Christopher C. Pope and Dr. Ed Adams, Communications
The complexity of communication as a concept is staggering. Few words in our modern vocabulary are used in as many contexts and with as many meanings as communication. We have anchored many of our modern hopes to the promise of better communication, such as hopes for peace, enlightenment, and productivity. It makes sense then that communication has been studied extensively this past century, sometimes in studies invoking the word; oftentimes not. In any case, the voluminous research on communication and closely related subjects presents current scholars with the monumental task of ordering, valuing, and clarifying what we already know about communication in preparation for better research in the future.
Research on communication covers every field in the academy to some degree, and the lack of clarity and priority amidst deluvian volumes of information confronts modern scholars of every ilk. However, while the problem of dizzyingly divergent research in mass quantities faces the entire academy to some degree, the field of communication studies seems particularly well suited to resolving the problem. This is due, in part, to the caliber of theories the field employs to deal with the issues of information, meaning, values, social complexity, etc. Beyond that, the longterm viability of communication studies as a field depends on its ability to define itself, cope with its own complexity, and offer to the rest of the academy a cogent and unique vision for how communication should be studied.
I began my ORCA research with an emphasis on creating a universally identifiable communication model in order to provide a common reference-point for scholars of different backgrounds. While I have made headway toward that end, the efficacy of such a model has proved to be daunting on political and pragmatic levels. The natural force of academic practice seems to be centrifugal, taking anything that begins in the center and pushing it further and further toward the periphery of understanding, altering its shape in the process, and leaving a vacuum at the core of scholarship. Many models, such as economic models of supply and demand, continue throughout time with only minor alterations because the reality of social practice verifies them again and again i.e. they are empirically based. A universal communication model cannot be empirically based. Its purpose is not to model any specific communication act, but rather to create agreed-upon categories for conversations about communication. Therefore, the formation of a central model would be a persuasive, political endeavor, relying upon agreement and ongoing commitments of energy and attention to its maintenance. Even if such a model could be established and unity on the topic of communication conversations achieved, a great deal of power would rest with the caretakers of that model, possibly instigating infighting and eventual secessions from the communication union, so to speak, thus defeating the model’s initial purpose. The establishment of such a model, then, would rely upon the expertise of political theorists to create a peaceable communication union. In order to skirt such political problems, unity may be achieved in ways other than agreeing upon the nature of communication as a research object. A field may be defined in terms of its research object, its motives, its forms of communication (including research methodologies), and ultimately its forms of metacommunication. The quest for a universal communication model falls under the first category, that is, it attempts to unify communication studies by creating a common research object. While communication studies does rally around a common research object to some degree, the fact that no two scholars can agree upon what communication is makes this a tenuous juncture. Research motives and research communication forms often contribute to a field’s identity in tandem, and the brevity of this report unfortunately precludes a more detailed explanation than that. It is the final point—metacommunication—that is the most interesting unifying possibility for communication studies and academia as a whole.
Metacommunication, in the context of academic fields, refers to how scholars collaborate with one another in their research. In a similar way, it also charts out the territory for disagreement and debate within a field. An analysis of metacommunication brings intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary forms of communication beneath the research lens, causing them to become research objects in and of themselves. Some communication scholars (e.g. Barnett Pearce, Robert Craig) have studied the possibility of enabling scholars from very different backgrounds to collaborate with one another without abandoning their fundamental, even incommensurate differences. Coordination and mutual recognition are valued above agreement and unity. For example, a well-honed metacommunication form could enable a journalist and a critical media scholar to understand one another profoundly and work together on solving mutually identifiable problems without demanding that either conform to the position of the other. However, this cosmopolitan metacommunication form must be agreed upon—there is no universally acceptable metacommunication form just as there is no universally acceptable conception of communication as a research object. However, metacommunication does not require the constant attention and maintenance that research objects require. While research objects (e.g. a universal model) are established politically, verbally, and often painstakingly, metacommunication forms emerge implicitly in all research projects. Nuances of metacommunication forms do not need to be articulated and defended in order for research to occur—indeed, they are inevitable, whether we articulate them or not. In other words, the dimension of metacommunication is broad, stable, and—in its own way—absolute. While diverse collections of research objects, motives, and forms of communication can be amenably housed in various patterns within the same field, a field is only capable of maintaining a single metacommunication form, because if scholars cannot agree on the form that their agreements and disagreements will take, then they cannot even begin to collaborate. Collaboration should be a bare-minimum requirement for the existence of a field.
It is obvious that a great deal of additional research is necessary to understand how to best order, value, and clarify the research performed both in communication studies and in academia generally. I conclude that efforts spent unifying communication models might be valuable for those who choose to accept the new model, but no model will ever be able to maintain a universal status. The greatest need confronting communication studies and academia generally is clear documentation of our forms of metacommunication (a paradox, granted, but the pursuit is still valuable). Once fields understand their own metacommunication forms they may attain greater insight into ways to collaborate or at least ameliorate border disputes