Communication Theory

"This collection brings together established and emerging scholars in communication studies to examine the relationship between communication and the economy in contemporary society.

Providing context for ongoing debates in the field as well as opening new areas of research, the collection brings a sense of continuity and coherency to an area of study that, until recently, has received little commentary at the level of disciplinary objectives and commitments.
Through concrete case studies and theoretically informed essays, the chapters explore a range of important disciplinary topics – from the rhetoric of economics to the role of language in mediating financial crises.

Written with an eye towards engaging a wide audience, this collection is a welcome addition to any course that focuses on the relationship between culture, the economy and communication including the rhetoric of economics, political economy and communication and cultural studies of the economy.""

Na era da chamada “Web 2.0” a informação tem circulado de forma cada vez mais interativa e cooperativa. Essa mudança costuma ser vista como democrática, mas é importante considerar possíveis aspectos negativos nela. Neste trabalho, problematizamos esta questão a partir do debate sobre homofobia. Apresentamos conteúdos produzidos no site humorístico e colaborativo “Desciclopédia”, analisando a narrativa que permeia os verbetes Lado Azul da Força, associado a um modelo de masculinidade, e Lado Rosa da Força, associado à homossexualidade. O estudo se vincula à Análise de Discurso Crítica de Fairclough (2001, 2003), trazendo também contribuições da Teoria Queer e das Teorias da Comunicação.

This article examines factors that led to the destruction of the South Central Farm, a 14-acre urban garden that was bulldozed after a lengthy property rights battle. The analysis is guided by 2 theoretical frameworks—J. Carey's (1989) conception of the ritual and transmission views of communication, as well as J. R. Logan and H. L. Molotch's (1987) treatment of use and exchange value in the urban development “growth machine.” Although farm supporters blamed political corruption, this work argues that their defeat was consistent with the market-based logic of the contemporary city. While farmers demonstrated significant use value through ritual communication, their efforts were deemed illegitimate in a political economic landscape that prioritized exchange value and was dominated by a transmission view of communication.

Although the Ancients placed great emphasis on delivery, modern rhetorical scholars often overlook the oral dimensions of speech. Speech is powerful because of its ability to elicit a somatic response. Scholars in other disciplines are examining how speech affects the body, but contemporary rhetorical scholarship often overlooks their findings. This essay reviews scholarship both inside and outside of communication studies that demonstrates the interplay between rhetoric and orality, paying particular attention to how scientific scholarship can inform our conception of ethos and pathos. By drawing together scientific and rhetorical scholarship, scholars in all disciplines can gain a greater understanding of how speech affects the mind, body, and soul.

Protest rhetoric has always provided a prime example of how communication can work to change the human condition, but strategies of protest have evolved as the United States has transformed into an information economy. Although protest remains “on the streets,” it has also moved into the digital realm. This essay builds on the work of Franklyn Haiman by considering the ethical and rhetorical dimensions of hacktivism (politically motivated computer hacking). After briefly tracing the historical development of hacktivism, I discuss several recent politically motivated website defacements and denial of service attacks, concluding that Haiman’s argument that the rhetoric of the streets should be held to different rhetorical and ethical standards still holds true in the online world.

"This research is concerned chiefly with how global media icons assigned to terrorism are motivated, engineered, choreographed, and represented by all interested parties, and to what psycho-socio-political ends. Initially motivated largely by Marshall McLuhan from an essay on weapons called “War of the Icons,” where I actually enter the conversation today is at the final section of Joseph Tuman’s Communicating Terror: The Rhetorical Dimensions of Terrorism, where Tuman addresses terrorists’ use of codes and cues in their iconic media releases.

I have been working closely with rhetorical analysis of select media events over the past three years and am especially interested in currently available means of establishment for pre-emptive analysis of what underlies the iconic media content that will be indiscriminately channeled across the globe:
e.g., motive, message, medium, responsibility, ambiguity of meaning, and possible consequence. With this perspective comes an immediacy that questions the controls and variables at play in the rhetorical processes connecting terrorism with global media entities and channels.

Analysis of the symbiotic, parasitic relationship — between terrorists/terrorism and the media, where they collude and collide — informs much of my research. Their required relationship is best realized today across new media channels in resulting global representations or media moments that, especially because of digital technologies, are iconic: bigger than life, bigger than the moment, dangerous in global scope and impact."

"This research analyzes media from two news campaigns coming out of the War with Iraq during the Summer of 2004. The first campaign contains iconic imagery from the abduction
of American Paul Johnson, killed by Muslim extremists in Saudi Arabia. The second campaign contains video from the torture by American soldiers of prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison.

