Seven Traditions of Communication Theory
One encounter. Seven ways to ask what matters.
Use Robert T. Craig’s map to compare persuasion, signs, experience, systems, influence, social life and power. Learn how a different question changes the inquiry.
In this chapter · Open the contents
- Understand Craig’s project
- Compare the seven questions
- Rhetorical tradition
- Semiotic tradition
- Phenomenological tradition
- Cybernetic tradition
- Sociopsychological tradition
- Sociocultural tradition
- Critical tradition
- Try seven lenses on one case
- Debate the map & pragmatism
- Build a comparative inquiry
- Watch & reflect
- Check your learning
- Review & read further
Change the question. Defend the approach.
- Explain the seven traditions through their questions and assumptions.
- Distinguish a tradition, theory, model and metamodel.
- Apply different traditions to the same case without treating them as identical.
- Match claims with evidence, evaluate the map and explain the later pragmatist debate.
Why can communication have more than one good question?
A university announces a new attendance rule through its student portal. The message is delivered successfully, yet students object. Some find the wording unclear. Others feel that no one listened to them. Some comply; others share critical posts. Has communication succeeded or failed?
Your answer depends partly on what you mean by communication. A reliable channel, a convincing argument, a shared interpretation, a respectful encounter and a fair decision process are different achievements.
Robert T. Craig’s seven traditions provide a way to compare recurring approaches to communication theory. His 1999 proposal maps a field in which traditions can question one another about practical problems. It seeks productive dialogue without forcing every theory into a single explanation. Read Craig’s article.
A tradition is larger than a single theory.
A tradition is a historically developed conversation with characteristic questions, concepts and disagreements. A theory offers a more specific account. A model selectively represents relationships or processes. A metamodel helps us compare models and the assumptions they carry.
Think of a map of a city. A transport map, a drainage map and a map of neighbourhood life reveal different relations. Comparing them can improve an inquiry, but drawing all their lines together does not automatically produce one coherent explanation.
We will return to the fictional attendance announcement throughout this chapter. The institutional rule is a teaching example, not a claim about a particular university.
Seven questions. A shared problem.
What reasons, appeals and forms of address could make the announcement persuasive?
How do its words, images and conventions make meaning—or allow competing interpretations?
How is the encounter experienced, and can participants meet one another as persons?
How do information, feedback and correction move through the system?
Which communication conditions influence people’s perceptions, attitudes or actions?
How do repeated practices produce roles, identities and an accepted social order?
Whose interests and authority shape the process, and who can challenge it?
Change the question before changing the method.
An interview can investigate lived experience, institutional norms or a causal hypothesis, depending on its design and use. Counting words does not automatically make a study sociopsychological. Analysing a speech does not automatically make it rhetorical. State the problem, assumptions and kind of claim first.
| Tradition | Communication foregrounded as… | A difficulty to investigate |
|---|---|---|
| Rhetorical | Practical discourse and judgment. | Unconvincing reasons or an unsuitable appeal. |
| Semiotic | Meaning through signs and interpretation. | Ambiguity or conflicting codes. |
| Phenomenological | Lived encounter and experience of others. | Being reduced to a label or not genuinely heard. |
| Cybernetic | Information, relationships and feedback in systems. | A missing, distorted or escalating feedback process. |
| Sociopsychological | Processes of interaction and influence. | An explanation of differences in responses or behaviour. |
| Sociocultural | The production and reproduction of social order. | Norms and roles that make participation possible or difficult. |
| Critical | Reflection on power, ideology and possibilities for change. | Domination or exclusion sustained through communication. |
An introductory orientation to Craig’s seven traditions. Each contains differences and overlaps that a short comparison cannot capture. Use the linked original readings to deepen a specific argument.
What can discourse reasonably persuade us to do?
The rhetorical tradition examines communication as a practical art of discourse. It asks how people address others, offer reasons, judge situations and act through speaking or other symbolic forms. Classical public speaking is a major source, but rhetorical inquiry extends to writing, images and digital media.
