Communication theory

(communications) The mathematical theory of the communication of information from one point to another.

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Communication is the production and exchange of information and meaning by use of signs and symbols. It involves encoding and sending messages, receiving and decoding them, and synthesizing information and meaning. Communication permeates all levels of human experience and it is central to understanding human behavior and to nearly all public health efforts aimed at fostering health behavior change among individuals, populations, organizations, communities, and societies.

Communication may be studied empirically and critically at different levels of interaction. These levels, often described on a "micro-to-micro" continuum are "intra-personal" (how individuals process information), "inter-personal" (how two individuals interact to influence one another), group (how communication dynamics occur among many individuals), formal and informal "organizations" (how communication occurs and functions in the context of organizations such as hospitals, schools, or public health agencies), and "community" and "society" (how communication builds or changes the agenda of important issues).

Empirical study means applying scientific methods to the study of communication; as in the study of behavior change resulting from exposure to a communication campaign. Critical study means applying methods of cultural, literary, or normative criticism to the study of communication; as in the analysis of how media content creates health-related meaning and influences behavioral norms through commercial advertising or entertainment.

Many fields emphasize the importance of communication theory as a basis for understanding human behavior. For the field of public health, the use of applied communication perspectives involves how communication activity positively or negatively contributes to health behavior, and how the planned use of communication influences health behavior within the context of health education and health promotion.

Organization of Communication Studies

Communication scholar George Gerbner describes three main branches of communication study. The first is "semiotics," the study of signs and symbols and how they combine to convey meaning in different social contexts. This branch is mainly concerned with how verbal, nonverbal, visual, and aural signs and symbols combine to create messages.

The second branch, media effects, is the study of behavior and interaction through exposure to messages. It emphasizes measuring, explaining, and predicting communication effects on knowledge, perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and public opinion. It is strongly influenced by scientific methods from the fields of psychology and social psychology.

The third branch, message production, is the study of the large-scale organization of communications through social institutions and systems (mass media, political organizations, government, advocacy groups), their history, regulation, and policy-making impact. It is strongly influenced by scientific methods from the field of sociology, but also by the methods of political science, history, and public affairs.

Just as no single behavioral theory explains and predicts all human behavior, no communication theory explains and predicts all communication outcomes. Some view this as a fragmentation in understanding the role of a communication in human affairs. Others view this as a productive theoretical diversity, conducive to the understanding of human activity in many complex dimensions. Communication researchers have increasingly sought to connect and to integrate effects across levels of analysis, from the "micro" to the macro. For example, health campaign planners may study the effects of a media campaign in generating interpersonal discussion. They might look at media story about a new drug or treatment to see if it causes patients to raise the issue with their health care providers.

Communication Theory and Health Behavior Change Strategies

How does communication theory inform health behavior change strategies?

Major theories of health behavior change all include communication processes. Value expectancy theories such as the health belief model and the theories of rational behavior and planned behavior depend on communication processes to catalyze health behavior change. The health belief model holds that individuals will be more likely to change their health-related behavior if they recognize a health risk or condition as important, if they view themselves as susceptible to the risk or condition and if they regard the benefits of change as outweighing barriers to making change. Communication strategies play a key role in influencing these perceptions. Similarly, communication plays an important role in influencing perceptions critical to the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior. In these theories, behavior is principally influenced by intentions to change. Intentions are influences by people's attitudes toward a specific behavior as well as their perceptions of what important referent groups think about the behavior. Communication may play a key role in influencing perceptions on both counts and thereby raise the likelihood of behavior change.

While communication dynamics in these theories are aimed principally at catalyzing health behavior change among individuals, other theories include the use of communication to affect change at the level of the community and society as well. The social cognitive theory of Albert Bandura (1986) and the transtheoretical model of Jams Prochaska et al. (1994), for example, recognize that an individuals' behavior is formed in the context of the larger community and social environment. Therefore planned interventions must include efforts to change the larger environment as well. From this perspective, communication has a role to play in influencing community and societal change in areas such as building a community agenda of important public health issues, changing public health policy, allocating resources to make behavior change easier, and legitimizing new norms of health behavior.

