Structuration Theory

Structuration theory (ST) is identified focally with Anthony Giddens, a British social theorist who was, incidentally, an advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair and to the financier George Soros. It is a highly influential theory in communication as well as in the social sciences generally. ST was motivated by the long-standing problem of agency and structure in social theory, especially sociology. The dominant sociological contrast of individual versus society led to a basic clash about which determines which—do individuals in interaction construct social meaning and social order or does an evolved or pregiven structure determine and constrain the behavior of its human members? This problem generated another, related conundrum: How can we relate the study of macrosocial entities—societies, the media—to the study of individual relationships and interactive episodes? Most theorists did not take one extreme position or the other, but their integrations were biased and usually conceptually flawed. In communication, the same clash emerged as one between rhetorical scholars emphasizing individual and collective will, skill, and meaning as opposed to social-scientific scholars emphasizing causal-empirical theories about message behavior, response, and outcomes out of the control of individuals and groups. ST is an insightful metatheory with unusual integrative potential that aimed to resolve this dispute.

Although the term structuration was used earlier by such scholars as Georges Gurvitch and Roland Barthes, Giddens really developed the idea as we understand it today. Giddens' intent was to overcome the division in social theory between social constructionists and structural determinists; his synthesis was clear and fecund. Giddens' efforts in the early 1990s addressed the phenomenon of modernity and then moved to a political stance, which he called the third way, a perspective that went avowedly beyond conservatism and leftism.