Journal of Communication Disorders, Deaf Studies & Hearing Aids
Open Access

Communication Studies

Communication studies is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions, and communication in different cultures. Communication is commonly defined as giving, receiving, or exchanging ideas, information, signals, or messages through appropriate media, enabling individuals or groups to persuade, to seek information, to give information, or to express emotions effectively. Communication studies is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge that encompasses a range of topics, from a face-to-face conversation at a level of individual agency and interaction to social and cultural communication systems at a macro level. Scholarly communication theorists focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of communication, examining statistics in order to help substantiate claims. The range of social scientific methods to study communication has been expanding. Communication researchers draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-20th century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and philosophic approaches towards the analysis of communication.