2. Keywords
• Informational or transmission model of organizational communication
• communicative or constitutive model of organizational communication
• Discourse
Geertz and Pacanowsky:
• culture and subculture
• ethnography and thick description
• organizational metaphors and stories
• rituals (notably corporate rituals)
Deetz:
• Critical Theory
• corporate colonization
• ideology
• managerialism
• systematically distorted communication
• instrumental and communicative rationality (concepts from Jurgen Habermas, but implicit in Deetz)
• information or transmission model
• communicative or constitutive model
• politically attentive relational constructionism (PARC)
3. Outline 1. What is organizational communication? Exploring its meaning through
two meta-models
Source: Matthew Koschmann, “What is Organizational Communication?”
(University of Colorado)
2. The Cultural Approach to Organizations
Source: Griffin, Chapter 19, “Cultural Approach to Organizations of Geertz and
Pacanowsky”
3. Critical Theory of Communication in Organizations
Source: Griffin, Chapter 21, “Critical Theory of Communication in
Organizations”
(i) What is Critical Theory and what is the concept of ideology? (not from
Deetz)
(ii) The Deetz article
Clips:
Michael Scott fights “corporate”
(managerialism)
Parties at The Office (culture)
Walmart song – “Queen” (consent)
4. 1. What is organizational communication?
Oxford Dictionary of Media and Communication
5. What is organizational communication?
Two meta-models for understanding it
• The following pair of models are not “theories” of organizational communication
• They are rather meta-models that define, at a high level and in very different and contrasting
ways, what we mean by this phenomenon and practice we call “organizational communication”
• These two meta-models can be and are found in any number of theories of organizational
communication
• They help us then approach specific theories of organizational communication, such as those
from Geertz and Pacanowsky, as well as Stanley Deetz, with a prior understanding of what
organizational communication is
• These come from an essay by Matthew Koschmann, an organizational communication scholar at
the University of Colorado
7. Two broad approaches to organizational communication
Communication within organizations:
The informational or transmission model
Organizations as communication:
The communication or constitutive model
• This is the conventional approach we take in our ordinary
lives when we think about organizational communication
• We see email and memos, meetings and conversations,
web pages and corporate literature, and think that these
artifacts are the extent of what we consider as
communication in the organization
• Here we imagine the organization – be it a corporation, a
government ministry, a non-profit, a university – as a
container, and communication as that which goes on
inside that container
• Communication takes the shape of the organization that
houses it, and so a very hierarchical organization with a
complex organizational chart is likely to lead to
communication that is also hierarchical, e.g., a manager
whose office is on a separate executive floor apart from
employees and manages mostly through email
• This is a more holistic, less matter-of-fact, and more
critical approach to organizations and communication
• Here we imagine the organization as something that is
constituted by and through communication – that is, is
socially constructed through communication
• That is, email and memos, meetings and conversations,
web pages, signage and packaging act to create an
organization – the organization thus itself being made of
communication
• Absent communication and its capacity to create an
organization, all we have is buildings, chairs and desks,
computers and paper
• It’s communication that creates the organization as a way
to marshal and focus human energy in the direction of
complex and collective human action to sell products,
solve problems, perform services, etc.
8. The two models contrasted
“Instead of viewing communication as merely the
transfer of information, this second approach goes
deeper and sees communication as the fundamental
process that shapes our social reality. Communication is
not just about transmitting already-found data between
sender and receiver, but rather a complex process of
continually creating and negotiating the meanings and
interpretations that shape our lives. Scholars call this
a constitutive view of communication because
communication literally constitutes or makes up
our social world.”
Matthew Koschmann
Matthew Koschmann
9. Communication within organizations:
The informational or transmission model
Organizations as communication:
The communication or constitutive model
• The organization is seen as something that exists apart
from the communication that goes on within it
• Communication is defined as the task of getting a
message from source to receiver, A to B, person to person
• Problems in communication are then seen as problems of
process, as obstacles to transmission, as broken points in
channels within a given organization
• The organization is inseparable from communication
because the organization is literally made up of
communication
• Communication is defined as the creation and negotiation
of meaning within an organization, and as something that
gives form and content to that meaning
• Organizations are regarded as visible reflections of human
meaning-making activity at the highest levels, given the
size and significance of corporations, states, large NGOs,
social movements, etc.
• This model allows us to get past “transmission” themes
like efficiency and solving breakdowns in communication,
and get to rich questions relating to organizational
change, identity in the workplace (e.g., gender, ethnicity,
race), leadership, social responsibility, power, etc.
