Communication theory: threeapplications in international relations

Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic)

Authors Svob, Robert Stanley, 1943-

Publisher The University of Arizona.

Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this materialis made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona.Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such aspublic display or performance) of protected items is prohibitedexcept with permission of the author.

Download date 01/06/2018 06:41:57

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/555120

COMMUNICATION THEORY; THREE APPLICATIONS

IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

by

Robert Stanley Svob, J r0

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty o f the

DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT

In P a rtia l F u lfillm en t of the Requirements For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

1 9 7 2

STATEMENT BY AUTHOR

This thesis has been submitted in p a rtia l fu lf i l lm e n t of re­quirements fo r an advanced degree at The U niversity of Arizona and is deposited in the U niversity Library to be made availab le to borrowers under rules of the Library.

B rie f quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests fo r permission fo r extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judg­ment the proposed use of the m aterial is in the in terests of scholar­ship. In a l l other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author.

SIGNED:

APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR

This thesis has been approved on the date shown below:

CLIFTON E. WILSON Professor of Government

Date

DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to the l i f e and memory of the la te

Dr0 Martin Luther King* Dr. King knew and lived the tru th : That an

investment of love is the only way to reduce the entropy of hate.

"Free a t la s t , free a t la s t: Great God Almighty, I"m freeat la s t ."

Martin Luther King, J r .

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vl

ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi i

1. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Purpose ......................... 1Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2. BASIC CONCEPTS OF COMMUNICATION THEORY . . . . . . . . . . . 7

A Visual Aid to O rientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8A Technical D efin itio n of Information . . . . . . . . . . 10

Choice and Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Information, Order, and Organization . . . . . . . . 15

The Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Measuring Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

The Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19The Transm itter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..................... . 23

The Receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Prediction and F ilte r in g . . .......................... . . . . . 26

The Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27The Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..................... . . 30Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Man-Made Noise and Inherent Noise . . . . . . . . . . 31Combatting Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . ..................... 32

Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Dec i s ion-Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Info rma t i on-Feedba c k . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Goal-Oriented Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

3o THE COMMUNICATION MODEL: THREE APPLICATIONSIN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Deutsch: In tegration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Deutsch: Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Russett: Responsiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

iv

V

TABLE OF CONTENTS— Continued

Page

Russett; Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67McClelland: Event In teraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73McClelland: Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

h o CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

REFERENCES CITED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure Page

1. Simple Communication System 0 0 0 . 0 , 0 . 0 0 9

2 0 Correction System . . . . o o . o o . . o o . * . . o . . o 33

v i

ABSTRACT

Communication theory was derived from the study o f communica­

tion apparatus and i t is largely a s ta t is t ic a l and mathematical theory

which explains the transmission o f messages in e le c tr ic a l and e lec­

tronic communication systems0 This theory— generally conceded to be

the product of the e ffo rts of two mathematicians» Norbert Wiener and

Claude E. Shannon— has been borrowed by the social sciences as a

framework fo r analys is , or a model, o f the processes which occur in

social and p o lit ic a l systems.

International re lations scholars, beginning with Karl W.

Deutsch, have sought operational indicators of the concepts of communi­

cation theory but have met with only p a r tia l success in using the model

to describe and understand the flow of messages or information in the

in ternational system.

The communication model, as represented by the three studies

herein, has been applied to the phenomena of in ternational re la tio n s;

and i t has been a rich source of hypotheses about these phenomena; but

there are s t i l l insights to be gained from a. closer look a t the con­

cepts and relationships of communication theory. The model's worth as

an analogy is great but i t cannot be regarded as a method of explana­

tion of every kind of communication in in ternational re la tio n s .

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

We are immersed in a l i f e in which the world as a whole obeys the second law o f thermodynamics: confusion increasesand order decreases0 » « o ^But/ there are local and tem­porary islands o f decreasing entropy in a world in which the entropy as a whole tends to increase, and the existence of these islands enables some of us to assert the existence of progress,

Norbert WienerThe Human Use o f Human Beings, p. 52,

Speaking of the function of theory, Sheldon S„ Wolin has said

that i t serves "not to amass new facts but to disclose h ith erto unsus­

pected relationships between them,"' His observation may be the most

cogent assessment of the value of communication theory to the study of

in ternational re la tio n s . The communication model has provided a new

way o f looking a t the subject matter and i t may have shed new lig h t

on "h ith erto unsuspected re la tio n sh ip s ,"

Purpose

The purpose of th is thesis is to describe the meaning of the

basic concepts of communication theory and to examine three studies in

in ternational re la tions which have attempted to apply some of those

1, Sheldon S, Wolin, " P o lit ic a l Theory: Trends and Goals,"International Encyclopedia o f the Social Sciences VoI, 12 (New York: McMillan Co., 1968), p. 323.

1

concepts by seeking and measuring apparent indicators of those con­

cepts* Because of the necessity to p e rio d ic a lly examine the orig ins

and assumptions of any theory, 1 consider the description and exposi­

tion o f the concepts themselves (Chapter 2) to be an important task*

But equally important is the necessity to examine the way in which a

theory is applied to its subject matter* Thus, three studies o f d i f ­

feren t systems of in ternational re lations w il l be examined (Chapter 3)

in order to assess the way in which the communication model has been

adapted* This constitutes the main problem or major question of the

whole enterprise ( i f i t must have one): How has the communication

model been adapted fo r application to the study of in ternational re­

lations?

I t seems that a good place to s ta r t in seeking a standard

against which to compare the in ternational re lations applications would

be the theory and practice o f communication engineering its e lf * This

perspective, while i t may not represent the precise point of departure

from which the social science scholars embarked— the source of th e ir

knowledge and understanding of the model— i t should provide us with a

f a i r ly concrete set of meanings (d e fin itio n s and usages) of the con­

cepts which are essential to the model*

I t seems obvious and important th a t, i f a model of a physical-

e le c tr ic a l phenomenon is going to be used fo r descrip tion , explanation,

or simply understanding of a subject matter which is decidedly unlike

that which the p rac titio n ers of e le c tr ic a l communication o rd in a rily

work w ith , then that model should be thoroughly understood in terms of

what the model can do, how i t operates, and what its basic conditions

and lim ita tio n s o f operation a re .

Methods

Since much of modern communication theory was predicated on the

establishment o f an adequate understanding of actual communication sys­

tems (e .g . , telegraph and ra d io ), i t is essential that th is assessment

of the basic concepts be closely a l l ie d with the physical equipment o f

communication systems a lso . For, without th is empirical base, the d is ­

cussion o f communication theory quickly becomes mathematically and s ta­

t is t ic a l ly complex and extremely d is tan t from the actual phenomena

which are sought as analogies to social phenomena. Accordingly, there

has been no attempt to reduce this investigation to a purely theoret­

ical analysis of the mathematical or s ta t is t ic a l theory of communica­

tio n - -both of which can represent communication phenomena as

abstracted, numerical processes.

Instead 1 have selected what appear to be the seminal works of

communication theory—works by Norbert Wiener and Claude E. Shannon—

as the theme-setting contributions to the f ie ld . ( I did not read

everything they w rote.) Working simultaneously (and sometimes in con­

c e rt) on s im ila r problems of World War I I communication research,

Wiener and Shannon provided the v ita l breakthroughs in theory which

affected every phase of e le c tr ic a l and e lectron ic communication en­

gineering. There were others, of course— indispensable colleagues of

Wiener and Shannon who have been less decorated fo r th e ir contribu­

tions. But these two men accomplished a v e ritab le revolution (and

they published i t ) and they are the major contributors to what w i l l be

examined in th is study0 Other expositors of the theory (Pierce is

especia lly h e lp fu l) are consulted fo r c la r if ic a t io n and augmentation

of Wiener's and Shannon's ideas. Information theory (which Pierce

equates with communication theory) provides v ir tu a lly identical theo­

re tic a l concepts which overlap w ith those from communication theory;

i t d iffe rs only in that its emphasis is on coding.

