transportation infrastructures for moving other types of goods. In the third, telegra-
phy breaks the relationship with transport, realigning information flows to new
conditions of simultaneity and co-location, in the process opening society to new
forms of access to and accountability for its relations in time and space. These
intellective tools and their material means of conveyance underpinned the efforts
of states and civilizations – and in fact all subsequent forms of modern organiza-
tion – to extend their activities in time and space. The tools provided stability –
the raw power of recorded data, systematic surveillance, schedules, and con-
tracts – and also introduced potential conditions of instability that became appar-
316 David Crowley

ent to Innis as he put together portraits of the relations of geographic peripheries

and centers, where the further one moved from the center, the more uncertain the
scope of compliance, the more influenced matters became by the contingencies of
the local, and the more the characteristics of the medium itself came into play, as
factors of distance, time, and the limitations of conveyance entered the equation.
The embodiments always mattered. Light/portable/fragile creates an information
situation different from that of heavy/fixed/durable. In the long view of human
settlement and civilization, the choice of a primary medium acquired an assem-
blage of practices appropriate to it. This then was the beginning of an impious
theory, namely, that the intellective technics by which we communicate are them-
selves enabled and constrained by their embodiments, never just by how they are
used.
Innis’s theory finished much as it had begun, as a kind of bricolage of evidence
from a clutch of disciplines and scholarly informants that piece together provision-
ally an idea of communication as modalities, potentially autonomous, whose speci-
ficities as codes and material enabled and constrained the shape of the information
environment. To understand trade and commerce, to understand statecraft, to
understand the arts and culture, you needed to come to grips with the technics of
how these systems of signification were organized and deployed.7
His research was completed in the shadow of the Cold War, which he believed
would be largely informational in character; he died before he could tackle the
implications of this. After Innis, research on mediation via theorizing the medium
and mediality more generally has gone through significant phases: initially by
extending the concepts of medium and technics; followed by a turn to social theory
and history with lessons about how systems emerge, and finally a new cultural
turn with a timely opening towards conceptualizing new media.
Since subsequent scholarship deserves to be considered in itself and since
much of it, moreover, can only be indirectly linked to Innis’s earlier project, I will
briefly suggest three ways in which our contemporary understanding of the theme
of mediation has been informed and elaborated by these diverse efforts: firstly, in
showing how a medium concept brings back a sense of technics into our analysis
of symbolic systems; secondly, in alerting us to the constitutive power of the social
in accounting for how media systems come to have the shape they do and why
this changes; and finally, through noting new conceptual work on electronic media
and their suggestions for a concept of intermediation in communication. An essay
is not the space to do justice to these matters, so what follows should be seen as
prologue.

7 A useful introductions to Innis’ communications work is James Carey’s (1989) Communication

as Culture. For a comprehensive recent treatment, see Paul Heyer (2003), Harold Innis.
 Mediation theory 317

1 The medium turn

The publication of this handbook volume and handbook series marks the 50th
anniversary of a seminal event in mediation theory. 1962/63 saw the publication
of three works which established a forceful version of the medium and technics
thesis: Eric Havelock’s (1963) Preface to Plato, Marshall McLuhan’s The Gutenberg
Galaxy (1962), and Jack Goody and Ian Watt’s (1963) seminal essay on ‘The conse-
quences of literacy.’ These were important benchmarks, nothing less than an effort
to unpack the mechanics of literacy and to outline the cognitive and cultural
impacts of its long historical development. Havelock, McLuhan, and Goody are all
linked to the work of the Toronto School and all embraced an idea of ‘mediacy’ in
accounting for communication and historical shifts in the organization of expres-
sion and experience.
Havelock provided a key concept. He proposed proto-literate periods to
account for how the technics of literacy were assembled, changed, and adapted in
response to social context. As subsequent scholarship has confirmed, he showed
how early Greek writing was done, largely without punctuation, as an unbroken
stream of words. Reading, by contrast, was initially a public activity in which the
text was read aloud to listeners. For a substantial period most early writing was
accessed as spoken text, interpreted through performance by those with special
skills to involve listeners as active participants. These transitional oral readers
could be seen as speaking devices, mediating the author-text-reader relationship
until more autonomous forms of reading arose. Silent reading is one such develop-
ment, which encloses the reading act within personal space; theater is another,
where actors take on the impersonation of characters from the text. In both cases,
the transitional figure of the oral reader is effaced and the subsequent assemblage
demonstrates how changes in the mediation of experience arise as an interplay of
technologies and social context. This way of constructing the medium concept
strongly suggested that media should seen as facilitating behavior whose emer-
gence was closely tied to societal engagement.8
In ‘The consequences of literacy’ Jack Goody and Ian Watt outlined a model
for how an emerging technics around literacy could over time fashion writing into
types of autonomous language, separate from its oral forms. While ‘Consequences’
focused on the technics of the early Greek alphabet, Goody’s subsequent case
studies, ranging from writing in ancient civilizations to literacy in contemporary
Africa, would go on to show how the acquisition of everyday literate devices, such
as lists and tables, institutionalized broad-based metalinguistic skill sets for activi-
ties such as recording, counting, and organizing. These skill sets, Goody main-
tained, once widely accepted into everyday use, worked to bring about new forms

8 See Oswyn Murray (1980), Early Greece and Bruno Gentili (1988), Poetry and its Public in
Ancient Greece. I am drawing on Murray’s interpretation and extension of Havelock’s ideas.
318 David Crowley

of practice, distinct from those of oral culture. This in turn had implications for
how the social world was organized and for how information functioned.
It has been said that Marshall McLuhan’s two seminal works, The Gutenberg
Galaxy (1962) and Understanding Media (1964), helped put the historical machinery
of communication on display, providing us with a preliminary toolkit for theorizing
the effects of this backstage machinery on social change. These works also drew
attention to the processes through which the media of a given age and in a given
context achieved conditions of relative autonomy – that is, how the dominant
medium came to be experienced as a naturalized part of human culture.
In retrospect, his enduring contribution lay in drawing our attention to media’s
historical penetration of social life, and to extending the medium concept as a way
of understanding that process. Through the medium concept McLuhan outlined
how media penetrated into existing forms of experience and interaction. He saw
that the conditions Havelock identified as emerging from the emplacement of writ-
ing in oral cultures (fixing of speech, linearity and sequence, progressive separa-
tion, and privatizing of authorship and reading, etc.) were intensified in the mecha-
nization of writing by print technologies (standardized typography, cheap paper,
grammatical conventions, associated rights of ownership and expression). The
effects, he believed, revealed themselves comparatively; in the contrast, for
instance, between the informational mechanics of past oral societies and the resid-
ual forms that orality took in the contemporary world. Industrial modernity intro-
duced a third modality in the form of the electronic, beginning with the telegraph.
Following Innis, McLuhan argued that the electronic again impacted the mediation
of social and personal experience, initially he believed by the reconfiguration of
our shared sense of temporality. His claim was that the idea of time shifted as
information circulation detached itself from modes of physical transportation; and
as a result people for practical reasons needed to come to terms with how time in
one community related to time in other places. In communities connected by the
expanding railroad systems of the late nineteenth century, there were opportu-
nities to use the railway telegraph stations to coordinate markets temporally, in
effect creating markets that matched the availability of goods and resources at
one location with demand at others. Other organized activities followed: formal
commodity exchanges and futures trading, mail order systems for commercial
goods, and new forms of systematic observation, such as the monitoring and pool-
ing of local weather reports into regional outlooks. This integration of bodies and
materials in time and space resulted in a new punctuation of social and work life.
Telegraphy impacted other media in turn. Information about distant events
now moved with the speed of electric current and this immediacy disrupted the
closed world of local communication and repositioned social experience within
wider symbolic flows. Wire services, which early on developed in tandem with
telegraphy, provided information about distant events to local newspapers, thus
bypassing the need to await the arrival of city papers. Subsequent developments
 Mediation theory 319

in electronic signaling would further configure these specificities of the medium,

deepening the social investment in simultaneity and co-location as new forms of
temporal and spatial experience.9

2 Mediation as social feedback10

Beginning in the 1970s, influenced in part by the growing sense of media’s role in
social change, a focus developed that would become broadly recuperative of the
formative historical periods for mass media, from the printing press to all the sub-
sequent components of the widening age of technologically-reproduced sound,
vision, and data. This is where the theme of mediation intersects contemporary
themes in social theory and social history.
From the 1960s onward, social theory had selectively tried to account for com-
munications. Communicative rationality, for instance, grounds the social theory of
Jürgen Habermas. While Habermas did not pursue a concept of the medium, his
earliest work ([1962] 1989) deals directly with the question of the transitional space
opened up by the new vehicles of print culture emerging in sixteenth century
Europe (broadsheets, pamphlets, polemics, journals, newspapers, and books). As
informal communities of text and talk formed around these vehicles, new sites of
social comity appeared. It was through these sites (initially coffee houses, pubs,
salons, booksellers, and other places apart from the prevailing authority of church
and state) that Habermas located the forms of interaction constitutive of an emerg-
ing public sphere.11
Anthony Giddens’s communications informed social theory draws explicitly on
a medium concept. His outline of societal development as a dynamic of disembed-
ding and re-embedding mechanisms looks to historical changes in media in
accounting for the successful stretching of administrative statecraft over time and
space (‘time-space distantiation’); much as his conception of modern identity for-
mation looks to the constitutive features of an interaction order mediated in and

9 Telegraph has become a major topic. See for instance, ,Stephen Kern (1983), The Culture of
Time and Space; Tom Standage (1998), The Victorian Internet, and James Gleick (2011), The
Information, all of whom credit telegraphy with a seminal role in extending the informational
nexus.
10 David Olson has been especially attentive to the value of this work and subsequent work by
Goody for its contribution to literacy, learning and communication studies. See Olson (1994), The
World on Paper.
11 For another take on the rise of the public sphere and the role of vernacular publishing, see
Benedict Anderson (1991), Imagined Communities. An approach that shares some common
ground with mediation theory and draws on the idea of communicative rationality and publics is
Michael Warner (2002) ‘Publics and Counter-publics.’ See as well the recent collection of essays
by Clifford Siskin and William Warner (2010) This is Enlightenment.
320 David Crowley

through available forms of symbolic exchange (‘presence-availability’). If Haber-

mas, at least initially, is attentive to the power of print in the early modern period,
Giddens forcefully acknowledges the ways in which the post-mechanistic appara-
tus of electric signaling technologies is deeply implicated in the modern mediation
of experience. Following Innis and McLuhan and others on telegraphy’s impact on
time/space relations, Giddens (1991) sees the telegraph as a proto-type for how
locality, confronted by the spread of the railroads and the need to know how
time worked in its expanding relations with other localities regionally, becomes
repositioned within wider sets of experiential association and relations at a dis-
tance. This is the new punctuation that emerging media bring to social worlds, at
first disruptive, then slowly normalized and at length seemingly naturalized.12
If this process seems to suggest something of a one-way influence, the turn
toward social history – including every aspect of modernity’s broad embrace of
communication devices and systems – from the printed book through the age of
mechanical reproductions of image and sound to the birth of the electronic – has
led us in turn into an appreciation of society’s role in giving the medium its par-
ticular social ‘hum,’ so to speak. Since Elizabeth Eisenstein’s (1980) detailed
reworking of McLuhan’s print culture in The Printing Press as a Agent of Change
and the work inspired by Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin’s ([1957] 1976) epic
blueprint for the commodification of print in The Coming of the Book we now know
a great deal more about printing, reading and the culture of the book. Emblematic
of this direction has been the work of Natalie Zemon Davis (1975, 1987, 1995), who
was an early participant in the Toronto circle of scholars, and who subsequently
has pieced together how proto-literacy penetrated the peasant oral society of pre-
modern France and how oral culture in turn reshaped the uses of those printed
materials. The work of Roger Chartier (1994) and Robert Darnton (1982) indicate
other dimensions added to the specificity of the book as medium; Chartier through
detailed attention to the reproduction process itself (papermaking to binding,
standardizations of text, and the orchestration of conventions), and Darnton
through expanding the model of the circuitry of published works to include in
addition to authors, texts, and readers, a network of trades and practices devoted
to making, shipping, trading, policing, collecting, and commenting on a maturing
world in print.
Assemblages like these around the medium add historical context to the
medium’s specificity, how a medium comes to its codes and conventions and why
within any given society there are so many interests arrayed around information
activities. In the nineteenth century transition from a predominantly print based
social order through multiple mechanical devices for optical and acoustic repro-
duction to electrification, ever-widening trades and practices opened up around

12 I mean feedback as a second-order phenomenon, following Stanley Salthe and Gregory

Bateson’s idea of an informed system able to classify information from a monitored environment.
 Mediation theory 321

new forms of electric signaling: first telegraphy, then telephony and broadcasting.
Coming to grips with these configurations has led social historians to focus on
the interactions around usage and how the discourse of media tradespeople and
professionals regarding the observed behavior of users fed into decisions about
development and design. Carolyn Marvin’s (1987) When Old Technologies Were New
and Claude S. Fischer’s (1992) America Calling make clear how social users gener-
ate values in use and how these forms of social agency help shape media technol-
ogy to culture.
Perhaps no event since the printed book has brought the institutional arrange-
ments of society so directly into question as the development of the internet. Fit-
tingly, Manuel Castells (2001) in The Internet Galaxy draws on social history and
theory plus the medium concept to build a conceptual bridge to the formative
processes of the internet and a provisional framework for understanding the
unfolding effects and consequences of a new medium. He does this firstly, he
suggests, by attending to how the internet puts into play temporality – that is, how
a new sense of ‘internet time’ begins to punctuate the mediation of experience,
such as occurred earlier with telegraphy. Secondly, he addresses the discourse of
users and usage; because a new medium will be reflexively formed in its formative
periods of use and shaped by responses, in the way that telephony was shaped by
its largely unanticipated social uses. Finally, Castells follows the assemblages of
actors as they work out the relationships of the new medium with other media in
place. Constraints on existing media potentially fuel new media innovation, such
as the way experimentation with early prototypes for ‘e-mail’ fed the development
of new telecommunication protocols; not so far removed from the way the early
telephone’s experimentation with proto-broadcasting to the home identified uses
to which emerging wireless radio protocols would subsequently be applied.

3 Intermediation
If circumstances like those outlined by Castells have propelled the internet into a
viable electronic medium with global reach and implications, the time seems right
to ask how mediation theory might inform our sense of these developments. Cer-
tainly the ‘blurring’ of once settled categories of what is print, image, and the
televisual does raise questions about the status of the medium – whether or not
the form and specificity of the contemporary internet will have legs – and points
to issues with implications for the ‘status quo’ of governmental, corporate, and
other institutional regimes built up around established media. Understanding this
conundrum has already encouraged genealogical accounts of the diverse activities
and technologies which this new electronic environment brings together. Interest-
ingly, the medium concept is also once again in play.
322 David Crowley

The new electronic embodiments easily fit within Innis’s proposal for thinking
about embodiments: by taking account firstly, of the new media’s ease of use/
affordability; secondly, its speed/portability; and thirdly, its qualities of persist-
ence/impermanence. Makers of desktops, laptops, tablets, and cell phones have
moved rapidly to create increasingly affordable social tools suitable for general
use; and electronic networks have driven down exponentially the costs of distribu-
tion. Information simultaneity and situations of co-presence and portability have
all been at least augmented and probably enhanced by connected media technolo-
gies. Persistence remains the stalking horse, as struggles over platforms, standards,
and intellectual property indicate. Even here, we can see the emergence of poten-
tial assemblages around the status and sustainability of online information
through new forms of electronic curation. But the outcome of these latter issues
aside, the conditional embodiments noted here suggest that we already face some
distinct challenges with respect to how we construct relations informationally in
time and space.
The perceived potential for a new participatory commons has also been
retrieved by new media. The internet does reproduce a facsimile of print, but at
the same time it breaks with some of the temporal achievements of print, such as
print’s enforced linearity, its sequential ordering, and most of all with the types
of access that have been built around these temporal conventions of narrative
organization. The limited portability of and speed of access to printed materials
compared to the internet also raises issues of changing temporality. The adoption
of hyperlinks for general use in the World Wide Web may be only one generic
example of technics in the internet arsenal but the effect has been considerable.
Wikipedia, for example, whatever its future, has largely abolished the centuries
old tradition of printed encyclopedias; and kaleidoscopic online resources have
now eclipsed print-based newspapers and even local television news as a primary
source for the daily mosaic of newsworthy events. Moreover, the conventions asso-
ciated with print culture that carried over as models for televisual developments –
the narrative fictional forms of feature length films and serialized television pro-
gramming, for instance, or the associated rights and covenants of intellectual own-
ership – are all again in flux, as they were during the long transition from oral to
written culture with its ambiguities of authorship and its transitional figures facili-
tating access to textual talk and the rise of sites for participation and performance.
Sounds familiar.
So how should we proceed in what are clearly transitional circumstances? Per-
haps by paying greater attention to the shifting conditions of mediality as a second-
order phenomena. Since publication of The Mode of Information, Mark Poster
(1990) has insisted on viewing the communication media as ‘forms of language
wrapping’ that have characterized the passage from orality to print and now to
further stages of the electronic, arguing that at each stage these wrappings of the
primary medium work to alter our relationship to symbols and to things.
 Mediation theory 323

This kind of reconceptualizing has exposed limitations in our past thinking

about issues such as intertextuality – and proposed alternatives. In Remediation,
Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin (1999) claim that as we move closer to a world
in which electronic symbolic exchanges become the primary vehicles of communi-
cation we will need a better sense of media interpenetration. Carrying forward
formulations first broached by McLuhan and Edmund Carpenter they suggest every
medium should be understood as ‘that which remediates’ – that all media normally
work this way, translating, refashioning, and repurposing both the form and the
content of other media.
Then there is the connected media of sound and image. Overwhelming in its
implications, not least for ownership regimes that were established when other
media formats predominated and must now contend with the new interplay of
open source software and a cultural commons that resonates with the disruptive
possibilities of the early age of printing. Worth noting here is the work of Vilem
Flusser (1984, 2002) and related to his work a contemporary revival of German
media thought that retrieves aspects of the earlier project of Marshall McLuhan,
this time emphasizing the status of the image (Bolz and Mattson, 1999). If linearity
arose as a key feature of a world in print, Flusser adds a systematic appreciation
of the rise of the photographic image and shows us how this new technical image
disrupts the linearity of text. For Flusser, our reading of these images introduces a
different sense of temporality; an experience he sees akin to simultaneous recep-
tion, in which technical images must be ‘discomposed’ then reconstructed with
the help of our prior ‘understandings’ of the world. In effect, Flusser sees the
technical image and our responses to it as a model for how a new technics of the
visual, raised to the level of systematic use, alter experience and behavior.
In The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich (2002) pushes appreciation of
electronic mediations into other areas, notably touch and the haptic dimensions
of new media opened up by our relationship with digital screens. As a new inter-
face, digital screens borrow and rework features of earlier media: the printed page,
the cinematic screen and the television screen, among others. Such borrowings,
he argues, make computer screens an increasingly hybrid form, combining an
information surface with a window into illusionary space with a control panel. As
technics mature, the digital screen favors haptic relations, as something with
which we physically interact – and through touch enact proxies for older forms of
keyboarding, page turning, channel changing, bookmarking and so on.
Intermediation may not be the most elegant term to describe this nexus of
changed and changing relationships to symbolic processes. Tentatively, however,
it does help bring these newest embodiments of media within the conceptual reach
of mediation theory.13

13 For additional background on the social and cultural turn in relation to mediation theory, see
David Crowley and David Mitchell (1994), Communication Theory Today, especially the essays by
John B. Thompson and Joshua Meyrowitz which expand on the medium concept as it relates to
institutions and social order.
324 David Crowley

Further reading
Davidson, Donald. 2001. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Goldberg, Ken (ed.). 2000. The Robot in the Garden. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Latour, Bruno. 2011. Hybrid Thoughts on a Hybrid World. London: Routledge.

References
Anderson, Benedict R. O’G. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, revised and extended edn). London: Verso.
Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Benjamin, Walter. 2008. The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other
Writings on Media. Jennings, Michael W., Doherty, Brigid and Levin, Thomas Y. (eds.).
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bolter, Jay David & Richard Grusin. 1999. Remediation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Bolz, Norbert & Michelle Mattson. 1999. Farewell to the Gutenberg-galaxy. New German Critique
78: 109–131.
Carey, James. 1989. Communication as Culture. New York and London: Routledge.
Castells, Manuel. 2001. The Internet Galaxy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Chartier, Roger. 1994. The Order of Books. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Crowley, David & David Mitchell (eds.). 1994. Communication Theory Today. Stanford, CA:
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Darnton, Robert. 1982. The Literary Underground of the Old Regime. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
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Darnton, Robert. 2000. An early information society: news and the media in eighteenth century
Paris. American Historical Review 105. 1–35.
Eisenstein, Elizabeth. 1980. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Febvre, Lucien & Henri-Jean Martin. [1958]. 1976. The Coming of the Book. London: Verso. First
published Paris: Albin, Editions Michel.
Fischer, Claude S. 1992. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley, CA:
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Flusser, Vilem. 1984. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. Gottingen: European Photography.
Flusser, Vilem. 2002. Writings. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Fuller, Matthew. 2005. Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
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Kim Christian Schrøder
18 Socio-cultural models of communication
Abstract: This chapter illuminates the core mind-set of socio-cultural models of
communication by tracing the scholarly debates that took place around a signifi-
cant moment of cultural studies, when in 1973 Stuart Hall published his canonical
article about the processes of encoding and decoding media messages. Socio-cul-
tural models as seen by Hall and the equally seminal Raymond Williams are holis-
tic, they conceptualize discursive sense-making practices, and they insist on the
formative role of situational and social contexts. The model’s implications for
scholarly analytical practices are demonstrated through short overview profiles of
two central research traditions during four decades: 1. audience and reception
research and 2. discourse analytical approaches.

Keywords: Cultural studies, sense-making, audience, reception, discourse analysis,

representation, ethnography, cultural industries

If one can be so audacious as to characterize the current stage of socio-cultural

approaches to media and communication as ‘mature,’ we can find many of these
approaches at a stage of ‘birth’ or ‘infancy’ if we go back to the year 1973 – the
year in which cultural theorist Stuart Hall published, in the form of a ‘stenciled
occasional paper,’ one of the most seminal and canonical scholarly texts in the
area of communication and media studies (Gurevitch and Scannell 2003). This
paper, titled ‘Encoding and decoding in the television discourse’ (Hall 1973), encap-
sulates, in a nut shell, the theoretical tenets which have been developed and
refined by socio-cultural communication scholars through the following decades,
and which have retained their scientific validity ever since.
These tenets define media and communication research in terms of three inter-
related perspectives: first, communication is a holistic enterprise, in which the
researchers must, when defining and operationalizing their research objectives,
conceptualize the ensemble of actors and processes involved in the communicative
process from senders to receivers; secondly, the communicative process should be
seen as consisting of discursive sense-making practices and be based on a social
theory of signs; and thirdly, communication research should include the situational
and socio-cultural context in the widest possible sense, as a co-shaper of the com-
municative processes. Especially the third of these perspectives is indebted to the
pioneering theoretical interventions of Hall’s contemporary Raymond Williams
(1958, 1961), whose theory of culture as ‘a whole way of life’ was equally seminal
for socio-cultural approaches to communication analysis.
This chapter offers an analytical account of the emergence of the holistic,
meaning-oriented socio-cultural mind-set, by situating it chronologically and
328 Kim Christian Schrøder

contextually in the intellectual and scientific landscape of media and communi-

cation research of the 1970s, and by positioning it in relation to the ‘significant
others’ of this scientific landscape. The chapter then demonstrates how one par-
ticular scholarly framework – that of media audience reception studies – has
applied this mind-set over the following decades. The chapter also considers how
a similar mind-set has developed within the related area of language and dis-
course studies.

1 The study of culture and society – ‘cultural

studies’
In the 1973 paper, Stuart Hall, who was then Director of the Centre for Contempo-
rary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, cautiously suggests that the
paper is the harbinger of a new era in cultural analysis (Hall 1973/1980: 131). Hall’s
model was a deliberate attempt to dethrone the then ‘dominant paradigm’ of social
science communication research (Gitlin 1978), a positivistic, behavioral approach
concentrating on the measurement of media ‘effects,’ which – with some evolution-
ary adjustments – had been unchallenged since the early days of Anglo-American
communication research in the 1920s.
But the paper was also pitched against a dominant paradigm in the humani-
ties, more specifically in the area of English literary studies. The critique of human-
istic approaches was directed against the belief that literary analysis gave its practi-
tioners direct access to the textual meaning. The model also seems to have been
intended as a superior alternative to approaches to the analysis of culture (includ-
ing the Frankfurt School, see Section 2.1) which championed the text as the reposi-
tory of a fixed ideological meaning that would make a direct, seductive impact on
the individual mind.
Finally, the theoretical paradigm incorporated in the encoding/decoding
model was founded on a critical Marxist political agenda, characteristic of the
human and social sciences in the 1960s and 1970s. Within the Marxist orienta-
tion, Hall, Williams and the Birmingham school took up a position which, unlike
some other Marxist approaches, accorded a relatively autonomous role to the
cultural sphere in society. But, most importantly, the model insists that the
explanatory power of cultural analysis depends on our allegiance to the notions
of holism, i.e. analytically holding together the different actors, institutions, prac-
tices, and contexts of the communicative process, and the indeterminacy and
complexity of meaning, i.e. seeing encounters with media and cultural practices
as being based on semiotic and communicative repertoires, and therefore having
non-predictable outcomes.
The theory emanated from an intellectual environment in which many separate
streams were slowly working their way towards the river that became modern cul-
 Socio-cultural models of communication 329

tural studies. Hall himself, in a reflective essay (Hall 1980), pointed out that cul-
tural studies arose at the confluence of two major theoretical currents, culturalism
and structuralism. The culturalist mindset came out of the British post-war intellec-
tual environment, the key members being the cultural historian Richard Hoggart
(1957), historian of the English working-class E. P. Thompson (1963), and notably
cultural theorist Raymond Williams (1958, 1961, 1977). The other, structuralist,
mindset came, for Hall, from a European continental tradition which he believed
started with the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, whose theories of significa-
tion and projection of a science called semiology (see Chapter 12, Cobley) informed
the anthropological theories of Claude Levi-Strauss (1958), the Marxist political
sociology of Louis Althusser (1971), and the literary and historical scholarship of
the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco (1979).

2 Precursors in the social sciences

Although the actual media and communication research conducted under its
regime was fairly complex, nevertheless the ‘dominant paradigm’ in media sociol-
ogy manifested itself as an inescapable straitjacket that defined worthwhile
research objects in strict behavioral terms and prescribed the use of quantitative
research methods.

2.1 The argument about media effects

More specifically, the dominant paradigm can be characterized by its key interest
in communication ‘effects,’ i.e. the belief of early ‘effects’ researchers that the
media influence on the individual human organism is immediate, direct and
strong. To a critical British observer within the social sciences in 1970, the “early
view of mass communication assumed that people could be persuaded by the
media to adopt almost any point of view desired by the communicator. Manipula-
tion, exploitation and vulnerability were the key words” (Halloran 1970: 18). This
view leaned on influential sociological theories about the lonely, vulnerable and
easily manipulable individual in mass society (Riesman et al. 1950), and on the
critical analysis of the cultural industries of the German Frankfurt School (Adorno
and Horkheimer 1947a) (see Section 3).
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, doubt was cast on the theory of strong effects
by a series of large-scale empirical studies in the US, which investigated the effects
of media messages on the decision-processes of consumers and citizens (Lazarsfeld
et al. 1948; Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Katz 1957). These researchers found that
consumers’ choice of products as well as the way citizens cast their votes in elec-
tions depend more on their interpersonal relations to significant others than on
330 Kim Christian Schrøder

direct exposure to commercial and political messages in the media. Media effects
were therefore reconceptualized as indirect and perhaps limited (see also Chap-
ters 2, Eadie and Goret, 3, Craig, 16, Moy, 19, Self, 20, Hample, 21, Shoemaker and
Johnson, 22, Bolchini and Lou).
However, the critical stance of cultural studies scholars towards the dominant
paradigm and effects theory was not dependent on such fluctuations within the
paradigm between notions of strong versus limited effects. For cultural theorists,
the obsession with short-term media effects as such was misconceived and myopic.
Williams, for instance, pointed out that the concern with behavioral effects only
served to ignore other, perhaps long-term, socializing and culturally shaping media
influences on society. Considering the alleged effects of TV on people’s perceptions
of sex and violence, or on political values and behavior, Williams observed that
these phenomena were so general and complex “that it ought to be obvious that
they cannot be specialized to an isolated medium but, in so far as television bears
on them, have to be seen in a whole social and cultural process” (Williams
1977: 119). Further, he argued that the focus on individual effects, in isolation from
the meaning structures of the visual and verbal elements of television supposedly
carrying that effect, prevented investigators from understanding the real, semiotic
and collective nature of the effects they were studying. Similarly, Hall criticized
effects research for its conceptualization of the process of communication as a
series of “isolated elements,” which were analyzed in isolation from each other
(Hall 1973: 128).
Williams also targeted the methodological shortcomings of the quantitative
approach as leading to results with dubious validity (Williams 1977: 119). This lack
of scientific quality made it even more deplorable that this paradigm had assumed
a position of scientific hegemony, and with its “particular version of empiricism
(…) claims the abstract authority of ‘social science’ and ‘scientific method’ as
against all other modes of experience and analysis” (Williams 1977: 121).

