596 Learning and Communication of the situation. Little research has focused on how leaders create a sense of deep connection with the unique qualities of the situation chat they have had a role in creating. It becomes important to articulate the practices that leaders need to develop to make sense of and act into the unfolding moment. Scaling: Although leadership is a local phenome- non grounded in interaction, leadership also exists as a set of social and cultural discourses. Future studies need to explore the way that Discourses and discourse are connected and mutually influ- ence each other. Practice: A constitutive approach emphasizes the importance of articulating the construction of lead- ership, or what it is leaders and followers do together. Articulating the practices of leadership requires turning to a number of methodologies such as conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and nar- rative analysis that permit detailed examination of the unfolding practices that constitute leadership. J. Kevin Barge See also Discourse Theory and Analysis; Group ‘Communication Theories; Organizational Communication Theories Further Readings Antonaki, J. Ciancioto, A. T., 8c Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.). (2004). The nature of leadership. London: Sage. Barge, J. K., & Fairhurst, G. T. (2008). Living leadership: A systemic constructionist approach, Leadership, 4, 227-251. Grint, K. (2000). The arts of leadership. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Fairhurst, G. T. (2001). Dualisms in leadership research. In F. M, Jablin & LL Pamnam (Eds), The new handbook of organizational commuaication (pp. 379-439) ‘Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Fairhurst, G. T. (2007). Discursive leadership: In conversation with leadership psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. LEARNING AND COMMUNICATION It is a truism that learning cannot occur without communication. However, communication theorists have not been prominent in formulating theories of learning. Nevertheless, any theory of learning con- tains an implicit theory of communication, and ‘many communication theories are relevant to learn- ing. In this entry, the intersection of theories of learning and communication will be explored. Readers interested in more detailed explanations of theories of learning should turn to sources from psy- chology, education, and allied fields. Classical Approaches to Learning In ancient Greece, a method of teaching and learn- ing was formalized, which is now known as the Socratic method. Named after Socrates, this method was transmitted to us in the dialogues of Plato. Focused mainly on a dialectical approach to communication, the teacher would pose questions to the student to determine whether the student agreed with a given proposition, The teacher would then use a series of such questions and answers to guide the student toward an answer that might not have been initially foreseen. In one of the Platonic dialogues most relevant to commu- nication theory (the Gorgias), Plato questioned the Sophists (rhetoricians of ancient Greece) on their ability to teach speech without any knowledge of the subject matter being taught. In the dialogue, they are forced to agree with a series of proposi- tions that shows that they cannot in fact do what they claim to be able to. Thus, the pattern of com- munication involved in this form of learning is dialogic (there is a two-way interchange between teacher and student), but the teacher controls the questions. Socratic method is still used in educa- tion today; for instance, it is often used in law school. The approach is dialectical in that it uses arguments and counterarguments. However, other Greek schools incozporated dif- ferent theories of communication in their educa- tional approaches. The Sophists were more relativist, seeing humans as the measure of all things in opposition to Plato’s point of view that dialectic could be used to uncover the underlying structure of reality. Although Plato was opposed to rhetoric, Aristotle thoughe that different forms of persuasion were useful. His division of rhetoric into three argument-types (logos, i.e., reasons pathos, i.e., emotion; and ethos, i.e., character) reflected recognition that humans do communicatein different ways and that education, learning, and persuasion could not be reduced to a single pre- ferred method. Universities were established in Europe begin- ning in the 11th century and flourished from the later Middle Ages onward. Instruction was given grammar, logic, and rhetoric, reflecting the importance of various types of communication that were transmitted from Classical times. Most often the curriculum was based on classical texts, usually interpreted through the lens of the theo!- ogy of the Roman Catholic Church. Learning in this environment was based on the book. Indeed, especially from the invention of the printing press onward, the importance of the book and the text in learning grew enormously. Thus, even today, an implicit theory of communication in almost all forms of modern learning is that the important information is contained within a book, usually written by an authoritative source, The job of the teacher is to provide commentary on the book and to guide the student in his or her understanding of it. The job of the student is to demonstrate mas- tery. At education’s highest level, the job of the student is to demonstrate the ability to produce knowledge through the writing of a dissertation or thesis, The enshrinement of the book as the pri- ‘mary means of storing and transmitting led to the development of a canon, which is the body of tex- tual knowledge that a student would be expected to master in a particular discipline. This had the effect of reifying certain types of knowledge. But book production also led to the development of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, which