Showing papers in "Communication Theory in 2000"
TL;DR: In this article, humor's enactment leads to four basic functions of humor in communication: identification and clarification functions, enforcement and differentiation functions, and superiority theory, which can be used to delineate social boundaries.
Abstract: The compelling power of humor makes it a recurrent topic for research in many fields, including communication Three theories of humor creation emerge in humor research: the relief theory, which focuses on physiological release of tension; the incongruity theory, singling out violations of a rationally learned pattern; and the superiority theory, involving a sense of victory or triumph Each theory helps to explain the creation of different aspects of humor, but each runs into problems explaining rhetorical applications of humor Because each theory of humor origin tries to explain all instances of humor, the diverging communication effects of humor remain unexplained Humor's enactment leads to 4 basic functions of humor in communication Two tend to unite communicators: the identification and the clarification functions The other 2 tend to divide 1 set of communicators from others: the enforcement and differentiation functions Exploration of these effects-based functions of humor will clarify understanding of its use in messages Humor use unites communicators through mutual identification and clarification of positions and values, while dividing them through enforcement of norms and differentiation of acceptable versus unacceptable behaviors or people This paradox in the functions of humor in communication as, alternately, a unifier and divider, allows humor use to delineate social boundaries
631 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the ways in which counter-publics set themselves against wider publics may be most productively explored by attending to the recognition and articulation of exclusion through alternative discourse norms and practices.
Abstract: As conceptual models of the public sphere have moved toward multiplicity, “counterpublic” has emerged as a critical term to signify that some publics develop not simply as one among a constellation of discursive entities, but as explicitly articulated alternatives to wider publics that exclude the interests of potential participants. This essay attempts to forestall potential reductionism in future counterpublic theory by considering through 3 “ominous examples” how the “counter” in counter-publics may be reduced to persons, places, or topics. Instead, this essay seeks to orient critical attention to the discursive quality of counterpublics. It argues that the ways in which counterpublics set themselves against wider publics may be most productively explored by attending to the recognition and articulation of exclusion through alternative discourse norms and practices.
224 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the role of the media in contemporary diplomacy is analyzed in the context of secret diplomacy, closed-door diplomacy, and open diplomacy with limitations officials impose on media coverage and the degree to which negotiations are exposed to the media and public opinion.
Abstract: This study offers 6 conceptual models that serve in defining and analyzing the role of the media in contemporary diplomacy. Divided into 2 groups, the first 3 models-secret diplomacy, closed-door diplomacy and open diplomacy-deal with limitations officials impose on media coverage and the degree to which negotiations are exposed to the media and public opinion. The models in the second group—public diplomacy, media diplomacy, and media-broker diplomacy-deal with extensive utilization of the media by officials and sometimes by journalists to promote negotiations. The closed-door and the media-broker models are comprehensively presented here for the first time. The other 4 models, although previously defined, have undergone serious revision in this study. This article demonstrates the analytical usefulness of the models through applications to various examples and case studies of significant contemporary diplomatic processes.
132 citations
TL;DR: Cronen, 1995a, p. 231 as discussed by the authors describes the coevolution of the theory and practices that occurred in that project, strongly confirming the utility of treating communication as the primary social process-CMM's central thesis.
Abstract: CMM is a communication theory that has most often been used as an interpretive heuristic in interpersonal communication contexts. Within the past 5 years, however, CMM has guided the work of the Public Dialogue Consortium, a not-for-profit organization involved in a multiyear, citywide collaborative community action project. This project has extended CMM from an interpretive to a practical theory and from interpersonal to public contexts. This essay describes the coevolution of the theory and practices that occurred in that project, strongly confirming the utility of treating communication as the primary social process-CMM's central thesis. Six other CMM concepts, including coordination, forms of communication, episode, logical force, person position, and contextual reconstruction, were also significantly elaborated. Appropriately for a practical theory (Cronen, 1995a, p. 231), the extensions of CMM include both new forms of practice and additions and refinements to its grammar for discursive and conversational practices.
123 citations
TL;DR: Teaching as a mode of friendship as mentioned in this paper is an approach that emphasizes positive and edifying communicative stances and relationships of teachers with individual students and toward classes as collectives, emphasizing good will, dialogue, respect for distance and differences among persons, and the equal validity of each student's life and learning experiences.
Abstract: This essay invites us to consider that we can live and practice teaching as a mode of friendship. This approach involves developing a caring relationship with students, searching for means and moments of speaking as equals, and encouraging shared responsibility for learning together. Educational friendship emphasizes positive and edifying communicative stances and relationships of teachers with individual students and toward classes as collectives. Even given this relationship, teachers and students face ongoing challenges in managing dialectical tensions, which make the sustained achievement of educational friendships a risky and fragile endeavor. These friendships are further limited by teachers' and students' subject positions, the structural inequality that historically and institutionally pervades educational contexts, and the risk of mystification that haunts offers of affection from persons in power positions to subordinates. Emphasizing good will, dialogue, respect for distance and differences among persons, and the equal validity of each student's life and learning experiences, teaching as friendship seeks to establish classes as judicious and caring political communities.