2.2 The argument with Uses-and-Gratifications research

Uses-and-gratifications (U+G) research turned the key question of effects research

(‘What do the media do to people?’) upside down for the benefit of a reverse
knowledge interest in ‘What do people do with the media?’ In this way, U+G schol-
ars brought the notion of ‘active audiences’ into communication studies, a notion
which chimed well with the ‘culturalist’ perspective of cultural studies founders,
according to which ordinary people were held to play a shaping role in their own
life circumstances.
Nevertheless, Hall targeted the U+G researchers, in the form of James Hallo-
ran’s media research group at Leicester University, as his primary opponents,
because they considered people’s media use to be a result of individual psychologi-
 Socio-cultural models of communication 331

cal needs, ignoring the role played by the contextual, structural conditionings of
the wider social formation. Also the U+G researchers chose to stay inside the meth-
odological orthodoxy of the dominant paradigm with its prescription of quantita-
tive methods (Zillman 1985: 225; Lull 1985).
For Hall, who believed that “the discursive form of the message has a privi-
leged position in the communicative exchange” (Hall 1973: 129), the U+G research-
ers committed a major sin in ignoring the textual meanings which people ‘did
things with.’ The main reason why the signifying processes of the media text were
a core concern for cultural studies was that these texts ‘represent’ the social and
natural world through language and other semiotic modalities. Media texts do not
bring to recipients a transparent reflection of the world; they construct – or ‘articu-
late’ – the world in discourse, producing a ‘version’ of reality according to the
specific ideological perspective or vested interest of the encoder of the message
(Hall 1973: 131–2).
In a capitalist class society such media versions of reality are bound to be
saturated with particular class interests, and therefore media representations of,
for instance, industrial conflicts (Glasgow University Media Group 1976), or police
behavior and law and order, are not neutral representations of social reality (Hall
et al. 1978). Similarly, media portrayals of women are likely to reproduce the norms
and ideals of a patriarchal society (Goffman 1976; Williamson 1978; McRobbie
1978). Nevertheless, such representations are likely to convey the impression of
being natural depictions of social phenomena, taken-for-granted pictures of what
the world is like (cf. Vigsø 2010).
For Hall, representation and ideology are pervasive, inescapable conditions of
being human, not the result of ‘false consciousness’ (Hall 1994: 259), and he also
pointed out how scholars who are working without an understanding of represen-
tation may end up with invalid findings:

We know (…) that representations of violence on the TV screen are not violence but messages
about violence: but we have continued to research the question of violence, for example, as if
we were unable to comprehend this epistemological distinction (Hall 1973: 131).

Before leaving the adversarial relation of Hall’s cultural studies agenda and the
U+G approach, it should be considered, from the perspective of a different time
and age, that James Halloran’s research group at Leicester University appears to
have served as a convenient target for the Birmingham School’s efforts to invent a
new scientific paradigm, rather than as the genuine enemy. Halloran was overtly
critical of American effects research for being atheoretical and excessively quanti-
tative, and advocated a research agenda that resembled Hall’s on several counts,
as Halloran recognized (Halloran 1970: 15).
Boasting research that questioned simplistic effects perspectives, Halloran and
colleagues analyzed media content critically and politically (Halloran et al. 1970),
rehabilitated the cultural value of popular TV programs (Brown 1970), and looked
332 Kim Christian Schrøder

at the micro-dynamics of television production (Elliott 1972). The research con-

ducted at the Leicester School can thus hardly be said in retrospect to be a genuine
representative of the dominant behaviorist paradigm. However, the fact that the
encoding/decoding paper was intentionally born as a ‘polemical’ attack on the
Leicester researchers testifies to the extent to which political tensions and struggles
were an integral part of the structure of feeling in the humanities in the early
1970s. In the eyes of the Birmingham School it was unforgivable that the Leicester
School wanted to give their research a functionalist raison d’etre, feeling “an obli-
gation to contribute to the solution of social problems” (Halloran 1970: 21), rather
than critiquing the kind of society which had caused the social problems to emerge
in the first place.

3 Precursors in the humanities

The struggle of the fledgling cultural science against scholarly environments char-
acterized by cultural elitism and text-centrism involved more entrenched adversa-
ries. The British Leavisite practitioners of literary criticism and the German Frank-
furt School of cultural critique had to be countered through a sustained theoretical
argument in order to break their firm grip on widespread ways of thinking about
cultural value, and methods to insight about such value.
As reflected in the title of his authoritative, culturally conservative The Great
Tradition about the history of the English novel, Leavis’s (1948) work was charac-
terized by a cultural elitism according to which only a select few novels would
stand the quality test of discriminating literary judges and become part of the great
tradition of English novels. Such quality criteria led to the exclusion of all forms
of popular and media culture from the field of scholarly vision, because the ver-
dicts on cultural quality “derived from an institutionalized and class-based hier-
archy of taste” (Barker 2000: 41).
A similar elitism, but located on the political left wing, characterized the
Frankfurt School which, as mentioned in Section 2.1, can be seen as the common
denominator of unmitigated Marxist cultural pessimism against which cultural
studies reacted (Strinati 1995; Storey 1996: 4; Barker 2000: 45). The school was
founded by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer and others in Germany during
the early interwar years under the shadow of authoritarian capitalism in the form
of Nazism, and was consolidated while the key figures experienced the full blast
of the commercial culture industries during their exile in the United States during
WWII (Adorno and Horkheimer 1947b).
The received view of what the School gradually came to stand for during the
post-WWII years was
1. an acerbic cultural pessimism which saw little hope of emancipation for a
humanity ideologically seduced by the products of the cultural industries;
 Socio-cultural models of communication 333

2. a confident cultural paternalism, and

3. a determined elitism insisting on the superiority of aesthetically difficult high
art, with a logically following vehement condemnation of the products of
mass culture.

The causal explanation of these devastating effects on culture relies on a crude

form of economic determinism, which holds that the logics of capitalist production
inevitably have these consequences in the cultural realm. In media studies, the
later ‘political economy’ approach to cultural analysis can be seen as a less radical
version of Frankfurt School thinking about culture (Schiller 1971; Herman and
Chomsky 1988; Mosco 1996; McChesney 2008; see Hesmondhalgh 2007 for an inno-
vative, non-dogmatic approach to the analysis of the cultural industries).
As implied in the title of one of the authoritative theoretical documents pro-
duced by the School, the essay ‘The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass
deception’ (Adorno and Horkheimer 1947b), the Frankfurt approach rejects the
notion of even minimally discriminating audiences: on the contrary, “the deceived
masses (…) insist on the very ideology which enslaves them” (359) – an ideology
which deprives them of “the last remaining thought of resistance” (367).

3.1 Raymond Williams’s anti-elitist intervention: culture as a

whole way of life

For Hall and Williams the challenge consisted, on the one hand, in devising a
theoretical and analytical mindset that would enable them to acknowledge the
potential meaningfulness and value of the mediated popular culture, and ordinary
people’s capacity for negotiating and sometimes resisting the dominant ideology
disseminated by the mass media; on the other hand, they wished to retain a clear
sense that the class-biased representations of society offered by the culture indus-
tries did have the hegemonic consequence of naturalizing the existing social
arrangements in a way that was not in ordinary people’s best interest in the long
term.
In order to fully understand the anti-elitist thrust of early cultural studies, it
is necessary to realize that the arts faculties in post-WWII Europe were really ivory
towers for the culture of the educated classes, whose language and fine arts were
studied as something elevated above the trivial cultural pursuits of ordinary peo-
ple’s life worlds. The Uses of Literacy, Hoggart’s seminal analysis of “changes in
working-class culture during the last thirty or forty years, in particular as they are
being encouraged by mass publications” (Hoggart 1957: 9), was first of all an
attempt to rehabilitate working-class culture as a legitimate academic research
object, and “to ‘read’ working class culture for the values and meanings embodied
in its patterns and arrangements as if they were kinds of ‘texts’” (Hall 1980: 57).
334 Kim Christian Schrøder

Hoggart’s perceptive analyses were inspired by a concern for the way working-
class life and culture was adversely transformed by the emergence of mass society
(Hoggart 1957: 340). However, Hoggart was far from as pessimistic as the Frankfurt
School, retaining some confidence in the cultural resilience of the working class
(Hoggart 1957: 345).
It was Raymond Williams’s achievement to produce a more theoretically coher-
ent alternative approach to the analysis of culture (Williams 1958, 1961). Williams
is normally celebrated for defining culture in non-elitist terms as “a whole way of
life”; however, although he was thus struggling to position everyday culture as a
legitimate form of culture, he explicitly stressed that culture consisted of a number
of equally necessary dimensions, ranging (with a tongue-in-cheek intertextual ref-
erence to Matthew Arnold) from “the best that has been thought and written in
the world,” to literary works that may be of lesser value, but which may throw
significant light on “the particular traditions and societies in which they appeared”
(Williams 1961: 56). The crucial, truly ‘culturalist,’ anthropological form of culture,
he defined as “a particular way of life, which expresses certain meanings and
values not only in art and learning but also in institutions and ordinary behaviour”
(Williams 1961: 57).
Unlike the Marxist scholars of culture, who would insist that all aspects of
culture are determined by and derivatives of the economic base and the class rela-
tions of capitalist society, Williams pointed out that it would be “an error to sup-
pose that the social explanation is determining,” because since culture is an inte-
gral part of the society, “there is no solid whole, outside it, to which (…) we
concede priority” (Williams 1961: 61). The purpose of doing cultural analysis of
such a relatively autonomous culture is to understand culture as a lived experience:
what it feels like to be a member of that culture and to participate in its everyday
pursuits. This goal, while always a challenge, poses a particular difficulty when
we are not studying aspects of contemporary society, tending to see literary works
of the past not in terms of their own zeitgeist, but “through our own experience,
without even making the effort to see it in something like its original terms” (Wil-
liams 1961: 69) (for an early study which did try to make this effort when analyzing
English children’s magazines from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, see
Drotner 1988).
In the contemporary world, we can at least visit and experience cultural
domains ‘live.’ For instance, as the early cultural studies researchers did, we may
observe and talk to the members of a contemporary youth subculture and try to
understand their ‘structure of feeling,’ as Williams famously labeled it (Williams
1961: 64; Williams 1978: 128–135). This would consist in seeing them as agents who
collectively build rituals and styles, by recombining existing and innovative cul-
tural signs as a way to recreate a meaningful identity with which to replace older
working-class identities, which were being eradicated by industrialization (Hall et
al. 1976; Hebdige 1979; Willis 1977).
 Socio-cultural models of communication 335

3.2 Hall’s intervention: the relative autonomy of media

audiences

In a capitalist democracy, the media are the political vehicles of ruling-class ideol-
ogy that convey a naturalizing picture of a social order based on class domination;
but the dominated classes, from their structurally subordinated position, can con-
test the social order that disadvantages them. Similarly, a text does have a shaping
influence on what readers take from the text, but people’s sense-making codes, or
interpretive repertoires, may enable them to contest the intended meaning. Or
rather, texts should be seen as in principle ‘polysemic,’ i.e. as having plural sense-
making affordances. This political-textual circumstance logically entails that no
cultural analyst, whether literary scholar or media critic, can speak authoritatively
about the meaning of a text: a reception analysis is necessary in order to determine
what meanings are actualized by different audiences, and how their readings may
affect the ways in which they construct their views of the social world.
Hall’s encoding/decoding model offered an economical framework for under-
standing the complex signifying relationships between three “linked, but distinc-
tive moments” of mediated meaning-making: production, text, and consumption.
His notion that the media text has a dominant, ‘preferred meaning’ is designed to
solve the seeming paradox of textual determination and relative audience auton-
omy:

We say dominant, not ‘determined,’ because it is always possible to order, classify, assign and
decode an event within more than one ‘mapping’. But we say ‘dominant’ because there exists
a pattern of ‘preferred’ readings, and these (…) have the institutional/political/ideological order
imprinted in them (Hall 1973: 134).

However, there may be a “lack of fit” between the codes of the encoder and the
recipient (Hall 1973: 131). Hall suggests that we may usefully distinguish between
three decoding positions, which are structurally related to three political-ideologi-
cal stances which working-class people may adopt towards the capitalist social
order: dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings. A dominant, or hege-
monic, reading occurs when the message is decoded in terms of the reference code
in which it has been encoded. Negotiated readings take place when there is any
level of partial acceptance of the reference code. Oppositional readings occur when
there is thoroughgoing rejection of the reference code.
For Hall, and for David Morley (1980), who framed his reception study of the
UK current affairs TV program ‘Nationwide’ in compliance with Hall’s tripartite
typology (derived from a similar typology proposed by the sociologist, Frank Par-
kin), these reading strategies originated from people’s class position. Later recep-
tion research, inspired by theories of ‘interpretive communities’ (Fish 1980; Schrø-
der 1994), found reading patterns which corresponded clearly with people’s ethnic
and gender identities (Hobson 1982; Brown and Schulze 1990; Jhally and Lewis
1992).
336 Kim Christian Schrøder

4 The research practice of socio-cultural models:

the case of audience reception research
The immediate result of Hall’s 1973 paper was the gradual emergence and consoli-
dation through the 1980s and 1990s of a new tradition of qualitative media audi-
ence research, founded on the key tenets of Hall’s paper: the need to study media/
audience relations holistically in terms of meaning and sense-making in communi-
cations, not behavior or effects, and the need to anchor these sense-making proc-
esses in the life-world of audience as well as in wider social contexts.
A few studies, such as Gripsrud’s analysis of the American soap opera Dynasty
(Gripsrud 1995) and Corner et al.’s analysis of news and documentary accounts of
the risks of nuclear energy (Corner et al. 1990), fully met the holistic challenge and
followed the meaning processes of mass mediated products from the moment of
production to the moment of reception (see also Gavin 1998). However, during the
first decades, the empirical gaze of reception research remained focused on the
heavily under-researched nexus of media texts and audience ‘readings,’ under the
motto of “audience-cum-content analysis” (Jensen 1988), while the empirical
investigation of the moment of encoding and its relation to the other key ‘moments’
was postponed. Reception researchers largely accepted, in a general manner, the
existing findings of political economy research about cultural production – that
the production logics of the information and cultural industries did result in a
popular media fare that was standardized, impoverished, and ideologically biased.
However, a few studies did adopt an ethnographic fieldwork approach to research-
ing the actual behind-the-scenes mechanics of prime-time television serial produc-
tion; they found that nuanced, critical analysis of the creative, organizational and
economic processes of mass cultural production provided complex insights not
obtained through the political economy approach (Gitlin 1983; Feuer et al. 1984).
The distinctive dearth of holistic media analyses was addressed theoretically as
well as empirically by Deacon et al. (1999) in their eminently holistic study of “the
natural history of a news item” from inception to reception, which aimed to restore
and empirically investigate Hall’s original focus on the complete and complex rela-
tionships in communication between messages, their sources, their journalistic
encoders and their receivers.
The first waves of reception research showed a predilection for television news/
current affairs programmes, and for print and televised serial fiction (for reception
studies of advertising, see for instance Mick and Buhl 1992 and O’Donohue 1997).
Reception studies of TV fiction were often directed towards an attempt to rehabili-
tate despised trash genres like romance novels, soap operas or women’s magazines
(Radway 1984; Hobson 1982; Ang 1984; Schrøder 1988; Hermes 1995), arguing that
although these genres were “easily put down,” as Hermes word-played about
women’s magazines, they nevertheless could be seen to hold quality for their regu-
lar users and fans. Liebes and Katz’s (1990) ground-breaking simulation of the
 Socio-cultural models of communication 337

different readings produced by the global audiences of the American soap opera
Dallas demonstrated how the diverse actualized meanings of such serials were
rooted in and generated by the national-ethnic ‘interpretive communities’ (Fish
1980) of the viewers (see also Biltereyst’s 1991 study of Belgian audience readings
of US sitcoms). Radway’s seminal ethnographic study of romance novels among
American women showed that the melodramatic storylines invited readers to
acquiesce in an oppressive patriarchal social order, while the social act of reading
provided women with a legitimate, and liberating, excuse for a temporary leave of
absence from their domestic obligations. Her study thus served as a reminder that
reception research should maintain a dual focus on both the readers’ decoding of
textual meaning and on the contextual uses to which such decodings are put.
Deviating slightly from Hall’s recipe, some reception researchers left audience
decoding processes in the background and instead directed their torchlight towards
the situational uses of media, particularly television. The pioneering study in this
category, James Lull’s (1980) ethnography of the social uses of television in 200
American families, analyzed how television is used by family members to puncture
the day between meals, work, and leisure activities (‘structural uses’), and how
television viewing is also used to manage interpersonal communicative and affec-
tive relations between spouses and between parents and children (‘relational
uses’). In similar vein, but using qualitative interviews rather than participant
observation, David Morley’s (1986) study of ‘family television’ analyzed the gen-
dered power relations around the TV set in a small number of British households,
noting for instance how the remote control – labeled “Daddy’s thing” – was often
wielded as a tool of patriarchal authority. Gray (1992) studied the ways in which
British housewives used the then new technology of video recorders for circum-
venting male definitions of appropriate cultural tastes. Gillespie’s ethnographic
study of the uses of television among Punjabi youth cultures in London empha-
sized the ways in which media may serve diasporic functions for ethnic subcul-
tures, as they negotiate religious, cultural and national identities (Gillespie 1995).
A third variant of reception research considers how audiences may use media
as resources for action (Jensen 2012a: 171–184). In the area of mediated citizenship
and democracy, Schrøder (2012) suggests that reception studies of media as resour-
ces for citizenship can be divided into five stages. During the first stage, hegemonic
citizenship, researchers like Stuart Hall (1973) and David Morley (1980) were con-
cerned with the analysis of the formation of political consciousness in a class
society (cf. above), exploring audience readings of political news in terms of the
balance between the forces of hegemony and emancipation. John Fiske (1987) pro-
posed that the pleasure of popular television for working-class viewers resided in
the offer of symbolic resistance, through identification with underdog protagonists,
to the hegemonic power of the system. Looking through the lens of monitorial
citizenship, reception researchers like Klaus Bruhn Jensen (1986, 1990) and Justin
Lewis (1991) during the second stage considered whether news media enable citi-
338 Kim Christian Schrøder

zens to monitor events and processes in their surrounding world, so as to enable

them to function as enlightened citizens. Even when this does occur, citizens were
found not to use the acquired information as a resource for democratic participa-
tion, leading the researchers to suggest remedies like an increased educational
effort to build higher levels of media literacy. During the third stage, popular citi-
zenship, the analytical target was to establish whether the then new TV genre
of studio debate programs served to provide audiences with the prerequisites of
citizenship through the dialogical televisual public sphere. Livingstone and Lunt
(1994) – pioneering a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods (Living-
stone et al. 1994) – found that audiences were appreciative of the multivocal lay
voices appearing on these programmes, and that studio debate programmes were
a genuine vehicle of popular citizenship. After the emergence of new digital afford-
ances for participation through the ‘convergence culture’ (Jenkins 2006), reception
researchers started to investigate participatory citizenship. This occurred when
audiences were not just reading news media, but adopting intervention strategies
in the form, for instance, of user-generated content. Wahl-Jørgensen et al. (2010)
found that when news audiences encounter user-generated content in the news,
they have mixed feelings about it: while they appreciate authentic, eye-witness
accounts from non-journalists, they tend – paradoxically from a democratic public
sphere point of view – to resent the more deliberative have-your-say contributions
of the lay public.
Finally during the fifth stage of ubiquitous citizenship reception researchers are
responding to recent retheorizations of politics, according to which politics is not
confined to a particular sphere in the social formation; on the contrary, “we engage
politics everywhere, all the time, and the media are central to that engagement”
(Jones 2006: 379). Ubiquitous citizenship has been researched in a wide-ranging
cross-media multi-method study by Couldry et al. (2007), in which they mapped
the extent to which citizens could be said to have, or not have, ‘mediated public
connection’ leading to democratic engagement. Graham and Hajru (2011) in a net-
nographic form of reception research about reality TV shows analyzed viewers’
spontaneous, unsolicited discussions about the characters and topics of these pro-
grams in online chat fora, finding that conversations that lack any overt political
purpose often turn into serious political issues (for an early reception study of
internet fora, see also Baym 2000).
For reception research as a democratically committed scholarly pursuit, the
emerging ubiquity of potentially interactive mediated citizenship poses new chal-
lenges: from now on, programmatically and conceptually, media experiences with
democratic implications are to be explored intertextually across the ensemble of
media (Hasebrink and Popp 2006). Moreover, reception research is compelled to
incorporate participatory audience practices under its scientific remit (Mascheroni
2010; Carpentier 2011), and seek to understand how mediated dormant citizenship
may transform into mediated engaged, or interventionist citizenship: how latency
 Socio-cultural models of communication 339

becomes agency. Similar cross-media and participatory challenges are facing recep-
tion analyses of digital entertainment genres, such as theatrical films (Barker and
Mathijs 2008, which also addresses the challenges of cross-cultural audience
research) and online drama (Hardy et al. 2011).

5 The research practice of socio-cultural models:

the case of discourse analysis
As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the field of discourse analysis has
undergone a similar development to the one traced above in the field of cultural
studies – from the media analyses of ‘critical linguistics’ based on a text-centric
approach (Fowler et al. 1979), through a holistic phase in which the crucial role of
textual production and reception was gradually acknowledged (Fairclough 1995), to
the current situation in which some discourse analysts are adopting multi-method
research designs and combining insights provided by textual and fieldwork
methods (Scollon 2002; Oberhuber and Krzyzanowski 2008).
Through the 1970s, the practitioners of ‘critical linguistics’ developed an ana-
lytical procedure and perspective which were strongly akin to the ideological cri-
tique of the Frankfurt School. But whereas the latter often remained impressionis-
tic and unsystematic, it was the great achievement of critical linguistics to devise
an arsenal of linguistic concepts and features, derived from the functional linguis-
tics and social semiotic of M. A. K. Halliday (1973, 1978). These linguistic concepts
could be systematically and cumulatively applied to the analysis of media (and
other) texts, in order to demonstrate their propagation of ideologically invested
meanings. However, these analyses assumed that there existed a direct relation
between the media representations of social reality and the ideological impact on
the members of the social formation, i.e. readers anchored in the grip of social
class identities, and the journalistic processes generating the report. The sense-
making activities applied by readers lay outside the scope of critical linguistic
analysis.
The first steps towards a more communicative, holistic approach to discourse
analysis were taken by a number of scholars under the banner of ‘social semiotics’
(Hodge and Kress 1988). However, it is fair to credit the British linguist Norman
Fairclough (1989, 1992) with the invention of a new theoretical framework which
insisted on including – between the textual object and the sociocultural environ-
ment around it – the discursive processes of textual production and reception as
central analytical objects (Fairclough 1995: 57). For Fairclough, who acknowledged
the inspiration from reception research (Fairclough 1995: 49–50), these processes
are crucial because they mediate between the other two levels of analysis:

(…) the link between the sociocultural and the textual is an indirect one, made by way of
discourse practice: properties of sociocultural practice shape texts, but by way of shaping the
340 Kim Christian Schrøder

nature of the discourse practice, i.e. the ways in which texts are produced and consumed,
which is realized in the features of texts (Fairclough 1995: 59–60).

While this is an unequivocal acknowledgement of the need for holism, the last
clause of the quotation reveals that for Fairclough the study of textual production
and reception does not require empirical fieldwork, in which the analyst engages
the real people involved in these activities, in order to unravel their communicative
intentions and sense-making logics. The text itself is accorded the status of a royal
road to understanding the discursive agents around it. Fairclough’s analytical
holism is thus a half-hearted non-empirical one, and even though he and other
discourse analysts may achieve striking insights by deducing properties of produc-
tion and reception from the media text itself, the indeterminacy of textual meaning
becomes an obstacle to achieving deeper explanatory insights (Philo 2007).
Other scholars in discourse analysis have taken a more empirical turn. Swales
and Rogers (1995) in their analysis of corporate mission statements argued that
“(…) any interpretation of discourse that relies principally on only the <text> is
likely to be incomplete and perhaps suspect” (Swales and Rogers 1995: 225). In an
early discourse analytical study of the media/audience nexus, Bell (1994) compared
media and citizen discourses about climate change.
During the last decade, a number of discourse scholars have led a more deci-
sive and theoretically coherent attempt to innovate the inherited text-centered
framework of discourse analysis. The discourse-historical approach, which traces
interdiscursive and intertextual relations, such as the historical continuities and
discontinuities of the climate debate, in a systematic diachronic perspective, often
engages in fieldwork in the form of interviews with key actors (Abell and Myers
2008; Krzyzanowski 2008). Discourse ethnography acknowledges that existing dis-
course data often do not suffice and therefore supplement textual data with dis-
course data constructed through fieldwork (Oberhuber and Krzyzanowski 2008;
Wodak 2000). Finally, Ron Scollon has developed an ethnographically committed,
situated and agency-oriented approach to discourse analysis under the title medi-
ated discourse analysis (Scollon 2002; Scollon and Scollon 2004). Frequently these
types of discourse analysis, while according pride of place to linguistic representa-
tions, are adopting a multimodal approach, which takes into account the multi-
semiotic nature of mediated communication (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001; O’Hal-
loran 2011), emphasizing particularly the analysis of visual dimensions of mediated
communication (Rose 2007).

6 ‘Reworking’ the model: towards a more

participatory media culture
Since the seminal years in which the foundations of the socio-cultural model of
communication were laid, the paradigm has developed under the influence of
 Socio-cultural models of communication 341

internal and external dialogues and critiques. This chapter has concentrated on
presenting a congenial interpretation of the founding mindset of cultural studies,
leaving it to others to trace the insufficiencies and blind alleys that characterize
the development of any scholarly approach.
For instance, Marjorie Ferguson and Peter Golding’s (1997b) edited volume,
Cultural Studies in Question can be seen in some ways as a the-political-economy-
empire-strikes-back effort (cf. Golding and Murdock 2005). The volume’s contribu-
tors argued that cultural studies would benefit from incorporating significant social
science issues and debates into its overwhelmingly humanities agenda which over-
looks the importance of “changing media technology, ownership, regulation, pro-
duction and distribution” (Ferguson and Golding 1997a: xiv).
In his comprehensive re-theorization of cultural industries analysis, David Hes-
mondhalgh (2007) transcends the conflictual debates between the political econ-
omy and cultural studies approaches, as he traces the patterns of change as well
as the continuities in the way the cultural industries have entered the age of the
experience economy since the 1980s. Hesmondhalgh argues that while the analysis
of the ownership and control of the cultural industries is indispensable to the
analysis of media and culture, the cultural studies approach will “complement the
cultural industries approach by asking us to consider more carefully how what
people want and get from culture shapes the conditions in which these industries
have to do business” (Hesmondhalgh 2007: 43).
A distinctive shortcoming of Hall’s model was due to its mono-dimensionality,
i.e. its time-bound concern with the ideological dimension of audience readings.
Schrøder (2000), taking his lead from ‘classic’ critiques of the encoding/decoding
model (Morley 1981; Wren-Lewis 1983), proposed a multi-dimensional model of
audience readings (see also Michelle 2007), suggesting that audience readings
should be seen in terms of five additional sense-making dimensions, including
‘motivation,’ ‘comprehension,’ and ‘aesthetic discrimination.’
On a more methodological note, cultural studies for many years suffered from
a strong aversion to the use of quantitative methods, because of the fierce episte-
mological struggles against the dominant paradigm, and because of the need to
apply qualitative methods in order to study the ambivalences of sense-making and
the ambiguities of structures of feeling. Since the mid-1990s, however, quantitative
methods have been making their way into cultural studies, as Lewis (1997) argued
that we should abandon “the lingering suspicion of numerical data,” and that
qualitative studies could often benefit from insights provided by numbers; for
instance, “it is important for us to know, roughly, the number of people who con-
struct one reading rather than another” (Lewis 1997: 87). Similarly, Klaus Bruhn
Jensen (2012b) has argued forcefully for the “complementarity of qualitative and
quantitative methods.”
The foundations of cultural studies were laid almost forty years ago, in a soci-
ety that was very different in terms of its technological, political, and cultural
342 Kim Christian Schrøder

constituents. One challenge today consists in fully aligning cultural studies, poised
between the culturalist and structuralist perspectives, with a digital convergence
society and a participatory culture, in which people are not just active audiences
but, in increasing numbers, using digital mobile technologies to participate actively
in practices of collective intelligence and creativity (Jenkins 2006).
Some propose that a contemporary ‘cultural science’ should add to the conven-
tional procedures drawn from the humanities “a much greater attention to robust
empirical methodology than has been evident to date,” in the form of for instance
“computational research power” and “large-scale data-collection” (Hartley
2010: 104).Whether this should be one ingredient of the recipe in a different age
for rejuvenating the original concerns and agendas of the socio-cultural model of
communication, as envisaged by Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall, is for the
contemporary practitioners of cultural studies to decide as they perform cultural
research in accordance with, or deviation from, the heritage of their discipline, as
they see fit.

Further reading
Deacon, David, Natalie Fenton & Alan Bryman. 1999. From inception to reception: The natural
history of a news item. Media, Culture & Society 21. 5–31.
Gurevitch, Michael & Paddy Scannell. 2003. Canonization achieved? Stuart Hall’s ‘Encoding/
Decoding’. In: Elihu Katz, John D. Peters, Tamar Liebes and Avril Orloff (eds.), Canonic texts
in media research. Are there any? Should there be? How about these? Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Hesmondhalgh, David. 2007. The cultural industries, 2nd edn. Los Angeles: Sage.
Jensen, Klaus B. 2012. Media reception: qualitative traditions”. In: Klaus Bruhn Jensen (ed.),
A handbook of media and communication research, 2nd edn, 171–185. London: Routledge.
O’Halloran, Kay L. 2011. Multimodal discourse analysis. In: K. Hyland and B. Paltridge (eds.),
Continuum Companion to Discourse. London and New York: Continuum.

