An Integrated Approach to Communication Theory and Research

Don W. Stacks, Michael B. Salwen, Kristen C. Eichhorn, Don W. Stacks, Michael B. Salwen, Kristen C. Eichhorn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351358705
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This new edition provides a comprehensive overview of current theory and research written by the top theorists and researchers in each area. It has been updated to address the growing influence of technology, changing relationships, and several growing integrated approaches to communication and includes seven new chapters on:

? Digital Media

? Media Effects

? Privacy

? Dark Side

? Applied Communication

? Relational Communication

? Instructional Communication

? Communication and the Law

The book continues to be essential reading for students and faculty who want a thorough overview of contemporary communication theory and research.

PART ONE

Studying “Theory”

Doing “Research”

There are many books that focus on either theory or research methodology. Over the years, communication courses have stressed either one or the other without providing a clear indication of how one affects the other. This volume, first published in 1996, provided the first comprehensive treatment of the various theoretical approaches to the study of human communication. In so doing, it approached the subject of how theory and research methodology combine to help us describe, explain, and ultimately predict human behavior at multiple levels. We did so by asking the top researchers in the field to provide a hypothetical student with the theoretical background for their area of study and establish how they would conduct research to describe, explain, or predict behaviors in that area. Today, with the publication of our third edition, we have expanded, as the study of communication has expanded, into three major areas: “human communication,” “mass communication,” and “integrated communication.” All three areas focus on how we communicate in different situations, from intra- to interpersonal, to group, to large group, and of course how the mediated social channels have added to our body of knowledge of human behavior. Part 1 lays the foundation for what comes later, exploring what “theory” is and the two major methodological approaches to its study.

one

Integrating Theory and Research

Starting with Questions

Don W. Stacks and Michael B. Salwen¹

University of Miami

Introduction

Toward the end of their academic careers, most students are required to demonstrate their ability to integrate theory and research methodology in their field of study by completing a project, thesis, or dissertation. Students of communication, particularly those concentrating on mass communication, have been so inculcated with the practice and application of their field that they often find this task daunting—and sometimes irrelevant.

This is a perhaps understandable reaction to theory (the rationale we extend to understand the world around us) and research (ways to test or make sense of that rationale from either quantitative or qualitative approaches) from those whose lifetimes involved a certain respect for “common sense.” But, as Albert Einstein (1960) warned against a blind reliance on common sense:

Conclusions obtained by purely rational processes are, so far as reality is concerned, entirely empty. It is because he recognized this, and especially because he impressed it upon the scientific world, that Galileo became the father of modern physics and in fact of the whole modern natural science.

(p. 81)

The senior or graduate thesis or dissertation process might seem intimidating, especially as critics harp on such seemingly trivial matters as measuring tools, study designs, statistical or interpretative procedures, tests for reliability and validity, units of analysis, metaphor, meaning, and historical significance. But theory and research, despite the fact that their qualities seem mystical to initiates, are by no means extraneous to understanding the communication process—whether it be an understanding of the theoretical or applied aspects of communication. The purpose of the thesis or dissertation exercise is to master a skill that has its own commonsense standards that differ from traditional standards.

The purpose of the thesis or dissertation is more than simply to master the content. It involves learning via a mode of conceiving and conceptualizing in which hypotheses or research questions are derived from theory. The hypotheses or research questions are then tested in a manner that adheres to agreed-upon standards for gathering evidence, be they quantitative or qualitative in nature.

Mastering narrow and perhaps esoteric bodies of research and conducting research based on the literature have, admittedly, little value for students unless they plan to continue in that area. But mastering theoretically based research skills are immensely valuable to the student, scholar, or practitioner who plans to generate or consume primary or secondary research in the future.

Where No One Has Gone Before

Theory organizes and refines our ideas, like a map for exploring unexplored territories. Imagine exploring new lands without at least examining the maps and writings of past explorers to see what rivers and lands they traversed. Although we do not put complete faith in old adventurers’ maps and writings, we would be foolish to ignore what others have done.

The novice researcher or the seasoned scholar, excited by a new idea while in the bath, almost always emerges from the bathroom proclaiming that “no one has ever thought of this before.” That researcher is like the explorer who believes no one has ever gone, or tried to go, where he or she plans to go. Even cursory investigation, however, usually reveals that others have gone—or tried to go—where the novice researcher plans to go. Theoretically driven research involves building on and testing the knowledge of previous explorers.

In this opening chapter, we examine the link between theory and research methodology and integrate these two primal aspects of academic study in communication. Our approach is simple: The research process itself is integrated. One cannot conduct good research without theory, and good theory development requires good verification.

The Communication Process

The research process in communication begins with a good question, perhaps later developed into a hypothesis, tested in the most rigorous and appropriate way. Research, then, advances the theory behind the question/hypothesis, leading to refinements in the ways in which theory and research are conducted.

Few explorers discovered new lands or routes without some knowledge of those who went before them. Each explorer makes new headway for the next. But metaphors are never perfect, and the communication process studied by communication researchers is not exactly like finding a new land. So far as the communication process is concerned, there is no final “place” to be discovered, where a theoretical “flag” can be planted. Yet there is something to be gained by acquiring knowledge about a process that may never be completely understood.

