1.4 The relevance of communication theory In a 2008 review of the human resources dimension of American public diplomacy9, the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy bemoaned, inter alia, the absence of training in communication theory for public diplomacy practitioners. The Commission recommended that this lacuna be addressed, with particular emphasis on political communication/rhetoric, advertising/marketing theory and public opinion analysis. Understanding audiences is key to devising the best means of inøuencing them. How might knowledge of communication theory help achieve this? In their book Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life10, Marianne Dainton and Elaine D. Zelley distinguish between what they call the Úevery-day viewÛ of communication (i.e. the øow of information from one person to another) and the prevailing scholarly de÷nition of communication (i.e. the process by which people interactively create, sustain and manage meaning). Dainton and Zelley describe a communication theory as any systemic summary about the nature of the communication process. They distinguish between common-sense theory (which may have no objective basis), working theory (based on professional experience) and scholarly theory (based on detailed research). They discuss the characteristics and relative merits of the four broad categories of research on which the latter rests: experiment, survey, textual analysis and ethnography, which typically involves immersion of the researcher into a particular culture or context. They also support the view that communication competence is best understood as a balance between effectiveness (achieving oneØs goals) and appropriateness (acting in accordance with social expectations). Helpful as this starting point is, the public diplomacy practitioner seeking relevant guidance is nevertheless confronted with a vast and complex landscape of theories of communication from which to choose. In a bid to render this terrain more navigable, E. M. Grif÷n, in his book A First Look at Communication Theory11, describes Robert CraigØs seven established traditions of communication theory as follows: i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii.
Socio-psychological (interpersonal interaction and inøuence); Cybernetic (a system of information processing); Rhetorical (artful public address); Semiotic (the process of sharing meaning through signs); Socio-cultural (the creation and enactment of social reality); Critical (a reøective challenge of unjust discourse); Phenomenological (the experience of self and others through dialogue).
9 Getting the People Part Right: A Report on the Human Resources Dimension of US Public Diplomacy, United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2008. 10 Marianne Dainton and Elaine D. Zelley, Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life, 2nd edition, New York Sage Publications Inc, 2011. 11 Em Grif÷n, A First look at Communication Theory, 8th edition, New York, McGraw Hill, 2011. 20
Public Diplomacy: What it is - and how to do it