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II Components of communication
Charles C. Self
19 Who
Abstract: Early in the twentieth century, the media communicator was assumed to
exercise ‘strong effects’ on isolated individuals in mass society. By mid-century,
research conducted in the emerging disciplines of communication science had
found that the communicator had ‘limited effects’ on the behavior and attitudes
of socially connected individuals. After 1960, research from structural, semiotic,
and cognitive-schemata paradigms envisioned the communicator as a societal
force with powerful ‘structural effects’ on economic, political, cultural, and social
formations. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the communicator was under-
stood as a shifting node within fluid networks of textual, technical, and social
relationships producing ‘semiotic effects’ on economic, political, cultural, and
social life. This chapter reviews the evolution of these changes.

Keywords: Strong effects, limited effects, cybernetics, structuralism, cognitive-

schemata theory, cultural theory, semiotics, network theory, Actor Network
Theory, post-structuralism

Twentieth century communication ‘science’ might be seen as a struggle to under-

stand how much power a communicator can exercise in society. The century
opened with a vision of a strong individual or media communicator exercising
powerful social influence. By mid-century communication science had modified
the vision to an isolated, discrete communicator who exerted limited effects on
individual recipients. In the second half of the century, the communicator evolved
again into a structural semiotic force shaping social reality. By the twenty-first
century the communicator had become a shifting node within semiotic, cybernetic,
or social network relationships.

1 The strong effects base (until 1939)

Traditions competed for legitimacy in early communication science in Europe and
the United States: historical/rhetorical traditions, cultural/analytical/sociological
traditions, and positivist/empirical/psychological traditions. All were well estab-
lished in Europe by the end of the nineteenth century. All had been exported into
the United States early in the twentieth century. All influenced the early concep-
tions of a powerful communicator influencing society (Rogers 1994: 129–130).
The rhetorical traditions can be traced back through medieval scholastic stud-
ies to Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates (Oates 1948: 36). The analytical traditions
352 Charles C. Self

traced their lineage through European sociology and Marxism to German Idealism
and speculative philosophy (Hardt 1979: 18 and 67; Delia 1987: 70). The empirical
traditions can be traced back through experimental behavioral psychology to Brit-
ish Empiricism and French and Scottish Positivism (Boring [1929] 1957: 179–216).
Early American academic studies in journalism and speech departments reflected
these traditions (Delia 1987: 73–85; Rogers 1994: 280–284).
Hanno Hardt has demonstrated that many American scholars “whose training
or background included encounters with the German tradition of the social scien-
ces and whose scholarship – labeled ‘American science’” in Germany – included
similar notions concerning the importance of communication and mass communi-
cation in a modern society” (Hardt 1979: 36–37).
At the time Lasswell wrote his ‘model’ of the communication act, the empirical
approaches often applied that scholarship for political, commercial, and govern-
ment agency interests (Delia 1987: 46–54). This scholarship saw the communicator
as a strong, discrete entity influencing a mass of disconnected and isolated individ-
uals characteristic of the modern societies. This vision of a ‘strong effects’ commu-
nicator grew from nineteenth century European sociological literature (Hardt
1979: 17), propaganda analysis after WWI (Lasswell 1927: 1–13), propaganda suc-
cesses of the Nazis (George 1959; Ellul 1965), and commercial and political applica-
tions of polling data (Delia 1987: 46–54).
The communicator of the Enlightenment had sought knowledge to empower
himself (Klein 2001: esp. 153–162) in the ‘public sphere’ (Habermas 1991: 181–186;
see also Habermas 1985). However, in the late nineteenth century, the emphasis
shifted back to the communicator’s power to persuade (Habermas 1991: 186–195).
The European sociology of Ferdinand Tönnies, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Albert
Schäffle, and others spurred an interest in what shaped mass audiences (Hardt
1979: 36). By the early twentieth century the emphasis in United States scholarship
was upon helping the communicator persuade his mass audience.
By the time Lasswell began his studies in propaganda, the view of a strong
communicator with powerful influence had become established as the ‘magic bul-
let’ (Klapper 1960: 11; Gitlin 1978: 209–210; DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach 1989), ‘hypo-
dermic needle’ (Berlo 1960: 27–28), or ‘strong effects’ model of mediated communi-
cation (Schramm 1957: 26–32). That view helped shape Lasswell’s research in
communication as propaganda and public opinion.
Media industries were interested in propaganda and the emerging radio audi-
ence as well as public opinion polling (Rogers 1994:205; Lasswell 1980: 525–528;
Cantril and Allport 1935; Smith 1969: 42–89; Erskine 1970).

2 The limited effects communicator (1940–1959)

In the late 1930s, Harold Lasswell’s description of communication as a linear pro-
cess had helped establish the role of the communicator as the force driving com-
 Who 353

munication for the emerging scientific study of communication. That perspective

sought to solve ‘problems’ of ‘effective’ communication for institutional sponsors
of major research initiatives in the 1930s and 40s (Lasswell 1941: 71; Delia 1987: 22–
29; Gitlin, 1978: 210). However, it described a series of discrete components of a
communication ‘act’ and researchers quickly found that these components could
limit the communicator’s ability to have effects on individuals who were socially
connected to each other rather than isolated and dependent upon the strong com-
municator. The studies that described these limiting variables created a communi-
cation discipline in search of theoretical foundations.
Lasswell’s description of ‘an act of communication’ was first articulated in 1939
as part of his work with the Rockefeller Communication Seminar (Rogers 1994: 221)
and was published in 1948 at a moment of intense interest in the ‘science’ of
communication (Hardt 1979: 17–24). Lasswell’s ‘model’ of communication was
deceptively simple: Who, Says What, In Which Channel, To Whom, With What
Effect? (Lasswell 1948: 37). It embraced the ‘administrative research’ dominant
among the pioneers of communication at the time (Gitlin 1978: 205; Slack and
Allor 1983: 209). It focused on control and persuasion. “Scholars who study the
‘who,’ the communicator, look into the factors that initiate and guide the act of
communication,” Lasswell wrote. “We call this subdivision of the field of research
control analysis” (emphasis his)(Lasswell 1948: 37).
The ‘founding fathers’ of communication science research brought European
science to the study of communication in the United States in the 1930s and
1940s: Paul Lazarsfeld (social effects research), Kurt Lewin (group dynamics
research), Carl Hovland (experimental psychological effects research), and Harold
Lasswell (propaganda and persuasion research) (Schramm 1963: 2–5; Rogers
1994: xi). Lazarsfeld had labeled this approach administrative research because
it was carried out on behalf of administrative agencies. He was trying to distin-
guish it from European critical traditions manifest in Frankfurt School theorists
Max Horkheimer at Columbia University and Theodor Adorno, whom Lazarsfeld
had asked to join him at the Princeton University Radio Project in 1938 (Slack
and Allor 1983: 209–210).
The introduction of social psychological approaches into the study of commu-
nication transformed the notion of the influence of the communicator on individ-
ual recipients. It suggested that individual recipients were more resistant to mass
media and strong communicators than had been thought. Administrative research
thus focused on how the communicator should construct the message in order to
realize specific effects (Berelson [1960] 1972: 342–543). The model assumed that
the core problem was making the connection between the communicator and the
individual recipient with a persuasive message. Little attention was given in the
perspective to the underlying motives of the communicator or to power relation-
ships underlying the communicative act that had been important in European
sociology (Gitlin 1978: 225–233; Slack and Allor 1983: 215–217; Rogers 1994: 311–
314).
354 Charles C. Self

This emphasis served the needs of radio and newspaper owners and advertis-
ers (Schramm 1983: 7). It served politicians and political parties trying to influence
voting behavior (Hurwitz 1988; Erskine 1970). It also served government agencies
measuring the effectiveness of propaganda in the lead up to war (Rogers 1994;
Gitlin 1978; Schramm 1983: 7).

2.1 Limiting the power of the ‘who’

Schramm’s ‘founding fathers’ used empirical techniques to help media, advertis-

ers, and government planners to solve the problems of connecting the persuasive
message with the individual recipient.
The research efforts fell into four major categories: (1) credibility and learning
effects (pioneered by Hovland), (2) social effects (pioneered by Lazarsfeld),
(3) congruity and attitude change (pioneered by Lewin); and (4) propaganda con-
tent effects (pioneered by Lasswell).

2.1.1 Credibility and learning effects

Hovland applied experimental behavioral psychology to understanding when audi-
ences would trust the communicator. Aristotle had argued that character was an
effective means of persuasion. He suggested that communicators were credible
because the audience perceives the ‘rightness’ of the message, the speaker knows
how to reveal himself to particular audiences, and the character of the audience
makes it credulous of the message (Self 2009: 437). Hovland’s research set out to
systematically test these assertions (Hovland et al 1953).
Hovland and his colleagues defined credibility as ‘trustworthiness’ and
‘expertise’ (Hovland et al. 1953; Hovland and Weiss 1951–1952). They presented
positive and negative messages from high credibility and low credibility sources
to audiences and measured whether the information was learned and whether it
changed attitudes. They measured whether the same participants retained the
information four months later. Hovland found that high credibility sources
changed attitudes more than low credibility sources, but that information was
learned about equally well from both source types. An unanticipated sleeper effect
was found in follow-up studies four months later. Even those who initially were
skeptical about the credibility of the source showed higher levels of persuasion
after time passed (Hovland et al. 1949; Hovland and Weiss 1951–1952). Hovland’s
research demonstrated that perceived credibility, repetition, and reinforcement
limited and shaped how a communicator might influence attitude change in indi-
viduals (Hovland 1959).
 Who 355

2.1.2 Social effects

Lazarsfeld’s early research of social effects had an even more powerful influence
on the understanding about the communicator. It was developed from Lazarsfeld’s
1940 Erie County study of voting decisions in the U.S. presidential elections pub-
lished as The People’s Choice (Lazarsfeld et al. [1944] [1948] 1968; Lazarsfeld et al.
[1960] 1972) and his later Decatur, Illinois, study of how 800 women obtained
information and made decisions about buying and voting published as Personal
Influence (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955). These two studies spawned many others at
the Radio Research Project and the Bureau of Applied Social Research by Lazars-
feld and his students. They transformed the notion of powerful, direct effects of
the ‘hypodermic needle’ model by discovering ‘limits’ to those effects (De Sola Pool
1963: 134–135). Lazarsfeld’s research suggested that ‘opinion leaders’ filtered media
messages through interpersonal relationships (Lazarsfeld and Menzel 1963: 96).
This ‘two step flow’ of information limited the concept of a powerful communicator
with a model of shared social influence (Katz [1960] 1972: 346–347). It connected
the idea of limited effects to Lewin’s concepts of group influence on individual
persuadability.

2.1.3 Congruity and attitude change

Kurt Lewin proposed a ‘field theory’ of social science. His field theory and his
emphasis upon the influence of groups on individual behavior contributed to
the field of social psychology and its application to communication research.
This work introduced the idea that social groups shaped the individual’s ‘per-
ception’ of the communicator effectively rendering any message to be changed
depending upon the influences of the social group to which an individual
receiver belonged.

2.1.4 Propaganda effects

Lasswell incorporated these lines of research into his own interests in communica-
tion, propaganda, and Freudian psychology (Lasswell 1980). He was interested in
how newspapers, pamphlets, and other forms of communication influenced audi-
ences (Lasswell 1941). He applied content analysis in his War-Time Communica-
tions Project to help the military craft persuasive messages. This method came to
be widely adopted to examine the effects of mediated communication messages
(Rogers 1994: 232–233).
Lasswell, in trying to understand how media shaped the way individuals
thought about issues, therefore promoted the idea of a strong communicator, but
one limited by the mediated communication process itself.
356 Charles C. Self

3 The concept shifts: the structural effects

communicator (1960–1989)
By 1960 researchers were seeking new approaches that would go beyond the ‘lim-
ited effects’ notion of the communicator. Lazarsfeld’s colleague, Elihu Katz
(1983: 52) commented, “It is curious that so little work has been done on these
institutional aspects; Lasswell’s ‘who’ appears to have been poorly conceptual-
ized,” he wrote. He said that critics of limited effects fell roughly into three groups
that envisioned the ‘who’ of communication in terms of “direct and/or powerful
effects instead” (Katz 1987: S27). He labeled them ‘institutional (or political or
cognitive), critical, and technological’ perspectives (cf. Grossberg 1979, Carey
1983: 311 and 312; Delia 1987: 69).

3.1 Re-empowering the communicator as structural force

Thus, this period produced competing paradigms about the power of the communi-
cator and the competing visions created ‘ferment in the field’ after 1970 (Gerbner
1983). Here they will be labeled critical/cultural theories, technological theories,
and structural/cognitive theories. All of these approaches found that the communi-
cator was more powerful in shaping society than the individual effects studies had
found. They recognized power relationships within communication structures and
replaced the idea of a discrete individual or institutional communicator with the
idea of a social, technological or structural force.

3.2 Critical/cultural/semiotic theories

By the 1960s, when critical approaches including Marxist approaches had claimed
a central place in the science of communication (Garnham 1983: 317–321) and
rhetorical perspectives (Burke 1966) and structural/systems approaches (Lévi-
Strauss 1963; Foucault 1970; Lacan 1988) were also reasserting themselves, there
was a shift in thinking about the communicator. If early twentieth century research
had been about individual institutional power and mid-century research had been
about limited effects, research which implicated the ‘who’ of communication after
1960 was about social, structural, economic, and semiotic formations of power. It
examined media and the communicator as a social/institutional manifestation of
cultural structures of signification with social, political, and economic consequen-
ces (Slack and Allor 1983: 214).
Roland Barthes ([1957] 1973), Umberto Eco (1986) and Stuart Hall (1982)
rejected the linearity of the social effects paradigm with its discrete sender and
individual receiver. They suggested that the communicator was a point of cultural
 Who 357

negotiation over politics, economics, and power. The concern about symbols, lan-
guage, and the production of meaning was reflected in the work of many cultural
and language theorists. In a related way, structuralism in the human sciences –
particularly the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure (1959), the struc-
tural anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1963), the philosophy of Michel Fou-
cault (1970), and the psychology of Jacques Lacan (1988), all of which were influen-
tial in the 1970s and 1980s – argued that structural relationships shape ideology
and meaning. The communicator thus appeared as a surface manifestation of
underlying structural and power relationships. In this sense, structuralism desta-
bilized the notion of the communicator as a discrete agent and broadened the
communicator into a structural relational force, a bearer of social and meaning
structures rather than a controller of them.
Other theorists in this period also focused on language and cultural dynamics
as the basis for understanding the communicator. They included such diverse
scholars as John Searle with his ‘speech act theory’ (Searle 1983), the linguistic
relativism of Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf (Sapir 1983), S. I. Hayakawa and
Alfred Korzybski (Hayakawa 1964), Charles Morris, Jürgen Ruesch, Gregory Bateson
and Jean Piaget (1952). Again, these theorists were less concerned about how the
media or a communicator produces specific individual effects than they were about
the role of the language and symbols as cultural forces in creating, negotiating,
or expressing cultural meaning. Giddens’s Structuration Theory (Giddens 1986)
represents a further example of this tendency. It is concerned with the ‘duality of
structure,’ and the webs of language created within the nexus of human and social
agency.
Critical theory, too, manifested this shift away from the communicator as an
autonomous, self-identifying entity (Nordenstreng 2004). In general, it saw the
role of the communicator as determined by shifts of power. Altschull ([1984] 1994)
suggested that communication systems consisted of three types of structures, all
with their consequences for determining the way that the communicator is sus-
pended in power relations: market, communitarian (socialist) and advancing
(developing countries) understandings of power relationships. Another way that
communication scholarship has figured in this understanding of communication
systems is with reference to Antonio Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony in
which the communicator is riven by the conflicting interests among social classes
and attempts to win consent to messages and/or social programmes (Hall 1986).
Although not addressing the issue of hegemony directly, James Carey (1983)
pointed out that cultural studies were also concerned with structures and how
communicators produced and reproduced cultural symbols and meaning. For him,
societies, as complex interactive wholes, are threaded throughout by culture: the
production and reproduction of systems of symbols and messages (1983: 313).
He referred to Geertz’s notion of ‘thick description’ to understand the interplay
of the communicator, culture, and meaning, indicating that the relations among
358 Charles C. Self

of them are embedded in very specific cultural contexts which are difficult to
understand from outside that context. This perspective lies in stark contrast to the
linear notion of effects in which the role of the communicator in relation to the
production and reception of meaning is taken to be clear to any observer standing
outside of that context (Carey 1989: 38–40; Carey 1982). This is acknowledged, to
some extent, by other perspectives; for example, ‘normative theories’ (Siebert et
al. [1956] 1963) advanced the notion that the communication media were shaped
by the political systems within which they operated.

3.3 Technological theories

Where critical and cultural studies insist on socio-cultural and political dimensions
as crucial to understanding the communicator, they sometimes run the risk of
neglecting the shaping role of technology. In 1949, Shannon and Weaver intro-
duced cybernetics into communication research with their mathematic model of
communication. The model, seemingly linear in character, included a ‘feedback
loop’ to monitor the status of structural components of the communication envi-
ronment, including the communicator (Shannon and Weaver 1949; Wiener 1950).
As such, the communicator – even if human – was to be figured as a systemic
feature interacting with the other technological components of the communication
process.
Versions of technological structures immersing the communicator had sprung
up almost as Lasswell was publishing his own model. Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics
was applied to communication as communication researchers embraced Informa-
tion Theory. Cybernetics offered an influential means of reintroducing structural
power into mainstream communication research. But, as with other structural
models, it was based on assumptions that what the communicator was and did
were shaped by the structural elements of the communication environment.
General Systems Theory also had an impact on thinking about the structural
elements surrounding the communicator (von Bertalanffy 1974). It tapped into
growing evidence in biology and other fields of structural relationships within both
closed and open systems that exhibited homeostasis and internal regulation (see
Chapter 5, Baecker). It suggested that the manifestation of meaning in communica-
tion was driven not by the isolated, controlling character of the communicator, but
by the nature of the inputs, outputs, and structural relationships required to main-
tain communication systems in some kind of steady state. Allied to this was a
perspective in which the very role of the communicator was, for theoretical pur-
poses, effectively eradicated. In the 1960s, the Canadian theorist Marshal McLuhan
inspired a generation of scholars and media practitioners to conceive of media
technology itself as the driving force of communication (McLuhan 1962, 1964). He
famously suggested that the communicator and the communication medium itself
 Who 359

was the message of the communication, that technology changed culture, and
implied that the human communicator was subordinate to these technological
processes.

3.4 Institutional/cognitive visions of power

Much communication theory in the period after the Second World War was
devoted to the idea that the communicator could be not just one, singular entity,
but a collective one. In 1954, Bruce Westley and Malcolm MacLean published
their ‘process’ model of communication (Westley and MacLean 1957). It imported
holistic structural cognitive relationships into studies of communication bringing
assumptions from Gestalt psychology and American Pragmatism into thinking
about the communicator. Central to their model was the idea that the workings
of different kinds of groups effect the communication process. Likewise, Kurt
Lewin’s research introduced holistic structures based on the study of group
dynamics into the basic model of communication. Drawing on Heider’s (1944,
1946) POX model and his broader Attribution Theory (1958) and Festinger’s (1963)
Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, these ‘group’ approaches to the communicator
resulted in Osgood and Tannenbaum’s (1955) Congruity Theory and reached their
zenith in Westley and MacLean’s ABX model (Westley and MacLean 1957). In
general, these approaches broadened the idea that social groups influenced com-
municator effects on individuals. They suggested that the communicator both
represented the product of the general social environmental structure and a pow-
erful force producing and shaping social structures and expectations. The cogni-
tive ‘schemata’ structures of media communicators became of special interest in
‘institutional’ communication research as repositories of social schema structures
influencing and influenced by media. In this sense, ‘effects’ were redefined as
broad structural social effects rather than as individual effects (see Ausubel
1965: 67–70).
The media communicator at the point of such structural negotiations was also
central to the work of George Gerbner and his colleagues (Gerbner et al. 1986) at
the University of Pennsylvania, particularly the ‘cultivation’ hypothesis. Their stud-
ies focused on media production processes and how media messages from a com-
municator ‘cultivated’ general predispositions and conceptions of social reality.
Another line of reasoning within the structural institutional paradigm was agenda
setting theory (McCombs and Shaw 1972) and the evolution of Erving Goffman’s
(1959) framing theory into Entman’s complimentary strong effects framing perspec-
tive (Entman 1993; McCombs and Ghanem 2001). That work produced a series of
studies of media professional practices and the idea of the social construction of
meaning. This Social Constructionism (Berger and Luckmann 1966) argued that
social practices of communicators shaped the messages they produced as well as
360 Charles C. Self

the social signification of the messages defining social meaning for individuals
and groups as described in the parallel Theory of Social Constructivism (Tuchman
1978).
Other theories that dealt with the duality of the communicator as a structural
point of social negotiation of meaning include:
– Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura 1962, 1989);
– expanding versions of Social Judgment Theory (Sherif et al. 1965);
– Knowledge Gap Hypothesis (Tichenor et al. 1970);
– Media Systems Dependency Theory (Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur 1976); and the
– Heuristic-Systematic model of information processing (Chaiken 1980).

The core notion of social structure also influenced:

– Uses and Gratifications Theory (Katz 1959);
– Diffusions of Innovation (Rogers [1962] 1983);
– Inoculation Theory (McGuire 1961; Pfau 1997);
– Third Person Effect (Davison 1983);
– the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1981);
– Spiral of Silence (Noelle-Neumann 1993)

and many other studies in the late twentieth century. The broadly Social Construc-
tionist perspective also influenced a range of public relations theories flowing from
– Grunig’s Situational Theory of Publics, clearly grounded in the American
Pragmatic social tradition,
– his Excellence Theory of symmetrical communication (Grunig 1997), and
– Kent and Taylor’s (2002) Dialogic Theory.

These approaches assume that effective communication is not unidirectional, from

communicator to target, and depends upon contextualized relationships among
participants in the communicative situation.

4 The twenty-first century: the ‘semiotic effects’

communicator (1990 and after)
Before Lasswell, the communicator was conceived to be a strong and persuasive
force for audiences of isolated individuals (Lasswell 1941), producing specific
‘effects’. At mid-century the communicator was reconceived as a weak force limited
by social, psychological, and group variables (Klapper 1960), producing limited
effects. After 1960, the communicator was reconceived once more as a strong struc-
tural and semiotic force embedded within social, cultural, institutional, technologi-
cal, political and economic systems (Cobley 2006, 2010).
 Who 361

As the twenty-first century arrived, the communicator was again being recon-
ceived. Three forces were driving this re-conceptualization: Post-structuralism (and
Postmodernism), the Internet, and the re-emergence of network science. In the
emerging paradigm, the communicator was less a component of a structure than
it was itself a shifting node in a fluid semiotic network of relationships.
Post-structuralist writers such as Michel Foucault (1970), Jacques Derrida
([1974] 1976; 1982), Jean-Francois Lyotard (1984) and Jean Baudrillard (1994) had
offered a critique of stable systems of knowledge including metaphysics, phenome-
nology, and structuralism. They suggested that these grand narratives had col-
lapsed into local narratives grounded in ‘readings’ of the ‘signs’ or ‘texts’ that
constitute meaning within a local situation. Barthes (1977) declared the ‘death’ of
the ‘author’ or communicator and the ascendency of the ‘reader’ who interprets a
shifting fabric of text based on layers of meaning from multiple centers of culture
(see also Foucault 1984: 101–102). The post-structural writers argued that the com-
municator was no more in control of the text than was the reader. Both were
produced by shifting cultural relationships.
At the opening of the twenty-first century, the Internet offered technological
evidence of this notion of the communicator as constituted by shifting relation-
ships, rather than as a fixed author. The complexity of sourcing on the Internet
was often unclear (Castells 2000a; McNair 2006; Jenkins 2006, Bignell 2000). The
origins of meaning seemed to ‘flow’ across a worldwide communication network
including digital and wireless media. ‘Mash-ups’ (Shirky 2008) and the anonymity
of ‘murky’ sourcing shrouded in ambiguity (Sundar 2008; Sundar and Nass 2001)
left the notion of authorship and the stability of authorship in question. Messages
could easily be passed among multiple sources and continuously modified inten-
tionally or unintentionally. The development of social networking in particular
offered group sourcing for communication messages and information (Winograd
and Hais 2009: 156–173; Sunstein 2006; Wellman 2001). The communicator came
to be understood as the ‘play’ of social, political, corporate, or ideological power
relationships shaping the semiotic sense of reality.
The third major trend was the reemergence of Network Theory, which could
trace its roots to Gestalt psychology, Lewin’s Field Theory, and graph theory (Scott
2000: 7–13). It, too, offered a concept of signification emerging from shifting rela-
tionships, rather than from a discrete communicator. Social network analysis and
its accompanying theoretical postures suggested a shifting pattern of relationships
among ‘nodes’ in social networks – some dense and tightly connected, some bridg-
ing more distant sub-networks. The work found ‘cliques,’ structural holes, power
law distributions, and a range of internal network dynamics across apparently
widely diverse network types (White 2008; Monge and Contractor 2003; Castells
2000a, b, 2008, 2011). In one of many examples, Chang, Himelboim and Dong
explored the relationships between political economy and international hyperlink
networks of news flows (Chang et al. 2009: 140–144). Monge and Contractor
362 Charles C. Self

(2003: 4) suggested that these cultural and communication processes “are built
around material and symbolic flows that link people and objects both locally and
globally without regard for traditional national, institutional, or organizational
boundaries.” Castells (2000c) argued that cultural battles across international
informational networks are the power battles of the information age and that they
are fought primarily in and by communication media but that the media communi-
cators are no longer the power holders. Rather, power lies in the networks of infor-
mation exchange and symbol manipulation.

Power…is no longer concentrated in institutions (the state), organizations (capitalist firms), or

symbolic controllers (corporate media, churches). It is diffused in global networks of wealth,
power, information, and images, which circulate and transmute in a system of variable geom-
etry and dematerialized geography….
The new power lies in the codes of information and in the images of representation around which
societies organize their institutions and people build their lives and decide their behavior. The
sites of this power are people’s minds. This is why power in the information age is at the same
time identifiable and diffused. We know what it is, yet we cannot seize it because power is a
function of an endless battle around the cultural codes of society…But victories may be ephem-
eral, since the turbulence of information flows will keep codes in a constant swirl. (Castells
2000c: 424–425; emphasis in original)

The Actor Network Theory of Michel Callon, Bruno Latour, and John Law (Latour
1993; Law 1999) offered another theoretical approach to the communicator
grounded on what Law called a “semiotics of materiality…the semiotic insight…
that they are produced in relations, and apply this ruthlessly to all materials – and
not simply those that are linguistic” (4) The theory encompassed non-human actor
patterns, or what Latour called ‘hybrids’ as participants in the notion of the com-
municator (Latour 1993: 10–12). As such, the communicator could not be conceived
as just human, or even just machine, but rather a result of the relations of both.
Similarly, ‘posthumanism’ has problematized the human communicator, seeing,
instead, the rise of the cyborg and recognising the human communicator’s “imbri-
cation in technical, medical, informatic, and economic networks” (Wolfe 2010: xv)
as well as its animal status. Others have pointed out that biosemiotics and cyberse-
miotics manifest similar structural interpretations that do not depend upon the
centrality of a human communicator to the production of meaning within the sys-
tem (Cobley 2006: 28–29; Cobley 2010: 9 and 199–200).
Thus, at the beginning of the twenty-first century the powerful communicator
remains but has been repositioned into larger constellations of social, structural,
and semiotic forces that lie beyond any individual or institution. The communica-
tor has come full circle. The communicator is again thought to be powerful, but
this communicator is the semiotic product of the shifting texts and networks of
human and non-human relationships that produce the constantly changing cur-
rents of meaning that define and redefine twenty-first century life.
 Who 363

Further reading
Cobley, Paul (ed.). 2006. Communication Theories, Vol. 1–4. New York: Routledge.
Delia, Jesse G. 1987. Communication research: a history. In: Charles R. Berger and Steven H.
Chaffee (eds.), Handbook of Communication Science, 20–98. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Gerbner, George (ed.). 1983. Ferment in the field: Journal of Communication (Special Issue). 33 (3).
Gitlin, Todd. 1978. Media sociology: the dominant paradigm. Theory and Society 6 (2). 205–253.
Rogers, Everett M. 1994. A History of Communication Study: A Biographical Approach. New York:
The Free Press.

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Dale Hample
20 What
Abstract: This chapter is concerned with the message, and particularly with its
content. The purpose of a message is to alter the audience in respect to its beliefs,
attitudes, intentions, values, feelings, and/or behaviors. This is done by supplying
content that creates, changes, or reinforces those things. A fundamental element
of a message’s content is its argument, and so the chapter focuses on how to
analyze, reconstruct, and create arguments. Attention is also given to organization
and style, especially as they connect to the message’s arguments.

Keywords: Message, content, argumentation, enthymeme, metaphor, narrative,

style, organization, delivery

In a standard summary of the conceptual topics in communication, we ask ‘who

says what to whom, in what channel, and with what effects?’ This chapter concerns
the first ‘what,’ that is, the message and its content.
Singling out ‘what’ is of course merely an intellectual move. In reality, the
message is not sharply distinguishable from its source, its audience, its form, or
its results. A person who enacts a message adds meaning to it from his or her
identity, presence, and performative behaviors. Meanings vary from audience to
audience: the same statement can be funny to one group and evidence that the
source’s character is deficient to another assembly. The channel also modifies the
message’s apparent meaning, as is evident if one compares two statements that a
romantic relationship is over, one made via email and another conveyed with a
scrawled note attached to a door with a knife. The same message can be enraging
or satisfying depending on its moment and setting; those effects are thought to be
descriptive of the message itself, as when we say that a message is persuasive, or
offensive, or loving. In short, every message is motivated, situated, and heard.
These brute facts can be held to be external to the message, and this is convenient
for thinking about one facet of communication at a time. But that is merely an
analytic handiness, and as we look inward to the message’s content in this chapter
we should remember that the message is also constituted outwardly, causing and
being caused by its companion components: source, audience, form, setting, and
consequences.
The classical canons of rhetoric are invention, organization, style, memory,
and delivery (Kennedy 1962). The first three canons pertain most immediately to
the planned message and so will be our preoccupations here, although we will
mention delivery briefly. Invention refers to the development of content for the
message, organization concerns how the content is ordered, and style has to do
370 Dale Hample

with its phrasing. This chapter is most concerned with the first canon but will
comment on organization and style as well. Even though the canons were devel-
oped with public speeches in mind, they illuminate interpersonal, computer medi-
ated, and mass mediated communication just as well.

