Dr. Preston Coleman's Communication Web Page

Overlooking the Basics--Defining Communication

So just what is communication? Few texts on the subject bother to define it, assuming, I suppose, that we already know what it is. In two decades of studying the topic, including ten years at major research universities, I've never once heard communication defined--quite an oversight for an academic field trying hard to establish an identity and to win respect and credibility.

Most dictionaries at least provide definitions, which may generally ring true, but whose depth and perspective are not adequate for theorizing--like this one from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

Communication (n)--a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior

Or this one from dictionary.com:

The exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, signals, writing, or behavior

Communication scholars, naturally, define communication in ways that are more sophisticated and precise, but which, I believe, overlook some fundamental aspects of communication. O'Hair and Weimann (2004), in The Essential Guide to Group Communication, describe it as

A process that is defined by six characteristics: Communication is 1.) symbolic; 2.) a shared code; 3.) linked to culture; 4.) intentional; 5.) mediated; and 6.) transactional (ellipses omitted for clarity.)

Wood (2006), in Communication Mosaics, defines communication as

A systemic process in which people interact with and through symbols to create and interpret meanings.

The first two definitions place too much emphasis on the "exchange" of "information"--a perspective that privileges the kinds of language-based communication that have evolved relatively late in human history, like speaking and writing. Both definitions bypass more primitive forms, like gestures, facial expressions, sculpture, dance, and music--all of which are demonstrably communicative, but in ways profoundly different from linguistic forms like speaking and writing.

There are other limitations in these definitions. For example, don't we humans exchange more than "information," more than "thoughts" and "messages," when we communicate? Don't we exchange more primitive things like emotions, moods, intentions, reactions, and the like? And don't other creatures besides people ("individuals") communicate? Can't we communicate effectively communicate with our pets, and our pets with us?

And what about the words "exchange," "interact" and "transactional"--do we always receive something in return when we communicate? Don't we often communicate, yet receive nothing in return? Don't we often consume recorded or broadcast communications that allow no mechanism for feedback?

Then there are the difficulties with the assumption that communication inherently involves symbols or codes/systems of symbols. If symbols are inherently involved, or if a code is inherently involved, how do we communicate with infants and other people who don't share our language and symbolic systems? Or with animals, even wild animals? How do we communicate in ways that require neither symbols nor a code, like facial expressions, body language, music, mime and dance?

Another difficulty involves assuming that communication is always mediated. What about communication that occurs through direct physical contact: kissing, caressing, tapping on the shoulder, patting on the back? What medium is containing the meaning evoked through these behaviors?

I'm also not convinced that communication must be intentional. What about instinctive behaviors like a dog wagging its tail or a human blushing? Some behaviors might have a purpose, but not one the communicator is conscious of. This is a crucial question: can an involuntary, or subconscious behavior be considered communication? If so, communication pervades the natural world and might even be said to extend into the plant kingdom. If not, it is a behavior exclusive to animals with a conscious will.

One more problem--isn't communication always a behavior but not always a process? A "process" implies some degree of planning, design, and/or systemization, and many of the ways modern humans communicate involve complex and sophisticated processes; but isn't some communication quite direct, straightforward, spontaneous? Some human communication arises out of systems--symbolic systems, social systems, technological systems--and some animals even communicate in ways "linked to (their) culture." But I argue that communication occurs much more commonly in a natural, biological way that isn't "linked to culture," human or otherwise.

If these definitions tend to limit the concept, others, I think, go in the opposite direction and make of communication an overly broad,  nearly universal phenomenon.

In The Mathematical Theory of Communication (1949), physicist Warren Weaver proposed a definition that not only expands "communication" to a universal phenomenon of the mind--one that includes all human behavior--but beyond that, to a universal phenomenon that could involve any mechanism (to include, I suppose, biological ones):

The word "communication" will be used here in a very broad sense to include all the procedures by which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involves not only written and oral speech, but also music, the pictorial arts, the theatre, the ballet, and in fact all human behavior. In some connections it may be desirable to use a still broader definition of communication, namely, one which would include the procedures by means of which one mechanism (say automatic equipment to track an airplane and compute its probable future positions) affects another mechanism (say a guided missile chasing this airplane).

Weaver, to be fair, is interested in using communication as a concept useful in the utilitarian worlds like physics, computer science, and electrical engineering. But can machines really communicate? Or is it humans who are communicating, using the machines as media? The fact that a robot (like a talking cash register or gas pump, or your ATM) can play a recorded message doesn't mean it is "speaking" to you. The human who programmed the device is the one doing the communicating. And is all human behavior communication? If so, every sneeze, sigh, blink and heartbeat is communication.

In a similar vein, John Peters (2007, personal correspondence), an old professor of mine and one of the top minds in the field, defines the concept for his undergraduates this way:

Symbolic connectors of subjects and objects over space and time.

Peters' is an elegant and thought-provoking conceptualization, but one whose breadth and open-endedness to some degree fail to anchor the term sufficiently. Professor Peters envisions the broadest, most universal sense of "communication" when he suggests in "Space, Time and Communication Theory" (Canadian Journal of Communication, 2003) that communication might occur absent life, as in communication coming from the dead, or coming across from the outer limits of space and time, in the form of information captured in the medium of a telescope, from inanimate phenomenon like the ghostly remnants of the Big Bang. From this perspective, "...communication studies goes beyond the human scale and potentially encompasses any inquiry into time and space" (p. 397). Peters doesn't assume that the dead can communicate or that the Universe communicates to us from deep space and deep time; his point is to stretch our conception of communication as far as we can, theoretically.

Weaver suggests that all human behavior, and even some mechanical processes, are communication. As a thought experiment, Peters suggests that all inquiry--all mind, if you will--may be communication, and that any phenomenon, once interpreted by a mind, can be thought of as symbolic. Both definitions, or conceptualizations, of communication have value; Weaver's a utilitarian value, and Peters' a philosophical one. But both, I think, lack sufficient precision, lack sufficient grounding in the biological world, and fail to distinguish communication from other natural phenomenon that belong in clear and distinct, mutually exclusive categories.

What follows is an attempt to define communication more distinctly and more usefully. The definition posited attempts to situate communication more precisely within the natural world by approaching it as a phenomenon that has evolved in the biological world and by suggesting a clear line delineating communication from other biological behaviors.

But let's beware--sometimes, in order to understand something that we experience every day, we have to forget our assumptions and approach the object of our inquiry with a fresh perspective. In fact, because we're all social creatures, part of being a student of any social subject is learning to make the ordinary seem strange, even wondrous.

So here's my attempt at defining communicaion in biological and evolutionary terms, in a way that evokes its strangeness, its wonder, with an eye towards a more heuristic understanding:

Communication (n)--any purposive behavior intended to influence the emotion, cognition, and/or behavior of a sentient being by engaging the senses, either through physical contact or through the manipulation of an intervening medium

Let's dissect this definition and see if it makes sense...then we can decide if it might be theoretically useful, if it might be heuristic.

The definition has three basic parts: 1.) any purposive behavior, 2.) intended to influence the emotion, cognition, and/or behavior of a sentient being, 3.)by engaging the senses, either through physical contact or through the manipulation of an intervening medium.

1.) First, and most fundamentally, communication is a behavior--that is, the action or reaction of a person or thing to internal or external stimuli. But that definition of behavior could apply to a cell, molecule, or atom; or to a hurricane, or a Buick. Doesn't communication require some purpose on the part of the communicator? I might influence another being purely by accident and even without my knowledge, for example by frightening a deer as I walk through the woods or angering a neighbor by mowing the lawn too early in the morning--but have I communicated with the deer or the neighbor? Or have they simply had a reaction to my behavior that was unintended?