Begin with audience, situation and judgment.
Aristotle’s Rhetoric examines the available means of persuasion. An introductory analysis can distinguish ethos—the credibility presented by a speaker; logos—the reasoning offered; and pathos—how discourse addresses emotions and dispositions. These are not a formula that guarantees agreement. Read Book I.
In the fictional university announcement, a rhetorical question is whether the institution explains the rule’s purpose, supports its claims and addresses students’ likely objections. A stern command may secure compliance while failing to justify the decision. A polished appeal can still contain weak reasoning.
Possible inquiry: compare two versions of the announcement and analyse how each constructs the relationship between university and students. If you also claim that one version causes greater acceptance, you need an appropriate audience study.
A limit to watch: rhetoric is not merely manipulation, and persuasion is not the only form of communication. Contemporary rhetorical debates also examine identification, invitation and the ethics of addressing others. The primary readings in Craig and Muller’s collection show this breadth.
How does this come to mean what it does?
The semiotic tradition examines how signs make meaning possible. A word, image, gesture or interface icon does not explain itself outside a context of interpretation. Different sign systems can make the same announcement intelligible in different ways.
Keep two influential accounts distinct.
The form: the word “OPEN” on a sign.
The concept evoked: being open for entry or business.
A displayed mark or expression.
What the sign concerns or represents.
The understanding or further sign generated in interpretation.
Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistic account and Charles Sanders Peirce’s account of signs are related resources, not interchangeable vocabularies. Peirce also distinguishes icons, indices and symbols. A sign may involve more than one kind of relation. Saussure; Peirce.
In the announcement, “mandatory”, “participation” and “flexibility” may suggest different expectations to different groups. A warning icon may make a message feel punitive even when the accompanying sentence offers help. Examine the relationship between wording, visual form and context.
Possible inquiry: analyse the announcement’s sign choices, then investigate how readers interpret them. A careful textual reading can propose meanings; it cannot establish that every reader receives the same one.
A limit to watch: the presence of a symbol is not yet an explanation. Show which convention or relation supports your reading, and consider a plausible alternative interpretation.
What is it like to encounter the other?
The phenomenological tradition foregrounds lived experience and the encounter with another. It asks what a situation is like for those who live through it, how they understand others and how dialogue may open or close possibilities for mutual recognition.
Listen before reducing the encounter to a category.
A student says, “The message reached me. What hurt was being treated as though my explanation had already been dismissed.” A phenomenological inquiry explores that experience: how the student encountered the message, what the situation meant and how the interaction unfolded.
Martin Buber’s distinction between I–Thou and I–It offers one influential resource for thinking about meeting another as a person rather than dealing with them only as an object of classification or use. It does not mean that all practical categorisation can disappear. Buber, 1923/1970.
Possible inquiry: conduct carefully designed interviews about specific encounters rather than ask only, “Were you satisfied?” Examine how participants describe being heard, ignored or understood. State the interpretive approach you use; phenomenology is not a generic label for any interview study.
A limit to watch: empathy does not grant direct access to another person’s consciousness. Experiences must still be expressed and interpreted. Nor does genuine dialogue require complete agreement or erase differences in power.
What happens when the response returns?
The cybernetic tradition examines communication through information processes, connected systems and feedback. It asks how actions and responses affect one another, how a system regulates itself and how patterns can persist or change.
Norbert Wiener’s work links control and communication through feedback. Claude Shannon’s mathematical information theory addresses an engineering problem of transmission, including noise and channel constraints. These are influential resources within a wider tradition; Shannon’s original transmission schematic should not be confused with a feedback-control diagram. Wiener; Shannon.
The institution publishes a rule and a route for queries.
Queries reveal confusion, delivery failures or practical obstacles.
Responsible staff revise wording, routing or implementation.
Negative feedback counteracts deviation relative to a reference or goal; positive feedback amplifies change. The terms do not mean morally bad and good. A rumour and a defensive response can intensify one another, while a correction mechanism can dampen a recurring error.
