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European and American Communication Theories

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Abstract

Communication theory in Europe and the Americas is mostly concerned with the influence of the media on society, the production of messages, and the so-called culture industry. These theories are influenced by what can be summarized as a Western worldview. European and North American tradition distinguishes two main schools of communication studies: communication as a transfer of messages or as an exchange of meaning. Communication research schools are the empirical and normative or critical schools. In our new electronic world, communication can also be viewed as a network. Communication theories and models reflect the cultural values of the scholars who developed them. Latin American communication scholars have followed the Eurocentric approach to communication theory although in the various hybrid Latin American cultures, specific communication styles and forms of mediated communication can be recognized that can be traced back to the worldviews of the original populations and those of African origin.

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    Marieke de Mooij

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de Mooij, M. (2014). European and American Communication Theories. In: Human and Mediated Communication around the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01249-0_3

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