The studies by Deutsch, Russett, and McClelland which are the

objects of comparison and c ritic is m in th is thesis were chosen because

they represented the several major foci o f scholars u t i l iz in g the model

in in ternational re la tions studies. This choice, by no means, was a

judgment on a l l the other attempts which have been made to find con­

crete indicators of the concepts from communication theory; many other

studies would probably have been equally su itab le . Rather, the choice

was made because these models (as I w i l l c a ll them from now on—e .g . ,%

Deutsch's model refers to his 1956 a r t ic le under scrutiny here) sought

or emphasized most of the basic concepts which I found to be the "core"

of communication theory (Chapter 2 ) . I

A second motive fo r picking the three models which I have in­

cluded was my fee lin g that these studies represented something of a

trend in the manner of application of the general model. From the be­

ginnings with Deutsch and his in terest in integration and u n ific a tio n

(as general concepts), through Russett with his emphasis on responsive­

ness as a dynamic function of in teg ra tio n , to McClelland with his new

in terpreta tion of the message as an event and his techniques from

5

information theory: these three models seemed to represent va lid

attempts to measure indicators and thus they demonstrate certa in

phases in a trend of increasing sophistication o f the communication

model as applied to in ternational re la tions*

As fu rth er evidence of soph istication , i t is demonstrable that

Deutsch's indicators were crude measures of volume; Russett expanded

the number of indicators and reduced the number of actors in the com­

munication system to two; f in a l ly , McClelland increased the number of

indicators to in f in i ty ( i *6 * , a l l relevant events)—with only data

gathering techniques standing in the way o f near perfect knowledge of

the flow of action in a communication network*

F in a lly , these three models were chosen because they seem to

i l lu s tra te most of the in teresting and crucia l problems of applying

the communication model to the subject matter of in ternational re la ­

tions,\

Sources

Considerations of space (as always) precluded th is thesis from

being an exhaustive study of the way communication theory has been

used as a framework and a guide to research (in a l l its v a r ie t ie s ) .

No attempt has been made to include critic ism s of Deutsch, Russett,

and McClelland from the f ie ld * This would have unduly burdened the

exposition and analysis; and i t would have been contrary to the p r i ­

mary purpose of the study—which is to c ritiq u e the three models

against the background of the orig ins of the theory from which they

have arisen .

In the same s p ir i t , the sources from which I have l i f te d the

meanings of the basic concepts were lim ited to a few o rig in a l books

and several secondary expositions* I tr ie d to use books and a rtic le s

which were published in the early and middle 1950‘ s (w ith a few excep­

tions) in order to get some fee lin g fo r the point o f view (and depar­

ture) which would have been ava ilab le to Deutsch and the others who

were adapting the theory fo r use in the social sciences.

CHAPTER 2

BASIC CONCEPTS OF COMMUNICATION THEORY

A s c ie n t if ic concept has meaning only because sc ien tis ts mean something by ito The meaning is s c ie n t if ic a lly va lid only i f what they intend by i t becomes ac tua l: problems are solvedand intentions are f u l f i l l e d as inquiry continues0

Abraham KaplanThe Conduct of In qu iry* p. 46.

The basic concepts of communication theory are functiona lly

in terre la ted ( l ik e the concepts of any theory) and they a re , perhaps,

best understood when they are seen as interlocking parts of an opera­

ting system. In short, the concepts which in terest us, in this study

of a theory which has been applied to the analysis of in ternational

re la tio n s , are most coherently described and leg itim ate ly defined by

presenting them in a systemic form. Therefore, i t seems prudent that

th is exposition of basic concepts be carried out under the d isc ip lin e

of a framework which w i l l help the reader to o rien t himself to the

meaninq of each sp ec ific concept in the system and to the overall per­

formance characteris tics of a functioning communication system. In

th is way, the meaning ( i . e . , d e fin itio n and usage) of each relevant

concept w il l become apparent; and each concept w ill be seen in its

relationship to the whole working system.

According to P ierce, one of the seminal truths o f the h istory

of science is that some of the most general and most powerful discov­

eries of science have been made by sc ien tis ts who chose to study, not

natural phenomena themselves, but rather phenomena that could be re­

constructed in man-made devices. By sim plifying nature, many sc i­

e n t if ic models of nature have made i t possible fo r men to bring th e ir

imagination to bear on otherwise inscrutable problems. In short, some­

times man's machines and his technologies provide opportunities fo r him

to theorize about the actual operations inherent in nature which he1cannot see, touch, or measure. Advancements in communication engi­

neering have, since the 1830's when Morse began working w ith the te le ­

graph and developing his code, provided sc ien tis ts w ith devices which

they could tes t and manipulate in order to begin to understand the

process of e le c tr ic a l communication. The p ractica l applications of

communication engineering ( i . e . , "hardware11—systems and equipment)

w ill also be important and useful in th is b r ie f exposition of the

basic concepts o f communication theory.

A Visual Aid To Orientation

Since th is is an investigation of the adaptation of an idea

from one f ie ld of knowledge and practice to another f ie ld o f knowledge

and prac tice , i t seems only reasonable that the objects o f the f i r s t

f ie ld should be the leg itim ate subject matter of a study which purports

1. J . R. P ierce, Symbols. Signals and Noise (New York:Harper and Brothers, I 96I ) , p. 19.

to examine the conceptual analogies of the second. For th is reason, I

have not tr ie d to make th is into a purely theoretical discussion and

critiq u e of abstract concepts. For the most p a rt, abstract categories

and mathematically sophisticated conceptualizations of communication

processes are inappropriate; and they lack s im p lic ity ; and therefore,

the basic elements o f a communication system w il l be used as models of

the abstract categories.

To impose order on the stock of concepts which are to be ex­

amined below, I have chosen Shannon's diagram of a simple communica­

tion system perturbed by noise to aid the reader in orienting each

concept in the system (see Fig . 1 ). Shannon included th is flow d ia ­

gram in his famous essay "The Mathematical Theory of Communication,"

informationsource transm itter receiver destination

signal receivedsignal

messagemessage

noise source

Fig. 1. Simple Communication System

2published in 19^8= This diagram illu s tra te s the basic elements in a

communication system—elements which generally correspond with the

important concepts o f communication theory as i t is applied in in te r­

national re la tio n s . Also, as a model„ th is diagram provides a s ta r t ­

ing point from which the assessment o f the three models in Chapter 3

can be launched.

But before s ta rtin g the exposition o f the concepts represented

in Shannon's simple communication system above, i t is imperative that

the technical meaning of information be explained. The modern theory

of communication is founded on th is special d e fin itio n of the ordinary

word information; and without a discussion o f th is central concept, a

study of communication theory would be incomplete.^ A discussion of

the concept of information also gives rise to several other important

related concepts which are of major s ignificance in communication

theory. These other concepts w i l l be discussed in turn before return­

ing to Shannon's diagram.

A Technical D efin itio n o f Information

One of the f i r s t critic ism s usually leveled a t communication

theory, or more s p e c if ic a lly , a t th is new conception o f information

in communication theory, is the charge that semantics (language mean­

ings) are not taken into consideration. I f only p ro b ab ilitie s of

2 . Claude E. Shannon, "The Mathematical Theory of Communica­t io n ," in Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana: University o f I l l in o is Press, 1949), p. 5 .

3 . Stanford Goldman, Information Theory (New York: Prentice- H a ll, In c ., 1953), p. 286.

occurrence are considered, the complaint goes» how can any meaningful

assessment be made of the value (to the rec ip ien t) o f the information

transmitted or received? This is a leg itim ate question—one which

Shannon answers emphatically and succinctly..

The fundamental problem of communication is that o f repro­ducing a t one point e ith e r exactly or approximately a message selected a t another point* Frequently the messages have mean­ing; that is they re fe r to or are correlated according to some system with certa in physical or conceptual e n t it ie s . These semantic aspects of communication are irre lev an t to the en­gineering problem. The s ig n ific a n t aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set o f possible messages. The systern must be designed to operate fo r each possible selec­tio n , not ju s t the one which w i l l a c tu a lly be chosen since th is is unknown a t the time of design.^

Schwartz re in terp rets the essential re la tionsh ip : "The en­

gineer is interested in the re la tiv e frequency of occurrence of in­

dividual symbols or groups o f symbols in messages and in the fac t that

these frequencies and not the symbol meanings determine the data

/in fo rm atio n / ra te , . . In short, the semantic aspects of commu­

nication are irre levan t to the engineering aspects but the engineering

aspects are not necessarily irre levan t to the semantic considerations

of what is communicated. When Shannon republished his famous essay in

book form, in 1949, he included a companion essay by his colleague,

Warren Weaver. This essay is an excellent prose in terp reta tion of

what Shannon says in his rigorous, mathematical paper. Weaver speaks

4. Shannon, "Mathematical Theory," p. 3»

5 . Leonard S. Schwartz, P rinciples of Coding, F ilte r in g , and Information Theory (Baltim ore, MdTi Spartan Books, In c ., 1963), p. 3 .

to the semantic question and helps to kn it the problems of communica­

tion in general together by discussing them on three leve ls . His

three levels are quoted below;

Level A, How accurately can the symbols of communication be transmitted? (The technical problem,)

Level B, How precisely do the transmitted symbols convey the desired meaning? (The semantic problem,)

Level C, How e ffe c tiv e ly does the received meaning a ffe c t conduct ip the desired way? (The effectiveness problem ,)°