in turn led to the production of new forms of knowledge that would eventually challenge the church as the establishment for education. Thus, the book—as a communication technology— proved to be a two-edged sword, at first in estab- lishing a curriculum that was slow to change, but then in facilitating an enormous expansion of knowledge that could overturn previously held theories and dogma. Modern Theories of Learning With the development of modern psychology, social scientists began to advance formal theories of learning. The first influential theory was known as behaviorism. B. ". Skinner and others Learning and Communication 597 propounded a theory that stated that people learned in response to stimuli. In behaviorism, all human behavior can be considered as responses to external stimuli, When a person is exposed to an external stimulus, such as reward or punishment, the person becomes conditioned to behave in ways that will maximize reward and minimize punish- ment. Another method of learning occurs when stimuli are present in close proximity to events that are desired or feared (operant conditioning). In this theory, itis not necessary to know the internal mental states of individuals to explain or predict their behavior. Thus, communication functions mainly as a means of transmitting stimuli. In this respect, behaviorism is similar to trans- mission theories of communication, which mainly focused on the successful transmission of a mes- sage from sender to receiver. Early models of com- munication, such as the information model of Claude Shannon and Harold Lasswell’s model of media effects were similar to stimulus-response models in that they focused mainly on the one-way transmission of messages from sender to receiver. ‘The models were designed to measure communica~ tion success as the fidelity with which the message was reccived. In the case of media effects, success was measured as a change in attitude or behavior. Skinner's behaviorism was soon criticized, and eventually a cognitive school of learning emerged. In this theory, the individual mental state was seen as an important factor in explaining how people would react to stimuli. This model allowed for more active processing and storing of information, with individual cognitions seen as important fac. tors in how people would respond to new informa- tion, make sense of it, and process it for future use. ‘Thus, more activity was assigned to the individual in this model. Moving beyond behaviorism, cogni- tive approaches have become extremely important in psychology. As we will see below, many theories of persuasion (and learning) have relied on a vari- ety of cognitive-based models to explain how information is processed, retained, and used in persuasion and learning situations. A third alternative theory of learning is known as constructivism. In this approach, individuals are seen as actively constructing knowledge in an inter- active process between teacher and learner. In this theory, the learner is much more active than in behaviorism (the individual just responds) and598 Learning and Communication cognitivism (the individual cognitively processes, stores, and reacts). In constructivism, the commu- nication process inherent in learning is given pri- macy. Thus, the learner is no longer a simple repository for information from an expert; rather, communication is the fundamental process through which learning is created. Learning may occur both for teacher and student. This theory recognizes the primacy of communication as the process through which learning occurs. The approach allows for consideration of different modes of communication as appropriate to different styles of learning, Whereas behaviorism reduces communication to simple stimulus-response and cognitivism sees communication as the transfer of mental contents between individuals, constructivism argues that no reality can emerge without a communication pro- cess; the process is fundamental to what is learned. Thus, in behaviorism, the only content that is transferred in communication is the reward or pun- ishment; conditioning is all that matters. In cogni- tivism, the range of content is greatly expanded; individuals are seen as having complex abilities to store, process, and use information. However, communication is seen primarily as the process of transferring mental content between individuals. In constructivism, the content is inseparable from communication; reality is constructed through ‘communication. Constructivist theories of learning thus bear a great resemblance to sociological notions such as the social construction of reality. Theories of Persuasion, ‘Attitude Change, and Learning Persuasion is not the same thing as learning, but communication theories of persuasion and attitude change are undoubtedly relevant to learning. Persuasion is normally characterized by the desire to get a respondent to reach a particular conclu- sion; education is less characterized by the sender's vested interest. Nevertheless, the two forms of communication share many similarities; theories of persuasion and attitude change can shed much ight on learning. ‘An attitude is a learned predisposition to react to objects favorably or negatively. Attitude is seen as having both a rational (cognitive) and emotional component. Normally, attitude change has been seen as the precursor to behavioral change. Thus, theories of persuasion and attitude change have been very important to educators who seek to pro- mote behavioral change. Early studies sought to comprehend the process by which attitudes could he affected using variable-analytic methods to iso- late the different factors that would affect a mes~ sage’s acceptance. Carl Hovland studied persuasive messages and identified four factors influencing message acceptance: attention, comprehension, anticipation, and evaluation. Additionally, research within this school sought