This essay reconstructs communication theory as a dialogical-dialectical field according to two principles: the constitutive model of communication as a metamode1 and theory as metadiscursive practice. The essay argues that all communication theories are mutually relevant when addressed to a practical lifeworld in which “communication” is already a richly meaningful term. Each tradition of communication theory derives from and appeals rhetorically to certain commonplace beliefs about communication while challenging other beliefs. The complementarities and tensions among traditions generate a theoretical metadiscourse that intersects with and potentially informs the ongoing practical metadiscourse in society. In a tentative scheme of the field, rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, cybernetic, sociopsychological, sociocultural, and critical traditions of communication theory are distinguished by characteristic ways of defining communication and problems of communication, metadiscursive vocabularies, and metadiscursive commonplaces that they appeal to and challenge. Topoi for argumentation across traditions are suggested and implications for theoretical work and disciplinary practice in the field are considered. Communication theory is enormously rich in the range of ideas that fall within its nominal scope, and new theoretical work on communication has recently been flourishing.’ Nevertheless, despite the ancient roots and growing profusion of theories about communication, I argue that communication theory as an identifiable field of study does not yet exist.2 Rather than addressing a field of theory, we appear to be operating primarily in separate domains. Books and articles on communication theory seldom mention other works on communication theory except within narrow (inter)disciplinary specialties and schools of thought.’ Except within these little groups, communication theorists apparently neither agree nor disagree about much of anything. There is no canon of general theory to which they all refer. There are no common goals that

https://people.unica.it/ernestinagiudici/files/2014/03/CRAIG-COMMUNICATION-THEORY-AS-A-FIELD-1.pdf

Communication Theory as a Field

This qualitative case study examines the nature of the competing information campaigns offered by environmental and timber industry groups as they conflict over the Northern spotted owl and “old growth” forests in the Pacific Northwest. Environmental advocacy literature is reviewed and background of the debate is provided. The competing information campaigns are shown to comprise a synchronous, spiral‐like logic of interaction in which antagonists mirror or match each other's rhetorical and communicative strategies. The study suggests that even in the absence of direct communication between disputants, the opposing political information campaigns are co‐created within a system characterized by necessity and constraint.

The logic of competing information campaigns: Conflict over old growth and the spotted owl

This essay examines The Man Show as a contemporary example of blatant sexism. A growing body of feminist criticism documents the emergence of subtle forms of sexism in popular culture. Such forms may be characterized as an accommodation or hegemonic negotiation in which dominant discourses must become flexible in the face of pressure from oppressed groups. Yet blatant sexism abounds in contemporary culture. I argue that The Man Show provides viewers with rhetorical resources to imagine their viewing practices as an act of protest against an imagined dominant female authority, and that those resources potentially allow viewers to accept the sexism of the program at face value.

The Subtleties of Blatant Sexism

Some public controversies, such as the abortion debate, have become so chronically polarized that most citizens cannot even think about them without falling into the adversarial discourse of the embattled movement leaders. The authors, who comprise the Public Conversations Project, use family systems ideas to design and conduct dialogue sessions where people with opposing views resist the pull of polarization and instead speak from the heart about personal experiences, express doubts, and show respectful curiosity with people whom they may previously have regarded as stupid, malevolent or hopelessly wrong-minded.

From Stuck Debate to New Conversation on Controversial Issues

This study is an analysis of several telephone conversations between FBI negotiators and David Koresh during the 51-day FBI—Branch Davidian standoff outside Waco, Texas, in 1993. The analysis shows how different reframing practices reveal interactional troubles the negotiators faced in dealing with the incompatibility of their legal frame for the situation and the Davidians' religious one. These practices shed new light on reframing in crisis negotiation steeped in moral conflict, describing it as a problematic conversational practice rather than a prescribed path to resolution.

/pdf/reframing-practices-in-moral-conflict-interaction-problems-1g8ou1ise4.pdf

Reframing practices in moral conflict: interaction problems in the negotiation standoff at Waco

Moral conflict, a common problem in modern society, occurs when groups argue from incommensurate positions in fractious debate. Such conflicts are characterized by persistence, predictable structure, and morally attenuated discourse. Responses to moral conflict may involve rhetorical eloquence, or the application of standards of good persuasion from within the moral tradition, but such communication has little effect outside of the moral order from which it emanates. The frustration arising from this pattern often leads to reciprocated diatribe and the use of violence. A potentially more constructive approach is transcendent eloquence, in which interveners or the conflicting parties themselves develop a new framework for understanding and comparing such conflicts. The ideas in this paper are based on a number of case studies, and the case of the New Christian Right and its critics is featured.

Communication and moral conflict

On Being Sufficiently Radical in Gender Research: Some Lessons from Critical Theory, Kang, Milan, and Macintyre

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Communication and moral conflict

On Being Sufficiently Radical in Gender Research: Some Lessons from Critical Theory, Kang, Milan, and Macintyre