Asian Communication Theory

Definition

The three words constituting Asian communication theory need clarification because each word contains multiple meanings. Although geographically Asia includes the Middle East, Central Asia, and eastern Russia, Asian theory focuses primarily on the great philosophies of India and China and the cultures of the region between them. Asian communication theory adds to the different meanings of communication, and it conflicts with the positivist view of theory, which is an artifact of Western science. Asian theory emphasizes systems, groups, networks, and the macro approach and is therefore more akin to philosophy, which cannot be easily tested in the Western scientific manner.

These different approaches to communication and theory result in an Asian worldview that differs from the West's in its premises about self, nature, space and time, knowledge, and the trans-personal. Johan Galtung summarizes these differences as follows:

• The West emphasizes individualism; the East emphasizes the reciprocal responsibility between individual and society.
• The West emphasizes control of nature; the East emphasizes harmony with nature.
• The West looks at a world divided into center (West), periphery (West's allies), and outer periphery (all the rest); the East looks at the world and universe as a single unit (an interconnected and interdependent whole).
• The West sees bounded time; the East sees infinite time.
• The West sees knowledge in terms of atomism and deductivism (and uses these fragments to engender contradiction-free theoretical frameworks following Newtonian science); the East sees knowledge in terms akin to systems theory such that axiology (values), epistemology (knowledge), and ontology (metaphysics) all become essential parts of theorizing.
• The West subordinates humans to a supreme being; the East places faith in following the path of righteousness—dharma in Buddhism and Hinduism, yi in Confucianism, and the nondivine Supreme Reality in Daoism.

Asian Theories within Western Traditions

Robert Craig divided the field of communication into seven traditions on the basis of underlying conceptions of communicative practice. Although designed to organize Western theories, these traditions can reflect East-West differences and are used in the following discussion to classify various Asian theories.