My father loved to tell me stories about my ancestors—his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. When I was 7 years old and bored with his stories, I asked my father what any of that “ancient history” had to do with me. He responded with a stern lecture—one of many he gave me—in which he told me that family members who had come before me had shaped our family. He went on to tell me that I couldn’t understand my own identity without understanding the history of my family. At the time, I wasn’t fully convinced by my father’s reasoning, but I did start listening with more attention. In the years that followed, I realized he was right. My father’s parents and grandparents had been farmers. Although he became an attorney, my father retained a deep love of animals and the land, which he passed on to me and my siblings. I discovered that my impulsive personality was not new in the family; Charles Harrison Wood, my greatgrandfather, had been known for being more than a little rowdy and impetuous. I also learned that my father’s brother Arch had frequently gotten in trouble for his pranks, another tendency I inherited. Later, when it became clear that I had a keen talent for organizing, I felt a kinship with my father’s mother, whose organizational skills had been well known in our home county.

Just as you can’t fully appreciate who you are without knowing your family’s history, you can’t understand an academic discipline without learning about its history. This chapter introduces you to how the communication discipline developed over time. We fi rst discuss the long and rich intellectual history of the discipline. Second, we discuss methods of conducting research that are used by communication scholars. The third section of the chapter surveys the major areas of the contemporary fi eld and highlights themes that unify the different areas.

The History of Communication Field

As the title of this book suggests, communication is a mosaic, each part of which contributes to the overall character of the fi eld. The scholarly and teaching traditions that defi ne communication have evolved since the discipline’s birth more than 2,500 years ago.

Classical Roots: Rhetoric and Democratic Life 

One theme in the mosaic is that communication plays a vital role in democratic societies. The art of rhetoric was born in the mid-400s b.c. in the Grecian port city of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. At that time, the Sicilians had just overthrown the oppressive political regime led by Thrasybulus, a tyrant who had taken their land and impoverished them. After throwing Thrasybulus out, the citizens began working to establish a democratic society. The fi rst order of business under the new democratic constitution was to regain the property that Thrasybulus had taken from the people. Citizens wanted to do this, but they lacked the skill to present their cases in court. A man named Corax, along with his pupil Tisias, taught citizens how to develop and present persuasive arguments in court. Corax taught the people how to structure speeches, build arguments, and refute the arguments of others, In other words, the communication fi eld came into existence to answer a pressing need of the people of Syracuse 

Rhetoric continued to be central to democratic life in ancient Greece and Rome. Among the most infl uential philosophers and teachers of rhetoric in this era were such men as Socrates, Aristotle, Isocrates, and Plato. Plato, who was a student of Socrates, lived from 428 to 348 b.c.e. (Borchers, 2006). In Athens, he founded a school called the Academy. Plato believed that truth is absolute and can be known only in ideal forms and not in concrete reality. Plato was suspicious of rhetoric because he recognized the possibility of misusing rhetoric to manipulate and deceive. Aristotle, who lived from 384 to 322 b.c.e. (Borchers, 2006), was a student of Plato. Like many students and teachers today, Aristotle and Plato did not always see eye to eye. A major difference between them was that Aristotle believed truth could be discerned from careful observation of reality. Aristotle also believed it was important to deal with realities, which are often not the ideals Plato so valued. Aristotle’s view of truth was related to his belief that rhetoric is central to civic life in a democratic society. He understood that citizens could participate fully only if they were able to speak well and engage in discussion and debate about issues of the day. Aristotle taught citizens the fi ve canons of rhetoric (see the FYI box on this page). Building on the teachings of Corax and Tisias, Aristotle taught his students how to analyze audiences, discover ideas and proofs to support claims, organize messages effectively, memorize speeches, and deliver speeches clearly and dynamically.

One of the enduring contributions to our knowledge of rhetoric was Aristotle’s thinking about how persuasion occurs. He theorized that there are three ways to persuade, which he called proofs (Figure 2.1). Ethos is proof based on a speaker’s credibility (trustworthiness, expertise, and good will). Pathos is proof that appeals to listeners’ emotions. Logos is based on logic and reasoning. If you think about your experiences in listening to speakers, you’re likely to discover that, like people in Aristotle’s time, you respond to ethos, pathos, and logos. Ancient Greece was home to another group of teachers who took quite a different approach to rhetoric. These teachers viewed truth as relative, and they encouraged speakers to adjust their ideas to specifi c contexts and listeners. Known as Sophists, these teachers focused on building the best arguments to move audiences (Borchers, 2006). Today, specious or deceptive reasoning in argumentation is referred to as sophistic.