57 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the discursive practices of U.S. feminism to argue that Whiteness functions not only through that which is present within a text, but also through its rhetorical silences.
Abstract: This essay examines the discursive practices of U.S. feminism to argue that Whiteness functions not only through that which is present within a text, but also through its “rhetorical silences.” Within this particular context, Whiteness is understood as an communication phenomenon that produces and maintains racial privilege for White feminists in ways that they do not acknowledge. Thus the “subject of feminism” is paradoxically located in the intersection between racial privilege and gender subordination in ways that compromise the possibility of feminist alliances. By examining the ways in which Whiteness functions within various communication sites and the ways in which it positions White women to “speak,” this essay pushes for more reflexive White feminist theory and praxis.
53 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated a communication, education, and training intervention program intended to initiate a sense of empowerment among women dairy farmers in India, and a conceptualization of communication and empowerment is offered.
Abstract: The present article investigates a communication, education, and training intervention program intended to initiate a sense of empowerment among women dairy farmers in India. A conceptualization of communication and empowerment is offered. The empowering and disempowering dimensions of women's communication are highlighted through the participants' own words and experiences. Our analysis of the communicative dimensions of women's empowerment yields 3 important insights. First, women's empowerment is displayed through different forms of communication and feminist action, particularly when women organize to accomplish social change within their families and communities. Second, empowerment is embedded in democratic practices, especially when women discuss issues and make decisions that improve their quality of life. Third, paradox and contradiction are an important part of the empowerment process.
50 citations
TL;DR: There are 3 ways in which emotion and message production are connected: (a) Emotions and moods are important influences on cognitive processes underlying message production; (b) emotion is expressed as the content of messages; and (c) emotion knowledge is used to manage the emotional states of others.
Abstract: Emotion is often a major part of the content of messages and is an important influence on message production, but connections between emotion and message-production processes have not received systematic attention until quite recently. This article explores 3 ways in which emotion and message production are connected: (a) Emotions and moods are important influences on cognitive processes underlying message production; (b) emotion is expressed as the content of messages; and (c) emotion knowledge is used to manage the emotional states of others.
44 citations
TL;DR: The processes by which others' goals are detected in social situations and the degree to which the deployment of messages and actions achieves goals efficiently are two aspects of message production that require explanation.
Abstract: Communication researchers interested in message production have yet to delineate clearly the unique aspects of the message-production process they wish to explain. The processes by which others' goals are detected in social situations and the degree to which the deployment of messages and actions achieves goals efficiently are two aspects of message production that require explanation. The potential adaptive significance of goal detection, the degree to which various goals require message production for their achievement, and the relationship between common ground and efficiency also are considered.
43 citations
TL;DR: The absence of any written mainstream valuation of African American theories and historical relevancies presents a significant commentary and dilemma within the field of human communication studies and other disciplines as well as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The absence of any written mainstream valuation of African American theories and historical relevancies presents a significant commentary and dilemma within the field of human communication studies and other disciplines as well. It forces committed African American intellectuals to ask ourselves if we have created a large enough arsenal of quality theories or if we have simply recycled theories produced by “observers” to describe our communicative behavior. If African American theories have been created, tested, and verified, then where are they, and why are they not being recognized by the academy? African American scholars must define what it means to be central to critical scholarship, determine whether this position has been achieved, and finally decide to continue to push the margins. This essay is to be read as an initial exploration that examines the sociopolitical factors of race and gender as contributing variables to the success of African American intellectualism.
28 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose that context can be conceptualized in terms of perceived empirical regularities in social reality (i.e., social densities) and the configurations of interpersonal goals that follow from them.
Abstract: Most current theories of message production treat context as an indeterminant, catch-all category for everything that is left unspecified by the theory. We propose that context can be conceptualized in terms of perceived empirical regularities in social reality (i.e., social densities) and the configurations of interpersonal goals that follow from them (i.e., goal structures). An illustration from recent research is provided.
TL;DR: In this article, the application of feminist ethnography to the methodologies used in audience studies by exploring developments in recent anthropological approaches to ethnography is considered, and the epistemological premises of current audience research practices are queried.
Abstract: During the past 20 years qualitative audience researchers have produced respected theory and applied work in their studies of media audiences. Derived from roots in traditional anthropology, audience studies use methodologies that reproduce power differentials between researchers and participants. This article considers the application of feminist ethnography to the methodologies used in audience studies by exploring developments in recent anthropological approaches to ethnography. Shifting to a theoretical base incorporating feminist ethnography aids in identifying the power hierarchies between researcher and research participant and theorizes strategies to minimize these power differentials. In sum, this article queries the epistemological premises of current audience research practices and advocates a rethinking of this research based on the contributions of feminist ethnographic theory and other emergent anthropological developments.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that a symbolic mother-daughter relationship between women is a better account of women's power and desire than traditional frameworks of male power and female mutuality.
