COMMUNICATION THEORY

See: Clemente, M., & Roulet, T. J. 2015. Public opinion as a source of

deinstitutionalization: A “spiral of silence” approach. Academy of Management Review,
40: 96 –114.
Fairhurst, G., & Putnam, L. 2004. Organizations as discursive constructions.
Communication Theory, 14: 5–26

The term communication theory refers to the body of theories that constitute our understanding of the
communication process (Littlejohn, 1983). Theories represent various ways in which observers see their
environment, and as Littlejohn claims (1983, p. 12), because theories are abstractions, every theory is
partial. Each theory delineates a way of looking and, therefore, its truth value can only be measured in
term of how well it is constructed. This is the reason why there is much disagreement about what
constitutes an adequate theory of communication. The search for who is doing what in a communication
process and with what effects, to paraphrase Lasswell (1948), is the basic question of every
communication theory, although it might be studied from different angles or by looking at different
facets.

There has never been agreement on what “communication” or “to communicate” means. Even in
classical Latin, communicare meant “to share with,” “to share out,” “to make generally accessible” or
“to discuss together” (Glare, 1968, p. 369). Rosengren (2000) suggests that, above all, communication
concerns the process of meaning creation: questions concerning how people create meaning
psychologically, socially, and culturally; how messages are understood intellectually; and how ambiguity
arises and is resolved. For Littlejohn, “communication does not happen without meaning, and people
create and use meaning in interpreting events” (Littlejohn, 1992, p. 378). Thus, the crucial question
concerns our understanding of “meaning” and how the process of meaning creation works (for an
overview of the concept of meaning, see Littlejohn, 1983, pp. 95–113).

In communication theory, there are at least three different lenses with which to view how this process
works: communication as a one-way process of meaning construction, in which the sender attempts to
construct or reconstruct the meaning developed by the receiver; communication as a two-way process
of meaning construction, in which two or more people construct new meanings together; and
communication as a omnidirectional diachronic process of meaning construction, in which the focus is
on the continuous development of meaning itself.

Communication as a one-way process from sender to receiver

Early theories of mass communication were focused on communication as a one-way process in which a
sender does something to one or more receivers. However, the identity of this something remained a
matter of debate. Some theories viewed communication as a process of dissemination, a flow of
information in which a sender disseminates a message to receivers by revealing its meaning within this
message. In this case, the focus is on the flow of information, where this information is seen as
objective, as in the mathematical communication theory developed by Shannon (Shannon & Weaver,
1949). In this model, reaching the receiver is sufficient to make the communication successful. In
relation to this one-way transmission perspective, other theories view communication as an attempt by
a sender to produce a predefined attitudinal change in the receiver; that is, a change in the meaning of
the situation as perceived by the receiver. One well-known theory of this type is Two-Step Flow
(Lazersfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1948), which stipulates that the mass media informs certain people,
who in turn influence the meanings perceived by others. There is also the personal influence model of
Katz and Lazersfeld (1955), which considers that responses to media messages are mediated by
interpersonal communication between members of one’s own social environment. This theory uses a
lens through which communication is seen as a process directed from a sender to one or more receivers,
in which the meaning construction of the receivers is mediated by certain influential others, or by peers.

Although the one-way approach might be convincing in relation to information giving and persuasive
communication, more recent approaches to the concept of communication view it as a fundamental
two-way process that is interactive by nature and participatory at all levels (for an overview, see
Servaes, 1999). This involves the paradigmatic change from the sender/receiver orientation into an actor
orientation, in which all actors may be active and take initiatives. This implies that sharing meaning is
not so much seen from a perspective by which the receiver should be willing to share the meaning
originally expressed by the sender, as is the case in the one-way perspective. The emphasis today is
much more on communication as a process in which meanings are created and exchanged, or even
shared, by the parties involved.
In the 1960s, Dance (1967, p. 294) discussed the issues that communication scholars had with Shannon’s
rather simple one-way transmission approach. At the time, they wanted to replace this theory with a
more circular model in which feedback became important or was at least not neglected. The concept of
feedback stems from Wiener (1961), who studied cybernetics from the early 1940s on. Cybernetics is
interested in purposeful levels of behavior within systems. Wiener concluded that feedback mechanisms
are essential in communication theory, whether in a machine or in an animal. All purposeful behavior
requires feedback to be adjustable and therefore remain purposeful and have a particular effect.
However, “adding a feedback loop to a linear process model does not make that model circular or
dynamic – it is there to increase the effectiveness of the linear process” (O’Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, &
Fiske, 1983, p. 90). Thus, this feedback idea of interaction has nothing to do with a two-way lens on
communication.

Communication as a two way process between actors

When looking through the two-way lens of communication, interaction is vital. However, there are
different interpretations of what “interaction” means in this context. The term comes from Latin and not
only means “direct reciprocal dialogue,” but also “to act upon each other and have influences on each
other” (Neumann, 2008, p. 2307). Thus, the term may refer to feedback processes as well as to direct
interaction between people, but it can also refer to a more abstract concept of interaction concerned
with how people relate to other meanings in developing their own meanings.

