Did you mean that?

The Intentionality Debate Some communication researchers have strongly favored the view that only intentional behaviors are communicative. Miller and Steinberg (1975): "We have chosen to restrict our discussion of communication to intentional symbolic transactions: those in which at least one of the parties transmits a message to another with the intent of modifying the other’s behavior…By our definition, intent to communicate and intent to influence are synonymous. If there is no intent, there is no message."

They argue that only intentionally sent and accurately received messages can be called communication.

On the other hand, for instance, Watzlawick, Beavin & Jackson (1967) state that: “you cannot not communicate.” This way of thinking reflects the notion that all things could be considered communication. According to this way of thinking, when two people are together, they constantly communicate because they cannot escape behavior. Even silence and avoidance of eye contact could than be considered communicative. One can say nothing and still say something. Adherents of this theory believe that anything we do, including ignoring or refusing to speak to another, is communication. This greatly broadens the definition of communication, making it virtually synonymous with behavior.

Although this line of thinking has enjoyed much popular support, it is potentially problematic for those of us interested in communication theory. To be fair, one of the original proponents of the “you cannot not communicate” arguments later recanted her original thinking by concluding that “all behavior is not communicative, although it may be informative.” So, perhaps they where just a littebit right, but certainly not all!

What is communication?

Everyone knows it, everyone does it… What am I talking about? No… not sex! I’m talking about communication and communicating! Or should it be the other way around? Communicating and communication… Something we all do on a daily basis, but what exactly is communicating? During this study I've learned that: 

Communication

is a social process in which individuals employ symbols to establish and interpret meaning in their environment.

First, we tend to believe that communication is a social process. When interpreting communication as social, we mean to suggest that it involves peoples and interactions. This necessarily includes two people, a sender and a receiver. Both play an integral role in the communication process.

And when communication is social, it involves people who come to an interaction with various intentions, motivations, and abilities. To suggest that communication is a process means that it is ongoing and unending. But I've my doupts on with this claim, cause communicating (in my opinion) mostly has a beginning and an ending. And if it does not have a proper ending, you could be considered rued. Communications is also dynamic, complex, and continually changing. With this view of communication, we emphasize the dynamics of making meaning.

The process nature of communication also means that much can happen from the beginning, of a conversation to the end. See, there Í'm talking about an end again! People may end (again, an end! haha) up at a very different place once a discussion begins. Communication, therefore, can be considered a process that changes over time and among interactants.