Community-based approaches to public health interventions and campaigns gained currency in public health during the last quarter of the twentieth century. This approach recognizes the need to seek change in health behavior across multiple levels of human experience—from the individual to the community level. Campaigns are planned efforts that seek different dimensions of change that will lead to health improvement throughout the population.

The Role of Media Communication

Because public health is interested primarily in populations, media communication is a key part of multistrategy, community-based campaigns. This is the case whether the object is to build a community's agenda for prevention, to change public policy, to educate individuals about specific health behavior changes, or all of these. Media institutions play a crucial role in health behavior change because of their role in disseminating information. As agents of socialization, like other major institutions, they also have a powerful impact in legitimizing behavioral norms. Popular and academic perspectives both hold that media communication plays a powerful role in promoting, discouraging, or even inhibiting healthy behaviors.

One type of research with applied implications for public health deals with message production. It seeks to understand the social and organizational factors that may impinge on the creation of media messages. Public health interest in this research centers around how it may influence message production processes in ways more conducive to creating messages about healthful behavior. The definition of a public health problem influences how the public understands it, the actions individuals or communities are likely to take to affect the problem, and the attention given the problem by different groups. The same processes may be used to influence entertainment content as well. The Harvard School of Public Health, for example, mounted a successful campaign to persuade television producers to include messages about the importance of the designated driver in reducing alcohol-related traffic accidents in there programs.

The second type of research studies the consequences of media exposure on individuals, groups, institutions, and social systems. The focus here is on major media effects hypotheses and their relevance to health behavior change. At the level of the individual, for example, researchers have studied learning hierarchies in which knowledge change affects attitudes, which in turn affects behavior. Others have noted different hierarchies, including dissonance-attribution, in which behavior change precedes attitude change, which in turn affects knowledge, and the low-involvement hierarchy, in which knowledge change precedes behavior, which in turn affects attitudes. Researchers, such as S. Chaffee and C. Roser (1986), have suggested that there are not three distinct hierarchies of effects, but a single continuum. The order of effects depends on where individuals or groups are positioned on this continuum with respect to a given outcome. In public health campaign settings, intervention and communication strategies will depend on an assessment of audience characteristics and needs, and on the development of appropriate messages.

Similarly, persuasion studies have focused on the chain of individual-level communication processes leading to behavior change. Early studies focused on opinion or attitude change in the context of such variables as the credibility of the information source, fear, organization of arguments, the role of group membership in resisting or accepting communication, and personality differences. Since the 1960s, however, research has emphasized cognitive processing of information leading to persuasion. This change occurred partly because of the interest Latin American scholars shown in developing new approaches to the use of mass communication in order to guide social change projects in developing countries.

Social structure has played an increasingly important role in the application of communication strategies to health behavior change. A continuing and perplexing issue involves the influence of social structure on communication and media use, and how this affects health behavior change. Epidemiological studies suggest, for example, that the health "gap" between higher and lower socioeconomic status groups in the United States is worsening rather than improving. Communication contributes to these circumstances insofar as structural barriers of access and exposure are frequently ignored or overlooked. Research has long demonstrated that knowledge and information are not equally distributed across populations. Early studies, such as those of Hyman and Sheatsley (1947), and Mosteller and Moynihan (1972), showed that people with more formal education learned and knew more about many issues, including health, than people with less formal education. These findings were formally presented as the knowledge gap hypothesis by Minnesota researchers P. J. Tichenor, G. A. Donohue, and C. N. Olien (1970). They proposed that increasing flow of information into a social system is more likely to benefit groups of higher socioeconomic status. The disturbing implications were, of course, that public campaigns would only perpetuate inequities. Because this called into question the entire basis of guided social change efforts, it attracted the attention of scholars and policy makers alike. Fortunately, subsequent studies found that knowledge gaps were not intractable. Researchers discovered a variety of contributory conditions that could reduce knowledge gaps. These conditions include content domains (some subjects are intrinsically more relevant to people, such as their health), channel influence (some channels are used more, and have greater impact, on certain groups), social conflict and community mobilization, the structure of communities, and individual motivational factors.

Future Directions

The use of communication to achieve health behavior change is now a staple of public health intervention methods, and will continue to be influential in the twenty first century. Researchers are interested in how communication at each level of analysis may influence or link to communication at other levels to affect health outcomes. Social cognitive theorist Albert Bandura recently suggested that the "power" of any single channel of communication (mass media or interpersonal) may depend on the complexity of the behavior change being sought. The less complex the change, the more the influence of a single channel may lead to performance of the behavior. On the other hand, the more complex the behavior, the greater the individuals' need for multiple exposure to multiple sources.

