Constructing communication: A study of mass communication pedagogy

This study develops a critical communication-based understanding of the practices used in a communication classroom. I argue for deepening the theoretical relationship between communication classroom pedagogy and theories of communication content and form. For that purpose I bring a series of specific questions to a news writing course. The first question concerns how the object of the class---news---is defined. But rather than only recounting the definition, this interrogation seeks the way that defining practices work, given the parallel between how news is defined in a classroom and the way the world is defined for an audience through news practices. The content and the form of these defining practices are then analyzed through two critical approaches; an orality/literacy approach, which seeks to describe differentiations between the communicating subject and the object of the communication, particularly as these practices are cast as disciplinary or field-related; and second, a rhetoric of inquiry approach, which describes the unifying relationship between the "how" and "what" of communication pedagogy, particularly in its hermeneutic pursuit of meaning.;This dissertation provides theoretical strategies for understanding communication pedagogy as it is practiced---a potential contribution for a practicing communication teacher. It describes both the content and form of learning about communication, with the goal of developing a more self-aware pedagogy. The dissertation also contributes a way to understand how disciplines or fields attending to communication construct, recognize, and reproduce their objects of study and what these practices of reproduction mean as elements of a "discipline." This dissertation argues for a reflexive answer to the question, "how does a communication classroom communicate about communication?";Through its pedagogy communication reproduces practices as traditions and ideologies, within particular social and historical contexts, even when the classroom pedagogy ignores these contexts and produces an epistemology without historicizing. Teaching and learning, however, constitute and are constituted by communication; to develop an analysis of these socially constructed and historically located moments offers a resource for teachers, learners, and others interested in the relationship between education and communication.