A BRIEF REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION STUDY

Abstract

This article will talk about a brief history of communication study.

Full text

A BRIEF REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION STUDY
Rolando Y. Santiago Jr.
Master of Development Communication
21- 51412
Introduction
Have you ever imagined what your life would be like if you couldn't talk about the
events of the day with your best friend, write a letter to a distant family member, send
an e-mail congratulating a friend on her birthday, sit back and watch your favorite
television show, listen to soothing music on the radio or CD player, or send a fax to a
business? We use the Internet to acquire information for a project or read the newspaper
to learn about current events around the world. We use our ability to communicate to
create touch with people and share meanings. We also take technology for granted, which
enables much of this connection. However, there was a period when there was no
television or newspapers, and computers and smartphones were only seen in science
fiction movies. In reality, because our prehistoric forefathers lacked our well-developed
language systems. To fully comprehend the nature of communication, we must first
understand how it evolved and enabled the techniques and technologies that we now
refer to as "communication." The history of communication also reveals how it influenced
the development of civilization and continues to do so in modern societies.
You probably learnt about the different stages in the evolution of the human
species in history class, such as the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and so on. These
titles reflect to periods thousands of years ago when people created tools out of various
materials and devised methods for producing food and weaponry. These early
technologies will eventually lead to the development of human society as we know it.
A similar set of "ages" can be used to describe the stages in which our forefathers
improved their ability to communicate; communication enabled our forefathers to share,
record, recover, and disseminate (spread) the inventions and solutions that marked the
stages of human civilization (De Fleur & Ball-Rokeach 1989). We would not have been
able to trace the evolution of civilization without some means of recording data. The cave
drawings unearthed by archaeologists in southern Africa, Spain, and France, which date
from 25 000 to 10 000 years ago, are an example of how knowledge of the past was
acquired. Animals, geometric signs, and human figures are depicted in the paintings,
which depict scenes of hunting and rites. We don't know what they were used for at the
time, but they're significant since they're the oldest surviving records of human
communication (Steinberg, S. 2007).
We now rely on technology tools to share, record, retrieve, and disseminate data.
Communication researchers are interested in how the strategies and technology that
enabled modern communication evolved over time.

Communication and its meaning
Communication is not a new word to everyone. Because we do this every day, we
communicate to your friends, parents and even to a stranger. It is deemed necessary in
success in one’s life, may it be written or verbal, communication plays a high value, not
only in the academic world, but also in all of the organizations. In our daily life we always
make use of communication in order for us to transact or negotiate with people around
us because in communication we are also allowed to express our feelings and our
emotions to vent our sentiments, or our opinion towards a person or a group of people.
The word “communication” was derived from the Latin word “communicare,”
meaning “common.” Therefore, “communicating” means “making common,” “making
known” or “sharing” and involves verbal, non-verbal and electronic means of human
interaction (Velentzas and Borni, 2014). Keyton (2011) argued that communication can
be described as the process of transmitting information and popular understanding from
one person to another, Cheney (2011) added that the definition underlines the fact that
no communication occurs unless a shared understanding emerges from the exchange of
information.
Wilbur Schramm And the Founding of Communication Study
“
The difficulty in summing up a field like human communication is that it has no
land that is exclusively its own. Communication is the fundamental social process
” - Wilbur
Schramm
Wilbur Schramm returned to Iowa City from his retirement home in Honolulu on
April 14, 1981, to deliver the Les Moeller Lecture at the University of Iowa's School of
Journalism and Mass Communication. It was a trip down memory lane. In 1930, Schramm
moved to Iowa to further his education. Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) While he was the
director the Iowa journalism school in 1943, he developed the world's first Ph.D. program
in mass communication and the first communication research institute. Paul F. Lazarsfeld,
Carl I. Hovland, and other social scientists inspired Schramm at the time because they
were doing communication research related to World War II, which brought together
experts from psychology, sociology, and political science to develop the new subject of
communication. Wilbur Schramm is the father of communication studies and a key player
in the field's history.
Wilbur Schramm (1907-1987) was born on August 5, 1907, in Marietta, Ohio.
French explorers named this pastoral setting, which is located on Ohio's southern border,
after their queen, Marie Antoinette. When Schramm was a child, his ancestors hailed from
Schrammsburg, Germany, and their Teutonic name posed problems for the family during
World War I. His father was a lawyer in Marietta, and his practice suffered as a result.
Wilbur Schramm has a developed a speech defect which was called severe stutter at age
five due to "an amateurishly performed tonsillectomy" (Cartier 1988, p. 58-59)

