Traditions of Communication Theory

ROBERT T. CRAIG
University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

Communication scholars do not agree on a standard, comprehensive theory of com-

munication, nor do they share a set of related theories all designed to explain specific
aspects of communication or all contending to provide the best solutions to certain
commonly understood problems. Communication research as a whole has never been,
and probably never will be, what Thomas S. Kuhn called a “normal science”: a tightly
coherent discipline in which consensus on a single “paradigm” or metatheoretical
framework facilitates rapid progress of knowledge. In a broad view of the subject there
exist hundreds of theories scattered across the many subfields of communication and
media studies, but those theories often differ so much in content, intellectual style,
and underlying assumptions as to seem essentially unrelated. How did the currently
fragmented state of communication theory come about and what, if anything, should
be done about it? Robert T. Craig (1999, 2007; Craig & Muller, 2007) offered an
historical and institutional interpretation of this problem and proposed to reconstruct
the field on the basis of a constitutive metamodel in which multiple traditions of
thought engage in dialogue and debate on practical communication problems. This
entry sketches the origins and development of communication theory, introduces the
constitutive metamodel, overviews the main traditions of communication theory, and
discusses criticisms and applications of the metamodel.

Multidisciplinary origins

Although some ideas in communication theory are thousands of years old, a self-aware
interdisciplinary field of communication theory only began to emerge in the mid-1940s.
By the 1930s, “communication theory” was a standard term for theories of signal coding
and transmission in electrical engineering. Before that time, the English expressions
“communication theory” and “theory of communication” were not commonly used
but do turn up in online searches (using Google N-Gram) from the mid-19th century
forward in scattered writings on topics that range from medicine (the transmission
of diseases), spiritualism (telepathy, etc.), and art (the theory that art communicates
feelings), to naval warfare (the theory that wars are won by cutting the enemy’s nautical
trade routes). None of these topics is prominent in communication theory today.
In the first half of the 20th century, communication was a theme of growing inter-
est in society and in academic disciplines across the arts and sciences, humanities, and

The International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy.

Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Robert T. Craig (Editors-in-Chief), Jefferson D. Pooley and Eric W. Rothenbuhler (Associate Editors).
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118766804.wbiect119
2 TR A D I T I O N S OF CO M M U N I C AT I O N TH E O R Y

occupational-professional fields. Communication professions of journalism, advertis-

ing, broadcasting, and public relations emerged. Departments of speech were formed
in universities (primarily in the USA) and rapidly expanded from an initial focus on
public speaking instruction to include studies in rhetoric, speech science, group discus-
sion, radio, and other communication topics. Across the academy, philosophers turned
to problems of language and meaning, sociologists to mass communication and urban
community, social psychologists to group dynamics and persuasion. Important theories
about communication (not yet collectively known as “communication theory”) were
developed in these and other disciplines.
If popular and academic interest in communication increased from the early 20th
century, it virtually exploded in the decades after World War II, during which communi-
cation was established as an academic field or discipline in various institutional config-
urations and “communication theory” became a designated topic in that field. However,
the topic of communication theory had little standard content. Courses and textbooks
on communication theory cobbled together ideas from the numerous fields and disci-
plines in which aspects of communication had been theorized. These combinations var-
ied greatly and might emphasize mass or interpersonal communication, anthropology,
behavioral sciences, humanities, or information and system theories. The term “com-
munication theory” was borrowed from electrical engineering and now referred to all
communication-related theories of whatever disciplinary provenance. It was also antic-
ipated that communication would become a fully fledged academic discipline in its own
right as communication scholars began to develop their own “native” field of theory.
Craig (1999) described the development of the field in two overlapping phases or
modes. In the mode of sterile eclecticism, ideas about communication were collected
from multiple disciplinary sources and cataloged, but little new theory was produced.
In the mode of productive fragmentation, communication research became highly
productive in specialty fields aligned with particular cognate disciplines, often using
theory derived from those disciplines but also sometimes contributing new theory.
For example, interpersonal communication researchers relied heavily on theories in
social psychology but also began to develop similar theories of their own. However,
the field of communication as a whole continued to lack coherence. There was neither
common theoretical core nor any agreement as to whether such a core was possible
or even desirable. Theories could be cataloged and classified with regard to topics,
epistemological approaches, or disciplinary origins, but the whole of communication
theory appeared to be no greater than the sum of its parts.

