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Jordan Samuelson

Professor Lewis

COM9

05 April 2023

1st COM Theory Paper

Communication theories are attempts to explain how and why humans communicate. It is

the study of how messages are sent and received between people, groups, or an organization. All

communication theories explore different factors that influence the effectiveness of

communication like, language, media, context, culture, and others. Using these things, it helps us

understand how to communicate with others effectively and how to overcome challenges that

may arise in the process. These things are essential because they can help us understand how

communication works and ways that we can improve upon it in the future. Being able to better

understand how different cultures, ethnicities, and genders communicate can lead to better

relationships and in the end lead to a better more engaged society. ]

In the reading we were introduced to two types of communication theories, which are

interpretive and objective theories. Think of interpretive theories like this: in different cultures

we interpret things differently, in Asian cultures it is normal to enter someone’s house and take

off your shoes if you know them well or not, while as in Western cultures you will usually take

your shoes off only if you know them well or if it’s your house. These theories interpret the

social and cultural aspects of communication. Because communication can be interpreted from

different perspectives you may not understand or agree with the theory because you aren’t

looking at it from the person who wrote its perspective. The other type of communication theory

is objective, these theories are a more scientific approach when studying communication. In
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science, you use have a hypothesis, then you find data to support your hypothesis, and with that

data you can create a theory. Think of objective theories like that. We are not interpreting

anything; we are first creating a hypothesis then we use the data we gather and generating a

theory based off the data. When it comes to science you cannot interpret data, it either is data or

it isn’t. This way of generating a communication theory is a very binary way of working.

Although anyone can sit at home on their computer and create an interpretive

communication theory, there are somethings that you should be incorporating in your theory to

make sure it is good and accepted by others. The book states six different ways to make an

effective interpretive theory those are: identify values, create understanding, inspire aesthetic

appreciation, stimulate agreement, reform society, and conduct qualitative research. In this

reading however, only four of these are touched on. I’ll be explaining those four in the next

paragraph.

The first of the four ways is identifying value; to identify value in your theory there are

couple of things you could do, that is to make sure your theory is socially relevant and that it can

be used in a wide variety of situations. if your theory is about how speaking to your boss about

needing to leave work to go to WWII you probably won’t gain much traction from it. Also, if

your theory is about what to say to the cashier when you go to the store and buy milk you

probably won’t resonate with many. The next way you can create a good interpretive theory is by

creating understanding, with this you should have a good understanding of the person or group of

people you are writing this theory about. This will allow you to have a better perception of the

situation thus allowing you too interpretive them more accurately. Many of these scientific

theories can be, to put it bluntly, boring. You should be inspiring aesthetic appreciation when

creating a interpretive theory; this means that you make your theory appealing to make people
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appreciate and think deeply about that theory. Your write up to be appealing, neat, and concise.

The last way to create a good interpretive theory is by stimulating agreement. A theory is a

debate you are having with others while (generally) you aren’t there to defend yourself, all bases

should be covered and there shouldn’t be any holes in your argument. With that though, you

should be persuasive and agreeable with your writing. Doing that can allow for your theory to be

better consumed and talked about by others.

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Work cited

Griffin, Emory A. A First Look at Communication Theory. 10th ed., McGraw-Hill

Education, 2021.

Novak, Mary, C. Everything you need to know about communication theory. G2.com,

April 8th, 2019, https://www.g2.com/articles/communication-theory