Communication Term Paper

CN 101 W2 D1

Development of the Discipline Intro (2 minutes) Last Time

§ Term Paper Discussion § Writing Guidelines for APA Style

Things Due

§ On Friday, your first discussion post is due. Today

§ Communication Agreement § Development of the Discipline

Communication Agreement (10 minutes)

§ Let’s come up with some communication best practices that will shape our class community and how we interact with each other. I’ve provided some ideas here, but am game for us to modify these, add to these, etc.

§ So, let’s work together to come up with our pact. § Take a moment to read over these, then when you’re ready, please share your thoughts.

Development of the Discipline: Why so Many Names? (15 minutes) § First, at Washburn, we have the Department of Communication Studies. At other

universities, a similar department might be called something else entirely. So, talk to me. What are some other names that a Communication Studies Department might be called?

o Communication o Communications o Communication Arts o Speech o Speech Communication o Mass Communication o Media Studies o Rhetorical Studies o Media Ecology o Visual Communication o Media Arts and Studies o Communication and Film o Communication and Media o Communication and Journalism

o Communication, Radio, and Television o Communication and Theatre Arts o Communication and English

§ Why do you think we have so many names for essentially the same kind of department? o Disagreement about the definition of communication. o And if we look at the discipline’s development, we start to see why there is

disagreement.

Development of the Discipline: The Origin Story § We often give the Ancient Greeks, like Aristotle, Draco, Plato, and Socrates, and the

Ancient Romans, like Cicero and Quintilian, all the credit. T § BUT in reality, the communication studies discipline traces back to 3000 BCE in Ancient

Egypt. o Ptahhotep wrote the earliest known book on effective communication, which

was called Precepts, and that was written around 2675 BCE. § For context, that is WELL before Cleopatra was born.

§ Now, this next bit wasn’t in your textbook, but it fills in some of the gap between Ptahhotep and the 1900s.

o Communication was largely centered around public speaking because many ancient cultures were grounded in what we call the oral tradition, meaning that the primary way of sharing stories and information across generations was through the spoken word, not the written word.

o And the thing about the history of public speaking is that there’s a ton of tea. Like, throughout its origination, there have been moments where delivery was thought more important than substance, then substance was deemed more important than delivery, back and forth.

o And right before the development of the first communication association – an attempt to start organizing the discipline – we had the elocutionist movement of the Modern Era. The elocutionist perspective held that delivery was everything. It was all about the gestures, facial expressions, posture, voice, etc. The content of the speech was put on the back-burner. And the general public got sick of it, thinking speeches were empty of rich messages, so communication was merged with English Departments.

o But a bunch of folks who focused on public speaking felt that communication was a related, yet separate discipline and started working together to establish that discipline.

§ The first communication organization created was the Eastern Communication Association in 1910. Four years later, the National Association of Academic Teachers of Public Speaking was formed. This association would eventually become the Speech Communication Association and then finally transform into what it’s called today: the National Communication Association, or NCA. Now, we have a ton of other communication associations, like Central States Communication Association, Western States Communication Association, and Southern States Communication Association.

There are associations for certain states and associations for specific kinds of communication. There is also the International Communication Association.

§ The point: Communication Studies has become a rich discipline of its own. § We’ll learn this semester the many facets of Communication Studies, because while

public speaking is a part of it, it isn’t the only kind of communication that exists. Communication and Me: Unpack my Daily Communication (15 minutes)

§ I’m going to put us into small groups for 10 minutes. In your groups, I want you to introduce yourselves to each other and together, brainstorm all the kinds of communication you experience and conduct daily.

§ This could be things like texting or having a conversation, but also things like joking or venting of smiling. There are many options.

§ Have one person in your group agree to be the person typing and type everything you think of into the Google Doc I sent you in your Zoom email for today. Click on the link and it will appear on your screen.

§ All of the groups will be in there at once and I’ll have it open on my screen, too. I should see the number of group cursors on the screen, so be sure your group is participating (or I’ll crash your party and surprise you in your breakout room!).

§ Go!

§ See? So many kinds of communication, so we have subdisciplines in the field that talk about those specific communication phenomena.

§ This semester, we’ll learn about what communication is most generally, as well as explore the most prominent subdisciplines that help us understand many of these kinds of communication we’ve listed.

Next Time

§ Read Chapter 1 § Don’t forget that your first discussion post is due on D2L on Friday.