The constitutive metamodel

Craig (1999) proposed a way of understanding communication theory as a field of

thought that could be productively coherent without denying or attempting to reduce its
topical and epistemological diversity. There are many forms of communication theory
with origins in various disciplines and thought traditions, but Craig argued that all of
those forms of theory developed through the 20th century partly in response to prac-
tical concerns about communication. Disciplines responded to practical problems in
 TR A D I T I O N S OF CO M M U N I C AT I O N TH E O R Y 3

different ways that reflected their particular intellectual perspectives, but all had some-
thing potentially useful to say, whether they were anthropologists illuminating cultural
differences in communication, philosophers showing how to clarify meaning, or psy-
chologists explaining the effects of mass-mediated messages on individuals.
Communication was thus a practical concern and a common topic of discussion in
society well before it became the defining subject of an institutionalized academic disci-
pline. Craig argued that the communication discipline’s core mission is to cultivate and
inform the ongoing discussion of communication problems and practices in society. At
the disciplinary core, the various traditions of communication theory are investigated,
interpreted, and debated as alternative approaches for understanding communication
problems and shaping communication practices.
A technical term for discussions about communication is metadiscourse. Craig’s con-
stitutive metamodel of the field is concerned with the formal metadiscourse internal
to the communication discipline (theoretical metadiscourse) and how the structure of
that internal conversation generates relevant contributions to the practical metadis-
course that is always going on in society. Many models (conceptual representations) of
communication circulate in the theoretical metadiscourse of the field. The constitutive
metamodel is a model of models that represents models of communication as alternative
ways of representing communication for practical purposes. According to this meta-
model, the goal of theoretical metadiscourse is not to reach agreement on a single true
theory of communication. Because numerous models may be found useful for differ-
ent purposes, the field is characterized by an essential pluralism such that theoretical
metadiscourse engages alternative models of communication in dialogue (exploration
of differences) and dialectic (debate over disagreements). Thus, the field as a whole is
characterized by dialogical-dialectical coherence, not the coherence of a unified theory
but rather that of a focused deliberation on the relative merits of different theories for
addressing practical communication problems.
The constitutive metamodel is a model for communication in the field of communi-
cation theory. As such, it is based on a constitutive model of communication, according
to which communication is a social process that produces shared meaning (as opposed
to simply transmitting information). Metadiscourse is a communication process that
produces the meaning of communication for practical purposes. Since communication
can have various meanings (as represented by various models of communication, some
of which contradict the constitutive model), the constitutive model contradicts itself if
it is regarded as the one true model of communication rather than as one among many
models that are useful for different purposes. Craig did not claim that the constitutive
model of communication is exclusively true; he only claimed that it provides the basis
for a metamodel that is useful for representing the field of communication theory for
some purposes. It follows that other metamodels of the field may be found useful for
other purposes (Craig, 2007).
The constitutive metamodel regards communication theory primarily as a metadis-
cursive practice rather than a body of knowledge (which it also is, of course). The practice
of communication theory at the level of the field as a whole is to engage multiple tra-
ditions of thought in theoretical metadiscourse that is intended to inform practical
metadiscourse on communication problems. Theoretical metadiscourse informs (and
4 TR A D I T I O N S OF CO M M U N I C AT I O N TH E O R Y

is informed by) practical metadiscourse by means of specific practices such as applied

