In ôFuture of the Discipline: The Challenges, the Research, and the Social Contribution,ö Stanley A. Deetz does a superb job at showing that there is a genuine difference whether you approach communication from an information perspective or from a communication perspective. This analysis will demonstrate why Deetz is able to make such a claim.
All social organization depends on power and control. Communication is one of the surest means of gaining power and maintaining control, something apparent in the ability of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany to orchestrate the Holocaust. Information can help create and maintain dominance by powerful groups in society over weaker groups because it can systematically distort communication. We saw this in the example of the Bush AdministrationÆs ôjustificationö for the Iraq War. It is this power of communication and information that can help understand modern social ills. According to Deetz ôCommunication has emerged as a core discipline in our contemporary context owing to the peculiar nature of contemporary social problemsö (567).
Deetz makes a distinction between communication and information. Beforehand, he explains the human interaction process as a ôrelation among people in a social community about an inner and outer world making decisions via particular systems of expression for the purposes of collective actionö (Deetz 37). However, viewing this process of interaction from an informational or a communicational perspective makes a significant difference. From the information perspective, all expressions produce a set of ôknowledge claimsö or ôclaims of truthfulnessö (Deetz 574). From an informational view, there are typically claims being made for a purpose, goal or motive. As Deetz offers, an informational view ôspecifies personal expression as the political practice and specifies control through influence as the decision practiceö (574). In our limited knowle...