In interpersonal communication theory, interaction is usually seen from the angle of person-to-person
interaction or group interaction, as in Bales’ interaction process analysis or Fisher’s interaction analysis
(for an overview, see Littlejohn, 1983, pp. 227–240), in which people respond to each other. This notion
can also be found in relational communication theory as constructed by Bateson, who concluded that
every interpersonal exchange bears a message that contains the substance or content of the
communication, as well as a statement about the relationship itself. Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson
(1967, pp. 48–51) called this latter part of the message “metacommunication.” Watzlawick et al. (1967)
also claimed that relationships emerge from the interaction between people, with many kinds of
interaction rules being set that govern their communicative behaviors. By obeying the rules, the
participants sanction the defined relationship. In these models, interaction is focused on how people
engage in conversations with each other and literally converge in creating meaning. Thus, from this
perspective on interaction, the focus is on interpersonal conversations, whether mediated or not. In
some instances, the concept of dialogue is used, in this respect, to mean: focusing on the acts of turning
toward the other, and listening to each other with respect to differences in order to enhance the quality
of the communication (Broome, 2009, p. 305).

In strategic communication theory, the Communicative Constitution of Organizations (CCO) approach is

becoming increasingly important as a lens through which to examine communication. According to
Ashcraft, Kuhn, and Cooren (2009), CCO thinking begins with the premise that communication is not just
a peripheral epiphenomenon of human actions, but the primary model of explaining social reality (see
also Schoeneborn & Blaschke, 2014, p. 302). This interpretation relies on the Chicago School of Urban
Sociology (cf. Rogers, 1997, pp. 137–202) and has been popularized by Berger and Luckmann (1966) in
their explanation of reality as not “something out there,” but as something that human beings construct
themselves. Typical of CCO and related approaches is the idea that this construction is achieved through
interactive conversations between people.

Taylor and Van Every (2000) constructed the Montreal CCO model based on speech theory and looked
at communication from a co-orientation perspective. They focused on daily human interpersonal
exchanges, by which, they argue, organization arises “through the laminated sense-making activities of
members, endlessly renegotiated” (Taylor & Van Every, 2000, p. 33). They suggest that people orientate
themselves toward each other, leading to moments of consensus, but this consensus is endlessly
renegotiated. For Taylor and Every, co-orientation is an ongoing, emergent process of these interactions.

In a written conversation concerning different approaches to CCO (Schoeneborn & Blaschke, 2014), Seidl
describes his own approach based on Luhmann’s theory of social systems, explaining that Luhmann:

argues that what matters is not how a particular individual understands a communication but how a
subsequent communication interprets the preceding communication it is connected to; only a
communicative event can determine the particular way in which the immediately preceding
communicative event is understood (Seidl in Schoeneborn & Blaschke, 2014, p. 290).

Here, co-orientation is also seen as an ongoing, emergent process.

Examining the CCO approach as a whole, it is obvious that emergence is an important concept: in
communicating, the people within and around an organization order and build the organization by
negotiating their meanings over and over again. Interaction is not so much a matter of how meanings
converge, but how meanings are continuously created in this manner, and developed in this ongoing
process of conversations.

Communication as an omnidirectional diachronic process of meaning development itself

There is yet another approach to communication. Through this lens of communication, interaction also
plays a key role, but in a different way to the approach previously discussed. In two-way models, the
notion of interaction is normally narrowed to a consideration of the concrete interactions of those who
are literally engaged in conversations with each other. Through a lens of communication as
omnidirectional diachronic process of meaning development itself, interaction is seen as a dynamic
interplay between actors in their roles as senders and receivers, which influences the consequences of
the communicative transactions at a fundamental level (for an overview, see Stappers, Reijnders, &
Möller, 1990). Through this lens, interaction is focused on the social acts of all those engaged in a
relationship with the communicative process itself and not so much focused on their relationship with
each other. This is to be seen as a virtual process occurring at the level of the interpretations made by
senders and receivers, which influence the meanings they give to a message and consequently the
effects of the message. Seen through this lens, actors are not necessarily related or in proximity to each
other.

In his seminal book on the process of communication, Berlo (1960) explained that a communication
process is not a sequence of events, one following the other, but a continuous and simultaneous
interaction of a large number of variables that are moving, changing, and affecting each other. Thus,
interaction means that the sender plays a role in the interpretation of the receiver in the context and
situation in which the communication is taking place but does not necessarily entail a conversation. This
view is rooted in constructivism (Lindlof, 2008) and echoes Thomas Theorem. As Lindlof argues, “if men
define situations as real, they are real in their consequences,” which can be said to be a typical
constructivist explanation. This perspective on communication considers that “communication is the
chief means by which the social world is created, understood, and reproduced across time and space”
(Lindlof, 2008, p. 947). For Burleson and Bodie (2008, p. 953), “constructivism assumes that humans
actively interpret the world, construct meaningful understandings of it, and act in the world on the basis
of their interpretations.” In this context, a distinction is made between “constructivism” and
“constructionism,” where the focus is often more on how people construct meaning in their
interactions. However, to avoid discussion about constructivism and constructionism, I prefer to call the
approach under examination here an omnidirectional diachronic lens on communication.