Here are some examples that illustrate this part of the definition:

Geologists can interpret the layers of sediment in the walls of the Grand Canyon and determine many facts, such as the age of a certain layer, the climate at the time that layer was laid down, the origin and makeup of the materials in the layer, the kinds of life forms that lived there, and even the kinds of human activity that took place there. The geologists discern information in the sediments, and that information is transmitted to the geologist, but inanimate sediments can't reasonably be said to have communicated to the geologist. The transfer of information isn't sufficient for communication to take place; there must be a purpose, an intent, that is expressed by a living being through some kind of behavior.

When a coconut falls out of a tree and plunks you on the head, the coconut tree has exhibited a behavior. Like most plants, it has dropped its seed, and it did so, though not intentionally, with a specific purpose--in order to procreate. In addition, you've been influenced, but only to the extent that you feel surprise and pain, and maybe some anger at your bad luck. Has the coconut tree communicated anything? Of course not. The behavior wasn't intended to influence you; that was mere coincidence. On the other hand, if a boy throws a coconut at his sister, he has also exhibited a behavior--like most boys, he has voluntarily chosen to aggravate a sibling. He has communicated (without benefit of a system of signs or signals, by the way) an intention; he first formed the will to aggravate his sister, and then engaged voluntarily in a behavior calculated to do just that.

And another, sexier example: organisms ranging from insects to humans secrete substances called pheromones that, among other things, attract the opposite sex and help instigate sexual behavior. The secretion of pheromones is an involuntary behavior that clearly influences these organisms, but, like the coconut tree dropping its seed, without any conscious intent. Let's take a look (or, more precisely, a sniff) at our friend the skunk. Skunks involuntarily secrete pheromones, which have a specific purpose--to instigate sexual behavior. When a skunk voluntarily secretes its malodorous musk, however, it is behaving in a way consciously intended to influence other creatures to leave it alone. Skunks don't spray their musk at each other or at animals that pose no threat to them. Note also that while some "information" is "exchanged" (the skunk has alerted another animal capable of smelling the musk of its presence,) that the skunk does this without using any symbols or code.

Lastly, let's consider acts of violence. A violent act is certainly a purposive behavior, and it is intended to influence another creature through physical contact. But not all purposive behavior is communication. There are any number of behaviors that have a purpose, like sleeping, eating, defecating and urinating, engaging in sexual acts, and committing acts of violence. Communication can be understood most fundamentally and axiomatically as one category of behavior distinct from other such categories, though these categories may overlap in some very interesting ways. Many animals urinate and/or defecate in ways purposefully intended to mark their territory; urinating and defecating are not always communicative, but depending on the intention, they may be so. Some sexual acts are profoundly and intimately communicative, but sex per se is not necessarily so. Plants can reproduce sexually; this does not mean they are communicating. Humans generally augment and enhance the physical act of intercourse with purposive caresses, kisses, and the like; these are communicative in a way that the mere physical act of intercourse is not. Like humans, Bonobo monkeys communicate very expressively through sexual acts.

Acts of violence, too, can be communicative, but they are not "communication" per se. To use an especially distasteful example, when a sexual act is forced on a person--when rape is committed--the sex act in and of itself is not communicative. If the rape is intended to "send a message," as when one tribe rapes the women of another tribe in order to intimidate and humiliate that tribe, communication has taken place. When a mobster has another mobster "whacked," nothing has been communicated to the murdered victim. The killer has, however, sent a message to other mobsters that "this is what will happen if you cross me." When Usama bin Laden had two airliners flown into the World Trade Center towers, he was not communicating with the victims; he was killing and maiming them. At the same time, he clearly communicated a message, one full of hatred, anger, and intimidation, to his enemies in the West.

Communication is a behavior peculiar to beings that have an intention, a will. Rocks don't communicate; communication is peculiar to living things and to the animal kingdom in particular, and it is distinct from other behaviors like sex and violence, though it may overlap with them in certain instances.

2.) Second, communication is intended to influence the emotion, cognition, and/or behavior of a sentient being; that is, to have a particular kind of effect on a conscious being that has the capacity to perceive things in its environment. We can communicate with infants, with our pets, or with wild animals, but not with a rock or a car. This distinction can be illustrated with a series of examples.

When someone talks to a loved one who has fallen into a vegetative state, the hope is that the loved one can, at some level and to some degree, "hear," or perceive. The hope is that a familiar voice, a familiar language, might eventually touch something in the loved one's mind, might even help the loved one to escape the vegetative state he or she is in. A substantial body of anecdotal evidence suggests that some people in comas may very well be able to perceive their surroundings--in other words, they may be conscious and sentient, if only to a very slight degree. But when someone talks to a loved one who is in a profound vegetative state, one marked by a complete lack of consciousness and sentience, no communication can take place. Similarly, when a person talks to the deceased, there is no realistic hope of reaching, of influencing, the deceased.

Interestingly, when people talk to loved ones who are neither conscious nor sentient, they may still be communicating with themselves. Their words may not soothe a vegetable or a corpse, but they can certainly soothe the self emotionally. Humans are capable of communicating with themselves to influence cognition and behavior as well, as when they write themselves notes to prompt thoughts or as reminders to perform some future action/behavior. Prayer may or may not be influencing a sentient being other than the one praying, depending on whether God exists and if so, on the nature of God. But prayer clearly has an influence on the one praying and is therefore, I suggest, definitely a form of intrapersonal communication.

Based on the definition proposed here, plants could potentially be said to communicate. Flowers release odors and display colors that have a specific, intended purpose--to cause insects and birds to pollinate them; in other words, to influence the behavior of conscious, sentient, living beings. The purpose, however, is neither conscious nor voluntary. Similarly, certain fish and butterflies have evolved markings that mimic a large eye or mouth. These markings have a purpose--to deceive a potential predator--but that purpose is neither conscious nor voluntary. To look at it from another angle, can we, or any other being, communicate with plants? Probably not. Plants are neither conscious nor sentient. While some claim that playing certain kinds of music encourages plants to grow, this has not been demonstrated with any scientific certainty. This is a crucial (and, I expect, contentious) distinction: a being must be conscious and sentient to be communicated with, and to communicate. The intention to influence is necessary for communication, but not sufficient.

To me, this distinction cuts right to the heart of precisely what communication is and how it evolved. Just where do we draw the line between the mere transmission of information, as by strata of sediments, or strands of DNA, and actual communication? A hunter wearing camouflage is intentionally deceiving (a form of influencing) his or her prey and is therefore, I think, communicating. A bug that has evolved to resemble a twig may be deceiving predators, but without any conscious intent.

My answer to that, and I admit that that my thinking is still a bit fuzzy here, is that what we call "communication" is limited to a higher order of behaviors that require that both the sender and receiver of the communication to be sentient. While there is clearly something akin to communication going on in a wide range of natural phenomena, what we humans do that is clearly communication is shared only with others in the animal kingdom; and even within the animal kingdom, the participants in communicative behavior cannot be simple single-celled organisms--they must be conscious and able to perceive things in their environment. In addition, they must be able to manipulate something in the environment (a medium), which requires some degree of cognition.

