Introduction to Communication
Theory
What is communication?
What is communication?
The root of the word is “mun”
COMMUNICATION
What is communication?
The root of the word is “mun”
COMMUNICATION
Related terms include:
What is communication?
The root of the word is “mun”
COMMUNICATION
Related terms include:
Mundane, municipality, communion, common,
mean, meaning, immunity, mutual, le monde,
el mundo
What is communication?
The root of the word is “mun”
COMMUNICATION
“Mun” words refer to our dealings with “the
world”
What is communication?
COMMUNICATION
What is communication?
COMMUNICATION
is
“With-worlding”
What is communication?
Communication is involved in all the ways
people make and engage in “worlds” together.
What is communication?
We are “thrown” into an already meaningful
world/reality, and we use language and other
symbols to understand, maintain, repair, and
sometimes transform that social reality.
What is Theory?
What is Theory?
Root of the word is related to the ancient Greek
word for informed seeing.
What is Theory?
Root of the word is related to the ancient Greek
word for informed seeing.
The original “theorists” were people paid by the
city to travel to distant places, witness the
rituals and customs of other cultures, and
report back on their experiences.
What is Theory?
We use the word today to refer to scientific or
academic worldviews or models (e.g., the
theory of evolution, or the wave theory of
light).
What is Theory?
In our class, we’ll argue that everyday people
use implicit theories all the time to help
attend to the world and coordinate action.
What is Theory?
In our class, we’ll argue that everyday people
use implicit theories all the time to help
attend to the world.
Theories, in this sense, are implicit cultural
scripts that enable action (but always contain
limits and blind spots).
What is Theory?
Theories are like lenses that allow you to focus
on this, but not that.
What is Theory?
Theories are like lenses that allow you to focus
on this, but not that.
As with the original meaning, they are ways of
seeing.
What is communication?
COMMUNICATION
is
“With-worlding”
What is this thing?
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Theory as a Way of Seeing
The meaningfulness of a thing is determined by
our way of seeing, which is shaped by our
specific project.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Theory helps us direct our attention to what
matters in the situation and enables us to act.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Theory helps us direct our attention to what
matters in the situation and enables us to act.
Our theories, however, always contain blind
spots and cover alternatives.
Theory as a Way of Seeing
Key question for communicative ethics:
Can people together build the theories they
need to solve collective problems?
What is Ethics?
What is Ethics?
The origin of the word is related to the Greek
term ethos
What is Ethics?
The origin of the word is related to the Greek
term ethos meaning (originally) a dwelling
place, a way of being, the characteristic
“stamp” one puts on what he or she does.
What is Ethics?
In most ancient cultures, ethics were
determined purely by custom. If a stranger
asked why you do things as you do, most one
would simply say that this is how our parents
and their parents before them did it…
What is Ethics?
Philosophy is born when people attempt to
answer the stranger’s question in a way that
goes beyond mere custom.
What is Ethics?
And a specifically communicative ethics emerges
with the question of how to “with-world” with
those strangers. It asks basic (and advanced)
questions about how to make good decisions
and build just worlds with others.
Core concepts in Communicative
Ethics
Encounter: how do I engage ethically with the other in
everyday situations
Obligation: in what way does the other demand
something of me (recognition, care, action)?
Indeterminacy: can I proceed despite at times not having
fixed stars or an absolute sense of the true and the
right?
Judgment: what situations call on me to make a decision
and what resources can I use to judge?
Intersubjectivity: in what what is the self and outcome of
interaction and how can we build better, healthier
interaction styles?