1 Invention
Messages are intended and received as vehicles to create, reverse, modify, or rein-
force meanings for the audience. This is done by content. Messages give or imply
reasons for those changes in meaning, and this is why we recognize that arguments
are central to the first canon (Hample 2009).
The meanings of messages have substantial effects on whether they are trans-
formed from private thought to public event. A speaker will be spontaneously moti-
vated by the wish to express a particular meaning, of course. When the message
needs to survive various filters in order to appear in mass media, research indicates
that editors register meanings as being consonant with editorial expectations or
not, as matching the interests of elites or not, as connecting with ongoing media
preoccupations or not, as being entertaining or not, and many other factors (Gal-
tung and Ruge 1965; Harcup and O’Neill 2001; Venables 2005). All of these have
mainly to do with meanings, conveyed verbally or nonverbally, so let us examine
content in detail.

1.1 Enthymemes

Most real-world arguments are not fully developed as expressed, and they leave
important elements unsaid (Aristotle 1984). In other words, messages are
enthymematic (Bitzer 1959): some parts of the argument are conveyed by its source
and others are supplied by the audience. The explicit argument ‘Jones is smart, so
you should vote for her’ leaves the audience to contribute ‘Anyone smart deserves
my vote,’ and is therefore an example of an enthymeme.
Even in the case of slogans whose arguments are superficially absent, we can
see enthymemes asserting themselves. For instance, Nike’s “Just do it” does not
make any immediate or explicit reference to shoes. On reflection, however, we can
see that an enthymeme is at work. The slogan means roughly “You can do whatever
you want to do and should try to achieve any goal you choose; because we said
that, you can see that this is what our company stands for; therefore you can be
confident that we have made sure our shoes make it possible for you to accomplish
any of your goals; so Nike shoes match your personality and aims, and you should
buy them.” Although this reconstruction is labored, we can see that it does imply
 What 371

a claim about Nike shoes: the company has just left the audience to supply all the
questionable material.
Other messages are even less obviously argumentative than Nike’s slogan. For
instance, a first step in a political campaign is to achieve name recognition, and
this is often accomplished by putting up signs and displaying the candidate’s
name. We should understand this as preliminary to the later messages in which
the candidate’s virtues and views are exhibited, in much the same way that a smile
might set up a request for a favor. This is an example of how one element of a
large-scale campaign only exhibits its argumentative role when the rest of the cam-
paign is taken into account.

1.2 Analysis of message content

Quite a few analytic methods have been developed to elaborate, understand, and
critique a message’s argumentative content. The first of these was formal logic.
This approach is not used by most argument critics today because logic’s artificial-
ity requires that real-world arguments must be translated into precise propositional
form prior to analysis. Other methods better adapted to ordinary discourse have
been developed. These include the Toulmin model, the acceptability-relevance-
sufficiency standards in informal logic, and argument reconstruction.

1.2.1 The Toulmin model

Toulmin (1958) offered an alternative to formal logic, one that has become known
as the Toulmin model (see also Chapter 9, Tindale). A distinctive feature of his
treatment is that a message need not be transformed before analysis, although it
does have to be understood, which is not an analytically neutral task. Toulmin
distinguished six elements of an argument, which are omitted or called into play
depending on the arguers’ momentary understandings. Central is the claim (con-
clusion), which expresses the point of the argument. The claim (C) is directly sup-
ported by the data (D), or evidence. This must be an agreeable starting point,
something that the message’s recipient regards as secure. If it is not, the data
portion of one argument must be established as the claim of an earlier one. Assum-
ing that this has been done, the data give support to the claim. This relationship
(the ‘supporting’) may be obvious in the moment and so will not require expres-
sion, but the data-claim connection is always mediated by what Toulmin called
the warrant (W). A warrant expresses the reason that the data support the claim.
Somehow it fulfills the function of assuring the recipient that if the data are
accepted, the claim should be accepted as well. This D-W-C unit is the base part
of the argument. For example: We need to get off this planet (C) because we will
add another billion people in the next ten or 12 years (D), and one planet’s finite
resources cannot handle this population growth for very long (W).
372 Dale Hample

The other three elements of the Toulmin model bear on the first three. Next is
the backing (B), which gives support to the warrant. The warrant can be construed
as a claim itself, and if the audience is reluctant to accept it, data-like material
must be supplied to strengthen it. In our example, the backing might be: water
and energy sources are becoming scarce (B). Also bearing on the warrant is the
next element, reservations (or rebuttals). Given that the warrant is generally appli-
cable, a reservation (R) expresses some condition in which a normally acceptable
warrant must be set aside. For example, a reservation to the warrant above might
be: unless we continue to make technological advances in agriculture, energy, and
conservation that are so substantial that they outstrip population growth (R). The
final part of the model is one of the most important: the qualifier. Qualifiers (Q)
attach to the claim and are intended to reflect the strength of the argument as a
whole. A very strong argument might support a qualifier such as ‘almost certainly:’
We almost certainly (Q) need to get off this planet (C). If the argument seems
weaker, the qualifier should reflect that, and we might see qualifiers such as
‘maybe,’ ‘probably not,’ or ‘if we can’t think of anything else.’ Some things really
are uncertain, and an argument that clearly proves that can be a good one. This
highlights the importance of proper qualification, not over- or under-claiming what
one has proved.

1.2.2 Informal logic

Informal logic is a theoretical and pedagogical movement that reacted to students’
view of formal logic as arid and unsatisfying, by developing ways of analyzing
argument quality without resort to syllogisms (van Eemeren et al. 1996: chapter 6).
Two of the founders of the movement, Ralph Johnson and Anthony Blair, devel-
oped an apparently simple way to evaluate arguments. They proposed three crite-
ria: acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency (Govier 1999: chapter 7). These are
applied to an argument’s premises and their connection to the conclusion.
Acceptability means that the premise material must be unobjectionable on
factual grounds. It does not refer to whether the argument recipient agrees with
the material, however. This criterion, like the other two, is applied by the analyst,
who is expected to research and think carefully about matters that might pass by
unremarked in ordinary discourse. The point here is not to estimate whether the
argument will be effective; rather the idea is to give an analytical evaluation that
does not depend on who the actual arguers might have been.
Supposing the premises to be acceptable, the further questions are whether
they are relevant to the conclusion and whether they are collectively sufficient to
prove it. Relevance is not as simple an idea as in ordinary talk. Suppose someone
says, “Smith is a bad professor because he’s ugly.” Our instinct is immediately to
say that ugliness is irrelevant, but that has to be reasoned out. The analyst would
need to define ‘bad’ and ‘professor’ in concert, establishing the criteria for badness
 What 373

in a professor. Then the criteria would have to be inspected to see if ugliness

addresses any of them, either directly or by means of what it might imply. Only if
this results in a null match can the analyst say the premise is irrelevant. In prac-
tice, relevance is often a matter of degree and so we might say that ugliness is at
most weakly relevant.
Sufficiency, the third standard, refers to whether the premises taken together
prove the point. Suppose one made a point by offering several examples. Each
example might individually be insufficient, but together they might make a satis-
factory case. Circumstantial evidence in a criminal case can have this nature: per-
haps each bit of suggestive data can be explained away individually, but eventually
the jury may have to decide between one conclusion (guilt) or dozens of independ-
ent conclusions (he looks like lots of people, anyone might buy a knife, many
people wear size 12 shoes, and so forth). They might decide that many individually
flawed proofs add up to one sufficient case. In orchestrated political actions, some-
times various spokespeople are given individual points to make; only when these
are collected in comprehensive news accounts might the full argument be apparent
and sufficient.
The standards of acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency all have to do with
the argument as presented. Johnson (2000) proposed an additional criterion that
is somewhat external. He said that arguments must also be evaluated on the dialec-
tical tier. By this he meant that the analyst should consider what objections to the
argument might be made, even if they weren’t made in the actual moment of argu-
ment. If the arguers miss some point in their email exchange, or if the audience
doesn’t notice some questionable assumption in a televised appeal, the analyst is
expected to do the noticing for them, and evaluate how the argument should work
out if it were answered and defended as well as possible.
Arguments that have premises that are individually acceptable and relevant,
that are collectively sufficient, and that survive exposure to the dialectical tier are
good arguments. Argument quality is a matter of degree, and so nuanced judg-
ments are expectable.

1.2.3 Argument reconstruction

Arguments in ordinary use work out of and create their own substantive contexts.
Not everything that is meant or understood is said. The whole argument – not
merely what is explicit – has to be reconstructed before the argument can be ana-
lyzed and evaluated (van Eemeren et al. 1993).
Arguments are composed of speech acts, and every speech act has various
felicity conditions. For example, “shut the door” is a command, and one of the
felicity conditions for a command is that the speaker must have the right to impel
the hearer to do something. One could object to this command on the grounds that
there is no door, thus working at the level of surface meanings. Perhaps more
374 Dale Hample

likely, however, would be a counter-argument such as “you’re not the boss of me,”
which responds not to the surface meaning but to the underlying assumption of
superiority. This latter reply is entirely legitimate because merely giving the com-
mand committed the speaker to the proposition that he or she was superior to the
hearer, and that commitment is part of what is arguable.
Reconstruction of an argument adds commitments and assumptions to what
is actually said, so that the whole argument and its implications are available for
analysis and critique. Full reconstruction on the van Eemeren et al. (1993) plan is
quite detailed, and proceeds from theoretical statements about what the stages of
a critical dispute are, what speech acts are required, and what felicity conditions
those speech acts have.
This chapter is too short to go into that much development, but there are
several over-arching commitments that should be mentioned. Every argument is
assumed to be a step toward a reasoned conclusion, and this involves certain
conditions that need to be fulfilled. First-order conditions involve the idea that the
arguer is proceeding constructively in a way that allows full exchange of reasons.
For instance, arguers implicitly contract to answer objections, to allow the other
party to counter-argue, to express themselves clearly, and so forth. Second-order
conditions for proper arguing include being genuinely open to the force of reason
(i.e., being willing to be persuaded away from one’s original position) and being
capable of good arguing (e.g., being able to recognize that one argument is better
than another). Third-order conditions specify that both parties are unconstrained:
that in practice they both have the same access to information, have the same
rights to argue, and have the same access to the relevant channels of communica-
tion. In other words, all parties should have the same opportunity to create and
respond to messages.
Reconstructing all of this results in defining the “disagreement space” for the
argument. This refers to all the points that are potentially arguable. The claims
explicitly made by the expressed argument are in the disagreement space, of
course, but so are all of the assumptions those statements make, all of the commit-
ments required by those speech acts, and the question of whether each of the first-,
second-, or third-order conditions is being satisfied. A good argument is one that
passes critical tests of all these kinds. A flawed argument will be open to serious
criticism on one or more of these criteria.
The disagreement space of an argument turns out to be quite a bit more expan-
sive than just the expressed content. Once the reconstruction has been done, ana-
lysts can apply many standards of judgment. The argument’s elements can be
examined in their internal context, as with the Toulmin model; statements and
assumptions can be evaluated as to their acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency;
the dialectical tier can be entered by considering pertinent content outside the
immediate textual context; and assumptions, commitments, and higher-order con-
ditions can be identified and evaluated. A message’s content can be understood in
 What 375

considerable detail, either at the stage of producing a message or at the stage of

receiving it.

1.3 Content and relational levels of meaning

Messages are more than content, however. Watzlawick et al. (1967) explain that
every message has two levels of meaning, content and relationship. The content
level is roughly what we have been examining so far: the statements, their literal
meanings, their implications and assumptions. The relationship level of meaning
has to do with projecting definitions of identity and relationship among the source
and recipients of the message. Inescapably, every message conveys both sorts of
meaning.
Suppose a televised public health campaign features an official who tells view-
ers that parents should get vaccines for their children. The content level of meaning
has to do with children, parents, responsibility, vaccines, health, and so forth, and
would be analyzed in the ways already mentioned. But such a message conveys a
lot of relational meaning as well. First, consider the public health official’s projec-
ted identity. He or she is claiming a position superior to the audience, because
this is implied in the act of advising. The official might be introduced as “Dr.
Smith” or as “Jim Smith,” and these choices project different identities (profes-
sional or friendly) and aim at different relationships with viewers. Second, consider
the identity the official is projecting onto the audience. One only advises people
who need advice, and so the audience is being construed as a group of people
who lack the information, intelligence, ability, or motivation to do the right thing
on their own. Given the assumption of superiority implicit in advising, the audi-
ence is thereby being offered the identity of people who are subordinate and some-
what incapable. Finally, consider the definition being projected for the relationship
between official and audience. It is asymmetrical, with the official dominating.
This can be modified in some degree but the essential asymmetry is inevitable in
advising.
Many messages and campaigns have a persuasive goal, and these relational
meanings inhere to the act of persuading, which always aims to constrict a hearer’s
freedom and therefore affront his or her ‘negative face’ (Brown and Levinson 1987).
A natural response to such an affront is stubbornness or reactance (Brehm 1966).
Consequently an elaborate appeal or public campaign might concentrate on giving
information rather than advice, at least in its early stages, to avoid these reactions.
Relational meanings are often conveyed nonverbally, and here we touch on
the final canon, delivery. Facial expression, tone of voice, and gesture convey iden-
tities and relationships face to face. Camera angles, establishment of settings,
background music, and the length of cuts are analogous techniques in video pro-
duction. This nonverbal nature results in relational meanings being hard to pin
down in a critiqueable way, and so they often are left merely to resonate or not.
376 Dale Hample

1.4 Narratives

To this point, the chapter has assumed that messages convey content by means of
arguments that take a linear form: a series of premises that lead to a conclusion.
However, arguments can also be nonlinear (Bosanquet 1920). A common nonlinear
form is the story. A narrative can make a point, and so can be regarded as an
argument that makes or modifies meanings. Stories are a common way of summa-
rizing litigations (Bennett and Feldman 1981). A contested criminal trial can be
seen as a choice between two stories: in the prosecution’s story, the defendant is
a character encased in a plot that makes him or her guilty; in the defense’s story,
the crime occurred in a way that did not involve any illegal actions by the defen-
dant. Entertainment-education is an approach to public health that uses televised
entertainment programming to display recommended behaviors, attitudes, and
beliefs. This media strategy has been used throughout the world on a variety of
health topics (e.g., Brodie et al. 2001; Hether et al. 2008).
To see that a story is making an argument in the first place, one must be able
to discern its conclusion and its reasons. In principle, therefore, a narrative can
be analyzed in the ways already described. However, the problem of translation
into analytically useful terms is daunting because the story’s argumentative prem-
ises and conclusions might all be implicit. Watching a soap opera character go to
the doctor models the argument rather than making it in propositional detail.
This problem of how to analyze a narrative’s argumentative content has been
addressed by Fisher (1987). He said that two standards can be used to evaluate a
narrative. These are coherence and fidelity, and both join together to produce an
estimate of whether a story is probable or not. Narrative coherence is internal to
the story, and it refers to whether the story’s elements hang together or not. Do
characters act consistently from one part of the narrative to another? Narrative
fidelity, in contrast, is external to the story. Here, the audience checks the story
against their understanding of the world. Do people actually act that way? Is this
what happens when that sort of act occurs? A story that has both coherence and
fidelity results in a trusted mental model of whatever the story is about, and people
will naturally draw inferences from their models. These two standards can be used
to generate useful judgments of the narrative as a whole.

1.5 Conclusions about invention

This section, the largest of the chapter, has concentrated on the first canon of
rhetoric, the task of finding and creating meaning for a message. Most often, a
message’s content will be its primary reason for existing, although sometimes a
message may be created in order to define or redefine an identity or relationship.
Content and argument are quite closely connected, and so various ways of under-
 What 377

standing an argument have been reviewed: Toulmin’s approach, informal logic,

and reconstruction. Whether linear or narrative in form, a message’s content can
be closely examined and assessed.

2 Organization
The second canon of rhetoric is organization, or arrangement. Given a collection
of content that someone wants to convey, it must be put in some order. Successful
message forms must look toward a match with the patterns that already exist in
their audiences.
Kenneth Burke (see Heath 1979) wrote extensively on form for many years.
Form is important, he said, for two reasons: it reflects people’s schematic under-
standings and it emerges out of language’s own structure. The first point explains
how a message can resonate or not: if it orders things in a familiar way, it will be
easily received. The second point is related to the first, in that people know lan-
guage and therefore anticipate, for instance, where a sentence or slogan or novel
should end, given how it started. A message can have any internal order, even a
random one, but a good arrangement will match audience psychology and linguis-
tic practice. Sometimes disordering can be used for effect, as when a joke jolts the
hearer into an unexpected realization.
Only a few organizational matters have been well researched. One of these is
ordering arguments by strength. Classical writers sometimes recommended that a
rhetor’s strongest argument be put first in a sequence of arguments, and other
authorities said the strongest argument should be last. Modern research on pri-
macy and recency effects has also taken up this question, but with no more conclu-
sive an answer than was available in the Roman Empire (see O’Keefe 2002). The
most secure recommendations are that one’s best argument should be clearly fea-
tured, probably by putting it first or last, and that one’s weakest arguments should
be buried in the middle of a message or campaign (assuming that the weak argu-
ments need to be made at all, which will happen, for example, if an opponent is
pressing an issue).
More decisive work has examined various series of messages in the context of
persuasion (see O’Keefe 2002; Stiff and Mongeau 2003). Among the sequences for
which there is good evidence of effectiveness are three. ‘Door in the face’ involves
first making an outrageously large request, which is normally rejected. This is
followed by making a more modest request, which is accepted at higher levels
than if it were made by itself. A companion sequence is ‘foot in the door.’ Here,
the persuader begins by making a minor request that is accepted, and then follows
by making a larger request. As before, the second appeal is more successful than
if it is made alone. The ‘low-ball’ technique involves obtaining agreement at one
level of cost, and then raising the price. This works as well, although it has an
378 Dale Hample

obvious exposure to ethical objections and long-term relationship problems. Other

persuasive sequences have been studied less thoroughly, but these three are
enough to emphasize that effect depends in part on context. Every appeal has a
place in an order, and message producers should attend to their orderings. The
ordering can be entirely controlled by one agency, or it may be a joint production
of several parties addressing the same set of issues, possibly at cross purposes.
A final organizational matter has to do with the positioning of one’s point
within a message. In the West, the usual form involves placing one’s point early
in the appeal. In Asia, the point is often withheld until the end, and possibly
abandoned without expression if the interlocutor does not display uptake. Young
(1982) analyzed conversations between Chinese and Western businessmen and
found confusion on the part of Westerners (whose conversational partners seemed
to be talking pointlessly) and discomfort on the part of Chinese businessmen
(whose partners seemed unreasonably aggressive).
Young’s study returns us to where we began, to the necessity of knowing what
forms are expected and natural. That there might be cultural differences is not
surprising since various languages have different forms and politeness enactment
norms differ throughout the world. Organization is consequential, whether we are
examining sequences of messages or considering the sequence of elements within
a single message. The effectiveness – and thus the meanings – of messages are
affected by their contextual place and internal organization.

3 Style
Style, too, affects meaning. A common misunderstanding holds that there is some
sort of base way of expressing things, and figurative language can just be pasted
on for the purpose of embellishment. The implication is that rhetorical figures do
not really alter the meaning of the real message; they are just flourishes that show
off some element of the source’s identity or exploit the hearers’ feelings. This is
wrong.
According to Burke, the metaphor is one of the core figures, and quite a few
other sorts of figurative expression are versions of it. Metaphors are argumentative.
To see this, consider Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s (1969) explanation of the
relationship between metaphor and analogy (the latter being widely understood
as a sort of argument) (see also Chapter 9, Tindale). An analogy orders four terms
and equates two ratios. For instance, “As dessert is to a full meal, so is a child to
a marriage.” The analogy is arguing that children are a treat, one that fulfills and
completes a family. A metaphor is a “condensed analogy” (Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969: 399). The metaphor here would be “children are a family’s
dessert.” A real claim is being made in that expression, and a reason is being
suggested. This metaphor is not a meaningless embellishment of something else;
 What 379

it can stand on its own as an argument. Fahnestock (1999) explored the argumenta-
tive role of rhetorical figures in scientific discourse, a place where one might sup-
pose the case would be hard to make. Her careful analysis of dozens of distinguish-
able figures showed that they do, in fact, have argumentative functions.
How far from unembellished propositional language can an arguer go without
forfeiting any claim to the pursuit of rationality? The answer is that a certain
amount of ‘strategic maneuvering’ is legitimate, so long as it does not actually
stray into the domain of fallacy (van Eemeren 2010). Sources are entitled to select
only certain material to argue about, they are entitled to present their material in
a way that is pleasing to hearers, and – this is the immediate point – they are
entitled to use presentational devices in strategic ways. The work of van Eemeren
and his colleagues goes into detail about what particular maneuvers are legitimate
and which are fallacious, but for our present purposes it is enough to see that
stylistic imagination can forward good arguments, and not merely disguise bad
ones.
Figuration should not be at the price of clarity. O’Keefe (2002) has completed
several meta-analyses that tested how much of an enthymeme can be unexpressed.
He compared studies in which conclusions were stated explicitly with those that
left the conclusion implicit, studies that made supporting evidence explicit with
those that did not, and studies that gave explicit behavioral recommendations with
those that merely implied them. In all three cases, he reports that the clearer
messages – those with the explicit elements – are more effective. Unmistakable
expression gives better control of the message’s meaning. Rhetorical figures need
not interfere with clarity, however, and can even make points stand out more
starkly.
Figurative expression is flourish, but not merely so. Remarkable presentation
can affect listeners’ impressions of a speaker, can make certain thoughts stand
out in the moment, can move an audience emotionally, can enhance listeners’
motivation, and can make ideas memorable. But all the while these things are
happening, arguments are being made and meanings shaped in ways that would
have occurred differently with different expression. Nor must figures be merely
linguistic: in various media, parables can be acted out, symbols can be personified,
and similes can be performed (e.g., Littlefield 1964; Wilson 2007).

4 Conclusions
This chapter has been about the message, considered mostly in terms of the first
three canons of rhetoric – invention, arrangement, and expression. These are no
more independent of one another than a message is really independent of its
source, or its audience, or its channel. All the elements of communication come
together to create, change, or reinforce meaning. Since meaning management is
380 Dale Hample

the province of argumentation, it has been convenient to use arguments as the

touchstone in this discussion. Arguments harness prior meanings to make new
ones. The strength and legitimacy of arguments are well understood, from several
different viewpoints.
Whether one is considering a message (or series of messages) from the stance
of designing one, or analyzing one, or receiving one, the central preoccupation
should be meanings. Messages should, with intention and intelligence, shape
recipients’ meanings by means of good arguments founded on secure grounds.

Further reading
Greene, John. O. (ed.). 1997. Message production: Advances in communication theory. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Howell, Wilbur Samuel. 1971. Eighteenth-century British logic and rhetoric. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Kaid, Lynda Lee (ed.). 2004. Handbook of political communication research. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Wasko, Janet, Graham Murdock & Helena Sousa (eds.). 2011. The handbook of political economy
of communications. Malden and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Wilkins, Lee & Clifford G. Chrisians (eds.). 2009. The handbook of mass media ethics. New York:
Taylor & Francis.

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judgment in American culture. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Benoit, William L., Dale Hample & Pamela. J. Benoit (eds.). 1992. Readings in argumentation.
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Bitzer, Lloyd. F. 1959. Aristotle’s enthymeme revisited. Quarterly Journal of Speech 45. 399–408.
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Pamela J. Shoemaker, Jaime Riccio and Philip R. Johnson
21 Whom
Abstract: There are many audiences, but which did Lasswell have in mind in
whom? We conclude that, over time, there is not a ‘newer’ or ‘improved’ under-
standing of the audience. Researchers rarely acknowledge the audience or define
it. There is no one audience, but rather many audiences who form and reform for
big and small reasons. As audience members create content at the same time as
journalists and producers, the entire information world is changed. What audien-
ces will be like 20 years from now – or even whether anyone uses the term audi-
ence – is not known, but as theorists and researchers we must give more attention
to the recipients of messages.

Keywords: Lasswell, audience, receivers, creators, individuals, active audience,

hyperactive audience, messages, content, media reality

1 Introduction
In Lasswell’s (1948) definition of communication, whom is perhaps the most
important pronoun (apologies to who) in all of the discipline, because whom refers
to the receiver of the message (Shannon 1948). There are different types of receiv-
ers; for example, receivers of mass communication messages are called audiences,
whereas in a conversation people are alternately sender and receiver. In either
case, whom is defined as the people who receive the output of communicators and
as a result may learn, change their opinions, or behave in various ways. Although
the audience is an entity, composed of individuals, it should also be studied as a
theoretical construct that is carefully conceptualized. External forces such as social
and individual factors act on receivers of messages, reflecting Lasswell’s use of the
preposition: to whom.
In this chapter, we take whom from the Reformation to Twitter, a varied dis-
course on a largely hidden construct. We have been surprised that little scholarship
has addressed whom by any name at all. Scholars who study producers and their
content, the effects of content, and exposure to content could be more successful if
they defined the audience in more detail. Audience is usually treated as a primitive
construct around which scholars study, but rarely mention by name. In communi-
cation scholarship, receivers are simultaneously crucial and invisible in studies of
media effects. Studies test hypotheses that show the audience has been affected
by exposure to communication messages, but the audience is rarely conceptual-
ized. Instead such studies operationalize characteristics of the audience, such as
controlling for gender or ethnicity. Statistically controlling for characteristics of
384 Pamela J. Shoemaker, Jaime Riccio and Philip R. Johnson

receivers may be useful in data analysis, but lack information that will enhance
interpretation of statistical results. Explaining why media exposure influences its
effects on receivers would be greatly aided by theoretically defining whom, whether
individual, publics, audiences, or consumers.
Exceptions include Leo Bogart’s 1989 book Press and the Public, in which he
defines the audience as “anyone who ever looks at a newspaper” (75). A fuller
definition is offered by James Ettema and Charles Whitney in their 1994 edited
volume Audiencemaking. They write that “receivers are constituted – or, perhaps,
reconstituted – not merely as audiences but as institutionally effective audiences
that have social meaning and/or economic value within the system” (Ettema and
Whitney 1994: 5). They conceptualize three types of audiences: Measured audien-
ces are created by data collected by the media research in order to sell to advertis-
ers. Specialized or segmented audiences either shape media content or are them-
selves shaped by it. Hypothesized audiences are protected by media regulators.
These all “exist as relationships within the media institution” (6).

2 Whom as the Passive Audience

Robert Snyder (1994) has proposed that Vaudeville performances created the first
mass audience in the United States around 1900. To appeal to people’s common
interests, Vaudeville programming became less controversial and more homo-
geneous. Snyder concluded that Vaudeville made individuals into “a mass audi-
ence” (228).
The construct audience is often thought of as a manifestation of the nexus
between the development of capitalism and the growth of the mass media. In the
United States the mass audience did not exist until factories were built and towns
grew around them; previously rural workers became city dwellers, and the mass
media took up the job of providing them with information about their new environ-
ments.

2.1 Propaganda

During the twentieth century’s two World Wars, the warring powers used propa-
ganda as a weapon. Lasswell (1937: 521–522) defined propaganda broadly, as the
“manipulation of representations” in order to influence ‘human action.’ The audi-
ence was considered passive, with few defenses against manipulative messages.
During both World War I and II, propaganda leaflets were dropped by air on
both military and civilian populations. Although billions of propaganda leaflets
were dropped by air, there is only anecdotal evidence about its effectiveness (Low-
ery and DeFleur 1988: 188–189).
 Whom 385

In 1962 Jacques Ellul (1965: xiii; French edition 1962) defined propaganda as
also involving routine

public and human relations:… These activities are propaganda because they seek to adapt the
individual to a society, to a living standard, to an activity. They serve to make him conform,
which is the aim of all propaganda.

For Ellul, individuals could be influenced by the whole, but propaganda was effec-
tive only when individual opinions joined into an ideologically cohesive collective.
No matter how large, a group of disconnected individuals was not to be considered
an audience.

2.2 Media reality, social reality

In 1938 Orson Welles surprised his US radio audience with a realistic drama about
Martians invading Earth, and the aftermath suggested mass hysteria on part of
the “common man” (Cantril 1940; in Schramm and Roberts 1971: 579). An analysis
by Hadley Cantril revealed that of the six million people who listened to the
show, one million reported being frightened by it. Cantril concluded that those
scared lacked the ability to critically analyze what they heard (589–593). What
was originally thought to be the result of “shock and terror” (580) on the part of
the mass audience was explained by audience members’ individual characteris-
tics. The radio audience may have passively received the message at first, but
many actively tried to verify the information afterward. Cantril was one of the
earliest social scientists to verify the importance of audience members’ individual
characteristics in moderating the effects of exposure to one strong mass media
message.
Long-term exposure to the mass media was called the ‘narcotizing dysfunction’
by Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton (1948). They proposed that people were
narcotized when they spent more time consuming media than taking social action.
These passive individuals congratulated themselves on being knowledgeable, but
they had substituted knowing for doing.
Another approach to audiences’ responding to television content was proposed
by George Gerbner. Cultivation theory (Gerbner 1969) conceived of the audience as
passive consumers of shows, such as dramas, situation comedies, and cartoons.
The metaphor of cultivation suggests that the audience passively consumed tele-
vised images, although there were some differences explained by demographic
variables (Gerbner and Gross 1976; Signorelli and Gerbner 1988).
Also looking at media effects over time, the knowledge gap hypothesis suggests
that individuals in a social system learn as a function of time passing (Tichenor et
al. 1970). Although individuals’ knowledge was measured, knowledge was aggre-
gated within the social system. The use of time as the independent variable empha-
386 Pamela J. Shoemaker, Jaime Riccio and Philip R. Johnson

sized the social system. The theory was less about how individuals learned and
more about how information diffused through a social system.

