bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Social Exchange Theory
Authors: Kim Min‐Sun 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
Social exchange theory (SET) is one of the most influential conceptual paradigms that was developed to explain the factors governing interaction among humans. Social exchange theory postulates that just as an individual's behavior in the marketplace is motivated by a desire to maximize profits and minimize losses these identical motives are applicable in the realm of human relationships. Several researchers have theorized that human beings will markedly demonstrate a natural proclivity towards sustaining relationships that they believe yield a greater amount of rewards than costs incurred. Social exchange theory explains an individual's outcome to different social interactions by examining the exchange of resources during social interactions. These resources can be material goods and services or an exchange of social value. The theory's predictive powers stem from its ability to yield answers concerning relationship development (from initial interaction), maintenance, and dissolution and the corresponding communication that occurs during such situations.
Interpersonal Relationships
Authors: Duck Steve , Usera Daniel 
Published: October 2016

AbstractInterpersonal communication is a conglomeration of many approaches and disciplines coming together to understand relationships. It grew from interactions among scholars from different disciplines and has evolved to become a family of approaches with shared predispositions to understand how people talk and relate to each other orally, nonverbally, and, more recently, electronically. Relationship research is often divided according to the life span of a relationship: its initiation, maintenance, and dissolution.
Measurement
Authors: Holbert R. Lance , Grill Christiane 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
There are four levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio. Whether a single item or a composite (index or scale), greater understanding of any measure often comes with an evaluation of four moments: mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis. The quality of a measure is judged using several criteria, the most important of which are reliability, validity, and generalizability. Communication researchers employ a wide range of multivariate analytical tools (principle components analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis) to assess measurement. This entry provides a brief overview of these measurement‐specific topics.
Social Network Analysis
Authors: Quan‐Haase Anabel , McCay‐Peet Lori 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
This essay examines social network analysis as both a theoretical lens to the study of social structure and a methodological approach for the collection and analysis of data. Social network analysis is defined as the study of the relational aspects of social structure, where social structure refers to the patterns of interactions among social actors. The approach stems from anthropology and sociology originally, but has been applied to the study of a wide range of social phenomena. Social network analysis has become particularly useful and relevant in the context of social media and big data analysis.
Plato
Authors: Haskins Ekaterina V. 
Published: October 2016

AbstractPlato is considered one of the greatest ancient Greek philosophers. In fact, he is responsible for inventing the language of philosophy as a discursive practice at a time when the meaning of “philosophy” was still in flux. Plato never defined philosophy directly and unambiguously; instead, he wrote dramatic dialogues that featured his intellectual hero, Socrates, as the main character. Plato's dialogues were written over the span of half a century (399–347bce). Debates continue about the development of Plato's thought and about differences between Socrates the character and Plato the author. Interpretation of Plato's dialogues is further complicated because of their dramatic nature and frequent use of humor and parody. Despite these reservations, it is safe to claim that Plato's dialogues critically engage discourses of his predecessors and contemporaries. Plato stages the conflict between philosophy and traditional arts of language in order to establish philosophical discourse as the only path to true knowledge and justice.
Religion Studies
Authors: Clark Lynn Schofield , Chiou Grace 
Published: October 2016

AbstractThis entry provides an overview of key scholars in the field of religion who have influenced communication theory and philosophy. It recognizes the importance of studying religion as a social dimension especially in relation to meaning‐making, narratives, and ethics. It argues that the split between a mythic and comparative approach to religion also shapes the ways communication scholars view and make decisions regarding collective concepts in communication, such as copyright, privacy, freedom of expression, and connection.
P
eirce,
C
harles S.
Authors: Lanigan Richard L. 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
The entry consists of a biographical sketch of Peirce, noting the circumstances that influenced the development of his thinking and writing. The biography also situates him within the history of American philosophy, especially his authorship of the movement known as pragmatism. His publications record an intellectual journey from Aristotle through medieval philosophy and a familiarity with Hegel and Kant to the contemporary conjunction of phenomenology and semiotics. In fact. Peircian semiotics represents one of major schools of postmodern semiotic thought in contemporary philosophy and human science. His work on semiotic phenomenology is an integration of grammar, logic, and rhetoric with direct application to communication research ranging from interpersonal relations to media analysis. His doctrine of semiotics is a philosophy constituting a logic‐based methodology for qualitative research on human communication.
McL
uhan,
M
arshall
Authors: Strate Lance 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
Marshall McLuhan brought the study of media into widespread awareness during the 1960s, and had widespread influence in numerous fields and disciplines. His aphorism, “the medium is the message,” is a call to pay attention to media and their effects, rather than the content they carry. Defining media broadly, he argued that they are extensions of the human body, especially of sense perception, and emphasized the differences between hearing and vision. McLuhan argued that the distinctive characteristics of Western culture are linked to alphabetic literacy, especially as amplified by printing, and are disappearing due to the electronic media.
Semiotics
Authors: Cobley Paul 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
This entry outlines some of the ways semiotics is defined and considers some of the narratives into which semiotics has been fitted within communication theory. It discusses the domain of semiotics, the constitution of the sign, the ideas of “code” and “text,” and the relation of semiotics to the “textual” turn that still wields influence in media studies. It shows how semiotics has been inflected sometimes in a misleading fashion while also attempting to demonstrate that the semiotic project can be grasped by a focus on the task of illustrating the complex and fluctuating relations between “illusion” and “reality.”
Spiral of Silence
Authors: Matthes Jörg , Arendt Florian 
Published: October 2016

