An Approach to Communication Theory: Toward Consensus on Rules

Communication is an activity which gains meaning and significance from consensually shared rules. What is transmitted in communication is structure or information, but not all experiences from which we extract information are communication experiences. Communication requires in addition that at least two individuals attempt to take one another into account by developing and utilizing communication rules to guide and constitute the significance of their communicative acts. These rules guide choices made in decoding and encoding messages. The rules’ components are indications (1) of where they apply and (2) of what action or choice they stipulate. The rules are social, human creations subject to change and recreation. As a discipline, communication should make explication of such rules a central concern, for they knit together into a coherent whole insights from transaction, coorientation, symbolic action, and cybernetics.