Talk:Communication Theory

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• Started: 23 October 2005
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Purpose of this text

It has become something of a tradition that in communication theory seminars students provide some form of a "brief" of major theories, or an intellectual biography for a significant theorist. The Internet complicated this a bit, since many people now post these in one form or another. The approach taken here was to capture the results of a small seminar at the University at Buffalo, and make the work available to others. The hope is that this small set of chapters will encourage others to post their own versions.

Since a book is hardly a book (particularly when it comes to text books) unless there is some unified approach or schema, the assignment asked participants to pick out a theorist and use this person as an entry point into a range of theories. We would ask that those who contribute to the book read over the existing chapters and get a feel for the approach in order to provide a generalized feel throughout.

Theoretical perspective

I'm wondering if this is going to be a humanities approach to communications, or an engineering approach to communications? Are you talking about the ways people communicate and the effect it has, or are you talking on the specifics of communication schemes? --Whiteknight _TC^E 13:50, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

We are coming from the perspective of the social sciences and humanities. There is considerable ambiguity in the terms used, but I think there is something of a threshing out of this, with "communication theory" in the engineering sense often being enveloped by "Information Theory." That's the way it has (eventually) been sorted out over on Wikipedia. Halavais 15:23, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

A Good Beginning

Not a bad start. Make sure that Marcuse is added to the Frankfurt school. Also, a section on modernity and communication, featuring Habermas, Harvey, et al. will bring facilitate a more complete understanding of communication situated within a historical context. A section of conservative critique would also be benificial, featuring J.S. Mill and others on the implications of the mediocre mass that arises from a liberal-democratic model of communication. Sarkisian 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Naming convention

This book does not follow Wikibooks:Naming policy. I suggest renaming pages using slash convention. --Derbeth 22:24, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Fixed (I think) Halavais 15:23, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Structure

This is a great start, but I'm a bit shaky on the organizational structure. Perhaps one of us can systematically categorize the communication theories by the traditional contexts of semiotic, phenomenological, cybernetic, sociopsychological, sociocultural, and critical. I think your current approach is effective, and should remain intact; however, a supplementary chart that shows where these theories fall within the larger spectrum would also be of great help. I recommend the helpful charts in the back of Theories of Human Communication by Littlejohn and Foss, 8th edition, as a starting point. If I can get around to it, I will post a sample on this discussion page of what I mean. -- --bersumm