COMMUNICATION THEORIES, IMPORTANCE, CONCERNS

COMMUNICATION THEORIES

Many definitions of communication are used in order to conceptualize the processes by which people navigate and assign meaning. Communication is also understood as the exchanging of understanding. Additionally the bio-communication theory investigates communicative processes within and among non-humans such as bacteria, animals, fungi and plants. Additionally, the communication theory is used when analyzing technical texts. We might say that communication consists of transmitting information from one person to another. In fact, many scholars of communication take this as a working definition, and use Lasswell's maxim, "who says what to whom in what channel with what effect," as a means of circumscribing the field of communication theory.

IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION THEORIES

A theory helps us understand better the factors that are involved in a phenomenon–a process, an effect, a problem that can’t be easily explained. With the help of a theory, we can understand something better, more deeply and we can make our lives better and easier.

An effective communication theory takes into account the processes going on within a person as well as the interactions going on around him. A theory is not a theory unless it can be tested. If it is not testable, then it is merely a speculation.

This is why a theory should be empirical. Meaning, it should be testable and the variables are observable. A theory should not only be completely abstract. Although a theory is a hypothesis, it is not necessarily be based on facts. What matters is that a theory is able to describe well the causes, effects or relationships of variables or factors in a phenomenon.

In communication, theory helps us understand how we as individuals construct meaning and how these meanings are affected by different factors. There are a number of theories relating to communication. As we progress on the Communication for Personal Development series, we will explore what these theories are.

CONCERNS OF THE MEDIA PRACTITIONER

The media practitioner whether news reporter, public relation worker, creator of magazine advertisements or political campaign director usually attempts to achieve certain effects on an audience. For some, such as the reporter, the intended effect may be merely to have a news story read and understood, that is, to achieve exposure and comprehension. For other practitioners, such as the creator of advertisement, the intended effect may be to get audience members to purchase a product that is, to achieve behavior change. The type of effect intended varies depending upon the role of the communicator and the particular communication task. The various communication effects that can be intended have been described in several lists or typologies. In a number of these lists, the effects are presented as a hierarchy, the ones at the bottom being easier to achieve than the ones at the top. 

Hierarchical Model: A hierarchical model of this type, developed by Lavidge and Steiner (1961) to be ap¬plied to advertising, is presented in Figure 1.1. The model presents six steps, each of which must be accomplished before the one above it can be attempted. The six steps are grouped into following three dimensions or categories:- 

• Cognitive: Deals with our knowledge of things

• Affective: Deals with hour attitudes towards things

• Conative: Deals with our behavior towards things.

Some media practitioners might be interested in only a portion of the effects specified by the model. The reporter, for instance, might be interested only in achieving the cognitive effects. A creator of an adver¬tisement, in contrast, would probably be interested in achieving the full range of six steps. So, in fact, might an editorial writer attempting to get readers to vote for a certain candi¬date if we replace purchase in the model with vote.

Matrix of Persuasion: Another hierarchy of communication effects was developed by William McGuire (1973). McGuire's hierarchy of effects is presented in his "matrix of persuasion" devel¬oped particularly to clarify the process of attitude change. The matrix lists live classes of factors within the communication process (independent variables) and six "behavioral steps" (dependent variables). McGuire's steps also specify a hierarchy. In McGuire's matrix, the steps at the top must be taken before the lower steps can be accom-plished. 

AIETA Model: Still another version of the hierarchy of effects model is the AIETA model, or the “awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, adoption" model (Krugman, 1977). This model seems to be based on the research on the adoption of innovations conducted by Evert Rogers and others (Rogers & Shoemaker, 1971).

Some later research has challenged whether the steps in these hierarchies must always take place in the same rigid sequence (Ray, 1973), but, regardless of that position, the hierarchies are useful. They remind us that mass communication can have a number of effects and they force communicators to be specific about what effect they are intending. And, as we shall see, certain variables in the communication process have more impact on some of the levels of effects than they do on others.