At Level A, the technical problem is concerned w ith how ac­

curately sets o f symbols (w ritten English fo r example), continuously

varying electro-magnetic signals (such as telephone or radio trans­

m ission), or continously varying two-dimensional patterns ( i , e , ,

te lev is ion pictures) can be transferred from the sender to the receiv­

e r , At Level B, the semantic problems re la te to the id en tity or close

approximation in the receiver of the meaning intended by the sender,

of a given set of symbols transm itted. Weaver contends that these

semantic problems are extremely involved and th a t, a t best, they can

be m itigated to to lerab le levels but never elim inated e n t ire ly . At

Level C, the communication theoris t recognizes (but cannot act on) the

problem of the e ffe c t of the meaning conveyed by the transmitted mes­

sage on the conduct or performance of the receiver. Weaver admits

that the semantic and effectiveness problems are c losely intertwined

6, Warren Weaver, "Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory o f Communication," in Claude E, Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana; U niversity of I l l in o is Press, 1949), pp, 95-96°

and overlapping and thus constitu te a d i f f ic u l t area fo r ana ly tica l

investigation ,

St should not go unmentioned that Wiener, the other great

founder of modern communication theory, conceives of the general range

of problems in communication in a remarkable s im ila r fashion— sim ilar

to Weaver's three leve ls , Wiener proposes that the human being can be

thought of as a "terminal machine" with three ch arac te ris tic aspects?

the phonetic aspect which does the technical task o f picking up the

message and transm itting i t to the brain; the semantic aspect which

evaluates the message in accordance with a complex set of already in ­

culcated concepts and meanings; and the behavior aspect which is the

physical expression of in ternalized experiences and takes the form of

gross actions or the use o f symbolic forms such as spoken or w ritten

languages,^ These points o f view (Weaver and Wiener) i l lu s tra te that

communication theory Is concerned with the semantic problems of com­

munication; but i t conceives of them as secondary considerations to

the technical problems o f accurate transmission. The technical d e fi­

n itio n of information re lates to the technical aspect or level of

communication. At th is le v e l, information must be a measurable quan­

t i t y to allow problems o f accuracy to be approached and solved. In a

prelim inary and cursory way, this points to the fac t th a t, unlike the

student of in ternational re lations (who is concerned w ith the percep­

tio ns , motives, and lin g u is tic differences among actors in the

7, Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings (New York? Avon Books, I 967) , pp, 108-110,

, . 14

in ternational system)» the communication theoris t is unconcerned with

the semantic problems o f communication. In communication theory, the

special concept of information "applies not to the individual messages

(as the concept of meaning would), but rather to the s itu a tio n as a

8whole, „ „ o"

Choice and Information

The most important thing about the special d e fin it io n of in­

formation in communication theory is its dependency on p ro b ab ility and

choice among equally probable a lte rn a tiv e s . Weaver provides a nearly

perfect in terpreta tion o f information embodying th is idea o f choice,

"To be sure, th is word information in communication theory re lates not

so much to what you do say, as to what you could say. That is , in fo r­

mation is a measure of one's freedom o f choice when one selects a mes­

s a g e , S c h w a r t z ' s d e fin it io n of information also helps to push back

the mystique of th is new conception of information as a measurable

quantity .

The greater the number of a lte rn a tiv e messages ava ilab le to the tran sm itter, the greater the in i t ia l uncertainty a t the receiver and, therefore , the greater the information trans­ferred when the message ac tu a lly arrives at the receiver.Thus, information is a function o f in i t ia l uncerta in ty , i , e , , of message p ro b ab ility and of the number of possible selec­t io n s ,10

8, Weaver, "Recent Contributions," p, 100,

9 . Ib id ,

10, Schwartz, Principles o f Coding, p, 7»

15

Information, Order, and Organization

The new d e fin itio n o f information stems largely from s ta tis ­

t ic a l mechanics and p ro b ab ility theory, where entropy is an essential

idea. Entropy must be understood as a measure of disorder; th is in­

volves u n p red ic tab ility based on lack of knowledge about the p a rtic les

in a system. But, as one's knowledge about the system increases, the

more deta iled one's understanding is , the less uncertainty one has

about the system. Consequently, the entropy is less. More entropy

means more uncertainty; less entropy means less uncertainty ( i . e . ,

more inform ation). B r i1louin o ffe rs a succinct rendering of the

concept. He notes that "entropy is usually described as measuring the

amount of disorder in a physical system. A more precise statement is

that entropy measures the lack of information about the actual struc­

ture of the system."*^ Khinchin, a mathematician, has generalized the

concept to include knowledge o f events as well as possible messages.

He states that we must regard "the entropy of any f in i t e space as a

measure o f the uncertainty contained in the space, and, on the other

hand, as a measure of the amount o f information given by 'removing®

th is uncerta inty , i . e . , by answering the question o f which event of

the given space ac tu a lly o c c u r r e d . T h i s rendering points to the

11. P ierce, Symbols, pp. 22-23.

12. Leon B r illo u in . Science and Information Theory (New York: Academic Press, In c ., 1956), p. 161. .

13. A. I . Khinchin, Mathematical Foundations o f Information Theory (New York: Dover Publications, In c ., 1957)s p. 83.

16

nature of entropy as the negative equivalent of information. Pierce

adds his understanding to the concept of entropy: "Entropy increases

as the number o f messages among which the source may choose increases,

St also increases as the freedom of choice (or the uncertainty to the

rec ip ien t) increases and decreases as the freedom of choice and the

uncertainty are r e s tr ic te d ," ^ F in a lly , in general terms, Wiener ex=

plains that " ju s t as the amount of information in a system is a

measure of its degree of organization, so the entropy of a system is

a measure of its degree of disorganization; and the one is simply the

negative o f the other,

Within th is discussion of information, entropy, and organiza­

tio n , i t is possible to perceive the outlines of the concepts which

have led to analogies about in ternational in tegration and organiza­

tio n , In the layman's ed ition of his work on cybernetics, The Human

Use of Human Beings, Wiener attempts to stretch the reader's imagina­

tion and widen his perception o f his environment w ith his philosophi­

cal discussions of the im plications of his new science, cybernetics.

He dwells heavily on the concepts of message and organization, c a llin g

messages "fo rm /s / of pattern and o rg a n iza tio n ,"^ Rothstein also con­

siders the concept of organization and concludes that i t can be

thought of as the negative entropy of a system, ju s t as information

14, P ierce, Symbols, p, 81,

15, Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics (New York: John Wiley andSons, In c ,, 1948), p. 18,

16, Wiener, Human Use, p, 31,

tSo He shows how organization presupposes the existence of parts and

that i f there is no communication between them, no organization can

e x i s t , *7

The Source

With the technical d e fin itio n o f information completed, and

its companion concepts described, i t is now possible to begin the

setting out of the basic elements o f a communication system and to

discuss the concepts to which these elements give r is e .

Shannon describes the source in functional terms, i t produces

18messages. In almost a l l cases, the kind of source of in terest to

the communication th eo ris t and engineer is the stationary source which

puts out (emits) symbols and sequences of symbols which exh ib it a

s ta t is t ic a l re g u la r ity . This means that any segment o f a long se­

quence of symbols is s ta t is t ic a l ly s im ila r to any other long segment

from the same so u rce ,^ This s ta t is t ic a l q u a lity of the source is

best understood by using the il lu s tra tio n of a w ritten language.

Shannon notes that w ritten English, fo r example, is a nearly s ta t is ­

t ic a l ly regular source of messages (which, in this case, are words).

Continuing, he says, of the source:

i t w i l l choose successive symbols according to certa in p ro b ab ilitie s depending, in general, on preceding choices as

17® Jerome Rothstein, Communication. Organization, and Science (Indian H i l l s , Colorado: Falcon’s Wing Press, 1958), p, 34,

18, Shannon, "Mathematical Theory," p. 4 ,

19, P ierce, Symbols, p. $8,

Well as the p a rtic u la r symbols in question. A physical sys­tem, or a mathematical model of a system which produces such a sequence of symbols governed by a set of p ro b a b ilit ie s , is known as a stochastic process.

Pierce adds, i l lu s t r a t iv e ly , that in w ritten English, the

le t te r Men occurs with a s ta t is t ic a l frequency of approximately 0.13

(13 per cent of the tim e). But, he cautions that no language is per­

fe c tly regular in its s ta t is t ic a l ch arac teris tics ; and thus, "we must

exercise a reasonable caution in applying the conclusions o f the math-21ematical theory of communication to actual problems."

The major differences among sources are in the form of the

message which is em itted. Discrete sources produce messages one sym­

bol a t a time (e .g . , te legraph); but continuous sources produce en­

sembles or groups of functions (th in k ; bunches of lasagne noodles or

sine waves).

Measuring Information

When a source is id e n tif ie d , i t is usually done in terms of an

amount of information which St can produce. The basic language of

communication theory is the convention which has grown up a round the

un it o f measurement. Hershberger explains that " a ll conmunicable in­

formation may be reduced to the basic form in which i t may be trans­

mitted as a series o f yes's and no 's , or in the binary number system

20. Shannon, "Mathematical Theory,'! p. 10.

21. P ierce, Symbols, pp. 60=61.

1922

by the use of O’ s and 1*s*" Since the entropy o f communication

theory is measured in binary un its , or b its , "we may say that the en­

tropy of a message source is so many b its per le t te r , or per word, or

per message. I f the source produces symbols a t a constant ra te , we

can say that the source has an entropy of so many b its per second.