AbstractThis entry introduces the theory of public opinion, usually referred to as the Spiral of Silence, originally proposed by Noelle‐Neumann in 1974. After outlining the key propositions of the theory along with the main research findings, this paper discusses theoretical and methodological challenges of Spiral of Silence scholarship and enumerates the contributions of this theory to the field of mass communication.
Social Media
Authors: Moe Hallvard 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
The term social media describes Internet‐based services that facilitate social networking as well as the creation and sharing of content among users. It is in no way a precise analytical term, but the phenomenon of social media grew during the first decade of the 21st century to become thoroughly integrated into various domains of public and private life. Academic definitions of the term have been somewhat pragmatic, as scholars have sought to make sense of the different ways in which the phenomenon affects media and communication structures, content, and uses. Research has covered a range of topics, including aspects of social media use in identity formation, and social media in political communication. The most concerted critique of social media as a phenomenon comes from critical political economy.
Shannon,Claude
Authors: Grant Colin B. 
Published: October 2016

AbstractClaude Elwood Shannon (born April 30, 1916 and deceased February 24, 2001) was the father of information theory. It was Shannon'sMathematical Theory of Communicationthat offered a breakthrough in the theory of information which has fascinated philosophers and social scientists ever since and has given the field the hugely influential concepts of entropy, channel capacity, noise, receiver and the information “bit.” This fascination has not precluded fundamental misunderstandings of his work by scientists outside Shannon's field of signal engineering. However, these misunderstandings have in turn proved highly influential.
Metamedium
Authors: Jensen Klaus Bruhn 
Published: October 2016

AbstractMetamedium refers to the digital computer as a technological platform on which a variety of different media can be reproduced and recombined. As such, computers have reopened discussions of what constitutes a medium in the first place—as a material, discursive, as well as institutional, entity. This entry traces the origins of the concept of a metamedium, and relates it to the longer history of media as tools, technologies, and metatechnologies. While originally associated with personal and other stand‐alone computing devices, metamedia can now be seen to include a range of information and communication technologies, specifically the internet and other communication networks. In a future perspective, metamedia are associated with notions of ubiquitous and pervasive computing, and with an “Internet of things,” in which multiple media interfaces are embedded in diverse natural objects, artifacts, and social settings, presenting research with new conceptual issues and classic normative questions.
Meaning
Authors: Taylor Bryan C. , V. Munoz Ricardo 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
The term “meaning” conceptualizes a fundamental object of explanation in the study of communication, one whose status may be characterized as alternately ubiquitous, mundane, elusive, and compelling. Broadly, “the meaning of meaning” is generated in intellectual traditions that conceptualize the nature of, and the relationships among, three distinct sets of phenomena: (1) an external, material reality, which forms the object of human experience and knowledge; (2) an internal, private consciousness, in which the modern individual experiences the world as a uniquely personal matter; and (3) intersubjectivity, viewed as the communicators' achievement of shared understanding.
Science, Technology, and Society Studies
Authors: Boczkowski Pablo , Crooks Roderic , Lievrouw Leah , Siles Ignacio 
Published: October 2016

AbstractThis entry examines contemporary scholarship on media and information technologies at the intersection of science and technology studies (STS) and communication studies. The term “media and information technologies” is used to bring together a variety of research frameworks that seek to capture symbolic, social, cultural, or political aspects of technology. This body of work emphasizes broad historical scope, infrastructural dimensions, and the distinctive interplay of materiality with symbolic content and meaning. The discussion is organized around three key conceptual bridges: prevailing notions about causality in technology–society relationships; the process of technology development; and the social consequences of technological change. The entry concludes by considering some broader implications of the contemporary landscape of research at the intersection of STS and communication studies for continued intellectual dialogue between the two fields.
Lévi‐Strauss,Claude
Authors: Geoghegan Bernard , Schüttpelz Erhard 
Published: October 2016

