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Communication Theory
Seven: One
Dennis K. Mumby February 1997
Pages: 1-28
Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies: A Rereading
of an Ongoing Debate
Recent writings in communication studies have tended to
represent the relationship between modernist and postmodernist
thought as bifurcated and oppositional in character. Such
representations, I argue, result from inadequate characterizations
of both the modernist and postmodernist projects and of the various
conceptions of communication therein. I therefore suggest a move
beyond a simple modern-postmodern dichotomy and articulate in its
place four discursive positions that embody different assumptions
about the relationships among communication, identity, and
knowledge formation. These discourses are: (a) a discourse of
representation (positivist modernism), (b) a discourse of
understanding (interpretive modernism), (c) a discourse of
suspicion (critical modernism), and (d) a discourse of
vulnerability (postmodernism). Finally, I adumbrate a set of
postmodern communication conditionsas a way of illustrating the
connections between postmodern thought and communication
studies.
Several recent issues of mainstream communication journals have
fo- cused on the disciplinary status of our field, raising
important concerns about the assumptions that undergird the study
of communication (An- dersen, 1993; Bantz, 1993; Levy, 1993a,
1993b; Petronio, 1994). These special issues represent an attempt
to address the many epistemological, ontological, and political
questions that pervade our field. Although it is hard to establish
a consensus about whether communication has, will, or should
achieve disciplinary status, it is clear that communication
scholars are engaged in important debates over the character and
trajectory of communication scholarship.
In this essay I address a particular set of issues regarding the
situating of communication studies in the context of recent and
ongoing polemics over the relationship between modernism and
postmodernism. The spe- cific problem I engage is the
characterization of the relationships among modernism,
postmodernism, and communication studies. Such charac- terizations
range from the complete dismissal of critical, postmodernist, and
poststructuralist approaches to communication (e.g., Bostrom &
Donohew, 1992; Burgoon, 1995; Burgoon & Bailey, 1992; Ellis,
1991) to the relatively uncritical appropriation of postmodernism
as an alterna-
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Communication Theory
tive to the modernist tradition in communication studies (e.g.,
Stewart, 1991, 1992). Ironically, each position leaves both
modernism and post- modernism undertheorized and hence contributes
to a lack of under- standing of the continuities and
discontinuities between them.
For example, Ellis (1991) argued that little could be more
contrary to a theory of communication than principles that emerge
from post- structuralism and the critical theory that it spawns (p.
221). Although I might disagree with Elliss critique of
poststructuralism as an inadequate basis for a theory of
communication, I am more disturbed by his easy conflation of
poststructuralism and critical theory and by the implication that
they come out of the same tradition (which, as I argue below, they
dont). The equation of poststructuralism and critical theory
seriously misrepresents two important intellectual traditions upon
which contem- porary social thought is based and hence contributes
to the ongoing reproduction of misunderstanding in our field.
Poststructuralism and critical theory, I argue, have very different
implications for the develop- ment of theories of communication.
Also problematic is Stewarts (1991) reduction of postmodernism to a
rather generic social constructionist orientation to communication
studies and his conflation of modernism (presented as a single,
representational paradigm) with positivism.
This essay suggests how we might more productively view the
rela- tionships among communication, modernism, and postmodernism.
At one level, any such effort is a (modernist) attempt to impose
order on what one anonymous reviewer of this essay described
rightly as a com- plex and unfixable theoretical space. However,
the intent here is not to articulate a definitive account of these
relationships but rather to suggest some useful and productive ways
to contextualize communication issues at a time when what counts as
knowledge is in a state of flux and transformation. Indeed, it is
the so-called crisis of representation (Jameson, 1984, p. viii)
that provides the touchstone for this essay. In brief, I argue that
the various perspectives (both modernist and postmod- ernist)
discussed here pose increasingly radical challenges to the repre-
sentational paradigm and its correspondence theory of truth that is
most often associated with mainstream social science research. I
suggest that the relationship between modernism and postmodernism
can be usefully characterized as revolving around four discourses,
each of which differently situates and constructs communication as
a human phenome- non. These four discourses are: (a) a discourse of
representation (positiv- ism), (b) a discourse of understanding
(interpretivism), (c) a discourse of suspicion (critical theory and
neo-Marxism), and (d) a discourse of vulnerability
(postmodernism).
The term discourse is used here in Foucaults (1980b) sense of a
sys- tem of possibilities for the creation of knowledge. Foucault
(1988) is concerned not with truth per se but rather with
explicating games of truth (p. 1)-implicit rules that shape what
counts as knowledge, who can speak such knowledge, and how
individuals are constituted as sub-
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Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies
jects through this knowledge. The four discourses discussed in
this essay thus embody different games of truth, articulating
different disciplin- ary practices and ways of constituting
relationships among communica- tion, identity, and forms of
knowledge. In addition, each discourse tells us something about the
political and ethical dimensions of knowledge formation; that is,
each articulates a way of knowing that has different consequences
for the way in which we frame issues of community and
responsibility.
The remainder of this essay thus unpacks the games of truth
associ- ated with each of the four discourses that, I would argue,
are the most influential and pervasive in our field. Certainly a
case could be made for alternative formulations that identify
three, five, or even six discourses. However, I believe a coherent
case can be made for four given the impor- tance of positivism,
interpretivism, critical theory, and postmodernism for our
discipline. I recognize the blurred character of these genres
(Geertz, 1983) but argue that much can be gained from understanding
the relationships amongst them.
Finally, allow me to position myself within this essay. Although
I was trained as a critical theorist, much of my more recent work
has involved attempts to draw connections among critical theory,
feminism, and post- modernism as a way of advancing social critique
and examining configu- rations of power in society (particularly in
organizational contexts). I acknowledge therefore a sympathy toward
postmodern thought but am wary of some of its more extreme
tendencies and sometimes commitment to relativism, nihilism, and
self-indulgence. In addition, its occasional conservative tenor and
capitulation to the excesses of capitalism (see Eagleton, 1995, for
an excellent critique of such tendencies) does not lend itself
readily to critiques of systems of power and domination. My own
proclivities thus tend toward a politics informed by critical
theory, in which a communication ethic oriented toward democracy is
central (e.g., Deetz, 1992), while simultaneously I recognize the
importance of the postmodern critique of the totalizing tendencies
of critical theory, along with the formers important analyses of
the relationships among discourse, subjectivity, and power (e.g.,
Foucault, 1979; Laclau & Mouffe, 1985). Thus, I believe that
communication studies has to speak to social and political
inequities and the situation of the disenfranchised while at the
same time developing sophisticated and nuanced communi- cation
conceptions of the relations among meaning, identity, and
power.
This essay is thus not about the debate between modernism and
postmodernism so much as it is about how four different discourses
each engage with the Enlightenment project, the basic goal of which
is to enable human beings to develop systems of reason that enable
them to transcend oppression in its various forms - religious,
political, economic, and so forth. Ultimately, the goal of this
paper is to provide a coherent way to make sense out of a set of
issues that are central to our disciplin- ary identity.
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Communication Theory
The Modernist Project and Communication Studies Modernism and
the Positivist Legacy: A Discourse of Representation The first
stream of modernist thought - at least as it has been put into
practice in the twentieth century - can be roughly characterized in
terms of the positivist appropriation of Cartesian dualism.