For most of the levels described in the hierarchies we have presented, the mass media practitioner will find that certain areas of communication theory can be helpful in achiev¬ing the intended effect. General semantics, readability, and perception, for instance, are all useful in attempting to achieve the effects of attention and comprehension. Attitude change, group dynamics, and interpersonal communication are all useful in attempting to achieve the effects of yielding and retention. Attitude change and cognitive consistency, as well as some of the others already mentioned, are useful in attempting to change overt behavior.

CONCERNS OF THE MEDIA USER

Mass communication can also be viewed from the point of view of the audience, and from this point of view the concerns are somewhat different. The audience member is likely to be more concerned about the uses of mass communication than about its effects. The audi¬ence member probably thinks of newspapers, radio, television, magazines, motion pic¬tures, and other media as things to be used for specific purposes. These purposes can vary widely, from the light, such as providing leisure, relaxation, and entertainment, to the serious, such as providing warnings of dangers (tornadoes, floods, and terrorist attacks) or providing information to be used in evaluating candidates for the presidency of the United States. In between are a host of other uses, including obtaining information for daily life (weather reports, school lunch menus), shopping information (sales, announcements of new products), or news about community and neighbors.

Uses and Gratification: Mass communication theory can help us understand these various uses the audience makes of the mass media and can perhaps provide valuable information about desired uses that the media are not meeting. The area of mass communication theory called "uses and gratifications" is aimed at providing just that kind of information.

Effects: The audience can also become concerned about the effects of mass communication, however, particularly when those effects might be negative or undesirable. Watching tele¬vision violence might cause audience members to engage in aggressive behavior toward others. Watching pornographic films might cause men to have more callous attitudes to-ward women. Advertisements for beer, wine, and liquor, whether on television or in print, might lead to increased purchase and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Sexual stereo¬typing of men and women in advertisements and in television entertainment programs might be teaching that males and females may fulfill only certain roles, hold only certain jobs, and so forth. These are only some of the many possible undesirable effects of mass communication about which people have expressed concern in some cases, to the point of organizing political groups boycotting certain products.

Criticisms of the mass media for producing undesirable effects has occasionally been extended to an entire medium. Television has been compared to a narcotic drug in Marie Winn's The Plug-In Drug (1977)  and Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978) .

Many undesirable effects are probably not intended by the producers of the messages. Nevertheless, they could be real effects with serious consequences for society. The fact that they are unintended does not mean that they are unimportant. In fact, one scholar has suggested that the main task of the social sciences is to explore the unintended social reper¬cussions of intentional human actions (Popper, 1963).

What is crucial, however, is that these effects be investigated in the most careful and rigorous way. The answers to the questions of whether these effects exist or not should come from science from communication theorists and researchers and not just from ar¬guments by people and groups who have become adversaries in a public controversy.

Information overload: Another problem for audience members in the 20th century is the growing issue of in¬formation overload (Miller, 1960; Klapp, 1978). Some writers have gone so far as to say that the audience for mass communication is no longer a "receiver" but a "victim" (Hiebert, Ungarait, & Bohn, 1974). Richard Saul Wurman (1989) writes of the problem of information anxiety, which he says is produced by the ever-widening gap between what we understand and what we think we should understand.

Sociologist Orrin E. Klapp (1978, 1982) has described the increasing gap that is occurring between information and meaning. Information, as he uses it, refers to a reduction of uncertainty that can be measured in bits, while meaning refers to the mak¬ing sense of information, to the finding of a meaningful pattern. Klapp presents the meta¬phor of a giant funnel with pieces of a jigsaw puzzle dropping out of the hole in the bottom. Klapp says members of the audience for mass communication are like a person sitting under the funnel trying to fit a jigsaw puzzle together. The job is difficult because not only do the pieces come faster than we can process them, but many of them do not even belong to the puzzle we are working on. Significant developments, some of them still on the hori¬zon of the media landscape, have been altering the way media are used as well as how they are generated.