research and professional consultation, academic instruction, and popularization. The-
oretical metadiscourse establishes its relevance to practical metadiscourse by engaging
critically with popular beliefs about communication that Craig referred to as metadis-
cursive commonplaces. Practically relevant theories always affirm some commonplace
beliefs while challenging other beliefs. For example, Claude Shannon’s theory of infor-
mation affirmed the popular belief that the purpose of communication is to transmit
information, even though his novel concept of information seemed to violate common
sense. This is partly what made the theory so interesting. Disagreements among the-
ories may take the form of commonplace beliefs that are affirmed in one theoretical
tradition while being challenged in another. For example, some theories, like Shan-
non’s, assume that gaining new information is the primary purpose of communication
while other theories challenge that assumption by placing more value on ritual perfor-
mances that maintain the common meanings that are shared in a community (Carey,
1989/2009).
To illustrate the constitutive metamodel more comprehensively and to provide a take-
off point for further discussion, Craig proposed to represent the field of communication
theory as a matrix of theoretical traditions. The matrix displayed seven main traditions
of communication theory with reference to each tradition’s typical definitions of com-
munication and communication problems, its metadiscursive vocabulary (technical
terminology for discussing communication), and metadiscursive commonplaces that
it affirms or challenges. Debate in the field was represented by a table of rhetorical topoi
(lines of argument) representing points of disagreement between each pair of traditions.
The seven traditions are sketched briefly in the following sections (for further details,
see Craig, 1999, 2007; Craig & Muller, 2007).

Rhetorical tradition
Rhetorical theory originated in ancient Greek city-states where citizens participated
in public juries and deliberative assemblies, and public speaking skills were highly
valued. Popular teachers known as sophists wrote handbooks on techniques of
effective speaking. Aristotle, in the first systematic philosophical treatise on rhetoric,
defined it as the art of discovering the available means of persuasion and codified
fundamental rhetorical concepts that continue to be used today. Through the Roman
and medieval periods in the West, rhetoric was a standard school subject (part of
the trivium), and a complex tradition of theoretical writings on rhetoric can be
traced from ancient times down to the present. As the idea of communication gained
currency in the 20th century, rhetorical theory also flourished and the scope of
rhetoric was broadened from its roots in public speaking and written composition
so that any communication could now be thought of as a form of rhetoric. In the
rhetorical tradition, communication is a practical art of discourse, concerned with
mastering techniques of communication, developing a critical awareness of tech-
niques, and making wise choices about what and how to communicate in practical
situations.
 TR A D I T I O N S OF CO M M U N I C AT I O N TH E O R Y 5

Semiotic tradition
Semiotics, the theory of signs, sprang in its modern form from the 17th-century
empiricist philosopher John Locke, who theorized that words stand for ideas in each
person’s mind and that communication fails when people use words with different or
unclear meanings. Under the influence of seminal thinkers such as Charles S. Peirce
and Ferdinand de Saussure, sophisticated theories were developed in the 20th century
to explain types and systems of signs and how signs function in the mind and in
society. For example, natural signs (e.g., smoke is a sign of fire) can be distinguished
from symbolic signs (e.g., the word “fire” used in a speech about fire prevention) in
that symbolic signs have shared meaning only as a matter of social convention. In the
semiotic tradition, communication depends entirely on the production and interpre-
tation of signs to share meaning or transmit information. The practical concerns of
rhetoric and semiotics overlap, but rhetoric has traditionally focused on persuasion
while semiotics has focused on intersubjective understanding as the fundamental
problem of communication.

Cybernetic tradition
In the late 1940s, formal theories of communication developed by mathematicians and
electrical engineers, especially Shannon’s theory of information and Norbert Wiener’s
theory of cybernetic feedback-control systems, attracted widespread attention in
disciplines ranging from biology to psychology and the social sciences. At the dawn
of the information age, these theories seemed to point the way to a rigorous science of
communication that would explain how information functions in all complex systems
including machines, biological organisms, and human society. Although the formal
mathematics of these theories were not easily applied to human interaction, Shannon’s
diagram of the linear model of communication became a staple of communication
theory courses, and key terms such as information, redundancy, noise, and feedback
were absorbed into ordinary language as a somewhat technical-sounding vocabu-
lary for discussing communication. In the cybernetic tradition, communication is
information-processing in systems at all levels from machines to human societies, and
problems of communication have to do with system malfunctions (such as information
blockage in organizations or escalating conflict in interpersonal relations) rather than
persuasion (contrary to the rhetorical tradition) or shared meaning (contrary to the
semiotic tradition). In a cybernetic view, communication is a functional process that
does not rely on conscious intentionality. Human consciousness itself is a form of
information-processing that is not different in its essential functioning from that of
computing machines or other nonconscious systems.