• We can do this because communication acts to constitute
identity, leadership, change, and is a site of power
10. Two approaches to organizational communication
Communication within organizations:
The informational or transmission model
Organizations as communication:
The communication or constitutive model
• The informational model works from within a “flat earth”
perspective, insofar as “transmission” (like the world as
we view it from where we stand seems “flat”) is what we
see when we look at an organization while sitting at our
desk
• Organizations are here regarded as taken-for-granted,
“natural” phenomena
• This model takes a “round earth” view, arguing that just
because we cannot see the constitutive capacity of
communication (just as we cannot see a round earth
while standing on the ground), it is still there
• This model allows us to see our organizational realities as
phenomena that can be shaped and changed, because
they are dynamic and human-made, not “natural” or
given
“If these organizational features are not ‘natural,’ but rather
come into existence through specific communication
processes, then we can examine the implications of these
communication processes and explore ways of
communicating that lead to more favourable outcomes for
more people.” (Koschmann)
13. What is culture?
Dictionary of Media and Communications,
written by Marcel Danesi
• Culture is one of the most complex concepts in the discipline of
communication
• There are a number of ways to define culture, and a number of
discrete phenomena we can refer to as “culture,” e.g., corporate
culture, subculture
• A definition of culture might include the following things:
Meanings as organized into systematic forms or structures
Beliefs, values and norms
Identities and institutions typical of a society
Everyday life – what people do in their work, leisure, home life, etc.
Stories that a culture tells itself – e.g., folklore
High culture: the high-status masterpieces of art that artists and
writers create, e.g., paintings, classical music, literature, all together
often called the “canon”
Popular culture: the lower-status mass-produced culture that
companies and individuals make for sale in the marketplace, e.g.,
Hollywood and Bollywood movies
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19. What is a metaphor?
• A metaphor is a trope or figure of speech which illustrates
some idea or thing by comparing the substance of that idea
or thing to something unrelated to it
• In conjoining two different areas of reality in this way,
qualities in the original idea or thing that might not be
revealed are made visible
• In semiotic terms, metaphors bridge different “paradigms,”
reconciling aspects of reality that are not otherwise logically
or commonly associated
• For example, to describe the moon, you might say it’s like a
bright mirror, a big cookie, or a sailing ship in the sky –
comparing the moon to something it is not so as to think
aloud about certain qualities of the moon, e.g., its brightness,
a half-moon that looks like a bite has been taken out of it, or
its movement through the sky
Dictionary of Media and Communications,
written by Marcel Danesi
20.
21.
22.
23.
24. What is a ritual?
• Rituals are routine cultural practices that are used to
animate and dramatize meanings in culture, and that give
our behaviours a patterned and familiar shape
• Rituals are often thought of in religious terms, e.g., the call
to prayer in Islam, or the act of taking the Eucharist (bread)
in a Catholic mass to symbolize sharing in the body of Christ
• That said, rituals are also secular and found throughout
everyday life, e.g., birthday parties
• Rituals have many functions, and among them are the
following:
To create bonds between people, e.g., doing the “wave” at a
sports event
To honour transitions in life, e.g., a bridal shower, a funeral
To animate and dramatize meanings, often of a sacred
nature, e.g., kneeling in a religious service
Dictionary of Media and Communications,
written by Marcel Danesi
25.
26.
27.
28. 3. Critical Theory of Communication in Organizations of Stanley Deetz
(i) what is Critical Theory and what is ideology?
Deetz is a professor of
communication from the University
of Colorado (Boulder)
Deetz is author of several books:
Democracy in an Age of Corporate
Colonization (1992)
Transforming Communication,
Transforming Business (1995)
Doing Critical Management Research
(2000)
• Deetz’s work is the first example we have in COMM310 of communication
scholarship in the “Critical Theory” tradition, one of Craig’s “seven fields”
• This is a tradition that, though it owes its origins to 19th century economist and
social critic Karl Marx, is more broadly interested today in a view of society,
including communication, media and culture, that is sensitive to the problem of
power and hopeful for greater democratization and justice within our systems and
structures
• Among the foundational theories and theorists within the broader Critical Theory
tradition are the following:
The Frankfurt School (begins in Germany in 1920s, major figures being Theodor
Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and Herbert Marcuse)
Antonio Gramsci (Italian theorist, active in the 1930s, and author of The Prison
Notebooks)
Jurgen Habermas (perhaps the best-known communication scholar in the world
today)
Georg Lukacs (identified with theory of reification)
Louis Althusser (French theorist who blends semiotics and Marxism)
The Birmingham School (founded at the University of Birmingham in the 1960s,
and identified with Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall)
