Communication Theory of Identity

The communication theory of identity (CTI) was developed by Michael Hecht and colleagues; the theory emerged in the 1980s as part of a shift from considering identity a central element of human existence to identity as a social phenomenon. While earlier views emphasized the Western notion of “self” as a single, unified identity, this broader conceptualization argues that humans are inherently social beings whose lives revolve around communication, relationships, and communities and who operate from multiple and shifting identities. As a result, identities and identification are key processes through which people and groups orient themselves to each other and the world around them.

From this beginning, a framed or layered perspective emerged in the early 1990s that described [Page 140]identity as multifaceted, including personal, enacted, relational, and communal frames. Hecht and colleagues were studying interethnic communication with the expectation that identity would influence these processes and they, in turn, would lead to outcomes such as satisfying communication. However, the data did not fit this model. Instead, identity and communication influenced outcomes jointly. The need to explain these findings and emerging research on media representations of identity led to an examination of research conceptualizing identity as a social process and the CTI view of identity as consisting of four frames.

The personal frame encompasses what has traditionally been thought of as self and self-concept—the ways an individual conceives of self. The enacted frame is the performance or expression of identity. CTI argues that the enactments themselves are a frame of identity—that communication is identity and not just caused or influenced by it. As a result, managing or negotiating identity is a central process. Next, the relational frame of identity refers to identities that are invested in relationships, exist in relationship to each other, and are ascribed in and through relationships. For example, being a parent requires a child, and who we are is established and defined through identities that are ascribed to us by others. Identities also exist as characteristics of communities (communal frame). Media tell us, for example, what it means to be successful. Communal identities are held in common by groups rather than individuals. Finally, these identity frames are said to interpenetrate or intertwine with each other. For example, one's view of self as a man or women (personal identity) is juxtaposed to how others see us as men or women (relational identity), as well as how one's communities (communal identity) define these social positions.

While the CTI has many other aspects, the conceptualization of identity as social, the interpenetration of the four frames, and the management of these identities form the core of the theory. One implication is that at any time we are likely to be experiencing multiple, intersecting identities, some of which are group based, or communal. People rarely operate out of a single identity; rather multiple identities guide their thoughts and behaviors. This precept had not been well represented in research, and as a result, ethnic communities were often seen as homogeneous. CTI-related research, in contrast, examined diverse ways of experiencing these identities. For example, studies by Hecht and Sidney Ribeau examined different labels used by members of the African American community and how these labels manifested themselves in relationships, behaviors, and thoughts.

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