3 Whom as the Active Audience

Audience is a modern term. In the Reformation (1500–1550), a collective of non-
elites was known as the people, a group of ignorant individuals who threatened
political institutions (Martín-Barbero 1993). In the Enlightenment (1700–1800),
Rousseau described the people as “the very opposite of ‘reason’” (cited in Martín-
Barbero 1993: 7). Romanticism (1760–1850) recognized the revolutionary power of
individuals, in that common people could form a “social collectivity” that could
be powerful if a leader stepped forward (Martín-Barbero 1993: 9).
Masses became a popular term in the nineteenth century. Aristocrats disliked
the great unwashed, but disdain was turned into fear of the mob by the 1848
French Revolution (Martín-Barbero 1993). Scholars concluded that although the
crowd/public is comprised of individuals, they are less important than the actions
of the collectives. In 1895 Gustave Le Bon alternately used the terms the mob and
the crowd. In the crowd, diverse individuals were “given a collective soul” (Martín-
Barbero 1993: 27). In 1901, Gabriel Tarde emphasized the role of communication
and the press in the actions of the crowd. Tarde reconceptualized the masses from
an unruly collective into the public.
The early part of the twentieth century brought war (World War I), revolution
(in Russia), and the growth of fascism in Europe. During this time, the public
required redefining. The growth of Marxism led to the replacement of the term
people with the proletariat (Martín-Barbero 1993: 14), as a collective of individuals
who would change the basic structure of society.
By 1927, John Dewey argued that individual opinions were less important than
the construct public – a shared intelligence that rose as a result of technology (the
telegraph) and the news media (Carey 1991: 37). A public was created whenever
individuals talked about things they needed or wanted. A public could not be
maintained without interactions among individuals.

3.1 The public has opinions

Who was the ‘public’ in public opinion? From the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies, the term had the connotation of “collective judgments outside the sphere
of government that affect political decision making” (Price 1992: 8). In the early
twentieth century some scholars defined the public as a social entity, consistent
with fear of crowds and other mass audiences. In contrast, Blumer (1946) argued
 Whom 387

that a public existed when a group of people were divided over an issue and
discussed (as cited in Price 1992).
Before the United States entered the Second World War, American social scien-
tists wanted to know if political propaganda could influence the outcome of presi-
dential elections. In 1932, George Gallup conducted a poll to assess public support
for his mother-in-law’s candidacy to be Secretary of State in Iowa, and in 1936 he
and other pollsters successfully predicted the winner of the election by adopting
advances in sampling and survey research methodology. Although Gallup’s busi-
ness was called public opinion polling, the opinions he sold were not characteris-
tics of the public-as-collective, but rather the aggregate of individual opinions.
In their 1944 book The People’s Choice, Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and
Hazel Gaudet specified their goal – “a large-scale experiment in political propa-
ganda and public opinion” (Lazarsfeld et al. 1944: 1). They decided to study how
the area’s political propaganda would affect people’s vote intentions in the 1940
election in Erie County, Ohio. But they found that “campaign propaganda … [pro-
duced] … no overt effect on vote behavior at all” that the media, at most, reinforced
people’s prior decisions (87). The mass audience was fragmented into “politically
homogeneous” social groups (Lazarsfeld et al. 1944: 148), and opinion leaders from
these groups were active in forming political attitudes.
Lazarfeld, Berelson and Gaudet suggested that audiences might protect them-
selves from propagandist messages. Just how the audience might actively defend
against political propaganda, however, was uncertain until Katz and Lazarsfeld
reanalyzed the 1940 election data. In their 1955 book Personal Influence they con-
cluded that voters actively guarded themselves against political propaganda and
that the media’s main effect was to reinforce individuals’ original voting intentions.
This ‘personal influence’ suggested the various interpersonal contexts that resulted
in different effects being had on different people. Lazarsfeld et al.’s 1954 book
Voting described their 1948 study in Elmira, New York, and reinforced the idea that
people used their “perceptual opportunities as a defense or protection against the
complexities, contradictions, and problems of the campaign” (230). Those who
were cross-pressured had to somehow reduce the stress that the campaign created.
“If the voter finds himself holding opinions championed by opposing parties…. He
[sic] can perceptually select, out of the somewhat ambiguous propaganda of the
campaign, those political cues which remove the problem by defining it away”
(231).
This is consistent with Leon Festinger’s (1957) interpersonal theory of cognitive
dissonance. Festinger argued that people would not only selectively expose them-
selves to information, but also would selectively perceive and retain only desired
or congruent information. Lazarsfeld and colleagues’ findings had consequences
for media ‘effects’ research, especially on the field’s first doctorates, graduated in
the 1950s and 1960s. They learned that the media reinforced pre-existing attitudes
and behaviors, making individual members of the audience much more active than
388 Pamela J. Shoemaker, Jaime Riccio and Philip R. Johnson

anyone had thought. So scholars turned their attention to studying the media audi-
ence (McQuail 1991).

3.2 The public as a group of individuals

In their classic study of a college football game, Albert Hastorf and Hadley Cantril
(1954) concluded that “there is no such ‘thing’ as a ‘game’ existing ‘out there’ in
its own right which people merely ‘observe’” (1954: 132–133). In other words, peo-
ple are not simply observers, but actively engage with their surroundings and cre-
ate meanings from them – often different meanings. Constructivists such as Jean
Piaget (1971) and Lev Vygotsky (1978) believed, as in the case of a football game,
that reality was socially constructed by members of society, in part with the help
of the media. Much as in George H. Mead’s (1934) symbolic interactionist approach
to interpersonal communication, people create their own meanings from messages,
and their motivation to attend to different messages is based on the socially deter-
mined meanings they assign a message through interactions with others.
By mid-century, several such approaches made individual audience members
and the construct motivation important in studying people’s use of the media, and
‘effects’ research of the mass audience was mostly left behind. In 1964, Raymond
Bauer interpreted communication to be transactional, an exchange in which “each
gives in order to get” (1964; from Schramm and Roberts 1972: 345). Although peo-
ple chose from among media messages, the messages had been created to attract
the audience. Katz et al. (1974) echoed Bauer’s transactional approach, in which
individuals evaluated the media and actively selected content that most pleased
them (McQuail 1991). In 1991, Peter Golding and Graham Murdock wrote about this
transaction and about audiences as commodities – the mass media “exchange…
audiences for advertising revenue” (Golding and Murdock 1991: 20). The cultural
studies perspective, however, maintained that audiences were active enough to
make their own meaning from media content, what Stuart Hall (1980) called
reverse decoding.
Although not strictly audience-based, Albert Bandura’s (1962) work in cognitive
psychology became crucial to the development of theories based more on cognition
than motivations. Bandura asserted that human beings are cognitive entities who
see, think, and learn by watching television or films (Bandura 1962). This perspec-
tive emphasized that individual differences between people were important, open-
ing the door for more research on media effects. But the microscopic audience he
studied was a bunch of idiosyncratic individuals who were more important sepa-
rately than together.
Bernard Cohen (1963) also gave hope to those interested in studying individu-
als’ cognitive influence on media effects by stating that the mass media could more
easily teach people what to think about rather than to shape their opinions. Max-
 Whom 389

well McCombs and Donald Shaw (1972) redefined this idea in their agenda setting
theory, bringing cognitive theory back into mass media research. They showed that
the prominence with which a newspaper covered topics was positively related to
how important people in the community thought the topics were. Measurement
was at the individual level, but the theory had ramifications for the audience as a
whole. As in many studies of public opinion, the aggregation of individual opinions
was interpreted as a measure of the collective – the public. These psychological
approaches to public opinion favored individuals’ concerns and not the concerns
of society.

3.3 The audience as consumers

This idea developed in the middle of the twentieth century, when the mass audi-
ence became central to the economic role of society. Individuals became important
as buyers of consumer products and services.
Originally, however, consumer research conceived of the individual consumer
as passive – a person whose attitudes and ‘purchase’ decisions could be manipu-
lated by advertisers and public relations. Hovland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield took
this approach in 1949 during their study of the effects of the Why We Fight films
on World War II soldiers. They were largely a passive media audience who were to
be persuaded rather than conceived as actively participating (Roberts 1954: 2–4).
In 1948 Bernard Berelson wrote that producers and consumers saw each other
as engaging in a more active, two-part process: “The audience selects the commu-
nications which it finds most congenial, and the producers select people with ‘the
right viewpoint’ to prepare communications for other people with ‘the right view-
point’” (cited in Schramm 1960: 530). He asserted that audience members were
more actively involved in the communication process than originally anticipated.
So, have the mass media really influenced the audience? Berelson answered:
“Some kinds of communication on some kinds of issues, brought to the attention of
some kinds of people under some kinds of conditions, have some kinds of effects”
(Schramm 1960: 531).
The work of Herbert Kelman expounded upon Berelson’s findings and laid a
path for future studies into an active audience, showing that internalization of a
message and attitude change could occur when it was congruent with audience
members’ pre-existing values (Kelman 1958: 55). The role of attention was more
important than the individual’s backgrounds and experiences (Hovland and Weiss
1951; Kelman and Hovland 1953; Hovland 1957). By the end of the 1960s, the study
of attitude change had shifted more toward audience members’ cognitive behaviors
rather than the abilities of message sources and senders (Greenwald 1968).
390 Pamela J. Shoemaker, Jaime Riccio and Philip R. Johnson

4 Whom as the Hyperactive Audience

Historically, media theory has been saturated with discussions of the content and
effects of television, radio and the print media. It has focused on either a passive,
impressionable audience (Lasswell 1948; Gerbner 1969; McCombs and Shaw 1972),
a reactive, mass audience (Cantril 1940; Lazarsfeld 1948) or individuals with spe-
cific reasons for media use (Festinger 1957; Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch 1974). The
advent of digital media, however, allowed whom to enter the sphere of media crea-
tors – as not only co-determinants of media outcomes, but themselves as message
creators and influencers.
The new hyperactive audience – is comprised of people who read, view, and
listen, as well as post, tweet, and comment. They make personal connections that
tie individuals into groups (Yus 2011). Individuals shape their online identities so
that they will appeal to social groups.

4.1 Digital media and interpersonal theory

New digital technologies have provided, for the first time, a true intersection of
mass and interpersonal communication. Social media have allowed the simultane-
ous existence of a mass audience and an individual collective. As discussed previ-
ously, interpersonal approaches belonging to scholars such as Elihu Katz, Paul
Lazarfeld and Leon Festinger have been utilized in earlier studies of an active
audience, but a hyperactive audience involves a greater degree of individual-level
interactions.
In the Lasswellian model, the ‘effect’ is seen as the destination, rather than
the process of interactions leading to a final conclusion. Kenneth Burke included
the idea of ‘scene’ in Lasswell’s model, bringing the importance of context, includ-
ing interpersonal interactions and cultural influences, to the forefront of communi-
cation theory (Foss et al. 1991). This context becomes increasingly important in the
world of digital media, where technological advances blur traditional boundaries
between mass and interpersonal communication. For digital and social media,
whom may differ greatly if the receivers are in the form of a mass audience or face-
to-face interaction.
Homans’s (1958) theory of social exchange argues that the major force in inter-
personal relationships is the satisfaction of both people’s self interest. This can be
applied to the world of digital media, wherein this self-interest influences not only
how media is selected and received, but also leads to greater investment in the
types of information available – sometimes resulting in the creation of one’s own
messages (a level of hyperactivity in the form of viral videos, blog posts or tweets).
All of this is based on a perceived level of rewards and costs.
The norms and mores of a digital setting are different from those in personal
interactions of the real world, and also differ from the traditional mass communica-
 Whom 391

tion spectrum on which print, television, radio and film operate. The growth of
control and convenience in online communication necessitates a rethinking of the
standards of interaction. Because individuals rely on previous experiences to deter-
mine which set of rules to apply to a communication setting (Pearce and Cronen
1980), scholars must account for the lack of previous experiences to apply to the
hyperactive audience of social media; the rules are constantly being created and
recreated.

4.2 The many roles of the hyperactive

The hyperactives are not exclusively young people, but most young people are
active in the digital world. They email online articles to friends while reading a
paper newspaper. They listen to satellite radio and watch movies on their laptops
or tablets. They tweet about broken washing machines and get quick service from
the company. They create new selves on Facebook and post videos to YouTube that
could reach millions of people. Smart phones are now powerful computers allow-
ing people to read online books while waiting in line, to schedule appointments,
to keep in touch with grandparents, and to enjoy surfing from one internet site to
another.
People send and receive, encode and decode. They tap out text messages on
their phones’ tiny screens. They read the New York Times, the Huffington Post and
their favorite blog while listening to music. They watch a video on one device,
while talking or texting on another, and browsing the internet on a third. They
comment on articles they like and dislike and send links to other people. They
watch a missed episode of a television program while using their tablets’ docu-
ments and ebooks to study for an exam. Their mobile phones are nearby at all
times.
The hyperactive form a multitude of audiences, from huge to miniscule. Indi-
viduals form both small and large audiences that, like oil in water, can change
configuration rapidly. Digital audiences are fluid, having no pre-determined form
and changing at the slightest nudge.
Their dual role as media users and content creators gives audience members
the option of changing or redirecting media content to fit their needs. Hyperactive
audience members are simultaneously the producers of information who “contrib-
ute to the collectivity” of the internet and the cognitive acrobats who make sense
of its endlessly available user-generated content (Yus 2011: 93–94).
Digital media audiences are primarily economic entities (Kozinets et al. 2010;
Lieb 2011), with research addressing the practical uses of social media as a market-
ing tool. In some cases the digital media have made more traditional media subject
to the push and pull of hyperactive audiences: reality show producers, for example,
have used audience feedback from social media to plan the next episode or season
392 Pamela J. Shoemaker, Jaime Riccio and Philip R. Johnson

(Holmes 2004, McClellan 2010). Thus hyperactive audiences are powerful, contrib-
uting to the success or failure of many types of media outlets. The diversity of
social media users helps explain the fluidity of audience composition across time,
topic, and technology. When individuals join and rejoin in temporary and virtual
audiences, they tend to consume more media. They are never far from their com-
munication devices and regularly use them, giving them an influence on media
decision-making at all levels, sometimes directly and sometimes more subtly.

5 Conclusions
Michael Schudson (1991: 58) has written: “The audience… has been (like the
weather), something that everybody talks about and nobody does anything about.”
It turns out that the audience is itself a social construction. In his 1992 book Public
Opinion, Vincent Price concluded that

the public is a difficult entity to define precisely. It is loosely organized through communica-
tion surrounding an issue, it includes both active and passive strata, it changes in size and
shape as it develops, and it passes into and out of existence along with an issue (Price
1992: 33).

In this time of great change in all media, the terms “traditional,” “social,” and
“digital” media are blending, no longer having discrete and different audiences.
As they blend, the audiences expect constant monitoring of the world minute by
the minute, use of the internet’s huge resources, and innovation in message tech-
nology. Yesterday’s gossip is on today’s web news site, sometimes put there by a
‘journalist’ and many other times by a ‘blogger’ – who could be the same person.
The media must feed the voracious appetite of the world’s audiences and col-
lect information from sources beyond the ‘insider’ crowd. Someone is always
awake somewhere, both needing information and creating or producing informa-
tion. Individuals must encode and decode information more quickly than ever
before, making the information world seem chaotic, even to hyperactive audiences.
Both the ‘traditional’ and ‘social media’ operate according to the demands of
multiple hyperactive audiences. Will the media play the same role? No one knows –
not the individuals who send and receive and not the aggregations of individuals
that we still call audiences. Perhaps one worldwide audience will exist for impor-
tant messages, with converging and diverging audiences for smaller interest
groups.
We need a comprehensive study of the audience, including variations that
occur in the many information worlds we live in. This chapter has identified many
audiences, but it is only the beginning of an ongoing theoretical journey. We need
to enhance our knowledge about the audience, both historically and currently, to
understand both how audiences create media and media create audiences. We
 Whom 393

know that journalists create content, but for whom? Watching violence makes
some children more aggressive, but which children? The time spent with the media
can change political opinions or cultivate ideas about what the world is like, but
for whom? Digital or social media occupy youngsters’ lives, but which youngsters?
Studies on these and many more media topics rarely address the audience by
name. It is assumed to be there, but not defined, regardless of the theory or meth-
odology used. The audience is taken for granted, but when assumptions are neither
investigated nor written, we can misunderstand theory and data analysis.

Further reading
Bandura, A. 1986. Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Conville, R. L. & L. E. Rogers. 1998. The meaning of “relationship” in interpersonal
communication. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Gerbner, G. & M. Morgan. 2002. Against the mainstream: The selected works of George Gerbner.
New York: Peter Lang.
McQuail, D. 1997. Audience analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Noor Al-Deen, H. S. & J. A. Hendricks. 2012. Social media: Usage and impact. Lanham, MD:
Lexington Books.

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Davide Bolchini and Amy Shirong Lu
22 Channel

Abstract: Communication relies on an essential instrumentation to enable its mes-

sage to emerge as perceivable in our experience. This instrumentation, which com-
prises material and immaterial elements (from air waves to senses to media
forms), is traditionally conceptualized as the communication channel. This chap-
ter provides a novel lens to read the theoretical models that explain the nature of
a communication channel, from its fundamental elements to its functions. We
paint a broad picture of the relations between existing constructs and project
them on the changing roles of channel in today’s communication, from the web
to interactive media.

Keywords: Communication channel, medium, user, interactivity

1 Introduction
Far from being a comprehensive recollection of all the communication literature
on the notion of channel and medium, this chapter has two specific aims.
First, we discuss a succinct yet expressive conceptual framework that models
and interrelates the key facets of a communication channel as approached by
some of the major traditions of communication models. This framework illus-
trates the complexity of the topic of communication channel and its fundamen-
tal relevance for a meaningful conceptualization of traditional and modern
communication. On the other hand, we enrich and actualize our theoretical
analysis with fresh, state-of-the-art examples from the pervasive panorama of
modern communication practice. Tightly connected to this discussion, the sec-
ond aim of our chapter is to review some of the fundamental characterizations
of the notion of interactive communication channel from the perspective of
interactive media theories, mainly emphasizing the role of the different agents
in shaping the nature of the channel. Our theoretical analysis is nurtured with
state-of-the-art examples from the Internet, the Web, ubiquitous communica-
tion, mobile devices, and social networks.
We hope that the reader will gain a theoretically grounded and synthetic per-
spective on the topic, and that this could help gain a better understanding of the
complexity, roles, and interrelationships of the communication channels that
shape the fabric of our society.
398 Davide Bolchini and Amy Shirong Lu

2 The concept of channel in traditional

communication models
The notion of channel has been theoretically addressed and recognized since the
early models of communication, starting with Lasswell (1948). In Lasswell’s con-
ception – primarily concerned with mass communication – a channel is simply
what carries the message; in other words, the channel is intended as the perceiva-
ble modality (e.g. airwaves for radio message, or touch when tapping a friend’s
shoulders) used to convey the message to the intended audience. Already in this
basic proposition, it is clear the fundamental role of the channel in the communi-
cation process. Any communication act, in fact, is made possible by some form of
concrete reification of the message, which, at its most elementary level, must abide
by physical laws to exist and take shape.
Imagine a blind person wishing to browse a website. The message is there (the
website content), sender (the website designer) and receiver (the user) are ready to
communicate, but something is missing. The proper channel is not in place. The
message is conveyed through the visual channel, which obviously cannot be per-
ceived by a person with visual impairment. This is why, for example, a number of
additional channels have been created to enable this type of communication: from
Braille displays (supporting tactile communication) to software that ‘read aloud’
web pages (unleashing aural communication). It is as if, when the channel is not
there or does not work, the message itself is not perceivable, i.e. it still does not
exist for the person waiting for it. This simple example already elucidates the
function that corresponds to the broad notion of channel. The channel is the ena-
bling factor that allows a message to take concrete form, be properly conveyed to
the receiver, as well as be accessed, perceived, manipulated, and processed.
From this consideration, we can take at least two perspectives to discuss the
general notion of channel, one passive and one active. On the one hand, a channel
can be considered a fundamentally ‘limiting’ factor on the communication process,
an objective constraint that we cannot remove, but to which we must submit our
communication effort. Being forced to modulate our communication through a
channel (even if we can choose one of many) implies the necessary consideration
of the rules inherent to the channel (e.g. time, posture, style, genre, rapport with
the receiver) and the adaptation of what we ideally would like to communicate to
these constraints. We as humans still need to contaminate our thoughts with con-
crete, physical elements (sounds, visual cues, and writing, for example) to make
these messages perceivable by others. On the other hand, moving from a passive
to an active, or proactive perspective, the necessity of using a channel can be
considered an ‘exalting’ factor in human communication. Using a specific channel
(e.g., talking, writing an email, writing a text message, calling, or using an instant
messaging system) can be considered an intentional condition which enables us
 Channel 399

to clarify, fulfill, and give coherent shape to thoughts and ideas, which would be
otherwise unformed, scattered, and inaccessible first and foremost by the sender.
This active perspective opens the possibility to see that there are functions of a
channel that go much beyond the pure transmission of the message. For example,
choosing a specific channel (e.g. talking face to face with one’s own students)
instead of another (using email) over time could help build a stronger rapport
and better convey trust. On the other hand, using social networking sites such as
Facebook.com as the only communication channel with real life friends could facil-
itate multi-tasking in carrying out everyday activities, but it could limit the oppor-
tunities to engage in articulate, meaningful, and prolonged conversations.
As a more recent example, the Google Art Project (Google 2011) is a website
that enables users for the first time in history to browse and visualize world
renowned works of art at such a degree of visual detail that has never been pos-
sible before, and that is nowadays not even possible in a real museum for a visitor.
The site enables the user to look at the composition of the painter’s single paint-
brush (as visitors would stand their eyes at one inch of distance from the painting),
and appreciate the thickness, shape, and structure of the atomic elements that
make up such an impressive texture of colors. The museum chooses a channel (the
Web), which thus imposes a number of limitations over the real-life experience of
a work of art: the experience of presence, atmosphere of awe, physical sequencing
of the painting and actual perception of the size of the work are not there, and
will probably never be on the Web. The experience that such a website unleashes,
however – given the unique characteristics of this technological channel – has the
potential to enrich and exalt the appreciation of a work of art at a level of depth
and quality that is unparalleled in any other modality of communication. These
examples show that using a channel can open new opportunities within the given
constraints. In other words, the same constraints that define a channel in its dis-
tinctive characteristics are the same factors that make those channels desirable
forms of communication for specific purposes.
It is thus clear that a channel is a rather complex and composite element of a
communication process, which deserves an in-depth characterization. To provide
a coherent perspective on the various facets of the notion of channel, we introduce
here a tripartite model (Fig. 1), which serves two aims. First, it provides a synthetic
view to conceptualize the complexity of what a channel is at the proper level of
granularity and relevance for understanding modern communication. Second, it
offers a perspective to illustrate how the notion of channel has been conceived
and analyzed in different ways by some of the most famous communication
models, namely Lasswell’s (Lasswell 1948), Shannon’s (Shannon and Weaver 1949),
Schramm’s (Schramm 1954) and Berlo’s (Berlo 1960). In particular, the 3-layered
conceptualization of the notion of communication channel is comprised of the
following levels: the consideration of channel as transportation device (1), as sen-
sorial stimulus (2) and as form of the experience (3).
400 Davide Bolchini and Amy Shirong Lu

Fig. 1: The anatomy of the notion of communication channel (left) and the focus of early communi-
cation models (right)

2.1 Channel as ‘transportation device’

The most elementary and basic characterization of a communication channel is

the consideration of the channel as physical carrier of the message, or transporta-
tion device. This aspect captures the fundamental function of the channel as the
basic physical and technical infrastructure that supports the proper and continu-
ous movement of messages between a sender and a receiver. Like a freight train
transporting goods from the production source to destination markets, a channel
acts as a carrier whose primary mission is to take in incoming messages from the
sender, preserve it as intact as possible throughout the journey, and bring it to the
receiver. As stated by Shannon in his groundbreaking theory of communication,
“the fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point
either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point” (Shannon
and Weaver 1949: 1).
Both Shannon and Lasswell, from different disciplinary standpoints, assume
this primary transportation function of the channel. In Lasswell’s view, in fact,
mass communication relies on devices such as radio and newspapers as funda-
mental carriers of messages. Encompassing the spectrum of communication chan-
nels from the early models until today, it is interesting to notice that one of the
most important transportation functions of the channel stems from its capability
to ‘spread out’ the message. Channels have the potential to reach out to a multitude
of people and to do so efficiently. So, whereas a superficial consideration of the
early communication models may state that they characterize one-to-one commu-
nication process (one sender communicates a message through a channel to one
receiver), it is critical to acknowledge that one-to-many, or many-to-many commu-
nication is the most common paradigm for mass communication.
 Channel 401

This is why the consideration of the channel must also become articulate and
include a ‘network’ of branches that can reach out to multiple target audiences
in capillary ways. In this perspective, some of the fundamental characteristics
of communication channels as transportation devices are their reusability and
efficiency. Thanks to its multiple, physical ramifications (let us think about a
telecommunication network), a multitude of messages can be carried out over
the same physical channel over and over again at a minimal incremental cost.
Shannon emphasizes the notion of reusability of the channel by stressing the
fact that engineering the channel must be independent of the consideration of
the specific instances of the messages that will be transported over it. The separa-
tion of concerns between the semantics of the message and the function of the
channel is clearly explained in the following passage from his theory of commu-
nication:

Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to
some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communi-
cation are irrelevant to the engineering problem. The significant aspect is that the actual
message is one selected from a set of possible messages. The system must be designed to
operate for each possible selection, not just the one which will actually be chosen since this
is unknown at the time of design. (Shannon and Weaver 1949: 1)

In Shannon’s view – built over very early work by Nyquist (1924) and Hartley
(1928) – abstractions of physical devices such as electrical circuits, wires, cables,
and transmission tools fulfill the basic function of the channel, as the device that
enables the conduction of the encoded message to a receiver. In his perspective,
“the channel is merely the medium used to transmit the signal from transmitter to
receiver. It may be a pair of wires, a coaxial cable, a band of radio frequencies, a
beam of light” (Shannon and Weaver 1949: 2).
This level of abstraction in modeling the characteristics of communication ena-
bled Shannon to introduce the fundamental, groundbreaking innovations in the
history of telecommunication that made him famous: the invention of digital sig-
nals (to decode an analog message into binary digits that can be very easily ampli-
fied throughout the channel), signal compression, channel capacity (bit per second
that can be transmitted), channel noise (or equivocations), and entropy (a measure
of the uncertainty of the information being transmitted).

2.2 Channel as ‘sensorial stimulus’

Moving from an infrastructure-centric perspective of the communication channel

to a more human-centric perspective, we encounter other two models of communi-
cation, namely Berlo’s (Berlo 1960) and Schramm’s (Schramm 1954). In these
frameworks, an emerging characterization of the channel revolves around the sen-
sorial, perceptual form of the message. A channel is therefore conceptualized as
402 Davide Bolchini and Amy Shirong Lu

the reification of the message that allows us to perceive it through our senses.
According to these frameworks, the available channels are therefore the physiologi-
cal capacities that we possess and that provide input to perception: sight, hearing,
touch, smell, and taste. This level of the characterization of the communication
channel is of great importance because the sensorial channels are the ones ena-
bling the message to emerge as part of our experience.
In particular, by expanding on Shannon and Weaver’s stance, Berlo in 1960
introduces the Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver (SMCR) Model of Communica-
tion. Although the high-level components of the communication process appear
similar in nature to the ones first introduced by Shannon and Weaver, the actual
content and interpretation of each part of the model reveal a more complex and
comprehensive conception. In Berlo’s model, the source of the message and the
receiver goes beyond a purely technical network equipment, but it includes the
attitudes, knowledge, communication skills, as well as the social and cultural
context of the sender. Similarly, the channel assumes a highly human-centered
perspective; a channel is conceived as consisting of the various sensorial modali-
ties by which we can perceive a message (hearing, seeing, touching, smelling and
tasting).
Extending the original Berlo’s conception with examples of modern communi-
cation channels, such as the ones afforded by Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT), we can clearly see the interplay between these sensorial
elements, both as input and output modalities. If we map the available channels
for sensorial input that we can use to mediate (mainly through ICT) our communi-
cation, we can see many of the emerging channels used in everyday life (Table 1).
Modern ICT unleash a spectrum of communication channels relying on a vari-
ety of sensorial input and output. By simply considering an example of today’s
mobile phones, or the so-called ‘smart phones,’ we can see at play a channel
which relies on the human ability to directly interact with objects by touching
them (touch screens as input), combined with the visual (typical of graphical user
interfaces) and the aural channel (listening to a phone call, but also listening to
screen labels being read aloud by a software) as output modalities. Eye-tracking

Table 1: Examples of communication channels relying on a variety of sensorial input/output com-

binations

Input / Output Sight Hearing Touch Smell

Sight Eye-tracking …with acoustic …with haptic …with smell-

technologies displays interfaces output devices
Voice Voice-access …with acoustic …with haptic …with smell-
technologies displays interfaces output devices
Touch Touch screens …with acoustic …with haptic …with smell-
displays interfaces output devices
 Channel 403

devices are able to track the gaze of a person while looking at a screen, and there-
fore – through properly defined rules – infer the intention of selecting a specific
interface element. This use of sight as the input channel is particularly important
for people with disabilities or illnesses that do not allow them to move their arms
and hands. The systematic use of other sensorial channels in ICT (e.g. smell) is
still a focus of highly innovative research labs rather than part of the mainstream
communication.
Finally, considering the channel as ‘sensorial stimulus,’ we can also character-
ize higher level perceptual elements of the communication channel (which may
involve a variety of senses at the same time to satisfy the users’ increasing
demands for enhanced mediated communication). Let us consider, for example,
the case of distance (proximity) between the sender and the receiver. Interestingly,
the relative position of the sender and receiver – clearly varying from culture to
culture – can be considered a vehicle of a communication message per se, which
runs in parallel to the actual, explicit (e.g. verbal) messages to be conveyed. Getting
physically closer and closer to a person may well indicate an increasing level of
intimacy or the intention to start a conversation (and the level of privacy of this
conversation). Moreover, the proximity channel can involve sight (e.g. I can clearly
see the other coming closer to me), but also touch (e.g. tapping on shoulders),
hearing, and – in some cultures – smell.