Beginning with Comtes articulation of a positive sociology, over
the last 100 years an orthodoxy has emerged in the social sciences
in which knowledge and truth have become equated with the
scientific method. The foundation of this method is the radical
(Cartesian) separation of subject (researcher) and object (of
knowledge) and the development of research tools that allow this
bifurcation to remain as inviolable as possible. In this context,
language becomes a neutral mode of representing the observed
relation- ships in the external world. Thus, when Stewart (1991)
spoke of the modernist proclivity for the three cs: closure,
certainty, and control (p. 356), it is this iteration of modernity
to which he refers. Much of the research that has taken place in
the social sciences, as well as in communication studies, fits
comfortably within this framework.
What are the implications of this version of modernism for
communica- tion studies? Shepherd (1993) argued that the Cartesian
legacy, embodied in positivist modernism, leaves little room for a
conception of communica- tion that has any ontological substance at
all. The radical bifurcation of subject and object, mind and world
constructs a view that at best conceives of communication as a
conduit or vehicle for already formed ideas or, at worst, as a
hindrance to our ability to perceive the world and our relation-
ship to it clearly. In this model, communication is at best
ancillary to, and at wqrst obstructive of, the production of truth
claims.
In organizational communication studies, Axley (1984) has shown
how this conduit model pervades the way organization members think
about communication processes, leading to an unreflexive approach
to communication difficulties. Similarly, Deetzs (1992) critique of
the pol- itics of expression suggests how historically our field
has operated with models that leave unproblematized relations among
communication, identity, and democratic processes. Where
communication is conceived as simple expression, democracy is
reduced to voices competing in the marketplace of ideas and, as a
field, we become focused on questions of persuasion and
communication effects. Such a conception leaves little room for an
adequately developed communication ethic. Because com- munication
is framed within a representational discourse, it is conceived as
either value neutral or as a means of maintaining or augmenting
already established political relations. In such a context,
communication is evaluated in terms of its effectiveness (with the
three cs as the princi- pal criteria) rather than as a constitutive
element in the production of mutual understanding and democratic
participation in decision-making processes.
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Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies
This effectiveness model of communication, grounded in
representa- tional discourse, is clearly espoused by Pfeffer ( 1 98
1 ) in his discussion of the relationship between communication and
organizational power:
The view developed here . . . is that language and symbolism are
important in the exercise of power. It is helpful for social actors
with power to use appropriate political language and symbols to
legitimate and develop support for the deci- sions that are reached
on the basis of power. However, in this formulation, language and
the ability to use political symbols contribute only marginally to
the development of the power of various organizational
participants; rather, power derives from the conditions of resource
control and resource interdepen- dence. (p. 184)
Here, a clear bifurcation is made between the ability of actors
to marshal organizational resources and their ability to
communicate about their possession and use of these resources. Such
a representational model is unable to conceive of the possibility
that communication is anything other than an empty conduit for
effectively communicating an already existing set of conditions.
The idea that communication can actually shape and constitute what
counts as power and resources in the first place is difficult to
conceive from within this model. The act of commu- nication and the
world about which one is communicating remain firmly separated.
Shepherd (1993, p. 88) suggested that one (and arguably the most
dominant) response to this modernist bifurcation of (communicating)
subject and object/world and the resultant conception of
communication is to simply accept the split as given, and hence
position the field as the handmaiden of other disciplines. In this
sense, communication has no ontological grounding of its own but
rather is parasitic on other disci- plines. Hence, we borrow
concepts such as attitude change, cognitive dissonance, persuasion,
and so on, developed in fields such as psychol- ogy and sociology,
and give them a communication twist. What is per- haps most
interesting about much of the communication research con- ducted in
many of these areas is that it very rarely studies actual
communication behavior. Mostly, researchers study the results of
pen- and-paper tests, survey questionnaires, and written responses
to hypo- thetical situations-perhaps more evidence for Shepherds
claim that modernity said of communication what Gertrude Stein said
of Oakland: There is no there there (p. 87). Modernism and
interpretlvlsm: A Discourse of Understanding An important
alternative to positivist modernism is articulated from within the
tradition of modernism itself. Positivist modernism seeks to
maintain the radical bifurcation of subject and object as a means
to knowledge whereas interpretive modernism seeks, if not their
reconcilia- tion, then their placing in a productive, dialectical
tension. This tradition
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finds its origins in German Idealism with the Kantian notion
that the knowing mind is an active contributor to the constitution
of knowledge (i.e., the mind is not simply a mirror of nature). It
can further be traced through Hegels (1 977) dialectic,
Schleiermachers and Diltheys groundbreaking work in hermeneutics
and the Verstehen approach to understanding (Palmer, 1969), and
twentieth-century work in pragma- tism, symbolic interactionism,
phenomenology, and contemporary her- meneutics (represented in
various capacities by writers such as Gadamer, 1989; Heidegger,
1977; Husserl, 1962; James, 1942; Mead, 1934; Merleau-Ponty, 1962;
Peirce [see Apel, 19811; and the later Witt- genstein, 1962).
But what is it that makes such work modernist rather than
premod- ernist or postmodernist? Given that social constructionism
has, in some respects, become a moniker for postmodernism (e.g.,
Stewart, 1991) why does it make sense to treat such work as coming
out of a modernist tradition? Certainly many of the above writers
have been read as the progenitors of postmodern thought (e.g.,
Hekman, 1990; Rorty, 1979) because of their various deconstructions
of Enlightenment ration- ality and its narrow reading of Truth
rooted in transcendental, founda- tional principles. Legitimate
though these readings are, I would suggest that what these authors
have in common is not a rejection of Enlighten- ment thought tout
court but instead is an attempt to reclaim reason, truth, and
rationality from the hegemony of scientism and technical,
instrumental reasoning. By shifting attention from mind to language
(embodied, for example, in Gadamers, 1989, notion of linguistical-
ity), these authors demonstrate that reason and truth reside not in
the representational mirroring of an already existing world but
rather in our ontological status as linguistic beings who engage
dialogically with an other (person, text, community, etc.).
Consistent with this position, Apel (1981) clearly placed C. S.
Peirces pragmatist philosophy within the modernist project with his
claim that Peirce designates . . . the starting point for a new
foundation of the human sciences (Geisteswis- senschuften) and
their method of understanding ( Verstehen), by con- ceiving them as
the science of communicative understanding (p. 194).
Thus, my reading of modernism is that its concerns lie not
simply with scientific forms of reason that privilege a
foundational epistemology but also with forms of reason grounded in
our linguistically mediated sense of being-in-the-world. In short,
although positivist modernism ar- ticulates a correspondence theory
of truth, interpretive modernism is founded on a consensus theory
of truth that posits the existence of a communication community as
its a priori condition. Certainly Gadam- ers (1989) work is
consistent with this conception, with the recognition that truth
emerges not out of the application of a methodological tool but
rather out of ones enmeshment and grounding in a particular horizon
of experience and sense of community. For Gadamer, then, truth
eludes methodical man (Palmer, 1969) because the privileging of
epistemology
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and methodology over ontology ignores the extent to which
knowledge is a linguistic, dialogic production. Truth is never an
act of reproduction but always one of production by virtue of
engagement with the horizons of a communitys texts and discourses.
Bernsteins (1992) reading of Gadamer spoke to this issue when he
argued that Gadamers entire corpus can be read as an invitation to
join him in the rediscovery and redemption of the richness and
concreteness of our dialogical being-in- the-world (p. 49).
