The Complexity of Human Communication

Most communication research and most applications of that research acknowledge the process nature of communication. However, the material following that acknowledgment confirms to traditional linear and static approaches treating communication as little more than printed text. This Print Paradigm persists despite repeated calls to explore the more dynamic nature of communication. In this second edition, the author updates and expands his argument that communication is a process analogous to the complexity in other living systems. Complexity theory models biological principles similar to how chaos theory treats chemical and physical processes. The book begins with a review of philosophical and social psychological thought as a basis for explaining the mathematical and natural science models. The volume reviews a remarkable range of material stretching over three centuries. The author explains complicated concepts in a simple and often whimsical way and uses practical as well as research examples to bring technical ideas to a wide audience. The author develops paradigmatic principles and then describes the process of information and a model of communication as a socially emergent process. The early chapters are a foundation for disputing current thinking across a range of topics such as communication and self, stories and storytelling, communication and trust, and conflict. The author concludes by sketching theoretical, methodological, practical, and ethical challenges. The volume is as dynamic and intricate as the complexity of human communication.