30. What does it mean to be “critical” in the sense of Critical Theory?
• To be “critical” in the sense of Critical Theory is not to be “negative” or judgmental, as in
“my best friend was critical of how I spent too much money on lottery tickets”
• Rather, the essence of “critical” is to recognize that the ways the world is represented to us,
via communication, media and culture, are often not the way the world actually is – here
speaking to contradictions in reality between what we are told is or appears to be, and
what actually happens
• Critical Theory is interested in exposing the contradictions in society, and seeking to fix
them by reforming society so that it better serves the needs of people, ensuring reasonable
distribution of political, economic and social power, and supporting social progress by
making people and society better
• The key concept at the heart of the overall project of Critical Theory is what is called
“ideology”
• Critical Theory has been built significantly around the detection of ideology in society, and
with ideology so identified, around revealing reality as it “really is”
• Ideology often acts to complicate reality, to mask its contradictions, to manufacture that
ironical gap between what we are told or appears to be and what is
Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy entry for Critical
Theory
31. Definitions of ideology
Ideologies are “mental frameworks that different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of,
define, figure out, and render intelligible the way society works.”
Em Griffin, A First Look at Communication Theory
Oxford Dictionary of Media and Communication
32. History of the
concept of
ideology
• The concept of ideology has had three major meanings or generations that reflect the evolution of
the concept
(i) ideology as a philosophy of life and a political point of view that someone consciously holds
(18th century)
• This is the version of ideology that we intend when we say you are a conservative, a feminist, a
liberal, etc., and it represents a world view that you select, identify with, and deliberately hold
• This definition originates with French Enlightenment philosopher Destutt de Tracy
(ii) ideology as “false consciousness” (late 19th and early 20th century)
• It argues that elites use ideologies to provide the majority with a “big lie” that ultimately serves the
elite and hides the truth of reality from the majority
• This version originates with Karl Marx
(iii) ideology as organizing principles for reality (mid-20th century onward)
• Here ideologies are what we use to make reality coherent and meaningful, and serve to attach us to
the outside world
• Ideologies are more than cognitive structures – more than epistemological in nature -- but include
our emotional and experiential lives
• Ideologies are neither true or false, and are inescapable parts of life
• The issue is not whether we have ideology, but what ideologies we have, and what do they do to us?
• This version is associated with French structuralist Louis Althusser
Destutt de Tracy,
1754-1836
34. Why is the concept of ideology important to us as students of communication?
• Communication of any kind – be it simple conversation, professional
communication, or media production – is in regular contact with
some form of ideology at any given time
• That is, insofar as what we say or write or shoot to video makes
contact with the ideological architecture of our society, we are
engaged with, reinforcing, or challenging some part of that cognitive
and experiential structure of life
• What we see in the concept of ideology is a way of peering into the
“inner form” or secret life of society as we know it, appreciating that
ideology (depending on how it’s defined) is what gives our
understanding and experience of reality its consistency, texture, and
substance
• When we see the “sense” of life – when we encounter reality as
something we can comprehend – what we are often comprehending is
its ideological architecture
35. Why is the concept of ideology important to us as students of communication?
• Thus, to be a student of communication, a communication professional, or a
media producer is to be by definition also a student of ideology – even if we
don’t recognize that fact
• Ideology as a concept allows us to get beyond individual media texts or
elements within them, such as frames and stereotypes, and connect them to
the larger ways in which life is assembled and made sense of – thus
extending the range of analysis past the less important study of individual
texts and to the general way in which reality is explained and experienced
ideologically
• We recognize, using the concept of ideology, that ideology exploits media
texts and messages in communication in order to produce certain ideas
about reality that act to preserve a particular model of social order or way of
life
• The concept of ideology thus allows us also, because we can see the
architecture of our reality through it, to act on and change that reality –
ideology is thus a path to positive social change through communication
36. How does ideology
help to legitimate
power?
