Communication studies

Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group (intragroup dynamics), or between social groups (intergroup dynamics). The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behavior, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies. These applications of the field are studied in psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, education, social work, leadership studies, business and managerial studies, as well as communication studies.

Audience theory offers explanations of how people encounter media, how they use it, and how it affects them. Although the concept of an audience predates modern media, most audience theory is concerned with people’s relationship to various forms of media. There is no single theory of audience, but a range of explanatory frameworks. These can be rooted in the social sciences, rhetoric, literary theory, cultural studies, communication studies and network science depending on the phenomena they seek to explain. Audience theories can also be pitched at different levels of analysis ranging from individuals to large masses or networks of people.

James Webster suggested that audience studies could be organized into three overlapping areas of interest. One conceives of audiences as the site of various outcomes. This runs the gamut from a large literature on media influence to various forms of rhetorical and literary theory. A second conceptualizes audiences as agents who act upon media. This includes the literature on selective processes, media use and some aspects of cultural studies. The third see the audiences as a mass with its own dynamics apart from the individuals who constitute the mass. This perspective is often rooted in economics, marketing, and some traditions in sociology. Each approach to audience theory is discussed below.

Knowledge transfer refers to transferring an awareness of facts or practical skills from one entity to another. The particular profile of transfer processes activated for a given situation depends on (a) the type of knowledge to be transferred and how it is represented (the source and recipient relationship with this knowledge) and (b) the processing demands of the transfer task. From this perspective, knowledge transfer in humans encompasses expertise from different disciplines: psychology, cognitive anthropology, anthropology of knowledge, communication studies and media ecology.

Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not only transmits meaning but also creates it. Models of communication are simplified overviews of its main components and their interactions. Many models include the idea that a source uses a coding system to express information in the form of a message. The message is sent through a channel to a receiver who has to decode it to understand it. The main field of inquiry investigating communication is called communication studies.

A common way to classify communication is by whether information is exchanged between humans, members of other species, or non-living entities such as computers. For human communication, a central contrast is between verbal and non-verbal communication. Verbal communication involves the exchange of messages in linguistic form, including spoken and written messages as well as sign language. Non-verbal communication happens without the use of a linguistic system, for example, using body language, touch, and facial expressions. Another distinction is between interpersonal communication, which happens between distinct persons, and intrapersonal communication, which is communication with oneself. Communicative competence is the ability to communicate well and applies to the skills of formulating messages and understanding them.

A dominant culture is a cultural practice within a particular political, social or economic entity, in which multiple cultures co-exist. It may refer to a language, religion or ritual practices, social value and/or social custom. These features are often a norm for an entire society. An individual achieves dominance by being perceived as belonging to that majority culture, which has a significant presence in institutions related to communication, education, artistic expression, law, government and business. The concept of "dominant culture" is generally used in academic discourse in communication, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies.

In a society, culture is established and directed by the individuals with most power (hegemony). In a culture, a group of people that have the ability to hold power over social institutions and influence the rest of the society's beliefs and actions is considered dominant. A dominant culture is established in a society by a group of individuals that direct the ruling ideas, values, and beliefs that become the dominant worldview of a society. Individuals from the dominant culture spread their dominant ideologies through institutions such as education, religion, and politics. A dominant culture makes use of media and laws to spread their ideologies as well. Furthermore, a dominant culture can be promoted deliberately and by the suppression of minority cultures or subcultures.

Paul-Michel Foucault (UK: /ˈfuːkoʊ/ FOO-koh, US: /fuːˈkoʊ/ foo-KOH; French: [pɔl miʃɛl fuko]; 15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984) was a French historian of ideas and philosopher, who was also an author, literary critic, political activist, and teacher. Foucault's theories primarily addressed the relationships between power versus knowledge and liberty, and he analyzed how they are used as a form of social control through multiple institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels and sought to critique authority without limits on himself. His thought has influenced academics within a large number of contrasting areas of study, with this especially including those working in anthropology, communication studies, criminology, cultural studies, feminism, literary theory, psychology, and sociology. His efforts against homophobia and racial prejudice as well as against other ideological doctrines have also shaped research into critical theory and Marxism–Leninism alongside other topics.

Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications that displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing, which he called "archaeology".

Participant observation is one type of data collection method by practitioner-scholars typically used in qualitative research and ethnography. This type of methodology is employed in many disciplines, particularly anthropology (including cultural anthropology and ethnology), sociology (including sociology of culture and cultural criminology), communication studies, human geography, and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, youth group, or a particular community) and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time.

The concept "participant observation" was first coined in 1924 by Eduard C. Lindeman (1885-1953), an American pioneer in adult education influenced by John Dewey and Danish educator-philosopher N.F.S.Grundtvig, in his 1925 book Social Discovery: An Approach to the Study of Functional Groups. The method, however, originated earlier and was applied in the field research linked to European and American voyages of scientific exploration.

Social science (not often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 18th century. It now encompasses a wide array of additional academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, management, communication studies, psychology, culturology, and political science.

The majority of positivist social scientists use methods resembling those used in the natural sciences as tools for understanding societies, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Speculative social scientists, otherwise known as interpretivist scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (combining both quantitative and qualitative research). To gain a deeper understanding of complex human behavior in digital environments, social science disciplines have increasingly integrated interdisciplinary approaches, big data, and computational tools. The term social research has also acquired a degree of autonomy as practitioners from various disciplines share similar goals and methods.