2.3 Channel as ‘form of the experience’

Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral (Kranzberg 1986: 545).

At the highest level of our channel conceptualization model (see Fig. 1), we con-
sider a communication channel as a coherent architecture of elements that funda-
mentally shape the experience of the message. Whereas both the transportation
function of the channel and its sensorial stimuli are essential for communication
to happen, a channel is much more than its physical infrastructure and sensorial
perception. It involves a designed architecture of ingredients that may include the
size, length, structure, dynamics, and control mechanisms of the experience, as
well as the constraints imposed on the context in which we experience the mes-
sage. Let us consider the following example to introduce us into the ways a channel
shapes the form of our communicative experience. We can well argue that the
newspaper delivered every morning at our doorstep conveys – approximately – the
same types of messages of the newspaper website that we may browse during the
day on a lunch break. On the same basis, it is easy to see the substantial difference
in the type of expected and actual experience that we engage in while using these
channels. These differences concern many different levels, which we summarize in
three key aspects: the impact of the sensorial experience (1), the channel as modi-
fier of the message (2); the channel and the context of the experience (3).
404 Davide Bolchini and Amy Shirong Lu

First, the sensorial elements of the channel are a primary characteristic that
determines an important difference between holding in our hands, manipulating,
flipping the pages, folding and sharing a paper-based newspaper and reading the
same news on a webpage on a computer screen. The viscerality of the paper experi-
ence is still unparalleled by any virtual experience, and this can have further con-
sequences. One can easily spill coffee on a newspaper without much damage to
the reading experience, whereas one has to pay particular attention to the way we
hold, manipulate, and touch an electronic reading device. Moreover, by holding a
physical object (although articulate and complex as a daily newspaper), one can
immediately get a sense of how much there is to read, how much one has read
and how much is left. In other words, the physicality of the object enables the
reader to immediately conceptualize its boundaries, even if as simple quantity
of messages being conveyed (and therefore projected time needed to experience
them).
Second, the choice of a channel over another affords types of experience that
modifies the message itself. A newspaper website typically provides additional,
dynamic, in-depth information on a topic by following the last-minute updates
(impossible to obtain in the morning edition of the newspaper, which contains by
definition ‘static’ messages). Besides being updated frequently (possibility afforded
by the web channel), the newspaper website offers a network of navigation paths
enabling the reader to access connected websites, resources and background infor-
mation, which may be useful to better frame or understand a news story. Finally,
the multimedia possibilities offered by the electronic channel (watching video
interviews or reportage rather than reading text articles only) expand the realm of
messages available to the audience.
Finally, we need to consider that the channel shapes the context (broadly
defined) in which the message may be experienced. Today, the same generic chan-
nel (e.g. the newspaper in its website version) can be experienced through a variety
of specific channels: one can read the news on the home computer, on the mobile
phone on the go, or on the iPad during a boring business meeting. A paper-based
newspaper would afford different experiences in different social and physical con-
texts.

3 Media use and interactive communication

channels
The passive notion of communication channel, i.e., an objective constraint that we
cannot remove, but to which we must submit our communication effort, applies
primarily to traditional media such as newspaper, radio, film, or television. Since
these media are often the carriers of message, there is little user involvement
regarding the creation, transmission, and manipulation of the mediated informa-
 Channel 405

tion. With the development of interactive media, the channels of communication

should no longer be treated as an isolated concept separated from the users, who
should be conceptualized as active participants in the communication process.
Therefore, the active perspective of communication channel, i.e., the channel’s
function would go much beyond the pure transmission of the message, informs
the conceptualization of the interactive communication channel.
Interactivity is one of the key variables for new media and communication
research. It refers to a process of reciprocal influence (Pavlik 1996: 135) and was
used as a criterion to decide if a channel is interactive (Durlak 1987; Heeter 1989;
Rafaeli 1988). Interactivity thus became a standard to judge a specific communica-
tion channel. Interactive channels help to enable audiences as active participants
by controlling the state, shape, location, etc. of the message. Take a painting dis-
played in a museum for example, the frame, the canvas, the oil paint make up a
static channel through which an artist conveys to the world her perception and
ideas. The painting does not allow the audience members’ active participation or
control of its state, shape, or texture. The only ‘adjustment’ the audience members
are able to do would be physically moving around the painting to adjust the rela-
tive spatial relationship with it. Even if the painting has been reproduced on a
postcard, a coaster, or a carpet in the museum’s store, the variety of interactions
is as limited as the original painting. On the other hand, a touch-screen photo
viewer containing the image of the painting would allow the audience members
more control via different levels of input. They can enlarge and adjust the size of
the painting as well as touch on specific items in the painting to get detailed
introduction by just using their fingers without having to adjust their physical
distance.
In their explication of interactivity, Sundar et al. (2003) presented two perspec-
tives of interactivity: the functional view and the contingency view. The functional
view is concerned with whether a communication channel would go beyond ena-
bling the interaction with a user by offering the opportunity to create some dia-
logue or mutual discourse (Roehm and Haugtvedt 1999). Following this line of
thought, the level of channel interactivity depends on the number of functional
features embedded in the channel. A user’s actual utilization of the functional
features to serve the goals of communication, though, is not taken into considera-
tion. For example, a website with many bells and whistles such as a discussion
forum, a chat room, a live video cam, a guestbook, etc. may be easily labeled as
an ‘interactive’ channel according to the functional perspective. On the other hand,
the site visitors might have failed to utilize any of the special features due to the
poor usability of the site design. Although the website provides the opportunity
for an interactive form of experience through various types of sensorial stimuli on
multiple transportation devices, as a channel, that website is not truly interactive
(as it fails to realize its interactivity potentials).
An alternative perspective, or contingency view, adds to the functional view an
additional layer of the user experience of the interactive features, i.e., an interactive
406 Davide Bolchini and Amy Shirong Lu

channel should not only possess the necessary hardware for interactivity but also
ensure the interconnection, or interdependence, of the messages for communica-
tion. Rafaeli (1988) has conceptualized interactivity to be “an expression of the
extent that in a given series of communication exchanges, any third (or later) trans-
mission (or message) is related to the degree to which previous exchanges referred
to even earlier transmissions (11).” An interactive channel, therefore, should be
conceptualized as a communication process that involves continuous messages
exchanged among users that are related to one another, i.e., the subsequent messa-
ges need to be contingent on the previous ones. For example, an online discussion
forum can be considered as an interactive channel when users’ discussion revolves
around the previous input of other users or their earlier posts. Interactive channels
do not have to involve more than one user to participate. In the previous example,
any further interaction of the museum visitor with the touch-screen photo viewer
is related to the earlier interaction with the system. If the visitor has enlarged part
of the painting to watch the details and would like to switch back to a panoramic
view, he would need to start with the already enlarged portion of the painting with
a new input.
The contingency perspective helps to characterize channels with an interactive
flavor. More importantly, interactivity has invited users to actively facilitate the
channel’s function to convey messages. It also helps to incorporate the roles of
active communication agents as well as the means of message delivery into the
concept of communication channels. This type of conceptualization echoes the
media richness theory that shares some of similar perspectives on people’s choice
of different communication channels: the users’ perceptions of the channel’s rich-
ness (Daft and Lengel 1986) and their ability to use the channels to satisfy their
needs (Dobos 1992) serve as predictors of user’s choice of communication channels.
In addition, the contingency view also adds another layer in the communication
process by making the channel itself an active communication agent, who could
interact with the users independently from the message creators. The touch-screen
photo viewer system, when programmed to offer full interactive experience, could
create a unique interactive experience with each different user to help them fully
appreciate the painting. In other words, such interactive experience is offered to
the users on behalf of the painter, who may have created the original painting but
who may not be the author of the interactive haptic experience afforded to each
unique audience member.
Consequently, the contingency perspective helps to bring several new dimen-
sions to define interactive communication channels. Many of these dimensions
involve the interaction between the channel and the participatory users. These
dimensions include: message flow (number of agents and directionality), input/
output modality, temporal simultaneity, spatial relations, and privacy of space.
Table 2 offers a rough categorization of various interactive channels. It is worth
noting that the distinctions among the channels are based on some typical usage
scenario.
 Channel 407

Table 2: Interactive media channels

Interac- Message Flow Input/Output Temporal Spatial Rela- Privacy

tive Chan- Modality Simultaneity tionships of Space
Number Direction-
nels
of Agents ality

Email 1 : 1 or n ←→ Sight Asynchronous Dislocated Private

Instant
1 : 1 or n ←→ Sight Synchronous Dislocated Private
Messaging

Chat
1 : 1 or n ←→ Sight/Hearing Synchronous Dislocated Public
Rooms

Discus-
sion 1:n ←→ Sight Asynchronous Dislocated Public
Forums

Personal
1:n ←→ Sight Asynchronous Dislocated Public
Blogs

Social Net- Semi-

n:n ←→ Sight Asynchronous Dislocated
work private

MMORPG n:n ←→ Sight/Hearing Synchronous Dislocated Public

Touch-
Sight/Hearing/ Public/
Screen 1 → Synchronous –
Touch Private
Display

Console
1 → Sight/Hearing Synchronous – Private
Games

Virtual Sight/Hearing/ Co-located/ Private/

Depends ←→ Synchronous
Reality Touch Dislocated Public

Message flow refers to the transfer or exchange of information within, between,

or among communication agents. It is characterized by the number of agents
involved in communication process and the directionality of the message flow. For
example, e-mails, instant messaging, and online chatting are usually initiated by
one person and the other participants can range from one to more. Discussion
forums and personal blogs typically would start with the input from one user
followed by more users. Social networking sites and massively multiplayer online
role-playing games (MMORPG), would involve input from multiple users due to
their social networking nature. Single-player console games and touch-screen dis-
plays typically would involve one user’s continuous input. The direction of mes-
sage flow could also be an indicator of the friendliness of the online communica-
tion. For example, a common interactive chatting communication, or social
networking condition, should allow mutual message exchanges among different
communication agents. When the direction of the message flow becomes mostly
408 Davide Bolchini and Amy Shirong Lu

directed to a few ‘targets’ from many other users, such condition may indicate, for
example, the existence of online bullying.
Input / output modality is related to the sensorial elements associated with the
user’s input and output modalities during the communication process. Sight has
been one of the most common modalities and can be found within almost all
interactive channels. Users will not be able to fully utilize the communication chan-
nel unless applying their visual perceptions to facilitate the message creation and
exchange. While sight dominates interactive communication channels, sound pro-
vides additional affordances to the communication process. It can be found across
channels such as chat rooms, MMORPGs, and console games. Touch-screen display
and virtual reality call for users’ participatory actions such as touching and feeling
the components or elements of channel. Well integrated, these channels provide
more modalities and enable a richer message exchange experience.
Temporal simultaneity refers to whether the transfer or exchange of information
is synchronous or asynchronous. It is about the temporal relationship among the
exchanged messages. While an interactive channel emphasizes the interconnected-
ness of the messages, the temporal relationships among the messages are not uni-
form. Instant messaging, chat rooms, MMORPG, and console games where the mes-
sage exchanges usually occur at the same time with very little delay. Extended
delays will either hamper the perception of communication quality or reduce the
enjoyment of entertainment media. Email, discussion forum, personal blogs, and
social networking sites, on the other hand, allow delays for message exchange.
Proper delays within the channel should facilitate the subsequent message
exchanges within users. For example, a political candidate may opt for an online
personal blog to interact with the public and to promote his political agenda. When
he posts something to his blog, he would not expect the immediate occurrence of
numerous thoughtful comments from the users. Instead, there should be some
time intervals between the comments to the posted message.
Spatial relationships refer to the relative location of communication agents,
who can be co-located or dislocated. Interactive channels allow the communication
process to go beyond the geographical limitations and thus the users can be
located in different parts of the globe while still able to maintain an active message
exchange. Console games and touch-screen displays are slightly different from the
other interactive channels because the channels can be considered as stand-alone
communication agents interacting with the users. Therefore they should be co-
located to allow the interaction to occur.
Lastly, privacy of space refers to the environment where the channels are uti-
lized. Emails, instant messaging, and console games are considered private chan-
nels as the communication process and message exchange either require user’s
log-ins or could occur in a private space. On the other hand, chat rooms, discussion
forums, personal blogs, MMORPGs are more open regarding the message exchange.
Other users will be able to sense the message exchange in these channels. Social
 Channel 409

networking sites fall in between, since a user would be able to communicate pri-
vate messages to other users while the user is also able to see other user’s input.
Therefore, such channels offer users a semi-private message exchange space.

4 Conclusion
In this chapter, we have described an integrated conceptual model for communica-
tion channels by drawing from classic communication scholarship. We continued
to expand the conceptual model to the notion of interactive communication chan-
nels. With the evolution of communication technologies, which offer increasing
opportunities for users to engage in the communication process, the notion of
channels should be updated in accordance with the audience’s active participation.
Interactive channel is a good start since its intrinsic characteristics assumes the
role of the users in the communication process. Our explorations also raise several
questions: with the roles of channels and media becoming similar to each other in
the communication process, what would distinguish one from another? Marshall
McLuhan (1964) has considered the medium to be the message. How would people
as active users or audience members be situated in this process when the tradi-
tional boundaries are disappearing? Will they become part of the channel or an
extended of the media? How would their message exchange affect the communica-
tion process? These are probably some of the initial questions to ask to refresh our
conceptualization of communication channels.

Further reading
Berlo, David. 1960. The process of communication: An introduction to theory and practice.
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Durlak, Jerome T. 1987. A typology for interactive media. In: M. McLaughlin (eds.), Communication
Yearbook 10. 743–757. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Pavlik, John. 1996. New media technology: Cultural and commercial perspectives. Boston: Allyn &
Bacon.
Roehm, Harper A. & Curtis P. Haugtvedt. 1999. Understanding interactivity of cyberspace
advertising. In: D. W. Schumann and E. Thorson (eds.), Advertising and the World Wide Web,
27–39. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Schramm, Wilbur. 1954. How communication works. In: Wilbur Schramm (ed.), The process and
effects of mass communication. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
410 Davide Bolchini and Amy Shirong Lu

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Berlo, David. 1960. The process of communication: An introduction to theory and practice.
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Daft, Richard L. & Robert H. Lengel. 1986. Organizational information requirements, media
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Dobos, Jean. 1992. Gratification models of satisfaction and choice of communication channels in
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Mary Beth Oliver, Julia K. Woolley and Anthony M. Limperos
23 Effects
Abstract: The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of scholarship
on effects of media communication. To organize this vast literature, this chapter
highlights three broad classes of effects: those that reflect cumulative, gradual
exposure to messages; those that occur in the immediate viewing context; and
those related to audience use, interpretation, and response. We end the chapter by
examining what newer technologies imply for effects-related theories, as well as
suggesting possible directions for future research.

Keywords: Media psychology, media effects, cultivation, agenda setting, priming,

uses and gratifications, media enjoyment

Within the field of communication, the examination of the effects of communica-

tion messages can be found in a diversity of sub-areas, including interpersonal
communication, organizational communication, and small-group communication,
among others. With these areas of research noted, however, in this chapter we
focus our attention specifically on the effects of media. The examination of effects,
which has been central to research in mass communication, constitutes a vast
body of scholarship commonly referred to as “media effects.”
The phrase “media effects” is frequently employed to signify research that
employs a social-scientific approach to examining the viewer-media relationship.
Although this phrase has drawn some critical attention by implying to some schol-
ars that this approach favors an overly simplistic perspective on media influence
(for example, see Lang et al. 2008), in this chapter we instead endorse the idea
that media effects is a phrase generally understood more broadly. That is, like
many other scholars, we use the phrase media effects to refer not only to the social
and psychological outcomes that accrue from media consumption, but also the
processes that help to explain and predict such effects, as well as the predictors
of viewers’ perceptions and selections of media content that may initiate media
consumption in the first place (Nabi and Oliver 2009).
Within the last several decades, a number of scholars have attempted to syn-
thesize the “state” of media-effects theories in the discipline of communication.
Some of these synthesis pieces have served to identify the theories most frequently
employed (Bryant and Miron 2004), others have bemoaned the general lack of
theory development resulting from a dearth of “milestone” research (DeFleur 1998),
others have called for a “paradigm shift” by suggesting a need for a greater focus
on process and dynamic media-viewer relations (Lang 2011), and still others have
pointed out the need for theoretical revision in light of newer technologies that
412 Mary Beth Oliver, Julia K. Woolley and Anthony M. Limperos

lead us to question the applicability of extant assumptions concerning content,

receivers, and channels which may no longer be relevant (Chaffee and Metzger
2001).
Given the variety of theoretical perspectives one might find useful in exploring
media effects, it stands to reason that a diversity of organizing schemes have been
employed in attempts to present the literature in a coherent form. Perhaps most
common are schemes that focus on the type of content in question (e.g., entertain-
ment, news), the intended effects of media exposure (e.g., persuasion), or the tar-
get audience (e.g., children) (Bryant and Zillmann 2002). In this chapter, rather
than providing an historic overview of notable examples of media-effects studies
(e.g., the Payne Fund Studies, Bandura’s bobo doll studies), we take a different
approach that reflects our broad characterization of what constitutes effects
research. Namely, our goal in this chapter is to provide a heuristic template using
an organizing scheme that reflects one typology of how effects are thought to occur.
Specifically, we begin our chapter by considering theoretical approaches that con-
ceptualize effects in terms of cumulative or long-term exposure principles. In Sec-
tion 2 we turn to approaches that conceptualize effects in terms of immediate
influence reflecting media instigation of emotion and of already-existing cognition.
Section 3 then acknowledges the theoretical perspectives emphasizing the active
role of the viewer in initiating media consumption and in responding to media
content. Further, within each of these three sections, when applicable, we consider
the anticipated length of the effects (short-term, long-term) that are predicted by
the various theoretical perspectives. Finally, our chapter ends with suggested direc-
tions for future research.

1 Effects from cumulative exposure

The widely held perception of media as socializing agents is consistent with the
notion that media effects can best be conceptualized as the result of long-term,
cumulative exposure to media content over the course of extended periods of time,
including over the course of a lifetime. From this perspective, media effects happen
gradually and can serve to aid in the development of stable attitudes and percep-
tions, in much the same way that parents, peers, or educational environments
exert formative influences.
Perhaps one of the earliest theoretical perspectives reflecting a cumulative-
exposure perspective is agenda-setting. Agenda-setting theory holds that by cover-
ing certain topics with more frequency than others, news media make certain
issues more salient to audiences than other issues (McCombs and Shaw 1972).
Effectively, this means that the news media tell audiences “what to think about.”
This general effect on perceived issue importance is referred to as “first-order
agenda-setting.” Second-order agenda-setting, or “attribute agenda-setting,” is a
 Effects 413

process whereby the frequency of media emphasis on certain attributes about an

issue, object, or person determines their relative importance (see McCombs and
Reynolds 2008). Therefore, the news media not only make certain issues salient,
but also which attributes of that issue are the most important. In this regard,
second-order agenda setting shares many similarities with framing theory. Namely,
framing theorists also examine how the news media present certain topics, specifi-
cally in terms of how the issues or attributes of an issue are given meaning (Iyengar
1990; Tewksbury and Scheufele 2008).
We include agenda-setting scholarship in this section representing cumulative
effects, as research in this area generally conceptualizes influence as resulting from
consumption of media coverage over time. As a result, scholarship in this area has
generally tended to employ panel designs in which media coverage and public
opinion are examined over time (McCombs and Shaw 1972), or has made use of
archival data that allows for the examination of trends in public opinion over years
or even decades (Lowry et al. 2003). However, we note that some scholars have
examined similar perceptual outcomes using more abbreviated experimental
approaches (Iyengar and Kinder 1987).
Whereas agenda-setting has traditionally focused specifically on news, addi-
tional theories reflecting assumptions of cumulative influence are much broader
in terms of the content they consider. Namely, cultivation theory, arguably one of
the most widely referenced and researched theories in the discipline, argues that
television programming in general tells consistent and repetitive stories across dif-
ferent types of content. Originating from the work of George Gerbner (1969) and
the Cultural Indicators Project, cultivation theory assumes that we live in a media-
saturated environment in which certain themes or narratives are consistently
emphasized, with little diversity of content and little real choice or selectivity on
the part of viewers. Over time, this process is thought to create a cultivation effect
whereby viewers’ beliefs about the real world become consistent with those
espoused in the mass media (see also Morgan and Shanahan 2010). One of the
most frequently cited cultivation effects is that of the “Mean World Syndrome,” or
the notion that entertainment media typically present the outside world as one
that is threatening, hostile, and violent (Gerbner and Gross 1976).
The methodology usually employed to measure cultivation effects is a compari-
son of perceptions of reality with real-world facts and hours of television watched.
However, consistent with the notion that cultivation is an outcome of cumulative
and long-term exposure, recent research has shown that social-reality perceptions
are more strongly correlated with estimates of television viewing over a lifetime
than with current television usage patterns (Riddle 2010). Despite various criti-
cisms of cultivation research (e.g., Doob and Macdonald 1979; Hirsch 1980), years
of scholarship suggest that television viewing does indeed have a stable, albeit
small, effect on real-world judgments.
414 Mary Beth Oliver, Julia K. Woolley and Anthony M. Limperos

2 Effects from media instigation

In addition to recognizing that media influence can result from gradual, long-term
exposure, some theories of media influence point out that media effects can also
be observed immediately in response to a single media exposure. Further, unlike
models assuming cumulative exposure, instigational models generally predict that
media influence is relatively short lived or transitory. To illustrate this perspective
in media effects, we discuss two theories: one pertaining to the arousal of emo-
tional states, and one to the instigation of attitudes or beliefs that may already be
present.
Media undoubtedly are successful in eliciting a host of emotions, including
fear from horror films, sadness from tear-jerkers, or humor from comedies. Excita-
tion transfer is one prominent theory of media effects that identifies media effects
on emotion as immediate and short-lived (Bryant and Miron 2003; Zillmann 1971).
Briefly, excitation-transfer theory notes that affective reactions are composed of
both cognitive appraisals of events (i.e. the meaning of the event for the self) which
determine affect type (e.g. happiness or sadness), and a level of physiological exci-
tation or intensity. Because sympathetic excitation is not strongly differentiated
between affect types, increased arousal in response to one situation (e.g., anger)
may serve to intensify one’s response to a second situation (e.g., fear) if the subse-
quent situation occurs before the arousal from the first situation has returned to
baseline levels. Applied to media contexts, this theory suggests that affect in
response to any arousing stimulus (e.g., sexual portrayals) may serve to intensify
subsequent affect in response to a second stimulus, even if that subsequent affect
is of a different type than the original (e.g., aggression) (for an overview, see Bryant
and Miron 2003). As a result, this theory provides interpretations for a wide variety
of media experiences, including elation when a beloved sports team wins after the
agony of a close match (Zillmann et al. 1989), or euphoria when an endangered
heroine in a thriller movie manages to narrowly escape from the evil villain (Zill-
mann 1991b). However, given that the primary mechanism at work in this theory
is elevated arousal, this theory generally suggests only short-term effects, as any
influence due to arousal should cease once the arousal has dissipated.
Associative priming is an additional widely employed theory in media psychol-
ogy reflecting instigational effects (Berkowitz 1984). At the broadest level, priming
generally refers to the idea that media messages (or any environmental stimuli)
can serve to activate cognitions, affect, or even behavioral tendencies associated
with exposure to those stimuli. This activation then spreads to and activates
semantically similar cognitions. As a result of this activation, when ambiguous
stimuli are encountered in the environment, these stimuli are perceived or inter-
preted through the lens of the cognitions that have been previously activated (for
overviews, see Jo and Berkowitz 1994; Roskos-Ewoldsen and Roskos-Ewoldsen
2009). For example, a person who has recently viewed media violence may have a
 Effects 415

host of violent cognitions that have been activated. As a result, the person may
erroneously perceive a threat when encountering an unknown individual while
walking down a dark street.
Like excitation transfer, priming is generally thought to be a rather short-lived
effect, as activation of cognition is thought to dissipate rather quickly (in a matter
of minutes). However, there are at least two ways in which associative priming may
also be relevant to longer-term media influences as well. First, scholars have noted
that although the activation of cognitions may be generally transitory in many
circumstances, for some individuals or under some circumstances, the activation
of cognitions may be more persistent (Bargh et al. 1986). This notion of “chronic
accessibility” implies that media, by repeatedly priming certain concepts (e.g., vio-
lence), may make these concepts readily available for much longer than a single
media experience.
A second way that priming may have long-term implications is via what Jo and
Berkowitz (1994) referred to as “context cues.” Specifically, these authors noted
that otherwise “neutral” stimuli can become part of a person’s cognitive network
via processes such as classical conditioning during media viewing. As a result,
future encounters with the “neutral object” outside of a media-viewing context can
serve to prime related cognitions (see Josephson 1986). For example, as a result of
watching a large number of television crime dramas, Italian men may become an
element in a person’s cognitive network concerning the mafia. Consequently, at
some distant future time, exposure to an Italian man may prime thoughts of crime.
In this regard, then, priming may be of relevance in more situations than the
immediate viewing context.

3 User selection and interpretation

The final element of our template for organizing the focus of media effects inquiry
pertains to user selection and interpretation of media content. Although it may
seem odd to characterize user selection as an example of a media effect, we believe
it plays a crucial role in the media-effects process. First, a great deal of media
exposure obviously occurs as a result of user selection, making audience activity
a central element in the media-effects process. Second, how an individual responds
to media content will ultimately depend on how that content is understood or
interpreted by the individual, making individuals’ perceptions a crucial variable in
predicting media influence. Finally, we believe that the distinction between user
response (e.g., audience enjoyment) and media effects (e.g., effects of humorous
content on viewers) is often blurred, reflecting more of a semantic difference than
one that is theoretically driven. With this rationale in mind, this section considers
both short-term or immediate audience selection and interpretation, and more
enduring effects involving audience activity.
416 Mary Beth Oliver, Julia K. Woolley and Anthony M. Limperos

The theoretical conceptualization of the audience in active terms is undoubt-

edly most closely associated with the uses and gratifications (U&G) perspective.
Although early media research focused on how people react to media, U&G
research has primarily focused on exploring questions of how people select and
use media (Kim and Rubin 1997; Swanson 1979). Accordingly, U&G research sug-
gests that selection of media genre and forms, as well as gratifications and conse-
quences of media use, are largely determined by motivations or goals of media
users, and that these motives are often constrained by social and psychological
circumstances (Katz et al. 1974; Rubin 2009).
Early television research guided by U&G focused on exploring how basic demo-
graphic variables (e.g., age, gender, and education) were related to motives for
viewing television (Greenberg 1974; Rubin 1979; Rubin and Rubin 1982). In addition
to observing how demographic information is linked to media selection across a
variety of contexts, U&G researchers have also found relationships between indi-
vidual psychological differences and media selection, motives, and effects. For
example, Krcmar and Greene (1999) found that disinhibited individuals were more
likely to report watching violent television than their counterparts, and Haridakis
(2002) and Haridakis and Rubin (2003) found that locus of control was linked to
motives for watching, and effects of, violent television. U&G research has also been
instrumental in understanding which social and psychological factors influence
the selection of newer media such as the Internet (Lin 2001; Pappacharissi and
Rubin 2000), video games (Sherry et al. 2006), and even social-networking websites
(Raacke and Bonds-Raacke 2008). To summarize, since its inception, U&G research
has provided much insight into how people use media and communication tech-
nologies by linking individual differences with motivations and selection of media,
as well as outcomes of media use.
Whereas uses and gratifications tends to conceptualize audience motivations
and preferences in more enduring or trait-like terms, other perspectives recognize
that media preferences may change quickly over time, reflecting state-like inclina-
tions. In this regard, mood-management is a notable example of a theory of audi-
ence selection that recognizes the variability of media selection within individuals
at any given moment in time. Specifically, mood-management theory is based on
the hedonic premise that audiences are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid dis-
pleasure (Zillmann 1988). Put simply, mood-management holds that individuals
are motivated to use media to prolong and intensify positive moods and terminate
or diminish negative moods. Individuals will then arrange and rearrange their
exposure to entertainment media in order to meet these ends. Media content is
thought to vary in its effectiveness in the mood-management process based on
several characteristics: its excitatory potential (how arousing the content is),
absorbing potential (how involving the content is), behavioral affinity (how similar
the content is to one’s own present circumstances), and hedonic valence (whether
the content is positively or negatively valenced). In terms of methodology, mood-
 Effects 417

management theorists typically rely on experimental designs which manipulate

antecedent mood and/or content of the stimulus. Such research has provided a
good deal of empirical evidence in support of the theory (e.g., Bryant and Zillmann
1984; Knobloch and Zillmann 2002)
Both uses and gratifications and mood-management are ultimately theories of
media selection, though both imply that individuals are likely to select content
that is gratifying or enjoyable. However, a host of additional research regarding
audience response focuses specifically on notions of audience enjoyment. In gen-
eral, research examining audience enjoyment has tended to examine individuals’
reactions to a specific media experience, such as their evaluations of a movie, their
reactions to a television drama, or their engagement with a video game. As a result,
many theories of audience enjoyment tend to focus on short-term or immediate
reactions that are largely contained to the media experience while it is ongoing.
One prominent theory in explaining audience enjoyment is disposition theory (Zill-
mann 1991a). Disposition theory holds that audience enjoyment of entertainment
content is based largely on a viewer’s affective disposition toward story characters
and outcomes for those characters. In the original formulation of the theory, this
affective disposition was thought to result from a moral evaluation of the character
(Zillmann and Bryant 1975). However, more recent reformulations of the theory
(Raney 2004) suggest that moral evaluations of characters may follow (rather than
precede) the decision to like or dislike a character. In any event, audiences are
then thought to experience enjoyment if there are positive outcomes for liked char-
acters and negative outcomes for disliked characters (Bryant and Miron 2002;
Raney 2003). Empirical support for disposition theory has been strong (e.g., Raney
and Bryant 2002; Zillmann and Cantor 1977; Zillmann et al. 1998).
Finally, related to enjoyment responses, media effects scholars have also gone
beyond examining perceptions of media characters to highlight the importance of
audience interactions with media characters as an important element in the media
effects process. In this regard, both short-term and long-term conceptualizations
have been noted. For example, the concept of identification with media characters
is generally understood as being a short-term response that individuals have to
media content during viewing. More specifically, identification can be understood
as a process of temporarily adopting the identity and perspective of a media char-
acter, made up of cognitive, empathetic, motivational, and absorption components
(Cohen 2001). However, viewers’ more enduring or long-term relationships with
media characters have also been noted, with scholars using the phrase “parasocial
relationships” to refer to the imagined, interpersonal connections that users some-
times develop with media personae (Horton and Wohl 1956). Although long-term
exposure to a particular media content can be enough to cause audience members
to develop parasocial relationships with media characters, scholars have shown
that certain motives (e.g, social interaction), perceptions about life positions (e.g.,
loneliness and hopelessness), and orientations toward media personalities to be
418 Mary Beth Oliver, Julia K. Woolley and Anthony M. Limperos

significant predictors in the development of parasocial interactions among media

users (Chory-Assad and Yanen 2005; Giles 2002; Rubin and Perse 1987). Therefore,
while media users can identify with particular media characters in the short-term,
parasocial relationships tend to be a bit more enduring and are often tied to indi-
vidual psychology and social circumstances.
To summarize, theoretical conceptualizations of audience activity in the selec-
tion of and response to media content holds an important place in media-effects
processes. These conceptualizations recognize that users have both enduring and
immediate motivations for using media to fulfill their needs, and that they can
form relationships with media characters during the course of consuming media
content and long after that content has been viewed.

