Evanescent Mentation: An Amelioative Conceptual Foundation for Research and Theory on Message Production

Abstract

Current theorizing about message encoding can be seen to reflect a characterization of the phenomenon that is overly static, coherent, and uniplanar, including some variations on the uniplanar theme—too verbal, too propositional, and too mentalistic. This paper examines each of these points of received understanding and suggests the need for approaches that are better able to capture the fluid, disjointed, and multiplanar character of messages and message production. The dominant approach to message production, the goals-plans-action framework, is then examined in light of this alternative characterization, with the result being the emergence of a rich set of new conceptual issues and questions. Finally, the potential of a particular theory of message production, second-generation action assembly theory (Greene, 1997), for addressing these issues is examined.