Attempting to locate the precise moment when communication first took place in the animal kingdom is probably impossible; theorizing about when that may have happened, however, can illuminate just what this category of behavior actually is. Some fascinating work has been done on this question (summarized quite nicely by Dr. Alexie Sharov) that makes a fine distinction between biosemiotics, which is concerned with all that is communicative in living things, and zoosemiotics, which restricts communication to the animal kingdom. It is clear that what we humans experience as communication has its roots in more primitive forms shared by numerous animals; moreover, it is, I think, likely that those more primitive forms of communication evolved from yet more primal and basic communicative processes and behaviors exhibited in the plant kingdom; and, I suspect, it is likely that there are very fundamental communicative processes peculiar to life itself, like the transmitting capacity of neurons or the coded information contained in DNA, that gave rise to both the communicative capabilities of plants and to the animal behaviors that are, undeniably, "communication."

I'm not a biologist and won't presume to have any special insight into the murky origins of communication or its evolution out of the most fundamental chemical processes we call "life." What I can do, however, is to suggest that there is a point where behavior becomes clearly and undeniably "communication," and that is what the definition proposed here aims to do. Perhaps it would be useful, then, to draw a distinction between what is clearly "communication" and what is merely "communicative" (an admittedly semantic distinction that, I hope, nonetheless holds some usefulness for communication theory.)

Looking through the lens of natural selection, I suspect that early in the development of life on the earth certain organisms evolved survival mechanisms like visual deception and camouflage that proved successful and therefore became widespread. These survival mechanisms exerted an influence on other organisms in the environment. As organisms evolved higher and higher orders of cognition, they began to exert more sophisticated forms of influence on others, both of their own species as well as on predators and prey. From primitive and "accidental" forms of influence that were rewarded through natural selection, one can imagine more sophisticated forms of influence that we would now categorize as instinctual. The release of pheromones provides a good example. Finally, in certain organisms cognition evolved to the point where organisms began exerting influence over other organisms consciously, intentionally, voluntarily. It is at this point in the evolution of life that, I suggest, communication first happened. While there is much that we recognize as "communicative" in the behaviors of plants and lower forms of animal life, the category of behavior we call "communication" is unique to animals with some degree of voluntarism.

This brings me back to the dictionary definitions critiqued above, which emphasize the exchange of information through systems of signs and symbols. While language dominates human communication, we continue to influence other beings in much more primitive ways. Some of these ways are involuntary and are shared with other species, such as the release of pheromones that we share with most all mammals. Others are involuntary but are peculiar to humans, like the microexpressions of the human face that subconsciously signal deception. As involuntary, instinctive behaviors, these do not fit within the definition of communication posited here. Still other behaviors are voluntary and are shared with other animals, like body language, which can be "read" across species; we know what our dogs are thinking and feeling, and vice versa. We influence the dogs, and they influence us, voluntarily. This, I believe, is what is meant by "communication."

There are many and diverse ways that we humans influence other creatures, some of which do involve symbols and codes, and some of which do not. For example, we elicit various moods and emotions, and can even tell stories, through mime and dance. That intention is generally affective, or emotional, rather than cognitive. Who hasn't expressed great joy, or sexual desire, by dancing? And who can't be moved to pathos by the downcast visage and ponderous motions of a talented clown or mime? These forms of human communication are fundamentally mimetic. The hula dance takes an extra step in that it is narrative in form and function. The communication that occurs through hula dancing depends on visual perception of its unique grammar and syntax--in other words, on symbols operating within a code. Mime and dance surely preceded, and probably led ultimately to, human language. One can imagine humans telling stories of a successful hunt by miming the actions of the hunt; and later, humans developing gestures and movements that added a layer of symbolic meaning to the mimicry; and finally, the bifurcation of the mimetic aspect of dance from the symbolic aspect of first signed, and later spoken, and later still, written language.

A similar evolution probably took place with communication through sounds and music. One can imagine primitive peoples mimicking the sounds of animals during the hunt, just as hunters today use various calls and sounds, to attract prey. In retelling the story of the hunt, those sounds could then come to represent the animals that made them. Such a sound might later become associated with an individual, could become a sort of name, or symbol, for that person, just like a totem of an animal came to represent a clan or tribe. Or, one can imagine people imitating the songs of birds, which have their own syntax, their own phrasing, and developing from that mimicry a uniquely human kind of song, which expressed various emotions and desires. Over time, the mimetic aspect of music, and of vocalized sounds in general, probably gave way to the symbolic aspect, until today we have sophisticated systems of melody, rhythm, and tone (music) as well as a language composed of over a million words, only a handful of which are mimetic in nature (onomatopoeia.)

Both dance and music effectively express and elicit emotions and desires. They have an influence not only on our and others' emotions, but on our and others' behavior as well; who hasn't been grabbed by a song and catapulted onto their feet to dance? Who hasn't seen and perhaps been influenced by a dance of seduction? And the more sophisticated forms of dance and music--the hula dance with its narrative, or the modern symphony with its elegant mathematical relationships--can profoundly affect cognition. Music not only has an impact on people, but also, some believe, on other animals. According to William Congreve, "music has charms to soothe the savage beast, to soften rocks or bend a knotted oak." Well, he's half right: music may soothe the beast, but can it really affect rocks or oak trees? Of course not. Music influences humans and, perhaps, other animals precisely because humans and other animals are conscious, perceiving, sentient beings.

And so we have the first two parts of our definition: communication is purposive behavior that is intended to influence the emotion, cognition, and/or behavior of a sentient being.

3.) Which leads us to the third part of this definition, which deals with how communication exerts its influence. Communication intends to influence a sentient being in a particular way, which always involves engaging the senses, either directly through nonviolent physical contact, or indirectly through the manipulation of some intervening medium.

This point is crucial: communication cannot occur without the intervention of a.) direct, nonviolent physical contact, or tactile perception; or b.) a perceptible medium--something tangible, something material; an object, substance, or force. We can begin by looking at how communication engages the senses, beginning with the sense of touch and moving on to the other senses; then we can do some thought experiments involving the removal of certain senses; and finally, we can use the example of the blind and deaf Helen Keller, who despite her disabilities became a highly successful and influential communicator.

We humans communicate through touching in a variety of ways: by kissing, hugging, or caressing to show affection; by tapping on the shoulder to gain attention; by patting the back or the bottom to show appreciation and encouragement; by mussing up a child's hair to gently display dominance. As long as the physical contact isn't utilitarian, as is the case in violent and sexual acts, it can be thought of as a very direct and primal form of communication. Punching, kicking, or pushing another has a utilitarian intent--to harm or move the other. Holding another in a headlock is utilitarian in that the other is under one's control; but giving the other a "noogie" is a playful gesture. Engaging in sexual intercourse has a utilitarian intent--to procreate. Kissing, caressing, or giving a "hickey" are more playful gestures meant to enhance the utilitarian aspect of sexual contact. When there is no intent to procreate, all sexual acts can be thought of as communication, except in the case of rape, because rape is an act of violence and therefore utilitarian in its intent.

When communication occurs without direct physical contact, the communicator must engage the senses of a sentient being through the manipulation of something in the environment, which we'll call a medium of communication. This medium must in some way intervene between the communicator and the sentient being he or she (or they or it) intends to influence, as the following examples demonstrate:

When we speak, we manipulate the air around us by sending out coded vibrations modulated as air passes through our larynx and past our tongue, palette, and lips. When we write, we manipulate a piece of paper (or parchment, or papyrus) by imprinting it with signs and symbols. When we send smoke signals, we manipulate the smoke; when we broadcast radio messages, we manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum; when we transmit over the Internet, we manipulate a series of interconnected computers. In each case, the medium is obvious, if not always visible; and it is plain to see that a medium can be as simple as puffs of smoke, or as complex as the many parts of the Internet.

