Rhetorical

Semiotic

Phenomenological

Cybernetic

Socio-Psychological

Socio-Cultural

Critical

Communication theorized as:

The practical art of discourse

Intersubjective mediation by signs

Experience of otherness; dialogue

Information processing

Expression, inter-action, & influence

(Re)production of social order

Discursive reflection

Problems of communication theorized as:

Social exigency requiring collective deliberation and judgment

Misunderstanding or gap between subjective viewpoints

Absence of, or failure to sustain, authentic human relationship

Noise; overload; underload; a malfunction or "bug " in a system

Situation requiring manipulation of causes of behavior to achieve specified outcomes

Conflict; alienation; misalignment; failure of coordination

Hegemonic ideology; systematically distorted speech situation

Metadiscursive vocabulary such as:

Art, method, communicator, audience, strategy, commonplace, logic, emotion

Sign, symbol, icon, index, meaning, referent, code, language, medium, (mis)understanding

Experience, self &other, dialogue, genuineness, supportiveness, openness

Source, receiver, signal, informa-tion, noise, feed-back, redundancy, network, function

Behavior, variable, effect, personality, emotion, percep-tion, cognition, attitude, interaction

Society, structure, practice, ritual, rule, socialization, culture, identity, co-construction

Ideology, dialectic, oppression, consciousness-raising, resistance, emancipation

Plausible when appeals to metadiscursive commonplaces such as:

Power of words; value of informed judgment; improvability of practice

Understanding requires common language; omnipresent danger of miscom-munication

All need human contact, should treat others as persons, respect differences, seek common ground

Identity of mind and brain; value of information and logic; complex systems can be unpredictable

Communication reflects personality; beliefs & feelings bias judgments; people in groups affect one another.

The individual is a product of society; every society has a distinct culture; social actions have unintended effects.

Self-perpetuation of power & wealth; values of freedom, equality & reason; discussion produces awareness, insight

Interesting when challenges metadiscursive commonplaces such as:

Mere words are not actions; appearance is not reality; style is not substance; opinion is not truth

Words have correct meanings & stand for thoughts; codes & media are neutral channels

Communication is skill; the word is not the thing; facts are objective and values subjective

Humans and machines differ; emotion is not logical; linear order of cause and effect

Humans are rational beings; we know our own minds; we know what we see.

Individual agency & responsibility; absolute identity of self; naturalness of the social order

Naturalness & rationality of tradi-tional social order; objectivity of sci-ence & technology

Rhetorical

Semiotic

Phenomenological

Cybernetic

Socio-psychological

Socio-cultural

Critical

Against rhetoric

The art of rhetoric can be learned only by practice; theory merely distracts.

We do not use signs; rather they use us.

Strategic communi-cation is inherently inauthentic & often counterproductive.

Intervention in complex systems involves technical problems rhetoric fails to grasp.

Rhetoric lacks good empirical evidence that its persuasive techniques actually work as intended.

Rhetorical theory is culture bound & overemphasizes individual agency vs. social structure.

Rhetoric reflects traditionalist, instrumentalist, & individualist ideologies.

Against semiotics

All use of signs is rhetorical.

Langue is a fic-tion; meaning & intersubjectivity are indeterminate.

Langue-parole and signifier-signified are false distinc-tions. Languaging constitutes world.

"Meaning" con-sists of functional relationships with-in dynamic infor-mation systems.

Semiotics fails to explain factors that influence the produc-tion & interpretation of messages.

Sign systems are not autonomous; they exist only in the shared practices of actual communities.

Meaning is not fixed by a code; it is a site of social conflict.

Against pheno-menolo-gy

Authenticity is a dangerous myth; good communica-tion must be artful, hence strategic.

Self & other are semiotically de-termined subject positions & exist only in/as signs.

Other’s experience is not experienced directly but only as constituted in ego’s consciousness.

Phenomenological "experience" must occur in the brain as information processing.

Phenomenological introspection falsely assumes self-aware-ness of cognitive processes.

Intersubjectivity is produced by social processes that phenomenology fails to explain.

Individual consciousness is socially consti-tuted, thus ideolo-gically distorted.

Against cyberne-tics

Practical reason cannot (or should not) be reduced to formal calculation.

Functionalist explanations ignore subtleties of sign systems.

Functionalism fails to explain meaning as embodied, con-scious experience.

The observer must be included in the system, rendering it indeterminate.

Cybernetics is too rationalistic; e.g. it underestimates the role of emotion.

Cybernetic models fail to explain how meaning emerges in social interaction.

Cybernetics re-flects the domi-nance of instru-mental reason.

Against socio-psycho-logy

Effects are situational and cannot be precisely predicted.

Socio-psycholo-gical "effects" are internal properties of sign systems.

The subject-object dichotomy of socio-psychology must be transcended.

Communication involves circular causation, not linear causation.

Socio-psychological theories have limited predictive power, even in laboratory.

Socio-psychological "laws" are culture bound & biased by individualism.

Socio-psychology reflects ideologies of individualism, instrumentalism.

Against socio-cultural theory

Socio-cultural rules etc. are contexts & resources for rhe-torical discourse.

Socio-cultural rules etc. are all systems of signs.

The social life-world has a phenomenological foundation.

The functional organization of any social system can be modeled formally.

Socio-cultural theory is vague, untestable, ignores psychological processes that under-lie all social order.

Socio-cultural order is particular & locally negotiated but theory must be abstract and general.

Socio-cultural theory privileges consensus over conflict & change

theory

Practical reason is based in particular situations not uni-versal principles.

There is nothing outside the text.

Critique is immanent in every authentic encounter with tradition.

Self-organizing systems models account for social conflict & change.

Critical theory confuses facts & values, imposes a dogmatic ideology.

Critical theory im-poses an interpretive frame, fails to appre-ciate local meanings.

Critical theory is elitist & without real influence on social change.