Phenomenological tradition
Phenomenological theory is concerned with communication as a subjective experience.
In contrast to cybernetics, human consciousness and intentionality are essential to
communication as theorized in this tradition. Phenomenological theory describes the
6 TR A D I T I O N S OF CO M M U N I C AT I O N TH E O R Y

forms of conscious experience through which we interpret and make sense of the world
around us, including other people. Several contending schools of phenomenology
developed in the 20th century from the work of major Continental philosophers such
as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. An important
concept first theorized by the philosopher Martin Buber is that of genuine dialogue—an
event of communion between people who experience each other as full persons
with their own subjectivity (I–you) rather than as instrumental objects (I–it). The
phenomenological tradition thus offers an ethical view of communication that values
openness and authenticity and is critical of strategic (rhetorical) as well as mechanistic
(cybernetic or sociopsychological) views. Phenomenology’s focus on our direct
experience of others can be contrasted to the semiotic assumption that meaning can
only be shared through signs, but current philosophers of communication often blend
the two traditions, weaving signs and discourse into the fabric of conscious experience.

Sociopsychological tradition
Scientific social psychology developed in the 20th century, roughly in parallel with phe-
nomenology and in response to some related practical concerns about human relations,
but it theorized communication, quite differently, as a process of behavioral interac-
tion with psychological causes and effects. Leading social psychologists such as Kurt
Lewin, Carl Hovland, and Gordon Allport developed theories of group dynamics, per-
suasion and social influence, rumor transmission, cognitive information-processing,
interpersonal attraction, and other communication-related phenomena that have been
extensively applied and further developed in communication research to explain media
effects and interpersonal interaction. This is the dominant theoretical tradition in cur-
rent conceptions of communication research as a science. As a tradition focused on
explaining the causes and effects of communication, sociopsychologcal theory appeals
to a practical interest in diagnosing the causes of communication problems and finding
effective solutions to control outcomes. Although both rhetoric and social psychol-
ogy are concerned with communication techniques, rhetoric theorizes communication
as an art adapted to each situation while social psychology pursues scientific gener-
alizations. Although cybernetics and social psychology share a scientific orientation,
sociopsychological theory does not equate machine and human communication but
rather emphasizes the importance of distinctly human factors such as personality, emo-
tion, and motivated cognition.

Sociocultural tradition
The sociocultural tradition of communication theory emerged under the influence
of 19th and early 20th-century social theorists such as Émile Durkheim, Charles
H. Cooley, John Dewey, and George H. Mead. In this tradition, communication is
viewed as an essential process of human society. On the macrolevel of society as a
whole, communication functions to integrate and coordinate the various institutions
of a society. On the microlevel of social interaction, our successful communication
with one another depends on a shared context of social institutions and cultural
 TR A D I T I O N S OF CO M M U N I C AT I O N TH E O R Y 7

patterns, which we both reproduce and flexibly adapt as we interact, thus contributing
both to the maintenance of society and to the possibility of social change on the
macrolevel. A problem for sociocultural theories is to explain how local interactions,
in the aggregate, produce social and cultural patterns even while they depend on and
reproduce existing patterns. The sociocultural tradition is concerned with practical
communication problems such as collaboration and organization, social conflict and
change, communication across cultural differences, and the quest for community in
diverse, multicultural societies. Sociocultural theory criticizes the overemphasis on
individual agency and the lack of attention to the macrolevel of society and culture
in traditions such as rhetoric, phenomenology, and social psychology. It criticizes the
tendency in traditions such as semiotics and cybernetics to abstract communication
codes or functions from the rich context of social life in which they necessarily occur.

