Paisley, W. (1984). Communication in the communication sciences. In B. Dervin (Ed.) Progress in Communication Sciences, v. 10 (pp. 217-225). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Comm are born out of other social sciences, but then grow to its own. People like Carl Hovland, Harold Lasswell, Paul Lazarsfeld, Kurt Lewin were key figures.
Communication Subdisciplines within the Social Sciences:
Many subdiscplines of comm , such as interpersonal comm, mass comm existed in other social sciences than become part of comm.
Social Science Disciplines:
Distinctions in social sciences are partually natural, partially arbitrary. Berelson proposed original sub-discipline division: anthro, econ, history, political, psych and socio.
Level Frields:
Behavioral Science
Anthropology
Social Anthropology
Sociology
Social Psychology
Psychology
Physiological psychology
Biological Science
Physiology
Biology
Biochemistry
Physical Science
Chemistry
Physics
Variable Fields
Fundamental Variable Fields
Cybernetics
System Research
Communication Research
High-order Variable Fields
Political Science
Economics
Business Research
Education Research
etc.
The Grid:
level fields and variable fields together form a grid. This grid can be used to situation reserch as well as career.
Going from low order (e.g.: bio) to higher order (e.g.: Psych) follows reductionist thinking, where scholars seek to explain phenomena of the next higher level with theories containing terms from the low level only. Going lateral on the grid follows analogic thinking.
Communication Indicators
Skipped parts:
Demogrpahic
Citation
Roots of communication subdisciplines
The Diffusion of Communication Concepts
Key theories include:
Information Society (Parker 1973 and Porat 1976, 68. )
Uses and Gratifications (Lazarsfeld's group, 1940s)
Knowledge Gap Concept (Katzman, Tichenor, Donohue, Olien, 1970s)