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CHAPTER 1

TALK ABOUT THEORY


Outline
I.

Introduction.
A. Theorists grounded in behavioral science approach communication objectively
(observing behavior).
B. Theorists grounded in the humanities approach communication through
interpreting texts.
C. Theory encompasses all careful, systematic, and self-conscious discussion and
analyses of communication phenomena.

II.

Objective or interpretive: a difference that makes a difference.


A. The objective approach and the interpretative approach to communication study
differ in starting point, method, and conclusion.
B. Scholars who do objective study are scientists.
C. Scholars who do interpretive study are concerned with meaning.
D. Objective and interpretive scholars are passionately committed to their
approaches.
E. Readers will benefit from understanding the distinction between the approaches.

III.

Ways of knowing: discovering truth or creating multiple realities?


A. Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge.
B. Scientists assume that truth is singular.
1. Reality is accessible through our senses.
2. Collectively, scientists can understand the world.
3. Good theories are mirrors of nature, true as long as conditions remain the
same.
C. Interpretive scholars also seek truth, but they are more tentative about the
possibility of revealing objective reality.
1. Truth is largely subjective meaning is highly interpretive.
2. The knower cannot be separated from the known.
3. Multiple meanings are acceptable.
4. Successful interpretations are those that convince others.

IV.

Human nature: determinism or free will.


A. Determinists argue that heredity and environment determine behavior.
1. Scientists favor this stance.
2. They stress behavior shaped by forces beyond our control or individual
awareness.
B. Free will proponents maintain that human behavior is voluntary.
1. Interpretive scholars endorse this position.
2. They focus on conscious choices of individuals, not on why choices are
made.
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C.

3. They believe that significant decisions are value laden.


As free choice increases, predictability of behavior decreases.

V.

The highest value: objectivity or emancipation?


A. Social scientists value objectivity personal values should not distort human
reality.
B. Interpretive scholars seek to expand the range of free choice they bring values to
bear upon texts.
C. Scientists seek effectiveness humanists focus on participation.

VI.

The purpose of theory: universal laws or guides for interpretation?


A. Scientists seek universal laws humanists strive to interpret individual texts.
B. Scientists test theories humanists explore the web of meaning constituting
human existence.
C. Scientists seek prediction humanists strive for interpretation.

VII. Methods: quantitative or qualitative?


A. Scientists favor quantifiable experiments and surveys.
1. Through experiments, scientists seek to establish a cause-and-effect
relationship by manipulating an independent variable in a tightly controlled
situation in order to determine its effect on a dependent variable. Results
are measured.
2. Surveys rely on self-report data to discover who people are and what they
think, feel, and intend to do.
3. It is difficult to support cause-and-effect relations with surveys, but survey
data more closely resemble real life than experimentation does.
B. Interpretive scholars use qualitative textual analysis and ethnography.
1. Textual analyses describe and interpret messages.
2. Increasingly, textual analyses expose and publicly resist dominant social
ideologies.
3. Through ethnography, participant-observers experience a cultures web of
meaning.
VIII. Objective and interpretive labels anchor ends of a continuum, with many theories in
between.

Key Names and Terms


Ernest Bormann
Emeritus theorist at the University of Minnesota who posits the broad definition of
communication theory listed below. His theory of symbolic convergence is featured in
Chapter Three.
Tony Schwartz
An advertising guru who developed the resonance principle of communication.
Resonance Principle of Communication
Broadcast messages are most effective when they strike a responsive chord in
members of the audience, thus evoking stored experiences from the past.
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Stanley Deetz
Communication scholar from the University of Colorado who believes that every general
communication theory has two prioritieseffectiveness and participation. His theory of
organizational communication is featured in Chapter 20.
Communication Theory
An umbrella term for all careful, systematic, and self-conscious discussion and analysis
of communication phenomena.
Behavioral/Social Scientist
Theorist who assumes truth is singular and accessible through the senses, who
assumes behavior has identifiable causes, who values objectivity and universal laws,
and who relies on quantifiable experiments and surveys. Used interchangeably with
objective scholar.
Interpretive Scholar
Theorist who is concerned with the web of meaning that constitutes human existence
who assumes multiple meanings are accessible and meaning is connected to the
knowers values who believes human behavior is voluntary who seeks to expand the
range of free choice and who uses textual analysis and ethnography to establish
meaning. Closely related to the humanist.
Interpretive Scholarship
The work of assigning meaning or value to communicative texts.
Epistemology
The study of the origin, nature, method, and limits of knowledge.
Determinism
The assumption that behavior is caused by heredity and environment.
Free Will
The assumption that behavior is predominantly voluntary.
Experiment
A research method that manipulates an independent variable in a tightly controlled
situation in order to judge its effect on a dependent variable and thus establish a
cause-and-effect relationship.
Independent Variable
In a scientific experiment, the factor that the researcher systematically alters in the
quest to discover its effect on one or more dependent variables the cause in a
hypothesized cause-and-effect relationship.
Dependent Variable
In a scientific experiment, a measured outcome that presumably is influenced or
changed by the independent variable the effect in a hypothesized cause-and-effect
relationship.
Survey Research
A research method that employs questionnaires and face-to-face interviews to collect
self-report data demonstrating what people think, feel, and intend to do.
Textual Analysis
A research method that describes and interprets the characteristics of any text.
Ethnography
A method of participant observation designed to help a researcher experience a
cultures complex web of meaning.

