Building Communication Theory From Cybersemiotics

Carlos Vidales

摘要

Since its emergence as an academic field, communication sciences have had a major problem defining what communication is, what communication is about, and what it describes in natural, human and mechanical contexts. The mechanistic view tends to see communication as natural, physical, chemical or biological phenomena and it has defined communication as a process of information exchange, while the humanistic view has proposed more restricted theories that consider communication as defined by human language and meaning production. In this second view, communication is restricted to the human scope. Moreover, communication is a concept that cannot be reduced to one definition, because it seems to explain different phenomena and to describe many things in many different fields. In this sense, despite the clear interest that both perspectives have had in communication, it is possible to identify that in fact, both explain different things. In the mechanistic view, the idea of communication is grounded in Shannon's proposal of informational exchange between a sender and receiver (signals), a proposal that has been considered the foundation of the transmission, or informational model of communication (Craig, 1999) and that continues to dominate contemporary communication research, despite all the critiques that it has received over the years, mainly the consideration of communication as a linear process and the problem this approach has to take into account the meaning making process (Peters, 1986; Carey, 1989; Shepherd, 1993; Ritchie, 1991; Vidales, 2010, 2011). According to this view, communication has been defined as the process of sending and receiving messages or transferring information from one mind to another. In the humanistic view, communication has been associated with the human process of meaning production and signification (signs) as well as with the cultural process of sign production and signification (Eco, 1979; Danesi, 2004, 2007; Kress, 2010; Leeds-Hurwitz, 1993; Jensen, 1995; Bergman, 2004; Vidales, 2013). From this perspective, communication can be defined as a meaning-making process. Thus, we stand in front of two paradigms-among many others-(Craig, 2013, 1999) that have been very influential in communication research; however, none of them has functioned as common ground for theoretical construction, a problem that can be explained by the separation we still have between the mechanistic and humanistic views which makes it very difficult to find a common definition, a common concept or to identify what is or what is not a communication phenomenon. As a result, communication has been defined as a process, as a social and natural condition, as an academic field, as a point of view and, in more extreme positions, as a transdisciplinary framework; these multiple conceptualizations have contributed to the theoretical problem of defining what communication is or what its main object of study is. What defines a particular research as communication research? Is communication research defined by its object of study, by its theoretical approach or by the particular social, biological, or physical phenomena that studies it? The problem of defining a particular research as communication research has also generated the problem of identifying communication as an academic field. As Robert T. Craig (2008, p. 676) has argued, "the field of communication is highly diverse in methods, theories, and objects of study. What, if anything, unites the field as a coherent entity?" While Craig's answer to this question is his proposal of a meta-model of communication theory, my intention is to answer the question through the consideration of communication as a transdisciplinary concept, mainly because I consider Craig's proposal maintains the separation between the mechanistic and humanistic views of communication and as a consequence, communication is restricted to the human-social processes. In doing this, I take into account two proposals that could be helpful in organizing the theoretical scope of communication. The first one is Robert T. Craig's proposal of communication as practice in which he suggests the need for a constitutive model of communication or a metamodel capable of organizing the theoretical discourse already produced to define communication based on the consequences communication theory may have in practice. The second one is Søren Brier's cybersemiotics, a transdisciplinary framework of cognition, information and communication that includes some of the most important theories proposed to explain communication as natural and human phenomena. This second proposal is, in fact, a general communication theory. Then, the present work is focused in the analysis of the implications of both proposals have in the development of a general theory of communication.

机译：自从通信科学作为一个学术领域出现以来，它就一直存在一个主要问题，即定义什么是通信，什么是通信，以及它在自然，人为和机械环境中的描述。机械观点倾向于将交流视为自然，物理，化学或生物现象，它把交流定义为信息交换的过程，而人本主义观点则提出了更为严格的理论，认为交流是由人类语言和意义产生来定义的。从第二种观点来看，交流仅限于人类范围。此外，交流是一个不能被简化为一个定义的概念，因为它似乎在解释不同的现象并描述了许多不同领域中的许多事物。从这个意义上讲，尽管两种观点在交流中都有明显的兴趣，但有可能可以发现，实际上两种观点都在解释不同的事物。从机理的观点来看，交流的思想是基于香农关于发送者和接收者（信号）之间的信息交换的提议，该提议被认为是传播的基础，或者是交流的信息模型（Craig，1999），并且尽管这些年来受到了所有批评，但它仍然继续主导着当代传播研究，主要是将传播视为一个线性过程，以及这种方法必须考虑到意义形成过程的问题（Peters，1986； Carey，1989）。 ; Shepherd，1993; Ritchie，1991; Vidales，2010，2011）。根据这种观点，通信已被定义为发送和接收消息或将信息从一个人转移到另一个人的过程。从人文主义的角度来看，交流与人的意思产生和指称（符号）过程以及文化的符号产生和指称过程（Eco，1979； Danesi，2004，2007； Kress，2010； Leeds- Hurwitz，1993； Jensen，1995； Bergman，2004； Vidales，2013）。从这个角度来看，交流可以被定义为一种意义形成过程。因此，我们站在两个对交流研究有很大影响的范式（Craig，2013，1999）面前。然而，它们都不是理论建构的共同基础，这一问题可以通过我们在机械和人文主义观点之间的分离来解释，这使得很难找到一个共同的定义，一个共同的概念或确定什么是或不是沟通现象。结果，交流被定义为一个过程，一种社会和自然条件，一个学术领域，一个观点，更极端的立场是一个跨学科框架；这些多重概念化对定义什么是交流或交流的主要研究对象的理论问题做出了贡献。什么将特定研究定义为传播研究？传播研究是由研究对象，理论方法还是研究它的特定社会，生物学或自然现象定义的？将特定研究定义为传播研究的问题也产生了将传播确定为学术领域的问题。正如罗伯特·T·克雷格（Robert T. Craig，2008，p。676）所指出的那样，“交流领域在方法，理论和研究对象上千差万别。如果有的话，什么将这个领域统一为一个连贯的实体？”克雷格（Craig）对这个问题的回答是他关于传播理论的元模型的提议，但我的意图是通过将传播视为跨学科概念来回答这个问题，主要是因为我认为克雷格（Craig）的提议保持了机械学和人文主义观点的分离。沟通，因此，沟通仅限于人类社会过程。为此，我考虑了两个建议，这些建议可能有助于组织交流的理论范围。第一个是罗伯特·T·克雷格（Robert T. Craig）提出的将交流作为实践的建议，其中他建议需要一种能够构成交流的本构模型或元模型，该模型或模型能够组织已经产生的理论话语，以根据交流理论在实践中可能产生的后果来定义交流。第二个是索伦·布赖尔（SørenBrier）的网络符号学，它是一种认知，信息和交流的跨学科框架，其中包括一些提出的将交流解释为自然现象和人为现象的最重要理论。实际上，第二个建议是通用传播理论。然后，本工作着重于分析这两个建议对传播的一般理论发展的影响。

Building Communication Theory From Cybersemiotics

摘要

著录项

相似文献

相关主题

期刊订阅