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Theorizing Communication
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Theorizing Communication
Readings Across Traditions

April 2007 | 544 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
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Theorizing Communication: Readings Across Traditions is the first collection of primary-source readings built around seven traditions of communication theory— rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, cybernetic, sociopsychological, sociocultural, and critical.. The selected readings illustrate the history of each tradition and current trends. Enhancing the readings are introductory essays and sets of projects for theorizing through which the editors highlight contemporary interpretations, new directions, and/or hybrid approaches to studying communication theory.

Key Features:

  • Includes key primary source readings that have helped to define the field of Communication Theory: This collection of readings is not available elsewhere and frees instructors from having to design their own course packs.
  • Offers a comprehensive view of communication theory by not limiting content to a single approach: This book is the first collection of readings on communication theory based on Robert T. Craig's seven traditions of communication theory.
  • Provides much more than just readings: Original introductions help to explain, locate, and explore complexities surrounding each of the readings. The concluding chapter suggests future directions for the field.
  • Allows students to engage and interact with each tradition: Each unit ends with suggested future readings as well as projects to help students apply and extend the unit's key ideas.

Intended Audience:

This volume is designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Communication Theory. It can be used as a stand-alone text or in conjunction with other books.

Heidi L. Muller and Robert T. Craig
Introduction
 
Unit I. Historical and Cultural Sources of Communication Theory
 
Introduction to Unit I
Rob Wiseman
1. Metaphors Concerning Speech in Homer
John Durham Peters
2. The Spiritualist Tradition
Armand Mattelart
3. The Invention of Communication
James W. Carey
4. A Cultural Approach to Communication
 
Projects for Theorizing the Historical and Cultural Sources of Communication Theory
 
Unit II. Metatheory: Communication Theory as a Field
 
Introduction to Unit II
Robert T. Craig
5. Communication Theory as a Field
 
Projects for Metatheorizing
 
Unit III. The Rhetorical Tradition
 
Introduction to Unit III
Plato
6. Gorgias
Aristotle
7. Rhetoric
Kenneth Burke
8. A Rhetoric of Motives
Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin
9. Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric
 
Projects for Rhetorical Theorizing
 
Unit IV. The Semiotic Tradition
 
Introduction to Unit IV
John Locke
10. The Abuse of Words
Charles Sanders Peirce
11. What Is a Sign?
Ferdinand de Saussure
12. The Object of Linguistics
Roland Barthes
13. The Photographic Message
John Durham Peters
14. Communication With Aliens
 
Projects for Semiotic Theorizing
 
Unit V. The Phenomenological Tradition
 
Introduction to Unit V
Edmund Husserl
15. The Problem of Experiencing Someone Else
Martin Buber
16. Dialogue
Hans-Georg Gadamer
17. The Hermeneutical Experience
Briankle G. Chang
18. Deconstructing Communication
 
Projects for Phenomenological Theorizing
 
Unit VI. The Cybernetic Tradition
 
Introduction to Unit VI
Norbert Wiener
19. Cybernetics in History
Paul Watzlawick, Janet Helmick Beavin, and Don D. Jackson
20. Some Tentative Axioms of Communication
Annie Lang
21. The Limited Capacity Model of Mediated Message Processing
Niklas Luhmann
22. What Is Communication?
 
Projects for Cybernetic Theorizing
 
Unit VII. The Sociopsychological Tradition
 
Introduction to Unit VII
Carl Hovland
23. Social Communication
Charles R. Berger and Richard J. Calabrese
24. Some Explorations in Initial Interaction and Beyond
Albert Bandura
25. Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication
Marshall Scott Poole
26. The Small Group Should Be the Fundamental Unit of Communication Research
 
Projects for Sociopsychological Theorizing
 
Unit VIII. The Sociocultural Tradition
 
Introduction to Unit VIII
George Herbert Mead
27. The Social Foundations and Functions of Thought and Communication
Mark Poster
28. The Mode of Information and Postmodernity
James R. Taylor, Carole Groleau, Lorna Heaton, and Elizabeth Van Every
29. Communication as the Modality of Structuration
Deborah Cameron
30. Good to Talk?
 
Projects for Sociocultural Theorizing
 
Unit IX. The Critical Tradition
 
Introduction to Unit IX
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
31. The German Ideology
Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno
32. The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception
Jürgen Habermas
33. Truth and Society: The Discursive Redemption of Factual Claims to Validity
Stanley A. Deetz
34. Systematically Distorted Communication and Discursive Closure
Sue Curry Jansen
35. Paris Iis Always More Than Paris
 
Projects for Critical Theorizing
Robert T. Craig and Heidi L. Muller
Concluding Reflections
 
Index

"The editors’ questions invite readers to connect to the theoretical arguments and assumptions within and across units and move toward connecting communication theory with lived experiences. The connection of communication to lived experiences and the ability of these experiences to inform communication theory are at the heart of Craig and Muller’s text."

David R. Novak
Clemson University

Great resource

Dr Carolyn Cunningham
Communication Arts Dept, Gonzaga University
October 26, 2011
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Key features

  • Includes key primary source readings that have helped to define the field of Communication Theory.  This sort of collection of readings is not available elsewhere and will free instructors from having to design their own coursepacks.

  • Offers a comprehensive view of Communication Theory by not limiting content to a single approach.

  • This book is the first collection of readings on communication theory grounded in Craig's (1999) approach to the field of Communication Theory, an approach which has received considerable attention and which is featured in leading textbooks as an overview perspective of the field (e.g. Griffin, 2003; Littlejohn & Foss, 2005; Miller, 2002).

  • In addition to showing the "core" of each tradition, readings also highlight contemporary interpretations, new directions, and/or hybrid approaches. This encourages reflection on the current value and future directions of each approach and of communication theory as a field.

  • Significant introductions help to explain, locate, and contextualize each reading.

  • Each unit ends with suggested future readings as well as projects that help students apply and extend the unit's key ideas.

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