The least obvious medium, ironically, is the most visible--namely, light. A painter or sculptor is obviously manipulating a tangible medium, specifically, a canvas or a block of wood or stone; but what he or she is fundamentally doing, in terms of communication, is manipulating the light that reflects off the work of art, with the intention of influencing the people who will later view it. A sculptor may sculpt primarily to influence the sighted, but he or she knows that a blind person, or a sighted person in the dark, could feel the sculpture and get a good idea of the sculptor's intentions; the exception proves the rule.

Though it may not be as obvious as when speaking or writing, even the most fundamental communicative behaviors, like gestures and facial expressions, manipulate a medium--again, the medium of light. In essence, we use the most fundamental medium--our own body--to reflect light in a particular way. A smile, a grimace, a clenched fist--these mean nothing unless some being can sense them, presumably through the sense of sight.

To illustrate this point, think of a blind person who perceives and "reads" faces and facial expressions, or the body and body language, with his or her hands. Unable to sense light, a blind person goes straight to the source and touches the face or body directly. This is again the exception that proves the rule; facial expressions, body language, and gestures in general exist primarily to reflect light off the face or body to others in a meaningful way.

Light is the predominant way we perceive the world, which, ironically, makes it nearly invisible to us as a medium of communication. But can't we communicate using nothing but light, for example, using a flashlight, or a mirror in the sun, to flash signals in Morse code? Television aptly illustrates the manipulation of light--the TV set literally bathes us in a spray of light. The same thing is true of the cinema and the Internet--light is manipulated with the intention of influencing viewers.

To a blind person, dance is communicative only insofar as it can be heard or felt--the sounds of a tap dancer, for example, or feeling the body of a dance partner might have an influence on a blind person, but the totality of the dance's intention requires both hearing and vision. To a deaf person, music is communicative only insofar as it can be felt--the booming bass riff of a reggae song, for example, or the bone-rattling rhythm of a bass drum. Blind people can read the written word by using Braille, which substitutes the sense of touch for the sense of sight. Deaf people can interpret the spoken word by using sign language, which substitutes the sense of sight for the sense of hearing.

This leads me to the fascinating case of Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, and yet was taught by Anne Sullivan to share in human language through the sense of touch. The story is familiar to every schoolchild: Sullivan held Keller's hand under running well water and repeatedly traced a symbol for "water" in the young girl's hand. At the moment Keller understood the connection between the substance, water, and the symbol for water, she had access to the code of language. The point is this: communication comes to us through the senses; unless one believes in telepathy, there is no other way.

Over time, we humans have created increasingly complex systems of signs and symbols, and increasingly complex media to transmit them--but throughout human history, even as our communicative behaviors have evolved, we continue to share our experience of the world through primitive forms such as the release of pheromones, the human touch, facial expressions, and body language. Whether we're caressing a cooing to a child, or sending audio/video files around the world via the Internet, communication remains a purposive behavior intended to influence the emotion, cognition, and/or behavior of a sentient being by engaging the senses, either through physical contact or through the manipulation of an intervening medium.

The closer I look at it, the more all communication--from the most atavistic to the most advanced, from the simplest to the most complex--seems pretty wondrous to me. It is so much more than the mere exchange of information; it is a profound and powerful behavior that owes at least as much to biology as to culture.

_________________________________________________________

Medium in the Middle--Defining Media

We often refer to "the media" as if that were a clearly defined and unambiguous term. In order to define a medium of communication, we must first deal with a common misconception. "The media" is generally used incorrectly  to refer to journalism disseminated through newspapers, television, radio, and the like. When "the media" are referred to in this way, the term "press" would be more appropriate; the press has a liberal bias, not the media; the press pays too much attention to violent crime or too little attention to good news. In truth, "media" is a much broader concept than "press."

What do we mean by "the press" in the first place? The word refers to the printing press, an invention that profoundly influenced the direction of the Church and the state. The printing press was the first medium to be used on a mass scale, allowing, for example, for the mass production and distribution of the Bible. In contemporary English-speaking societies, this (printing) press is used as shorthand for all the forms of mass communication, especially those that transmit news and commentary to a mass audience: journalists get their "press credentials," and every Sunday on NBC we "Meet the Press."

In order to understand precisely what a medium is ("media" being the plural form of "medium",) we must discard the imprecise and misleading use of "the media" when we really mean "the press." Also, it would be helpful to step back a bit from our contemporary experience of mass media and focus instead on a more basic, more theoretical sense of the word.

Dictionaries define "medium" in several senses. For example, it can be any substance that holds or contains something, the way soil is a medium for seeds and plants. But we're concerned here with a particular kind of medium, a medium of communication.

Even with this focus, "medium" has several meanings. It can be a.) something in the middle; or, b.) something that can store information; or, c.) a means of conveying something; or, d.) a channel of communication; or, e.) a mode of artistic expression. Each of these senses of the word is related to communication, but their diversity suggests some fuzziness in our understanding of just what a medium really is.

We've defined communication as any purposive behavior intended to influence the emotion, cognition, and/or behavior of a sentient being by engaging the senses, either through physical contact or through the manipulation of an intervening medium. Let's focus on the last part of this definition, "the manipulation of an intervening medium," to elaborate on what a medium of communication is.

Here's a definition of medium of communication that might allow us to grasp the concept in a more heuristic way:

Medium of communication (n)--any object, substance, or force that is being willfully manipulated in order to influence a sentient being

We've already established that in order to communicate, there must be a will to influence, and a sentient being to be influenced. Two things follow from this: 1.) the medium must be perceptible in order to influence a sentient (conscious and perceiving) being; and 2.) the medium must in some way intervene, or come between, the influencer and the influenced.

Now let's think about the very beginnings of human communication, starting with some basic survival behaviors engaged in by mammals. In order to survive and procreate, mammals must defend their own bodies and must take sustenance from some piece of territory, and must attract and couple with members of the opposite sex.

It's worth asking, how do mammals perform these functions? One way is by engaging in voluntary behaviors that tend to influence other animals that threaten them. For instance, when a predator approaches a group of mammals, some signal is generally sent to warn the group. This is usually a vocal utterance--a manipulation of the surrounding atmosphere effected by modulating the larynx and mouth as air passes out of the lungs.

Similarly, vocal utterances can influence members of the opposite sex. The songs of male whales, for example, alert females to the location of the male.

How and why mammals developed this behavior is debatable; what's important to this discussion is that our mammalian ancestors learned to manipulate the atmosphere in ways that influence other sentient creatures. Such vocal behaviors are common among mammals; anecdotal evidence even suggests that most animals, mammalian and non-mammalian, interpret the higher registers of the voice as signs of distress (think of crying or whining) and lower registers of the voice as threats (think of growling.)

So we can already see three kinds of influence associated with three kinds of vocal utterance: warning, distress, and threats. Any dog owner can verify this--barking signals a warning, whining signals distress, and growling signals a threat.

Mammals also engage in voluntary behaviors intended to be visible. When a bear charges aggressively, it is usually bluffing; it feigns an attack in order to influence another animal to leave its territory. In other words, it uses its body as a medium to reflect light at the interloper; the interloper, in turn, sees in its field of vision a growing (approaching) object, which it interprets as a threat. Similarly, animals will often make their bodies appear larger by standing tall and spreading their limbs in order to ward off interlopers. There are even fish and butterflies that have evolved markings that look like large eyes or mouths, which are probably intended to ward off predators.

Humans and other primates use their faces and limbs in similar ways to ward off other animals visually. Baring the teeth, sticking the chest out, flailing the arms, clenching the fist--each is a behavior intended to be perceived visually by a sentient being. In effect, the visual field of the creature being influenced receives light manipulated by the influencer. Similarly, the mating behaviors of mammals involve various movements intended to attract members of the opposite sex. Mating dances have been observed and documented in mammalian species including guinea pigs, Eastern cottontail rabbits, and college freshmen. Fireflies even use bioluminescence to attract mates visually.

