COMM 5210 - Readings in Communication Theory
Professor: Robert T. Craig
Time: TBA
Place: TBA
Course description:
This seminar takes a critical overview of leading theoretical traditions in communication studies. We will explore the history of the idea of communication, issues in metatheory and the structure of communication theory as a field, and central and emerging traditions of communication theory. In the reflexive view of the field on which this course is premised, the centrality of communication as a theoretical problem derives from communication's centrality as a human problem under current social conditions. The traditions of communication theory constitute alternative vocabularies for conceptualizing communication problems and practices. Each appeals to certain commonplace beliefs about communication while problematizing other beliefs. As each theory challenges commonplaces that others take for granted, the tensions among theories illuminate tensions in social practice and the debate about theories engages with ordinary reflective discourse (or practical metadiscourse) about communication in society. For current information see here.
COMM 6200: Democracy and the Politics of Everyday Life
Professor: Stan Deetz
Time: TBA
Place: TBA
Course description:
Theories and practices of communication and democracy are inevitably intertwined. For the most part conceptions of liberal democracy have been central to communication studies and discussions of argumentation and the public sphere. The communication focus has been on the expression of interests and experience rather than their social formation. And, models of communication and dialogue have emphasized commonality and consensus.
Increasingly the contemporary concern has been more with “culture wars,” “identity politics,” “the politics of the personal” and more generally the politics of everyday life. Authors here tend to emphasize “agonistic democratic politics” over liberal ones. And, communication theories from this perspective emphasize collaboration in decision making, conflict and difference rather than commonality and consensus.
The course will focus on these “alternative” literatures discussing both concepts of democracy and the invention of new communicative practices. The core readings will come from Ben Barber, Seyla Benhabib, Chantal Mouffe, Iris Young and other similar scholars. But most of these authors, from political science and philosophy, have done little to theorize communication and its practice. The course will build from this work focusing on advancing positive democratic communication. Much of this will accept a kind of Habermasian conception of the ideal speech situation but builds a communication/dialogic model over the information/argument one he uses and works toward responses to difference and decision making in private spaces over the appeal to reflection and consensus in public ones.