The entropy o f a source, in b its per second, is its informa­

tion ra te . I t is important to remember the in terchangeability of the

two concepts, entropy and information, Khinchin concludes that "the

most important c h arac te ris tic of every source is the rate a t which i t

emits information, ic e ,, the average amount of information given by

one emitted sym bol,"^

The Message

Wiener was one o f the f i r s t in the f ie ld to recognize the s ig ­

nificance of the message as the primary focus in communication theory.

But a single message emitted by a source conveys no information,

Wiener emphasizes that "we must have a repertory of possible messages,

and over th is repertory a measure determining the p ro b ab ility of these

messages."^5

22, W. D, Hershberger, Princip les of Communication Systems (Englewood C l i f f s , New Jersey: Prentice-H al1, In c ., 1955), p 39»

23, P ierce, Symbols. pp. 80-81.

24, Khinchin, Mathematical Foundations, p. 46,

25, Norbert Wiener, The Extrapolation, In te rp o la tio n , and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series (New York: John Wiley and Sons,In c . , 1949), p. 2. . •

20

Shannon reminds us that " i f a source can produce only one par-26tic u ia r message its entropy is zero, and no channel is required,"

This makes sense. Since, i f there is only one possible message, the

p ro b ab ility of the received message being the one sent (over a perfect

channel) must be unity (1 *0 ) , The message would not even have to be

sent. Thus, no channel is required and no information is conveyed,

even i f the message is sent, Hershberger adds that "inform ation is

conveyed by a message only to the extent that the desti nation---a

second person— is unable to pred ict which p a rtic u la r message—w o rd -

w il i be selected, , , , the essence of information is unpredictabi1-

27i t v ," Thus, in the same place, he concludes that "one does not

obtain information from a source, e ith e r by knowing in advance or by

,,28guessing,"

Wiener's g i f t o f insight which revealed the sign ificance of

the message also led to the solution o f the problem of detecting a

signal amidst background noise (the radar problem). In th is problem,

the engineer must be able to analyze a message source's past emission

in order to make some predictions (not guesses) about the probable

future characteris tics of the messages to c o m e ,

Shannon's concern w ith the message was focussed on the problem

of coding i t (the message) so that i t would match the Channel over

26, Shannon, "Mathematical Theory," p, 31®

27» Hershberger, Communication Systems, p, 4 ,

28, Ib id , , p, 6 ,

29, Wiener, Cybernetics, p, 16,

21

which St was to t ra v e l„ His greatest contribution was the proof o f

his Fundamental Theorem which shows that th e o re tic a lly perfect trans­

mission can be accomplished by encoding the message (to be discussed

below)

The Transm itter

The transm itter element In Shannon's diagram is the locus of

several in teresting functions and concepts0 Shannon describes its

function as a transformative one. The transm itter must change the

symbols of the source into signals which can be propagated out from

th e ir o r ig in , through the channel, to the receiver. For example, a

telephone transforms sound pressure from the human voice (a continu­

ous source) into proportional pulses of e le c tr ic current. Obviously,

the Morse Code is a way of encoding the symbols o f a d iscrete source

(the alphabet) into d iscrete signals (pulses) fo r transmission over a 31

telegraph lin e .

There are two basic processes involved a t the transm itter;

e ith e r one or the other of them, or both, may be necessary to trans­

form the message into signals. These two processes are modulation and

encoding.

Modulation

The modulating function of the transm itter is accomplished by

a process which prepares the message fo r transmission. A system

30. Shannon, "Mathematical Theory," p. 72.

31» Ib id . , p. 6 .

22

designer, by choosing a p a rtic u la r type o f channel and a type of mes­

sage to be conveyed, fixes the requirements to be placed on a trans­

m itte r; but he may also want to code or encode his signal to fu rther

enhance the system's e ffic ie n c y . Hershberger illu s tra te s the process

of modulation by stating th a t, w ith respect to the human voice,

" l i t t l e or no information is .conveyed by an individual generating a

sustained and steady tone w ith his vocal organs. The sustained tone

in speech carries information only when i t is modulated by being

broken up into s y lla b les . " ^ 2 This il lu s tra te s the fa c t th a t, while

there are many methods o f impressing the information from a source

onto the s ig n a l, "the key process is modulation, . « A ltogether,

there are three forms of th is key process: amplitude, frequency, and

phase modulation.

To il lu s tra te that modulation is not confined to the contin­

uous case, i t is demonstrable that i t also takes place in telegraphy

where the on -o ff nature o f the current is the varigation o f the other­

wise steady output of the generator. Goldman o ffe rs a general def­

in it io n of modulation which serves a l l cases. He says that

modulation is the deviation o f a signal from a prescribed standard p a tte rn . The pattern may be a time p a tte rn , a space patte rn , or a pattern in any set o f coordinates whatever. O rd in a rily , the prescribed standard (unmodulated) pattern of a system is considered to be known ahead of time and contains no information.grThe information in a modulated signal is in the modulation.

32. Hershberger, Communication Systems, p. 6 .

33. ib id . , p. 76.

34. Goldman, Information Theory, p. 1?4.

23

Modulation9 then is a process which prepares the message for

transmission, A certa in ch arac te ris tic is added to the form of the

message which makes i t d istinguishable against the standard pattern o f

unmodulated transmission. In short, modulation is one of the proc­

esses of making signals out of messages.

Encoding

Encoding can be used to communicate even more e f f ic ie n t ly

(without regard to no ise). Pierce (who speaks of information and

communication theory synonymously) contends that one o f the chief aims

of information theory is to study the best or the most e ffe c tiv e ways

of encoding sequences of characters or symbols fo r e le c tr ic a l trans­

mission, The most e ffe c tiv e way to encode the messages from a source

would be the way which would, on the average, require the least number

of binary d ig its per character or per u n it o f time than any other

35way,

Schwartz refers to the e ffic ie n c y of coding as "a strategy

that is followed in organizing a message from symbols o f specified

a p r io ri p ro b a b ility , i , e . , average entropy per symbol. Relative en-

trophy expresses the ra tio between the actual entropy per symbol and

that obtained by choosing symbols w ith equal a p r io r i p ro b ab ili­

ties ,"^^ Organizing the message, according to Schwartz, means making

35® Pierce, Symbols, pp. 64, 76,

36, Schwartz, Principles of Coding, p. 22,

24

a d is tin c tio n between the sequences of symbols which are to be the

message and those which are c h arac te ris tic of the “average" production

of the source* This points out the s im ila r ity between encoding and

modulation.

D. A. Bell describes encoding in terms which ring w ith

Shannon's influence. “Coding is the name given to the process which

transforms message to s ig n a l, and may be regarded as a kind o f match­

ing o f the characteris tics of message and of communication channel;

. . »“^ The way th is matching is accomplished is e ith e r by making

the redundancy of the signal d i f fe r from that o f the message, or by

a lte r in g the modulated product of the transm itter (s ign a l) s u ff ic ie n t­

ly to d if fe re n tia te i t from the unmodulated product of transmission.

The la t te r , called signal coding. Is p rim arily what Shannon was

attempting to do with his coding theorems.

The coding breakthrough, in methods of combatting noise, is

not without its inconveniences, however. The engineer is faced with

the problem th a t, even in the noiseless (perfect channel) case “ in

general, ideal or nearly ideal encoding requires a long delay in the

transm itter and re c e iv e r,. . .the main function o f th is delay is to

allow reasonably good matching of p ro b ab ilitie s to corresponding38lengths of sequences. “

37e D. A. B e ll, Information Theory and Its Engineering A ppli­cations. 3rd ed ition (London: S ir Isaab Pitman and Sons, L td ., 1962),p. 69.

38. Shannon, “Mathematical Theory," p. 31.

25

Delay Is an inherent problem in coding messages, but its main

advantage is that

by using as short a coding as possible fo r the most common­ly encountered sequences, and conversely, by leaving the lon­ger coding fo r the more rare ly encountered sequences, we have the p o s s ib ility of making the coded tex t shorter than the o r ig in a l, which obviously might constitu te a p rac tica l and economic advantage<,3?

A simple example of th is advantage is the construction of the Morse

Code, Morse knew that more information could be transmitted per un it

time i f the more frequently appearing le tte rs in the alphabet were

given the shorter codesc Therefore, he examined a p r in te r ’ s type box

to find out which le tte rs were used more in p rin tin g . His choice of

codes was so e f f ic ie n t that today, modern s ta t is t ic a l calculations

have only improved on his choice o f codes by 15 per cent, (For

example, the le t te r "e" appears most often and so Morse co rrectly gave

i t the shortest code: one d o t,)

The Receiver .