What distinguishes human communication from more primitive mammalian communication is the use of media outside our bodies as tools. Early man used media like wood and stone to create primitive works of art, the most common of which is probably the fertility symbol. A representation of procreation, these symbols, which often took the shape of a figurine with wide hips and large breasts, were probably meant to evoke sexuality and sexual behaviors.

Similarly, clans or tribes of early humans created totems that represented the clan or tribe itself. A totem pole, for example, might be carved with images of ancestors or of animals used to identify the clan or tribe. The totem pole probably had at least two functions, both of which involve intention and influence. One purpose was to evoke a feeling of common history and interest--a sort of solidarity--among the members. Another was to warn interlopers that the territory was inhabited by a cohesive social group.

Another example of using media as a warning is the display of the trophy head--the decapitated head of an enemy. Primitive tribes used such heads, sometimes shrunk through various processes, both to represent victory and to warn others that they might incur the same fate. Frightening masks, gargoyles, and warlike totems all served a similar purpose, which is roughly analogous to the feigned charge of an aggressive mammal. A contemporary example would be the "Keep Out" or "No Trespassing" sign.

Media are also commonly used to signal status. The headdress of a Native American chief, the amulets of a shaman, and the crown and scepter of a king or queen are all examples of objects intended to influence others to recognize a certain status. Contemporary examples would include the business suit, the doctor's lab coat and caduceus, the bishop's hat, the barber's pole, and the wedding ring.

Fertility symbols, totem poles, shrunken heads, scepters and the like illustrate the way media outside the human body can be manipulated in order to influence others.

A crucial distinction can be made between two kinds of meaning conveyed through such media. In some cases, the meaning is immediately obvious: the fertility figurine and shrunken head require little if any interpretation. In other cases, a code of sorts is required: the totem pole and headdress mean what they mean only because people have created a code whereby a certain animal represents a clan, or the display of a certain type and number of feathers represents a chief.

Perhaps the most consequential technology humans ever invented was language. Language is a complex code that requires agreement among individuals that certain sounds and symbols represent specific things in Nature. The difference between growling a warning and saying "back off, pal," between displaying a shrunken head on a spear and posting a "No Trespassing" sign, is vast.

Our definitions of communication and media too often overlook the primitive kinds of communication involving the body (like gesturing or dancing) and the direct, non-coded kinds of communication involving basic materials like wood, stone, or feathers in favor of the more advanced communication involving the code of language. This is perfectly understandable--we live in a mediated world that surrounds us with the spoken and written word; we literally think using language, a technology so ubiquitous that it actually structures our experiences and our minds.

In contemporary developed societies, the most primitive forms and media of communication exist alongside the most complex and advanced. We still grunt and groan, gesture and dance and sculpt. But we often do so via the printing press, broadcast network, or Internet. We grunt and groan, but we also write and recite poetry.

Regardless of how we communicate, an intervening medium transmits, or more and more often, stores then transmits our meaning. In fact, it is more and more common to use a series of intervening media that store and transmit messages. Printing, for example, involves some material objects--usually ink pressed on paper--in the actual process of printing documents. But prior to the printing, data has often been stored in some digital form and transmitted via the Internet. Messages are routinely written down by hand, then transmitted verbally via phone lines, only to be transcribed into digital form and sent via the Internet or an intranet. The stories broadcast on television and radio are handled by various reporters, photographers, videographers, and editors before being assembled into a finished product. The Internet itself involves at least two computers, a series of wires and cables, perhaps a satellite transponder or series of microwave towers, all before the message is beamed by a cathode ray tube onto a screen and then on to the eyes of the receiver, or through a set of speakers to the ears of the receiver, or both.

We're so immersed in technologically sophisticated mass media these days--like broadcasting, which manipulates the electromagnetic spectrum--that it's easy to overlook more primitive media like air, light, wood, clay, even our own hair, which we routinely manipulate to suit some fashion or to signal something about ourselves.

When we isolate media of communication, we can discern that there are three basic types of media. An object can be manipulated to contain a perceptible meaning, or intention--a statue, sign, shrunken head, painting, or cathedral, for example. A substance can be manipulated to contain a perceptible meaning, or intention--the air when we speak, or water when a whale sings (just think of how difficult it was to talk in the pool, underwater, when you were young; your vocal chords and ears evolved to work in the air, not underwater.) And, a force can be manipulated to contain a perceptible meaning, or intention--radio waves and microwaves when we broadcast, or x-rays when we take a picture of the inside of our bodies (radio waves, microwaves, and x-rays are all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.) Interestingly, despite its predominance in the human sensorium, the nature of light has yet to be identified. We don't know if light consists of waves, particles, or is perhaps a force of nature. The relevant fact is that we can meaningfully manipulate light in order to communicate.

In short, anything that can be manipulated in order to influence a sentient being can be thought of as a medium of communication. Conceptualized this way, we begin to see that almost anything that humans can manipulate can be used as a medium of communication, including something as mundane as our own hair or as mysterious as light or as magnificent as the electromagnetic spectrum. So in addition to communicating through physical contact, we humans communicate in various ways by manipulated things in our environment, which we call media of communication.

This brings us back to our definition: Medium of communication (n)--any object, substance, or force that is being willfully manipulated in order to influence a sentient being.

_________________________________________________________

The following paper was presented at the 2008 Georgia Communication Association Convention:

Semiotics, Zoosemiotics, and Biosemiotics: Pinpointing Communication in the Natural World

Preston Coleman, PhD

Assistant Professor of Communication

Gainesville State College

Introduction

Communication studies and biology intersect in some interesting ways, the most obvious of which involves animal communication. From a biological perspective, animal communication consists of discrete, observable behaviors that follow a basic stimulus/response model.  The field of zoosemiotics attempts to situate animal communication not within a strictly behavioralist framework, but a more social and cultural one, suggesting that animals share with humans the ability to create and interpret meaning within relatively complex sign systems (Sebeok, 1963). Zoosemiotics expands the study of communication beyond the human world, beyond anthroposemiotics, to which communication studies is almost entirely limited. Limiting communication to the animal world presupposes that sentience is a fundamental element of communication.

Biosemiotics goes a step further and suggests that signs and sign systems permeate all natural life, perhaps even to the extent that semiotics can be seen as the fundamental organizing pattern of life. Biosemiotics supposes that biology and semiotics fundamentally imply each other and that the study of one cannot proceed without the study of the other (Hoffmeyer, 1997b). (Whether this is a synthesis or a conflation will be addressed later.) To the biosemiotician, evolution is less a process involving chemical reactions and increasingly complex organic structures than one involving semiotic interactions and increasingly complex sign systems; what we perceive as signification among higher order animals replicates similarly semiotic processes right down to the level of the single cell. DNA, for example, is seen not simply as a mechanical process of information transmission akin to the transfer of electrons between atoms, but as a process of signification akin to what we humans experience as communication. Biosemiotics presumes that sentience is not fundamental to communication.

At the fringes of biosemiotics are scholars who believe in phytosemiotics, or signification between plants and between plants and animals. There are even some who believe in physiosemiotics, the notion that signification is the ruling organizational principle “animating” (my term) all matter—a semiotic approach to physics. There have also been attempts to extend the semiotic paradigm to theology (Corrington, 2000), perhaps the most encompassing conceptualization of all, a move that follows closely in the footsteps of Peirce and his notion of a universal semiosis (Short, 1993). These ways of thinking presume that sentience is not fundamental to communication, or that sentience exists outside our ability to apprehend it, as in animism or any notion of a universal mind.

