Talk:Communication studies

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[edit] Criticism

Hello. I'd changed the wording from "Some complain..." to "It is frequentyly claimed" because the latter does not appear to have any presuppositions. Reporting that people complain is sort of substantiating their view (that there is something to complain about). The "claim" version reports that they are complaining, but does not assert allegiance towards a POV. What do you reckon? The JPS 17:27, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, "frequently" (not frequentyly, lol) implies that the claims are made probably more often than they actually are. How about "Some claim"?--csloat 17:43, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Ooops, typo!! The reason I'm so interested in this is because here in Britain we have just had the annual moral panic over Media studies. I'm working on that article with another academic, and one of the problems raised was that the section (Media_studies#Derogatory_attitudes) was too UK-centric. I wonder if you could cast your eye over it and see how we can develop it to resolve the bias? The JPS 17:55, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I did peek at it and I think that article, this one, and cultural studies need to be more clearly integrated. "Cultural studies" and "media studies" in the US are part of communication studies, or at least they intersect communication studies in significant ways (we also see cultural and media studies in departments of philosophy and english as well). I understand in the UK cultural studies grew out of communication studies and literary studies. While all of these disciplines have geographical nuances, I do think we can suggest that there is a "cultural studies" that is broader than merely "British cultural studies" and so forth. I really don't think the sections on "derogatory attitudes" are that important. I guess it's worth mentioning that people make fun of the discipline sometimes but does that really deserve more prominence than much of the important scholarly work going on in these disciplines? --csloat 18:28, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] publication

would you like to publish this article? -- Zondor 22:23, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

you think we should publish an article still recognized as a stub?-csloat 23:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

no, it should be cleaned up. however, not to featured article status, but Wikipedia:Good articles or Wikipedia:Standard articles would be good enough. -- Zondor 23:33, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest taking it over and making a division in the "Communication" entry. In order to avoid replicating in Wikipedia the confounding tendency to regional "confuseologisms" (by which I playfully mean the using one word to refer to very different things).

Communication Arts and Communication Sciences in my PhD program (Purdue) were combined together; whether your Master's degree was a MS or a MA depended on which sort of methodology classes you took. Further, one of the academic journals of the ICA (which is "international" in pretty much name only. . .there is a long and sordid history there) is called "Communication Studies."

Point being, is it possible that we would do a better job of covering the topic by focusing on "Communication" and then including sections doing justice to the various movements and identifying them in the manner of their own choice? We already have quite a bit of overlap/duplication in the various permutations of "Communication" in Wikipedia articles. I suspect that we would save a bunch of work, and a bunch of vitriol, if we were to bring them together under one main banner, and then giving each subsection the respect and authenticity due them.

Part of this urge in me probably comes in that I just spent several hours working toward broadening several articles in the "communication family" to, among other things, remove parts that said there were no University degrees offered in "Communication". {My PhD is in Communication, so I believe there are programs apart from speech pathology offering these degrees. My focus was in Organizational Communication but I had "concentrations" in "Semiotics, "Anthropological Linguistics" and "Philosophy and Communication." (Note that the philosophy department strongly resisted using the word "of" or "in" in any concentration--thus "philosophy of communication" was not allowed. . .sometimes these distinctions run deep.)}

Anyhow, does it make sense to try and pull all these articles together? I would include:

media studies,
cultural studies (the European, not the American variety),
mass communication,
rhetoric,
political communication,
interpersonal communication,
debate/forensics including legal communication which itself includes things like communication law and even jury selection!,
communication theory (including Habermas and his "Ideal Speech Situation") information theory which is founded in systems theory and cybernetics,
public speaking,
speech writing,
public relations,
advertising,
identification/interpellation (from critical theory traditions)
issue management,
dyadic communication,
non-verbal,
constructivist,
activity theory (especially the work of Vygotsky and others from the then-Soviet Union)
speech therapy/pathology,
audiology,
literary,
film and art criticism,
speech act theory,
radio, television and film production,
scriptwriting,
communication research,
communication load,
information sciences,
information management,
zoo-communication (including the dolphin and chimp communication folks),
et al.?

Upon some reflection, perhaps some of these (public speaking, speech writing, public relations, advertising, information management, semiotics, etc.) should be kept separate, but with good ties--not simply a single text reference.

All of a sudden if feels huge. . .

Roy 10:56, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge: Communication studies + Media studies + Communication Sciences

I'm not sure I understand what the difference is. If there is a difference, could the articles please explain what those differences are? Ewlyahoocom 03:43, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

No difference, media studies may be a subcategory, but these really do need to be merged!DMCer 05:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

The reason for the different categories deals more with what theories have evolved under each section. Nancytobler.com has a breakdown of communication studies in it's various forms. Although the content is absent from the site at the moment I can assure you that each sub-category is populated with different theories and methodologies specific to that area of study.

I'm not sure how wikipedia can accommodate the tree structure created on nancytobler.com, but they are welcome to adopt it if they'd like. Jacob F. Roecker (talk) 13:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)