Principal Changes
The material in this chapter has been edited for clarity and precision and Griffin has
added the depiction of the objective-interpretive scale (19).

Suggestions for Discussion


Theory, whats it good for?
For many students, this may be their first foray into the world of theory and as such, you
will need to lay some groundwork. In the past, we have found it productive to ask students
what they know about theory in general. What connotations does the word, theory have for
them? Many times, theory is seen as impotent (i.e. only in theory) or derogatory (well, its a
nice theory but). You might want to spend a few minutes discussing the purpose of a theory,
a topic that will re-emerge in Chapter 3. Theories can focus attention, clarify observations,
provide a framework, predict outcomes, trigger social change, and spark research. During your
discussion, ask students the capacities of a good theory. Starting with a conversation about
why develop and study theory may prove fruitful in future class sessions when discussing the
virtues of any given theory.
The dichotomy on a continuum
The principal challenge in presenting this material is to communicate the important
characteristics of the objective-interpretive dichotomy without oversimplifying, exaggerating, or
polarizing the discipline in absolute terms. Students need to understand that fundamental
differences exist between the two theoretical positions, but if they are seen as entirely
separate and mutually exclusive, then the nuances of the theories discussed throughout A
First Look at Communication Theory will be compromised. The theoretical continuum
presented in the final chapter (Chapter 36) will bewilder students who have learned to stick
too rigidly to this initial dichotomy. In discussion, therefore, remind students that the camps
are themselves theoretical constructs designed to approximate, but not to straightjacket,
reality. Make sure that students dont characterize humanists as raving relativists or solipsists
utterly uninterested in shared truths, common understanding, and the world out there. Nor
should scientists be pictured as cold, impersonal beings that entirely forsake their values
when they step into the lab. Remind your class that even the seemingly objective choices
involved in pursuing a particular line of scientific inquiry or conducting one experiment and not
another are inherently value laden. Stan Deetzs terms effectiveness and participation,
which Griffin presents on page 14, may be usefully considered the primary emphases of
objective and interpretive theorists, respectively, but it would be simplistic to consider such a
dichotomy as anything other than a general trend. It is no accident that when Griffin discusses
the level of commitment present in the communication theorists he has met, he uses the word
passionate (10) to describe both interpretive and objective scholars. As we suggest in our
treatment of the elaboration likelihood model below, the attempt to separate reason and
emotion in argument and in scholarship may be illusory.
When discussing this chapter, be sure students understand that although Griffin uses
the terms scientific and objective interchangeably, he notes that not all interpretive scholars
are humanists and/or rhetoricians. You may want to explain and discuss why some

postmodern communication scholars, for example, reject humanists emphasis on tradition or


why some interpretive scholars mistrust rhetoricians emphasis on argument and conscious
intentionality.
Textual analysis
In the past few decades, textual analysiswhich has been aptly described by Michael Leff
as the close reading and rereading of the text, the analysis of the historical and biographical
circumstances that generate and frame its composition, the recognition of basic conceptions
that establish the co-ordinates of the text, and an appreciation of the way these conceptions
interact within the text and determine its temporal movement (Textual Criticism: The Legacy
of G.P. Mohrmann, Quarterly Journal of Speech 72 [1986]: 380)has been characterized by
various theoretically minded scholars as atheoretical, inadequately theorized, and of
secondary importance to contemporary rhetorical criticism. We contend, however, that such
conclusions are far from inevitable. Robust textual analysis, David Henry maintains, goes
beyond the textual dynamics of discrete suasionary tracts to explor[e] broader theoretical
issues, particularly rhetorics power to shape and to influence political philosophy, political
culture, and political judgment (Text and Theory in Critical Practice, Quarterly Journal of
Speech 78 [1992]: 221). Leff asserts that attention to the text does not preclude
perception of larger discursive developments that allow us to understand the text as an
assimilative social product constituting a productive moment in the unending process of
interpreting and re-interpreting the social world (Lincoln Among the Nineteenth-Century
Orators, Rhetoric and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, T.W. Benson, ed. [East
Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1997], 134). Conducting textual analysis does not require a
choice between theory and close reading or questions about specific textual elements and
larger ideological developments. To put a complex matter in simple terms, textual analysis is
seen my many scholars as inherently theoretical.
Theory and research
Be sure to emphasize the intimate relationship between theory and research. Although
the official subject of the book is the former, highlight how Griffin marshals methodology in his
treatment of scientific and humanist theory. Remind your students to look for the connection
throughout the text.