Liberal Education 

The importance of communication to civic life explains why liberal education was regarded as the primary mission of Western  higher education. For centuries after Aristotle taught in the agora (marketplace) in Athens, rhetoric held a premier spot in liberal education in Europe and the United States. Following Aristotle’s view that rhetoric is a practical art, teachers of rhetoric provided pragmatic advice to students who wanted to be effective public speakers. In the 19th century, many of the most prestigious universities in the United States established chairs of rhetoric, held by distinguished scholars and civic leaders. Among these was president John Quincy Adams, who held the fi rst Boylston Professor of Rhetoric Chair at Harvard University (Foss, Foss, & Trapp, 1991). In the 1800s and early 1900s, rhetoric was taught as a practical art that prepared people for responsible participation in civic life. The emphasis on teaching that marked this period explains why the fi rst national professional organization, founded in 1914, was named the National Association of Teachers of Public Speaking

In the 1900s, the communication discipline began to include more than public speaking. In the early 20th century, philosopher John Dewey taught at the University of Chicago, which was the intellectual hub of the United States at that time. A pragmatic philosopher, Dewey championed progressive thinking in cultural life. For Dewey, this also meant championing communication in a broad sense. He realized that to have any impact on cultural life, progressive thinking must be communicated. In others words, people must be able to voice their ideas and to listen thoughtfully and critically to the ideas of others; they must talk, interact, debate, and engage in ongoing conversation. Dewey’s interest in progressive thinking and citizen participation grew out of the political context of his time, and that context infl uenced the fi eld as a whole. After the two world wars, communication professionals felt an urgent need to understand the connections between communication and Hitler’s rise to power, the development of prejudice against social groups, willingness to follow authoritarian leaders, the effects of propaganda, and changes in attitudes and beliefs. In the early 1900s, two major professional communication organizations were formed. The fi rst was the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), which was founded in 1912. AEJMC promotes both academic and applied journalism, and it sponsors key research journals and conferences on journalistic practice, scholarship, and teaching. Today, AEJMC has more than 3,500 members worldwide. The second organization was founded in 1914. Because its original members were speech teachers, it was called Speech Teachers of America (STA). However, that name did not endure. The organization has changed its name three times, each change signaling evolution in the organization’s scope and view of itself. In 1950, the name was changed to Speech Association of America (SAA) to refl ect the organization’s increasing interest in scholarship as well as teaching. In 1970, the name was changed again to the Speech Communication Association (SCA), a change that emphasized the growing interest in forms of communication other than speech—for instance, nonverbal communication. Finally, in 1997 members voted to change the name to the National Communication Association (NCA), which is its name today. With more than 7,000 members in 20 countries, NCA’s mission is to advance research, teaching, and service relevant to human communication. 

Broadening the Field 

In the mid-20th century, another part of the mosaic of communication emerged: scientifi c, empirical research, which gained prominence in almost all of the social sciences. The formation of the International Communication Association (ICA) in 1950 marked the advent of scientifi c research in the communication fi eld. Today, the ICA has more than 3,000 members. When the ICA was fi rst formed, it was distinct from NCA in two specifi c ways. First, NCA (then called the SCA) was steeped in the humanities, which typically are built through qualitative research. Complementing NCA’s intellectual and methodological interests, ICA allied itself primarily with the social scientifi c tradition, which tends to favor quantitative methods of research. Scholars who identifi ed with the social scientifi c tradition conducted research to learn more about such issues as the effects of following rational models of decision making, the productiveness of groups operating with different leadership styles, the impact of selfdisclosure on romantic relationships, and the impact of mass media on individuals. Social scientifi c research continues today as one of several intellectual traditions that contribute to the ever-growing body of knowledge created by communication scholars. A second difference between the two organizations, in the 1950s and for years after, was membership. As the names suggest, NCA was a national organization that represented the interests of United States scholars of communication and primarily encouraged research in American communication. ICA, conversely, explicitly sought to attract an international membership and to support research on communication beyond the borders of the United States. ICA’s international fl avor explains why areas such as cultural studies, which have been infl uenced by European scholars, are more prominent in ICA than in NCA. Although NCA and ICA continue to refl ect the intellectual and methodological inclinations present when they were formed, distinctions between the two organizations are less pronounced than 60 years ago. Today, NCA includes many members whose research is primarily or entirely quantitative, and ICA includes many members who generally favor qualitative research. Also, both organizations now have international memberships, and both promote research on communication in a range of cultures and geographic areas. The 1960s and 1970s saw a new motif in the communication mosaic. In the United States, this was a time of unprecedented social and political upheaval. The Civil Rights Movement and the second wave of the Women’s Movement shook up longstanding patterns of personal and social relations. At the same time, youth culture ushered in new ideas about how people should interact and what was important in life. Many college students felt that personal relationships should receive more time and attention than the traditional curriculum provided. Responding to these currents in social life, the communication discipline expanded to include interpersonal communication. Many colleges and universities began to offer classes in nonverbal behavior, family communication, and interaction in intimate relationships. Student interest in the expanded communication curriculum was very high and continues to be so today. The interpersonal emphasis also affected group communication courses, adding sensitivity training and human relations to the traditional coverage of group decision making. The fi eld continues to broaden. In recent years, for instance, health communication has become a major sub-area of the discipline. Scholars and teachers of health communication focus on issues such as doctor–patient interaction, organizational communication in health institutions, and media efforts to promote good health practices. The fi eld today also includes vigorous study and teaching of social and personal media, which have become primary means of communicating.