As communication scholars, we are clearly well positioned to
take up such an invitation, and, indeed, many scholars in our field
have done so. The work that I describe below as falling within the
discourse of interpretive modernism, is largely consistent with
such an orientation, enhancing our sense of who we are as members
of various communities of discourse and knowledge. Such work does
not seek universal knowl- edge claims but rather attempts to deepen
our sense of what it means to understand (or misunderstand) other
humans qua members of communi- cation communities. In this sense
the modernist, Enlightenment vision is enhanced through the
development and enriching of the Lifeworld (Habermas, 1987).
Indeed, Shepherd (1993) argued that this is the only position
out of which we can build a set of defining features for a
discipline of communi- cation:
Scholars of this response will act as disciples of, advocates
for, a communication- based view of Being. These disciples will
argue that communication is essentially symbolic, but that there is
nothing mere about that. . . . Rather, words would be viewed as the
ontological force, where language constitutes existence, and
communication makes Being be; . . . where communication rather than
cellular structure, energy or mass, aesthetic quality or
commodiousness, is the founda- tion of Being. (p. 90)
This particular form of modernism has proliferated in the field
of communication over the last 15 years, although the initial
scholarship in our field can be traced to the early 1970s with
explorations of the relationships among hermeneutics,
phenomenology, and communication studies (Deetz, 1973, 1978; Hawes,
1977). Such work represents an early attempt to develop an ontology
of communication and consider- ably predates Shepherds call to
discipline communication in such a manner.
In my own field of organizational communication, the legacy of
inter- pretivism is the emergence of organizational culture as a
viable and widely adopted approach (if recent conference programs
are representa- tive of the field) to the study of organizing. From
this perspective, com- munication is seen as constitutive of
organizations. The study of stories, metaphors, rituals, and so
forth, is a way to explore the ontology of organizing as a
collective communicative act (Pacanowsky & ODonnell-
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Communication Theory
Trujillo, 1982; Putnam & Pacanowsky, 1983; Smith &
Eisenberg, 1987). Interestingly, not long after its emergence
Smircich and Calhs (1 987) declared the organizational culture
approach dominant but dead (p. 229), citing its assimilation into
functionalist views of organi- zations as evidence of its demise.
From their perspective, culture had become one more way for
managers to address issues of effectiveness and productivity (or,
in Stewarts, 1991, terms, closure, certainty, and control [p.
3561). Although I do not strictly agree with Smircich and Callss
assessment, their analysis provides a good sense of how pervasive
and powerful positivist modernism still is. The tendency to
appropriate new views of communication into extant paradigmatic
frameworks illus- trates how difficult it is to escape the pull of
the ocular metaphor and representational conceptions of
communication.
Despite this, interpretive modernism has achieved a certain
paradigm- atic status in our field. Perhaps most visible is
research that comes out of the ethnography of speaking tradition
with its focus on the relations among communication, identity, and
community. Here, the study of various speech communities focuses on
the act of communication as both medium and expression of systems
of meaning and identity. This work has flourished across
subdisciplinary boundaries in communication stud- ies and includes,
for example, Philipsens (1975, 1976) study of white male
working-class identity in Teamsterville, Carbaughs (1 988) read-
ing of the Donahue show as an electronic community, Rawlinss (1990)
analysis of discourse and the dialectical construction of
friendship, and Trujillos (1 992) ethnography of the complex webs
of meaning that con- stitute the subcultures of a baseball park.
Common to all these studies is the enactment of a conception of
communication as a foundational on- tology for human existence.
Each study is predicated on the fundamental assumption that what
creates community and identity is not structure or physical
location but rather the linguistic construction of shared assump-
tive grounds about what is real and meaningful. Thus, talking like
a man in Teamsterville is not simply the expression of an already
fully formed, a priori identity but involves rather the
communicative construc- tion of that identity in an ongoing and
dialectical manner.
In sum, the work that I have described as interpretive modernist
is premised on a dialogic, social constructionist approach to the
world. I argue that such a discourse is modernist in its reclaiming
of the reasoning individual as rooted in and constructed through
communication (situated as a central, constitutive feature of
social life). Ethically speaking, the discourse of understanding
critiques the poverty of an ethic rooted in technical, instrumental
rationality and measures of effectiveness. In its place, the
dialogic model presupposes an ethical stance rooted in good- will
and the willingness to give up ones prejudices to the play of the
conversation (Gadamer , 1989). Such a perspective views open
discourse as essential to the construction of genuine understanding
and commu- nity.
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At the same time, however, the discourse of interpretivism has
been criticized for its lack of adequate theorizing regarding the
political con- text in which such genuine conversation occurs.
Deetz (1992), for example, suggested that Gadamer recovers
dialectics and understanding from modem epistemological domination,
but he has no politics (p. 168). Although in the larger sense this
is an overstatement (it could be argued that Gadamer articulates a
version of western democratic liberalism), Deetz is correct in
arguing that Gadamers model fails to address adequately the ways in
which dialogue can become systemati- cally distorted (Habermas,
1970) through its enmeshment in structures of power and domination.
The development of such an analysis is pro- vided by an examination
of the critical turn within the modernist project. The Critical
Modernist Project: A Dlscourse of Susplclon Although interpretivism
and the discourse of understanding is principally interested in
examining the ways in which human actors co-construct a meaningful
world through various communicative practices, the critical
modernist project is characterized by a discourse of suspicion (a
term I adapt from Ricoeurs, 1970, characterization of Freud, Marx,
and Nietz- sche as articulating a hermeneutics of suspicion, pp.
32-36). This position also argues for a social constructionist view
of the world but questions the interpretivists failure to explore
issues of power and ideol- ogy and the processes through which
certain realities are privileged over others. Discourses of
suspicion thus make the assumption that surface level meanings and
behaviors obscure deep structure conflicts, contradic- tions, and
neuroses that systematically limit the possibilities for the real-
ization of a genuinely democratic society. Historically, this focus
has manifested itself in two streams of thought. The first is
rooted in neo- Marxism and represents a far-reaching critique of
the undialectical, de- terminist nature of so-called scientific
Marxism. Originating with the writings of Western Marxists such as
Gramsci (1971), Luklcs (1971), and Volosinov (1973), this work
challenges economistic explanations of capitalist relations of
domination, and argues instead for a focus on the superstructural,
cultural, and ideological dimensions of power.
The second stream of thought is also neo-Marxist in orientation
and similarly focuses on the cultural manifestations of capitalism.
However, this perspective, coming out of the Frankfurt school, is
particularly con- cerned with examining systems of reason and
rationality and understand- ing the connections among epistemology,
politics, and capitalism. Al- though the modernism of the
positivist legacy largely accepts as given - one could argue
celebrates- the hegemony of the scientific method and the
inexorable progress toward the Enlightenment vision of a free and
rational society, the critical modernist position is a much more
ambiva- lent one. As such, Frankfurt school theorists are much more
skeptical about the Enlightenment as a force of emancipation and
freedom. The apogee of this skepticism is probably reached in
Horkheimer and
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Adornos (1 988) treatise, Dialectic of Enlightenment, the
opening of which states, In the most general sense of progressive
thought, the Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men [sic]
from fear and establishing their authority. Yet the fully
enlightened earth radiates disas- ter triumphant (p. 3).
However, the work of the Frankfurt school can be seen as an
exten- sion of the Enlightenment project, and not its negation.