The emergence of new communication technologies also provides opportunities and challenges to public health. The World Wide Web, newsgroups, and other Internet innovations offer information on an array of topics from diverse sources. The nature of the medium also permits information to be available "on demand" to users. Thus, it appears that users can exert a greater degree of control in obtaining the information they seek. However, there is a potentially serious problems that warrant closer examination. New media technologies have the potential to widen the gap between those who can pay for access and gain the necessary skills, and those who cannot. If so, a significant portion of the population may once again be "out of the loop" of important health information and consequently health behavior change.

(SEE ALSO: Advertising of Unhealthy Products; Health Educater; Health Promotion and Education)

Bibliography

Bandura, A. (1986). Social Cognitive Theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

—— (1994). "Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication." In Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, eds. J. Bryant and D. Zillman. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Beniger, J. R., and Gusek, J. A. (1995). "The Cognitive Revolution in Public Opinion and Communication Research." In Public Opinion and the Communication of Consent, eds. T. L. Glasser and C. T. Salmon. New York: Guilford.

Donohue, G. A.; Tichenor, P. J.; and Olien, C. N. (1975). "Mass Media and the Knowledge Gap: A Hypothesis Reconsidered." Communication Research 2:3–23.

—— (1995). "A Guard Dog Perspective on the Role of Media." Journal of Communication 45 (2):115–132.

Ettema, J. S.; Brown, J.; and Luepker, R. V. (1983). "Knowledge Gap Effects in a Health Information Campaign." Public Opinion Quarterly 47:516–527.

Ettema, J. S., and Kline, G. G. (1977). "Deficits, Differences and Ceilings: Contingent Conditions for Understanding the Knowledge Gap." Communication Research 4:179–202.

Finnegan, J. R.; Viswanath, K.; Kahn, E.; and Hannan, P. (1993). "Exposure to Sources of Heart Disease Prevention Information: Community Type and Social Group Differences." Journalism Quarterly 70:569–584.

Gerbner, G. (1985). "Field Definitions: Communication Theory." In 1984–85 U.S. Directory of Graduate Programs.

Hawkins, R. P.; Weimann, J. M; and Pingree, S., eds. (1998). Advancing Communication Science: Merging Mass and Interpersonal Processes. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Hyman, H. H., and Sheatsley, P. B. (1947). "Some Reasons Why Information Campaigns Fail." Public Opinion Quarterly 11:412–423.

Lasswell, H. D. (1948). "The Structure and Function of Communication in Society." In The Communication of Ideas, ed. L. Bryson. New York: Institute for Religious and Social Studies.

McCombs, M. E., and Shaw, D. (1972). "The Agendasetting Function of the Mass Media." Public Opinion Quarterly 36:176–187.

McGuire, W. J. (1984). "Public Communication As a Strategy for Inducing Health Behavior Change." Preventive Medicine 13:299–319.

—— (1989). "Theoretical foundations of Campaigns." In Public Communication Campaigns, 2nd edition, eds. R. E. Rice and C. K. Arkni. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Prochaska, J.; Redding, C. A.; Harlow, L. L.; Rossi, J. S.; and Velcier, W. F. (1994). "The Transtheoretical Model of Change and HIV Prevention: A Review." Health Education Quarterly 21 (4):471–486.

Rogers, E. M. (1962; 1995). Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press.

Sigal, L. V. (1987). "Sources Make the News." In Reading the News, ed. K. Manoff and M. Schudson. New York: Pantheon Books.

Tichenor, P. J.; Donohue, G. A.; and Olien, C. N. (1970). "Mass Media Flow and Differential Growth in Knowledge." Public Opinion Quarterly 34:159–170.

—— (1980). Community Conflict and the Press. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Tuchman, G. (1978). Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: The Free Press.

Turow, J. (1992). Media Systems in Society: Understanding Industries and Power. New York: Longman.

