Communication Theories

Aug 4
08:16

2016

Kate Yeng

Kate Yeng

  • Share this article on Facebook
  • Share this article on Twitter
  • Share this article on Linkedin

As an area of interest communication is quite vast and the number of theories and past research works by academicians, which has helped in defining the process of communication and its nuances to us are also huge in number. We can broadly divide all these theories in five most basic groups which are listed below.

mediaimage
Intrapersonal Communication

The Communication theories dealing with the particular process of intrapersonal communication aims at explaining how different people understand same kind of information and create meaning out of them differently.

Theory of mind

Theory of Mind deals with our capability to deduce the mental conditions which includes thought processes,Communication Theories Articles ideas, wants, purposes, etc of some other person. It also takes note of our capability of using these ideas formed by us about some other person to understand what that person is trying to communicate. We also want to make sense of their activities, and foresee what will be their immediate actions or responses. It has been stressed upon by many past researchers that this theory of mind is very important for making a verbal or non verbal communication efficient.

Interpersonal Communication

The theories related to interpersonal communication try to identify the process through which two ro more than two persons communicate and manipulate each other.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Cognitive dissonance can be termed as the distress related to psychological aspects which we encounter if there remains an inconsistency between the knowledge which we have already gathered by the means of our previous communications and any kind of new data and idea which we may get new processes of interaction which confronts the knowledge and set of beliefs which we already had beforehand. Cognitive dissonance theory, tries to identify and understand the ways through which different persons try to hold new beliefs or do not hold them when they have previously acquired ideas which are incompatible with the new ones.

Group Communication

Group theories seek to explain the way bigger set of people try to understand the received  information together, take decisions and have the same opinion about some combined deeds, and so on.

Accommodation theory

Past academicians dealing with this field of communication have stressed upon the point that some particular social groups show a discrepancy in the fashion through which they communicate. These differences are most of the times of a systematic different nature with respect to other different social groups. Features such as syntax (word order), morphology (word structure), vocabulary and phonology (speech sound usage) are typically altered in a methodical manner. This observation leads to the concept of accommodation.

Organizational Communication

The theories related to the process of organizational communication tries to explain the ways the process of communication takes place in formal or business organizations like schools, hospitals, business enitities, multi-national companies etc.

Cultural approach to organizations

This particular approach for the communication says that associations possess particular culture of their own which may be typical to that organization only. Culture has been defined as past researchers and practitioners as an arrangement for collective implications. Associates of a particular business or other organizations become skilled at the culture meant for that particular company through tales and descriptions that often exaggerates the life within that organization. There are different stories within different corporate houses which serve up for strengthening the guiding principles in that particular organization. These anecdotes try to communicate the information which the top management of the company want to let the workers in that company know.

Public Communication

This process has also been called mass communication by various researchers. The theories related to mass or public communication helps in identifying the ways through which the schema of significant political subjects are manipulated by the group of media which represents the mass. These media generally comprises of the bodies represented by generally newspapers, television, radio etc and internet and social networking sites at the community level.

Cultural studies

Past researchers and academicians who have worked with the communication theories of public communication, have generally concentrated on the factors like the command and control of the mass media. This has also happened more due to the fact that the entities for mass media are generally in the possession of big corporations. Theory regarding the cultural studies also tries to understand the ways through which mass media get success in setting the public agenda: the ways in which they tell the public what to think about, what to think about it, and what to do about it.