Possible inquiry: trace where a query goes, how long it waits, who can act on it and whether an adjustment changes subsequent outcomes. Do not count a delivered message as evidence that the feedback process works.
A limit to watch: a functional system description can leave the choice of goals unexamined. A critical question asks who sets the reference point. A phenomenological question asks what it is like to encounter the process. Cybernetic analysis does not require the claim that human consciousness is identical to a computer program.
What influences perception, judgment and action?
The sociopsychological tradition seeks explanations of communication-related processes in perception, interaction and influence. It often investigates relationships among message features, attitudes, emotions, social judgments and behaviour, using designs that make the proposed explanation open to evidence.
Specify a mechanism and an outcome.
In the university case, a researcher might ask whether explaining the reason for the rule changes perceived legitimacy, or whether seeing peers follow a procedure affects intentions. These are proposed questions, not established findings. Attitude, intention and observed action should be measured separately.
Albert Bandura’s account of symbolic modelling and human agency is one resource for studying communication’s influence on thought and action. It includes social settings and support, so it should not be reduced to a model of isolated minds passively receiving messages. Bandura, 2001.
Possible inquiry: randomly assign participants to two otherwise comparable announcements, measure a defined response and explain the limits of the setting. If participants who already favour the rule are more likely to read the notice, a simple association between reading and support may reflect self-selection.
A limit to watch: a scale score cannot answer every question about meaning, lived experience or institutional justice. Equally, a rich interpretation of one encounter does not automatically establish a general causal effect. The value of a design depends on the claim it is meant to support.
How do practices make a social world?
The sociocultural tradition examines how communication produces and reproduces social life. Shared practices help constitute identities, relationships, institutions and what participants recognise as normal or legitimate. Culture is therefore part of what people do together, not merely a container surrounding messages.
Follow the practice, not only the stated rule.
Who can interrupt in a university meeting? Who addresses whom by title? How does a student become recognised as a spokesperson? Such patterns are enacted in interaction and may change when participants act differently.
George Herbert Mead’s work connects mind and self with social interaction. James W. Carey’s cultural approach draws attention to communication as sustaining a shared world, including ritual and participation, alongside transmission. These resources cross other intellectual boundaries as well. Mead; Carey.
In the fictional case, the phrase “responsible student” may acquire force through repeated notices, classroom routines and peer talk. A study asks how that identity is produced, who can contest it and how people learn the relevant expectations.
Possible inquiry: observe meetings, collect documents and analyse how participants establish a shared definition of a situation. Link an interpretation to actual interactional evidence, not a claim that “this culture values obedience” unsupported by the case.
A limit to watch: a shared practice need not be equally accepted by everyone. Look for disagreement, negotiation and change. A critical inquiry can then ask whose interests the normal arrangement serves.
Who can define, decide and challenge?
The critical tradition examines how communication relates to domination, ideology and possibilities for change. It asks how apparently ordinary arrangements can privilege some interests, make exclusion seem natural or restrict participation.
Ask who defines the problem and the acceptable answer.
A university may invite feedback only about the wording of a rule while excluding debate over the rule itself. A critical analysis asks whether this participation is meaningful, which interests set the agenda and whether the process allows reasons to be challenged.
Marxist critique and the Frankfurt School are important sources. Horkheimer’s distinction between traditional and critical theory directs attention to the social conditions and purposes of inquiry. The broader critical tradition contains different approaches and disagreements; it is not one explanation that every scholar accepts. Read Horkheimer.
Possible inquiry: compare formal consultation promises with actual opportunities to question decisions. Examine documents, meeting practices and accounts from differently positioned participants. State the normative standard—such as accountable participation—against which you evaluate the process.
A limit to watch: criticism needs evidence and a defensible standard, not just a conclusion that everything is oppressive. Ask what would weaken your account. Avoid turning participants into mere carriers of an ideology when their interpretations and actions complicate the explanation.
Return to the cybernetic example: a system may efficiently correct deviations while pursuing a questionable goal. Efficiency and legitimacy are different questions. Analysing both can deepen the inquiry without making their claims identical.