Exercises and Activities


Ad analysis
A good exercise is to ask students to bring their own print or television advertisements
to class the day you discuss the chapter. Depending on the size of your class, require each
student to write or present orally a short explanation of how the piece theyve chosen would be
analyzed by an objective and an interpretive communication scholar. Theyll appreciate the
fine analyses produced by Sparks and Medhurst much more after theyve tried their own, and
youll be able to gauge their level of comprehension. The problems they encounter with this
assignment will help you to see what concepts require further explanation.
To help students see how diverse the realm of theory building can be, we like to have
them scrutinize the two different explanations offered by Sparks and Medhurst, then offer
alternatives. Sparks focuses on resonance with past experiences. Medhurst believes that
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Kenneth Burkes guilt-purification-redemption cycle and his concept of perspective by


incongruity best explain the ads communicative power. There are, however, other
explanations for the ads persuasive force. One might argue, for example, that the key to its
power is its ability to play on our fear of negatively influencing children. How did these kids
develop such low esteem? Could it have been through their exposure to their parents and
other adults with dead-end jobs? Are we reproducing such expectations in the children that
populate our lives? After all, many of us care more about our influence than our own selfperception. No doubt your students can come up with equally plausible explanations. Such
hypothesizing will help them understand the origins of theory. Its also useful to speculate
about how alternative hypotheses could be shaped and molded by both objective and
interpretive scholars.
Lining up along the continuum
When Em Griffin teaches this chapter, he works through the components of the
objective and interpretative perspectives systematically with his students, making sure that
they understand each binary set: truth vs. multiple realities, determinism vs. free will,
objectivity vs. emancipation, and so forth. With each pair, he asks the students to indicate
which element they are more comfortable with. For example, a student may choose truth over
multiple realities, or free will over determinism. After this territory has been mapped, Griffin
creates a continuum across the blackboard or one wall of the classroom, with strong
objectivism at one extreme and strong interpretivism at the other. He then asks the students
to array themselves along the continuum. If students tend to bunch up on one end or the
other, he plays the devils advocate in an effort to spread them a bit, but ultimately the choice
is theirs. This exercise compels studentsquite literallyto take a stand about communication
theory in the early goings of the class. As the course develops and their knowledge of the field
develops, this initial stand serves as a useful reference point. In addition, Griffin asks students
to suggest where other courses in the major might be placed along the continuum. This activity
helps contextualize the overall discipline for students.
A simpler activity is to ask your studentsat the close of the class periodto write one
paragraph explaining why they consider themselves to be objectivists or interpretivists. Revisit
these texts at the end of the course. Have their beliefs changed? If so, why? Essay Question
#2 aims at this general territory.
NOVA
When Ed McDaniel teaches this class, he uses the following exercise to vivify theory
construction and application while involving his students in the process:
This class is often a students initial introduction to theory as a subject and some may
find the abstractness of the material to be stultifying. One way of breaching this barrier
is to demonstrate early on how application of theory can bring understanding and
insight to a longstanding mystery. A method I have found particularly effective is the
use of a video. NOVA has created a series of videos titled Secrets of the Lost Empires
for PBS. In these videos, scientists, engineers, anthropologists, and so forth endeavor
to recreate a historical event or a structure/devise whose origins remain unknown. I
use Easter Island, which details an actual attempt to replicate how the original
statutes may have been moved and erected. The video lasts approximately 55 minutes

and demonstrates the formulation and application of over 10 theories. Information on


the NOVA series can be obtained from WGBH Boston Video at 1-800-949-8670 or
www.wgbh.org.

Further Resources

In the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication from Ancient Times