Critical tradition
The modern critical tradition of communication theory began in the mid-19th century
with the Marxist critique of capitalist ideology and has evolved through the Frankfurt
School critical theorists of the mid-20th century, and later Frankfurt School theorists
such as Jürgen Habermas, to contemporary poststructuralism and identity-based crit-
ical movements that challenge oppressive ideologies of race, gender, sexuality, ability,
and other stratified categories. For theorists in the critical tradition, most communica-
tion is distorted by ingrained ideological assumptions and power structures that per-
petuate social injustice, and a practical purpose of communication theory is to cultivate
forms of discursive reflection or communication that exposes oppressive ideology, freely
questions the status quo, and promotes progressive social change. If other communi-
cation theorists criticize the critical tradition for politicizing science and scholarship,
critical theorists criticize other traditions for false neutrality that implicitly serves dom-
inant ideologies.

Criticisms, extensions, and applications

Myers (2001) advanced two main criticisms against the constitutive metamodel. First,
instead of opening up dialogue that respects the differences among theoretical tradi-
tions as it is claimed to do, Myers argued, the constitutive metamodel actually reduces
and assimilates all of the traditions to an imposed, constitutive model of communica-
tion. Second, according to Myers, the metamodel’s relativistic stance that all theories
can be practically useful for different purposes sidesteps questions of truth and episte-
mology and provides no basis for adjudicating between theories or correcting errors.
In response to Myers, Craig (2001, 2007) acknowledged that the metamodel assumes a
constitutive model of communication but only for the limited purposes of dialogue and
debate about the practical implications of different theories, which can include assess-
ments of theories based on empirical evidence, and which do not require all theories to
adopt a constitutive model of communication for other purposes.
8 TR A D I T I O N S OF CO M M U N I C AT I O N TH E O R Y

Other criticisms of the constitutive metamodel have focused on particular traditions

of communication theory. Martinez (2008) objected that Craig’s (1999) brief account of
the phenomenological tradition was superficial and misleading. Russill (2005) argued
that the metamodel should recognize a pragmatist tradition that focuses on problems
of communication between incommensurable views in a pluralistic society. Russill also
pointed out that the constitutive metamodel itself is theory of communication in this
pragmatist tradition. Craig (2007) agreed with Russill’s criticism, went on to elaborate
pragmatism as a possible eighth tradition in the metamodel, and discussed implica-
tions for the metamodel itself as a pragmatist theory of communication in the field of
communication theory.
Bergman (2012), however, criticized these accounts of the pragmatist tradition. He
argued that the Craig–Russill version of pragmatism oversimplifies the pragmatist
tradition and too closely identifies it with social constructionism, thus neglecting
an important strain of philosophical realism in the tradition. Bergman (2012) also
criticized the distorting effects of an artificial separation between pragmatism and
other traditions of communication theory, especially semiotics, and noted several
other conceptual problems that weaken the metamodel. He nevertheless concluded
that the constitutive metamodel can have an important function in the field.
In a generally positive commentary on the constitutive metamodel, Martín Algarra
(2009) criticized it for shifting the field’s focus away from actual communication
phenomena and toward the field itself, so the study of communication instead becomes
a study of communication theories (theoretical metadiscourse). He regarded such
efforts to systematize the field as necessary and important, however, despite the
unavoidable simplification of categories that fails to capture the nuances of unique
theoretical positions.
Kirtiklis (2011) pointed out that the constitutive metamodel, because it classifies
theories according to their underlying conceptions of communication rather than epis-
temology, fails to articulate communication theories with research methodology. He
argued that a distinction between two epistemologically based traditions—naturalist
and interpretive—captures different conceptions of communication along with their
associated research methodologies, thus rendering a more coherent model of the field.
In contrast to Myers (2001), who criticized Craig (1999) for imposing a constitutive
model of communication on the field, Cooren (2012) proposed a more strongly unified
metamodel in which the seven traditions would be reinterpreted as alternative design
specifications for the communicative constitution of reality.
Presentations of the constitutive metamodel have emphasized that the traditions of
communication theory can be interpreted differently, are open to change over time,
and are not limited to seven in number (Craig, 1999, 2007; Craig & Muller, 2007; see
also Simonson, Garcia-Jiménez, Siebers, & Craig, 2012). Craig (2009) suggested that
scholars can contribute to the field of communication theory by: (1) cultivating theo-
retical cosmopolitanism (appreciation of different traditions); (2) writing comparative
applications in which a practical problem is framed from the perspectives of multiple,
contrasting traditions; (3) proposing deeper or more accurate interpretations of par-
ticular traditions, such as phenomenology; and (4) reinterpreting the entire field from
different metatheoretical or cultural standpoints.
 TR A D I T I O N S OF CO M M U N I C AT I O N TH E O R Y 9