These are cross-mediated messages that have since been pushed into the global news archives, though they are highly emblematic constructs that actually have a profound effect on a struggle for power, voice, and knowledge. In each of these related, though situationally opposed, media disclosures, helpless captives in the panopticon yield to the control of their merciless disciplinarians as they wield their weaponry under the everwatchful eye of the digital camera, all before a potential audience of millions of seemingly helpless viewers."

"While extremism of the Islamic Jihad movement is on one side of the global power wheel, bashing away at the fabric of democratic societies, constant pounding of Jihadist ideology through the media equally punishes participants of these societies.

Media viewers are often forced to fight back the only way they can, and often as a means of self-preservation, by turning the media off or switching media outlets. Many people resort to letters to the editor, Web blogs, and political rallies to try to change their world.

Somehow, things always seem to maintain balance. That is, until the next global blows come from a radical Islamist and the media carrying his message. Baudrillard said correctly in The Gulf War Did Not Take Place that there is no war without the media, echoing Marshall McLuhan as McLuhan’s ideas meld into the fabric of digital culture.

The irony of the situation is that with each new bludgeoning media message comes the masochistic urge to want to hear more, get hit more, be more and more astonished. Each polarizing moment comes through the television or video screen with new compelling horrors, promises that predict no end to destruction, and a devastating impact on those persons helplessly caught between the media and its terrorists.

Slavoj Zïzek in The Plague of Fantasies contends that our experiences in cyberspace are making us psychotic because we don’t have “the Master,” or ordering of the symbolic, to tell us what we really want. For Zïzek, with the limitless options available in cyberspace, and without this Master, which offers “protection,” we move out of freedom to the only available alternative, the realm of the psychotic.

Since, for Zïzek -- and Guy Debord, borrowing from Georg Hegel -- resistance must operate within the symbolic order, there is nothing outside but psychosis. So where is the person caught between the media and its terrorists to go for safety? What can the spectator do to protect her/himself and those who are part of his inner circle? Is turning off the radio or television akin to stepping outside the symbolic order? Is the only alternative the lifestyle and destiny of the Unibomber? Is the televised place of symbolic order between the media and its terrorists actually one of safety?

People are not free to shut themselves off from the media, not without consequences. Yet the consequences of being caught in the middle of the psychological war waged equally by terrorists as our enemies and the media as our allies is surely not being conducted without taking its toll, perhaps in the form of neuroses. For Zïzek, participating in cyberspace leads to psychosis, yet there are no psychosocial definitions for participating in electronic media of radio and television, no known adverse effects.

The space occupied by the global media as multinational conglomerates is the binary opposite of the space occupied by terrorists as rogue, rhizomic wanderers, and the rest of the globe’s inhabitants are caught in between the two. We are caught between their oppositional ideologies, between their tactical methods, and also between an extreme suggestion that the two are in a collusion, between their symbiotic relationship, between their dependence upon one another.

The extreme stance by the media to participate in every terrorist declaration buys into the extreme stance by terrorists whereby they expect such participation, and since there is little to no balance from the only side which is capable of exerting balance, we are caught in the middle, shutting off our televisions for the Internet, and, at the risk of sounding extreme, nursing a global neurosis with the pleasures of impending psychosis."

This classroom exercise in technical writing stems from an overarching desire to understand how groups of people might collaborate to evaluate visual rhetoric when only given a piece of the story. Using visual media rhetoric and a series of pedagogical collaboration techniques for communication across the curriculum (CAC) such as ‘quickwrites’ and ‘read-alouds,’ this research develops the concept for media ‘quicritiques’ that provide an outcome of benefit to classroom pedagogical practice including visual thinking that leads to further group collaboration. Results suggest that instructors can apply similar techniques to create technical writing class environments and assignments that are intriguing and rewarding for achievement of certain group collaborative tasks. Results may actually suggest that the investigation of online media as visual rhetoric provides a group dynamic for cohesion, consensus, and willingness for future collaboration.

In a world where mass demonstrations are staged for ubiquitous release across digital media channels, where the electronic message hits the human receiver before any protective response can be taken, and where the lines are blurring between reality and illusion for journalism and the news industry, we have forgotten where the truth lies in our media perception and distribution. When failure to identify what is real from illusion occurs at the human speed capable of reaction to such messaging, responsibility of profit-driven media in the West is shelved without question as collusion between reporters and terrorists contributes to weaponry damages. The power of broadband instantaneity pushes us further into possibility of losing our individual and corporate perceptions and sensibilities when we are forced to instantly identify and analyze digital global media messages. And world-changing weapons of war through mass mediated messaging are now moving ubiquitously, at the speed of light.

