Family Communication
- LAST REVIEWED: 26 February 2013
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0104
- LAST REVIEWED: 26 February 2013
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0104
Introduction
Communication scholars joined the interdisciplinary conversation on family in the 1980s, springing from the breadth of research on interpersonal and small group communication. Family communication scholars focus on the messages and discourses by which members define, develop, and enact families and on the specific communication processes by which family is performed across different family types and contexts. Although scholars across disciplines may study communication variables relevant to family processes, most are examining communication from a message transmission model with communication as an antecedent variable. Family communication scholars view communication as the primary, constitutive social process by which family relationships are formed and enacted. Central to family communication, scholarship is the recognition that families are discourse dependent, meaning that all families form and negotiate expectations and identities through interaction. From this perspective, all families are discourse dependent. However, families that depart from cultural norms, for example, stepfamilies; gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) families; or multiethnic families, are even more dependent on discourse to define themselves as a family and to legitimate their family form to those outside the family. At its core, family communication scholarship enlightens the discourses and processes by which families talk themselves into being, that is, how families are maintained, changed, and challenged through interaction. Some of the theories used to guide the research are imported from the broader study of interpersonal communication, some from allied disciplines, and some developed within family communication. Although a preponderance of the research has come from the postpositivist paradigm, family communication has been home to interpretive scholarship and, of late, to critical scholars as well.
Core Texts
In this first section, we review core volumes that represent overviews of family communication research and theorizing, followed by volumes that explore relational types and volumes that explore family processes and contexts. First, four edited volumes take broad lenses to the terrain, the earliest being Fitzpatrick and Vangelisti 1995, an introduction to family interactions across the life span. Vangelisti 2012 follows with a comprehensive thirty-chapter volume of the breadth of scholarship across disciplines. Turner and West 2006 presents conceptual and application essays on the breadth of family communication. Braithwaite and Baxter 2006 focuses exclusively on theories used in the late 20th and early 21st century, or ones with the potential to guide family scholars, framed by the authors’ analysis of research from 1990 to 2003. Finally, the edited volume Floyd and Morman 2006 focuses on understudied family relationships.
Braithwaite, Dawn, and Leslie Baxter, eds. 2006. Engaging theories in family communication: Multiple perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
The authors present twenty theories based on communication and allied social sciences guiding family communication study and practice from 1990. Having developed or used these theories in their research, the authors discuss the features, applications, strengths, and limitations. The editors describe metatheoretical roots of the theories most widely employed.
Fitzpatrick, Mary Anne, and Anita Vangelisti, eds. 1995. Explaining family interactions. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
The editors assemble thirteen social scientific pieces, addressing family changes within three sections—development of family communication patterns, family relationships in process, and extending family boundaries. Their focus on communication in whole-family interactions ranging from infancy through aging, emerging family forms, and family culture, breaks new ground.
Floyd, Kory, and Mark Morman, eds. 2006. Widening the family circle: New research on family communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
The editors argue for a focus on communication in understudied family relationships and present reviews and critical analyses on challenges faced in ten relational types, for example, aunts, siblings-in-law, and adoptive families. The editors arrange chapters by family type and communication scholars present findings relevant to students, researchers, and practitioners working with understudied families.
Turner, Lynn, and Richard West, eds. 2006. The family communication sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
The editors have assembled a comprehensive set of chapters covering the definitions of family, family communication theories, and family dynamics (including storytelling, conflict, and rituals), as well as the relationship of the family to external structures such as work, religion, and media. Paired chapters address theory and practical applications.
Vangelisti, Anita, ed. 2012. Handbook of family communication. 2d ed. New York, NY: Routledge.
In this comprehensive thirty-chapter, 604-page handbook, the editor brings together an interdisciplinary array of authors who address a wide variety of topics central to family communication and relationships. The authors address theories, research methods, and findings that represent the best thinking on family communication at the time of its publication.
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Article
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- Advertising
- Advertising, Children and
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- Advocacy Journalism
- Agenda Setting
- Annenberg, Walter H.