Their skepticism is grounded not in the complete rejection of
modernism and the Enlight- enment but rather in a questioning and
critique of the particular mode of rationality that has come to
dominate the modernist project. A crucial move, then, involves
reflection on the conditions under which so-called social progress
has led to the fallen nature of modern man (Hork- heimer &
Adorno, 1988, p. xiv). As such the Enlightenment must consider
itself, if men are not to be wholly betrayed. The task to be
accomplished is not the conservation of the past, but the
redemption of the hopes of the past (p. xv).
In this sense, the theorists of the Frankfurt school preserve
the links among reason, emancipation, and modernity but attempt to
show how these relationships have been twisted and distorted by
identity logic (Adorno, 1973, p. 5) and its will to mastery and
control. This will, conceived by the positivists as the key to
freedom from human suffering becomes for Adorno and his colleagues
the very reason for the Enlighten- ments self-destruction. The
equation of technical rationality and reason undermines the
possibility of critical self-refleaion in modern thought.
His pessimism notwithstanding, Adorno can be viewed as one of
the twentieth-century heirs to Enlightenment aspirations. Hence,
although in some ways his work prefigures the postmodern project
(one could argue, for example, that his oeuvre is deconstructive in
character - see Bernstein, 1992, pp. 33-45), he frequently affirms
the wildest Utopian dreams of the Enlightenment project (Bernstein,
1992, p. 43). Thus, much of his work is devoted not to a rejection
of modernism but rather to an effort of showing how modernism
(embodied in the myth of scien- tism) uncritically undermines
itself and how the modernist project can be reclaimed through
critical reflection on the nature of reason (embodied in Adornos
(1973) negative dialectics-a mode of thought that he counterposes
against identity logic). As such, the goal of social freedom is
still viewed as inseparable from Enlightenment thought.
However, it is only in the work of Jurgen Habermas that the
modern- ist project is once again unequivocally linked with an
emancipatory logic. Habermass (1981, 1984, 1987) central claim is
that modernity as a project is incomplete rather than dead. His
intent is to fully articulate the emancipatory potential of
modernity that Adorno and his colleagues found so elusive.
Habermass critique of the Cartesian legacy developed through a
reconstruction of social theory based on a linguistic model of
communicative understanding. This model achieved its fullest
articula- tion in the two volumes of The Theory of Communicative
Action (1984,
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Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies
1987). Without going into great detail, it is sufficient to
point out that this theory of communicative action is both a theory
of rationality and a theory of society. In other words, Habermas
articulated rationality as a communicative, dialogical phenomenon
that has ethical and political consequences. Rationality is
conceived not as the product of a transcen- dental subject, but
rather it is constituted through the ability of dialogic partners
to engage in communication (and thus make claims to validity) that
is free from coercion and constraint. In Habermass own words, the
problem of language has replaced the problem of consciousness
(quoted in McCarthy, 1981, p. 273).
Ethically and politically, Habermas shows how our sense of
culture and community (the Lifeworld) has been overwhelmed and
colonized by the System (constituted by the steering media of money
and power). The technical rationality (Zweckrational) that
characterizes the system is counterposed by Habermas with the
practical rationality (oriented to- ward reaching understanding)
and emancipatory rationality (oriented toward self-reflection and
emancipation from forms of system oppres- sion) of the Lifeworld.
Through the articulation of these three forms of rationality,
Habermas is able to show how communication functions both as the
principal constitutive element in the move toward under- standing
and truth and as a means for the exercise of power and domina- tion
in society. Habermass move beyond Adorno and his attempt to reclaim
the modernist project as a rational project is therefore manifest
both ethically and politically in his appeal for the recolonization
of the Lifeworld by practical and emancipatory forms of
rationality. Practically speaking, this recolonization process can
occur through the emergence of new social movements such as the
feminist and ecology movements.
In sum, Habermass project is avowedly modernist in his
articulation of a theory of truth and reason that preserves the
spirit of the Enlighten- ment; however, he provides a more
differentiated analysis than his prede- cessors of the conflicts
and contradictions of modernity. For Habermas, The promise of
modernity is still an unfinished project- a project whose
realization is dependent on our present praxis (Bernstein, 1992, p.
208). Clearly this conception of modernism is at odds with that
presented by Stewart (1991) as a foil to his discussion of
postmodernism, and it cer- tainly has little in common with Elliss
(1991) conception of critical theory as poststructuralist in
origin. Thus, Habermas is a modernist who (a) replaces the
sovereign subject with an intersubjective model of rationality, (b)
presents a dialectical consensus- rather than a correspon- dence or
representational-theory of truth rooted in a model of commu-
nicative rationality and intersubjective understanding, (c) views
commu- nication as constitutive of (not merely representative of)
human (Lifeworld) experience and social reality, and (d)
articulates a theory of communication that is also a theory of
society.
Communication studies have taken up the critical modernist
project in a number of ways over the last fifteen years. Given
Habermass articu-
11
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Communication Theory
lation of a communication theory of society, scholars have begun
focus- ing heavily on the complex relationships among
communication, power, identity, and society. In organizational
communication, scholars have examined organizations not simply as
sites of community and meaning formation but also as systems of
domination and meaning deformation (Deetz, 1992; Deetz &
Kersten, 1983; Mumby, 1987, 1988; Riley, 1983). Organizations are
viewed as discursive sites where meaning and identity are the
products of underlying relations of power. Scholars focus on
communicative practices that function ideologically to produce,
maintain, and reproduce systems of domination. This work
articulates a discourse of suspicion in that surface structure
communication prac- tices and ostensibly consensual systems of
meaning are seen as obscuring deep structure inequities. The
utopian and distinctly Enlightenment- oriented subtext of such work
is that more democratic and participatory organizational structures
are realizable if social actors become more self- reflective and
recognize the possibilities for alternative, collective forms of
agency (Cheney, 1995). For example, Deetzs (1992) analysis of cor-
porate colonization processes focused on the connections among the
linguistic construction of self and world, the ideology of
managerialism, and institutionalized practices of discursive
closure. Here, possibilities for democracy and decorporatization of
the Lifeworld are linked di- rectly to the communicative
construction of alternative definitions of self, other, and
work.
While I am most familiar with the critical modernism of
organiza- tional communication studies, this approach flourishes
across subdisci- plines. The ideological turn in rhetorical
criticism and the articulation of a third persona (Wander, 1983,
1984) recognizes that rhetoric not only persuades and constructs
reality but also structures power relations and situates some
people and groups as marginal. In interpersonal com- munication,
Lannamans (1 992) analysis of the ideology of individual- ism in
interpersonal research showed how alternative, social concep- tions
of identity have been marginalized. Finally, mass communication is
replete with studies that examine the relations among mass media,
ideol- ogy, and the social construction of systems of meaning and
identity. Traditionally, Marxist cultural studies have been central
to this work, strongly influenced by the work of Althusser (1971)
and Gramsci (1971). Writers such as Grossberg (1985) and Hall
(1985) have articulated pow- erful critiques of the mass media as
dominant forms of identity forma- tion. Although much of this work
has taken a distinctly poststructuralist turn of late (therefore
complicating the threads of the argument I am building), there is
still a strong focus on the media as instruments of ideological
subjugation that produce and reproduce capitalist relations of
domination. There is no hypodermic model of media influence op-
erating here but rather a nuanced attempt to understand and
critique the complex and contradictory ways in which systems of
meaning and iden- tity interact with mass communication
practices.
