communication science

Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in different

culture

s. Communication is commonly defined as giving, receiving or exchanging ideas, information, signals or messages through appropriate media, enabling individuals or groups to persuade, to seek information, to give information or to express emotions effectively. Communication studies is a

social science

that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge that encompasses a range of topics, from face-to-face conversation at a level of individual agency and interaction to

social

and cultural communication systems at a macro level.

Scholarly communication theorists focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of communication, examining

statistics

in order to help substantiate claims. The range of social scientific methods to study communication has been expanding. Communication

researchers

draw upon a variety of qualitative and

quantitative

techniques. The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-20th century led to increasingly

interpretative

, hermeneutic, and philosophic approaches towards the analysis of communication. Conversely, the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s have seen the rise of new analytically, mathematically, and computationally rigorous techniques.

As a field of study, communication is applied to

journalism

,

business

, mass media, public relations,

marketing

, news and

television broadcasting

, interpersonal and intercultural communication,

education

, public administration—and beyond. As all spheres of human activity and conveyance are affected by the interplay between social communication structure and individual agency, communication studies has gradually expanded its focus to other domains, such as

health

,

medicine

,

economy

, military and

penal institutions

,

the Internet

, social capital, and the role of communicative activity in the development of scientific knowledge.

History

Origins

Communication, a natural human behavior, became a topic of study in the 20th century. As communication technologies developed, so did the serious study of communication. When

World War I

ended, the interest in studying communication intensified. The social science study was fully recognized as a legitimate discipline after World War II.

Prior to being established as its own discipline, communication studies, was formed from three other major studies: psychology, sociology, and political science. Communication studies focus on communication as central to the human experience, which involves understanding how people behave in creating, exchanging, and interpreting messages.

Foundations of the academic discipline

The institutionalization of communication studies in U.S. higher education and research has often been traced to

Columbia University

, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where early pioneers of the field worked after the Second World War.William F. Eadie, "Communication as an Academic Field: USA and Canada," in International Encyclopedia of Communication, ed. Wolfgang Donsbach, Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.

Wilbur Schramm is considered the founder of the field of communication studies in the United States. Schramm was hugely influential in establishing communications as a field of study and in forming departments of communication studies across universities in the United States. He was the first individual to identify himself as a communication scholar; he created the first academic degree-granting programs with communication in their name; and he trained the first generation of communication scholars. Schramm had a background in English literature and developed communication studies partly by merging existing programs in speech communication, rhetoric, and journalism. He also edited a textbook ''The Process and Effects of Mass Communication'' (1954) that helped define the field, partly by claiming Paul Lazarsfeld, Harold Lasswell, Carl Hovland, and Kurt Lewin as its founding fore fathers.

Schramm established three important communication institutes: the Institute of Communications Research (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), the Institute for Communication Research (

Stanford University

), and the East-West Communication Institute (

Honolulu

). The patterns of scholarly work in communication studies that were set in motion at these institutes continue to this day. Many of Schramm's students, such as Everett Rogers and David Berlo went on to make important contributions of their own.

The first college of communication was founded at Michigan State University in 1958, led by scholars from Schramm's original ICR and dedicated to studying communication scientifically using a quantitative approach. MSU was soon followed by important departments of communication at Purdue University, University of Texas-Austin,

Stanford University

, University of Iowa, University of Illinois,

University of Pennsylvania

, The University of Southern California, and

Northwestern University

.Simonson, Peter; Peters, John Durham (2008-06-05), "Communication and Media Studies, History to 1968", ''The International Encyclopedia of Communication'', John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, , retrieved 2019-12-02

Associations related to Communication Studies were founded or expanded during the 1950s. The National Society for the Study of Communication (NSSC) was founded in 1950 to encourage scholars to pursue communication research as a social science. This Association launched the Journal of Communication in the same year as its founding. Like many communication associations founded around this decade, the name of the association changed with the field. In 1968 the name changed to the International Communication Association (ICA).

Scope and topics

Communication studies integrates aspects of both social sciences and the humanities. As a

social science

, the discipline overlaps with sociology,

psychology

, anthropology,

biology

, political science,

economics

, and public policy. From a

humanities

perspective, communication is concerned with rhetoric and

persuasion

(traditional graduate programs in communication studies trace their history to the rhetoricians of Ancient Greece). Humanities approaches to communication often overlap with

history

,

philosophy

,

English

, and cultural studies.

