Message Processing: The Science of Creating Understanding

Abstract

Chapter 1: Introduction to Message Processing: This chapter introduces “message processing” as a study of human communication processes, with a focus on how people create understanding in interaction. It explains how “message processing” contrasts with traditional approaches to studying human communication (which typically focus on outcomes that follow from communicating in particular ways, rather than how communication itself works), and why this is an important and fundamental topic in the study of communication. Chapter 2: Foundational Concepts This chapter introduces key concepts in the study of human communication. It begins by summarizing contemporary definitions of communication, highlighting common themes as well as their shortcomings for studying understanding. It then introduces a “message processing” definition of communication, which conceptualizes communication as a process of creating shared mental states between two minds. The balance of the chapter introduces and defines related concepts that will be useful to the study of message processing...