Other applications of the metamodel are illustrated by recent proposals of a consti-

tutive approach to interpersonal communication (Manning, 2014), and of a pragmatic
metamodel of communication in which the constitutive metamodel is used as a practi-
cal tool for directly analyzing interpersonal interactions (Garcia-Jimenez, 2014).

SEE ALSO: Critical Theory; Culture; Cybernetics; Dialogue Theory; Discourse The-
ory; Metacommunication; Metatheory; Models of Communication; Phenomenology;
Pragmatism; Psychology, Social; Rhetorical Theory; Semiotics; Theory and Practice

References and further readings

Bergman, M. (2012). Pragmatism as a communication-theoretical tradition: An assessment of

Craig’s proposal. European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 4(1), 208–221.
Carey, J. W. (2009). Communication as culture: Essays on media and society (rev. ed.). New York,
NY: Routledge.
Cooren, F. (2012). Communication theory at the center: Ventriloquism and the communica-
tive constitution of reality. Journal of Communication, 62(1), 1–20. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-
2466.2011.01622.x
Craig, R. T. (1999). Communication theory as a field. Communication Theory, 9, 119–161. doi:
10.1111/j.1468-2885.1999.tb00355.x
Craig, R. T. (2001). Minding my metamodel, mending Myers. Communication Theory, 11,
231–240. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2885.2001.tb00241.x
Craig, R. T. (2007). Pragmatism in the field of communication theory. Communication Theory,
17(2), 125–145. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2885.2007.00292.x
Craig, R. T. (2009). Reflection on “Communication Theory as a Field”. Revue internationale de
communication sociale et publique, 2, 7–11. Retrieved November 9, 2015 from http://www
.revuecsp.uqam.ca/numero/n2/pdf/RICSP_Craig_2009c.pdf
Craig, R. T., & Muller, H. L. (Eds.). (2007). Theorizing communication: Readings across traditions.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Garcia-Jimenez, L. (2014). The pragmatic metamodel of communication: A cultural approach to
interaction. Studies in Communication Sciences, 14, 86–93. doi: 10.1016/j.scoms.2014.03.006
Kirtiklis, K. (2011). Not by communication alone: Epistemology and methodology as typological
criteria of communication theories. Informacijos Mokslai, 58, 42–55.
Manning, J. (2014). A constitutive approach to interpersonal communication studies. Commu-
nication Studies, 65(4), 432–440. doi: 10.1080/10510974.2014.927294
Martín Algarra, M. (2009). La comunicación como objeto de estudio de la teoría de la comuni-
cación [Communication as an object of study in the theory of communication]. Anàlisi, 38,
151–172.
Martinez, J. M. (2008). Semiotic phenomenology and the “dialectical approach” to intercul-
tural communication: Paradigm crisis and the actualities of research practice. Semiotica, 169,
135–153.
Myers, D. (2001). A pox on all compromises: Reply to Craig (1999). Communication Theory, 11,
218–230.
Russill, C. (2005). The road not taken: William James’s radical empiricism and communication
theory. Communication Review, 8(3), 277–305.
Simonson, P., Garcia-Jiménez, L., Siebers, J., & Craig, R. T. (2012). Some foundational con-
ceptions of communication: Revising and expanding the traditions of thought. Empedocles:
European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication, 4(1), 73–92. doi: 10.1386/ejpc.4.1.73_1
10 TR A D I T I O N S OF CO M M U N I C AT I O N TH E O R Y

Robert T. Craig is professor emeritus of communication at the University of Colorado,

Boulder, USA, and coeditor of the International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory
and Philosophy. His research has addressed a range of topics in communication theory
and philosophy, discourse studies, and argumentation, with a particular emphasis on
developing metatheoretical and methodological foundations for communication as a
discipline that cultivates the practice of communication in society.