The haunting of communication research by dead metaphors: for reflexive analyses of the communication research literature

Classifying Communibiology's Texts: Implications for Genre Theory

“…In this way, this article applies the lessons of Derrida's (1988) critique of speech act theory, which targeted that theory's failure to recognize the ultimate impossibility of determining whether a text is related to some utterance genre or a related but parasitic or pseudo-genre, while lending further support to his (1980) position that texts participate in a variety of genres although belonging in no permanent fashion to any. In addition to presenting three characterizations of the communibiologists' works, I have also reflexively characterized my own work here, in part as a logical extension of previous work advocating communication researchers' reflexive examination of communication research (Nelson, 2001a(Nelson, , 2001b. In doing so, I hope I have demonstrated that there is robust support for the kernel of Rosmarin's (1985) pragmatic, or rhetorical, theory of genre.…”

“…Having suggested that the communibiologists' rhetoric may be shaped by motives they and others would find antithetical to their scholarly principles, I should disclose my own motivations for focusing on the communibiologists' works and presenting multiple characterizations of them. First, I must admit that I am a "humanist" in the communibiologists' sense, I take theoretical and methodological inspiration from ethnomethodological writings (see Nelson, 1994Nelson, , 2001a, 3 and I freely admit that my reading of the communibiological oeuvre was at least partially motivated by a desire to know the "opposition," though I initially read the work as part of a quite different project to which they ultimately proved irrelevant. Further, though I developed a qualitative approach even in graduate school, Joseph Cappella was my dissertation advisor and mentor.…”

Classifying Communibiology's Texts: Implications for Genre Theory

“…The reanalyses above challenge the common view of genre by demonstrating that the distinctive features that seem uniquely and logically related to a particular genre can be manifested by a pseudo-or parasitic genre, or manifested in a coincidental manner merely due to the very particular exigencies of a specific text's production. In addition to presenting three characterizations of the communibiologists' works, I have also reflexively characterized my own work here, in part as a logical extension of previous work advocating communication researchers' reflexive examination of communication research (Nelson, 2001a(Nelson, , 2001b. In addition to presenting three characterizations of the communibiologists' works, I have also reflexively characterized my own work here, in part as a logical extension of previous work advocating communication researchers' reflexive examination of communication research (Nelson, 2001a(Nelson, , 2001b.…”

“…First, I must admit that I am a "humanist" in the communibiologists' sense, I take theoretical and methodological inspiration from ethnomethodological writings (see Nelson, 1994Nelson, , 2001a, 3 and I freely admit that my reading of the communibiological oeuvre was at least partially motivated by a desire to know the "opposition," though I initially read the work as part of a quite different project to which they ultimately proved irrelevant. First, I must admit that I am a "humanist" in the communibiologists' sense, I take theoretical and methodological inspiration from ethnomethodological writings (see Nelson, 1994Nelson, , 2001a, 3 and I freely admit that my reading of the communibiological oeuvre was at least partially motivated by a desire to know the "opposition," though I initially read the work as part of a quite different project to which they ultimately proved irrelevant.…”

A framework for the evaluation of patient information leaflets

“…A great deal of research into the effectiveness of various forms of communication, in health care as in other fields, has been hampered by a fundamental misconception of communication itself 26 . The assumption that communication consists in the ‘transmission’ of ‘information’ has long been, and largely remains, the commonsense view.…”