Since the function of the receiver is , th e o re tic a lly , the re­

verse o f that o f the tran sm itte r, i t makes sense to consider receivers

now, a fte r discussing tran sm itters , instead of saving th is element

u n til channels have been discussed,' ,

The rece iver’s task is to turn the signal back into the mes­

sage—preferably the message which was chosen by the source, Schwartz

elaborates: "the function of the receiver is to ex trac t from the

39, Khinch in . Mathematical Foundations, pp. 23-24.

26

noisy received signal a l l possible information about the transmitted hOs i g n a l T h e information which the receiver seeks is to be found by

comparing the amount of information ava ilab le to the receiver p rio r to

the transmission (a p r io r i knowledge o f the s ta t is t ic a l characteris­

tics of the source) with the a po sterio ri knowledge of the message re­

ceived.

Prediction and F ilte r in g

A receiver performs its function in one of two ways, depending

on the p a rtic u la r type o f communication system. The receiver may be

designed to operate on the past output of a source, which would be a

pred ic tive operation; or a receiver may be concerned with smoothing or

f i l t e r in g a desired signal from an incoming signal-noise aggrega-

4111 on,

Wiener's solution to the prediction problem in radar was based

on the premise that the receiver would be able to handle a wide range! -

of possible messages without reference to the exact nature of any one

message. Shannon's solu tion— coding messages to match channels—was

less v e rs a tile than Wiener's and i t demanded that the ideal decoder be

able to recognize and reconstruct each individual message. This com­

plex decoding system is a sophisticated, expensive price to pay for42the additional e ffic ie n c y of coding information o p tim ally ,

40, Schwartz, Principles of Coding, p. 30,

41, Wiener, Stationary Time S eries, p. 10,

42, B e ll, Information Theory, pp, 149-150,

27

When a signal has been modulated fo r transmission, the task of

the receiver is to turn the modulated signal back into a message

( i . e . , demodulate i t ) . In the f i l t e r in g mode, a receiver must im itate

a transmitted signal without delay (e .g . , telephony). The f i l t e r must

screen out noise and admit s ignals. Schwartz sees the function of

signal detection in a receiver as

es se n tia lly a decision process in which decisions are made about the presence or absence o f signals. The action of decision arises from the presence of a threshold in the re­ce ive r. A threshold is always present in receivers because of natural biases on tubes or semiconductor devices. Thus, in the las t analys is , a receiver is a decision device. I t must decide whether a signal is present or not and i t must make th is decision with a minimum p ro b ab ility o f e rro r . 3

An increase in the s ignal-to -no ise ra tio ( i .e .# power) a t the

transm itter w i l l increase the accuracy of transmission but th is is no

guarantee of a minimum p ro b ab ility of erro r in transmission. Thus,

coding is a way to work around the problem o f noise; but i t is not an

e n tire ly sa tis fac to ry solution— and i t is im practical.

The Channel

In communication theory, a channel is a medium fo r transmis­

sion of signals; but the seminal importance of the channel is that i t

represents a constraint on the rate a t which information can be trans­

m itted. I f a channel represents a constraint on the information rate

of a p a rtic u la r communication System, then i t is apparent that a

second determining facto r in communication must be the fac to r o f

channel capacity.

43. Schwartz, Principles of Coding, pp. 157“ 158.

28

In the noiseless case, theoretica l channel capacity jjs the in­

formation rate of the source. Again, the back-to-back relationship of

these two concepts must be kept in mind. As a ru le , a l l channels in

communication theory and engineering are 1 inear— that is , they do not

change with time. Actual lin ea r channels have no e ffe c t on the

signals transmitted over them, except to weaken them or to delay th e irM i

time of a r r iv a l .

Theoretically perfect transmission can take place i f a source

is encoded by choosing in f in ite ly long sequences o f the sourceBs emis­

sions. But, paradoxically, the price fo r perfection is not in f in ite

delay. This Is not as strange as i t sounds. Schwartz8s lengthy quote

about the lim itin g case o f block encoding is illu m in atin g .

I t is important to emphasize that the capacity o f the channel can be achieved only by the use of in f in i te ly long sequences (messages). This does not mean that there is , under ideal conditions, an in f in ite delay in the reception of information. I t means rather that as an in f in i te ly long message arrives a t the rece iver, the la t te r can exam­ine any portion of the message already received and, by means o f coding ( i . e . , in ternal constraints among the sym­bo ls ), correct errors among the received symbols. With f in ite - le n g th messages only some of the errors may be cor­rected. In the lim it of in f in ite message length a l l errors may be corrected, provided that the rate a t which informa­tion is transmitted does not exceed the capacity of the channel.^5

This process, involving in f in i te sequences, may be compared to

the way one might view time and h isto ry: the message is of in f in ite

k k o P ierce, Symbols., p. 32.

4$. Schwartz, Principles of Coding, p. 4?.

29

length but we have decoded a t least part o f the sequence already

rece i ved.

In the continuous case (e 0g6$ te le v is io n )p a l l errors cannot

be corrected; but continuous systems can to le ra te a certa in amount of

discrepancy between the transmitted message and the received message.

The problem is solved— the discrepancy is to lerated-"by the process of

samp1ing the function (curve) enough times so that the value of the

ordinates o f the curve can be reconstructed a t the receiver with

enough d e ta il to insure an accurate reception of the information in

the message.

Noise w i l l be treated la te r ; but the noisy channel needs

c la r if ic a t io n here. In the noiseless case, the channel does not re­

duce the information rate of the source. But, i f noise is introduced

into a channel, the signal which emerges from the channel (a t the re­

ceiver) is corrupted. The noise in the channel has introduced an

additional ambiguity or uncertainty into the system which necessarily

reduces the actual information rate because the signal received may

not be the signal which was sent.

Shannon's basic mathematical work on channels provided proof

that the noisy, channel adds ambiguity or entropy to the a p r io ri en­

tropy of the source. Thus, f in a l information rate and channel

46, Claude E. Shannon, "Communication in the Presence of Noise," Proceedings of the In s titu te o f Radio Engineers, v o l. 37» no. 1 (January 1949) 8 p. 21.

30

capacity are defined by the sum of the in i t ia l information rate and

the negative uncertainty facto r of the noisy channel» What comes out

of the channel is equal to what goes in , minus the net e ffe c t of

. 4?noise.

The Destination

Shannon's ana ly tica l diagram distinguishes between the re­

ceiver and the destination in a way which is foreign to most common-

sense notions about in ternational p o lit ic a l communication (o r, fo r

that m atter, to any form of human communication). But, because he

does discuss i t separately, i t should be afforded a t least a mention

here. The destination , fo r Shannon, is the person or thing fo r whom

or fo r which the message is intended. Once the receiver has done its

work, the human receiver or destination can apprehend the message and

in terp re t i t in lig h t o f its semantic meaning. The semantic-

in terp re tive function o f the destination is e ssen tia lly s e lf -

explanatory; but i t does, needless to say, constitu te the focus of

most in teres t in in ternational p o lit ic a l re lations ( i . e . , foreign. „ x 48 p o lic y ).

Noise

Noise may enter the system a t any point between the trans­

m itte r and the receiver, adding uncertainty to the message and placing

47= Shannon, "Mathematical Theory," pp. 35-39=

48. Ib id . , p. 6 .

/

a lim it on the system's performance. But, what Shannon's simple d i­

agram does not show is the p o s s ib ility of noise jm transm itters and

receivers®

Man-Made Noise and Inherent Noise

Man-made noise usually impinges on communication channels—

that is , a f te r the signal has been propagated® This type of noise can

be controlled to almost any degree of e ffic ie n c y desired since i t is

generated by other force f ie ld generators and broadcasting systems

(antennas, fo r example, can be relocated or shielded)® But, inherent

noise orig inates in the tubes, diodes, and other apparatus of trans­

m itters and receivers® This type o f noise, called thermal noise, is

not eradicable but i t can be controlled w ith other e le c tr ic and£iQ

electron ic devices®

Thermal noise occurs in any e le c tr ic a l device because of the

ag ita tio n of the molecules of the substance (Brownian motion)® But

there is a thermal noise, sometimes called Johnson noise, which o rig ­

inates outside the communication system— usually encountered as back­

ground noise from the thermal radiation of the s ta rs . This noise has

p erfec tly random s ta t is t ic a l properties of which communication theory

takes advantage ( i . e . , i t is treated as a constant)

49® Hershberger, Communication Systems® pp. 56-57®

50. P ierce, Symbols. pp. 188-189.

Combatting Noise

Shannon's contribution to communication theory appears even

more s ig n ific a n t when one considers what the engineer could do about

noise before 1945. The engineer could (1) increase transm itter power,

(2) make the receiver less noisy, (3) insulate the receiver against

various frequencies, (4) modulate the frequencies to obtain very large

bandwidths, or (5) make transmission o f messages r e d u n d a n t . The

revolutionary thing which Shannon did was to avoid the noise problem

altogether by coding around i t . He exchanged message bulk fo r trans-52mission delay. Message compression results from coding.