4 Future directions in media effects

As the media landscape continues to evolve at lightning speed, it is obvious that
existing theoretical approaches to media effects must contend with new variables,
new contexts, and more complex processes that may not have been relevant in
the not-too-distant past. We end this chapter by considering several directions for
research that we believe may be particularly fruitful for scholars to examine.
First, in the previous section we highlighted the importance of media selection
in the effects process. As newer technologies continue to allow for greater selectiv-
ity and more varied options of both content and delivery, we believe the issue
of selectivity will become increasingly important in understanding media effects.
Specifically, we predict that dynamic models that recognize the mutual influence
of audience selection/perception and media influence will become ever more rele-
vant and applicable. Such “spiral models” have been present in communication
scholarship since early work on the spiral of silence (Noelle-Neumann 1974), but
more recently have been applied to additional content and technologies, including
media violence (Slater 2007), and the implications of Internet news for political
polarization (Iyengar and Hahn 2009; Sunstein 2001).
Second, we also recognize the importance of newer technologies which func-
tion as more than merely a means of delivering content. Specifically, most technol-
ogies now not only allow for individuals to respond to media content via user
comments and user ratings, but they also allow individuals the opportunity to
engage in social sharing. The notion of sharing important information or media
messages via personal relationships is an idea that can be found in early mass
communication research. The two-step flow of mass communication, as originally
elaborated by Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955), suggests that media influence occurs
through interpersonal conversations with opinion leaders rather than directly from
original media messages. Recently, computer-mediated communication and mass
communication scholars have advocated revisiting some of the general ideas which
 Effects 419

emanated from early two-step flow approaches in light of new communication

technologies such as Internet forums, blogs, and social-networking websites (Nis-
bet and Kotcher 2009; Walther et al. 2010) Because there are so many ways to
share, create, and spread information in today’s media environment, discerning
exactly how these activities affect or impact individuals is likely to be a complex,
yet fruitful area for future effects research and scholarship.
Third, we believe that the increasing mobility of media content will have pro-
found implications in a diversity of contexts. First, mobile communication and
“smart” technologies allow individuals to routinely carry with them a constant
access to media messages. Listening to the radio while walking downtown, watch-
ing a sitcom while riding a bus, or using Facebook while sitting in a restaurant
are now commonplace occurrences. Importantly, too, as technologies continue to
develop, individuals will not only take their media with them, but media messages
will “follow” individuals. Specifically, location-based and context-aware content
such as advertising can now use built-in GPS devices to detect an individual’s loca-
tion and to push media content that is thought to be most relevant at that moment.
In addition to changing the way individuals access media messages, mobile
communication also has implications for activities and interactions that have, until
recently, occurred in contexts that were generally free from potentially distracting
entertainment possibilities. Now, however, YouTube videos, Facebook postings,
and mobile games are readily available everywhere, including in contexts where
they might be considered inappropriate or distracting (e.g., classrooms, work-
related meetings, dinner with companions). Although research is beginning to
emerge on issues such as the influence of multi-tasking on cognitive ability (e.g.,
Ophir et al. 2009) or the effects of mobile-media use on interpersonal perception
(Campbell 2007), there are obviously a multitude of potential additional effects
that await exploration, as well as systematic theory development.

5 Concluding comments
Research on the effects of media on users’ cognitions, behaviors, and emotions is
arguably a relatively young area of study. Yet during the last century, a variety of
theoretical approaches in media psychology have been formulated that help us to
understand the effects of media content on both individuals and on society at
large. We hope that by providing a template for categorizing the effects in terms
of cumulative influence, instigational effects, and user selection and interpretation,
this chapter will supply readers with a way of understanding and organizing a
broad and growing body of literature. We further hope that readers recognize the
importance of continued research on effects, as technological developments have
resulted in profound changes in both the media landscape itself, as well as the
integration of media into the daily lives of individuals and of our culture.
420 Mary Beth Oliver, Julia K. Woolley and Anthony M. Limperos

Further reading
Bryant, Jennings & Dorina Miron. 2004. Theory and research in mass communication. Journal of
Communication 54 (4), 662–704.
Bryant, Jennings & Mary Beth Oliver (eds.). 2008. Media effects: Advances in theory and
research, 3rd edn. New York: Routledge.
Nabi, Robin & Mary Beth Oliver (eds.). 2009. Handbook of media processes and effects. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Nabi, Robin & Mary Beth Oliver. 2009. Mass media effects. In: C. Berger, M. Roloff, and
D. Roskos-Ewoldsen (eds.), Handbook of communication science, 2nd edn, 255–272.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Biographical sketches

Dirk Baecker is a sociologist and Professor for Cultural Theory and Analysis at
the Department for Communication and Cultural Studies at Zeppelin University in
Friedrichshafen, Germany. He studied economics and sociology at the universities
of Cologne and Paris-IX (Dauphine) and did his dissertation and habilitation in
sociology at the University of Bielefeld. He was a visiting scholar at Stanford Uni-
versity, California, the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, and
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. His research areas cover sociologi-
cal theory, culture theory, economic sociology, organization research, and manage-
ment education. Among his books is Form und Formen der Kommunikation (Frank-
furt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005). Internet addresses: www.zu.de/kulturtheorie and
www.dirkbaecker.com.

Adrian Bangerter is a Professor of Work Psychology at the University of Neuchâtel,

Switzerland. He does research on coordination processes in conversation, espe-
cially coordinating parallel activities and interruptions and the relationship
between pointing gestures and language. He also does research on interactions
between recruiters and applicants in personnel selection, and the cultural trans-
mission of knowledge and popular beliefs.

Davide Bolchini is Assistant Professor and Director of the Human-Computer Inter-

action Program at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
School of Informatics. Through over 100 publications, his research spans human-
computer interaction, communication design, and web engineering, and investi-
gates novel conceptual tools to structure design reasoning for web and content-
intensive interactive applications. Dr. Bolchini received his Licentiate and PhD
degree in Communication Science from the University of Lugano (Switzerland).

Brandon Bosch (Ph.D., University of Washington) is a lecturer in sociology at the

University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research focuses on political communication
and media effects.

Paul Cobley, Professor of Semiotics and Communications in the Faculty of Social

Sciences and Humanities at London Metropolitan University, is the author of a
number of books, including The American Thriller (2000) and Narrative (2001). He
is the editor of The Communication Theory Reader (1996), Communication Theories
4 vols. (2006), Realism for the 21st Century: A John Deely Reader (2009), The Rout-
ledge Companion to Semiotics (2010), “Semiotics Continues to Astonish”: Thomas A.
Sebeok and the Doctrine of Signs (2011) among others.

Robert T. Craig is a Professor of Communication at the University of Colorado

Boulder, USA. A fellow and past president of the International Communication
Association (ICA), he was founding editor of the ICA journal Communication Theory
426 Biographical sketches

and currently serves as series editor of the ICA Handbook Series. His published
research has addressed a range of topics in communication theory and philosophy,
discourse studies, and argumentation. Recent work has focused on meta-discursive
arguments about communication in public discourse and developing the method-
ology of grounded practical theory.

David Crowley has taught at the University of Toronto and at McGill University in
Montreal, where he was Director of the Graduate Program in Communication. He
is a current associate of Media@McGill and a principal with the InterNet Communi-
cations Group. The sixth edition of Communication in History: Technology, Culture,
Society (with Paul Heyer) was published in 2011.

Jonathan Delafield-Butt is Lecturer in Early Years at the University of Strathclyde.

His work examines early development of the embodied infant mind, with attention
to affective consciousness, development of prospective motor control, and social
intentions communicated in movement. He completed his PhD in Developmental
Neurobiology at the University of Edinburgh followed by clinical and basic research
in Psychology at the Universities of Edinburgh and Copenhagen.

Elizabeth Dorrance Hall is a PhD student in the Brian Lamb School of Communica-
tion at Purdue University. Her research focus is on interpersonal communication
in families and other close relationships.

William F. Eadie is Professor in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San
Diego State University. He is a former Associate Director of the National Communi-
cation Association (NCA), where his portfolio included the promotion of communi-
cation and media scholarship to a variety of audiences. He currently serves as
Editor of the Western Journal of Communication. He edited 21st Century Communica-
tion: A Reference Handbook for Sage Publications, and his forthcoming book is
titled, When Communication Became a Discipline.

Robin Goret holds two master’s degrees from San Diego State University, in Com-
munication and Theater Arts. She is currently on staff at San Diego State University
in the School of Journalism and Media Studies and has lectured on media and
culture. She owns her own business, Corner of the Sky Communication Group, and
produces web content for the San Diego State's College of Extended Studies Digital
and Social Media website.

John O. Greene is a Professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication and a

Faculty Associate of the Center for Aging and the Life Course, both at Purdue
University. He is former Editor of Human Communication Research, and is presently
the Director of the Publications Board of the National Communication Association.
He is a previous recipient of NCA’s Charles H. Woolbert Award.

Cees J. Hamelink is Emeritus Professor of International Communication at the Uni-

versity of Amsterdam. He is currently Professor for Information Management at the
 Biographical sketches 427

University of Aruba, and Professor of Human Rights and Public Health at the Vrije
Universiteit of Amsterdam. He is also the Editor-in-chief of the International Com-
munication Gazette and Honorary President of the International Association for
Media and Communication Research. He is author of 17 monographs on communi-
cation, culture, and human rights.
Dale Hample is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Mary-
land (College Park MD, USA). He has published more than 100 chapters, journal
articles, and books. His primary research area is interpersonal argumentation, and
that interest has led him to do work in message production, interpersonal commu-
nication, persuasion, and conflict management. His most substantial work is Argu-
ing: Exchanging Reasons Face to Face (Erlbaum, 2005), for which he won the Gerald
R. Miller book award from the interpersonal division of the National Communica-
tion Association.
Richard L. Lanigan is University Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Communi-
cology (Emeritus) at Southern Illinois University; currently Director, International
Communicology Institute in Washington, DC, USA. He was Vice President of the
International Association for Semiotic Studies, Senior Fulbright Fellow (P.R. China
1996; Canada 2007), President of the Semiotic Society of America, Editor of The
American Journal of Semiotics, founding Chair of the Philosophy of Communication
Division of the International Communication Association. Publications include
Speaking and Semiology (1972; 1991), Speech Act Phenomenology (1977), Semiotic
Phenomenology of Rhetoric (1984), Phenomenology of Communication (1988), and
The Human Science of Communicology (1992).
Philip R. Johnson is Assistant Professor in the Public Relations and Communication
Departments at the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse
University. His areas of work are media sociology, new communication and infor-
mation technology, public relations and research methods. Recent publications are
concerned with gatekeeping, international news and blogs in crisis communica-
tion.
Philip Lieberman is George Hazard Crooker University Professor, Emeritus, Brown
University, Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences. He
won his BS and MSEE at MIT in 1958 and a PhD Linguistics in 1966. He held a
position on the Research Staff, Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, 1959–
1972 and was a Professor, University of Connecticut, Department of Linguistics and
Research Staff, Haskins Laboratories, 1972–1978; then at Brown University 1978–
2012. He is a Fellow of the American Association Advancement of Science, Ameri-
can Psychological Association, American Anthropological Association. His books
include The Biology and Evolution of Language (1984), Human Language and Our
Reptilian Brain: The Subcortical Bases of Speech, Syntax and Thought (2000),
Towards an Evolutionary Biology of Language (2006), and The Unpredictable Spe-
cies: What Makes Humans Unique (2013). Listed in Who’s Who and in Who’s Who
428 Biographical sketches

in American Art, for photography. Documentation of Himalayan and Tibetan cul-

ture, see www.THDL.org.
Anthony M. Limperos is an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and
Telecommunications and the Division of Instructional Communication at the Uni-
versity of Kentucky. Broadly, his research focuses on media uses and effects, with
an emphasis in understanding the psychology and behavioral impacts of new com-
munication technologies and video games in health, instructional, and entertain-
ment contexts. His work has been published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and
Social Networking, Communication Yearbook, and Mass Communication and Society.
Amy Shirong Lu is a Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Stud-
ies of the School of Communication and a member of the Robert H. Lurie Compre-
hensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University. She studies the persuasive
mechanisms and psychological, physiological, and behavioral effects of media
technology and has written widely on interactive media and their effects on chil-
dren’s dietary intake and physical activity behaviors. She received her PhD in mass
communication and MA in communication studies from the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Eric Mayor is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
His research interests include interpersonal communication in natural and experi-
mental groups, correlates of cognitive appraisal and risk perception, and lay expla-
nations for societally relevant issues. He investigates how text, discourse and non-
verbal actions inform us about collaboration, values and opinions, as well other
social processes.
Patricia Moy (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) is the Christy Cressey Professor of
Communication and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of
Washington. Her research focuses on communication and citizenship, public opin-
ion, and media effects. She is editor of Public Opinion Quarterly and editor-in-chief
of Oxford Bibliographies: Communication.
Mary Beth Oliver is a Distinguished Professor and Co-Director of the Media Effects
Laboratory in the College of Communications at Penn State University. Her research
is in the area of media psychology, with an emphasis on emotion and social cogni-
tion. She is co-editor of Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research (with
Jennings Bryant) and Handbook of Media Processes and Effects (with Robin Nabi).
Jaime R. Riccio is a doctoral student in the Mass Communication program at the
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She has
been working with Pamela Shoemaker since early 2011 and has co-authored a num-
ber of pieces as Dr. Shoemaker’s research assistant. Riccio’s research examines
the power of the audience in mediated contexts. She is currently studying self-
performance in online social settings and is working on a piece titled “All the
Web’s a Stage: The Dramaturgy of Young Adult Social Media Use.”
 Biographical sketches 429

M. Bjørn von Rimscha is Senior Research and Teaching Associate in the field of
media economics and media management at the Institute of Mass Communication
and Media Research of the University of Zurich. His research interest is in structural
and individual influences on media production. His work has been published
among others in Media, Culture & Society, the Journal of Cultural Economics and
the International Journal on Media Management.
Kim Christian Schrøder is Professor of Communication at the Department of Com-
munication, Business and Information Technologies at Roskilde University, Den-
mark. His co-authored and co-edited books in English include Researching audien-
ces (2003), Media cultures (1992), The Language of Advertising (1985) and Digital
Content Creation (2010). His interests comprise the theoretical, methodological and
analytical aspects of audience uses and experiences of media.
Peter J. Schulz is Professor for Communication Theories and Health Communica-
tion at the Faculty of Communication Sciences and Director of the Institute of
Communication and Health at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), and a
Guest Professor at Virginia Tech University, USA. Recent research and publications
have focused on consumer health literacy and empowerment, argumentation in
health communications, and cultural factors in health. He is author of more than
60 articles and has published nine books, most recently Theories of Communication
Sciences (four volumes, Sage, London, 2010). Since 2010 he has been Associate
Editor, then Deputy Editor-in-chief of Patient Education & Counseling (Elsevier).
Since October 2011 he has been a member of the National Research Council of the
Swiss National Science Foundation.
Charles C. Self is Professor and Director of the Institute for Research and Training
and Gaylord Chair of Journalism at the University of Oklahoma. He was Founding
Dean of the College. He has been President of the U.S. Council of Communication
Associations, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communica-
tion, and the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication. His
PhD is from the University of Iowa. He studies communication theory, international
communication, media technology, and civil society.
Lijiang Shen (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2005) is an Associate Profes-
sor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Georgia. His
primary area of research considers the impact of message features and audience
characteristics in persuasive health communication, message processing and the
process of persuasion/resistance to persuasion; and quantitative research methods
in communication. His research has been published in major communication and
related journals. He is the co-editor of the Sage Handbook of Persuasion (2nd ed.,
with James P. Dillard).
Pamela J. Shoemaker is the John Ben Snow Professor at the S. I. Newhouse School
of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Her work focuses on media con-
430 Biographical sketches

tent and the forces that shape it. Publications include Gatekeeping Theory (with T.
Vos, 2009), How to Build Social Science Theories (with J. Tankard and D. Lasorsa,
2004) and Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content
(with S. Reese, 1996). Shoemaker has been editor (with Michael E. Roloff) of Com-
munication Research, for many years and was associate editor of Journalism & Mass
Communication Quarterly.
Gabriele Siegert is Professor of Communication Science and Media Economics at
the University of Zurich and Director of the IPMZ-Institute of Mass Communication
and Media Research. Her research focuses on media economics, media manage-
ment and advertising. Recent publications deal with the comparison of advertising
markets, commercial audience research or media brands.
Christopher W. Tindale is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for
Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric (CRRAR) at the University of
Windsor, Canada. He publishes and teaches in the areas of argumentation, Greek
philosophy, and ethics. Among his key publications are: Good Reasoning Matters
(with Leo Groarke Oxford, 1989/5th ed. 2012), Acts of Arguing (SUNY, 1999), Rhetori-
cal Argumentation (Sage, 2004), Fallacies and Argument Appraisal (Cambridge,
2007), Reason’s Dark Champions (South Carolina, 2010).
Colwyn Trevarthen is Emeritus Professor of Child Psychology and Psychobiology at
the University of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a
Vice President of the British Association for Early Childhood Education. He worked
with Roger Sperry on the ‘split brain’ before moving to infancy research at with
Jerome Bruner at Harvard in 1967. He has published on vision and movement,
brain development, infant communication, early education and emotional health,
and on the psychology of musical communication.
Tim Wharton is Lecturer in Linguistics in the School of Humanities, University of
Brighton, UK. He specializes in pragmatics, the study of utterance interpretation.
In particular, his research explores how ‘natural’, non-linguistic behaviours – tone
of voice, facial expressions, gesture – interact with the linguistic properties of
utterances. His main theses are outlined in his 2009 book, Pragmatics and Non-
Verbal Communication, which charts a point of contact between pragmatics, lin-
guistics, philosophy, cognitive science, ethology and psychology.
Julia K. Woolley is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at California
Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Her research examines media proc-
esses and effects in the areas of entertainment psychology and new communica-
tion technologies. Notable achievements include co-authored articles published in
Mass Communication and Society, Human Communication Research, and Cyberpsy-
chology, Behavior, and Social Networking.
Index
Actor Network Theory 362 369–80, 383–93, 398, 401, 404–6,
Adorno, Theodor 29, 30, 321, 332, 333, 353 409, 411–19
advertising 127, 128–9, 131, 135, 138, 159– Augustus 151
60, 300, 336, 388, 419 Austin, John L. 224, 241 n. 1, 242–4, 254
affect 13, 61, 77, 102, 188 n. 2, 192, 199– Authorship
214, 231, 274, 277, 279, 281–5, 414, autism 191, 212
417, 419; see also emotion autonoesis 202
African Charter on Human and People’s autopoieisis 95
Rights (1981) 150 Ayer, Alfred J. 22
agenda setting 7, 19, 22, 294–9, 301–2,
360, 389, 412–13 Bakhtin, Mikhail 28
air-traffic control communication 268 balance theory 274, 275–6
Ajzen, Icek 189 Bandura, Albert 389, 412; see also social
Alexander, Hubert Griggs 71–4 cognitive theory
Allen, Mike 283 Barthes, Roland 21–2, 225–7, 229–30, 236,
Althusser, Louis 230, 329 356, 361
Altschull, J. Herbert 357 Bateson, Gregory 27, 68, 71, 90, 93, 94, 320
American Convention on Human Rights n. 12, 357
(1969) 150 Baudrillard, Jean 361
American Sign Language 101 Bauer, Raymond 388
American Speech and Communication Baxter, Leslie 28
Association 174 behaviourism 7, 27, 183
Anabaptists 152 belief disconfirmation paradigm 275
analogue 69, 76, 77, 79, 234, 235 Benjamin, Walter 29, 312
Anaxagoras 151 Bennett, W. Lance 301
Anderson, Benedict 319 n. 11 Berelson, Bernard 387, 389
Anderson, James A. 40, 52 Berger, Charles 9–10, 26, 190
Anderson, Jason W. 283 Berger, Peter 23
animal communication 203 Berkowitz, Leonard 415
anthropology 27, 29, 31, 228, 230, 236, 357 Berlo, David 25, 47, 399, 401, 402
apes 1102, 106, 113, 116 Bernard, Claude 201
aphasia 114, 191 Bertelsmann 138
arbitrariness 21–2, 70, 73, 224, 228 Bible 158
Aristotle 17, 77, 164–77, 274, 291, 292, 351, Bill of Rights (1791) 149
354, 370, Biltereyst, Daniel 337
Artificial Intelligence 13 biology 2, 42, 46, 48, 75, 101–17, 199–214,
arts 31, 62, 75, 203, 230, 234, 316, 333 234, 358
Associative Network Theory 184, 186, 190 biosemiotics 5, 234–5, 362
Attribution Theory 359 Birmingham School see Centre for
audience design 362–3, 368 Contemporary Cultural Studies
audience research 19, 26, 129, 262–3, 268, Blair, J. Anthony 174, 372
276, 278, 289–302, 327, 328, 330, 333, blogs 289, 390, 391, 392, 407–8, 419
335–342, 259–62, 369–380, 383–93, Bloomfield, Leonard 224
411–19 Blumer, Herbert 50–1, 386
audiences 2, 12, 14, 20, 29, 125 n. 2, 127–9, Boas, Frans 224
131, 139, 140, 169–76, 224, 226, 230, Bogart, Leo 384
231, 245–54, 289–302, 352, 354–62 Bolter, Jay David 323
432 Index

brain 61, 109, 112, 113–16, 117, 183–4, 191, cognition 60–1, 76, 77, 181–94, 205, 249,
192, 199–214 253, 257–68, 274–285, 299, 388, 412,
brainwashing 150 414, 415
brands 124, 126, 131 n. 3, 135 cognitive dissonance 13, 188, 274, 275, 359,
Bremond, Claude 229 387
broadcasting 7, 19, 29, 124, 126–39, 150, cognitive psychology 257–68, 388
155, 292, 301, 321 Cognitive Rules Model 190
Broadcasting Convention (1936) 154–5 cognitive science 79, 182, 183–87
Broca, Paul 113, 114 Cohen, Bernard 388–9
Broca-Wernicke theory 113–14 Cold War 154, 316
Bühler, Karl 65–6, 76, 225 commercial communication 7; see also
Bureau of Applied Social Research 293, 355 advertising
Burgoon, Judee 28 common sense 30
Burke, Kenneth 23–4, 377, 378, 390 communication disorders 5
business characters 300–1 communication technology 7, 10, 11, 12, 18,
60, 75, 79, 127, 133, 136, 158, 203, 302,
Callon, Michel 362 310–23, 337, 341, 358–9, 386, 392,
Calvin, John 152 403
Cameron, Deborah 254 communicative competence 7, 208
Cantril, Hadley 355, 388 communicative efficiency 4, 163–177, 230
capitalism 51, 300–1, 331–5, 362, 384 communicology 75–7
Carey, James W. 41, 53, 316 n. 7, 357 Comparative Principles and Maxims 246
Carnap, Rudolf 241 complexity 24, 68, 71, 74, 78, 90, 95, 98,
Cartesianism 163; see also embodiment 147, 190, 328, 361, 397, 399
Castells, Manuel 321, 362 computers 24–5, 59, 61, 66, 69, 75, 78, 79,
cell phone 322, see also mobile phone + 108–9, 113, 176, 277, 323, 370, 391,
smart phone 404, 418
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies Comte, August 152
29–30, 231, 328–335 concentration of media 123, 135–40
Chang, Tsan Kuo 361 congruity theory 274, 276, 359
channel 2, 6, 10, 12, 14, 40, 41, 62, 66, 68, connotation 3, 74, 225–7, 292, 386
74, 86–9, 114, 127–8, 136, 153, 227, consciousness 19, 60, 64, 75–6, 77, 87, 157,
292, 294, 309, 312, 323, 353, 369, 374, 184, 200–2, 205–6, 208, 211, 331, 337
379, 398–409, 412 consonants 103, 105, 110–1, 113
Charter for a Free Press (1992) 151 Constantine the Great 151
Chartier, Roger 320 constative 243
Chen, Guo Ming 31 content plane 226
Chicago School see University of Chicago context 2, 5–6, 9, 11–13, 28, 31, 61, 62, 64,
Chomsky, Noam 224, 249 69, 70, 71. 73, 74, 76–8, 96, 98, 123,
chronemics 64 127, 131, 132, 136, 139, 166, 168, 171,
Cicero 166, 167, 168 173–4, 200–1, 213, 232, 235, 236, 246,
cinema 312, 323; see also film 247, 249, 253, 268, 273, 274, 279–80,
citizen journalism 12 292, 297, 310–11, 314, 317, 318, 320,
citizenship 30, 126, 130, 136, 149, 166 n. 1, 327–8, 331, 336, 337, 358, 360, 373–4,
289–302, 329, 337, 338, 340 377–8, 387, 390, 402, 403–4, 414–15,
Clark, Herbert H. 257–68 416, 418, 419
code 10–11, 13, 22, 29, 60–1, 62–79, 86–98, Contractor, Nashir 361–2
110–11, 148, 152, 154, 156, 160, 206, Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
223–36, 249, 252, 254, 310, 316, 320, 150, 151, 156–7
331, 335–6, 362, 391–2, 401 convergence 108, 123, 133, 137–40, 338, 342
 Index 433

convergence culture 338 Declaration of Rights (1776) 149

conversation 43, 59, 63, 64, 76, 125, 131, decoding see encoding/decoding
134, 172–4, 184, 199, 206–7, 211–13, deictics 76
242–54, 257–268, 338, 378, 383, 384, Demosthenes 148, 151
399, 403, 418 denotation 73, 225–7
Conversation Analysis 50, 254, 260 Derrida, Jacques 361
Cooperative Principle 172–4, 247–8 Descartes, René 152
Copernicus, Nicolaus 152 Dewey, John 23, 290–1, 312–3, 386
copyright 125, 127 diachrony 71, 252, 340
Corner, John 336 Dialogic Theory 360
costs of communication 126 Diffusions of Innovation model 360
Couldry, Nick 338 digital 27, 62, 70, 76 , 77, 126, 129–30, 136,
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) 140 234–5, 323, 338–9, 342, 361, 390–
150 3
Craig, Robert T. 13, 31–2, 39–58, 169 dilemma of cooperation 258
crisis communication 12 Dillard, James P. 283
Critical Discourse Analysis 224; see also Dilthey, Wilhelm 50
Fairclough, Norman discourse 30–1, 41–2, 43, 49, 51, 52, 64, 70,
critical theory 28–9, 51–2, 357; see also 71, 76, 95, 148, 163, 165, 171, 174 n. 8,
Frankfurt School 186, 192, 213, 224–5, 228, 238, 254,
critical tradition 31, 42, 52 289, 292, 321, 327, 328, 339–40, 371–
Cultivation Theory 20, 45, 385, 413 2, 379, 383, 405
discourse analysis 49, 224, 254, 339–340
Cultural Indicators 413
discourse processing 192
cultural paternalism 332–3
discrete emotions model 283–4
cultural pessimism 332–3
disintermediation 133
cultural science 332, 342
disorders see communication disorders
cultural studies 14, 29–31, 50–1, 230–1, 327,
disposition theory 417
343
dominant reading 29–30, 230–1, 335–6
culture 2, 3, 5, 18, 21, 22, 26, 28–31, 41–4,
Dong, Dong 361
50–1, 61, 63, 68–71, 75, 92, 94–6, 102,
Donsbach, Wolfgang 2, 7
129, 139, 157, 159, 163, 170, 199–204,
Doob, Leonard W. 292
213, 225, 228, 230, 236, 254, 301, 311–
dotcom bubble 138
16, 318–22, 327–342, 357, 359, 361,
drive model 281–3
403, 419; see also sociocultural models dual process model 13, 274, 277, 279–80,
+ cultural studies 284
cybernetics 24–5, 31, 42, 59, 86, 311 n. 1, Dynasty 336
314, 351, 358
cybersemiotics 362 Eagleton, Terry 53
Eco, Umberto 29, 32, 62, 226–30, 232, 236,
Dallas 337 320, 356,
Darnton, Robert F. 311, 320 ecology 201, 310
Darwin, Charles 101–2, 104, 106, 111, 211, economics 13, 123–40
312 economies of scale 126, 128, 134, 135, 139,
Davis, Natalie Zemon 320 140
Dawn of the Dead 301 economies of scope 126, 128
Deacon, David 336 ECREA 4
Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du Education 268
citoyen (1789) 149 educational communication 12
Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of effects 5, 6, 11, 14, 19, 20, 24, 25–6, 41, 46,
Journalists (1954) 151, 159 93, 111, 124–5, 126, 130, 133–4, 137,
434 Index