Contemporary communication scholars have tended to avoid rigorous conceptualizations of communication, or to conceive of communication in ways amenable to their work, which nowadays tends to be cultural and political in its orientation. The transmission paradigm, rooted in behaviorism and ultimately biology, was adequate for administrative research, for example, but was challenged by the cultural paradigm at a time when communication scholars sought to reinvigorate critical research. Both administrative and critical research are fundamentally pragmatic in that they seek application in the real world; neither is concerned with theorizing what communication essentially, fundamentally is.

What follows is an attempt to situate communication within the natural world in a way useful to theorizing communication per se. I don’t mean to disparage or discredit communication scholarship that concerns itself with political or cultural matters, nor to question multiple uses of “communication” in other disciplines. Rather, I hope to propose a solid conceptual foundation for the use of “communication” in our discipline and in our conversations with other disciplines interested in communication, including but not limited to biology, ethology, sociology, psychology, phenomenology, and the various permutations of semiotics. The attempt is to a large degree axiomatic and taxonomic; to a lesser degree, it also involves etymology and communication metaphors (see Krittendorf, 1997).

At the very least, I hope to spark some thought and discussion by posing questions focused on theorizing communication per se. The process of proposing and defending the boundaries of communication, of simply imagining what might or might not be communication, has a heuristic value of its own (see Peters, 1999.)

Transmission, Violence, and Thought—what Communication Isn’t

To begin, I’d like to draw three bright lines that I think mark some of the fundamental boundaries of the phenomenon of communication. The first involves the difference between communication and transmission, the second the difference between communication and violence, and the third the difference between communication and thought. The difference between communication and thought will then lead into a more general theory of what communication essentially is.

Communication and Transmission In medicine, communication can refer to any passageway that connects one structure to another; in military science, it can refer to any line of transportation capable of carrying troops, materiel, or messages. Both uses conflate communication with transportation for practical reasons peculiar to the two fields. Communication studies, however, often conflates communication with transmission in a way that I think is logically unwarranted. The mere transmission of information is neither necessary nor sufficient for communication to take place. Transmission should be considered a purely mechanical phenomenon, a kind of transportation that happens to involve information; it can be one element in an act of communication, but is not communication per se.

Consider the vast amount of information transmitted by the DNA molecule. The genetic code is one of, it not the, most exquisite transmissions of information we know of. It is, literally, what makes each of us who we are. But is it communication? Probably not, at least not in the sense we use it in communication studies. DNA merely transfers information; there is no sender or receiver. A strand of DNA is basically a copy of a genetic blueprint chosen randomly when two genetic codes merge into one. Two analogies illustrate the point: the bloodstream carries cells, complete with all their information, throughout the body; but is the flow of blood communication? When you burn your finger on a flame, is your finger communicating with your brain? Or has information simply been transmitted via your central nervous system?

If we conceive of communication as any transfer of information, we also run into the problem of information that is interpreted without a sender and without being in any way coded. When an astronomer peers into the depths of space, he or she is receiving information through a medium (a telescope,) and that information can be interpreted; it has meaning. A geologist can interpret the strata and fossils in the walls of a canyon, but nothing approaching what we call “communication” has occurred.

Transmission can, and often is, a critical element in communicative processes. Papyrus, parchment, and paper all carry, or transmit, coded information, as do wires and radio waves. Many higher orders of communication require a medium to transmit information, but the communication itself occurs in sending and receiving, in encoding and decoding the signals or messages transmitted. (I use “sending” and “receiving” here in a metaphorical way; I’ll critique the sender/receiver model in the following section.) For these kinds of communication, transmission is a necessary, but not sufficient, element. But communication can occur without any transmission, as when we touch—a caress, hug, or kiss is surely communicative.

Biosemiotics draws a distinction between endosemiotics, which involves signification within an organism, and exosemiotics, which involves signification between organisms. No one would argue that signification between humans does not constitute communication, and few that signification between humans and animals does not constitute communication. But to call the mechanical processes that occur within the bodies of animals communication dilutes the concept substantially

Communication and Violence The question of whether violence is communication is an especially difficult one. Clearly, any violent act sends a sort of message to the receiver/victim. But is violence per se communication? There are instances where violence is used with the explicit intention of “sending a message” (again, in a metaphorical sense.) Osama bin Laden sent an unambiguous message to the United States and to the West in general when he launched the attacks on 9/11. We can discern a sender encoding a message, and we as receivers had no difficulty decoding it. The planes and buildings, and most importantly the people unfortunate enough to be in them, could be thought of as media of communication. They were purposefully manipulated in order to achieve an effect on the receivers of bin Laden’s message, but nothing was communicated to those victims (except perhaps for a few who gleaned the “meaning” of what was happening to them.)

If certain acts of violence can be clearly seen as communication, the question becomes, what is the relationship between violence and communication? Is violence a subset of communication? Is communication a subset of violence? Do the two overlap, but not completely?

I think that violence and communication are two distinct phenomena that in some cases overlap. Violence in and of itself, however, is not communication in my view. The act of intentionally damaging a person or animal’s physical body is distinct from the sending of a message. For example, imagine a hostage situation in which authorities have the hostage taker surrounded and are negotiating. At the moment either the hostage taker or the authorities commit a violent act, negotiation has ceased; the violent actor has resorted to violence. Communication has been replaced by another kind of behavior, a distinctly different phenomenon, which in such cases we feel in a visceral way. The ugliest communication doesn’t reach the same level of depravity as a violent act (sticks and stones…)

Some examples of violence that I think are also communication might illustrate what it is about such acts that moves them from mere violence, to communicative violence. When the state executes a criminal (or an innocent opposition leader for that matter,) it is sending a clear and distinct message to other criminals or opposition leaders: do what this person did, and you might incur a harsh penalty. When a public figure is assassinated for political reasons, like Theo van Gogh was, the killers are sending a very similar message. Acts of public humiliation, like putting a scarlet “A” on Hester Prynne’s breast or putting someone in a pillory, do the same.

A distinction between violence and communication becomes more difficult when the violent behavior occurs in private rather than in public. Spanking an unruly child in front of other children carries an implicit threat: this bottom could be your bottom. Spanking a child in private could also be considered communicative in that the act of spanking symbolizes the transgression of some rule. But what about a sadist who tortures a victim for pleasure? What message is being sent? Part of what shocks us so badly concerning such violence, at least when not accompanied by the victim’s masochism, is the fact that the victim has been objectified. The victim is not seen as another person, or another animal, but as a mere object—and it’s impossible to communicate with an object.

Similarly, purely random acts of violence are not intended to send a message to the victim. People who drop rocks off highway overpasses onto traffic receive a thrill, but they have no idea who their victims are. The violence is perpetrated for a thrill, for the solipsistic thrill of the perpetrator, without regard to the mental (interior) effect on the victim.

Communication and Thought Finally, there’s the question of whether thought is a form of communication. Thought is routinely referred to as intrapersonal communication, which raises a critical question: does communication require at least two actors? This is where the etymology of the word might be instructive. According to the Oxford English Dictionary Online, “communication” derives from Latin roots meaning “to make common to many, share, impart, divide.” From the beginning, the word described a process involving more than one, sometimes two and sometimes many. The very essence of communication requires association, commonality, a communing between two or more. Even the sense of the word “to divide” implies what is held by one being altered so it can be shared by two or by many.

If we take inner thought to be communication, we’re fundamentally changing the meaning of the word. Communication is to make thought public, to free it from the confines of inner subjectivity and loose it on another or on the world at large.

