Summary IHC

IHC: Communication in everyday life (summary)


Appendix
 Relationships included in all types of communication
The Development of a Discipline
 history of communication view book p.288
The Emergence of Areas of Study
 rhetoric, rhetorical criticism, mass communication  book p.288-291
Coming Together as Communication Studies
 how everything is connected & got established (view p.291-292)
Future of Communication & the Relational Perspective
 p.292
Methods of Studying Communication
 table A.2 p.293
Social Scientific Approach
 Also named positivist/post-positivist
 Views world as objective, causal & predictable
 Can involve laboratory experiments, measurements of behavior & emphasis on
statistical numerical analysis
 Researchers seek to discover connections between phenomena/causal patterns
 Assumptions
o Truth exists & will be discovered by researchers using the same methods
o Reality = objective & exists externally to human beings  world is
experienced and humans react in the same way
o Human communication is predictable & causal connections can be
uncovered we can learn what behaviors are connected
 Methods
o Experiments
 Manipulation of an experience to determine how participants will
respond
o Questionnaires/Surveys
 Used to gather information from people
 Report data to the researcher provided by participants
 3 types: asks people to respond to specific questions, asks people to
recall certain situations, provides people with a scenario and asks to
react on it
 Advantages
o Studies are relatively easy to mount & can involve many people
o Social scientists often agree on how assessments can be made of behavior
o Ability to explain patterns of observations theoretically & derive new
predictions
 Disadvantages
o Multiple variables

,  Methodology that is used  variables influence communication 
impossible to consider everything
o Culturally Insensitive
 Questionnaires & survey often don’t encounter cultural differences
o Restrictive
 Questionnaires may impose too much restriction
o Participant Accuracy
 Participants not always honest
o Convenient Samples
 Convenient samples when conducting social scientific experiments 
researchers tend to use nearby participants
Interpretivist Approach
 Seeks to understand & describe the communication experience, often includes
observation in natural settings
 Assumptions
o Rejects idea that a single reality exists & causal connections can be
discovered  Truth can’t be discovered
o Communication seen as creative, uncertain, unpredictable
o Research is never value-free
 Methods
o Mostly uses grounded theory to analyze data
o Data
 Not quantitative, not number-based
 Symbolic activity (ex. NVC)
o Direct Observation & Participant Observation
 Direct observation/ethnographic research  observe communication
& gather data
 Participant observation  researcher interacts with group
o Interviews
o Textual Analysis
 Analysis of recorded communication (visual or auditory or both)
 Conversation analysis or discourse analysis
 Advantages
o Provides deep understanding of communication that can’t be gained through
other perspectives
o Likely to be studied in natural context
o Claims that scholars can never be 100% objective
 Disadvantages
o Limited Scope of Understanding
 Commits to individual levels of analysis without possibility to make
broader understandings of human communication
o Researcher Accuracy and Perspective
 One has to believe researcher & always involves perspective
o Time-Consuming

,Critical Approach
 Seeks to identify the hidden but formidable symbolic structures & practices that
create/uphold disadvantage, inequity, oppression of groups in favor of others
 Scholars try to uncover hidden or explicit power within societal groups
 Assumptions
o Built-in structure in society gives advantage to some  certain members of
society have more power imposing their values
o Oppression & advantage are transacted through communication
o Only certain types of experiences are valued
 Methods
o Similar to interpretivist approach
o Analysis of texts
 Advantages
o Important in redirecting the thinking of communication scholars towards
awareness of inequities in society
 Disadvantages
o Gives itself power & right to identify nature of inequity & how it might be
challenged
Areas in the Discipline of Communication
 Communication Education & Instructional Communication
o Major area of study is devoted to improve its instruction
o Communication education = teaching of communication
o Instructional communication = study of teaching communication
 Cultural Communication
o Strong interest in cultural influences
o Intracultural communication = communication within 1 culture
o Intercultural communication = communication when members of different
cultures interact
o Cross-cultural communication compares communication of different cultures
o Critical culture communication = issues of power within cultural contexts &
seeks to contest hegemony & promotes social justice
 Family Communication
o Relationships = primary area of study
 Group Communication & Leadership
 Interpersonal Communication
o Study of relationships
o Ways in which relationships, identities & meanings are created through
interactions
 Media & Technology
o Mass communication studies  media studies
o Impact of technology or a particular medium
o Media content
o People’s reaction to technology & media content
 Health Communication
o Involves any treatment or health-related issue

,  Organizational Communication
o Communication taking place within an organization/workplace  relational
enterprises through which meanings are developed & shared understandings
are created/challenged
 Persuasion
o Examines ways in which people’s thinking & behavior can be modified
 Political Communication
 Public Relations
 Rhetorical Criticism


Part I
1.An Overview of Communication
 every aspect in life involves communication, it affects & influences our life
Everyday Communication & the relational Perspective
 memorable events don’t make up much of a person’s life
 everyday communication is not always memorable but incredibly important  major
points of life
 everyday communication creates, maintains, challenges & alters relationships, identities,
cultures, meaning, reality,…
 relational perspective: based on belief that communication & relationships are
interconnected  any type of communication has an assumed relationship
 relations will influence what is communicated (e.g. people talk differently with parents
than friends) different meanings in different relations (e.g. I love you to a friend vs.
lover)
What Is Communication?
 Definition
 Unique study because everyone uses it since day 1  previous experience & use in
everyday life
 Verbal communication: message made up of symbols (words)
 Built-in expectations: frames
Communication Is Symbolic (key characteristic)
 Use of symbols (verbal & non-verbal) (e.g. Words, movement, sound, logo,…)
o Verbal communication involves language vs. non-verbal: all other symbols
o No direct connection with what they represent
o STOP sign = symbol because no connection between s,t,o,p and stopping vehicle
 Use of signs (ex. Wet streets  it has rained)
Communication Requires Meaning
 Meaning = what a symbol represents
 Meanings can change based on context, other symbols, the way they are sent
 Development of meaning continues as long as symbol is used


 Social construction of meaning