1. Introduction to Communication Theory

2. What is communication?

3. The term is complex and contested--

4. What is communication? The term is complex and contested— – we’ll look at different models of communication and different ways of thinking about the relation between self and other and between people and the material world

5. What is communication? The root of the word is “mun”

6. What is communication? The root of the word is “mun” COMMUNICATION

7. What is communication? The root of the word is “mun” COMMUNICATION Related terms include:

8. What is communication? The root of the word is “mun” COMMUNICATION Related terms include: Mundane, municipality, communion, common, mean, meaning, immunity, mutual, le monde, el mundo

9. What is communication? COMMUNICATION is “With-worlding”

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

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

12. What is Theory?

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

14. What is Theory? Root of the word is related to the ancient Greek word for informed seeing. The original “theorists” were people paid by the city to travel to distant places, witness the rituals and customs of other cultures, and report back on their experiences.

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

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

17. What is Theory? In our class, we’ll argue that everyday people use implicit theories all the time to help attend to the world. Theories, in this sense, are implicit cultural scripts that enable action (but always contain limits and blind spots).

18. What is Theory? Theories are like lenses that allow you to focus on this, but not that.

19. What is Theory? Theories are like lenses that allow you to focus on this, but not that. As with the original meaning, they are ways of seeing.

20. What is communication? COMMUNICATION is “With-worlding”

21. Rejecting the Sender-Receiver model of Communication

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

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

24. Rejecting the Sender-Receiver model of Communication

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

26. John Locke (1632-1704)

27. Locke and the individual

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

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

30. Locke and the individual He used the word “communication” to describe the way that ideas and experience might pass between private minds using words. Prior to Locke’s use of the term, communication referred to the sharing of any kind of substance, whether “spiritual” or “material”

31. Rejecting the Sender-Receiver Model

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

33. Rejecting the Sender-Receiver Model Locke’s model was incredibly influential and has shaped most people’s implicit theory (way of seeing) about communication. But it is flawed in some serious ways that we’ll explore in this class.

34. What is this thing?

35. Theory as a Way of Seeing

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

37. Theory as a Way of Seeing Theory helps us direct our attention to what matters in the situation and enables us to act.

38. Theory as a Way of Seeing Theory helps us direct our attention to what matters in the situation and enables us to act. Our theories, however, always contain blind spots and cover alternatives.

39. Theory as a Way of Seeing Key question: Do our given theories help us to solve the problems we are facing?

40. Theory as a Way of Seeing Note that the sender-receiver model doesn’t really grasp that basic “chair” problem: We don’t just get a sense impression, encode it into words, send it out to a receiver, who decodes it back into a sense impression

41. Theory as a Way of Seeing

42. CAT DOG TREE SQUIRREL

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

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

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

46. Theory as a Way of Seeing Note: the lesson here is not that anything goes, or that it is all in your head, or that all ways of seeing the world are equally valid.

47. Theory as a Way of Seeing Rather, it is that our projects and assumptions shape what we see and do and leave us more or less responsive to the world.

48. Theory as a Way of Seeing You probably believe the “theory” that the earth is curved, but you don’t operationalize that theory when you measure for a curtain rod.

49. Theory as a Way of Seeing You probably believe the “theory” that the earth is curved, but you don’t operationalize that theory when you measure for a curtain rod.

50. Theory as a Way of Seeing Your bathroom may or may not be designed with a germ theory of disease as an organizational principle.

51. Theory as a Way of Seeing Speaking of bathrooms… are your public bathrooms designed with a theory about gender as the organizing principle?

52. Window-bashing

54. Window-Bashing

55. Repetitively using an old (once useful) theory in a situation for which it is no longer useful.

56. Window-Bashing The theories may have been perfectly suited to solve the old problem; but they fail in new situations

57. Window-Bashing Think of some everyday examples!

58. Window-Bashing Again: 1.Ask, what is the theory that drives the practice? 2.What problem was that theory designed to solve? (For what role/culture did it develop)? 3.How has the world changed in ways that make the theory no longer adequate?

59. Window-Bashing Our theory-driven orientation to the world can lead to Undesired Repetitive Practices (URPS) or “window-bashing” that leave us less able to solve our problems collectively and creatively.

60. Interdependence and Pluralism In homogenous (same-genus) cultures we often share many implicit assumptions and theories about the world

61. Interdependence and Pluralism In homogenous (same genus) cultures we often share many implicit assumptions and theories about the world In heterogeneous (different genus) cultures we often do not share implicit assumptions and theories

62. Interdependence and Pluralism When our implicit theories are not shared, do we:

63. Interdependence and Pluralism When our implicit theories are not shared, do we: 1. Fight harder for our way of seeing

64. Interdependence and Pluralism When our implicit theories are not shared, do we: 1.Fight harder for our way of seeing 2.Submit/consent to the other’s way

65. Interdependence and Pluralism When our implicit theories are not shared, do we: 1.Fight harder for our way of seeing 2.Submit/consent to the other’s way 3.Negotiate a new collective theory

66. Three types of assumptions

67. Ontological:

68. Three types of assumptions Ontological: assumptions about the basic nature of the world

69. Three types of assumptions Ontological: assumptions about the basic nature of the world – Are there innate differences between people of different races or genders? Are some people “naturally” violent? Are there some things we do because of “human nature”?