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Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies
In sum, work discussed in this section under the rubric of
critical modernism is still deserving of the modernist moniker
precisely be- cause of its concern with issues of emancipation and
freedom. At the same time, it is a more radical departure from the
representational para- digm than interpretive modernism because it
more effectively problema- tizes the processes through which social
reality is constructed. Thus, although critical modernism (like
interpretive modernism) embraces the linguistic turn in philosophy,
it more thoroughly comes to grips with the complex relations among
discourse, ideology, and power that potentially undermine the
possibilities for a more ethical and democratic Lifeworld. However,
while its relationship to the Enlightenment project is in some ways
an ambivalent one, such ambivalence does not lead to the rejection
of fundamental Enlightenment goals. Rather, critical modernism at-
tempts to reconstruct the Enlightenment project, with communication
at its center (Habermas, 1984, 1987). Instead of seeing the
Enlightenment as the gradual and ineluctable progression toward
freedom and responsi- bility, critical modernists recognize the
complex relations among com- munication, power, and identity as
mediating this progress. Freedom is not won by the creation of new
scientific techniques but rather by careful examination of the
socially constructed character of the systems of op- pression that
limit humans ability to critically reflect on their conditions of
existence.
In the next section I turn to postmodernism and examine its
relation- ship to communication studies. In particular, I am
concerned with the question of whether our field is intrinsically
modernist in its concern with the speaking subject. Is such a
notion incompatible with the postmodern articulation of a
decentered subject, or is there a way to conceptualize a postmodern
communication studies that in some sense preserves our identity as
a discipline?
Postmodernlsm and Cornmunicatlon Studies As indicated above, my
goal here is not to provide a comprehensive overview of postmodern
thought; such reviews are many and wide rang- ing (Best &
Kellner, 1991; Rosenau, 1992). Rather, I present a reading that
makes what I see as important connections between communication
studies and postmodernism, suggesting how we might develop a more
thoughtful understanding of the connections among modernism, post-
modernism, and communication studies. In this sense my goal is not
to present postmodernism as a terrain of inquiry that is balkanized
and separate from modernism but instead to suggest both connections
and differences. Thus, although I present postmodern thought as an
alterna- tive to modernism, I do not present it as a vehicle for
rejecting the latter but instead as a means for broadening our
understanding of communica- tion as a defining human activity.
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Communication Theory
Postmodernism and Communication: A Discourse of Vulnerabillty I
adopt the phrase discourse of vulnerability as a way to describe
post- modern thought insofar as it is here that the crisis of
representation which characterizes contemporary social theory
reaches its apogee. Al- though Jameson (1 984) described this
crisis as one in which the notion of a Truth is radically
questioned and undermined, its implications are more far-reaching
than this. Indeed, the phrase discourse of vulnerability is
intended to evoke the ways in which the postmodern intellectual has
given up the authority game as a uniquely positioned arbiter of
knowl- edge claims, exchanging a priori and elitist assumptions for
a more emer- gent and context-bound notion of what counts as
knowledge (Deetz, 1996). As Said (1994) put it, such an
intellectual is unusually responsive to the traveler rather than
the potentate, to the provisional and risky rather than to the
habitual, to innovation and experiment rather than the
authoritatively given status quo (pp. 63-64).
In recent years, much of the impetus for this perspective has
come out of developments in postmodern anthropology, where the
poetics and politics of fieldwork have come under close scrutiny
(Clifford, 1988; Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Jackson, 1989).
Postmodern anthropology problematizes not only the notion of a
Truth but also the idea that there are any standard, universal
practices by which to articulate truth. Deconstructing the poetics
of ethnography addresses the intimate con- nections between
representational practices and the kinds of knowledge claims that
anthropologists make (Van Maanen, 1988). At the same time, a focus
on the politics of ethnography suggests how representa- tional
practices have consequences for the ways in which those studied are
positioned. When researchers articulate a seamless, invulnerable,
Gods-eye view of another culture, the people of the culture are
charac- terized frequently as cultural dopes (Giddens, 1979, p. 71)
whose only interest to western eyes lies in their exotic nature
(and, of course, in their ability to enable us- through the
anthropologist- to see truths about ourselves). Thus, the
traditional foundations on which such repre- sentational
possibilities rest are radically undermined by postmodern
thought.
But there are other consequences of this crisis, other
postmodern chal- lenges to the various iterations of modernity
discussed above. First, the traditional understanding of the
sovereign, knowing subject as the well- spring of knowledge is
decentered and displaced. Where even Haber- mass critical modernist
project still places the reasoning, rational subject at the center
of his theory (albeit in a transformed way through a linguis- tic
model of rationality), postmodern thought deconstructs the idea of
a coherent subject. The modernist subject retains a certain
autonomy and coherence whereas the postmodern subject is portrayed
frequently as constructed and disciplined through various
discursive practices and knowledge structures. Thus, Foucaults
(1975, 1979, 1980a) work shows how the individual is the product of
various discursive appara-
14
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Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies
tuses that function to normalize and institutionalize our sense
of subjec- tivity.
Second, and related, postmodern thought questions the modernist
separation of truth and power. Although Habermas, for example,
argues for a consensus model in which truth can emerge only in
coercion-free discursive contexts (his ideal speech situation),
postmodern thought argues that consensus is an intrinsically
modernist notion that leads to totalitarian and totalizing ways of
thinking (Lyotard, 1984). Further- more, Foucault (1979,1980a)
argued that his goal was not to distinguish truth from falsehood
and thus to create a space for thought free from power but rather
to show the ways in which truth and power implicate one another.
His genealogies of power-knowledge regimes show how what is
considered true or false is dependent on the games of truth (1988,
p. 1) that govern the very possibility for making knowledge claims
at all.
Third, postmodern thought destabilizes and arguably obliterates
the modernist separation of signifier and signified. Although both
interpre- tive and critical modernism problematize the notion of a
simple corre- spondence between the two, arguing for language as a
system of conven- tions that constructs reality, postmodern
thinkers demonstrate the problems associated with this bifurcation.
Derridas (1976) notion that there is nothing outside of the text
(p. 157) highlights the idea that the reference point for discourse
is not some reality to which it corresponds, but other discourses.
Furthermore, his conception of d$fhrunce decons- tructs the
principal of textual fixity, arguing that meaning is never fully
present in a text but rather is the product of a system of
difference that is constantly deferred. Meaning, in this sense, is
constantly subject to slip- page. Baudrillard (1983,1988) took this
notion a step further by arguing that the signifier is more real
than the signified. His principle of hyper- reality argues that, in
the postmodern epoch, the simulacrum has re- placed that which it
simulates as the means by which social actors gain a sense of
identity (Deetz, 1994).
Although this is by no means an exhaustive account of the
postmod- ern project, it provides a context for discussing the
relationship between communication studies and postmodernism.
However, one of the prob- lems with the above gloss is that it
treats postmodern thought as a monolithic enterprise, which it is
not. Various commentators have at- tempted to tease out its streams
of thought, referring variously to affir- mative versus skeptical
(Rosenau, 1992) and resistance versus ludic postmodernism
(Hennessy, 1993). The principal difference here is that the first
term of each pair refers to a position in which the possibilities
for a coherent and viable political and epistemological agenda are
re- tained; the second term denotes a more nihilistic, pessimistic
orientation in which resistance to dominant relations of power is
at best engaged at the level of guerrilla tactics, and collective
action is perceived as naive and subject to co-optation by the
status quo.