Six ways
Promotes values and beliefs
supportive of power
Naturalizes power and values/beliefs
associated with it, making them seem
natural, inevitable, beyond criticism
Vilifies and attacks ideas which might
challenge power or the values/beliefs
associated with it
Excludes and marginalizes rival ideas
and ideologies
Mystifies social reality so as to make
it difficult to understand in rational
term; social reality is thus made
opaque, made to seem subject to
complex and mysterious forces
outside human control or
understanding; here cognitive
dissonance is eased, contradictions
masked
Universalizes power and the
values/beliefs associated with it,
making them representative of and
true of all humanity (and not just
the groups promoting them)
Source: Terry Eagleton, Ideology
37. Ideology versus culture versus discourse
ideology culture discourse
• Represents the normative, sanctioned, and
dominant explanation as to the meaning of
life and the way society works
• Every society has a dominant ideology, but
that ideology co-exists with other religious,
political and social ideologies that are often in
tension with the dominant ideology
Political ideologies: liberalism, conservatism,
communism, anarchism, fascism
Religious ideologies: Islam, Buddhism,
Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism
Social ideologies: feminism,
environmentalism
• Ideology gives a meaningful consistency to
life, but in doing so excludes certain ideas,
opinions, identities, and values, as well as
competing ideologies, from its narrative
• Culture in its totality represents all that is
possible in human life, including ideas,
opinions, identities and values at exist inside,
and that are also outside, ideology
• Culture exists in perpetual tension with
ideology, challenging the relative narrowness
of the dominant ideology by constantly
creating new ideas, opinions, identities and
values
• Ideology depends on the creativity of culture
for fresh material, but at the same time must
police culture so as to control and assimilate
challenges to ideology that emerge
• Discourse may be defined as socially
organized and historically persistent ways of
speaking about the world
• Discourse as a concept was made famous by
Michel Foucault, a late 20th century French
social theorist
• Discourses are less expansive than ideology,
and define in themselves how we have
“talked” about certain major themes and
topics in human history, e.g., the discourse of
nature, the discourse of gender
• Discourses act on people and society
differently than do ideologies, but discourses
have the effect of defining the limits through
which we think about and discuss any
particular major theme or topic
• Discourses situate those who are speaking
and writing, and thus speak through us and
create subject positions through which our
identities are manufactured and our
consciousness given its shape and substance
39. Definitions of discourse
“A discourse can be thought of as a way of describing, defining, classifying, and thinking about people, things, and even
knowledge and abstract systems of thought.”
Philip Smith, Cultural Theory: An Introduction
“A discourse is a socially produced way of talking or thinking about a topic. It is defined by reference to the area of social
experience that it makes sense of, to the social location from which that sense is made, and to the linguistic or signifying
system by which that sense is both made and circulated.... A discourse is then a socially located way of making sense of an
important area of social experience.”
John Fiske, “British Cultural Studies and Television”
“Discourses are ways of talking, thinking, or representing a particular subject or topic. They produce meaningful knowledge
about that subject. This knowledge influences social practices, and so has real consequences and effects. Discourses are not
reducible to class interests, but always operate in relation to power – they are part of the way power circulates and is
contested.”
Stuart Hall, “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power,” p. 205
40. (ii) Deetz and the application of Critical Theory to organizational communication
• Normally, Critical Theory is addressed to issues in the world at large – communication, media and culture – such as advertising,
political communication, discourses relating to the economy, gender, ethnicity and race, etc.
• Deetz is unusual in bringing a Critical Theory perspective to organizations, since theories in organizational communication tend to
be more conservative in their outlook
• What does Deetz intend in bringing a Critical Theory perspective to organizations and the ways that corporations manage
themselves and communication within them?
• Deetz’s ideological interest in corporations is in disrupting our common belief that what is good for corporations is also thus
logically and necessarily good for society too
• Instead, he argues that the interests of corporations diverge from and are not compatible with those of the public in general
• Specifically and throughout this chapter, Deetz argues argues that management ideology – notably as he calls it, “managerialism” –
tends to locate power in the management tier within corporations, and do so at the expense of employees, consumers, government
regulators, and other stakeholders in society
41. Corporate
colonization
• The broader problem facing society, of which communication within corporations is a
reflection, is what Deetz calls “corporate colonization”
Definition of “corporate colonization”:
“The encroachment of modern corporations into every area of life outside the workplace.”
(Griffin, p. 60)
• Deetz indicates that there are 3 ways in which such corporate colonization occurs:
(1) The pro-business orientation of media (much of which depends on advertising from
corporations for their bottom line)
(2) The sheer size and global scale of corporations, which extend their power in the world in a
way that has not been matched since the power of the Catholic church in the medieval period
(3) The fact that, despite the growth of corporations and their power, that such growth does not
result in the distribution of wealth or rising incomes for people
• Deetz now moves to analyze two meta-models of organizational communication (that
happen to echo Matthew Koschmann’s similar models in our first section)
The Deetz
chapter in
Griffin
42. Deetz’s two models of organizational communication within corporations
and other large organizations
43. The information or transmission model:
the default or typical model in corporations
Definition of the information model:
“A view that communication is merely a conduit for the transmission of information about the real world.” (Griffin, p. 260)
• The information model is also better known as the “transmission” model or the sender-message-receiver model, and is the
common way in which we think about the nature of communication in common-sense terms
• Deetz tells us that most communication scholars reject the information or transmission model, but that it’s alive and well in
many corporations and other large organizations, e.g., government, universities, etc.