Try seven lenses on one announcement.
The following panels offer seven provisional readings of the invented announcement. Each reading proposes evidence to seek. None is a finding about a real institution.
The panels are teaching applications, not mutually exclusive diagnoses. Selections and answers are not submitted or stored.
Make the traditions question one another.
Cybernetic: “We need a feedback route that reliably reaches someone who can act.”
Critical: “Who decides what counts as a valid query, and which decisions remain closed to challenge?”
Phenomenological: “What is it like for a student to encounter that route?”
Rhetorical: “Which reasons could the institution reasonably offer in that encounter?”
This is a constructed dialogue for learning. The point is to sharpen the problem, not make every tradition say the same thing. A response can become more adequate when it answers a challenge raised from another perspective.
The map can be questioned too.
What does “constitutive metamodel” add?
A first-order theory can define a communication process and explain particular relationships. At the metalevel, Craig asks what follows when theories define communication differently. A constitutive orientation draws attention to how ways of speaking and theorising help shape the practices people recognise as communication.
Metadiscourse is talk about communication: “That was not a real consultation”, “The message was unclear” or “We need better feedback”. Theory can make the assumptions in these everyday judgments visible and bring alternative standards into debate. A model can guide practice as well as describe it. Craig, 1999; Craig, 2001.
“Constitutive” does not require claiming that discourse invents every physical fact. It directs attention to meaning, practices and social relations. Nor does the map mean that every causal explanation should be replaced with a claim about social construction.
The strongest objections deserve a hearing.
| Issue | The challenge | How to keep the inquiry demanding |
|---|---|---|
| A supposedly neutral meeting place | Does a constitutive metamodel give its own assumptions an advantage? | Compare the assumptions of the map itself, not only the traditions it organises. |
| Plurality and truth | If approaches answer different questions, how can we still identify a false or weak claim? | State what evidence, reasoning or normative argument would support or defeat the particular claim. |
| Differences within traditions | Does one label flatten debates among thinkers placed inside it? | Name the specific author and argument rather than treat a tradition as unanimous. |
| Historical and cultural scope | Does the map leave important histories or questions at the edge? | Identify the omitted body of thought and explain how it would alter the comparison. |
David Myers’s 2001 reply challenges Craig’s attempt to organise a field through this kind of compromise; Craig’s response defends the metamodel while discussing its commitments. Read the exchange as an argument, rather than treat either side’s conclusion as settled. Myers, 2001; Craig, 2001.
A proposed eighth tradition: pragmatism
In 2007, responding to Chris Russill’s proposal, Craig examined pragmatism’s place in the field. Pragmatist inquiry can foreground how people address problematic situations, investigate consequences and revise practices through experience. It is a later extension of the original seven-tradition scheme, not evidence that a final list of exactly eight has been established. Craig, 2007.
Mats Bergman’s 2012 assessment questions Craig’s delimitation of pragmatism, including its handling of internal differences and realist strands in the tradition. Pragmatism should not be reduced to “whatever works” without asking what counts as working, for whom and with what warrant. Bergman, 2012.
Turn a perspective into a defensible study.
Build a comparison that changes the inquiry.
- Describe a bounded problem.
Specify the institution, participants, event and period. In the fictional case, distinguish a delivered notice from a consultation process and from implementation of a rule.
- Choose two traditions for a reason.
For example, compare a semiotic account of disputed wording with a phenomenological account of being dismissed. Explain why these are distinct problems worth comparing.
- Write a question and claim for each.
Do not ask one vague question twice. A semiotic question may concern how “flexibility” is interpreted; a phenomenological question may concern how the encounter is lived.
- Match evidence to the claim.
Collect versions of the text and interpretations for the first inquiry; detailed accounts of specific encounters for the second. Some material may serve both, but its analytical use differs.
- Let each approach challenge the other.
Would unambiguous wording solve the experience of being dismissed? Would a more responsive encounter remove ambiguity in the written rule? Record what each answer leaves unresolved.
