A Study On James W.Carey's Ritual Thoughts Of Communication

The object of this paper is the ritual view of communication which was posed by a famous theorist James W.Carey.This paper contains three parts:the ideological origins of ritual view,the concept of ritual view,the contribution to American communication studies and the reference to Chinese communication studies.In terms of ideological root,the symbolic interaction of Chicago School is the starting point of ritual view. Canadian scholars Harold Innis and Mcluhan gave a theoretical framework with a combination of technology and social development to Carey's communication studies.The well-known American anthropologist—Clifford Geertz,his "thick description" directly affects the methodology of ritual view—interpretation.From the content,ritual view views action as its object,views ritual as metaphor ,from the perspective of culture,communication is a symbolis process of building and maintaining reality.The purpose of communication studies is to explain the significance of acts.On this basis,Carey further pointed his explanation about" Technology and Culture "under the ritual view:technology gets from culture and retains culture,it is a part of culture.From the effect,American communication paracdigm rooted in the mainstream of empirical research ,the character of this research is the result research of behavior.How to achieve the best results in the shortest time is the finally argued of such research.Although these studies have many achievements,at the microcosmic level,these studies are lack of macrocomic theoretical proposition because of the pursuit of skills .Under such circumstances,Carey posed the ritual view of communication ,he advised putting communication under cultural perspective which will undoubtedly open a new piece of study area.For our communication studies ,Carey's ritual view—either its content or methodology—has important reference.