Up to th is point (fo llow ing Shannon's diagram to the r ig h t-

hand side) the discussion has been on un i-d irec tio n a l systems. These

systems are characterized by one-way flow . But now two-way flow must

be considered. Feedback jo ins the p ic tu re .

Feedback

In the same revolutionary essay, in 1948, in which he put

fo rth his fundamental theorems on coding. Shannon included a discussion

of a correction system involving a feedback loop. The schematic draw-

53ing which he provided of th is process is reproduced below.

51. ib id . , p. 146.

52. Brockway McMillan, "The Basic Theorems of Information Theory." Annals of Mathematical S ta t is t ic s , v o l. 24, np. 2 (June 1953), p . 207.

53. Shannon, "Mathematical Theory," p. 37.

33

correction data

observer

signal

source transm itter receiver correction

Fig. 2. Correction System

In this correction system, the observer monitors the system

before and a fte r transmission has taken place in order to assess the

f id e l i t y of the transmitted message. "The observer notes the errors

in the recovered message and transmits data to the receiver to correct

the e r r o r s . T h e input message, M, becomes d istorted somehow in

transmission and emerges a t the receiver as a corrupted version of the

o rig ina l message: M becomes M*. M d iffe rs from M1 by the amount of

ambiguity in the channel. Thus, th is same amount of additional in fo r­

mation must be supplied, per second, a t the receiving point to correct

the received message.'*'* A correction channel, then, keeps the

54. Ib id . , p. 36.

55. Ib id . , p. 37.

34

transm itter informed of the additional amount of information which is

needed to make the messages already received match the messages which

were sent®

Schwartz emphasizes the point made above about one-way in fo r­

mation flow® He notes that the basic subject matter of information

theory is the u n i-d irec tion a l communication system; but he goes on to

point out that feedback, or a correctional c a p a b ility , "gives a commu­

nication channel an a b i l i t y to adjust its transmitted information rate

to the signal and noise conditions on the channel, speeding up when the

noise level is low and slowing down when i t is high® Thus systems

equipped with a feedback lin k are adaptive communication systems®^

Figure 2 is an il lu s tra tio n o f a no ise-free feedback channel.

That means that i t has been assumed that the information conveyed along

th is channel is not subject to corruption® This is a reasonable assump­

tion (in some cases) according to Schwartz, since the operation of the

correction device only demands a simple decision about the accept­

a b il i ty of the received message® For example, the message on the main

or forward channel may require ten b its of information to transmit i t

to the receiver; but the feedback message—a yes-no or on -o ff message

about the accep tab ility o f the sequence— is a simple decision requiring

only one b it o f information to be sent back to the tran sm itte r. The

importance of the feedback loop is that the en tire message can

56® Schwartz, Principles of Coding, p. 5®

35

eventually be received a t any desired erro r p ro b a b ility , depending on

57how involved a system one wishes to design,,

Schwartz points out that feedback can be of two general types

(not mutually exclusive): Decision-Feedback and lnformation-Feedback@

Decis ion-Feedback

The simplest type of feedback system is one in which the cor­

rection device e ith e r accepts the message or re jects i t : "the receiv­

e r , as a resu lt o f a decision made on each received message, e ith e r

accepts the message and records the corresponding symbol or rejects i t

as ambiguous and reports the re jection to the transm itter* The in­

formation in the ambiguous message is discarded, and the transm itter

subsequently repeats the message*"^

Information-Feedback

Schwartz id e n tifie s a second type of feedback system—more

complicated than the simple decision system explained above* The sec­

ond type of feedback is called inform ation-feedback because "the feed­

back channel is employed to report information about the received

message to the tran sm itte r, w ith the decision to accept, or to re jec t

and co rrec t, being made subsequently a t the tra n s m itte r*^

The report which the receiver makes back to the transm itter is ,

in an operating system, subject to d is to rtio n and fading, ju s t as the

57* Ib id * , p* 196,

58. ib id .

59* ib id . , p. 193.

36

signal in the main forward channel is subject to noise. Thus» Schwartz

contends that the optimum system is one in which coding and decision-

feedback are combined.

In this system, the feedback channel reports accept-re ject decisions to the tran sm itter, thus minimizing the e ffe c t of errors due to fading and disturbances in the feedback chan­nel , a resu lt that may be accomplished by u t i l iz in g a suf­f ic ie n t ly asymmetrical decision mechanism a t the transm itter to in terp re t the feedback information, so that re je c t-to - accept (R-»A) errors occur with a minimal frequency.®0

Schwartz c a lls th is system " fa i l-s a fe ” because of its r e l ia b i l i t y and

possible range of performance. .

Without some type of feedback information reaching the trans­

m itte r , coding protected systems (non-feedback) are subject to "burst-

type noise, signal fading, and sudden changes in channel conditions,

since the transm itter cannot determine when such changes occur.

These shortcomings are avoided in Schwartz's suggested " fa il-s a fe "

system. He provides several other feedback systems which are combina­

tions of the various types already mentioned. Each has its advantages

and disadvantages fo r various forms o f communication; but a l l are de­

signed to insure r e l ia b i l i t y and increase the system’ s performance of

its technical function: accurate transmission o f information.

Goal-Oriented Feedback

Feedback, as i t has been discussed so fa r , has been concerned

with the performance of a communication system. Feedback has been

60. Ib id . , p. 221.

61. Ib id . , p. 192.

37

described as another method of improving the transmission of informa­

tion from a source to a destination . No other purpose has entered

into the discussion of communication systems except the s e lf is h ,

internal purpose o f rapid and re lia b le transmission of information.

But, where the communication th eo ris t and engineer drop the problem

of message transmission, the systems engineer and the cybernetician

pick i t up.

The system which has a behavioral goal beyond e f f ic ie n t commu­

nication of information is a system which uses information fo r a pur­

pose. This is why the cybernetician, Norbert Wiener, chose the

extremely logical phrase, "communication and co n tro l," to characterize

his understanding of the new science. The goal-oriented, purposive

system which uses information to maintain i t s e l f in an environment is

communicating with that environment in order to control its behavior

and maintain its id e n tity .

The way in which a purposive system achieves its goals is by

receiving information from its environment and adjusting its internal

mechanisms or its external behavior to cope with the environmental de­

mands. This response to the environment is accomplished by the process

of feedback.

Wiener's goal-oriented system is s im ilar to Shannon's adaptive '

communication system (F ig . 2 ) . Thus, re ferring to Shannon's correc­

tion system, i t can be seen that the fundamental processes in i t are

s im ilar to those described in th is sumrnary (below) of communication

and control by Wiener.

This control o f a machine on the basis of its actual perform­ance rather than its expected performance is known as feed­back, and involves sensory members which are actuated by motor members and perform the function of te l 1-ta le s or monitors— that is , of elements which indicate a performance. I t is the function of these mechanisms to control the mechanical tend­ency toward disorganization; in other words, to produce a temporary and local reversal o f the normal d irection of en­tropy,

Wiener was not the f i r s t to ta lk about the concept of feedback;

but he was one of the f i r s t to perceive the process of communication

as a flow of messages— "forms and patterns o f organization;" and

therefore, he was p rim arily responsible fo r link ing up the phenomenon

of communication w ith the phenomenon of co n tro l. Feedback was already

known to e x is t in systems which were characterized by a homeostatic

mechanism of internal equilibrium . But there are s lig h t differences

in the processes. Pask explains: "Whereas re fle x is preserves the or­

ganism against the flu x o f its environment, homeostasis counters the

in te rn a lly generated changes which are prone to d isrupt the proper

structure and disposition of parts in the organism.

