Chapter 2
Histories of communciation
First documented essay on communication was written around 3000 BCE
Earliest existing book on effective communication s “Precepts” written in Egypt around 2675
BCE
First formally organized professional association devoted to the study of Communication, the
Eastern Communication Association, was founded in 1910
As a formal academic discipline, communication got its start as a discipline devoted to the
study of public speaking, debate and performance
Three major areas emerged during communication’s first century as a format discipline
a. Rhetoric and rhetorical criticism
b. Interpersonal communication
c. Mass communication
Problem: women, people of color, and members of many other groups have been historically
excluded from playing significant roles in the development of the discipline
Problem: interpersonal communication and media are intertwined everywhere but in the
discipline devoted to their study
Assuming that the development of the discipline has not yet finished, we must assume it is
still continuing
Very nature of communication is expansive
Three approaches to the study of communication that have had the most influences
1. Social scientific
2. Interpretivist
3. Critical
SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC APPROACH :
Views the world as objective, causal and predictable; researchers using this approach
primarily seek to describe communication activity and to discover connections between
phenomena or causal patterns
→ Researchers might attempt to determine whether supportive communication causes
children to behave in a more positive manner
→ Social scientific approach assumes that Truth exists
→ If this Truth exists, certain assumptions must be made
First, reality is objective and exists externally to human beings, what this
means is that a person’s world is made of real things that will be experienced
and reacted to in generally the same way by everyone
Second, because a true reality exists, human communication is predictable,
and causal connections can be uncovered, we can learn what behaviors are
connected, and we can learn what will likely occur in certain circumstances
→ Social scientific approach primarily uses experiments or questionnaires / surveys to
study communication
Experiments generally involve the manipulation of a person’s experience to
determine how he or she will respond
One type of questionnaire or survey asks people to recall a particular
situation or interaction
1
Histories of communciation
First documented essay on communication was written around 3000 BCE
Earliest existing book on effective communication s “Precepts” written in Egypt around 2675
BCE
First formally organized professional association devoted to the study of Communication, the
Eastern Communication Association, was founded in 1910
As a formal academic discipline, communication got its start as a discipline devoted to the
study of public speaking, debate and performance
Three major areas emerged during communication’s first century as a format discipline
a. Rhetoric and rhetorical criticism
b. Interpersonal communication
c. Mass communication
Problem: women, people of color, and members of many other groups have been historically
excluded from playing significant roles in the development of the discipline
Problem: interpersonal communication and media are intertwined everywhere but in the
discipline devoted to their study
Assuming that the development of the discipline has not yet finished, we must assume it is
still continuing
Very nature of communication is expansive
Three approaches to the study of communication that have had the most influences
1. Social scientific
2. Interpretivist
3. Critical
SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC APPROACH :
Views the world as objective, causal and predictable; researchers using this approach
primarily seek to describe communication activity and to discover connections between
phenomena or causal patterns
→ Researchers might attempt to determine whether supportive communication causes
children to behave in a more positive manner
→ Social scientific approach assumes that Truth exists
→ If this Truth exists, certain assumptions must be made
First, reality is objective and exists externally to human beings, what this
means is that a person’s world is made of real things that will be experienced
and reacted to in generally the same way by everyone
Second, because a true reality exists, human communication is predictable,
and causal connections can be uncovered, we can learn what behaviors are
connected, and we can learn what will likely occur in certain circumstances
→ Social scientific approach primarily uses experiments or questionnaires / surveys to
study communication
Experiments generally involve the manipulation of a person’s experience to
determine how he or she will respond
One type of questionnaire or survey asks people to recall a particular
situation or interaction
1