The lens on communication as an omnidirectional diachronic process of meaning development itself can
also be found in the ritual model of communication as developed by Carey (1975, 2009). Influenced by
theorists such as Dewey, Innis, and McLuhan, Carey made the distinction between transmission and
ritual models of communication that occur in society. Transmission models are classic sender-receiver
models, yet a ritual model sees communication as a symbolic process, whereby reality is produced,
maintained, repaired, and transformed, over and over again, in a very dynamic and uncontrolled way.
Carey’s ritual model reflects the diachronic view of communication, which, as Thayer (1968, 1987)
argued some years earlier, stipulates that communication can best be seen as an ongoing and complex
process of learning in which meanings develop. By using the concept of the diachronic—which means
developing over time—he focused on ongoing meaning-creation over time, instead of focusing on the
transmission or the effectivity of messages, or on the interaction between actors as people involved in
communicating.

Dance (1967) further emphasized this notion of diachronism in his proposal of the helix as a metaphor
for the communication process in which meanings develop. He claimed that the image of
communication, viewed as a circular two-way process:

does make the point that what and how one communicates has an effect that may alter future
communication. The main shortcoming of the circular model is that if accurately understood, it also
suggests that communication comes back, full-circle, to exactly the same point from which it started. …
The helix gives geometrical testimony to the concept that communication while moving forward is at the
same moment coming back upon itself and being affected by its past behavior, for the coming curve of
the helix is fundamentally affected by the curve from which it emerges. (Dance, 1967, p. 294).

For this reason, he proposes to focus on the communication process as constantly moving forward and
yet always to some degree dependent upon the past, which informs the present and the future (Dance,
1967, p. 295). This is also why this kind of lens on communication is sometimes called an evolutionary or
transactional model (Stappers et al., 1990). Consequently, we should talk about plural meanings
creations, instead of meaning creation, and as an ongoing process that develops as it occurs and cannot
be predicted. From this perspective, feedback is still an important concept but only as a formative
monitoring tool to steer follow-up action.

Although at first sight, the helical model of Dance (1970), the ritual model of Carey (2009), and the ideas
of Berlo (1960) look similar to the CCO approach suggested by Taylor and Van Every (2000), unlike the
latter, Dance, Carey, and Berlo consider communication on a cultural, societal level, and look at meaning
development as such. From their perspectives, the concept of interactivity is not understood as entailing
interaction between two or more people. They look at the more abstract level of the interplay between
social actors, acting as senders and receivers, related to each other only in the context of developing
their own meanings continuously over time, thereby constructing society itself and, consequently, also
constructing ideas about how organizations in society should behave.

Krippendorf (1994) mentions the recursiveness of communication: it is an ongoing social process of de-
constructing and reconstructing interpretations. This is not exclusively done in direct conversations, but
is an ongoing process, insofar as people orient themselves toward others, and again, not necessarily
toward their interaction partners (alone). This is why Faulstich (1992) and other German mass
communication scholars state that “Öffentlichkeitsarbeit” (which is often translated as “public relations”
in the sense of organizational work with and for publics and in public, e.g., as a part of strategic
communication, BvR) is not so much about interaction between individual human beings, but rather
concerns societal action itself.

From my perspective, this is an interesting addition to the CCO approach, as it concentrates on meaning
creation itself, and therefore on the role of the organization in society, as one of the actors in the arenas
of ongoing meaning construction. Furthermore, it stipulates that people present and propagate their
own meanings but do so in a reflective and evolutionary way.

The premise that human beings reflect themselves, the other, and social reality in a constant process of
deconstruction and reconstruction is not new. Mead (1934) may have been the first to bring the concept
of “reflexivity” to the attention of the social sciences.1 As Ritzer (2000, p. 398) states, “the general
mechanism for the development of the self is reflexivity or the ability to put ourselves unconsciously
into others’ places and to act as they act. As a result, people are able to examine themselves as others
would examine them.” Mead had earlier explained this in these terms:

It is by the means of reflexiveness—the turning back of the experience of the individual upon himself—
that the whole social process is thus brought into the experience of the individuals involved in it; it is by
such means, which enable the individual to take the attitude of the other toward himself, that the
individual is able consciously to adjust himself to that process, and to modify the resultant process in
any given social act in terms of his adjustment to it. (1934/1962, p. 134)

Reflexivity or reflectivity, which I prefer to use, is the counterpart of causality: it is an ongoing,

interactive process, and not a discrete, linear one. Along these lines of thinking, reflectivity must be seen
as the core concept of societal interaction because it provides a better explanation of what happens
than causality. Human beings reflect upon themselves in relation to individual others and the social
group as a whole, and as a result their knowledge is reflective. The question of which of these three
lenses on communication is helpful for strategic communication depends on the question of what
strategic communication actually is.