Communication research informs

politician

s and policy makers,

educators

, strategists, legislators, business magnates,

managers

,

social worker

s, non-governmental organizations, non-profit organizations, and people interested in resolving communication issues in general. There is often a great deal of crossover between social research, cultural research,

market research

, and other statistical fields.

In the United States

Undergraduate curricula aim to prepare students to interrogate the nature of communication in society, and the development of communication as a specific field.

The National Communication Association (NCA) recognizes nine distinct but often overlapping sub-disciplines within the broader communication discipline: technology, critical-cultural, health, intercultural, interpersonal-small group, mass communication, organizational, political, rhetorical, and

environmental communication

. Students take courses in these subject areas. Other programs and courses often integrated in communication programs include

journalism

, rhetoric, film criticism,

theatre

, public relations, political science (e.g., political campaign strategies, public speaking, effects of media on elections), as well as

radio

,

television

, computer-mediated communication, film production, and new media.

In Canada

With the early influence of federal institutional inquiries, notably the 1951 ''Massey Commission'', which "investigated the overall state of culture in Canada," the study of communication in Canada has frequently focused on the development of a cohesive national culture, and on infrastructural empires of social and material circulation. Although influenced by the American Communication tradition and British Cultural Studies, Communication studies in Canada has been more directly oriented toward the state and the policy apparatus, for example the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Influential thinkers from the Canadian communication tradition include Harold Innis,

Marshall McLuhan

, Florian Sauvageau, Gertrude Robinson, Marc Raboy, Dallas Smythe, James R. Taylor, François Cooren, Gail Guthrie Valaskakis and George Grant.

In Business

Business cannot happen without communication and understanding the correlation is important to the field of business. With business communication being a new field of study that is undergoing constant changes, grasping a direct definition would be difficult. Instead, the focus should be put on the demands of employers, which is more universally understood by the revision of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business standards to emphasize written and oral communication as an important characteristic in the curriculum. Business communication studies, therefore, revolve around the, ever changing, written and oral communication aspects directly related to the field of business. Implementation of modern business communication curriculums are enhancing the study of business communication as a whole, while further preparing those to be able to effectively communicate in the business community.

Professional associations

* American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA)
*Association for Business Communication (ABC)
*Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)
*Association for Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW)
*Black College Communication Association (BCCA)
* Broadcast Education Association (BEA)
*Central States Communication Association (CSCA)
*Council of Communication Associations (CCA)
*European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW)
*European Communication Research and Education Association
*IEEE Professional Communication Society
*International Association for Media and Communications Research
*International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)
*International Communication Association (ICA), an international, academic association for communication studies concerned with all aspects of human and mediated communication
*National Association of Black Journalists: NABJ
*National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE)NAMLE
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*National Communication Association (NCA), professional organization concerned with various aspects of communication studies in the United States
*Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)
Rhetoric Society of America
(RSA)
*Society for Cinema and Media Studies, organization for communication research pertaining to film studies
*Society for Technical Communication (STC)
*University Film and Video Association, organization for the study of motion-picture production

See also

References

Bibliography

* Carey, James. 1988 ''Communication as Culture.''
* Cohen, Herman. 1994. ''The History of Speech Communication: The Emergence of a Discipline, 1914-1945.'' Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.
* Gehrke, Pat J. 2009. ''The Ethics and Politics of Speech: Communication and Rhetoric in the Twentieth Century''. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
* Gehrke, Pat J. and William M. Keith, eds. 2014. ''A Century of Communication Studies: The Unfinished Conversation.'' New York: Routledge.
* Packer, J. & Robertson, C, eds. 2006. ''Thinking with James Carey: Essays on Communications, Transportation, History.''
* Peters, John Durham and Peter Simonson, eds. 2004. ''Mass Communication and American Social Thought: Key Texts 1919-1968.''
* Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin 2004, 'How Not to Found a Field: New Evidence on the Origins of Mass Communication Research', ''Journal of Communication'', September 2004.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Communication studies
Communication studies,
Academic disciplines