• The information or transmission model is a means by which corporate colonization is extended, particularly within
corporations but also as such corporations address society at large
• Where the transmission or information model sees communication as merely a “conduit” or pipe through which messages
pass from sender to receiver, Deetz is adamant that we see communication instead as that which is “constitutive” of
meaning and society
• “Constitutive” is just another way of expressing what we said in the symbolic interactionism lecture is “social construction”
• Deetz captures the “constitutive” nature of communication in what he develops as his alternative to the “information”
model – the “communication model”
45. The communication or constitutive model:
Deetz’s preferred way of doing organizational communication
Definition of the communication model:
“A view that language is the principal medium through which social reality is created and sustained.” (Griffin, p. 260)
• Deetz’s primary criticism of the information or transmission model is that it does not account for the fact that communication is actually
constitutive of reality – and thus, the information model is built on a fallacy and a contradiction
• That said, Deetz takes social construction a little further, acknowledging that meanings are present in people (rather than inhering in reality,
as the representational model holds), but then asking: what meanings are in people?
“Once we accept that organizational forms are continually produced and reproduced through language, we’ll understand that corporations
produce not only goods and services, but also meaning.” (Griffin, p. 260-1)
• The corporate capacity to produce meaning in the world – through advertising, PR, lobbying of governments, the meaning-laden products
and services in our homes and lives – is a manifestation of the larger presence of power in all communication
• This interest in power’s presence within communication, media and culture is a strong signature of the Critical Theory view of
communication
46. Deetz now moves to explore the
information (the extant or existing reality in
most corporations and many other large
organizations) and the communication
model (his preferred way for corporations,
and students of organizational
communication, to see communication
within organizations)
This pair of models and Deetz’s
examination of them serve as the basis for
the rest of the chapter
Deetz’s best-known book on
organizational
communication
47. Strategy: overt managerial moves to extend
control
Information or
transmission
model
Communication
model
Managerial
control
Co-
determination
• Strategy is the name Deetz gives to the exercise of managerialism, a
particular approach to corporate management that favours control and
expresses power through organizational communication (among other
channels)
Definition of managerialism:
“[Managerialism is] a kind of systematic logic, a set of routine practices, an
ideology that values control over anything else.” (Griffin, p. 262)
• Employees suffer from managerialism in the form of an absence of power
over their work and working lives—an absence of any semblance of
workplace democracy
• Shareholders suffer from managerialism in the form of companies that
sacrifice long-term growth and innovation for quick-hit short-term profits
that reward managers in the form of bonuses
• Managerialism, no matter what a company actually produces in the form
of goods or services, is really its ultimate “product”
“Regardless of a company’s product line or service, control is the
management product, and is most clearly the one on which individual
advancement rests.” (Griffin, p. 262)
48. More on managerialism
• Managerialism is often something that seems a means to an end – where
management favours top-down control in order to get things done efficiently
– but over time, managerialism becomes an end in itself (i.e., control for its
own sake)
• The disadvantages of managerialism are many and include fear and
surveillance in the workplace, and resentful workforce that might rebel, work-
to-rule, or otherwise not do its work with joy or conviction
• Overt managerialism is increasingly less common in corporate culture in the
Western world (though present in the developing world more often, e.g.,
electronics assembly, textiles), as it meets with resistance from the employees
subject to it
“Since dominance creates this kind of resistance, most modern managers prefer
to maintain control through the voluntary consent of the worker rather than the
strategic use of corporate power.” (Griffin, p. 263)
49. Consent: unwitting allegiance to covert control
Information or
transmission
model
Communication
model
Managerial
control
Co-
determination
Definition of consent:
“The process by which employees actively, though
unknowingly, accomplish managerial interests in a faulty
attempt to fulfill their own.” (Griffin, p. 263)
• To Deetz, “consent” is where an employee, while she or he
believes they are empowered in their work, are really just
serving the ultimate managerialist ideology and the
management tier that derives its power from that ideology
• In consenting in this way, the employee is complicit in their
own victimization
• The manufacture of consent, in this sense, is achieved
through workplace language, symbols, rituals and stories
that might celebrate the employee while in fact just
deepening management’s impulse to managerialist control
• Think of the song Walmart employees sing at the start of
work as encouraging such “consent” and self-victimization
50. How is consent
created?