- Apologies and Accounts
- Applied Communication Research Methods
- Argumentation
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advertising
- Attitude-Behavior Consistency
- Audience Fragmentation
- Audience Studies
- Authoritarian Societies, Journalism in
- Bakhtin, Mikhail
- Bandwagon Effect
- Baudrillard, Jean
- Blockchain and Communication
- Blogs
- Bourdieu, Pierre
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- Broadcasting, Public Service
- Capture, Media
- Castells, Manuel
- Celebrity and Public Persona
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- Civic Duty
- Civil Rights Movement and the Media, The
- CNN
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- Codes and Cultural Discourse Analysis
- Cognitive Dissonance
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- Comedic News
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- Communication Management
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- Community Journalism
- Community Structure Approach
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- Content Analysis
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- Crisis Communication
- Critical and Cultural Studies
- Critical Race Theory and Communication
- Cross-tools and Cross-media Effects
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- Cultural and Creative Industries
- Cultural Imperialism Theories
- Cultural Mapping
- Cultural Persuadables
- Cultural Pluralism and Communication
- Cyberpolitics
- 3D Media
- Death, Dying, and Communication
- Debates, Televised
- Deliberation
- Developmental Communication
- Diffusion of Innovations
- Digital Divide
- Digital Gender Diversity
- Digital Intimacies
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- Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM)
- Embedded Coverage
- Entertainment
- Entertainment-Education
- Environmental Communication
- Ethnic Media
- Ethnography of Communication
- Experiments
- Families, Multicultural
- Family Communication
- Federal Communications Commission
- Feminist and Queer Game Studies
- Feminist Data Studies
- Feminist Journalism
- Feminist Theory
- Focus Groups
- Food Studies and Communication
- Freedom of the Press
- Friendships, Intercultural
- Gatekeeping
- Gender and the Media
- Global Englishes
- Global Media, History of
- Global Media Organizations
- Glocalization
- Goffman, Erving
- Habermas, Jürgen
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- Health Communication
- Hegemony
- Hermeneutic Communication Studies
- Heuristics
- Homelessness and Communication
- Hook-Up and Dating Apps
- Hostile Media Effect
- Identification with Media Characters
- Identity, Cultural
- Image Repair Theory
- Implicit Measurement
- Impression Management
- Indexing
- Infographics
- Information and Communication Technology for Development
- Information Management
- Information Overload
- Information Processing
- Infotainment
- Innis, Harold
- Instructional Communication
- Integrated Marketing Communications
- Interactivity
- Intercultural Capital
- Intercultural Communication
- Intercultural Communication, Tourism and
- Intercultural Communication, Worldview in
- Intercultural Competence
- Intercultural Conflict Mediation
- Intercultural Dialogue
- Intercultural New Media
- Intergenerational Communication
- Intergroup Communication
- International Communications
- Interpersonal Communication
- Interpersonal LGBTQ Communication
- Interpretation/Reception
- Interpretive Communities
- Journalism
- Journalism, Accuracy in
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- Journalism and Trauma
- Journalism, Citizen
- Journalism, Citizen, History of
- Journalism Ethics
- Journalism, Interpretive
- Journalism, Peace
- Journalism, Tabloid
- Journalists, Violence against
- Knowledge Gap
- Language Ecology
- Lazarsfeld, Paul
- Leadership and Communication
- LGBTQ+ Family Communication
- LGBTQ+ People and Media Industries
- Mass Communication
- McLuhan, Marshall
- Media Activism
- Media Aesthetics
- Media and Time
- Media Bias
- Media Convergence
- Media Credibility
- Media Dependency
- Media Ecology
- Media Economics
- Media Economics, Theories of
- Media, Educational
- Media Effects
- Media Ethics
- Media Events
- Media Exposure Measurement
- Media, Gays and Lesbians in the
- Media Literacy
- Media Logic and Mediatization
- Media Management
- Media Policy and Governance
- Media Regulation
- Media, Social
- Media Sociology
- Media Streaming
- Media Systems Theory
- Merton, Robert K.
- Message Characteristics and Persuasion
- Misinformation and Political Communication
- Mobile Communication Studies
- Muckraking
- Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Approaches to
- Multinational Organizations, Communication and Culture in
- Murdoch, Rupert
- Narrative
- Narrative Engagement
- Narrative Persuasion
- Net Neutrality
- News, Fake
- News Framing
- News Media Coverage of Women
- NGOs, Communication and
- Online Campaigning
- Open Access
- Organizational Change and Organizational Change Communicat...
- Organizational Communication
- Organizational Communication, Aging and
- Parasocial Theory in Communication
- Participation, Civic/Political
- Participatory Action Research
- Patient-Provider Communication
- Peacebuilding and Communication
- Perceived Realism
- Personalized Communication
- Persuasion and Social Influence
- Persuasion, Resisting
- Photojournalism
- Political Advertising
- Political Communication, Normative Analysis of
- Political Economy
- Political Knowledge
- Political Marketing
- Political Scandals
- Political Socialization
- Polls, Opinion
- Priming
- Privacy
- Product Placement
- Propaganda
- Proxemics
- Public Interest Communication
- Public Opinion
- Public Relations
- Public Sphere
- Queer Intercultural Communication
- Queer Migration and Digital Media
- Race and Communication
- Racism and Communication
- Radio Studies
- Reality Television
- Reasoned Action Frameworks
- Religion and the Media
- Reporting, Investigative
- Rhetoric and Communication
- Rhetoric and Intercultural Communication
- Rhetoric and Social Movements
- Rhetoric, Religious
- Rhetoric, Visual
- Risk Communication
- Rumor and Communication
- Schramm, Wilbur
- Science Communication
- Scripps, E. W.
- Selective Exposure
- Semiotics
- Sense-Making/Sensemaking
- Sesame Street
- Sex in the Media
- Small-Group Communication
- Social Capital
- Social Change
- Social Cognition
- Social Construction
- Social Identity Theory and Communication
- Social Interaction
- Social Movements
- Social Network Analysis
- Social Protest
- Sports Communication
- Stereotypes
- Strategic Communication
- Superdiversity
- Surveillance and Communication
- Symbolic Interactionism in Communication
- Synchrony in Intercultural Communication
- Tabloidization
- Telecommunications History/Policy
- Television
- Television, Cable
- Textual Analysis and Communication
- Third Culture Kids
- Third-Person Effect
- Time Warner
- Transgender Media Studies
- Transmedia Storytelling
- Two-Step Flow
- UNESCO
- United Nations and Communication
- Urban Communication
- Uses and Gratifications
- Video
- Video Deficit
- Video Games and Communication
- Violence in the Media
- Virtual Reality and Communication
- Visual Communication
- Web 2.0
- Web3 and Communication
- Web Archiving
- Webcare
- Whistleblowing
- Whiteness Theory in Intercultural Communication
- WikiLeaks
- Youth and Media
- Zines and Communication