My concern in this essay is with the more affirmative version of
post-
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Communication Theory
modernism insofar as it is more susceptible to a reading from
the perspec- tive of communication studies and also suggests some
continuities with critical modernism. The question remaining is,
are the premises of post- modem thought compatible with or
antithetical to the discipline of com- munication studies? If there
is no longer a coherent, speaking subject; if communication
consists of unstable signifiers; if discourse is not the way to
truth but the product of institutionalized power-knowledge regimes,
then is it a contradiction in terms to speak of a postmodern
communica- tion studies? Or, as an anonymous reviewer of an earlier
version of this paper asked, what cash value does postmodernism
have for communi- cation? In the next section I attempt to answer
this question by articulat- ing what I call (with apologies to
Lyotard) postmodern communication conditions. Postmodern
Communication Conditlons Communication is (im)possibie. I adapt
this condition from Ladau and Mouffes (1985; Laclau, 1991)
poststructuralist, post-Marxist concept of the impossibility of
society; from Halls (1985) notion of no neces- sary
(non)correspondence between systems of signification and struc-
tures of reality, and from Changs (1988) discussion of the
(im)possibility of communication. For Laclau and Mouffe (1985),
society as a sutured and self-defined totality . . . is not a valid
object of discourse (p. 111). Instead, the social consists of a
complexly articulated set of discourses that attempt to fix meaning
in particular ways for social actors-but this meaning is always, by
definition, partial, incomplete, and subject to slippage and
transformation. Thus, although discourse is constituted as an
attempt to dominate the field of discursivity, to arrest the flow
of differences, to construct a centre (p. 112), such centers are
precarious and contain the conditions for the undermining of their
hegemonic sta- tus. As Hall (1985) stated, ideologies set limits to
the degree to which a society-in-dominance can easily, smoothly and
functionally reproduce itself (p. 113). In a more Derridean mode,
Chang (1988) showed how meaning disseminates endlessly, rendering
impossible any sense of clo- sure - hence the (im)possibility of
communication.
In the context of a postmodern discourse of vulnerability,
communi- cation research focuses on the processes through which
various discur- sive struggles occur. Dominant systems of discourse
are always vulnera- ble to alternative articulations; centered
communication practices are subject to resistance from the margins.
Communication is thus (im)possi- ble in that it simultaneously is
stable (creating shared, relatively fixed, discourses) and unstable
(continually articulating the possibilities for its own
transformation). In this sense, shared discourses always embody
(and are defined by) otherness.
Postmodern communication research has begun to explore these is-
sues, examining various ways in which the apparent seamlessness and
unity of communication practices are resisted and transformed. For
ex- ample, Jenkinss (1988) study of Star Trek fans as a discourse
community
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Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies
illustrated how Trekkies engage in textual poaching (De Certeau,
1984), appropriating dominant themes and character portrayals as a
way of creating transgressive and subversive story lines.
Similarly, Bell and Forbes (1994) examined the gendered character
of resistant prac- tices, demonstrating the ways in which female
secretaries co-opt official bureaucratic structures as a means to
articulate a space for resistance to that bureaucracy. The
deployment of office graffiti using bureaucratic resources is an
interesting example of how even relatively oppressive systems
implicitly embody possibilities for the undermining of a sutured
totality .
One of the most extensive studies of resistant practices is
provided by Scotts (1 990) historical analysis of oppressed groups.
Distinguishing between public and hidden transcripts, Scott argued
that studies of systems of domination too often have focused
exclusively on the public dimensions of the exercise of power. Such
studies tend to show marginal- ized groups as acquiescing to their
oppression or as victims of false consciousness, unable to even
recognize their oppression. In contrast, Scott suggested that a
focus on hidden transcripts (i.e., those discourses and practices
produced by subordinate groups that occur offstage, outside the
gaze of the dominant groups) reveals widespread and creative acts
of resistance. Scott paid attention to the infrapolitics of
subordinate groups (p. 19), demonstrating how low-profile forms of
resistance can lead to the systematic undermining of the dominant
hegemony (his exam- ples range from slaves in antebellum America to
the Solidarity movement in Poland). In some ways, Scotts work is
consistent with Frasers (1989, 1990-1 991) notion of subaltern
counter-publics and Conquergoods (1 991) postmodern ethnographies
of marginalized groups, both of whom show how the counterdiscourses
of such groups can establish coherent spheres of resistance to
dominant publics.
Although it is not written from an explicitly postmodern (or
indeed communication) perspective, Scotts (1990) study is important
insofar as it points out some of the differences and continuities
between critical modernism and postmodernism. Both perspectives
share a concern with issues of domination and resistance, but
critical modernism has tended to focus on public transcripts,
examining the various ways in which capitalist relations of
domination get reproduced at the level of everyday practice. In
keeping with its modernist origins, this critical perspective
invokes a larger, totalizing logic (capitalism) to explain
oppression, and thus any acts of resistance are framed within this
larger logic (e.g., Brav- erman, 1974; Burawoy, 1979; Willis,
1977). Such studies, consistent with their discourse of suspicion,
tend to interpret apparent resistance as actually reproducing
larger, overarching systems of domination. Post- modem studies, on
the other hand, eschew a larger, totalizing structure or logic,
starting from the premise of the inherent instability and hence
vulnerability of systems of domination. For this work, it is
communica- tively (im)possible to create a sutured totality because
of the openness
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Communication Theory
of the social, a result, in its turn, of the constant
overflowing of every discourse by the infinitude of the field of
discursivity (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p. 113). Conceiving of
communication as (im)possible allows the- orists and researchers to
focus on the process by which social actors and institutional forms
attempt to arrest, fix, and transform the constant overflowing of
every discourse. Communication is political. Although it is true
that communication is never a fixed, sutured, and fully articulated
process, it is also evident that, placed in its larger social
context, much communication is devoted to attempts to fix
discursive systems that serve the interests of some groups over
others. In this sense, communication is political. Much of social
life therefore consists of discursive struggles in which different
interest groups attempt to establish nodal points of discourse that
priv- ilege certain worldviews over others. This struggle is very
much a politics of everyday life that shapes social actors
identities as they engage the world in a quotidian fashion. In this
sense, communication is political in its construction of forms of
subjectivity that situate social actors in (power) differentiated
ways in society. This politicization of communica- tion is a move
beyond those social constructionist positions that recog- nize the
constitutive role of communication in creating meaning and identity
but that fail to address the power dimensions of this process
(e.g., Berger & Luckmann, 1971; Martin, Feldman, Hatch, &
Sitkin, 1983; Pacanowsky & ODonnell-Trujillo, 1982).
Of particular importance in this context is the development of a
disci- plinary approach to power (Foucault, 1979, 1980a, 1980b).
Here, power is conceived not as an overarching structure that
frames all social relations (what Foucault critiques as a
sovereign, top-down conception of power) but rather as a series of
capillary mechanisms that pervade the entire social body,
constructing identity and defining what counts as knowledge. The
notion of the power-knowledge regime thus describes the ways in
which power and knowledge are intimately linked rather than
separable, as the critical modernist position would argue.