Communication, Power, and Empowerment 

Beginning in the 1960s and continuing to the present day, the relationship between communication and power in cultural life has become increasingly prominent in the communication mosaic. The tumultuous 1960s and 1970s were marked by social and political movements that questioned established power hierarchies. Two of the most notable of these movements were the civil rights movement, which challenged racial discrimination in the United States, and the women’s movement, which identifi ed, challenged, and attempted to change conventional gender roles in both public and private realms of life. Many scholars and teachers of communication embraced a critical focus on social movements and began to investigate the communicative dynamics that social movements employ and the ways in which social movements affect individuals and society. The expansion of the fi eld’s interests to questions of power refl ects the infl uence of French philosopher Michel Foucault (1970, 1972a, 1972b, 1978), who was deeply concerned with who is and who is not allowed to speak in a society. More specifi cally, Foucault illuminated the ways in which culturally entrenched rules—often unwritten and unacknowledged—defi ne who gets to speak, to whom we listen, and whose views are counted as important. Building on Foucault’s ideas, communication scholars study the ways in which some people’s communication is allowed and other people’s communication is disallowed or disrespected. Equally, communication scholars seek to empower people whose voices historically have been muted, so that they can participate fully in public and private interactions that shape the character of personal and collective life. Consider one example. Historically, decisions about environmental issues that affect the health and environment of communities have been made almost entirely by privileged citizens: scientists and people in white-collar and technical professions. Left out of these vital discussions have been many blue-collar workers, unemployed or underemployed people, and citizens without formal education (Cox, 2009; Martin, 2007). These citizens often are made voiceless by institutional barriers and administrative practices that defi ne their concerns and their ways of speaking as inappropriate. Phaedra Pezzullo (2001) documented how this happened—and how it was changed—in one Southern community that was suffering the effects of a toxic landfi ll. Pezzullo (2007, 2008) and others (Agyeman, 2007; Norton, 2007; Sandler & Pezzullo, 2007) continue to engage in research that increases our understanding of ways to empower those who have not had a voice in their communities and the larger society. Interest in the relationships between communication and power has reshaped many areas of the fi eld. Rhetorical scholars have broadened their focus beyond individual speakers. Many of today’s rhetorical scholars study gay rights, pro-life and pro-choice, environmental, and other social movements. They examine coercive tactics, symbolic strategies for defi ning issues (think of the power of terms such as pro-life and prochoice compared with pro-abortion and anti-abortion or pro-choice and anti-choice), and how social movements challenge and change broadly held cultural practices and values. Scholars in other areas of the fi eld share an interest in how communication shapes and is shaped by the historical, social, and political contexts in which it occurs. Today, faculty in interpersonal and organizational communication conduct research and teach about how new technologies affect personal relationships and reshape societies, how organizational cultures and practices affect employees’ productivity and job satisfaction, and how national trends such as downsizing and outsourcing affect workers on the job and in their personal lives. As this brief historical overview shows, the fi eld of communication responds to the changing needs of individuals and society. Perhaps this is why the fi eld has expanded, even during periods of downsizing in many colleges and universities. Just as Aristotle’s students found that communication skills allowed them to participate in their society, today’s students realize that the modern fi eld of communication offers them effective skills for understanding and participating in the world.

Conducting Research in Communication

Like other scholarly disciplines, communication is based on knowledge gained from rigorous research (Baxter & Bebee, 2004; Carbaugh & Buzzanell, 2009; Reinhard, 2007). So that you can understand how scholars acquire knowledge, we’ll discuss four primary approaches to communication research. These approaches are not incompatible; many scholars rely on multiple approaches to study how communication works. Further, even scholars who do not use multiple methods in their own research rely on research that employs a range of methods.