Communication and social legitimation

Contemporary communication studies have suffered from a lack of fertile social theory. Only recently have students of communication begun to examine seriously the origins and consequences of their work. In the process they have reconsidered the Chicago School. Increasingly the intellectual power of the Chicago School is recognized for its portrayal of communication as a human activity for building, maintaining, and altering consensus. This contrasts with the typical view that sees communication as a means of domination, coercion, or repression. This article examines that conflicting definition of communication, especially in terms of the ways social groups engage in media criticism and enlist public support for their moral concerns. This article concludes that the United States, to avoid fragmentation, needs a public philosophy of communication based on moral consensus.A version of this paper was presented at the Qualitative Studies Division of the Association for Education in Journalism's Annual Convention in Boston, August, 1980.