In the conceptualization outlined below, both transmission and violence can be thought of as phenomena that are distinct from, but closely related to, communication. Transmission can be an element of communication but is neither necessary nor sufficient for communication to have taken place. Violence can be communication or not, depending on the intentions of the violent actor. Both transmission and violence overlap with communication, but neither phenomenon is essential to communication.

In contrast, I think that at the most fundamental level, thought is essential to communication. Communication is a phenomenon requiring not one but two sentient minds. Thought is necessary, but at least to my mind, not sufficient for communication to take place.

Interiority, Exteriority, and Sentience—the Essence of Communication

Science focuses on what’s observable: behavior. Communication studies is, of course, concerned with observable behavior, but also with what’s not observable: the inner life of the actor, and more importantly, the connections of that inner life with the social, the cultural. Psychology concerns itself primarily with that inner life, and social psychology with its relationship to the outside social world; communication studies concerns itself with the ways the two are connected.

Borrowing a pair of words from Peters (1999), whose history of the idea of communication opens up whole new theoretical vistas, communication centers in many ways on our mental interiority—that subjective, unique, inexorably individual locus of our experience, our consciousness, the mind—and exteriority—the rest of the world, the everything else, which comprises our physical and social environments and includes, critically for communication studies, the interiorities of others. Without an other, there can be no communication, though that other may or may not be proximate to us in space and/or time. Someone stranded alone on a desert island, for example, cannot communicate in any interactive way; he or she might put a message in a bottle, but unless and until that message is found and read—until one person’s interiority connects with another’s--no communication has taken place. Similarly, the reason for shunning someone is to preclude communication, even though others are present; to shun is to exile someone to their own interiority, which is made all the more punitive and frustrating by the proximity of others.

Communication involves the ways that one being’s interiority can engage another being’s interiority. Because as far as we know there is no way for one mind to engage another except through the senses, communication is limited by what we can perceive and by how we ourselves can come to be perceived. This necessarily involves the manipulation of something exterior, either something in the environment, or one’s own exterior, one’s surface. Biological functions are basic to communication, both those involving cognition and sensation. Mind to mind communication has been a fantasy of humans for millennia, but has never been proven to exist; there must be something manifested, something exteriorized, for communication to take place. I can imagine a mind without any senses to perceive anything outside of itself, but that mind would be incapable of communicating.

I’ll use “sentience” here to mean any faculty used to perceive the exterior world; it is that which connects interiority to exteriority. The basic elements of communication in this conceptualization are two sentient minds, or interiorities, and the means for them to engage each other through some mode or means of exteriorization. Transmission is not central to this process; it is, rather, merely transportation utilized in the process of reaching another’s interiority. This conceptualization goes beyond a biologically-based, transmission-of-information model, but falls short of a socio-psychological, communication-as-culture (Carey, 1988) model. The former may be too simple, too physiological, to be fully useful to communication studies; the latter may be too complex, too sociological, to fully connect communication studies to the biological underpinnings in which communication evolved.

Schematically, this conceptualization could be sketched out as I-E-I, where the I’s are sentient minds, and the E is some mode or means of exteriorization. That exteriorization may involve the sending of messages through channels; or, simply the manipulation of the exterior of a creature; or the manipulation of some intervening medium. Neither manipulating one’s surface, nor manipulating some medium, requires a receiver to be present—though communication hasn’t taken place until a mind has been engaged.

At the most basic and essential level, communication is a purposive behavior that changes something in the environment in order to influence the mind of a sentient being. It goes beyond simple manipulations of the environment meant to facilitate survival; it is aimed at reaching another. Simply building a dwelling, for example, is a survival behavior, but any adornment or decoration added to that dwelling is communicative. Simply wearing clothes to ward off the elements is a survival behavior, but any adornment or decoration added to the clothing is communicative.

By focusing on mental interiority and physical exteriority, on sentient mind engaging sentient mind through exteriorization, we can start to pinpoint just what is and what isn’t communication in the natural world, and to answer some of the more vexing axiomatic and taxonomic questions concerning communication. Below are some preliminary implications I’ve drawn based on this I-E-I conceptualization, and some preliminary answers to three especially vexing questions.

Implications and Vexation

First, we humans can be said to participate in five kinds of communication based on our five senses: aural, visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory. Some acts of communication combine two or more of these, of course; the point is that communication comes to us through our senses. (This is not to say that other ways of classifying communication are invalid, of course.) The conceptualization I’m proposing would encompass not only the more obvious kinds of communication we tend to focus on—speech, music, writing, gestures, visual art, and dance, for example—but on others that may not seem at first blush to be communication, like wearing perfume or cologne, or cooking, or caressing. We can also envision other kinds of communication based on the sensory organs of animals such as sharks, which can sense the slightest changes in electrical fields, or snakes, which can sense minute changes in temperature. We humans can perceive and measure such phenomena through instruments that convert them to something perceptible to one of our senses, by using thermography, for example, but we haven’t really evolved ways to communicate through them as of yet. We can even imagine the possibility of other creatures, terrestrial or not, that may possess senses unknown to us and are thereby capable of communicating in ways “invisible” to us.

Second, this conceptualization of communication brings into focus the most basic ways of exteriorizing interior mental states, which go beyond the metaphors commonly used in communication studies, which include the container, conduit, transmission, and ritual metaphors (Krittendorf, 1993). Any manipulation of one’s exterior surface that is intended to be sensed by another’s interiority is an act of communication: tattooing, scarification, cosmetics, hairstyling, fashion, and the like are examples, and, perhaps, the ways animals communicate through coloration. Any positioning of the body or part of the body that is intended to be sensed by another’s interiority is an act of communication: gesturing, posing and postures, turning the back, facial expressions, charging or retreating, nodding the head, and the like are examples, as are the various gestures used in the animal kingdom, from the dances of bees to the ritual mating dance of many birds. Physical contact that falls short of actually damaging another creature is an act of communication: caressing, hugging, kissing, sexual contact, mussing up of hair, and patting on the back are examples, as are the ritual grooming of primates and the communicative sex of bonobos. It should be noted that tactile communication is probably the most intimate form, largely because of its immediacy and inherent reciprocity. It is a sharing of sensations at the level of exterior surface; we can feel another’s feeling us, but can’t smell another’s smelling us, or taste another’s tasting us, or hear another’s hearing us. We can, however, see another’s seeing us, which explains why staring at or gazing into another’s eyes can be so powerful. To twist the cliché, the eyes are the windows to the sentient mind.

Third, we humans can communicate with other animals to the degree to which those animals share our sensory experience. The connection we feel with other mammals is due largely to our evolutionary kinship and the resulting similarity in sensation. Petting a dog and looking into a great ape’s eyes create a much more intimate connection than touching a fish or looking at a spider’s eyes. We cannot, however, communicate with plants, which as far as we know have no capacity for sensation (or if they do, it is so foreign to us that we can’t share our interiority with them or they with us.)

Fourth, we can explain the impossibility of communicating with inanimate objects, including the dead and machines. Computers have no awareness; they are merely machines that transmit, not beings that have a locus of consciousness like we do. Similarly, the many mechanical processes that occur within organisms may resemble communication, for instance, when a code is involved; but these processes in no way involve sentience and are therefore not communication. When the four molecules of DNA connect into a new and unique blueprint of a creature, what looks like a semiotic interaction is really more like the pieces of an exquisitely fine puzzle fitting together—a mechanical process that does not involve signification.

