1 Launching Your Study
of Communication Theory
A First Look at
Communication Theory
8th edition
Em Griffin
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 2
Launching Your Study of
Communication Theory
What Is a Theory and What Does It Do?
What Is Communication?
An Arrangement of Ideas to Aid Comprehension
Chapter Features to Enliven Theory
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 3
What Is a Theory?
Theory – set of systematic, informed
hunches about the way things work
Set of hunches
Informed hunches
Hunches that are systematic
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 4
What Is a Theory?
Images of theory
Theories
as nets
Theories
as lenses
Theories
as maps
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 5
What Is Communication?
Communication – relational
process of creating and interpreting
messages that elicit a response
Messages
• Text – record of a message that can
be analyzed by others; for example,
books, films, DVDs, phonographs,
or any transcript or recording
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 6
What Is Communication?
Communication (continued)
Creation of messages
• Text usually constructed, invented,
planned, crafted, constituted, selected,
or adopted by the communicator
Interpretation of messages
• Messages do not interpret themselves
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 7
What Is Communication?
Communication (continued)
A relational process
• Takes place between two or more
persons and affects the nature of
the connections among those people
Messages that elicit a response
• Messages have an effect
upon people who receive them
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 8
An Arrangement of Ideas
to Aid Comprehension
Division I – Overview
Division II – Interpersonal Communication
Division III – Group and
Public Communication
Division IV – Mass Communication
Division V – Cultural Context
Division VI – Integration
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 9
Chapter Features to Enliven
Theory
Use extended examples from life
on a college campus, a well-known
communication event, or the
conversations of characters
in movies, books, or TV shows
Student accounts of
applications of theories
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 10
Chapter Features to Enliven
Theory
“Questions to
Sharpen Your Focus”
“Conversations with
Communication Theorists”
“A Second Look”
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