The World War II
World War II had a significant impact on the field of communication study; it
brought scholars from Europe, such as Kurt Lewin, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Theodor
Adorno, to the United States; it attracted U.S. scholars, such as Carl I. Hovland and Harold
D. Lasswell, to communication research; and it connected these scholars who would
launch the field of communication study into a dense network. As a result,
communication studies began with a focus on the consequences of communication.
During World War II, there was an agreement on the importance of communication,
which took place mostly in Washington, D.C.
For a social scientist during World War II, Washington was the place to be. Few
social scientists opposed the war after France fell to Hitler in June 1940 and it became
clear that he would rule Europe. The goals of America's war drew these experts together
in a shared cause and forged a network of friendships that would last their whole lives.
The war effort required an interdisciplinary strategy, which was frequently focused on
communication issues. As a result of World War II, the prerequisites for the establishment
of communication studies were formed. There were no doctoral programs in
communication at the time, therefore none of the social scientists who worked on
performing wartime communication research had been trained in communication studies.
Nathan Maccoby, who worked in Sam Stouffer's Army Research Branch during WWII,
conducted tests on the effects of military training films. said, "
I tell my students that
all I learned about communication, I learned on-the-job while doing experimental studies
of U.S. military servicemen
" (Maccoby 1987).
School of Communication
In the early 1900s, the University of Iowa started teaching journalism, and the
School of Journalism was founded in 1924. George H. Johnson was one of Iowa's first
journalism professors. Gallup, T. ("Ted"). Frank Luther Mott was the director of Iowa's
School of Journalism from 1927 to 1942. He was born into a small-town Iowa newspaper
family, went to Columbia University for his Ph.D., and then returned to Iowa City to teach
journalism, winning a Pulitzer Prize in history for his book History of American Magazines
in 1939.
Universities, communities, and countries that served as the study's residence were
highlighted. On the other hand, North America and Europe received the writer's full
attention. The essential places to communication studies as a way to honor them and
their work. Wilbur Schramm founded the Communication Research Institute at the
Universities of Iowa, Illinois, and Stanford, where he performed research.
Parallel sessions in communication were pioneered by the Frankfurt School, which
later conducted early studies on communication impacts. The Palo Alto School, on the
other hand, focuses on communication research with a focus on the principle that
communication has pragmatic and behavioral implications (Wilder, 1978). Despite the
fact that Palo Alto School did not acquire more scholarly attention in the United States

due to a few concerns, the theorists developed an interactionist communication theory.
They associate communication with human conduct, leading to the conclusion that
communication and human behavior are equivalent. The Critical School, commonly known
as the Frankfurt School, educated philosophers without emphasizing empirical data
collection. For scholarly works, they cooperated with others. The Chicago School added
a rigorous empirical dimension to social science research, and it is always looking for
ways to improve the world through examining social issues. Robert E. Park, a professor
at the Chicago School, was a pioneer in mass communication studies. Others, like as
Charles Horton Cooley, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead, put communication at
the heart of their understanding of human behavior.
The Birth of first PhD program in Communication
Wilbur Schramm developed the world's first doctoral program in communication
and the first communication research institute in the Iowa journalism school in 1943, a
professional training unit focused on the print channel of communication, resulted in the
division of the communication field into two sub disciplines: mass communication and
interpersonal communication.
Communication study in the modern world
In today’s modern society wherein communication study plays a vital role in the
societies, many communications field also emerges like the use of communication study
in the field of agriculture, health, community development, mass media and many more.
To fully appreciate the current state of communication study, it’s important to have
a historical perspective, not only to understand the field itself, but also to know and
provide an in-depth knowledge about the field. Over time, the study of communication
has largely been prompted by the current social issues of particular time periods. Knowing
this, we’ll examine the pertinent questions, topics, and scholars of the Classical, Medieval,
Renaissance, and Enlightenment periods to find out what they learned about
communication to help them understand the world around them. Next, we will highlight
the rapid growth of contemporary communication.
Well, there you have it: the history of communication study in a nutshell. As the
human race progressed and modernized so did communication study also emerge based
on the needs of the society. Communication has come a long way, and it’s only getting
better. Take some time to dig in deeper and learn more about communication study.

References
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