Systematically
distorted
communication
• Deetz here defines systematically distorted communication as the way in which managerialism co-
opts employees while seeming to believe in dialogue and empowerment
“Managerialism promotes workers’ unwitting consent through a process of systematically distorted
communication. Unlike strategic control, systematically distorted communication operates under the
radar. When this happens, expectations and norms within a group setting restrict what can be openly
expressed or even thought.” (Griffin, p. 264)
• Systematically distorted communication acts to suppress tension and conflict between
management and employees (conflict that might lead to reform, to truthful exchange) by what
Deetz calls “discursive closure” – that is, the suppression of conflict through manipulating the
“discourse” in which managers and workers communication
Definition of discursive closure:
“Suppression of conflict without employees realizing that they are complicit in their own censorship.”
(Griffin, p. 264)
• Such closure can be achieved in one of two ways:
(1) Certain groups are excluded from communication with management – ignored, frozen out, etc.
(2) The parameters for debate are defined by management as “natural” ones, and going past them to
discuss real issues is made taboo or otherwise unthinkable
• Managerialism is most powerful when it no one can question it, and it manifests as “reality”
rather than as something is constituted by language in the corporate setting – when it and its
systematically distorted communication seem “natural”
Definition of
systematically distorted
communication:
“Operating outside of
employees’ awareness, a
form of discourse that
restricts what can be said
or even considered.”
(Griffin, p. 264)
51. Brief digression into theory:
understanding systematically distorted
communication
We’re going to explore a pair of concepts fundamental to
Critical Theory, and that are present implicitly in Deetz’s use
here of communication theorist Jurgen Habermas’ concept of
systematically distorted communication.
Systematically distorted communication is communication
that has become saturated with instrumental rationality.
52. Communicative versus instrumental rationality (from Jurgen Habermas, a major source for Deetz)
• Communicative rationality is the lifeforce or energy through which authentic communication is sustained, and is
likewise the content that passes through what we say, write, etc. in private and public life
• Communicative rationality is thus the intellectual power and social binding force that allows us to create a community of
discourse and the possibility of understanding, despite the complexity and alienation in modern society
• We can contrast communicative rationality with what is known in Habermas (and in the social sciences in general, where it is a
major and longstanding theme) as “instrumental rationality”
• Instrumental rationality is the rationality that expresses itself in our objective structures, systems and technologies, e.g.,
bureaucracy, management, complex technologies, planning
• The two rationalities –instrumental and communicative rationality – have been constantly in tension since the beginning of the
modern world, and their tension has defined one of the primary problems in modern life
• We need instrumental rationality to a degree, as it makes systems run and efficiencies and scale possible, but its
presence is a constant pressure and threat in our lives
53. What is communicative rationality?
Definition of communicative rationality:
“There is a peculiar rationality, inherent not in language as such but in
the use of linguistic expressions, that can be reduced neither to the
epistemic rationality of knowledge (as classical truth-conditional
semantics supposes) nor to the purposive-rationality of action (as
intentionalist semantics assumes). This communicative rationality is
expressed in the unifying force of speech oriented towards reaching
understanding, which secures for the participating speakers an
intersubjectively shared lifeworld, thereby securing at the same time
the horizon within which everyone can refer to one and the same
objective world.”
Habermas, On the Pragmatics of Communication, p. 315
55. What is communicative rationality?
Instrumental rationality Communicative rationality
What kind of relationship does it imply?
• Creates a subject-object relationship (i.e., people are
transformed into objects, and relate to each other as
objects)
What kind of relationship does it imply?
• Creates a subject-subject relationship (i.e., people relate
to each other as human subjects, as authentic and
rational fellow human beings, or intersubjectively)
How are communication and media involved?
• Interpersonal communication can be a vehicle for
instrumental rationality insofar as we give voice to
jargon, management theories, sales pitches, etc.
• Media are primary agents of instrumental rationality
(insofar as they connect us to the market, state,
technologies, etc.) and circulate ideology, prejudice, us
vs. them thinking, public opinion poll-driven news, etc.
• Is primarily concerned with "means” (i.e., has no view of
context or larger picture), not ends
How are communication and media involved?
• Communication is inherently rational and ethical, since it
requires a relationship based on mutual comprehension
and the sharing of world views
• Media, insofar as they support a rational and democratic
conversation, can be vehicles for communicative
rationality
• Is primarily concerned with "ends" (i.e., ethical goals that
transcend the particular context), not means (e.g.,
technology, efficiency, volume)
56. Instrumental rationality Communicative rationality
How are communication and media involved?
• Instrumental rationality creates systematically distorted
communication
• Communication in contemporary society is defined in
terms of one-way, top-down hierarchical structure (e.g.,
media, large bureaucracies)
• Causes the disenchantment of the world and lowers the
"iron cage" (alienation and loss of meaning) upon us
• Creates the “irrationality of rationality,” insofar as
instrumental rationality leads to absurd and unhealthy
outcomes like fast food, traffic jams, obesity, climate
change
• Think of a film like The Matrix as exemplifying the ultimate
in instrumental rationality, i.e., where human beings
served as batteries for the artificial intelligence system
that defeated humankind in battle
How are communication and media involved?