A condition of postmodern communication research therefore sug-
gests the development of genealogical analyses of the politics of
truth that show the links among communication, identity, power, and
knowl- edge. As a discourse of vulnerability, such research is
interested not in exchanging one power-knowledge regime for another
but rather in demonstrating the possibilities and consequences of
various articula- tions, disciplinary practices, and communication
choices. An excellent example of such work is Blair, Brown, and
Baxters (1 994) deconstruc- tion of the masculinist conception of
knowledge that pervades the aca- demic community. Taking reviews of
one of their articles- a critique of Hickson, Stacks and Amsbarys
(1 992) analysis of research productivity among women scholars-as
text, they showed how these reviews invoke a particular definition
of what counts as knowledge, simultaneously po- sitioning them
outside that definition, and hence disqualifying their knowledge
claims. They argued that the reviews are
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Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies
overt displays of ideological mechanisms that not only approve
the themes of the masculinist paradigm, but which seek to ensure
that the masculinist paradigm represents the exclusive thematic
directive for professional work in the discipline. The two reviews
do more than reproduce the themes of the masculinist para- digm;
they buttress its privilege by advancing what can count as approved
(and disapproved) identities, readings, and politics within the
discipline. (1 994, p. 397)
This masculinist paradigm, they suggested, defines professional
scholar- ship as politically neutral, respectful toward science,
mainstream, and politely deferential (pp. 398-400). Blair et al.
(1994) showed how the reviewers implicitly adopt a correspondence
theory of truth, arguing that there can only be one correct reading
of Hickson et al.s (1992) article and positioning their own reading
as extremist (and hence in violation of the above four principles).
Blair et al.s reading reveals the intimate connections among power,
knowledge, and disciplinary prac- tices (in the dual sense) and
demonstrates the political character of schol- arship, even as it
attempts to assert its neutrality and objectivity.
Perhaps the most interesting dimension of this study, however,
is its transgressive style. Not only does the article violate
normal conventions of academic writing through its self-reflexive
structure, but it also in- vokes a stark reversal of the normalized
power relations characteristic of academia. In this article, those
who normally evaluate, make judgments, and are the keepers of
academic standards become the object of study. That which is hidden
in the blind review is exposed to the glare of analysis and
deconstruction. The contradictions and fissures of an appar- ently
sutured totality are revealed, exposing both the political and so-
cially constructed character of the knowledge construction process,
and the possibilities for alternative definitions of what counts as
knowledge.
In defining communication as political, then, postmodem scholars
focus on the political economy of a will to knowledge (Foucault,
1980a, p. 73), examining the constitutive role of communication in
the daily micropraaices of power. As such, postmodern researchers
are not content with simply examining communication as a dialogic
process con- stitutive of understanding but must also focus on the
ways in which power and communication interact to regulate who gets
to participate meaningfully in this dialogue in the first place.
This deconstructive orien- tation hopefully opens up possibilities
for alternative articulations of the social world that empower
traditionally marginalized groups. Communlcatlon is for
self-de(con)structlon. Deetz (1 992) argued that, contrary to the
commonsense view of our field, communication is not for
self-expression but for self-destruction (p. 341). In the context
of a discourse of vulnerability, this rather counterintuitive
notion is an at- tempt to articulate a nonessentialist relationship
between subjectivity (the self) and communication. From a postmodem
perspective, we are the product of various and contradictory
discourses. As Hall (1985) stated, There is no essential, unitary
I-only the fragmentary, contra-
19
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Communication Theory
dictory subject I become (p. 109). Traditional models of
communica- tion tend to reify the subject as a fixed entity that
engages in cognition and then encodes these cognitions through the
communication process. In opposition to this reproductive,
representational view, the notion of communication as self-de(
con)structive focuses on the productive charac- ter of the
relationship between self and other. As Deetz (1992) stated, The
point of communication as a social act is to overcome ones fixed
subjectivity, ones conceptions, ones strategies, to be opened to
the indeter- minacy of people and the external environment (p.
341). The discourse of vulnerability sees our sense of identity as
subject (i.e., vulnerable) to the pull of other discursive
possibilities that challenge who we are.
From a postmodern perspective, this does not mean that we are
al- ways constituted anew in every act of communication. We are
all, to a greater or lesser degree, subjects who are products of
sedimented, institutionalized systems of discourse that provide a
frame for our ongo- ing, everyday experience. However, it is this
very sedimentation of expe- rience that predisposes us to adopt an
unreflective stance toward self, world, and other. It is because we
are at least partially sutured to a particular dominant,
institutionalized sense of ourselves and others that it becomes
easy to conceive of communication as simply the expression of what
is already fully formed in our heads.
It therefore takes a fundamental shift in perspective to see the
commu- nicative process as a self-de(con)structive phenomenon
which, in its ideal form, challenges comfortable, preconceived
conceptions of the self as the Archimedean point of origin of
meaning and experience. If we conceive of communication as self-de(
con)struaive rather than self-expressive, then we are better
positioned to examine the various discursive processes through
which competing and conflicting forms of subjectivity are con-
structed. Postmodern feminism in particular has made important
contri- butions to the development of this perspective (e.g.,
Bordo, 1992; Butler, 1990; Flax, 1990; Morris, 1988). For example,
Butler (1990) stated:
The being of gender is an effect, an object of genealogical
investigation that maps out the political parameters of its
construction in the mode of ontology. To claim that gender is
constructed is not to assert its illusoriness or artificiality . .
. [but] to understand [its] discursive production . . . and to
suggest that certain cultural configurations of gender take the
place of the real and consolidate and augment their hegemony
through that felicitous self-naturalization. (pp. 32-33)
By exploring the relations among gender, discourse, power, and
iden- tity, postmodern feminist scholars provide new ways to
situate commu- nication as central to our understanding of the
politics of subjectivity. This leads us to the final postmodern
communication postulate. Communlcatlon Is subjectless. This
postulate is double-sided in that it allows us to focus o n both
the positive and negative dynamics that result from the
relationships among self, world, and other. Interpreted posi-
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Modernism, Postmodemism, and Communication Studies
tively , the move away from a subjedspeaker-centered conception
of communication (in which subjectivity is not taken as a
problematic to be explored) permits us to reconceptualize
subjectivity as discursively constructed and hence open to change.
In this sense, communication is subjectless insofar as
communication is not conceived simply as the effect of the speaking
subject. Indeed, from a postmodern perspective, it is more
appropriate to argue that subjectivity is an effect of communica-
tion. In Althussers (1971) terms, we can say that individuals
recognize themselves as subjects through the ongoing process of
hailing, or inter- pellation. That is, subjectivity is constructed
through the various systems of discourse (legal, familial,
organizational, mass-mediated, gendered, etc.) within which
individuals are always already situated and which provide
interpretive frames through which to make sense of self, other, and
world.
Many communication scholars find such a position untenable
because it seems to deny the role of intentionality in the process
of communica- tion. For example, Ellis (1991) argued that
intentionality and communi- cation are inseparable and that an
acceptable theory of communication cannot include the
post-structuralists tolerance for multiple meanings and
interpretations (p. 221). But this critique misses the point. No
one would deny that, for the most part, social actors have
particular inten- tions in mind when communicating. But if we focus
on intent as the defining characteristic of communication, then we
fail to recognize that communicative acts always occur within the
context of larger social relations that exist independently of any
intent that specific communica- tors might have.
Communicators-as-subjects have intent precisely be- cause they are
always already situated within, and the effect of, institu-
tionalized discursive practices. Intent does not arise from
nowhere-it is a product of our condition as interpellated
subjects.
