Social communication theory revisited: the genesis of medium in communication

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents novel insights related to the scholarly tradition which conceives communication as both a primary and continual social accomplishment. As is argued below, communication holds within it a strong productive capacity. As such, communication is highly consequential in the way it prefigures and manages both the activities and materials linked to the coordinated production of meaning. Building upon this position, the article conceives of a medium as a momentary instantiation facilitated in patterns of communication. The article uses the foundations of Sigman’s Social Communication Theory (SCT) to probe what a general theory of communication might look like if it conceives medium not as existing prior to communication but rather as made in the very process of communicating itself. The article includes a brief empirical application of this newly assembled perspective and is designed to spark debate about what communication is, how it is accomplished, and why it matters as an independent object of study.