Viswanath, K., and Finnegan, J. R. (1995). "The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis: Twenty-five Years Later." In Communication Yearbook, Vol. 19., ed. B. Burleson. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Wallack, L.; Dorfman, L.; Jernigan, D.; and Themba, M. (1993). Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Winkleby, M. A.; Fortmann, S. P.; and Barrett, D. C. (1990). "Social Class Disparities in Risk Factors for Disease: Eight-year Prevalence Patterns by Level of Education." Preventive Medicine 19:1–12.

— JOHN R. FINNEGAN,JR.; K. VISWANATH

Communication theory is a field of information and mathematics that studies the technical process of information^[1] and the human process of human communication.^[2] According to communication theorist Robert T. Craig in his 1999's essay 'Communication Theory as a Field', "despite the ancient roots and growing profusion of theories about communication," there is not a field of study that can be identified as 'communication theory'.^[3]

Contents 1 History 1.1 Origins 1.2 Models of Communication 2 Communication Theory as a Field 3 Elements of communication 4 See also 5 References 5.1 Notes 5.2 Further reading 5.3 External links 5.4 See also

History

Main articles: A Mathematical Theory of Communication, Jackobson's Communication Model, List of basic communication topics, and Harold Innis's communications theories

Origins

The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point.^[1] Claude Elwood Shannon (1916-2001)

The origins of communication theory is linked to the development of information theory.^[4] Limited information-theoretic ideas had been developed at Bell Labs, all implicitly assuming events of equal probability.

Harry Nyquist's 1924 paper, Certain Factors Affecting Telegraph Speed, contains a theoretical section quantifying "intelligence" and the "line speed" at which it can be transmitted by a communication system.

Ralph Hartley's 1928 paper, Transmission of Information, uses the word information as a measurable quantity, reflecting the receiver's ability to distinguish one sequence of symbols from any other. The natural unit of information was therefore the decimal digit, much later renamed the hartley in his honour as a unit or scale or measure of information.

Alan Turing in 1940 used similar ideas as part of the statistical analysis of the breaking of the German second world war Enigma ciphers.

The main landmark event that opened the way to the development of communication theory was the publication of an article by Claude E. Shannon in the Bell System Technical Journal in July and October 1948 under the title 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication.'^[1]​ Shannon focused on the problem of how best to encode the information that a sender wants to transmit. He used also tools in probability theory, developed by Norbert Wiener. They marked the nascent stages of applied communication theory at that time. Shannon developed information entropy as a measure for the uncertainty in a message while essentially inventing the field of information theory.

In 1949, a declassified version of his wartime work on the mathematical theory of cryptography ('Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems',) he proved that all theoretically unbreakable ciphers must have the same requirements as the one-time pad. He is also credited with the introduction of sampling theory, which is concerned with representing a continuous-time signal from a (uniform) discrete set of samples. This theory was essential in enabling telecommunications to move from analog to digital transmissions systems in the 1960s and later.

In 1951, Shannon made his fundamental contribution to natural language processing and computational linguistics with his article 'Prediction and Entropy of Printed English' (1951), providing a clear quantifiable link between cultural practice and probabilistic cognition.

Models of Communication

Main article: Models of communication

The studies on information theory by Claude Elwood Shannon, Warren Weaver and others, prompted research on new models of communication from other scientific perspectives like psychology and sociology. In science, a model is a structure that represents a theory.^[5]

Scholars from disciplines different to mathematics and engineer began to take distance from the Shannon and Weaver models as a 'transmissible model':

They developed a model of communication which was intended to assist in developing a mathematical theory of communication. Shannon and Weaver's work proved valuable for communication engineers in dealing with such issues as the capacity of various communication channels in 'bits per second'. It contributed to computer science. It led to very useful work on redundancy in language. And in making 'information' 'measurable' it gave birth to the mathematical study of 'information theory'

— D. Chandler, ^[6]

Harold Lasswell (1902–1978), a political scientist and communication theorist, was a member of the Chicago school of sociology. In his work 'The Structure and Function of Communication in Society' (1948) he defined the communication process as Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect.^[7]

An article of Richard Whately (1787–1863), 'Rhetoric (1825), that appears as a contribution for Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, was adapted into a book in 1828 as 'Elements of Rhetoric'. In 1963 it was published by the Southern Illinois University under the title 'Elements of Rhetoric: Comprising an Analysis of the Laws of Moral Evidence',^[8] with a critical introduction of Douglas Ehninger and a foreword by David Potter. They explored what they called the 'Aristotle's models of communication'. James L. Kinneavy (1920–1999) studied also the Aristotle's rhetoric and then his communication model.^[9][10]

