On reductionism in communication studies
PDF

Keywords

communication studies
reductionism
levels of analysis
transmissonal approach
conduit metaphor

How to Cite

Boruszewski, J. (2017). On reductionism in communication studies. Lingua Posnaniensis, 59(1), 15–25. https://doi.org/10.1515/linpo-2017-0002

Abstract

In contemporary philosophy of communication we have two competing views on communication. In short they are called message-centred and meaning-centred. The first one is described as reductionist because it reduces communication to transmission of information. In the article a distinction has been made between a purely transmissional approach, which does not have a reductionist character and the reductionist account, which in an unjustified manner, conflates the transmission problem with semantic issues. For this purpose, the concept of levels of analysis and considerations concerning a conduit metaphor were used. Given the limited application of the reductionist approach in communication studies, in the last section of the article an integration approach is proposed. Such an approach, while avoiding conflation of levels, allows for their combining and finding connections between them.

https://doi.org/10.1515/linpo-2017-0002
PDF

References

Anderson, Philip W. 1972. More Is Different. Science 177. 393-396.

Baecker, Dirk. 2013. Systemic theories of communication. In Cobley, Paul & Schulz, Peter J. (eds.), Theories and Models of Communication, 85-100. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Bar-Am, Nimrod. 2016. In Search of a Simple Introduction to Communication. Dordrecht: Springer.

Barnlund, Dean C. 1962. Toward a Meaning-centred Philosophy of Communication. Journal of Communication 12. 197-211.

Catt, Isaac E. 2013. Culture in the Conscious Experience of Communication. Listening. Journal of Communication, Ethics, Religion, and Culture 2. 99-119.

Catt, Isaac E. 2014. The Two Sciences of Communication in Philosophical Context. The Review of Communication 14. 201-228.

Chandler, Daniel. 2007. Semiotics. The Basics. London, New York: Routlege.

Cherry, Colin. 1966. On Human Communication: A Review, a Survey, and a Criticism. Cambridge, London: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.

Deacon, Terence W. 2010. What is missing from theories of information? In Davies, P.C.W. & Gregersen, Niels Henrik (eds.), Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics, 123-142. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Eco, Umberto. 1976. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington, London: Indiana University Press.

Fiske, John. 1990. Introduction to Communication Studies. London, New York: Routledge.

Husson, William. 1994. A Wittgensteinian critique of the encoding-decoding model of communication. Semiotica 98. 49-72.

Klapp, Orin E. 1982. Meaning Lag in the Information Society. Journal of Communication 32. 56-66.

Kmita, Jerzy. 1996. Towards Cultural Relativism “with a Small ‘R’”. In Zeidler-Janiszewska, Anna (ed.), Epistemology and History. Humanities as a Philosophical Problem and Jerzy Kmita’s Approach to it, 541-614. Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi.

Krippendorf, Klaus. 2009. On Communicating. Otherness, Meaning, and Information. London, New York: Routledge.

Liversidge, Anthony. 1993. Profile of Claude Shannon. In Shannon, Claude E., Collected Papers, xix-xxxiii. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

MacDougall-Shackleton, Scott A. 2011. The levels of analysis revisited. Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B 366. 2076-2085.

Mitchell, Sandra D. & Dietrich, Michael. 2006. Integration without Unification: An Argument for Pluralism in the Biological Sciences. The American Naturalist 168. S73-S79.

Nagel, Thomas. 1998. Reductionism and Antireductionism. In Novartis Foundation, The Limits of Reductionism in Biology, 3-14. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Nauta, Doede Jr. 1972. The Meaning of Information. Hague, Paris: Mouton.

Reddy, Michael J. 1993. The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language. In Ortony, Andrew (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, 164-201. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rosenberg, Alex. 2001. Reductionism in a Historical Science. Philosophy of Science 68. 135-163.

Schweighauser, Philipp. 2014. The persistence of information theory. In Arnold, Darrell P. (ed.), Traditions of Systems Theory: Major Figures and Contemporary Developments, 21-44. New York: Routledge.

Shannon, Claude E. 1949. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. In Shannon, Claude E. & Weaver, Warren, The Mathematical Theory of Communication, 29-125. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press.

Shannon, Claude E. 1993. Communication Theory – Exposition of Fundamentals. In Shannon, Claude E., Collected Papers, 173-176. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Sherman, Paul W. 1988. The Levels of Analysis. Animal Behaviour 36. 616-619.

Strawson, Peter F. 1992. Analysis and Metaphysics. An Introduction to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Thomas, Sari. 1980. Some Problems of the Paradigm in Communication Theory. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 10. 427-444.

Weaver, Warren. 1949. Recent Contribution to the Mathematical Theory of Communication. In Shannon, Claude E. & Weaver, Warren, The Mathematical Theory of Communication, 1-28. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press.

Weaver, Warren. 1955. Translation. In Locke, William N. & Booth, A. Donald (eds.), Machine translation of languages: fourteen essays, 15-23. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Wendland, Michał. 2013. Controversy Over the Status of the Communication Transmission Models. Dialogue and Universalism 1. 51-63.

Wimsatt, William C. 2007. Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings. Piecewise Approximations to Reality. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press.