- Justify the proposed response.
Explain whether you recommend rewriting the notice, changing the interaction, revising the rule or gathering more evidence. State whose purposes and which standards guide that judgment.
Methods are resources, not badges.
| Claim you want to make | Evidence or design to consider | A conclusion to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| A passage invites a particular interpretation | Close analysis of signs, genre and context, alongside plausible alternative readings. | Every reader must therefore interpret it in the same way. |
| Participants experience an encounter in a particular way | A specified phenomenological or interpretive design using detailed accounts. | One description captures every participant’s experience. |
| A message feature changes an outcome | A defensible comparison, valid measures and attention to alternative explanations. | An association or intention score proves a behavioural effect. |
| A feedback process fails at a particular point | Process records, observation, timing and evidence of what happens after a response. | A sent or delivered message establishes successful communication. |
| A practice reproduces exclusion | Institutional and interactional evidence, differing positions and an explicit evaluative standard. | A critical vocabulary substitutes for showing the mechanism. |
These are examples of methodological reasoning, not exclusive pairings between a tradition and a method. Experimental work, interviews, observation and textual analysis can contribute to a broader inquiry when their assumptions and roles are made explicit.
A digital-media extension
Imagine a platform that distributes an institutional announcement. A cybernetic study can trace routing and feedback. A semiotic study can examine warning labels and interface cues. A sociopsychological study can test a stated influence mechanism. A critical study can investigate who sets visibility rules and who can appeal.
The same interface can support all these questions without proving that they are equivalent. A screenshot cannot reveal every participant’s experience, hidden ranking mechanism or institutional intention. This is a proposed research setting, not a finding about a named platform.
Use the lecture as a workshop.
Watch Dr. USP’s Mastering 7 traditions of Communication Theory first for the overall map. On a second viewing, pause after each tradition and apply it to the same example. Keeping the example constant makes the change of question easier to see.
A viewing guide
Entry points are approximate guides drawn from the supplied transcript, not exact chapter boundaries.
| Entry point | Focus | Write one answer |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00 · The project ↗ | Why compare traditions? | What does a metamodel compare that a single theory may not? |
| 02:25 · Rhetorical ↗ | Practical discourse and persuasion. | Which reason could address an objection to the announcement? |
| 03:51 · Semiotic ↗ | Signs and interpretation. | Identify a signifier and signified without confusing the latter with a physical object. |
| 05:11 · Cybernetic ↗ | Information and feedback. | Where would a response need to go to change the next action? |
| 05:55 · Phenomenological ↗ | Lived experience and dialogue. | Why might a delivered message still leave someone feeling unheard? |
| 07:16 · Sociopsychological ↗ | Processes of influence. | Write a testable question and name the outcome you would measure. |
| 07:56 · Sociocultural ↗ | Practices, roles and shared worlds. | Which repeated interaction helps make a role seem normal? |
| 09:18 · Critical ↗ | Power and the terms of participation. | Who may challenge the purpose of the rule, rather than only its wording? |
| 09:58 · Debate & extensions ↗ | Criticisms, pragmatism and further inquiry. | How would you evaluate a claim while respecting theoretical diversity? |
Build a seven-column notebook.
For each tradition, write a question, one relevant concept, evidence you would seek and a limit of the resulting claim. Then choose the two traditions that most sharply challenge one another in your case.
Explain your choice before revealing ours.
Choose one best answer before opening the explanation. The page does not store or submit responses.
01. Craig’s original seven-tradition framework is best understood as…
- Seven obligatory steps in sending a message.
- A map for dialogue among approaches that define communication differently.
- Seven mutually exclusive methods.
- A final ranking of communication theories.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. The map compares traditions and invites argument about practical problems. It is neither a sequence nor a guarantee of consensus.
02. Which question is most directly rhetorical?
- What reasons and forms of address could justify a proposal to this audience?
- Which server failed to deliver the notice?
- How many bits can the channel carry?