140, 153, 167, 181, 274, 283, 289–302, Fairclough, Norman 339–40
310, 315, 318, 321, 328, 329–332, 333, false consciousness 331
336, 351–63, 369–70, 377, 383–90, falsifiability 45
411–20 Fascism 19, 386
Eisenstein, Elizabeth 320 fear 204, 253, 281–2, 283–6, 291, 386, 414
Elaboration Likelihood Model 188–9, 279, Febvre, Lucien 320
360 feedback 24–6, 206, 260, 319–321, 358, 391
elitism 332–4 Ferguson, Marjorie 341
Ellul, Jacques 385 Festinger, Leon 359, 387, 390; see also
email 131–2, 369, 373, 391, 398–9, 401, 408 cognitive dissonance
emblem 70 fetus 201, 205–09, 14
embodiment 60–1, 77–8, 192, 201–2, 309– Field Theory 361
323 film 30, 125 n. 1, 130, 132, 225, 232, 224,
embryo 116, 201, 202, 204–8, 214 292, 301, 312, 322, 339, 388, 389, 391,
emotion 24, 28, 60, 61, 69, 77, 101, 102, 404, 414
105, 114, 117, 166–7, 176, 188 n. 2, 192, financing 127, 131–2
199–200, 203, 205–8, 14, 231, 250, first order conditions of arguments 375
252–3, 281–5, 289, 379, 412, 414, 419; Firstness 77
see also affect Fischer, Claude S. 321
empiricism, 22, 52, 330, 352 Fish, Stanley E. 231
encoding see encoding/decoding Fishbein, Martin 189, 279; see also
encoding/decoding 14, 29–30, 73–4, 86, expectancy-value theory + Theory of
110–11, 229–31, 236, 326–342 Reasoned Action
Enfield, Nicholas J. 254 Fiske, John 337
Engels, Friedrich 300 fixed code fallacy 231–5
engineering 24, 59–60, 62, 67, 85–8, 227, Flusser, Vilem 323
401 Foerster, Heinz von 92–3, 94
Enlightenment 30, 168 n. 4, 233, 352, 386 Food and Drug Administration 292
Entman, Robert M. 297, 301, 359 Foucault, Michel 357, 361
entropy 26, 401 Fox Tree, Jean E. 265
Epicureans 149 FOXP2 human gene 116–7
epistemology 31, 39, 40, 42–58, 93 framing 20, 296–302, 359, 413
Erasmus 152 Frankfurt School 28–31, 51, 312, 328–9,
Ettema, James 384 332–4, 339, 353; see also critical
etymology 1, 6–7 theory
Eurocentrism 22, 42 Franks, Bradley 254
European Convention for the Protection of Frederick II 152
Human Rights and Fundamental free choice paradigm 275
Freedom (1950) 150 free speech 147–60, 298
European Court of Human Rights 158 freedom of information 147–60
Excellence Theory 360 Frege, Gottlob 90, 241
Expanded Parallel Process Model 282–3 Freud, Sigmund 29, 152, 355
Expectancy Violations Theory 28 functionalism 183–6, 187, 188, 191, 332
expectancy-value theory 124 fundamental frequency 103–4
expression plane 226 Fussell, Susan M. 260
eye tracking 402
Gallup, George 387
Facebook 391, 399, 419 Gans, Herbert J. 301
facial expression 91, 101, 191. 207, 250, 375 Garfinkel, Harold 254
Fahrenheit 911 297 Gaudet, Hazel 387
 Index 435

gaze 250, 253, 258–9, 336, 403 habitus 70, 202, 211
Geddes, Patrick 313–4 Hajru, Auli 338
Geertz, Clifford 357 Hall, Edward T. 31
General Semantics 22–3, 223, 234 Hall, Stuart 14, 29–30, 230–1, 235, 236,
general systems theory 78, 358 327–339, 241–2, 356–7, 388; see also
generative realism 193–4 encoding/decoding
genes 116–7, 200, 204, 234 Halliday, Michael A.K. 213, 339
genetic code 231, 235 Hallin, Daniel C. 301
Gentili, Bruno 317 n. 8 Halloran, James 330–1
geography 5, 128, 135, 362 haptics 64, 323, 402, 406
Gerbner, George 6, 20, 47, 359, 385, 413; Hardt, Hanno 352
see also Cultivation Theory + Cultural Haridakis, Paul M. 416
Indicators Harris, Roy 232
German Idealism 352 Harris, Zellig 224
Gestalt psychology 359, 361 Hartley, Ralph 87, 401
gesture 59, 70. 71, 74, 91, 101–2, 104, 203, Harvard concept 124
209, 212–214, 250, 258, 375 Harvard Law Review 157
Giddens, Anthony 311, 319–20, 357 Hastorf, Albert 388
Giedion, Siegfried 313–4 Havelock, Eric A. 317, 318
Gigerenzer, Gerd 249–50, 252 Hayakawa, S. I. 23, 357; see also General
Gillespie, Marie 337 Semantics
Gleick, James 66, 69, 319 n. 9 health communication 7, 12, 268
glottocentrism 6, 223, 234 hegemony 30, 31, 330, 337, 357
Goals-Plan-Action theory 188 n. 2 Heider, Fritz 260, 276, 359
Goffman, Erving 359 Henry II of France 152
Golding, Peter 341, 388 Herbers, Lauren E. 193
Goody, Jack 317 hermeneutics 49, 92
Google Art Project 399 Hermes, Joke 336–7
GPS 419 Hesmondhalgh, David 341
Graham, Todd S. 338 heuristic systematic model (HSM) 279–81,
grammar 61, 66–71, 77, 249, 252 360
Gramsci, Antonio 30, 230, 357 heuristics 188, 249, 252–3, 280
graph theory 361 Himelboim, Itai 361
Gray, Ann 337 Hippocrates 5
Greene, John O. 181–94, 416 Hippocratic Oath 158
Greene, Kathryn 416 Hjelmslev, Louis 225, 226, 227
Greimas, Algirdas J. 229 Hobbes, Thomas 152
Grice, H. Paul 172–4, 222, 242, 244–252, Hobson, Dorothy 231
253–4 Hoffmeyer 234–5
Gripsrud, Jostein 336 Hoggart, Richard 328, 333–4
Grootendorst, Rob 173–4 Homans, George C. 390
grounded practical theory 52 Horkheimer, Max 29, 51, 52, 332, 353
grounding 260–3 Houtlosser, Peter 173, 174
group communication 11, 68, 123, 411 Hovland, Carl 25, 181, 353–4, 389
Grunig, James E. 360 Huffington Post 391
Grusin, Richard 323 human information processing (HIP) 183–6
Guggenheim, Lauren 301 human rights 148–60
humanities 2, 5, 31, 39, 49, 50, 52, 228,
Habermas, Jürgen 30–1, 44, 50–2, 168–9, 234, 310, 328, 332–335, 341, 342
319, 320; see also public sphere Husserl, Edmund 65, 76
436 Index

hyperactive audience 390–2 190–3, 203, 210–12, 213, 257, 273, 280,
hypodermic needle effect 19, 292–3, 352, 293–5, 298, 329, 337, 335, 370, 387,
355; magic bullet model 388, 390, 411, 417–19
interpersonal transcendence 193
icon 60, 61, 74, 75, 77, 227 interpretant 69, 70, 228, 232–3, 235, 236
ideology, 29–30, 51, 94, 223, 226, 297, 331– interpretive communities 231, 335, 337
342, 357 intertextuality 323, 334, 338, 340
Iengar, Shanto 301 iPad 404
illocution 243–4
implicature 172–4, 241–54 Jakobson, Roman 60, 64, 69–71, 72, 73, 76,
impression management 273 225, 227, 232
index 60, 61, 74, 75, 77, 96, 227, 277, 300 Janis, Irving L. 282
individualism 48, 234, 301 Jasper, Herbert H. 205
induced compliance paradigm 275 Jensen, Klaus Bruhn 337, 341
infancy 102–12, 199–214, 258 Jo, Eunkyung 415
Informatics 62, 78, 309 n. 1 John the Baptist 245
information 13, 40, 59–84, 86–98, 148–60, Johnson, Ralph 174, 372
173, 181–194, 200, 201, 206, 226, 227– journalism 3, 4, 12, 17–18, 25, 124, 125 n. 1,
232, 245–6, 250, 251, 253, 258, 259, 126, 138, 151, 153–4, 158–9, 295, 299–
264, 266, 268, 275, 277, 281, 282–4, 300, 301–3, 336, 338–9, 352, 392, 393
289–91, 295–302, 309–323, 336, 338,
354–5, 358, 360–2, 374–5, 380, 384–7, Kant, Immanuel 152
390, 392, 401–2, 404, 407–8, 416, Karcevskij, Sergei 225
418–19
Katz, Elihu 231, 293, 336, 356, 387, 388,
information theory 13, 25, 26, 59–84, 182,
390, 418
226, 227–232, 358
Kellner, Douglas 51, 301
Innis, Harold A. 314–8, 320, 322
Kelman, Herbert 389
Inoculation Theory 360
Kern, Stephen 319 n. 9
instructional communication see educational
kinesics 64
communication
Klapper, Joseph T. 293–4
instrumentalism 48
Knowledge Gap Hypothesis 360, 385
intelligent machines 78–9
Korzybski, Alfred 23, 357; see also General
intercultural communication 7
Semantics
interdisciplinarity 2, 17, 39, 44
Krauss, Robert M. 260
intermediation 316, 321–3
International Code of Advertising Practice Krcmar, Marina 416,
(1973) 159 Kuhn, Thomas 47–8
International Communication Association
(ICA) 4, 48 Lacan, Jacques 357
International Federation of Journalists of Lambert, Bruce L. 185–6
Allied and Free Countries 153 language 21–4, 61–2, 65–7, 70–1, 75, 164–
International Organisation of Journalists 77, 200, 202–3, 205–14, 224–34, 242–
153–4 55, 257–268, 312, 317, 322–3, 328–333,
International Telegraph Convention (1985) 357, 377–9
158 langue 71, 224–5
internationalization 123, 138–40 larynx 103, 104–5, 106–8
internet 14, 78, 132, 133, 136, 138, 176, 231, Lashley Karl S. 207
289, 309, 321–2, 338, 361, 391–2, 397, Lasswell, Harold 6, 10–11, 12–13, 14, 18, 41,
416, 418–9 83, 181, 292, 352–6, 358, 360, 383,
interpersonal communication 11, 28, 45–6, 384, 390, 398–400
65, 68, 102–17, 123, 124, 125, 132, 182, Latour, Bruno 310 n. 4, 362
 Index 437

Law, John 362 mass communication 11, 18, 25, 45, 96, 123–
Lazarsfeld, Paul 19–20, 293, 353–6, 385, 45, 153, 181, 182, 223, 293, 312, 329,
387, 418 352, 383, 398, 400, 411, 418
Le Bon, Gustave 386 mathematics 26, 45, 47, 61, 62, 64, 86–7,
League of Nations 149 92, 98, 358
Leavis, Frank R. 362 Matthes, Joerg 295
Leventhal , Howard 282 Maturana, Humbert R. 95
Levinson, Stephen 254 Maxim of Relation 247
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 229, 329, 357 McCombs, William E. 20, 294, 295, 389
Lewin, Kurt 25, 27, 353–5, 359, 361 McCulloch, Warren 96
Lewis, Justin 337, 341 McLuhan, Marshall 310, 317, 318–20, 323,
Liebes, Tamar 231 358, 409
linguistics 2, 21–24, 29, 60–71, 76, 172, 189, McNeill, David 101–3
199, 213, 224–6, 229, 232–3, 236, Mead, George Herbert 23, 388
242–54, 257, 260, 262, 268, 317, 339– Mead, Margaret 27, 59, 74, 75
40, 357, 362, 377, 379 mechanization 311–15. 318
Lippmann, Walter 18, 290–1, 299, 312 media 2, 4, 7, 13–14, 18, 19–22, 26, 29–30,
literary studies 43, 229, 231, 328, 329, 332, 40–54, 65, 66, 91, 123–40, 150–60,
334 176, 181, 184, 191, 201–2, 223–236,
Livingstone, Sonia 338 257, 273, 290–302, 309–323, 327–342,
locution 243–4 351–419
logic 61, 64–6, 77, 79, 164–77, 213, 225, media archaeology 309
241, 242, 249, 274, 279, 291, 314, 333, Media Systems Dependency Theory 360
335, 336, 340, 371, 372–3, 377 mediation 2, 14, 19, 21, 30, 31, 41–2, 61–72,
logical positivism 22, 242 123–40, 189, 205, 210, 259, 268, 274,
Longinus 167 n. 2 285, 291, 293, 309–23, 333, 335–40,
Lotman, Jurij 64, 69–70, 229–30 352, 355, 370–4, 403–4, 418
Luckmann, Thomas 23 medicine 4–5
Luhmann, Niklas 26, 90–1, 93, 95–6, 97, 125 memory 61, 76, 92, 103, 114–5, 167, 131–94,
Lull, James 337 234, 280, 312, 370
Lumsdaine, Arthur A. 389 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 77, 78, 260
Lunt, Peter 338 Merton, Robert K. 45, 293, 385
Luther, Martin 152 Message 2, 10, 14, 18–29, 40–1, 47, 66–74,
86–97, 124, 149, 152–8, 165–6, 173,
MacKay, Donald 93 176, 181, 184–5, 187–94, 203, 226–34,
MacLean, Malcolm 47, 359 257, 262–3, 274, 276–7, 279–84, 291–
Macy Foundation Conference on Cybernetics 2, 295–8, 302, 310, 315, 329–39, 353–
(1950) 59 7, 359–61, 369–80, 384–90, 390–2,
magic bullet model 292, 293, 352; see also 398–409, 411, 414, 418–19
hypodermic needle effect message planning 90, 184, 190
Manner Maxim 247 metalanguage 71, 225
Manovich, Lev 323 metanarratives 3
Marcuse, Herbert 29 Miller, George A. 182
market size 128 Mills, C. Wright 45
Martin, Henri-Jean 320 Milton, John 149, 152
Marvin, Carolyn 321 mobile phone 402, 404; see also cell phone
Marx, Karl 29 + smart phone
marxism 30–1, 52, 300, 328–34, 352, 356, Molella, Arthur P. 314 n. 3
386 Monge, Peter 361–2
mash-ups 361 Morley, David 230–1, 335, 337
438 Index

Morris, Charles 244, 357 object language 71

motor control 13, 102–117, 191–2. 202–11, observer, 60, 61, 67, 68, 85–98, 358, 388
281 ocularics 64
Müller, Johannes 88, 103, 105 Ogden, Charles K. 227
multi-player games 407–8 Olbrechts-Tytecha, Lucy 169–72, 378
Mumford, Lewis 313–4 olfactorics 64
Murdock, Graham 388 Olson, David 319 n. 10
Murray, Oswyn 317 n. 8 ontogenesis 107, 200–5, 258
myth 22, 69, 204, 225, 229 ontology 31, 39, 40, 41–58, 254
mythology 225–6, 236 opinion leaders 19, 293, 355, 387, 418; see
also two-step flow
Nabi, Robin 284 oppositional (reading) 29–30, 230, 335
narrative 3, 21, 28, 50, 71, 175, 200, 207, orality 69–70, 75, 107–9, 150, 311–22
211, 212–14, 229, 298, 322, 361, 376–7, organizational communication 7, 11, 411
413 Osgood, Charles E. 276, 359; see also
narratology 229 Congruity Theory
National Communication Association (NCA) ostensive communicative acts 242, 250–2
2, 4
natural language 67, 174, 176, 213, 232, Pacific and Asian Communication
249, Association (PACA) 4
Nazism 19, 312, 332, 352 pan-communication 6
Nearey, Terrance 107, 109 parallel response model 281, 282–3
negotiated (reading) 27–30, 230, 335 parasocial interaction 418–9
Negus, Victor 104–5, 106, 107, 109 Park, Robert 18, 312
network theory 11, 133–40, 351–63 Parkin, Frank 29, 230
Neuman, W. Russell 301 Parkinson’s disease 112, 114, 115
neural bases of speech 112–17 parole 71, 224–5
neuroscience 191–2, 199–214 Pascal, Blaise 152
New York Times 391 Pask, Gordon 97
newspapers 18, 127–38, 157, 292, 294, 299, Payne Fund studies 292, 412
312, 318, 319, 322, 354, 355, 384, 389, Peirce, Charles S. 21, 23, 60, 66, 70, 71, 227,
391, 400, 403, 404 228, 231, 232–4, 236
Newton, Sir Isaac 152 Penfield, Wilder 205
Nike 371 Perelman, Chaim 165, 167 n. 2, 169–72, 174,
Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth 289 n. 1 378
noise 6, 24–5, 86, 86, 90, 92, 110, 401 performative 243, 369
nonverbal communication 2, 10–11, 21, 26, personal influence 387; see also two-step
28, 63, 71–9, 181, 186, 213, 226, 233, flow
234–235, 252, 266, 268, 370, 375 persuasion 2, 7, 13, 19, 20, 152, 163–6, 188–
non-western communication theory 3–4, 18, 9, 193, 273–85, 294, 312, 329, 352–5,
31, 42–3, 51, 77, 163, 164, 175–6, 312, 360, 369, 374–5, 377–8, 389, 412
378 pharynx 107–8
normativity 13, 40, 49, 53, 71, 125, 147–60, phenomenology, 31, 41, 65, 70, 75, 76, 361
170, 174–5, 189, 277–8, 289, 299–300, philosophy of science 44–5
331, 358, 378, 390–1 phonetics 61, 70, 105, 110–11, 115
Nyquist, Harry 87, 401 phonology 69
photography 226, 312, 323,
O’Keefe, Barbara 185–6 phylogenesis 258
O’Keefe, Daniel 379 Piaget, Jean 357, 388
object (Peircean) 232–3 Pitt, William 157
 Index 439

Plato 17, 65, 157, 186, 274, 290–1, 311, 351 Radway, Janice A. 337
plays see theatre Rafaeli, Sheizaf 406
pluralism 10, 135, 233 Ramus, Peter 167
poetics 49 readers 20–2, 61, 87, 96, 127, 128, 167, 192,
political communication 7 223–36, 294, 310–11, 317, 320, 335–42,
political science 9, 17 361, 404
Pope Gregory IX 151 Reagan, Ronald 21
pornography 5 recursion 87–98, 188 n. 2
positivism 352; see also logical positivism reductionism 48
postal service 132, 152 redundancy 69, 70, 73, 76, 90–2
Poster, Mark 328
Reese, Stephen D. 297, 298, 299
posthumanism 235, 362
referent 72, 73, 74, 227, 228
postmodernism 3, 9–10, 49, 50, 52–3, 77,
Reformation 152, 383, 386
311, 361
Regulation of Printing Act (1695) 149, 152
post-structuralism 361
relational communication 27–8
pragmatics 13, 24, 60, 62, 67, 73, 77, 78–9,
Relational Dialectics Theory 28
172–3, 224, 241–55, 257
pragmatism 23, 312, 359, 360 Relevance Theory 242, 248–53
Price, Vincent 391 representamen 70, 232–3
primary modelling 78 representation 6, 8, 30, 46–7, 60, 66, 70,
priming 20–1, 295–8, 301, 411, 414–15, 73, 77, 183, 194, 190, 200, 208, 213,
Princeton University Radio Project 353, 355 260, 296, 311, 331–333, 339–40, 362,
proletariat 29, 386 384
propositional attitude psychology 245 reverse decoding 388
Propp, Vladimir 229 rhetoric 2, 7, 13, 17, 23–4, 31, 49, 61–2, 70,
Protagoras 151 77, 163–177, 181, 311, 351, 356, 369,
proxemics 31, 64 376, 377–80
psycholinguistics 24, 257, 260 Richards, Ivor A. 227
psychology 1–2, 5, 9, 17, 27, 182–191, 194, Rogers, Priscilla S. 340
199–214, 228, 242, 245, 249, 252–4, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 152, 312, 386
257–68, 275–85, 351–362, 377, 388, Rubin, Alan M. 416
389, 411, 414–19 Ruesch, Jürgen 68, 71, 74–5, 94, 357
Ptah Hotep 147 Russell, Bertrand 241
public communication 13, 14
public opinion 13, 18–21, 30, 136, 289–302, Salome 245
352, 386, 387, 389, 392, 413
Salthe, Stanley N. 310 n. 1, 320 n. 12
public service 127, 129, 130, 135
Sapir, Edward 72, 224, 357
public sphere 30–1, 319, 338, 352
Sartre, Jean-Paul 152
Pushkin, Alexander 229
Saussure, Ferdinand de 21, 70, 90, 224–9,
232, 329, 357
Quadrivium 61
Sceptics 149
qualitative approaches 11, 26, 28, 49, 231,
336–8, 341 Schaefer, Edward F. 261
Quality Maxim 247 Schäffle, albert 352
quantitative approaches 2, 11, 19, 28, 254, schemata 184, 359
291, 329, 330, 331, 338, 341 Schramm, Wilbur 25, 27, 310 n. 3, 354, 399,
Quantity Maxim 247 401
Quintilian 166 n. 1, 168 science 3, 8–9, 44–6, 85–7, 93, 159, 193–4,
203, 224, 233, 236, 309, 329
radio 19, 127, 133, 138, 154, 292, 321, 352, science communication 12
353, 354, 355, 385, 390, 391, 398, 400, Scollon, Ron 340
401, 419 scripts (cognitive) 184
440 Index

scripts (written) 4, 183, 312 social psychology 9, 18, 19, 25, 182 n. 1, 355
Searle, John R. 242, 254, 357 social sciences 2, 5, 8, 17, 31, 39, 44–5, 49–
Sebeok, Thomas A. 75, 203, 231–6, 249 50, 52, 69, 86, 94, 254, 260, 294, 310,
second order conditions of arguments 375 315, 328, 329–30, 341, 352, 355
secondary modelling 78 sociocultural model 29–30, 31, 42, 326–342
Secondness 77 sociolinguistics 24, 254
selection sociology 1–2, 5, 9, 17, 18, 45, 95, 230
selection 90–3 sociopsychological model 31, 42
self 27, 42, 43, 50, 53, 70, 89, 94–8, 169– Socrates 148–9, 151, 351
70, 188, 192–3, 199–214, 235, 264, South African Communication Association
266, 276, 279–80, 283, 313, 390, 391, (SACOMM) 4
414 speech 11, 13, 18, 101–17, 147–60, 165–77,
Selten, Reinhard 252 184–5, 209–14, 232, 241–254, 258–9,
Semantic Web 78 264–5, 298, 311, 315, 318, 352, 357,
semantics 30, 59, 60, 62, 65–6, 73, 78–9, 370, 374
87, 94, 95, 173, 244, 246, 401 speech act theory 241–254, 257, 357, 373–4
semiology 21, 223–2, 230–1, 236, 329 Spencer-Brown, George 96–8
semiotic freedom 233–4; see also Hoffmeyer Sperber, Dan 253
semiotics 2–3, 13, 14, 21, 29, 49, 60–79, Spiral of Silence 360, 418
203, 223–36, 339, 362 Sproule, Michael J. 291
Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver model St. Paul 151
402 Standage, Thomas 319 n. 9
Serres, Michel 87 Stoics 149
Shannon, Claude 13, 24–5, 26, 59, 62, 63, strategic communication 96
66–7, 68, 85–91, 94, 98, 228, 314, 358, Strawson, Peter F. 242
399, 400–2 structuralism 29, 329, 357, 361
Shaw, Donald T. 20, 294, 389 Structuration Theory 357
Sheffield, Fred D. 389 structure of feeling 334
Sherrington, Charles 205 Structure-Conduct-Performance paradigm
signifiant 70, 224, 228 127–8
signifié 70, 224, 228 subjectivity 211, 260, 313
signified see signifié Sundar, Shyam S. 405
signifier see signifiant Supermaxim 247
signs 5, 21–3, 31, 59–79, 85–7, 90, 92, 105– Swales, John M. 340
11, 114, 129, 202–3, 206–13, 223–36, symbol 8, 14, 23–4, 27, 41, 50, 60, 61, 62,
249–50, 258–61, 265, 267, 282, 310– 74, 77, 78, 92, 111, 200–04, 213, 227,
21, 328, 334–42, 361, 371 273, 297, 309, 310–323, 337, 357, 362,
Simmel, Georg 91, 351 379, 388
Sinclair, Upton 292 symbolic exchange 14, 310–23
Siskin, Clifford 319 n. 11 symbolic interactionism 23, 50–1, 388
Situational Theory of Publics 360 synchrony 71, 209, 212, 224–5, 229, 274,
smart phone 391, 402 407–8
Snyder, Robert 384 syntactics 60, 62, 67, 78–9
social cognition 187–9, 253 systemic functional linguistics 224
Social Cognitive Theory 26, 360 systemic theories 13, 85–94, 358
social constructionism 359
Social Learning Theory 26, 188 Tacitus 149
social media 131, 301, 302, 390–3 Tannenbaum, Percy H. 276, 359; see also
social networks 11, 131, 134, 351, 361, 398– Congruity Theory
9, 407–8, 416, 419 Tarde, Gabriel 386
 Index 441

Tarski, Alfred 241 van Eemeren, Frans 173–4, 374

technology see communication technology van Gorp, Baldwin 301
Tel Quel 229 Varela, Francisco J. 95
telegraph 75, 87, 152, 152–3, 158, 315, 318, variationist linguistics 254
319 n. 9, 320–1, 386 Vaudeville 384
telephone 24, 62, 66, 75, 109, 132, 134, 136, verbal communication 2, 10–11, 26, 28, 45,
261, 266–7, 321 47, 63, 69–72, 76–9, 174, 181, 185, 186,
television 30, 128, 131, 133, 135, 126, 139, 226, 232–5, 244, 260, 262, 264, 281,
230–1, 296, 300, 310 n. 3, 312, 322–3, 330, 370, 403; see also speech +
327, 330, 332, 336–7, 385, 388, 390, writing
391, 404, 413, 415, 416–17 video 337, 375, 390, 391, 404, 405
tertiary modelling 78 video games 416, 417, 419
text 13, 18, 24, 49, 50, 110, 154, 158, 199– violence 156, 230, 296, 330, 331, 393, 414–
200, 223, 226, 228–31, 297, 301, 311, 15, 418, 393
317, 319–20, 322, 328, 331–6, 339–40, vocal tract 105, 107–9
361–2, 374, 404 vocalics 64
text messaging 391, 398 Vološinov, Valentin 225
The Late Show with David Letterman 296 Voltaire 152
The West Wing 297 vowels 103, 105–11, 113
theatre 75, 203, 312, 292 Vygotsky, Lev 22, 388
Theory of Mind 211, 253, 259
Theory of Planned Behavior 189, 278–9 Wahl-Jørgensen, Karin 338
Theory of Reasoned Action 189, 277–8
War of the Worlds, The 19, 292; see also
thick description 231, 357–8
Wells, Herbert George + Welles, Orson
third order conditions of arguments 375
+ Cantril, Hadley
Third Person Effect 360
Warner, Michael 319 n. 11
Thirdness 77
Warner, William 319 n. 11
Thompson, Edward P. 328
Watt, Ian 317
Todorov, Tzvetan 229
Watzlawick, Paul 27–8, 375
tongue 106–7
Weaver, Warren 13, 24–5, 26, 47, 63, 85–8,
Tönnies, Ferdinand 2, 352
228, 358, 402
Toronto School 314, 315, 320 n. 3; see also
Weber, Max 50, 352
mediation
Weick, Karl 26
Toulmin, Stephen 168, 174–5, 371–2, 374,
377 Welles, Orson 385
transmission 18, 24–6, 31, 90–1, 73–4, 85– Wells, Herbert George 19, 292
98, 228 Wernicke, Karl 113–14
Trivium 61 Westley, Bruce 47, 359
turn-taking 259, 264–5, 268 White, Harrison C. 95
tweets 390, 391 Whitehead, Alfred North 94, 200
Twitter 383 Whitney, Charles 384
two-step flow 20, 293–4, 418–19; see also Whitney, William D. 224
opinion leaders Whorf, Benjamin Lee 72, 224, 357
Wiener, Norbert 24–5, 26, 86, 94, 358
Umwelt 235 Williams, Raymond 327, 33–5, 342
University of Chicago 23, 312 Wilson, Deirdre 253
Urmson, James O. 243 n. 2 Wilson, Steven R. 190
Uses and Gratifications 26, 230–1, 330–1, Witte, Kim 282–3
360, 416–17 World Wide Web 78, 322
writing 4, 23, 63, 67, 75, 96, 150, 151, 229,
value chain 125 n. 2, 132–38 311–12, 315, 317–18, 398
442 Index

young people 109–10, 150, 199, 201, 213, YouTube 391, 419
292, 391, 393
Young, Linda Wai Ling 378 zoosemiotics 75, 232