The integration of theory and research methodology and the communication process are similar processes. Each begins with information gleaned from some source and integrates that information into a message of some form (e.g., verbal or nonverbal) or some medium (e.g., interpersonal or mass mediated) that conveys meaning. Information takes on different forms at different times in both processes: sometimes it merely exists, much like background noise or something noted in the environment; sometimes it consists of symbols and signs, such as the words on this page, only written in a language you may not understand (French, Greek, Latin). Either way, there is no intent, it is just there. To some, for it to be considered communication, the information must be intentionally sent and intentionally received (Burgoon and Ruffner, 1978). Dittman (1972) pointed out that a message may be subliminal—not consciously received—and yet still impact our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. Burgoon and Ruffner (1978) argued that communication has not occurred unless both source and receiver perceive a message to be intentional. Others (Hickson and Stacks, 1993; Malandro, Barker, and Barker, 1989) considered communication to occur if either sender or receiver perceives intent. Either way, information often leads to communication, depending on how the researcher has defined communication.²

Perhaps the phrase human communication is all too often used to describe all communication. This is not feasible when it is necessary to distinguish mass-mediated communication from non-mediated communication. The research process begins when the researcher reviews the literature relevant to the question or hypothesis of interest, yielding the literature review. Previous theory and research form the basis for a new approach, model, or theory that interprets communication differently. Thus, information is basic to both the communication and the theory–research process: it begins the process by pointing to something new, either in the environment (such as Newton’s apple leading us to gravity) or in a specific literature (such as theories of how the brain operates coming from neurophysiological studies).

We all are familiar with the cliché that “knowledge is power.” But what does this really mean? Knowledge about the communication processes has very practical applications for a variety of purposes—persuading other people to do what you want, for good or evil purposes; teaching elementary students; launching an information campaign to reduce AIDS risk behaviors; selling soap; educating the public about some important issue; brainwashing the people; aggrandizing all power and becoming an absolute dictator; and so forth.

Thanks to our explorer-researchers, we have refined many of our ideas about human and mass communication processes. With some historical perspectives, we see that the communication process was once guided by naive theories, some as simple as those used to understand language acquisition. Language was once conceived as arising from physical exertion (yo-he-ho), from imitation of nature sounds (onomatopoeic, e.g., bow-wow), or when the mouth and vocal organs tried to pantomime body gestures (Gray and Wise, 1959). The mass communication process was once guided by a simplistic notion of a direct and universal “hypodermic-needle” effects model on a malleable and passive audience (Severin and Tankard, 1992, pp. 90–108). This model, too, is now in disrepute.

Today, we can look back on the earlier generation of communication researchers who gave us various language acquisition and hypodermic-needle models of communication and wonder how they could have ever been so naive. Perhaps future generations will see us in much the same way.

The Research Process

We begin our journey by fleshing out the relationship between theory and research. In exploring this relationship, we focus on the asking of “good” research questions that lead to important hypotheses. We then examine how the question dictates the methodology used to test the theoretical relationships. Finally, we examine the research process as a whole, coming full circle to understanding and predicting communication.

The research process begins with asking research questions. Research questions are drawn from the systematic study of an area of communication interest. Whereas a systematic study of the literature is necessary, “good” questions are also derived from old-fashioned common sense.

Questions can be derived either deductively or inductively. The scientific method gives more credence to the inductive process, or hypothetico-deductive logic, in which questions are induced from general principles. That is, they take a law-like approach, much like that found in Berger and Calabrese’s (1975) interpersonal communication model of uncertainty reduction. Deduction, on the other hand, arrives at truth and questions from rational observation (Westley, 1958). Deduction can be as simple and elegant as the syllogism, “All humans are mortal; Judy is a human; therefore, Judy is mortal,” or as complex as the rule-based, practical syllogism, “Jim wants good grades; to get good grades he must study; therefore, Jim must study to get good grades.” The two examples differ in their range of generality (cf., Stacks, Hickson, and Hill, 1991). The former has low generalizability, it is simple logic in a law-like manner; the latter is midrange and more practical, and it requires a mediating factor.

Deduction is the way of everyday common sense and rationalism. But induction has its own logic. The logic of induction serves to restrain the dangers of total reliance on common sense that Albert Einstein warned against.

At one time, it seemed eminently sensible to thinkers that the Earth was the center of the universe. After all, common wisdom told us that God placed humankind above all others, and by simply looking up at the skies it appeared that the heavens surrounded the Earth. From this observation, we deduced that humans must be in the center.

Induction forces us to challenge our notions of common sense. Long ago we learned that the Earth is not the center of our universe, and that the Earth is round. The danger with a total reliance on induction is that it assumes that the theory and research methodology and not the researcher—who after all is a rational human being—can apply reason to understanding the communication process (cf., Stacks and Hocking, 1992). This sometimes leads to a belief that the observations (data) are real—a philosophical stance sometimes called logical positivism, which some critics brand as blind empiricism.

In reality, most researchers maintain a dialectical position between induction and deduction, drawing on each as needed. The researcher is a human being, not a machine, involved in the theory development process and does not shy away from making cautious “creative leaps” (Tichenor and McLeod, 1989, p. 16). Diehard logical positivists fear that, without total reliance on hypothetico-deductive logic, researchers will draw back to the simple rationalism of their forebears, who believed that the Earth was the center of the universe. On the other hand, we do not want to bend over backwards too far in the other direction and abandon blind empiricism for blind humanism.

Although contemporary social science has been influenced by logical positivism, few social scientists today adhere to the strict logical positivism espoused by Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle of Scientists of the 1920s (Bergman, 1967). They posited a rigid and uncompromising form of empiricism that only recognized truths validated through specified procedures of observation. Questions that could meet these rigid standards were rejected as inappropriate for scientific study. Whereas critics often attack logical positivism as if they were attacking modern social science, their criticisms are aimed at a largely “dead horse” philosophy that few contempo...