Abstract: This epistolary essay features 6 letters portraying mentoring relationships among 4 women in the academy. Interrogating both genderless and gendered models of mentoring, this essay argues for “entrustment,” a symbolic mother-daughter relationship between women is a better account of women's power and desire than traditional frameworks of male power and female mutuality. Second, these letters put academic labor in the background to foreground the multiple contexts-career, family, heterosexual relationship-from which women of different ages, races, and status approach work and relationship in the academy. Third, these letters pay debts to specific women, as well as paint portraits of past and future generations of women, in the creation and inheritance of legacies of cultural work. This project takes the risk of strategic separatism to create and to enact women-centered spaces in the academy where academic and relational labor thrives.
TL;DR: The dominant approach to message production, the goals-plans-action framework, is examined and the need for approaches that are better able to capture the fluid, disjointed, and multiplanar character of messages and message production is suggested.
Abstract: Current theorizing about message encoding can be seen to reflect a characterization of the phenomenon that is overly static, coherent, and uniplanar, including some variations on the uniplanar theme–too verbal, too propositional, and too mentalistic. This paper examines each of these points of received understanding and suggests the need for approaches that are better able to capture the fluid, disjointed, and multiplanar character of messages and message production. The dominant approach to message production, the goals-plans-action framework, is then examined in light of this alternative characterization, with the result being the emergence of a rich set of new conceptual issues and questions. Finally, the potential of a particular theory of message production, second-generation action assembly theory (Greene, 1997), for addressing these issues is examined.
TL;DR: In the first sense, an explanation is an illocutionary act that provides an answer to an audience question about why some phenomenon behaves in a particular way In the second sense, explanation is the content of that answer Although natural language philosophers have proposed some conditions for the discursive act of explaining, their proposals must be combined with some insights provided by scientific realists to distinguish what is specific to scientific explanation as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The term explanation has 2 valid senses: as a discursive activity and as the content of that activity In the first sense, an explanation is an illocutionary act that provides an answer to an “audience” question about why some phenomenon behaves in a particular way In the second sense, an explanation is the content of that answer Although natural language philosophers have proposed some conditions for the discursive act of explaining, their proposals must be combined with some insights provided by scientific realists to distinguish what is specific to scientific, as distinguished from everyday, explanation There are 2 major types of scientific explanation, causal and functional An ideal scientific understanding of any communicative phenomenon requires both causal and functional accounts because the 2 work together to provide the types of knowledge that practitioners need to empower themselves and reach their goals as communicators
TL;DR: The authors presented two theories of successful aging, along with a brief review of research related to the aging process and message production in order to illustrate the importance of incorporating the life-span perspective into message-production theorizing.
Abstract: Contemporary communication researchers do not incorporate a life-span perspective in their theories of message production. A case is made here for including life-span perspectives. In addition, we describe and explain numerous age-related changes in a person's ability to produce competent messages. We present two theories of successful aging, along with a brief review of research related to the aging process and message production in order to illustrate the importance of incorporating the life-span perspective into message-production theorizing.
TL;DR: The increased knowledge of cognitive processes that has developed in the past 3 decades has made it possible to explain the design and production of messages at a level of specificity that was heretofore impossible as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The increased knowledge of cognitive processes that has developed in the past 3 decades has made it possible to explain the design and production of messages at a level of specificity that was heretofore impossible. This article suggests 6 areas where future research could lead to a better understanding of the cognitive processes underlying message production. These areas include how speakers acquire the knowledge that allows them to adapt a message to situational features, how speakers adapt messages to the qualities of a specific hearer, how behaviors activated to address contextual features are incorporated into a preliminary message plan, the level of specificity at which speakers cognitively represent communication goals, individual differences in the accessibility of secondary goals, and the effects of capacity demands on message production.
TL;DR: The authors explored how theories of plans and planning might help explain patterns of parent-child interaction that typify physically abusive families, specifically, differences between physically abusive and nonabusive parents' plan complexity, plan confidence, on-line planning, and plan modification.
Abstract: Although a growing body of research documents important links between parent-child interaction and child physical abuse, these studies are being conducted primarily by scholars from outside the field of communication. This commentary explores how theories of plans and planning might help explain patterns of parent-child interaction that typify physically abusive families. I consider 4 potential links between plans-planning processes and child physical abuse, specifically, differences between physically abusive and nonabusive parents' plan complexity, plan confidence, on-line planning, and plan modification. By extending current theories of plans and planning to analyze child physical abuse, communication scholars interested in message production can contribute to interdisciplinary efforts aimed at understanding, and responding to, a major societal problem.
TL;DR: It is argued that adoption of a life-span perspective calls for further explication of extant theories on message production and provides opportunities for theory testing.
Abstract: The study of message production has been largely context bound and temporally constrained. Although we have significant insight into how and why young adults produce messages, we know less about how young children become proficient message producers. We are also comparatively ignorant about how the aging process affects message production and how individual communicators alter their message production across contexts and across the life span. In this article I explore the implications of the adoption of a life-span perspective on message production, discuss the assumptions of the life-span developmental perspective, and outline possible applications of this perspective to the study of message production. In particular, I argue that adoption of a life-span perspective calls for further explication of extant theories on message production and provides opportunities for theory testing.