Wiener makes a d is tin c tio n between feedback in postural s itu a ­

tions o f the human body and internal homeostatic s itu a tio n s: "Our

homeostatic feed-backs have one general d ifference from our voluntary

and our postural feed-backs: they tend to be slower;" and he contin­

ues: "The typ ical e ffectors of homeostasis— smooth muscles and

62. Wiener, Human Use, p. 36.

63. Gordon Pask, An Approach to Cybernetics, Science Today Series (New York: Harper and Brothers, I 96I ) , p. 12.

39

glands—are likewise slow in th e ir action compared with striped64muscles» the typical effectors of voluntary and postural a c t iv ity *"

Goal-oriented feedback may be positive or negative. Positive

feedback stimulates those responses (encourages them) in the system

which tend to f u l f i l l the purpose or goal sought® Negative feedback

stops (discourages) the system from pursuing one tack when i t becomes

disfunctional to the goal o f the system (e 0g .» the steam engine65

When the system responds slowly to the con tro llin g feedback

messages coming in on its performance» i t is said to be exh ib iting lag®

Since no feedback channel is p e rfe c t, a l l systems lag in goal achieve­

ment. To compensate fo r th is and other environmental parameters» sys­

tems sometimes have lead b u ilt into them so that the system can perform

e ffe c tiv e ly in its normal environment (e.g®, a radar guided a n t ia ir ­

c ra ft gun is programmed to aim in fro n t o f the spot a plane ac tu a lly

occupies in the sky)

At th is point in the discussion we have come fu l l c irc le : From

a d e fin itio n of information and organization, through un id irectional

and two-way communication, to feedback, we have returned to a

consideration of the problem of furnishing the system w ith adequate

information fo r its proper functioning- and su rv iva l. Feedback means

64® Wiener, Cybernetics* p. 135®

65® Wiener, Human Use, p. 206®

66® ibid®, pp® 36-37®

40

co n tro l; and Wiener, better than anyone (and sooner), perceived the

profound importance o f its meaning. For him,

information is a name fo r the content o f what is exchanged with the outer world as we adjust to i t , and make our ad­justments f e l t upon i t . . . .To liv e e ffe c tiv e ly is to liv e with adequate information. Thus, communication and control belong to the essence of manjs inner l i f e , even as they be­long to his l i f e in so c ie ty^ .'

This b r ie f exposition of communication theory is complete.

The basic elements and concepts, ideas and p rin c ip le s , have been

arranged and presented in the Coherency of a general communication

system. The emphasis which I have given each concept may not be pre­

c ise ly that which a communication engineer or th eo ris t would consider

adequate or proper; but I fee l somewhat ju s t i f ie d in the form and sub­

stance of the presentation because of the use of the diagrams which

Shannon himself used.

In the next chapter, the three models of in ternational re la ­

tions w il l be presented and evaluated in terms of the meanings ascribed

to communication systems and th e ir concepts in th is chapter. Hopeful­

ly , the follow ing evaluation w il l be taken as constructive c ritic is m

and not simply judgment.

67. Ib id . , pp. 26-27.

CHAPTER 3

THE COMMUNICATION MODEL:THREE APPLICATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

When you can measure what you are speaking of and express i t in numbers you know that on which you are discoursing,. But i f you cannot measure i t and express i t in numbers, your knowledge is o f a very meagre and unsatisfactory kind.

Lord KelvinQuoted in Arthur PorterCybernetics S im p lified , p. 34.

In the f ie ld o f in ternational re la tio n s , Karl W. Deutsch was

one scholar who took Lord Kelvin a t his word. Throughout the 1950*5

and early 1960, s , he dominated the f ie ld with his in terpreta tion of

communication models and th e ir place in the study of in ternational

in teg ratio n , u n ific a tio n , and organization. He tr ie d to measure

things.

Apparently c a p ita liz in g on his personal acquaintance with

Norbert Wiener a t the Massachusetts In s titu te of Technology, Deutsch

got into the area of communication qu ite ea rly —-perhaps he was the

f i r s t —-with the publication of his in terpreta tion o f the use of com­

munication models in the social sciences.* In 1950, two years a fte r

his book Cybernetics was published, Wiener came out with a layman's

1. Karl Wo Deutsch, "On Communication Models in the Social Sciences." Public Opinion Q uarterly , v o l. 15, no. 3 (F a ll 1952).

41

ed ition of his ideas on the new sciences The Human Use of Human Beings

became the stimulus fo r much thinking in the social and behavioral

sciences concerning new approaches and new questions to ask. Deutsche

present a t the creation (in a manner of speaking), was greatly in=\

fluenced by the rigor and apparent fru itfu ln e s s of the new model o f

systematic processes. The revolutionary new p rin c ip le was feedback.

The most extensive use o f the communication model in in te r­

national re la tions has been in the area o f theoretica l frameworks fo r

analysis--as a ta k e -o ff point fo r m odel-building. The number of

studies which ac tu a lly attempt to operationalize the concepts of com­

munication and in teg ra tio n , communication flow , or cybernetic steering

has been sm all. However, there is an enormous lite ra tu re on in te r­

national p o lit ic a l communication dealing with topics such as public

opinion, propaganda, national values, national character, and cross-

national perceptions.^ In most of these studies communication is

considered from the semantic perspective. Davison and George provide

a d e fin itio n o f in ternational p o lit ic a l communication which seems to

characterize the perspective of these "semantic" studies.

By 8 In ternational P o lit ic a l Communication8 we re fe r to the use by national states of communications to influence the p o li t ic a l ly relevant behavior of people in other na­tional s ta tes . Thus we include the propaganda and informa­tion a c t iv it ie s of most government agencies—especia lly the State and Defense Departments—and certa in aspects o f

2. Bruce Lannes Smith, "Trends in Research on In ternational Communication and Opinion," Public Opinion Q uarterly , v o l. 20, no. 1 (Spring 1956) i see also W. P h illip s Davison, In ternational P o lit ic a l Communication (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965).

43

diplomatic communication, but we exclude the a c t iv it ie s of the press associations and bodies which are interested p rin ­c ip a lly in in ternational education in re lig ious missionary a c tiv i t ie s ,5

The important thing to remember about a l l o f these kinds of

studies is that they " re fe r to the tran sfer o f meaning, whether by

w ritte n , spoken or p ic to r ia l symbols, or by various types of action,"**

The variables usually associated with these studies of in ternational

communication are: "Who says what to whom through what mediurn fo r

what purpose under what c?rcumstances and with what e ffects?"** Host

scholars have ta c it ly agreed that th is is a convenient way of ta lk ing

about the main elements o f any communication process. But, Davison

and George warn that "the variables in question are in tr ic a te ly re­

lated and most e ffo rts to study and s ta te th e ir in terre lationsh ips

have been seriously over-s im p lified ."^

One study of in ternational re lations which could never be

labeled as over-s im p lified was Richardson's mathematical study o f past

warSo^ This l i f e work was an attempt to lin k certa in indicators of

h o s t i l ity w ith the eventual outbreak of war using in tr ic a te

3. W, P h illip s Davison and Alexander C, George, "An Outline fo r the Study of In ternational P o lit ic a l Communication." Public Opinion Q uarterly , (Winter 1952=1953), p. 501.

4 . Ib id .

5 . Ib id . , p . 502.

6 . Ib id .

7. Lewis F. Richardson, Arms and Insecurity (P ittsbu rg , Pa.: Boxwood Press, I960 ); see also Anatol Rapoport, "Lewis F. Richardson's Mathematical Theory of War," Journal of C onflic t Resolution, vo l. 1, no. 3 (September 1957)»

44

mathematical formulas and techniques. His study was s ig n ific a n t

enough to be among the s ix minor approaches to the study of communica­

tion which BereIson id en tifie d in a v ir tu a l obituary on "The State o f8Communication Research," in 1959.

Richardson's super-quantitative study is s ituated a t the fa r

end of the spectrum—opposite the "semantic" studies, in between the

two extremes, u t i l iz in g the communication model as a theoretical frame­

work, yet attempting to find concrete indicators o f communication flow ,

there has been a number o f studies which have attempted to quantify

certa in conditions of in tegration and community. Deutsch, of course,

did much of the pioneering work in th is area of in ternational re la ­

tions.^ But Russett and McClelland have also contributed useful

studies of systemic communication between and among actors in an in te r­

national system.

For reasons which have already been expounded in Chapter 1, 1

have chosen studies by Deutsch, Russett, and McClelland as useful

examples of the application of the concepts of communication theory to

the study of in ternational re la tio n s . Each of these authors has chosen

certa in perspectives from the theory and attempted to study selected

hypotheses from these vantage points. In this chapter, I w il l attempt

to present enough of each of th e ir studies to characterize each

author's approach to his subject m atter; and the analysis which follows

8 . Bernard BereIson, "The State of Communication Research," Public Opinion Q uarterly , v o l. 23, no. 1 (Spring 1959)•

9 . Karl W. Deutsch, P o lit ic a l Community a t the In ternational Level (Garden C ity , New York: Doubleday and Co., 1954).

w ill be an attempt to evaluate the use o f the concepts which each

author chooses fo r his focus. No attempt has been made to force each

of the following studies into a p a rtic u la r framework— such as the

communication system used in Chapter 2 . Instead, I have chosen to

approach each study on its own ground—as i t were— in an attempt to

understand what the author means when he uses the various concepts

from communication theory. At times, one o f the author"s concepts may

appear to be a varia tio n of one of the ideal types discussed in Chap­

te r 2 . In these cases, generosity w i l l prevail and approximations

w ill be evaluated fo r what they are—and how useful they appear. I t

should be stated again that th is analysis is not designed or intended

to be merely judgmental: i t is not a matter o f whether or not a

s c ie n tif ic model may be used to study in ternational re la tio n s ; ra th er,

the question is , how and how well?