AbstractClaude Lévi‐Strauss played a decisive role in internationalizing “communications” as a topic of transdisciplinary research in the 1950s and 1960s. His writings relayed concepts among communities of American and French academics, as well as among natural scientists, engineers, and social scientists. His reinterpretation of engineering in the perspective of cybernetics and information theory established premises that informed a generation of debates in the fields of semiotics, structuralism, poststructuralism, and anthropology on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet, the very success of his conceptual approaches to communications, and the widespread assimilation of his theses into mainstream scholarship, has often rendered his influence and originality invisible to later generations of scholars. This entry recovers the history of Lévi‐Strauss's interventions and innovations that have proven most relevant to communications research.
Pragmatism
Authors: Russill Chris 
Published: October 2016

AbstractPragmatism, as an intellectual tradition developed from philosophy, is reviewed in its historical and contemporary significance for communication theory. The importance of James's psychology, Peirce's logic of scientific inquiry, and pragmatist conceptions of community are discussed in order to situate the “revival” of pragmatism that emerged in the late 1970s. The key contributors to the revival—Bernstein, Rorty, Habermas, Carey—are reviewed, as are contemporary debates in pragmatism and communication theory.
Grounded Theory
Authors: Urquhart Cathy 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
This entry describes the basic aspects of grounded theory method (GTM) and covers four key points. First, the goal of GTM is to generate a theory. Often the coding procedures are leveraged independently by researchers for data analysis, not to generate a theory. Second, the use of GTM implies a noncommittal literature review, where the emerging theory determines the relevance of that literature review. There is an absolute obligation on the part of grounded theorists to engage their emergent theory with the existing literature, for theory‐building purposes. Third, overlapping data collection and analysis are recommended, but not essential, because they help build the emerging theory using theoretical sampling and “slices of data” to build it out and densify it. Fourth, the history of GTM involves a major intellectual dispute and consequent split between its founders, Glaser and Strauss. Understanding this split helps us understand grounded theory.
Linguistics
Authors: Haugh Michael 
Published: October 2016

Abstract

Linguistics is generally agreed to be the scientific study of language. There is nevertheless debate about what constitutes proper scientific study (the methods and theories underpinning linguistic analysis) and what is encompassed by the term
language
(the object of linguistic analysis). However, while there is still heavy emphasis placed in much of present‐day linguistics on the analysis of language form and structures that are abstracted or idealized away from the particulars of communication, there is increasingly a range of linguistic theories that readily engage with linguistic form and structure as key resources that influence the ways in which we communicate with others. Understanding the diverse range of offerings in linguistics is thus of critical importance for scholars of communication who wish to draw from it in theorizing or analyzing communication.
History of Technology
Authors: Arceneaux Noah 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
This entry outlines the basic ideas associated with the academic tradition known as “the history of technology,” a perspective that emphasizes the complex relationships between technology and society. Specific studies that have applied this perspective to the study of communications technologies are then presented, along with some of the ways in which the perspective has been modified. Suggestions for future areas of research are highlighted, including the benefits that such a perspective can bring to communication scholars.
Derrida,Jacques
Authors: Krapp Peter 
Published: October 2016

AbstractJacques Derrida interrogates the concept of communication as part of a campaign against logo‐phonocentric tendencies in Western thought, deploying the concept of iterability to demonstrate that a hierarchy of presence over absence is untenable. His idea of deconstruction also became associated with digital media and the promise of computer‐mediated communication. In thinking about communication technologies, Derrida disagrees with some of the most influential diagnoses of media theorists like Marshall McLuhan.
Virtual Reality
Authors: Giddings Seth 
Published: October 2016

Abstract

This entry addresses the development of virtual reality since the 1980s, both as an actual set of immersive digital media technologies and as a technological imaginary of media, immersion, and the future of human–technological relationships inspired by these technologies. It explores the overlap between these two—between actual technologies and idealized, fictional, or speculative visions of future media—and reflects on the concept of the
virtual
for digital media and communication.
Sociology of Knowledge
Authors: D. Pooley Jefferson 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
The sociology of knowledge is the subfield of sociology devoted to the interplay between social conditions and ideas. The subfield has traced the many ways that social factors, such as military funding, public controversy, generational experience, and personal rivalry, have helped to shape the ideas that scholars and intellectuals produce. The entry describes the early development of the sociology of knowledge, with reference to Max Scheler, Karl Mannheim, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx, and more recent contributions from Robert K. Merton, the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), and science and technology studies (STS). Influential approaches to the sociology of intellectual life from the last few decades are surveyed. The potential for media and communication theory to inform the sociology of knowledge, and vice versa, is taken up in conclusion.
Postmodernism
Authors: Vermeulen Timotheus 
Published: October 2016

