Communication: A Critical/Cultural Introduction, 2e Warren & Fassett
Chapter 2: Communication and Power: A Cultural History
Lecture Outline
Overview:
This chapter opens with a story – Gabriella’s story. Through a weaving of Gabriella’s
story into the text, we begin to learn about the foundations of communication studies. We
learn that this is John and Deanna’s history; because it is told from their academic
backgrounds. The telling of the history of communication studies provides students with
a common understanding in helping them understand who shaped the course they are in
today, how the course was shaped, why particular elements of communication studies are
highlighted, and what the greatest influences have been on public advocacy as we study it
today.
Chapter Goals:
Explore how history is a collection of stories people tell from certain perspectives
toward particular ends
Describe how communication history produces contemporary understandings of
communication
Identify important contributions of theories and models from our past and
question how they affect our present
Explore the role of power in how we theorize communication
Build from historical lessons to contemporary advocacy, specifically developing
voice and argument (thesis) in public communication
I. Communication and Power: A Cultural History
a. The authors begin with a history of communication, starting with the
history that brought them to this text.
i. This history shaped their understanding of communication.
ii. This history is specific to John and Deanna, and the reader should
seek out the knowledge of others in the field of communication in
order to broaden her/his own perspective.
iii. The reader is encouraged to pay attention to a particular version of
the historical construction.
1. Some stories are incomplete, and some focus on particular
truths; these stories, like certain histories, serve a purpose.
b. Stories that are told belong to both the teller and the listeners; this makes
this cultural.
i. Communication always serves someone
ii. A particular story meets specific goals for the cultures it addresses
and reinforces.
1. Communication has the possibility to shape cultural life,
and culture is reflected in communication practices.
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Communication: A Critical/Cultural Introduction, 2e Warren & Fassett
c. The authors begin with five phases, paradigms, to explain their view of
the development of communication through time.
i. A paradigm is a view of the world or a way of seeing a particular
reality at a particular time within a particular culture.
II. Part One: The Rhetorical Tradition
a. This history begins in Greece, around a time when oratory was the
primary means for citizens to engage each other.
i. The Greeks taught and learned from the spoken word, which was
memorized and re-performed until someone took time to write a
version.
1. Ancient Greece was an oral culture, meaning citizens
taught and learned from the spoken word.
ii. As there were no lawyers in ancient Greece, citizens defended
themselves using compelling oratory to survive the legal system.
b. The Sophists were the first public speaking teachers, who worked with
citizens to help them become better public communicators.
i. These teachers believed that the creation, the explanation, and the
reasoning for a case mattered more than what happened, since
humans are fallible and partial.
ii. They, then, encouraged speakers to focus on the case, rather than
the event when giving a public presentation in an attempt to find
overlapping perspectives and reach an agreement.
iii. Modern scholars locate this as a way of creating truths.
1. Truths are the accumulation of many different possible and
sometimes competing perspectives that an audience must
compare and consider.
c. Plato was suspicious of the Sophists.
i. He considered the Sophists explanation of “truth” and
communication irresponsible and manipulative.
1. His explanations match those negative understandings with
rhetoric to Plato.
2. He associated the rhetoric presented by the Sophists as a
way to use language to persuade by masking or altering the
truth of a situation.
ii. Plato felt that it was possible to isolate an external, verifiable, or
objective reality.
d. Plato’s student, Aristotle, was the authority on the study of rhetoric.
i. He attempted to bring Plato’s and the Sophists’ views together.
1. Aristotle explained rhetoric as the “uncovering, in any
given situation, the available means of persuasion.”
ii. Aristotle isolated and defined three specific persuasive appeals:
1. Pathos: Appeals to an audience’s emotional responses.
2. Logos: Appeals to an audience’s logical reasoning.
3. Ethos: appeals that establish a speaker’s credibility with an
audience.
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Communication: A Critical/Cultural Introduction, 2e Warren & Fassett
iii. Aristotle also suggested three aspects (invention, arrangement, and
style) of rhetoric that a speaker should include in a speech, and
Cicero later expanded the list to include memory and delivery.
These five aspects are referred to as the 5 Canons of Rhetoric,
and public messages should contain each of these in order to
contribute to the persuasive success of the message.
1. Invention: The content of a message.
2. Arrangement: The organization of a message.
3. Style: The mode or genre of a message.
4. Memory: Remembering a message.
5. Delivery: The presentation of a message.
III. Part Two: The Elocution Era
a. In the 15th Century, Peter Ramus, split the 5 Canons of Rhetoric into two
parts: rhetoric and philosophy.
i. Rhetoric, for Ramus, was more about style, memorization, and
delivery, while the creation and arrangement of a message was
philosophical.