This paper provides an overview of the theory of the Spiral of Silence, including the underlying premise of personal need for opinion congruence and social conformity upon which it is based, and the extensive body of related research which exists amongst a multitude of academic disciplines regarding the theory. Connections and comparisons are made between the existing data and analysis amongst these various fields of research in order to better understand the relevance and validity of the theory, especially as it relates to the impacts the spiral phenomenon can have upon a society within a political context. Additional attention is paid towards the role of the media in perpetrating spirals of silence, as well as the implications such spiral effects can have upon and within mediated communication systems themselves in a society.

"Drivers is a fundamental part of the Process Communication Model (PCM) by Dr Tali Khaber -  discovered how to identify and respond appropriately second by second' to patterns of productive behaviour (successful communication) and non-productive behaviour (miscommunication).  Since 1969.
In 1978 NASA took advantage of this discovery by using Process Communication in the selection, placement, and training of astronauts. Today, tens of thousands of people, from astronauts to entrepreneurs, have put these distinctions to work for themselves.

What are Drivers?
They are programmed responses to messages we carry from important people in our past
Unconscious attempts by us to behave in ways that gain us recognition
Drivers are myths, we believe they will result in feeling better ourselves
Never enough, leads to stress and a never ending cycle

Where are Drivers Used?
Workplace – managers, workers productivity, communications, careers
Teaching – learning styles, behaviours, communication
Coaching, Counselling, Psychotherapy – part of unconscious script, behavioural, neurological, physiological, communications, relationships"

"Background: Interaction between patients and clinicians is a key part of building a therapeutic relationship. Whilst it is anticipated there are similarities and differences between patient interaction with clinical nurse specialists (CNS) and consultant rheumatologists (CR) there is a paucity of research in this area.

Objectives: To compare communication with patients in CNS and CR rheumatology clinics.

Methods: Direct observation of CNS and CR clinics at 9 rheumatology outpatients departments in the UK was undertaken by a non-participant observer (KV). Field notes and audio recordings were made of the consultations. Roter’s Interaction

Analysis Scale (RIAS) was used to code the communication into categories (table1). Kruskal-Wallis test was used to assess the difference between CR and CNS according to speaker (significance ≤p=0.025 Bonferonni adjusted).

Results: CR saw 63 patients (43 female), mean age 60 (SD16), median disease duration 10.5 yrs (IQR 2.8-25). 40% had RA, 44% other rheumatic diseases and 16% undiagnosed.CNS saw 44 patients (24 female), mean age 58 (SD15), median disease duration 5 yrs (IQR 2-14.5). 71% had RA, 11% PsA, 18% other diagnoses. Rapport building positive and social differed significantly across groups (table 1). Both the CNS and their patients engaged in more social rapport building (non-medical conversation) implying a relaxed/established relationship which is less medically driven. The CR consultations demonstrate rapport-building positive, encompassing a lot of social niceties which is more indicative of new/building relationships. CRs engaged in more patient education and instructions about disease and its progression than CNS. However, there is more patient activation and engagement with CNS;requests for services; seeking reassurance/understanding. Coupled with the higher incidence of social rapport building this may indicate a less formal environment in which the patient is more likely to engage in shared clinical decision making, express uncertainty and seek reassurance.

Conclusions: Consultations with CNS contained more social interaction, and were more relaxed with a less medically driven agenda which allowed more patient activation & engagement. Surprisingly the CR provided more biomedical information than the CNS, even though the CNS consultation times were longer."

To test a recently proposed dual-process theory of supportive communication outcomes, participants (N = 328) assumed they had experienced a mildly or moderately problematic situation. They then evaluated supportive messages varying in person centeredness, purportedly provided by either an acquaintance or a friend.  Participants’ perceived support availability (PSA) was also assessed.  As predicted, the recipient factor (PSA) individually and in conjunction with the contextual factor (problem severity) moderated the effect of the message factor (message person centeredness) on helpfulness evaluations.  Modest support was observed for the hypothesis that the source factor (friend vs. acquaintance) influences evaluations when messages are processed less extensively. Implications for the dual-process theory of supportive communication outcomes are discussed.

"In order to complement our database searches for published papers, we are currently searching (primarily) for unpublished studies/grey literature to be included in a systematic review/meta-analysis on effects of narrative communication.

(Please see document for inclusion criteria and further details.)

We highly appreciate any references to papers reporting on studies meeting the  criteria to ffrey@uni-leipzig.de or via academia.edu, researchgate.net or lalisio.com until Dec. 31, 2012. 

Thank you!"