- What is the frequency of a login error?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Rhetorical analysis examines discourse, audience, situation and practical judgment. Technical reliability raises a different question.
03. In Saussure’s account, a signified is…
- The physical signboard.
- The person reading the sign.
- The concept associated with a signifier.
- Always a real object that can be touched.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. The signifier–signified distinction concerns form and concept. Do not replace the signified with the physical referent.
04. Which question foregrounds the phenomenological tradition?
- Does one version increase intention scores?
- How quickly does a query reach the correct office?
- Which colour occurs most often?
- What is it like for a participant to be treated as already understood or dismissed?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. This asks about the lived encounter. It still requires careful expression and interpretation, rather than claiming access to another mind.
05. A cybernetic feedback inquiry asks whether…
- Every message is morally positive.
- A response can alter subsequent action within the specified system.
- All communication is a deliberate attempt to persuade.
- Human consciousness is necessarily identical to software.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Feedback concerns the relation between an action, information about its consequences and further action. Its function and goal must be specified.
06. Which study most clearly poses a sociopsychological influence question?
- A defensible comparison testing whether a specified message feature changes a measured response.
- A declaration that all messages have identical effects.
- A classification of every institution as oppressive.
- A list of words without a stated research question.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. A defined mechanism, outcome and comparison make the proposed influence claim assessable. No method label guarantees an adequate study.
07. Which question is most directly sociocultural?
- Which message had the best signal-to-noise ratio?
- What is the message’s pixel count?
- How do recurring interactions establish the role of a “responsible student”?
- Which slogan is most convincing in isolation?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. The focus is on the communicative production and reproduction of norms, roles and social order.
08. Which question is most directly critical?
- How many notices were delivered?
- How long is the announcement?
- Which font is most legible?
- Who sets the terms of participation, and can excluded participants challenge them?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. A critical inquiry examines power, exclusion and possibilities for change. Its conclusions still require evidence and a defensible evaluative standard.
09. Which statement about pragmatism is most accurate here?
- It was one of the original seven in 1999.
- Craig considered it as a later tradition in 2007, and the proposal remains debated.
- It proves that all theories are equally true.
- It means using any tactic that secures an immediate result.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. The later discussion, influenced by Russill and criticised by Bergman, should not be presented as an uncontested final list or as “anything works”.
10. What makes a comparison across traditions stronger?
- Giving the same vague question seven different labels.
- Assuming that each method belongs to exactly one tradition.
- Stating distinct questions, evidence and limits, then examining how the accounts challenge each other.
- Combining every conclusion without checking compatibility.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. A productive comparison preserves differences long enough to assess what they reveal, what they miss and where their claims conflict.
Applied task · Two traditions, one problem.
Choose a public announcement, an online disagreement or a classroom interaction. Write 500–600 words comparing two traditions. Define the problem differently through each, state one research question for each, identify suitable evidence and let each approach raise a question the other leaves unresolved.
| Criterion | Award up to 2 points when… |
|---|---|
| Conceptual precision | You explain each tradition through a specific argument rather than a slogan. |
| Comparative questions | Your two questions differ in a meaningful way while addressing the same case. |
| Evidence and method | You match evidence to claims and consider the limits of the design. |
| Dialogue and criticism | Each approach exposes a question, assumption or limit in the other. |
| Judgment and limits | You justify a proposed response and distinguish observation, explanation and evaluation. |
Ready to continue?
Checkboxes are for this visit only; progress is not saved.
Keep the terms precise. Read the arguments.
A compact glossary
- Tradition
- A historically developed intellectual conversation with characteristic questions and disagreements.
- Theory
- A more specific account of relationships, processes or a problem.
- Model
- A selective representation of a process or relationship.
- Metamodel
- A framework for comparing models and the assumptions they make.
- Constitutive
- Concerning how communication practices help form meanings, relations and social realities.
- Metadiscourse
- Talk or reflection about communication itself.
- Ethos, logos, pathos
- Credibility, reasoning and emotional address as resources in persuasion.