These first studies on communication's models promoted more researches on the topic. Wilbur Lang Schramm (1907–1987), called by communication theorist Everett Rogers as the founder of communication study,^[11] focused his studies on the experience of the sender and receiver (listener). Communication is possible only upon a common language between sender and receiver.^[12]

In 1960, David Kenneth Berlo, a Schramm's disciple, expanded on Shannon and Weaver’s linear model of communication and created the Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver Model of communication (SMCR Model) exposed in his work The Process of Communication, where communication appears as a regulated process that allows the subject to negotiate with his living environment. Communication becomes, then, a value of power and influence (psychology of communication.)^[13]

Communication Theory as a Field

"(...) Although there exist many theories of communication (...) there is no consensus on communication theory as a field."^[3] (R.T. Craig)

Main articles: Communication Theory as a Field and Robert T. Craig

In 1999 Craig wrote a landmark article^[14] "Communication Theory as a Field"^[3] which expanded the conversation regarding disciplinary identity in the field of communication.^{[15][14][16][17][18][19][20]} At that time, communication theory textbooks had little to no agreement on how to present the field or what theories to include in their textbooks.^[21][22][23] This article has since become the foundational framework for four different textbooks to introduce the field of communication.^{[24][3][25][26][27]} In this article Craig "proposes a vision for communication theory that takes a huge step toward unifying this rather disparate field and addressing its complexities."^[25] To move toward this unifying vision Craig focused on communication theory as a practical discipline and shows how "various traditions of communication theory can be engaged in dialogue on the practice of communication."^[28][29] In this deliberative process theorists would engage in dialog about the "practical implications of communication theories."^[30] In the end Craig proposes seven different traditions of Communication Theory and outlines how each one of them would engage the others in dialogue.^[31]

Elements of communication

Basic elements of communication made the object of study of the communication theory:^[32]

• Source: Shannon calls it information source, which "produces a message or sequence of messages to be communicated to the receiving terminal."^[1]
• Sender: Shannon calls it transmitter, which "operates on the message in some way to produce a signal suitable for transmission over the channel.^[1] In Aristotle it is the speaker (orator).^[8]
• Channel: For Shannon it is "merely the medium used to transmit the signal from transmitter to receiver.^[1]
• Receiver: For Shannon the receiver "performs the inverse operation of that done by the transmitter, reconstructing the message from the signal."^[1]
• Destination: For Shannon destination is "the person (or thing) for whom the message is intended".^[1]
• Message: from Latin mittere, "to send". A concept, information, communication or statement that is sent in a verbal, written or recorded form to the recipient.
• Feedback

See also

• In Semiotics there are more elaborated models and theories of communication from a linguistical and philosophical point of view.

