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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 conditions”as
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-
1
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 Ellis’s 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
don’t). 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 Stewart’s (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 Foucault’s (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-
2
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 former’s 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.
3
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
Comte’s 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 c’s: 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, Deetz’s
(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 c’s’’ as the princi-
pal criteria) rather than as a constitutive element in the production of
mutual understanding and democratic participation in decision-making
processes.
4
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 Shepherd’s 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
5
Communication
Theory
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 Hegel’s
(1
977)
dialectic, Schleiermacher’s and Dilthey’s
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 Gadamer’s,
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.
Peirce’s 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-
er’s
(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
one’s 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
6
Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies
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 community’s texts and discourses. Bernstein’s
(1992)
reading of
Gadamer spoke
to
this issue when he argued that Gadamer’s “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 Shepherd’s 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
&
O’Donnell-
7
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 Stewart’s,
1991,
terms, “closure, certainty, and
control” [p.
3561).
Although
I
do not strictly agree with Smircich and
Calls’s 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, Philipsen’s
(1975, 1976)
study of white
male working-class identity in “Teamsterville,” Carbaugh’s
(1
988)
read-
ing
of
the
Donahue
show as an electronic community, Rawlins’s
(1990)
analysis of discourse and the dialectical construction
of
friendship, and
Trujillo’s
(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 one’s 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.
8
Modernism, Postmodernism, and Communication Studies
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 Gadamer’s 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 Ricoeur’s,
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
9
Communication
Theory
Adorno’s
(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-
ment’s 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 Adorno’s
(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.
Habermas’s
(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. Habermas’s 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,
10
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 Habermas’s
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. Habermas’s 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, Habermas’s 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 Ellis’s
(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 Habermas’s articu-
11
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, Deetz’s
(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, Lannaman’s
(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.
12
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.
13
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,
“God’s-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-
mas’s 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, Foucault’s (1975, 1979, 1980a) work
shows how “the individual” is the product of various discursive appara-
14
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. Derrida’s (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-
15
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
Mouffe’s
(1985;
Laclau,
1991)
poststructuralist, post-Marxist concept
of “the impossibility of society”; from Hall’s
(1985)
notion of “no neces-
sary (non)correspondence” between systems
of
signification and struc-
tures
of
reality, and from Chang’s
(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, Jenkins’s
(1988)
study of
Star
Trek
fans as a discourse community
16
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
Scott’s (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, Scott’s work is consistent with Fraser’s (1989,
1990-1 991) notion
of
“subaltern counter-publics” and Conquergood’s
(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, Scott’s (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
17
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
&
O’Donnell-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 Baxter’s
(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 Amsbary’s
(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
18
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
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 one’s fixed
subjectivity, one’s conceptions, one’s 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
on
both the positive and negative dynamics that result
from the relationships among self, world, and other. Interpreted posi-
20
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 Althusser’s
(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-structuralist’s 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 people’s 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
21
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 Foucault’s 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
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
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),
Greg
(1993),
Marshall
(1993),
and Mumby
(1996)
has
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