to the Information Age, ed. Theresa Enos (New York: Garland, 1996), see Stephen W.
Littlejohn, Communication Theory, 117-21.
For a good collection of general essays on communication theory, see Fred L. Casmir,
ed., Building Communication Theories: A Sociological Approach (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 1994).
In The Third Way: Scientific Realism and Communication Theory, Communication
Theory 9 (May 1999): 162-88, Charles Pavitt further clarifiesand complicatesthe
scientific approach to communication theory.
If youd like to read more about Em Griffins view of communication research, we
recommend Journal of Communication and Religion: A State-of-the-Art Review,
Journal of Communication and Religion 21 (1998): 108-40.
For essays on theory and research in interpersonal communication, see Barbara
Montgomery and Steve Duck, eds., Studying Interpersonal Interaction (New York:
Guilford, 1991).
For discussion of the ways in which science is inherently interpretive or rhetorical, see:
o Alan Gross, Joseph Harmon, and Michael Reidy, Communicating Science: The
Scientific Article from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002)
o Charles Bazerman, Shaping Written Knowledge: Genre and Activity of the
Experimental Article in Science (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988)
o Alan G. Gross, The Rhetoric of Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1990)
o Greg Myers, Writing Biology: Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific
Knowledge (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990)
o Herbert W. Simons, ed., Rhetoric in the Human Sciences (Newbury Park, CA:
Sage, 1989)
o Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science, ed.
Alan Gross and William Keith (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997).
Differences between the interpretive and the objective perspectives on communication
For additional discussion, see Glens article, Humanist and Empiricist Rhetorics: Some
Reflections on Rhetorical Sensitivity, Message Design Logics, and Multiple Goal
Structures, Rhetoric Society Quarterly 23 (Summer/Fall 1994): 27-45. Because he
tries to offer a way in which interpretive scholars (whom he calls humanists) can learn
from their objective (whom he calls empiricists) colleagues, you may wish to revisit this
article as you prepare to teach the final chapter, which further explores the relationship
between the two camps.
Multiple interpretations of text
For further discussion, see Leah Ceccarelli, Polysemy: Multiple Meanings in Rhetorical
Criticism, Quarterly Journal of Speech 84 (November 1998): 395-15.
Free will and determinism
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One of the finest discussions we know of the debate over free will and determinism is
William Jamess The Dilemma of Determinism, in The Will to Believe and Other
Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Dover, 1956), 145-83. Jamess analogy of the
chess game between the novice and the expert demonstrates a kind of resolution or
middle ground between the free will argument and the determinist argument (181-82).
The fact that James works religion into the discussion makes his position even more
interesting.
Science and subjectivity
Two intriguing discussions of science and subjectivity are James Watsons classic
expose, The Double Helix (New York: NAL, 1969), and David Raups The Nemesis Star:
A Story of the Death of Dinosaurs and the Ways of Science (New York: Norton, 1986).
Evidence
For discussion of the issue of what constitutes appropriate evidence in communication
research, see:
o The symposium The Dialogue of Evidence: A Topic Revisited, Western Journal
of Communication 58 (1994): 1-71
o Stuart J. Sigman, Question: Evidence of What? Answer: Communication,
Western Journal of Communication 59 (1995): 79-84
o Leslie Baxter and Lee West, On Whistlers Mother and Discourse of the Fourth
Kind, Western Journal of Communication 60 (1996): 92-100.
Ethnography
A good basic ethnography text is Wendy Bishops Ethnographic Writing Research:
Writing It Down, Writing It Up, and Reading It (Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1999).
See also H. Lloyd Goodall, Writing the New Ethnography (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira
Press, 2000).
One of the finest ethnographic studies weve encountered recently is David
Sutherlands Frontline documentary, The Farmers Wife. This approximately six-hour
film explores the lives of Juanita and Darrel Buschkoetter, a Nebraska couple who
struggle to save their farm and their marriage. In addition to serving as a profound
example of thick description, the film can be used to discuss many of the theories
presented in A First Look.
Another intriguing ethnographic effort is H. Lloyd Goodalls trilogy, Casing a Promised
Land: The Autobiography of an Organizational Detective as Cultural Ethnographer
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989), Living in the Rock n Roll
Mystery: Reading Context, Self, and Others as Clues (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1991), and Divine Signs: Connecting Spirit to Community (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1996).
For recent work on ethnography, see:
o Lyall Crawford, Personal Ethnography, Communication Monographs 63
(1996): 158-70
o Dwight Conquergood, Rethinking Ethnography: Towards a Critical Cultural
Politics, Communication Monographs 58 (1991): 179-94
o AltaMira Presss Ethnographic Alternatives series, particularly Carolyn Ellis and
Arthur P. Bochners Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative
Writing (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1996)
o John Van Maanen, Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1988).

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For specific discussion of power and ethics in ethnographic research, see:


o Julian McAllister Groves and Kimberly A. Chang, Romancing Resistance and
Resisting Romance: Ethnography and the Construction of Power in the Filipina
Domestic Worker Community in Hong Kong, Journal of Contemporary
Ethnography 28 (June 1999): 235-65.
o In the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition, see Annie-Marie Hall,
Ethnography, 241-43.

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Sample Examination Questions


Sample Questions are not reproduced in the online version of the Instructor's Manual.
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Sample Questions are not reproduced in the online version of the Instructor's Manual.

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Sample Questions are not reproduced in the online version of the Instructor's Manual.

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Sample Questions are not reproduced in the online version of the Instructor's Manual.

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