interactional view

The interactional view of communication had a tremendous impact on communication scholarship, especially in the area of family communication. By placing a focus on the communication between people, the interactional moved attention away from individuals to what was happening as they interacted. Griffin’s example at the beginning of Chapter 13 highlights how the interactional view has been applied to family communication. By viewing the family as a system, therapists and communication researchers examine the family as a whole, rather than just each person in the family. Rather than blaming family problems on one person, therapists and researchers study the ways in which everyone in the family contributes to ongoing behaviors and communication patterns.

The theory certainly has undergone criticism, particularly the axioms, which take a law-governing approach to communication. The first, “one cannot communicate” probably has been debated more than any of the others. Griffin discusses this at the end of the chapter, noting that the original developers of the theory admit “not all nonverbal behavior is communication” (p. 177). This is an important admission. One problem with “one cannot not communicate” is that all behavior becomes communication. More recent communication scholars have argued that communication requires intention: the sender intends to send the message, the receiver interprets the message as intentional, or both. So that’s what differentiates behavior from communication—there must be intentionality for communication to occur.

~ Professor Cyborg