• Communicative rationality finds its context in the "ideal
speech situation"
• What are the conditions of the "ideal speech situation”?
(i) absence of power relations
(ii) equal opportunities to speak
(iii) openness to all relevant considerations
(iv) consensus always open to negotiation
(v) truth based on rational consensus (truth not outside
discourse, but rather the product of communicative
exchange between people)
• The ideal speech situation (like the public sphere) is an
ideal standard of criticism, which can be used for
evaluating the conditions in which communication is
done, but is not something we ever fully achieve
• Restores reason to its rightful place by reconnecting it to
experience, to ethics, and to an “ends-based” logic that
does not treat people instrumentally
57. Systematically distorted communication:
when an excess of instrumental rationality enters into discourse
Systematically distorted
communication
Communicative
rationality
(effectively, this is what
Deetz is advocating for
in stakeholder
democracy)
Instrumental rationality
(at its worst, expressed
in managerialism, the
“iron cage” (Max
Weber), technique
(Jacques Ellul)
58. Pester power: an example of systematically distorted communication
• In the late 20th and early 21st century, an alliance between corporations and
children has been formed against parents
• We capture this alliance’s form of leverage in the form of “pester power” or
the “nag factor,” as children use their emotional influence and product
awareness to motivate parents toward particular brands
• Children have a degree of purchasing power on their own, e.g., allowances,
gifts from relatives
• But they are far more valuable insofar as they influence their parents’
purchases, and are thus transformed into agents of advertisers
• Children are thus weirdly made into a major channel or conduit for
advertisers into purchasing decisions that involve adult goods, e.g., vehicles,
not products intended for children
• Question:
• Where do we see systematically distorted communication, albeit not in
a corporate or organizational setting, but in society at large here?
See Toyota Highlander ad for example
of “pester power”
59. Involvement:
free expression of ideas, but no voice
Information or
transmission
model
Communication
model
Managerial
control
Co-
determination
Definition of involvement:
“Stakeholders’ free expression of ideas that may or may not affect
managerial decisions.” (Griffin, p. 265)
• Involvement is a communication theme and approach that seeks to
shift organizational communication from a top-down autocratic
style to one that is more consistent with liberal democratic norms
in Western culture
• That is, if we have freedom of speech in society outside the office
or factory gates, why do we not also have a measure of such
freedom and democracy within the workplace as well?
• Involvement can be interpreted within the long tradition of liberal
principles, dating to British thinkers like John Locke, John Stuart Mill
and Mary Wollstonecroft, and in the U.S. the liberal principles of
the Founding Fathers
• The latter U.S. tradition is often given expression in the idea of
“Jeffersonian democracy” (Thomas Jefferson being one of the
Founding Fathers, and author of the U.S. Declaration of
Independence)
60. Jeffersonian
democracy: an
influential
formulation of
American
liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
1743-1826
• Jeffersonian democracy, as it relates to communication, involves 3 key ideas
(1) Freedom of speech ensures that decision-making is equitably shared (as to speak is to
presume to take part in influencing the direction of decisions)
(2) Persuasion and advocacy are optimal ways of helping others to obtain information, hear
viewpoints, and come to a good decision
(3) Free and autonomous individuals, benefiting from free speech and the best available
information and opinions, can then enjoy the best outcomes
• Truth was thought to emerge from these conditions on its own – from this ideal assembly
of liberal democratic principles as they relate to communication and to opinion formation
• The above conditions worked reasonably well in culturally homogeneous social worlds –
that is, among an 18th century citizenry that was male, white, and had property (including
slaves, as Jefferson and many other Founding Fathers like George Washington did)
• Deetz, however, argues that these conditions no longer apply in contemporary society
“Freedom of speech doesn’t mean the right to be in on the decision. Adversarial posturing
doesn’t lend itself to creative consensus. And consent conditions make autonomy rare.”
(Deetz, p. 265)
61. Involvement in the contemporary corporation
• In the contemporary corporation, freedom to speak as an
employee is not tantamount (or equal to) the ability to
actually have an effect or make a change
“In national politics as well as corporate governance,
meaningful democracy requires that people not only have a
chance to discuss the issues, but also have a voice in the final
outcome.” (Griffin, p. 266)
• Genuine participation is not about being “heard” or having a
“voice” but in having those opinions enter into the
“constitution” – meaning-making through discourse – of the
decisions, culture, and very form and purpose of the
corporation
“Deetz says that [real participation] is only possible when all
stakeholders realize that their communication creates reality
rather than merely describing it.” (Griffin, p. 266)
62. Participation: stakeholder democracy in action
Information or
transmission
model
Communication
model
Managerial
control
Co-
determination
Definition of participation:
“Stakeholder democracy: the process by which all stakeholders in an
organization negotiate power and openly reach collaborative decisions.”
