7 TRADITIONS OF COMMUNICATION THEORY

1. Socio-psychological Tradition

2. Cybernetic Tradition

3. Rhetorical Tradition

4. Semiotic Tradition

5. Socio-cultural Tradition

6. Critical Tradition

7. Phenomenological Tradition

SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL TRADITION

• Emphasizes the scientific perspective.

• Scholars believe that communication truths can be discovered by

careful, systematic observation that predict cause-and-effect

relationships.

• Researchers focus on what is without their personal bias of what ought

to be.

• Theorists check data through surveys or controlled experiments, often

calling for longitudinal empirical studies.

SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL TRADITION

• Focuses on the individual as a socialized entity, a part of a network of

people, but still independent in their actions

• Focus on individual social behaviour, psychological

variables, individual effects, personalities and traits, perception and

cognition

• Share a common concern for behaviour and for the personal traits and

cognitive processes that produce behaviour

COMMUNICATION FOCUS

Persuasion and attitude change

Message processing

How individuals plan message strategies

How receivers process message information

Effects of messages on individuals

Questions about communication process

Can we predict individual communication behaviour?

How does an individual take into account, accommodate, and adapt to different

communication situations?

By what logic do people make decisions about the types of messages they wish

to use?

VARIATIONS IN SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL

1. Behavioural – How people behave in communication situations

2. Cognitive – How individuals acquire, store and process information

in a way that leads to behavioural outputs

3. Biological – Our traits, ways of thinking, and behaviours are wired in

biologically and derive not from learning or situational factors, but

from inborn neurobiological influences

CYBERNETIC TRADITION

• Cybernetics: Tradition of complex systems in which interacting

elements influence one another.

• Any part of a system is always constrained by its dependence on other

parts, and this pattern of interdependence organises the system itself.

• System cannot remain alive without importing new resources in the

form of inputs. Takes inputs from the environment, processes the,, and

creates outputs that are put back into the environment.

• In addition to interdependence, systems involve self-regulation and

control. Systems monitor, regulate and control their own outputs to

achieve goals.

COMMUNICATION FOCUS

• Within cybernetics, communication is understood as a system of

parts, or variables, that influence one another, shape and control the

character of the overall system, and achieve balance and change.

• The study of information processing, feedback and control in

communication systems

• Theorists seek to answer the questions:

How does the system work?

What could change it?

How can we get the bugs out?

5 VARIATIONS IN CYBERNETIC TRADITION

1. Basic System Theory

2. Cybernetics

3. Information Theory

4. General System Theory

5. Second-order Cybernetics

BASIC SYSTEM THEORY

• Depicts systems as structures that can be analysed from the outside.

You can manipulate the system by tinkering with the inputs

CYBERNETICS

• Contrary to idea that one thing causes another in a linear fashion. How

things impact one another in circular way, how systems maintain

control, how balance is achieved and how feedback loops can maintain

balance and create change

INFORMATION THEORY

• Originates in the work of Claude Shannon in telecommunications

research

• Transmission of signals from one part of a system to others through

networks.

• Quantifies the uncertainty in messages and calculates the amount of

redundancy necessary to counteract noise and make possible the

accurate flow of messages through a system.

GENERAL SYSTEM THEORY

• Biologist, Ludwig von Bertalanffy

• Broad, multidisciplinary approach to knowledge

• Shows how things in many different fields are similar to one another

because of shared system principles

• Recognises the universal nature of all types and deals with

commonalities among systems as seemingly diverse as economic

growth, biolgical development and social movement

SECOND-ORDER CYBERNETICS

• Observers can never see how a system will work by standing outside

the system itself because the observer is always engaged cybernetically

with the system being observed.

• You affect and are affected by a system whenever you observe it.

• Also known as Cybernetics of Knowing – Knowledge is a product of

feedback loops

• between the knower and the known.

• What we observe in a system is determined in part by the categories

and methods of

• observation, which in turn are affected by what is seen.

6 FEATURES OF RHETORICAL TRADITION

1. A conviction that speech distinguishes humans from other animals.

2. A confidence in the efficacy of public address.

3. A setting of one speaker addressing a large audience with the

intention to persuade.

4. Oratorical training as the cornerstone of a leader’s education.

5. An emphasis on the power and beauty of language to move people

emotionally and stir them to action.

6. Rhetoric was the province of males.

RHETORIC IN ANCIENT TIMES

• Intentional

• Oral with no technology

• to achieve purposive ends (passing laws, making judicial decisions)

• Done in formal settings for particular purposes, not seen as occurring

in everyday communication

• Audience immediately present

5 CANONS OF RHETORIC

Canon Definition

Invention Development of the substance of the speech

Arrangement Structure of the speech/ordering of rhetorical

text

Style Verbal ornamentation of speech using

techniques such as rhetorical figures

Delivery Vocal qualities and physical movements used

by the Rhetor

Memory Used to recall information for a speech