Theories of Human Communication

equipment for living, rhetoric assists the audience incoping with or maneuvering through life.

Different types of inquiry ask different questions, use different methods of observation, and lead to different kinds of theory. Methods ofinquiry can be grouped into three broad forms of scholarship—scientific, humanistic, and social scientific.

“Communication Theory as a Field,” Robert T. Craig

Brummett argues that the task of the rhetoricalcritic is “to identify the modes of discourse enjoying currency in a society and tolink discourse to the real situation for which it is its symbolic equipment.”94 In thissense, media can offer guidelines for action in the real world.

A fourth element identified as part of the practical-action theoretical paradigmis that theories affect the reality they are covering.

Questions of value probe aesthetic, pragmatic, and ethical qualities of the observed:

In Western thought, relationships existbetween two or more individuals. In many other traditions, relationships are morecomplicated and contextualized, often involving the larger community and evolving out of differences in social positions of role, status, and power.

Dance’s conclusion is appropriate: “We are trying tomake the concept of ‘communication’ do too much work for us.”12 He calls for afamily of concepts that collectively define communication rather than a single theory or idea.

Non-Western theories tend to focus on wholeness and unity, whereas Western perspectives sometimes measure parts withoutnecessarily being concerned about an ultimate integration or unification of thoseparts. In addition, much Western theory is dominated by a vision of individualism:People are considered to be deliberate and active in achieving perso