(Griffin, p. 266)
• Participation is Deetz’s preferred model of organizational
communication, and is the communicational basis of what he calls
“stakeholder democracy”
“One of the goals of [Deetz’s] theory is to reclaim the possibility of open
negotiations of power. He calls it stakeholder democracy or generative
democracy—this alternative through emphasizing that participants are
creating something new.” (Griffin, p. 266)
• Stakeholder democracy is a corporate culture (or other large
organization) where managers, workers, shareholders and consumers all
have an authentic voice and a measure of power to influence discourse
and decisions
• Stakeholder democracy is the antithesis and opposite of managerialism,
and it is a model of organizational communication and corporate
governance that recognizes implicitly that communication is constitutive,
not reflective or representational (of a pre-existing set of meanings and
truths)
63. Stakeholder democracy: widening the number and scope of stakeholders
Expanding the number and scope of shareholders
investors host communities
workers suppliers, vendors, supply chain
consumers the wider society and the world
• Deetz argues that we need to look past the usual stakeholders (managers, workers, shareholders) and take a
broader view that looks at the following as stakeholders
• Corporations are human constructs, and they can be changed – just as the types of stakeholders we associate with
them can be revised
• Governments can be a part of this project of expanding stakeholders, but they are not alone sufficient to
representing all the interests and values that should be present in a more democratic model of corporate
governance and organizational communication
“Rather than trying to leverage participatory governance from the outside, Deetz believes building stakeholder values
into corporate decision-making practices is the route to go.” (Griffin, p. 267)
64. Areas of conflict in organizations
Inner life What feelings are present and possible? What organizational
practices are necessary for those feelings to surface?
Identity and recognition Who are the people involved? Given their identities, what
rights and responsibilities do they have?
Social order What behaviours, actions and ways of talking are considered
appropriate? What norms and rules support these?
truth What do members think is true? How do they back up these
claims? What are the processes for resolving different
views?
Life narratives How does the world work for them? What would a good and
beautiful future look like?
justice What is fair? How should limited goods and services be
distributed? From Griffin, p. 269
• The PARC model is based in recognizing and working with 6 types of workplace conflict, rather than (as with
managerialism) seeking to suppress and bypass them
• These 6 are predicated on the idea that conflict and divergent interests are normal in an organization
• Those themes and places of conflict within a given corporation or large organization are as follows:
65. Politically attentive relational constructionism (PARC)
Definition of the PARC model:
“Politically attentive relational constructionism; a collaborative view of communication based in stakeholder conflict.” (Griffin, p.
267)
• The PARC model is Deetz’s model of stakeholder or workplace democracy
• “Politically attentive” means sensitive to power dynamics in the corporation
“To be politically attentive means to honestly explore the power in play behind so-called neutral facts and taken-for-granted
positions.” (Griffin, p. 268)
• “Relational” is Deetz’s preferred way of referring to the constitutive or socially constructive nature of communication, and
conveys the ongoing formative nature of language’s part in such construction better than the term “social construction” does
(as the latter implies that construction is finished, not always in motion and ongoing)
“Relational constructionism asks us to return to explore the moments of social constructions and the conditions making particular
constructions possible, rather than accepting the productions as given.” (Griffin, p. 268)
• Managers need to see themselves as mediators, not as persuaders, manipulators, or dictators in an organization
• Managers benefit when they can “complicate” their understanding of the other stakeholders with whom they interact by trying
to understand how those other stakeholders see the organization and the world
66. Conditions for successful negotiation among diverse stakeholders
1. Stakeholders have divergent interests, not set positions.
2. Stakeholders possess roughly the same level of communication skill.
3. Authority relationships and power positions are set aside.
4. All stakeholders have an equal opportunity to express themselves.
5. Stakeholders’ wants are openly investigated to determine their interests.
6. Participants transparently share information and how decisions are made.
7. Facts and knowledge claims are revisited to see how they were created.
8. Focus on outcomes and interests rather than bargaining on rival solutions.
9. Stakeholders jointly mae decisions rather than just having “their say.”
From Griffin, p. 268
• To guide negotiating rather than suppressing conflict, Deetz identifies 9 conditions and skills for negotiation