Fifth, we can better understand the inscrutability of the other. Our interiority can never be fully exteriorized; two interiorities can never communicate perfectly; no message is exactly the same within two minds. This is not, however, because of some distortion or damage done to a message, but rather because of the fact that no two creatures share exactly the same experiences. We can’t even know if another person, for example, tastes what we taste or feels what we feel. Paradoxically, communication necessarily involves not just connection, but unbridgeable gaps (Peters, 1999,).

Sixth, we might consider replacing, or at least augmenting, the sender-channel-message-receiver model of communication with an interiority-exteriorization-interiority model. Tactile communication, for example, requires no channel, and many forms of communication—music, dance, cooking—don’t necessarily involve a message. Rather than using the transmission of a written or spoken (that is, coded) message as our basic model, we might use something more primitive, more rudimentary, like body art or signage. In fact, while our sender-channel-message-receiver model works well for most interpersonal communication, the interiority-exteriorization-interiority model works better for mass communication, which may well be the more rudimentary mode; the markings on an animal’s skin that warn of danger, for example, aren’t aimed at a specific receiver at a specific time, but rather at any potential receiver at any time—like architecture, a broadcast, or a billboard. The whole idea of transmission is, to me, somewhat off base. More often, communication is a display, something relatively static, which isn’t aimed at a particular receiver, but rather at a generalized other which may or may not ever apprehend that display.

Seventh, we could begin looking for communication in the natural world in a new way, focusing less on codes and meaning than on something simpler: exteriorization. For example, the release of pheromones is considered in biology to be one of, and probably the, most basic kind of communication. (It is often labeled “chemical” communication.) Pheromones and hormones are quite literally emitted from an organism into its environment; which is to say, exteriorized. Internal mental and physiological states can be exteriorized, as when humans blush, or when fireflies use luminescence to attract a mate, or female baboons signal estrous with perineal swelling.

That leads to the first of many vexing questions any conceptualization of “communication” faces:

Does communication, by definition, have to be intentional? I’d say, no, but it must have a distinct purpose involving a separate organism, an other. When one organism releases chemicals intended in an evolutionary sense to affect another organism, communication has taken place, even though the “sending” organism didn’t do it “intentionally.” This may be semantic hairsplitting, but I’d say communication has to be purposive, but not necessarily intentional. When humans blush, they exhibit an involuntary response, but one that more than likely has a purpose chosen by evolution rather than by the blusher. A simple reflex is not communication; a purposive reflex that signals an internal state probably is. It is crucial to note that it is purpose that connects our complex and sophisticated forms of human communication with the simplest, most basic forms seen in nature; as long as evolution has seen fit to reward a behavior by passing down the genes responsible for that behavior, it can be said to have a purpose. Also, this point brings into focus a very fundamental taxonomic distinction between voluntary communication and involuntary communication (one that parallels voluntary and involuntary muscles and reactions.)

Can an organism communicate with itself? I’d say, yes, but only when the organism exteriorizes some state or desire, and then retrieves it back into its interiority. Thought is not communication under this conceptualization; but talking to oneself, or writing oneself a note or email, or reminding oneself with a string around the finger, can be considered communication, though not intrapersonal communication, which is, at least in this formulation, oxymoronic.

Are sex and violence—two inherently tactile behaviors—communication? I’d answer that by saying that most behaviors can be, but are not necessarily, communication. Purely utilitarian behaviors are not communication; only when they involve exteriorization and their intent is to have some effect on another are they communication. For example, if someone kills a chicken for dinner, that violence isn’t communication. But if a group of people engage in a cockfight, or if a chicken is sacrificed ritually, that same act of violence is communication. Similarly, with apologies for being morbid, a sex act committed solely for the pleasure of one—as when someone has sex with a dead body or an unconscious person—that sex isn’t communication. (It is violence as well as sex, and it objectifies the victim, but no communication has occured.) When creatures have consensual sex, that is communication of the most intimate type; it is two exteriors, two surfaces, literally coming into contact for the mutual pleasure of both. Touching another person to get their attention, or to encourage them, or to congratulate them, is clearly tactile communication; once the other is damaged, is penetrated, the contact becomes violence, and is only communication if there’s an intent to influence another interiority besides the victim, as in terrorism and executions.

Conclusion

Biosemiotics, and especially endosemiotics, seems to me to be a conflation of essentially mechanical biochemical processes on the one hand, and signification on the other. The release or exteriorization of pheromones by animals, the use of coloration, and purposive physical contact are, I believe, the most basic forms of communication—one mind has influenced another purposively by exteriorizing a chemical, by surface appearance, or through tactility. Chemicals released within animals do not constitute communication. At best, biosemiotics may have some heuristic value by imposing a semiotic metaphor or paradigm on certain biological functions, but I see no logic behind totalizing that imposition.

Phytosemiotics seems to me to be a kind of anthropomorphism, or more precisely, zoomorphism. Plants sometimes travel, but that travel is merely the effect of an outside force; there is no sentience or volition involved when a tumbleweed tumbles. Plants sometimes consume and digest insects, but the action by which a venus flytrap traps a fly is a simple mechanical response to a stimulus, again without any sentience or volition involved. Plants also send chemical signals to each other, as when plants that spread through root systems underground; but this is mere transmission, not communication.

As for physiosemiotics, I think there’s more than a little Romanticism involved. I do hold out the possibility that mind may exist independently of matter, that some kind of sentience may dwell even in empty space or in what appears to be inanimate matter. When humans pray, they presume some supernatural entity exists, something or someone transcending matter and energy. But to infuse all of matter and energy with the capacity for signification is at best a leap of faith.

Zoosemiotics seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable escape from anthropocentrism. If we take sentience to be fundamental to communication, then it follows that kinds of cognition and sensation more primitive than ours can nonetheless facilitate communicative behaviors. I also believe that communication between humans and animals not only exists, but can be just as intimate as that between animals or between humans. This is especially true of the human-dog relationship, which may well have longstanding evolutionary underpinnings. Communication studies tends to focus solely on anthroposemiotics, with occasional forays into zoosemiotics; less work has been done on anthropozoosemiotics, or communication between humans and animals, despite the fact that few of us would deny having had meaningful communications with our pets.

Finally, I think it would be useful to seek out a synthesis of, or perhaps a transcendence of, both the transmission model of communication and the cultural model. Transmission seems too simple and mechanical a conceptualization, and culture too complex and anthropocentric a conceptualization, to allow us to theorize at the intersection of communication studies and biology.

References

Bateson, G. (1969). “Metalogue: What is an instinct?”  In Approaches to Animal Communication, ed. T. Sebeok and A. Ramsay. 11-30. The Hague: Mouton.

Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

Carey, J. (1988). Communication As Culture: Essays on Media and Society. London: Unwin Hyman.

Corrington, R. (2000). A Semiotic Theory of Theology and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Darwin, C. (1872). The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. London: Murray.

Dennett, D. (1996). Kinds of minds. New York: Harpercollins.

Hoffmeyer, J. (1997a). Signs of Meaning in the Universe. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Univ

Hoffmeyer, J. (1997b). “Biosemiotics: Towards a new synthesis in biology?” European Journal for Semiotic Studies 9(2), 355-376.

Krittendorf, K. (1993).“Major metaphors of communication and some constructivist reflections on their use.” In Cybernetics and Human Knowing 2(1), 3-25.

Oxford English Dictionary…

Peters, J. (1999). Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sebeok, T. (1963). "Communication in animals and men." Language 39: 448-466.

Sebeok, T. (1968). Animal Communication. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Sebeok, T.  (1979). The Sign & Its Masters. University of Texas Press.

Short, T. (2007) Peirce’s Theory of Signs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.