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JournalISSN: 1050-3293

Communication Theory 

Wiley-Blackwell
About: Communication Theory is an academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Communication studies & Interpersonal communication. It has an ISSN identifier of 1050-3293. Over the lifetime, 736 publications have been published receiving 53488 citations.


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TL;DR: The authors compare the deliberative to the liberal and the republican models of democracy, and consider possible references to empirical research and then examine what empirical evidence there is for the assumption that political deliberation develops a truth-tracking potential.
Abstract: I first compare the deliberative to the liberal and the republican models of democracy, and consider possible references to empirical research and then examine what empirical evidence there is for the assumption that political deliberation develops a truth-tracking potential. The main parts of the paper serve to dispel prima facie doubts about the empirical content and the applicability of the communication model of deliberative politics. It moreover highlights 2 critical conditions: mediated political communication in the public sphere can facilitate deliberative legitimation processes in complex societies only if a self-regulating media system gains independence from its social environments and if anonymous audiences grant a feedback between an informed elite discourse and a responsive civil society. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2006.00280.x In Aristotle’s Politics, normative theorizing and empirical research go hand in hand. Yet, contemporary theories of liberal democracy express a demanding ‘‘ought’’ that faces the sobering ‘‘is’’ of ever more complex societies. Especially, the deliberative model of democracy, which claims an epistemic dimension for the democratic procedures of legitimation, appears to exemplify the widening gap between normative and empirical approaches toward politics. Let me first compare the deliberative to the liberal and the republican models of democracy, and consider possible references to empirical research. I will then examine what empirical evidence there is for the assumption that political deliberation develops a truth-tracking potential. The main parts of the paper serve to dispel prima facie doubts about the empirical content and the applicability of the deliberative model. The communication model of deliberative politics that I wish to present highlights two critical conditions: Mediated political communication in the public sphere can facilitate deliberative legitimation processes in complex societies only if

1,348 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that absorption in a narrative, and response to characters in a story, should enhance persuasive effects and suppress counterarguing if the implicit persuasive content is counter-attitudinal.
Abstract: The impact of entertainment—education messages on beliefs, attitudes, and behavior is typically explained in terms of social cognitive theory principles. However, important additional insights regarding reasons why entertainment—education messages have effects can be derived from the processing of persuasive content in narrative messages. Elaboration likelihood approaches suggest that absorption in a narrative, and response to characters in a narrative, should enhance persuasive effects and suppress counterarguing if the implicit persuasive content is counterattitudinal. Also, persuasion mediators and moderators such as topic involvement should be reduced in importance. Evidence in support of these propositions are reviewed in this article. Research needed to extend application of these findings to entertainment—education contexts, to further develop theory in the area of persuasion and narrative, and to better account for other persuasive effects of entertainment narrative, such as those hypothesized in cultivation theory, are discussed.

1,126 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper explored the intersection between social norms and communication by specifying the meaning of norms, delineating the moderators in the relationship between norms and behavior, and highlighting some of the attributes of behaviors that determine their susceptibility to normative influences.
Abstract: This article identifies four factors for consideration in norms-based research to enhance the predictive ability of theoretical models. First, it makes the distinction between perceived and collective norms and between descriptive and injunctive norms. Second, the article addresses the role of important moderators in the relationship between descriptive norms and behaviors, including outcome expectations, group identity, and ego involvement. Third, it discusses the role of both interpersonal and mass communication in normative influences. Lastly, it outlines behavioral attributes that determine susceptibility to normative influences, including behavioral ambiguity and the public or private nature of the behavior. The study of norms is of particular importance to communication scholarship because, by definition, norms are social phenomena, and they are propagated among group members through communication (Kincaid, 2004). Communication plays a part not only in formulating perceptions about norms (as when people use the preponderance of a behavior depicted in the media to form their perceptions about the prevalence of the behavior), but also in acting as a conduit of influence (when people base their decisions to act in a situation on the support for their actions that is communicated to them). This article is based on the premise that, given the centrality of communicative processes in propagating information about norms, its inclusion would enhance the explanatory power of theories of normative influences. The purpose of this article is to explore the intersection between social norms and communication by specifying the meaning of norms, delineating the moderators in the relationship between norms and behavior, and highlighting some of the attributes of behaviors that determine their susceptibility to normative influences.

1,076 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role of norms within the social identity perspective as a basis for theorizing a number of manifestly communicative phenomena has been discussed in this paper, where group norms are cognitively represented as context-dependent prototypes that capture the distinctive properties of groups.
Abstract: We articulate the role of norms within the social identity perspective as a basis for theorizing a number of manifestly communicative phenomena We describe how group norms are cognitively represented as context-dependent prototypes that capture the distinctive properties of groups The same process that governs the psychological salience of different prototypes, and thus generates group normative behavior, can be used to understand the formation, perception, and diffusion of norms, and also how some group members, for example, leaders, have more normative influence than others We illustrate this process across a number of phenomena and make suggestions for future interfaces between the social identity perspective and communication research We believe that the social identity approach represents a truly integrative force for the communication discipline

1,054 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors reconstructs communication theory as a dialogical-dialectical field according to two principles: the constitutive model of communication as a metamode1 and theory as metadiscursive practice.
Abstract: This essay reconstructs communication theory as a dialogical-dialectical field according to two principles: the constitutive model of communication as a metamode1 and theory as metadiscursive practice. The essay argues that all communication theories are mutually relevant when addressed to a practical lifeworld in which “communication” is already a richly meaningful term. Each tradition of communication theory derives from and appeals rhetorically to certain commonplace beliefs about communication while challenging other beliefs. The complementarities and tensions among traditions generate a theoretical metadiscourse that intersects with and potentially informs the ongoing practical metadiscourse in society. In a tentative scheme of the field, rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, cybernetic, sociopsychological, sociocultural, and critical traditions of communication theory are distinguished by characteristic ways of defining communication and problems of communication, metadiscursive vocabularies, and metadiscursive commonplaces that they appeal to and challenge. Topoi for argumentation across traditions are suggested and implications for theoretical work and disciplinary practice in the field are considered. Communication theory is enormously rich in the range of ideas that fall within its nominal scope, and new theoretical work on communication has recently been flourishing.’ Nevertheless, despite the ancient roots and growing profusion of theories about communication, I argue that communication theory as an identifiable field of study does not yet exist.2 Rather than addressing a field of theory, we appear to be operating primarily in separate domains. Books and articles on communication theory seldom mention other works on communication theory except within narrow (inter)disciplinary specialties and schools of thought.’ Except within these little groups, communication theorists apparently neither agree nor disagree about much of anything. There is no canon of general theory to which they all refer. There are no common goals that

1,039 citations

Performance
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No. of papers from the Journal in previous years
YearPapers
202311
202222
202160
202023
201924
201824