References

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Shannon, Claude Elwood (July and October, 1948). A Mathematical Theory of Communication. The Bell System Technical Journal. pp. 55. http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pdf. Retrieved 11.04.2011. 
2. ^ Dainton, Marianne; Elain D. Zellei and others (2011). Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life. Sage Publications. pp. 247. ISBN 141297691X. http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/4983_Dainton_Chapter_1.pdf. Retrieved 11.04.2011. 
3. ^ ^{a b c d} Crag, Robert T. (1999). Communication Theory as a Field. International Communication Association. http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Bibliography/Craig%20(1999)/CTasaField.html. Retrieved 12.07.2011. 
4. ^ Management Effectiveness and Communication, MBA 665, Online Resources, Communication Models. Bob Jones University. 2008. http://www.shkaminski.com/Classes/Handouts/Communication%20Models.htm. Retrieved 11.05.2011. 
5. ^ Frigg, Roman and Hartmann, Stephan (2009). Models in Science. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/models-science/#ModThe. Retrieved 11.06.2011. 
6. ^ Chandler, Daniel (1994). The Transmission Model of Communication. University of Western Australia. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/trans.html. Retrieved 11.06.2011. 
7. ^ Laswell, Harold Dwight (1948). The Structure and Function of Communication in Society. Lyman Bryson (New York: Institute for Religious and Social Studies, Jewish Theological Seminary of America. p. 37. 
8. ^ ^{a b} Richard Whately, Douglas Ehninger and David Potter (1963). Elements of Rhetoric: Comprising an Analysis of the Laws of Moral Evidence. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-2974-8. http://books.google.com.kh/books?id=bYbgnLDdOkQC&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=Ehninger,+Aristotles&source=bl&ots=bkxHTlw9DZ&sig=YdmF1zKKM74WOgoI_0jvYq6kUpo&hl=en&ei=Hku3TsybFoGviQf7of2bAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 11.07.2011. 
9. ^ Faulkner, Larry R. (1999). IN MEMORIAM JAMES L. KINNEAVY. The University of Texas at Austin. http://www.utexas.edu/faculty/council/1999-2000/memorials/Kinneavy/kinneavy.html. Retrieved 11.07.2011. 
10. ^ Honeycutt, Lee (2000). Aristotle's Rhetoric, Bibliography. Rhetoric & Composition. http://rhetoric.eserver.org/aristotle/cite.html. Retrieved 11.07.2011. 
11. ^ Wilbur Lang Schramm (1907-1987), Forefather in the field of communication. University of Rhode Island. 2000. http://www.uri.edu/personal/carson/kulveted/schrammbio.html. Retrieved 11.15.2011. 
12. ^ Oukrop, Carol Christensen (1965). A History of the University of Iowa School of Journalism, from Its Founding in 1924 under C.H. Weller, through the Tenure of Wilbur Schramm as Director, June 1947. University of Iowa. 
13. ^ Berlo, David Kenneth (1960). The process of communicatio. Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, New York. 
14. ^ ^{a b} Littlejohn & Foss 2008, pp. 6.
15. ^ Donsback, Wolfgang (September 2006). "The Identity of Communication Research". Journal of Communication (Blackwell Publishing Ltd.; International Communication Association) 54 (4): 589–615. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00294.x. http://www.um.es/tic/Documentos/lecturas%20FCI-I/FCI-I%20Tema%202%20texto%201.pdf. Retrieved Jan. 28, 2011. 
16. ^ Penman, Robyn (2000). Reconstructing Communicating: looking to a Future. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bV_dR8OhudAC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&ots=efzBSzD_Rj&sig=ZWqmXCIARV-I9D_YFko_RvdtSUM#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved Jan. 28, 2011. 
17. ^ Anderson, James A.; Baym, Geoffrey (December 2004). "Philosophies and Philosophic Issues in Communication, 1995-2004". Journal of Communication (Blackwell Publishing Ltd.; International Communication Association) 55: 437–448. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2004.tb02647.x. 
18. ^ Lindlof, Thomas R.; Taylor, Bryan C. (2002). Qualitative Communication Research Methods (2 ed.). Sage Publications Ltd.. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Op-GRnkSCGgC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&ots=IzoPS78Tu8&sig=AfWB81iEcUhCuGnTn8ZPTGSkUXo#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved Jan. 28, 2011. 
19. ^ D'Angelo, Paul (December 2002). "News Framing as a Multiparadigmatic Research Program:A Response to Entman". Journal of Communication (Blackwell Publishing Ltd.; International Communication Association) 52 (4): 870–888. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2002.tb02578.x. 
20. ^ Jimenez, Leonarda; Guillem, Susana (August 2009). "Does Communication Studies Have an Identity? Setting the Bases for Contemporary Research". Catalan Journal of Communication And Cultural Studies (Intellect Ltd.) 1 (1): 15–27. doi:10.1386/cjcs.1.1.15_1. http://www.atypon-link.com/INT/doi/pdf/10.1386/cjcs.1.1.15_1?cookieSet=1. Retrieved Jan. 28, 2011. 
21. ^ Anderson, John Arthur (1996). Communication Theory: Epistemological Foundations. Guilford Press. ISBN 1-57230-083-3. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ly8WBwYzE2QC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=Anderson,+J.+A.+(1996).+Communication+theory:+Epistemological+foundations.&ots=vYGnX0_5Kw&sig=NYBXS-6ff9HU6pmmVpiG1Qj3b28. Retrieved Feb. 2, 2011. 
22. ^ Anderson 1996, pp. 200-201.
23. ^ Craig 1999, pp. 120.
24. ^ Craig 2007, pp. 125.
25. ^ ^{a b} Littlejohn, Stephen; Foss, Karen (2008). Theories of Human Communication (9 ed.). Thomson and Wadsworth. http://www.cengagebrain.com/shop/content/littlejohn95877_0495095877_02.01_chapter01.pdf. Retrieved Jan. 23, 2011. 
26. ^ Griffin, Emory A. (2006). An First Look at Communication Theory (6 ed.). McGraw-Hill. http://books.google.com/books?id=wMdFAAAAYAAJ&q=A+first+look+at+communication+theory&dq=A+first+look+at+communication+theory&hl=en&ei=nAFGTfS3I4GosQOSv9CHCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ. Retrieved Jan. 29, 2011. 
27. ^ Miller, Katherine (2005). Communication Theories:Perspectives, Processes, and Contexts (2 ed.). McGraw-Hill. http://books.google.com/books?id=uQgcAQAAIAAJ&q=communication+theories:+perspectives&dq=communication+theories:+perspectives&hl=en&ei=JARGTcDrNY7WtQOv9cHTCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA. Retrieved Jan. 29, 2011. 
28. ^ Craig 2006, pp. 13.
29. ^ Penman 2000, pp. 6.
30. ^ Craig, Robert (May 2001). "Minding My Metamodel, Mending Myers". Communication Theory (Blackwell Publishing Ltd.; International Communication Association) 11 (2): 231–240. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2001.tb00241.x. 
31. ^ Craig 1999, pp. 132-146.
32. ^ Communication process. Center for Literacy Studies of the University of Tennessee. http://www.cls.utk.edu/pdf/ls/Week1_Lesson7.pdf. Retrieved 11.15.2011. 

