Communication Theory as a Field
[4] The article has received multiple awards,[5][6] has become the foundation for many communication theory textbooks,[7][8][9][10][11] and has been translated into several different languages.
[14] Craig responded that Myers misunderstood not only the basic argument of the article, but also misrepresented his own case study.
[7][8][9][10][11] In this article Craig "proposes a vision for communication theory that takes a huge step toward unifying this rather disparate field and addressing its complexities.
"[15] In the end Craig proposes seven different traditions of communication theory and outlines how each one of them would engage the others in dialogue.
[33][34] To achieve this dialog Craig proposes what he calls "Dialogical-Dialectical coherence," or a "common awareness of certain complementaries and tensions among different types of communication theory.
[55] Using a case study regarding the rise and fall of technological determinism among computer-mediated communication scholars,[56] Myers argues that a metamodel needs to provide some mechanism that will "reduce misrepresentation and mistake" in evaluating theory.
[57] Myers frames Craig's ideas of collective discourse without an evaluative criteria of what is good theory and bad theory as "a Mad Hatter's tea party" which will "allow all to participate in this party of discourse" but will not be able to "inform any of the participants when it is time to leave.
"[60] Craig cites Gregory Bateson as pointing out that while the theory of logical types forbids the mixing of different "levels" to avoid paradox, "practical communication necessarily does exactly that.
[61] Craig argues that Myers has been unable to prove any inconsistency or misrepresentation when it came to using the constitutive model for his metamodel.
[66] However, contrary to Myers claim, the metamodel does allow theorists engaged in discussion to judge the validity of theories "on the basis of empirical evidence in ordinary reasonable ways.
[67] Craig points out that Myers was correct in that the metamodel is ill-equipped to judge theories as valid or invalid, it also doesn't do a good job of closing "the Antarctic ozone hole or solve other problems for which it was not designed.
"[68] The case study that Myers presents is the debate about technological determinism in the realm of Computer Mediated Communication.
"[68] By relying upon this case study Myers sabotages his argument for establishing an absolute truth criteria, demonstrating that "we would gain little by holding on to such a criterion.
[75][16] Russill makes the argument that the pragmatist tradition "conceptualizes communication in response to the problem of incommensurability.
"[80] Incommensurability being how a pluralistic society can engage in cooperation when there is an absence "of common, absolute standards for resolving differences.
[81][72] To do this he outlines pragmatism as a tradition that identifies the problem formulation as "incommensurability", and the vocabulary as "democracy, publics, power, criticism, response-ability, triple contingency.
