As a student and teacher of
communication studies, I am often asked, what
exactly do you do? That is a great question. What do we do in communication
studies? Communication… that’s like…
talking and stuff, right? Communication studies has an extensive historical
presence in academia, and Nainby claims that the subject matter has been
anything but static. This is explicitly clear through his article, but there
are certain elements from the ancient Greek studies of rhetoric that I
personally find not only interesting, but also necessary to communication
studies today.
In Keith Nainby’s article Philosophical and Methodological Foundations
of Communication Education Nainby explores the evolution of Communication
Education in an attempt to identify the foundations of the practice. Through
his articulation of why we teach communication I found myself questioning my
goal of becoming a communication professor.
Nainby explains that early studies
of rhetoric were largely concerned with developing a healthy democracy. Better
understandings of public speaking leads to increased ability to participate in
the public sphere. This is built from two major philosophical assumptions of
communication education: (1) that communication acts are responsive to other
texts, and (2) communicative acts shape both people and the human world. This
is the exact reason I was drawn to communication studies. I was frustrated with
the political apathy that I saw in my generation, and wanted to develop methods
to engage the public and actually accomplish something. I am fed up with
hearing students trying to justify their apathy by saying that they’ve liked
something on Facebook, or they bought Tom’s shoes. These hipsters do a great
job explaining the problem with this:
When it comes to educating my
students, I also want to ensure that while I do not force my personal
ideologies on them, I can provide tools for them to think about these types of
problems critically, and evaluate for themselves what to do. Nainby also claims
that teaching communication studies is a method for developing basic principles
to evaluate the ethicality of a speaker. He claims that this perspective is
founded upon two methodological assumptions of communication education: (1)
communicative acts are best understood as contextual, and (2) communicative
acts are complicated and require multilevel analysis.
Nainby cites McGee, and identifies
someone like me, when he says “Argumentation was taken up, not by scholars committed to ivory-tower
research in to the writings of dead Greeks, but by teacher interested in… our political system in crisis.” He observes
a contradiction of communication education where there is a divide between the
desire to develop a competent public that is engaged in political issues, and
the desire to approach communication as a scholar seeking to understand the
mechanics and tactics of text formation.
Education is our passport to
something or other...
What I believe Mr. Rybak is trying
to articulate here is that education is no good without a combination of theory
and practice. As a teacher, I want to encourage my students to think beyond
themselves. This means thinking outside of their culture, understanding how
language affects their world, and how they can use language to shape society. So
is the divide real? Or can we, as communication scholars and educators seek an
understanding of text mechanics, and then utilize that information to develop a
healthy democratic society? Isn’t that what communication studies all about? I
know that’s why I came here. After all, education is our passport to… something.
HSJ
HSJ,
ReplyDeleteNainby does a great job of introducing a part of the history of Communication Studies (as we may understand it) and relating this back to the roots of English, public speaking, and democracy. Our University separates Communication Studies into Interpersonal/Organizational Communication, Performance Studies, and Rhetoric. Within this context, do you feel that you have more "tools" to reach your students? How might you engage your students to consider different viewpoints through the lens of performance studies?
-C.H.
That was my favorite quote from the Nainby article; I do think that most of us are in this discipline for something with more visible effects than padding our mental and cultural libraries, and this is what made reading Fish such a struggle for me. It is comforting (in a way that I never thought Plato would be comforting) to hear some confirmation that we are in a position to teach and assess ethics in the context of communication studies, but as only a part of what we do and what rhetoric is good for.
ReplyDeleteIn response to C.H.'s question, I have begun to appreciate Performance as a method for investigating the self, Rhetoric as a discipline that illuminates the layers of meanings in discourse and their effect on our social understanding, and I/O for demystifying human relationships. All of these are additional--and by no means exclusive--perspectives that I want Communication students to gain from my teaching.
Essentially, I believe it's how you (as a scholar) view the discipline determine how you (as a teacher) presents the discipline. So if I continually talk about how I/O does X and Rhetoric does Y and then how Performance does Z, I miss the importance of why they are under one umbrella of study. It's the intersection of those ideas/areas is how the conversation provides a deeper understanding of communication studies, well for me anyways.
ReplyDeleteLaura,
DeleteI agree with your criticism here. Communication (Studies) looks different depending on the program. Some schools like at culture studies, whereas others focus on strategic communication. Sometimes, the Communication (Studies) department is housed within Speech and Audiology. If we reduce the functionality to how Communication Studies looks in our own department, we’re limiting the effectiveness of departments who do not mirror our approach.
-C.H.
Laura and C.H.
DeleteI concur with your statements as well. This is especially true in regards to opening up the field to various contexts and collaborations with other departments and fields of study. While I understand the need to specify what Communication Studies is due to funding and creating a specific academic environment, I'm also able to observe how differentiating too heavily creates tension and resentment between departments and even within departments.
Your major question here is why we teach communication. In addition to this, I usually find myself struggling with another question: what is communication? This is a frequent question I face whenever I visit the Middle East where this discipline is either merged with journalism (and of course without a critical approach) or simply does not exist. Add to this my struggle to explain the benefit of this discipline and its vitality to democracy and empowering voices. "So, you question everything?" my friend asked me once when I was trying to explain her what a critical approach is. "You mean you question your religion, the way you were raised?" she continued with excitement and fear. I smiled and replied: "I am trying to find out why you and I have to put up with many practices that marginalize us. I have to look everywhere for an answer."
ReplyDelete