AbstractPostmodernism is a conceptual category that circulated widely in media and communication studies in the 1980s and 1990s, but its currency has dwindled since the start of the 21st century. Over the years, the term has been used to refer, variously, to a historical period, a way of life, a philosophical theory, a sociological condition, the “end of history,” an emancipatory program, a cultural critique, moral relativism, a stylistic register, and the “death of the author.” Many scholars distinguish between the termspostmodernismandpostmodernityto restore a sense of order to this conceptual chaos, generally theorizing the first as a cultural modality that reacts to modernist aesthetics and the second as a socioeconomic condition that supplants industrial society. Philosopher Antoon van den Braembussche has even suggested a tripartite division, further singling out a notion of “the postmodern” as label for a philosophical debate distinct from Enlightenment theories.
Performativity
Authors: Tse Yu‐Kei 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
The concept of “performativity” originates in the study of pragmatic aspects of language structure and use from the 1960s on. The seminal concepts of performativity, speech acts, and discourse analysis in linguistics were inspired by the pioneering works of Austin and Searle. This entry provides an introduction to linguistic performativity as a basis for understanding how this concept is applied in humanities and social sciences, in fields such as linguistics, anthropology, literature, performance theory, gender studies, and media and cultural studies.
Lewin,Kurt
Authors: Hollingshead Andrea B. 
Published: October 2016

AbstractKurt Lewin (pronouncedlə‐veen) is universally recognized as the founder of modern social psychology, a pioneer in organizational and applied psychology, and an influential figure across the social and behavioral sciences. He was among the first researchers to study social influence, group dynamics, and organizational development. He was a practical theorist and an applied researcher whose work focused on understanding and solving social and organizational issues such as religious and racial discrimination, intergroup relations, conflict, morale, leadership, and employee productivity. Among his many pioneering contributions to social science were action research, field theory and force field analysis, and the study of group dynamics. He was an early advocate of using both field and laboratory experimentation to examine social behavior.
Group Communication
Authors: Gouran Dennis S. 
Published: October 2016

AbstractThe social scientific study of communication in groups originated in scholarship that was inspired largely by Kurt Lewin (field theory) and Robert Freed Bales (equilibrium theory). Also influential was John Dewey and his explorations into the phenomenon of reflective thinking. As interest among those in communication began to shift from a primarily pedagogically centered focus on improving interaction in groups to questions concerning the development of interaction and its impact on the outcomes groups achieve, research and inquiry into the types that occur in sociology and social psychology began to emerge. Lacking, however, were theoretical perspectives for both guiding the selection and pursuit of questions worthy of investigation and synthesizing the findings that derived from them. Largely a consequence of responses to criticisms published in the 1970s, attention to theory took hold in the 1980s and led to the emergence of the five influential perspectives: the functional, developmental–structurational, symbolic convergence, bona fide–naturalistic, and socio‐egocentric perspectives examined in this entry.
F
oucault,
M
ichel
Authors: Chouliaraki Lilie 
Published: October 2016

Abstract
Michel Foucault, one of the most influential critical intellectuals of the twentieth century, never focused on the concept of communication as such. Despite this neglect, it would be misleading to ignore the substantial contribution that his theories of language and power have made in the field of communication. In this entry, I summarize this contribution around two key concepts: language as discourse and power as an “economy” of both freedom and constraint.
Narrative Inquiry
Authors: Bamberg Michael 
Published: October 2016

Abstract

Narrative inquiry (NI) is the examination of what stories are, what they mean, and what they can do—with the stipulation that the processes of how we construe such meanings and functions (the act of interpretation) is reflectively laid open. Against this background, NI serves two basic strategic aims: first, to work toward the defining characteristics of form and structure of narrative (its ingredients), as well as the organization of their thematic content (inquiry
“on narrative”
); second, to make use of narratives to inquire into a wide range of phenomena (inquiry
“with narratives”
). This entry aims to lay out these two directions of engaging in NI
on
narrative and
with
narrative, using as one of the guiding questions how in each case narrative is used as the unit of analysis—with the ultimate goal of recognizing the contributions each can offer.