70. Three types of assumptions Ontological: assumptions about the basic nature of the world – Are there innate differences between people of different races or genders? Are some people “naturally” violent? Are there some things we do because of “human nature”? – Ask: what are some of the basic assumptions about the “nature” of things/roles at play in my site.

71. Three types of assumptions Epistemological:

72. Three types of assumptions Epistemological: assumptions about knowledge

73. Three types of assumptions Epistemological: assumptions about knowledge – How do we know and what counts as authoritative knowledge? Do we trust scientists, school teachers, priests, community leaders? Do we only trust our own experiences?

74. Three types of assumptions Epistemological: assumptions about knowledge – How do we know and what counts as authoritative knowledge? Do we trust scientists, school teachers, priests, community leaders? Do we only trust our own experiences? – Ask: how do people in my site “know” what they think they know? What happens when different forms of knowing come into conflict?

75. Three types of assumptions Axiological:

76. Three types of assumptions Axiological: Assumptions about value, what is good and right; assumptions about the kind of world we want to pursue.

77. Three types of assumptions Axiological: Assumptions about value, what is good and right; assumptions about the kind of world we want to pursue. – What counts as a good job, a good relationship, a good parenting approach, an appropriate style of dress or speech or conduct.

78. Three types of assumptions Axiological: Assumptions about value, what is good and right; assumptions about the kind of world we want to pursue. – What counts as a good job, a good relationship, a good parenting approach, an appropriate style of dress or speech or conduct. – Ask: what are the ends, principles, or goals that drive action at my site…and what happens when they are not made explicit and not mutually shared?

79. Clash Clashes in underlying (often implicit and unacknowledged) ontological, epistemological, and axiological assumptions drive conflict

80. Theory as a Way of Seeing

81. The meaningfulness of a thing is determined by our way of seeing, which is shaped by our specific project, and the underlying assumptions that drive it.

82. Theory as a Way of Seeing Theory helps us direct our attention to what matters in the situation and enables us to act.

83. Theory as a Way of Seeing Theory helps us direct our attention to what matters in the situation and enables us to act. Our theories, however, always contain blind spots and cover alternatives.

84. Theory as a Way of Seeing And participants in a culture often implicitly consent to use theories/rituals that are not in their best interests.

85. Theory as a Way of Seeing Key questions: What are the implicit assumptions/rituals/cultural scripts that drive a given interaction?

86. Theory as a Way of Seeing Key questions: What are the implicit assumptions/rituals/cultural scripts that drive a given interaction? Are they helping to solve the problem, or should they be revised?

87. Theory as a Way of Seeing Key questions: What are the implicit assumptions/rituals/cultural scripts that drive a given interaction? Are they helping to solve the problem, or should they be revised?

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

89. Theory as a Way of Seeing So, as critical communication theorists, we ask: what underlying theories/assumptions are being operationalized to drive a given ritual or project?

90. Theory as a Way of Seeing So, as critical communication theorists, we ask: what underlying theories/assumptions are being operationalized to drive a given ritual or project (and are these the best choices)?

91. Consider the position of the theorist

92. You are an instrument for detecting cultural scripts--

93. Consider the position of the theorist You are an instrument for detecting cultural scripts-- Note the norms, rules, and assumptions that underlying the rituals you observe.

94. Consider the position of the theorist You are an instrument for detecting cultural scripts-- Note the norms, rules, and assumptions that underlying the rituals you observe. What are the taken-for-granted assumptions about how we “do business” around site?

95. Consider the position of the theorist Note: you can reveal those assumptions by partially violating them and then observing the response!

96. Consider the position of the theorist Note, too, however: You will bring your own assumptions and scripts to the scene and this can color your observations (productively or unproductively).

97. Theories are Ways of Seeing

98. Diversity in our implicit theories can be a source of collective intelligence if we have good participatory communication practices

99. Theories are Ways of Seeing Diversity in our implicit theories can be a source of collective intelligence if we have good participatory communication practices But we often fail to recognize and benefit from others’ “ways of seeing.”

100. Theories are Ways of Seeing Collaborative diversity can help us avoid “window-bashing” if we create conditions in which theories can be discussed openly with different stakeholders having a relatively equal opportunity for participation.

101. Theories are Ways of Seeing This is a way of seeing communication theory as part of a democratic ideal.