message design logics

On page 149 of the text Cheney et al. briefly mention Barbara O'Keefe's work in message design logics. O’Keefe argues that individuals differ in their basic beliefs about the function of communication, or message design logics. These individual differences are reflected in the ways communicators construct and interpret messages. For expressives, the purpose of communication is to express one's thoughts and feelings. Conventionals view communication as a game with participants following shared conversational rules. Finally, rhetoricals see the self and situations as socially constructed and negotiated in talk. For rhetoricals, communication is no longer what one does within a context (conventional), but rather, communication is the means through which interactants create socially shared contexts and negotiate definitions of self and other.

Message design logic follows a general developmental progression (O'Keefe & Lambert, 1995). The three logics are hierarchically ordered, with the expressive design logic the first individuals acquire, conventional the second, and rhetorical the third. Some individuals do not develop a message design logic past expressive; others acquire the conventional system, but do not progress to the rhetorical system; and others progress through the expressive and conventional logics and acquire the rhetorical view. However, when the next system is acquired, the previous one is not discarded but is subsumed within the more advanced level. As message producers move up the hierarchy from expressive to conventional to rhetorical, they have more options in how and to what ends they use language. Therefore, they are better able to identify interpersonal goals (theirs and others') and adapt their messages to achieve those goals.

In a lecture O'Keefe presented at the U of Kentucky when I was a graduate student, she argued that the logics generally were evident only in problematic situations. That is, under most circumstances, we all appear to be conventionals, following the rules of conversation. Particularly when conversational goals are simple, clear, and straight-forward, message design logics are not readily apparent. However, when we are trying to handle multiple, often competing goals, then how we think communication functions influences our ability to achieve those goals. In such situations, expressives will generally say whatever they're thinking, conventionals will be concerned with following the rules, and rhetoricals will try to find a way to negotiate the rules and definitions of self to manage the multiple, competing goals.

~ Professor Cyborg