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    COMM THEORY: What Is A Theory (Notes)

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    Lucia Thompson
    This document defines a theory as an informed set of hunches that attempts to answer the questions of what, how, and why. A theory lays out multiple ideas and the relationships between them to connect different concepts. The document also discusses different metaphors for understanding theories, such as nets, lenses, and maps. It defines communication as a relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response. Messages can be anything perceived by the senses, and communication requires a response. Theories and definitions provide frameworks to study communication.

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    COMM THEORY: What Is A Theory (Notes)

    Uploaded by

    Lucia Thompson
    77 views2 pages
    This document defines a theory as an informed set of hunches that attempts to answer the questions of what, how, and why. A theory lays out multiple ideas and the relationships between them to connect different concepts. The document also discusses different metaphors for understanding theories, such as nets, lenses, and maps. It defines communication as a relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response. Messages can be anything perceived by the senses, and communication requires a response. Theories and definitions provide frameworks to study communication.

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    Notes from Theories of Communication (What is a Theory?)

    Original Title

    COMM THEORY: What is a Theory (notes)

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    This document defines a theory as an informed set of hunches that attempts to answer the questions of what, how, and why. A theory lays out multiple ideas and the relationships between them to connect different concepts. The document also discusses different metaphors for understanding theories, such as nets, lenses, and maps. It defines communication as a relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response. Messages can be anything perceived by the senses, and communication requires a response. Theories and definitions provide frameworks to study communication.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
    77 views2 pages

    COMM THEORY: What Is A Theory (Notes)

    Uploaded by

    Lucia Thompson
    This document defines a theory as an informed set of hunches that attempts to answer the questions of what, how, and why. A theory lays out multiple ideas and the relationships between them to connect different concepts. The document also discusses different metaphors for understanding theories, such as nets, lenses, and maps. It defines communication as a relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response. Messages can be anything perceived by the senses, and communication requires a response. Theories and definitions provide frameworks to study communication.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    A Set of Hunches

    - Essentially, a theory is an informed set of hunches


    - These hunches must be informed on some level
    - Must answer the questions what, how, and why
    ○ "Theories are sometimes defines as guesses- but significantly as
    "educated guesses". Theories are not merely based on vague impressions nor are they
    accidental by-products of life. Theories tend to result when their creators have
    prepared themselves to discover something in their environment, which triggers the
    process of theory construction"
    - A theories lay out multiple ideas, and the relationship between them - it
    connects the dots between different ideas
    - Basically, a theory isn't just a single, arbitrary claim: it has to be
    informed, and it has to paint a picture as a whole, by explaining relationships
    between variables

    So What is a Theory?
    - Theories as Nets:
    ○ "Theories are nets cast to catch what we call the world… we endeavor
    to make the mesh ever finer and finer" #- Karl Popper (philosopher of science)
    ○ The idea that theories are a method with which to understand the
    world around us
    - Theories as Lenses:
    ○ The idea that a theory is dependent on the individual's perspective -
    or that a certain theory can create a lens for which to see the rest of the world
    - Theories as Maps:
    ○ The idea that communication theories create a map for which to
    navigate and understand the process of communication in our everyday lives

    What is Communication? Jk there's like a million definitions


    - Communication is the relational process of creating and interpreting
    messages that elicit a response

    Messages
    - Go back to Language/Composition "everything is an argument"
    - Essentially anything that anyone reads, sees, listens to, tastes, feels, or
    smells, contains some sort of message, intentional or not (EX. An unintentional
    yawn may convey to someone else that you are tired or bored)
    - "words don't mean things, people mean things" #"Humans act toward people or
    things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things"

    A Relational Process:
    - "One cannot step into the same river twice" -Greek philosopher Heraclitus
    #^^ illustrates how communication is a process; the flow of communication is
    constantly in flux, like a river
    - Not only are messages relational between 2 or more people, but they affect
    the nature of connections among those people as well

    Responses to Messages
    - Sort of like, if a tree falls in a forest - if a message doesn't stimulate
    a cognitive, emotional, or behavioral reaction, it's not exactly communication
    - EX) if you talk to someone who has headphones on, and they don't hear you,
    it isn't communication

    STUDY QUESTIONS:
    1. Suppose you share the aircraft mechanic's suspicion that scholars who
    create theories would all be thumbs working on a plane's ailerons or engine. What
    would it take to transform your hunch into a theory?
    2. Which metaphor of theory do you find most helpful - net, lens, or map? Can
    you think of another metaphor?
    3. Suppose you want to study the effects of yawns during intimate
    conversations. Would your research fall under communication as defines as the
    relational process of creating and interpreting messages to elicit a response? If
    not, how would you change the definition to make it include yourself?
    4. You come to this course with a vast array of communication experiences in
    interpersonal, group and public, mass media, and intercultural contexts, What are
    the communication questions you want to answer, puzzles you want to solve, problems
    you want to fix?

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