to identify factors that would make people more or less persuasible. Finally, and most directly related to communi- cation, this approach focused on a variety of communication-related variables: source, message, medium, and receiver. This model had many of the characteristics of the linear transmission models mentioned above, but it did not assume simple stimulus-response, as in behaviorism. Infact, results from this research are seen as part of the limited effects paradigm, especially when applied to mass media messages. The results from this research did not reveal a single, unified theory of persuasion; at best, results tended toward the middle range of explanation, with different factors explaining persuasion and learning to differing degrees under differing conditions. ‘Another approach to attitude change, known as social learning theory (also social cognitive theory), argued that individuals learn by observing. People are seen as goal driven, and they observe others to determine what actions would be of benefit to them, Albert Bandura thought that people gather information about the environment and behavior to serve as guides for action—and observation could occurin a variety of contexts. Most famously, he conducted experiments to show that individuals could learn vicariously through observational learnings his work was one of the early touchstones of work on television violence. Bandura’s concept of communication and learning moved beyond simple stimulus-response models; although model- ing of reward and punishment were important, individuals were seen as active gatherers of infor- mation, gathering feedback about their actions 0 restructure their goals and actions in order to maximize reward and benefit. Moving into more modern theories, cognitive psychology and persuasion theory have yielded more complex versions of how individuals receive600 Legal Communication Theories informed by Marxist theories, and this school came to be known as critical pedagogy. Although it may not be widely practiced, it is the most radical in terms of insisting on absolutely equal opportunities between communicating and leaning partners. Another critical scholar, Pierre Bourdieu, thought that education was one of a number of means used by privileged classes to acquire social and cultural capital. These forms of capital, along with traditional economic capital, combine to pre- serve class differences. All in all, learning and education, as practiced, have been based on a variety of theories. Within these theories are usually imbued an implicit the- ory of communication. Howard Gardner has recently argued that there are multiple intelli- gences, as opposed to a single, unitary intelligence that might be measured by an IQ test. Forms of intelligence can range from linguistic to mathemat- ical (those traditionally measured in a standard curriculum) to spatial, musical, and other less tra- ditionally measured forms of intelligence. Needless to say, such an expansive view of intelligence also opens up the possibility for considering how differ- ent forms of communication—involving all of the senses in different permutations and combina- tion—might be used to facilitate learning. Although education as practiced still relies heavily on the book and print, new media developments certainly augur new possibilities for education, learning, and communication. The theoretical vistas opened up by these new technologies are only just begin- ning to be seen. James Shanahan See also Awitude Theory; Classical Rhecorical Theorys Cognitive Theories; Constructivism; Critical Communication Pedagogy; Elaboration Likelihood ‘Theory; Henristic-Systematic Models Marxist Theory; Persuasion and Social Influence Theories; Reasoned ‘Action Theory; Rhetorical Theory; Symbolic Interactionism Further Readings Aizen, 1. & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Aristotle. (1954). Rhetoric (W. Rhys Roberts, Trans.) ‘New York: The Modern Library. Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Dewey, J. (1925). Experience and nature. LaSalle, 1. Open Court. Freire, P. (1971). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New Yorks Herder & Herder. Hovland, C. 1, Janis, L. L., & Kelley, H. H. (1963). Communication and persuasion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Mead, G. H. (1991). Mind, self and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: University ‘of Chicago Press. Petty, R., & Cacioppo, J. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In L. Berkowite (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 19, pp. 123-205). New York: Academic. Plato, (1987). Gorgias (D. J. Zeyl, Ed.) Indianapolis, IN Hackett. LecaL COMMUNICATION THEORIES Legal communication is a context-driven body of theory that explains how legal practitioners use communication to achieve goals in legal forums. These theories both inform and are informed by legal and communication practices. As such, theo- rizing is pragmatic because it emphasizes conse~ quences resulting from the publie’s participation in and understanding of legal practices and out- comes. This body of theory has strong roots in the traditions of forensic genres, practical persuasion, language, discourse, and narrative. Forensic Genres Greek and Roman treatises categorized the foren- sic genre as the kind of speaking appropriate for public legal proceedings. As part of adversarial trial proceedings, prosecutors supported the legal interests of the state, and defense advocates represented the accused by presenting evidence and calling witnesses. The forensic genre concen- trated on how advocates successfully resolved legal issues in civil and criminal disputes. Specifically, legal advocates needed to convince large groups of citizen-jurors to make judgments about issues in favor of one rather than another side of a case. The content of forensic speaking centered on reasoning from facts and testimonial