Communicology

Communicology is the scholarly and academic study of how people create and use messages to affect the social environment. Communicology is an academic discipline that distinguishes itself from the broader field of human communication with its exclusive use of scientific methods to study communicative phenomena. The goals of these scientific methods are to create and extend theory-based knowledge about the processes and outcomes of communication. Practitioners in the communicology discipline employ empirical and deductive research methods, such as cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys, experiments, meta-analyses, and content analyses, to test theoretically-derived hypotheses. Correlational and causal relationships between communication variables are tested in these studies.

Researchers of communicology explore specific functions of communication. Such functions might include interpersonal communication, message processing, and persuasion. Researcher might also situate their studies in different contexts, such as intercultural communication, health communication, intergroup communication, technology-mediated communication, and small group communication. Findings from communicology link research to several different perspectives from the social sciences, natural sciences, and medicine.

Etymology and definitions

The word communicology has its roots in Latin from '' commūnicō'', meaning to share or impart, and -logia, meaning the “study of.” The academic study of human communication focuses on the use of messages to impart, inform, and participate in dialogue. Charles Horton Cooley described the system of communication as “a tool, a progressive invention, whose improvements react upon mankind and alter the life of every individual and institution.” The adjective form of commūnicō, ''communis'', is translated as “to make common.” An important pursuit in the academic study of human communication is to understand how meaning is created through the messages shared between interaction partners. Although various attempts have been made to label the scientific study of communication, including “communication sciences” and “communication studies,” such terms have been used to reference broad and all-encompassing approaches to studying messages. The label communicology narrows the scope of studying human communication by focusing solely on scientific approaches to message construction, production, and exchange.

History

The study of human communication originated in ancient Greece and Rome with notable philosophers, such as Socrates, Cicero, and Plato. Students of this early study of communication pursued knowledge on public rhetoric, oratory, and persuasion. Interest in the modern study of human communication intensified with burgeoning technology and it soon grew into a legitimate field following World War I and World War II.

The modern study of communication in the U.S. can be traced to four influential forefathers: Paul Lazarsfeld, Kurt Lewin, Harold Lasswell, and Carl Hovland. Lazarsfeld, who was trained as a mathematician, was influenced by socialism. His training in mathematics made him gravitate toward the methodology of communication rather than its content. Lazarsfeld, however, did engage in some theorizing about the effects of propaganda on its viewers. His two-step flow of communication model is still used today to describe how information diffuses into public opinion. Harold Lasswell was interested in power dynamics that existed in politics. Lasswell used various approaches to understanding the media effects of propaganda messages, including his initial studies using critical and qualitative designs and his later quantitative studies. He was influenced largely by pragmatism and Freudian thought. Lasswell's best known contribution to the communication field is his model of communication. Kurt Lewin began as an experimental psychologist at the University of Berlin. Although some of his work after he moved to the U.S. focused on applied or action research, Lewin's largest contributions to scientific understanding were based on his theoretically-derived research. His approach to studying psychology was largely guided by the natural sciences, particularly physics, and medicine. Carl Hovland was the director of experimental studies for propaganda research during World War II. Hovland was interested in the persuasion of propaganda, including ideas involving attitudes, credibility, and fear appeals. Hovland's approach to studying persuasion was influenced by Freudian psychoanalytics theory and Clark Hull's behaviorism and stimulus-response theory. During his post as the Director of the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University, Hovland addressed a large number of social problems in his research using multidisciplinary approaches.

Following World War II, the study of propaganda and, more broadly, human interactions did not rest. The forefathers understood the importance of studying message creation and exchange. They developed communication centers and institutes at their own home institutions. The modern study of human communication in the decades that followed grew in the kinds of topics researchers studied and the different methodological approaches from which these topics were studied. Scholars began to address message-related topics of interest to them in subfields such as health communication, mass communication, interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, persuasion and social influence, political communication, and communication technology. These scholars approached theorizing about and researching human communication using various ontological and epistemological approaches, including rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, cybernetic, sociopsychological, sociocultural