Why should communication studies go back to the Chicago School?

The Chicago School, which believes that communication is the essence of human relations, goes far beyond mere information transmission and exchange, and that communication creates and sustains society, the role of the masses in a sound democracy. The influence of the Chicago School on communication theory and research:1 It represented the first flourishing of the social sciences in the United States, and it served as an ideological landing point for important European theories, especially those of the German sociologist Simmel.

2 It gave a strong empirical orientation to social science research on social issues in the United States. 3 The scholars of the Chicago School constituted a theoretical conceptual system of personality socialization centered on human communication. They attacked intuitive explanations of human behavior and instead emphasized a view that came to be known as symbolic interaction theory.

4 The Chicago School constructed a model for later mass communication studies with a focus on effectiveness. Contributions to communication studies: giving social science research a strong empirical orientation in the United States; symbolic interactionism; Payne ** Research.

Representative figures: G. Simmel (Germany), C. H. Cooley, J. Dewey, W. Wundt, G. H. Mead, R. E. Parker.

Internationally, communication studies can be broadly divided into two schools. 1. The traditional school centered on the United States, including Canada, Japan, Australia and other Pacific Rim countries. They call themselves empiricists, believing that their research is empirical and empirical and reliable.

Western European scholars refer to them as administrative schools, arguing that their research proceeds from the interests of the administration. 2. The Western European-centered critical school, which is opposed to the traditional American school, is not actually a simple whole, but contains many scholars' different views and research methods. The most powerful of them originated in the Frankfurt School in Germany.

The Frankfurt School, born in the 20s of the 20th century, is an academic school of Western Marxism, which mainly studies the role and disadvantages of mass media in capitalist society, focusing on the critique of the relationship between communication and society, politics, economy, culture and so on.

The empirical school and the critical school of communication are two different schools of thought in communication studies. They differ in three ways:

1.Views on the mediaThe empirical school of communication believes that the main role of the media is to convey information and entertainment. They believe that the public can gain knowledge and understand the world by receiving the information delivered by the media.

Critical schools of thought believe that the media have a deeper and long-term impact than the delivery of information, and that they can shape people's perceptions, values, and behaviors.

2.Perception of the public.

The empirical school of communication believes that the public is a relatively balanced group that is rational enough to choose their beliefs and attitudes when receiving media information. The critical school believes that the public is a passive group, easily deceived when caring about receiving media information, and thus follows and accepts the control of the media.

3.Research Methods:

The empirical school of communication focuses on quantitative research methods, using scientific methods such as surveys and experiments to study the impact of media on the public. The critical school is more inclined to use qualitative research methods, such as in-depth interviews and textual analysis, to understand the ideology and power relations of the media.

In general, the empirical school of communication focuses on the transmission of information between the media and the public, while the critical school emphasizes more on the influence of the media on public perceptions, knowledge, values, and power.

There are two main schools of communication studies:

1.The Empirical School of Communication Studies The mainstream school of communication studies in the United States, also known as the traditional school. The main representative scholars are Lasswell, Lazarsfeld, Hovland, Klappa, Schramm, etc.

This school of thought is mainly from the perspective of behavioral science, using empirical empirical methods to study the phenomenon of communication, and thus became the empirical school. His main research areas and theories include: communication process model research, persuasion and attitude change research, "communication flow" research, prior tendency theory, selective contact theory, reinforcement theory, opinion leader and two-level communication theory, etc.

Because the main theoretical viewpoint of this school emphasizes the limited effect and influence of mass communication, it is also called the "limited effect theory". Since the 70s, this school has been fiercely criticized by the critical school, and its research perspective has changed, and theories such as "agenda-setting function" have been put forward that emphasize the influence of the media.

2.Critical School of Communication Studies: Frankfurt School:

The Frankfurt School has always considered itself the successor of Marx's critical theory, and has always regarded its own theory as a direct continuation of Marx's critical theory. Horkheimer, a professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, became the director of the institute and recruited a large number of like-minded and knowledgeable talents, such as Marcuse and Adorno. In 1932, Horkheimer founded the Institute's special journal, the Journal of Social Research, in which a group of young thinkers, full of disgust and righteous indignation at the ugly civilization of capitalism, used this as a position to comprehensively analyze and deeply criticize social reality in cold and stern texts.

Hence the name "Frankfurt School". Although the Frankfurt School was formed before World War II, it was not until after the mid-60s that it became famous due to the role of Marcuse, who became the "most famous figure in the Frankfurt School". The second generation of leaders was the German philosopher Habermas.