Further reading

• Chandler, Daniel. Transmission Model of Communication (1994). Daniel Chandler, 1994. Web. 10 Oct. 2009.
• Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1959. 73.
• Lanham, Richard A. Analyzing Prose' 2nd (2003): 7, 10.
• Littlejohn, S. W.,Theories of human communication. 7th edition, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002.
• Emory A Griffin, A first look at communication theory. 3rd edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997. ISBN 0-07-022822-1
• Miller, K., Communication Theories: Perspectives, processes, and contexts. 2nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005.
• Werner, E., "Cooperating Agents: A Unified Theory of Communication and Social Structure", Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 2, L. Gasser and M. Huhns, eds., Morgan Kaufmann and Pitman Press, 1989. Abstract
• Werner, E., "Toward a Theory of Communication and Cooperation for Multiagent Planning", Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning About Knowledge: Proceedings of the Second Conference, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, pp. 129–143, 1988. Abstract PDF
• Robert , Craig T. "Communication." Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (2001): 125.
• Rothwell, J. Dan. "In the Company of Others: an introduction to communication." 3rd Edition, New York, NY; Oxford University Press, 2010. 11-15.
• A First Look At Communication Theory by Em Griffin (Published by McGraw-Hill)
• Communication Theory: Epistemological Foundations by James A. Anderson
• Communication Theories: Origins, Methods and Uses in the Mass Media (5th Edition) by Werner J. Severin and James W. Tankard
• Theories of Human Communication (9th Edition) by Stephen W. Littlejohn and Karen A. Foss
• Communication: Theories and Applications by Mark V. Redmond
• Communication Theories: Perspectives, Processes, and Contexts by Katherine Miller
• Communication Theory: Media, Technology and Society by David Holmes
• Building Communication Theory by Dominic A. Infante, Andrew S. Rancer, and Deanna F. Womack
• The Communication Theory Reader by Paul Cobley
• Clarifying Communications Theories: A Hands-On Approach by Gerald Stone, Michael Singletary, and Virginia P. Richmond
• An Introduction to Communication Theory by Don W. Stacks, Sidney R. Hill, and Mark, III Hickson
• Introducing Communication Theory by Richard West and Lynn H. Turner

External links

• American Communication Association
• Central States Communication Association
• Eastern Communication Association
• International Communication Association
• National Communication Association
• Southern States Communication Association
• Western States Communication Association

See also

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Communication Theory

• Communication studies
• Metacommunicative competence
• Rogerian argument
• Time- and space-bias
• Tetrad of media effects
• Text and Conversation Theory

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