1. This split marked the canons as unequal in importance:
philosophy focused more on knowledge and argument
making it more substantive, and rhetoric became the “spin”
on how to present the substance.
a. This split is also still in effect today; for example,
popular usage of the term rhetoric marks the object
of such a statement as empty or false.
b. The study of elocution evolved to teach students (often women of wealth)
how to speak with poise and eloquence, articulation, vocal control, and
expression.
i. As the study of elocution grew, it included lessons about gesturing
and movement.
ii. Scholars studying elocution, then, identified and practiced the
depth in presentation skills.
IV. Part Three: The Move to Science
a. Shannon and Weaver in 1963 published a book that applied a
mathematical theory to communication and broke apart communication
into parts thereby allowing researchers to apply the divisions to the
scientific model.
i. This method attempted to understand what communication is and
how it works at the smallest level, and it was a substantive and
scientific area of scholarly inquiry for marking “speech” as more
than just talking, presentation, or delivery.
ii. The Shannon and Weaver model of communication includes:
1. Speaker: the one who encodes and presents a message
2. Message: the speaker’s thoughts turned into language and
nonverbal gestures
3. Receiver: the one who decodes and understands the
speaker’s message
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Communication: A Critical/Cultural Introduction, 2e Warren & Fassett
4. Other models include:
a. Context: the situation in which the communication
event occurs
i. Noise: a factor that could prevent a receiver
from fully understanding the message
b. Feedback: the receiver’s recognition of the sender’s
message
V. Part Four: Social Constructionism
a. Social constructionism is a theory that argues that any ‘objective’ fact we
may think we have is really a subjective construct.
i. 1966, Berger and Luckmann
ii. Social constructionists believed that people should gather the
narratives and stories that a society uses to understand their lives,
and then the social constructionists explore how people talk about
their understandings.
1. Thus, social constructionists search for meaning in the
communication used as we navigate our way through the
world.
2. Meanings, for social constructionists, are intersubjective
—refers to the way we, as Subjects, create meanings
together in interaction.
a. Communication exists between and among people
and is therefore alive and adaptive.
VI. Part Five: The Critical/Cultural Turn
a. The critical/cultural turn has influenced a variety of focuses in the
communication discipline, ranging from organizational to gender.
i. This turn marks a shift in the ways communication researchers
think and talk about these issues.
ii. This turn focuses on the class and power divisions that define and
reify a culture.
VII. A Moral: Lessons From Our Story of a Discipline
a. All textbooks come from somewhere, someone.
VIII. Public Advocacy: Purpose, Audience, and Voice
a. Purpose and Audience
i. Purpose focuses on the goal, argument, or message included in a
communication encounter.
1. A speaker should consider examples, evidence, and
language that supports that purpose and is compelling for a
particular audience.
ii. Though in-class speaking assignments are designed to be graded,
the teacher is but one audience member.
1. Every audience member is a genuine audience member.
2. Thinking of both classmates and the instructor as the
collective audience means the speaker must consider the
audience’s needs, interests, and reservations about an
argument.
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Communication: A Critical/Cultural Introduction, 2e Warren & Fassett
b. Voice
i. A speaker’s word choices, tone, or formality is a form of voice.
1. Voice is utilized in conjunction with purpose and audience
and enables a speaker to effectively impress ideas upon a
particular audience.
c. Topic Selection
i. Topic selection should take a few things into account:
1. It must meet the assignment.
2. It must consider the audience.
3. It must fit the context and time of the speech.
ii. Some ideas for finding a topic:
1. Brainstorm: build a list of ideas, and then narrow the list.
2. Freewrite: begin writing about the sorts of topics that are of
interest, and keep writing until the possibilities are
exhausted
d. Thesis
i. The overarching claim of the presentation is the thesis.
1. The thesis allows the speaker to share her/his expectations
about the presentation with the audience.
2. The thesis typically occurs very early in a presentation, and
should be a single, declarative sentence.
ii. A preview forecasts the direction of the presentation.
1. The preview shows the audience how you will support that
thesis in a simple statement.
2. A speaker utilizes the preview as a signpost for the
audience so that they know what to be listening for as the
speaker presents her/his message.
a. The signposts, or transitions, used within a
presentation will help to maintain the audience’s
attention while also enabling them to follow the
speaker’s reasoning.
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