- Signifier / signified
- In Saussure’s account, a sign’s form and its associated concept.
- Interpretant
- In Peirce’s account, the understanding or further sign generated through a sign relation.
- Lived experience
- An encounter as experienced and understood from a participant’s perspective.
- Feedback
- A process through which information about action or its consequences affects further action.
- Social order
- Recurring, recognisable arrangements of roles, norms and relationships.
- Ideology
- Ideas or representations examined in relation to power and the legitimacy of social arrangements.
- Pragmatist inquiry
- Investigation of problematic situations through experience, consequences and revisable judgment.
Read in a sequence.
Begin with Craig’s 1999 article and use Craig and Muller’s reader to encounter the traditions through original texts. Read Myers and Craig’s reply together. Then pair Craig’s pragmatism article with Bergman’s assessment.
Links lead to original texts, scholarly records, publisher pages or catalogues. Some full texts require institutional access. Notes distinguish original works from later editions. The readings illustrate resources across traditions, not permanent assignments of an author to one box.
- Craig, R. T. (1999). Communication theory as a field. Communication Theory, 9(2), 119–161. Open the reading record ↗
The core article · seven traditions and the constitutive metamodel. - Craig, R. T., & Muller, H. L. (Eds.). (2007). Theorizing communication: Readings across traditions. Sage. Open the reading record ↗
Primary-source reader · original arguments within and across traditions. - Myers, D. (2001). A pox on all compromises: Reply to Craig (1999). Communication Theory, 11(2), 218–230. Open the reading record ↗
A critical response · read alongside Craig’s reply. - Craig, R. T. (2001). Minding my metamodel, mending Myers. Communication Theory, 11(2), 231–240. Open the reading record ↗
Craig’s response · the commitments and purposes of the metamodel. - Craig, R. T. (2007). Pragmatism in the field of communication theory. Communication Theory, 17(2), 125–145. Open the reading record ↗
The later extension · responds to Russill’s pragmatist proposal. - 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. Open the reading record ↗
Open-access assessment · internal differences, constructionism and realism. - Aristotle. (n.d.). Rhetoric (W. Rhys Roberts, Trans.). The Internet Classics Archive. Open the reading record ↗
Primary text · begin with Book I on persuasion and its means. - Saussure, F. de. (2013). Course in general linguistics (R. Harris, Trans.). Bloomsbury Academic. (Original work published 1916) Open the reading record ↗
Primary linguistic text · the linked edition identifies its translator. - Peirce, C. S. (1894). What is a sign? [Manuscript; online transcription]. Open the reading record ↗
Primary text · signs, icons, indices and symbols; 1894 is the manuscript date. - Buber, M. (1970). I and thou (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Charles Scribner’s Sons. (Original work published 1923) Open the reading record ↗
Primary dialogical work · bibliographic record of the specified translation. - Shannon, C. E. (1948). A mathematical theory of communication. The Bell System Technical Journal, 27(3), 379–423. Open the reading record ↗
Primary information-theory article · this record is the July instalment; continued in October, pp. 623–656. - Wiener, N. (2019). Cybernetics: Or control and communication in the animal and the machine. MIT Press. (Original work published 1948) Open the reading record ↗
Primary cybernetic work · the linked 2019 reissue. - Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory of mass communication. Media Psychology, 3(3), 265–299. Open the reading record ↗
A resource for influence questions · includes agency and social support. - Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society (C. W. Morris, Ed.). University of Chicago Press. Open the reading record ↗
Primary social-interaction resource · link leads to the annotated 2015 edition. - Carey, J. W. (2009). Communication as culture: Essays on media and society (Rev. ed.). Routledge. (Original work published 1989) Open the reading record ↗
A cultural approach · read “A Cultural Approach to Communication”. - Horkheimer, M. (1972). Critical theory: Selected essays (M. J. O’Connell et al., Trans.). Herder and Herder. Open the reading record ↗
Primary critical resource · read “Traditional and Critical Theory”; link leads to a later edition.