For example, narratives and topics are helpful to understanding the complexity of communication, and can be related to deepening understanding of public, mass or mediated communication, organizational communication, group level and face to face, interpersonal and even intrapersonal communication. Understanding the levels of communication marks off where the communication takes place, but most importantly allows researchers to specialize in a particular area and its problems. Speech therapy research is not left out of this model, by the way. It is technically part of interpersonal communication, because therapy is an interpersonal activity. Communication research overlaps sometimes, appearing to study the same things as other disciples.
Political scientists can study public communication, for example, and sociologists study groups.
What differentiates communication as a discipline is its focus on the communication, in all its aspects, rather than on the sociology or the politics. Communication scholars specialize in deeply understanding communication first, placing their attention on the communication, and investigate outcomes like social relationships as they result from communication. For social relations, it follows that communication researchers study only the communication factors, not factors like economics. Communication research often crosses disciplinary boundaries, but the talk, messages, and interaction are studied first and foremost.