Thus, the postmodernist and poststructuralist tolerance for
multiple meanings is not an attempt to assert a completely
relativist theory of meaning that allows us to cling to the idea
that reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else (Ellis,
1991, p. 219). To the contrary, a subjectless view of communication
asserts that meaning or reality does not reside in peoples heads
but rather in the complexly articulated sys- tems of discourse
within which people are always situated. Intention is an element of
the communication process, but it is an element that is always
mitigated and contextualized by the way discursive practices shape
us as subjects:
The fixing of meaning in society and the realization of the
implications of partic- ular versions of meaning in forms of social
organization and the distribution of social power rely on the
discursive constitution of subject positions from which individuals
actively interpret the world and by which they are themselves gov-
erned. It is the structures of discourses which determine the
discursive constitu- tion of individuals as subjects. . . .
Individuals are both the site and subjects of
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Communication Theory
discursive struggle for their identity. Yet the interpellation
of individuals as sub- jects within particular discourses is never
final. It is always open to challenge. The individual is constantly
subjected to discourse. (Weedon, 1987, p. 97)
Weedon (1987) brings into sharp focus the constant tensions
between the positive and negative consequences of communication as
subjectless. On the one hand, the constant struggle to fix
discourse suggests that social actors can actively participate in
this struggle to shape discursive constructions of the social
world. Thus, for example, the feminist move- ment has done much to
change the meanings of specific behaviors such as unwanted sexual
advances, spouse abuse, and job discrimination. Although such
practices were once perceived as the natural consequence of sex
differences, they are now more easily recognized as the conse-
quence of specific, gendered power relations that both discursively
and nondiscursively situate women as other and marginalized. By
focusing on the discourse and interpretive schemes that are applied
to these rela- tions, women have effected social change.
On the other hand, the conception of the subject as the effect
of communication permits us to focus on the extent to which the
social actor is a product of the practices of power and domination.
This posi- tion is probably best exemplified by Foucaults work on
various institu- tions of discipline (the prison system, medicine,
psychiatry, etc.), and his observation that within our
contemporary, disciplinary society the social actor is the object
of information, never a subject in communication (1979, p. 200).
Within such a framework we can recognize the extent to which social
actors are the site of discourses that attempt to create and fix
subjectivities in a particular fashion.
Postulating communication as subjectless is thus not an attempt
to deny that real social actors communicate intentionally with one
another. Rather, it helps us to recognize the extent to which
intent is possible only because we are always situated within
systems of discourse that precede and exceed us as communicators.
As Hall (1985) stated, It is in and through the systems of
representation of culture that we experience the world: experience
is the product of our codes of intelligibility, our schemes of
interpretation. Consequently, there is no experiencing outside of
the categories of representation or ideology (p. 105). For me, the
project of postmodern communication studies entails the
deconstruction of the communicative and political processes through
which people come to experience the world in a particular fashion.
In other words, how are our identities (subjectivities)
constructed, and whose interests are served (and not served) by the
privileging of some constructions over others?
Conclusion My primary concern in this essay has been to provide
a suggestive read- ing of the relationship between modernism and
postmodernism. The
22
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Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies
sometime tendency in our field to equate positivism with
modernism and social constructionism with postmodernism is a
serious oversimplifica- tion of the complex relationship between
the modernist and postmodern- ist projects. Modernism cannot be
reduced to positivism because there is much in the former that both
speaks to the Enlightenment project and critiques the pervasiveness
of Cartesian dualist thought. Writers such as Habermas (1984, 1987)
embrace the emancipatory logic of the Enlight- enment while at the
same time explicating a theory of society that posits a
constitutive relationship among social actors, communication pro-
cesses, and systems of meaning. Such work is strongly
antipositivist and nonreductivist while at the same time avowedly
modernist (and some- times antipostmodernist).
Similarly, the apparent reduction of postmodernism to a generic
social constructionist position does little to suggest how
postmodernism is dif- ferent from, or similar to, what I have
referred to as the critical modern- ist orientation. The conflation
of these two positions leaves us unable to address, for example,
their differing perspectives on the relationship between power and
truth, diverse views on the role of the researcher in examining
social issues, and different understandings of what even counts as
knowledge.
However, the goal of this essay is not to present perspectives
that are sealed off from one another. Indeed, the various
discourses articulated in this essay can be represented on a
continuum rather than as mutually exclusive positions. In this
context they articulate increasingly transgres- sive orientations
toward the notions of representation and correspon- dence as
criteria1 attributes of knowledge. While at one extreme positiv-
ist modernism is the discourse most consistent with the notion of
the mind as the mirror of nature, at the other extreme
postmodernism does the most to foment the crisis of representation,
denying attempts to privilege any correspondence theory of
knowledge.
Finally, I have tried to address the question of whether
postmodern- ism has any cash value for communication scholars.
Given its under- mining of some of the erstwhile basic tenets of
modernist communication studies, how can postmodernism contribute
to our disciplinary status? Through the articulation of postmodern
communication conditions I have suggested that, far from
marginalizing communication as a human activity, postmodernism
contributes to a more insightful understanding of the processes
through which communication, identity, and power intersect. Its
value is that it problematizes precisely that relationship that,
traditionally, communication researchers have left untheorized -
that be- tween communication and the construction of
subjectivity.
In sum, if the implications of the debate between modernism and
postmodernism for the study of communication are to be properly
under- stood, it is important that as a discipline we develop an
adequately nuanced reading of their continuities and differences. I
hope this essay has contributed to this ongoing task.
23
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Communication Theory
Dennis K. Mumby is associate professor in the Department of
Communication at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. The
author expresses appreciation to ]ohn Stewart for his willingness
to engage in dialogue over the issues in this essay and thanks
three anon- ymous reviewers for their careful and constructive
readings of earlier drafts. This manu- script was accepted for
publication in September, 1996.
Author
. 'Although it is difficult to position feminism comfortably
within the parameters of the Note modernism-postmodemism debate, 1
would argue that much of feminist scholarship is
consistent with the critical modernist project while
simultaneously providing an immanent critique of it. In broad
terms, feminism provides a gendered reading of the Enlightenment,
demonstrating how women's voices have been marginalized and
excluded from the emanci- patory trajectory that the Enlightenment
articulated for itself. Feminists have been particu- larly critical
of Marxism (e.g., Barrett, 1988; Coward, 1978) and the degree to
which the latter ignores gender as a constitutive feature of
systems of domination. The goal of such feminist work is to broaden
the goals of the Enlightenment project, arguing that its princi-
ple of reflexivity demands that it transform itself to encompass
the goals and aspirations of women. Complicating this picture,
however, much recent feminist work has disavowed the modernist
project as irredeemably masculinist and claimed a consistency with
the tenets of postmodern thought (Butler, 1990; Hekman, 1990;
Weedon, 1987). I address briefly the relation between feminism and
postmodernism in the final section of this essay.
Certainly communication studies has come late to its
appreciation of feminism as both an epistemological and political
framework for making sense of the world, but recent developments
have considerably broadened its influence within communication
studies. Campbell's (1989, 1995) work has acutely demonstrated the
gender-blind character of much of rhetorical studies, and Spitzack
and Carter (1987) have provided an early example of the need not
simply to incorporate gender issues into our work but also to
radically reframe our thinking about communication as a
gender-constitutive act. My own field of organizational
communication has almost completely ignored feminism, although
recent work by Buzzanell (1994,1995), G r e g (1993), Marshall
(1993), and Mumby (1996) has attenuated this situation.
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