Strona:Dwa aspekty komunikacji.pdf/278

 In the first part, entitled the Culturalist approach to communication, I demonstrate what initial assumptions are required for communication analyses on the grounds of communication philosophy. Therefore, I characterize the ideational understanding of culture, which I accepted, and the utilitarian description of the media. I also demonstrate how the collective representations on communication may be understood. Moreover, I accept the assumption about the reflexive historicising of communication, which allows me to go beyond the transmission metaphor in communication studies. In subsequent chapters of the first part, I present the definition of communication action and communication practices I believe that communication is an action, therefore, it is rational and thus requires and is subject to interpretation. At least two entities which use characters participate in it (or more accurately: two communicators’ functions are carried out). The main (but not the only one) function of communication is to allow and maintain the functioning of these entities in culture. The remaining chapters are used to present an outline of the historicised approach to communication, i.e., to demonstrate that communication does have a historical dimension.
 The analyses presented in the first part concern mainly the subject matter, that is, “what” is examined in the context of historical communicology. Therefore, in the second part entitled Historical Communicology, I describe the emergence of research in the field of history of communication in the modern study of communication. The key issue in this part is the separation of the two periods of historical communicology: the implicit and the explicit one. Thus, I demonstrate that in the study of the past communication phenomena, we must face the problem of presentism, i.e., evaluating the past with the tools of contemporary theories. In the last chapter, I define two spheres of the historical communicology subject matter: (1) the media aspect, and (2) the collective representations aspect of the communication phenomena.
 The last part, Collective representations and the Media, is devoted to characterising the two aspects of communication. In this section, I present the comprehensive understanding of the concept of meta-communication and analyse the basic historical metaphorical conceptualizations: the transmission metaphor and the food metaphor. Subsequently, I demonstrate that the historical philosophical treatises may be used in the analysis of the collective representations aspect of communication phenomena. By referring to John Locke’s works, I demonstrate how his “legacy” can be found in modern communication theories. The last chapter of the book consists of a collection of philosophical conditions for research within the framework of communication history. At this point – on the basis of the justification previously developed – I present the seven assumptions:

277