Communication Studies

Introduction

Communication Studies or communication sciences are an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication. There are three types of communication: verbal, involving listening to a person to understand the meaning of a message; written, in which a message is read; and nonverbal communication involving observing a person and inferring meaning. The discipline encompasses a range of topics, from face-to-face conversation to mass media outlets, such as television broadcasting.

Communication Studies shares with cultural studies and interest in how messages are interpreted through the Political, Cultural, Economic, Semiotic, Hermeneutic, and Social dimensions of their contexts. In Political Economics, Communication Studies examine how the politics of ownership affects content. Quantitative Communication Studies examine statistics in order to help substantiate claims.

History

Communication Science began in earnest when students of Wilbur Schramm—the founder of the Institute for Communications Research at the University of Illinois—namely David Barlow, came to Michigan State University and founded the first General Communication Arts department in the early 1950s. Though there are other communication sciences departments elsewhere, Michigan State was the first department in the US that was dedicated solely to the study of Communication Sciences using a quantitative approach. It is still one of Michigan State's strongest programs and nationally ranked in the study of Human Communication.

Scope

Communication Studies integrate aspects of both social sciences and the humanities. As a social science, the discipline overlaps with sociology, psychology, anthropology, biology, political science, economics, and public policy. From a humanities perspective, communication is concerned with rhetoric and persuasion (traditional graduate programs in communication studies trace their history to the rhetoricians of Ancient Greece). Humanities Approaches to Communication often overlap with History, Philosophy, English, and Cultural Studies.

Source: https://communicationsandmediastudies.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/communication-studies/