Peutsch: In tegration

Since the early 1950's, Peutsch had worked extensively on the

problems of integration and community a t the in ternational le v e l. But

most of his work in that period had been mainly theoretical or hypoth­

esis generating (both endeavors are va lid and valuable en terprises).

However, in 1956, Peutsch contributed a "flow" study to a10special communication issue of the Public Opinion Q uarterly . This

is the study which w il l be analyzed in the following pages. I t is the

10. Karl W. Peutsch, "S h ifts in the Balance o f Communication Flows," Public Opinion Q uarterly , v o l. 20, no. 1 (Spring 1956).

4 6

f i r s t re a lly experimental study which Deutsch undertook; i t was his

attempt to operationally define his concepts by measuring them0 Kaplan

recounts that “operationism” has been a persistent school of thought

within a larger context o f semantic empiricism ( io e ,» what cannot be

known by experiences9 through the senses» cannot be sa id ): ”To each

concept there corresponds a set of operations involved in its s c i­

e n t if ic use* To know these operations is to understand the concept as

fu l ly as science requires; without knowing them, we do not know what

the s c ie n tif ic meaning of the concept is , nor even whether i t has a

s c ie n tif ic meaning*” * * While there are numerous critic ism s of th is

approach to concept d e fin it io n , they are of no concern here, since i t

is merely a fac t that Deutsch attempted to measure communication

flows--and thereby define his concepts*

A fte r a good theoretica l statement concerning the princip les

of communication theory which would guide the presentation which was

to fo llow , Deutsch launches into a ju s t if ic a t io n fo r attempting to

measure something— communication flow—which had previously only been

alluded to or had been taken fo r granted while being treated q u a lita ­

t iv e ly * The purpose o f th is study was to get a “be tte r understanding

of some aspects of the integration or consolidation o f communities,12countries, or other kinds of organizations*” To achieve this pur­

pose, Deutsch defines integration (in a very haphazard way) as the

11* Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co*, 1964), p* 40*

12* Deutsch, "Communication Flows,” p. 160*

47

extent of an organization 's in teraction with organizations outside its

boundaries. Internal cohesion is also an important concept in th is

study since i t represents the extent o f the organization's internal

communication with i t s e l f . In e f fe c t , the two concepts are construc­

tions representing certa in ratios o f in-country and out-country commu­

nication flows: "The ra tio of intra-boundary processes w ith in any

organization to cross-boundary processes o rig ina tin g or terminating

in the same organization o ffers one basic operational measure fo r the

cohesion of any such organization, as well as of the extent of its13integration with others outside i t . "

The hypothesis upon which he bases his selection of these

ra tio s — these indicators of integration and cohesion—while in s ig h tfu l,

is nonetheless of subtle , almost strange parentage. Deutsch has i t on

good authority from the mouth of the master, Wiener h im self, that in

the case of a simple goal-seeking device, the intake-output ra tio (in

terms of b its of information necessary fo r e ffe c tiv e system maintenance

and survival in an environment) is on the order of one-to-one ( 1/ 1) .

This means that fo r e ffe c tiv e operation, the organism or system must

14get a b it of information fo r every b it of information i t gives.

Deutsch then takes th is ideal ra tio as a standard against which to

measure the performance of some typical systems.

He points out the fundamental p rin c ip le of communication

theory: the individual message, by i t s e l f , contains no useful

13. Ib id . , p. 149.

14. Ib id . , p. 146.

information regarding the message source; only a great number of mes­

sages together can convey information by creating a pattern of s ta t is ­

t ic a l s ignificance* He asserts that to be successful» a study of

communication must be able to measure the flow of messages,^ Deutsch

admits that there are other important aspects of communication flow:

speed; f id e l i t y ; e ffe c ts ; and number o f in i t ia l choices— a ll are v ita l

characteris tics of message flow* But, he concludes—cap itu la ting to

ease-of-col lection pressures— that "volume— that is to say, f r e ­

quency—of communication is the f i r s t dimension of in ternational and

domestic communication flows that is l ik e ly to be measured with any„16

degree of success0

I t is important to remember that the whole study is predicated

on the hypothesis which Deutsch got from Wiener in an oral conversation.

17a t the Massachusetts In s titu te o f Technology in the spring of ?955o

This hypothesis states that an optimum intake-output ra tio of a func­

tioning system would be in the general neighborhood o f u n ity . With

th is ideal ra tio in hand, Deutsch sets about to measure his chosen

indicators of internal and external flow . From these measurements, he

constructs certa in Received/Sent (R /S ), Local/Non-Local (L /N ), and

Domestic/Foreign (D/F) ra tios of mail flow .

Using data from the s ta tis t ic s of the Universal Postal Union,

Bern, Switzerland, fo r the relevant years, Deutsch develops ratios of

15. Ib id , , p. 144.

16. Ib id . , p. 145.

17. Ib id , , note 5 , p. 146,

49

received-mai1 to sent-mai1 fo r fo r ty -s ix countries and finds that more

than three-fourths of them receive more than they send— that is , th e ir

R/S ratios are more than one ( I o0 ) . ^ In most cases, i t seems, these

ratios turn out to be very gross indicators of the degree of indus­

tr ia l iz a t io n and d iv e rs ific a tio n . The countries w ith R/S ratios con­

siderably below 1.0 sent more mail than they received fo r the years

recorded (e .g . , France 0.52; Germany 0.65; United States 0 .8 1 ). The

countries a t the other end o f the rank order scale , those with R/S

ratios considerably above one, received more mail than they sent (e .g . ,

Mexico 3 .12; B razil 2 .78; Indo-China 1.71)» A middle range of coun­

tr ie s clustered around 1. 0 ; these appeared to represent the ideal or

optimum ra tio (e .g . , Union of Soviet S o c ia lis t Republics 1.02; Greece

1.18; Sweden 1 .4 8 ) .^ These ratios are crude indicators of one type

of communication flow . They constitu te only a prelim inary hypothesis

about a country’ s condition of in tegration with the world.

Seeking another type o f indicator of in tegration and its cor­

responding concept, cohesion, Deutsch turns next to ratios which ex­

press the d if fe re n t ia l in local communication w ith respect to non-local

communication. Using s ta tis t ic s from the United States Post O ffice

Department, he reverts to the discussion o f mail flow w ith in the United

States to make a case fo r Domestic-Foreign (D/F) flows la te r in the

study. What he is building up to is the proposition that a country’ s

18. Ib id . , p. 147.

19. Ib id .

502D/F ra tio , coupled with an aggregate s ta t is t ic , AL /P , of geographical

area (A ), population (P ), to ta l le tte rs sent (L ) , and le tte rs per

capita (L /P ) , is an indicator of that country's in tegration with or20isolation from the rest o f the world,

) 2 When a l l the countries had been assigned D/F ratios and AL /P

measurements, they were p lotted on a two-dimensional a x is . This was

done with the measurements from four time periods. What resulted was

a "regression lin e ," The plots tended to f a l l along a sloping lin e

which could be represented by a certa in calculable formula. Deutsch •

found that the slope of the regression lin e fluctuated from period to

period in such a manner that one general conclusion could be drawn from

the data display: as countries got larger and more in d u s tr ia lly ad­

vanced , they tended to begin to send more mail than they received.

Deutsch was impressed by the way in which the regression lines had

shifted fo r each of the four periods examined. But, owing to the

sketchy nature of the data fo r the year 1880, i t would have to be

assumed that the s h if t in the lin e from th is time period to the next

would not be too dependable in any close comparison with the other re­

gression lin es .

Deutsch suggests other indicators of communication flow such

as m igration, exchange students, and s c ie n tif ic notation in scholarly

jo u rn a ls ; but his prelim inary tests of these indicators are on flows

w ithin the United States, fo r the most p a rt. At any ra te , they appear

20. Ib id . , p. 152.

51

almost as afterthoughts, and they are , a t best, inconclusive. The

primary data in the study is the D/F mail flow . Secondarily, a

country's cohesion as a function of an increasing volume of mail flow

w ith in its boundaries is important to the main purpose o f the a r t ic le .

The measure of iso lation (converse o f in tegration) o f a country with

respect to the relevant environment is defined by the magnitude of the

D/F ra tio in re la tio n to a l l the rest of the countries arrayed. An

example of th is is the extreme case of the Union of Soviet S o c ia lis t

Republics which had a D/F ra tio in 1936 of 96.0~=which Deutsch thought

seemed "to represent the world's record to date in postal iso1a=. . ..21 tionism ."

Deutsch's search fo r the secret o f integration (or a t least fo r

a clue to i t ) , or community, or cohesion was attempted using methods

which could only measure crude volumes o f flow from one time period to

the next. His conclusion a t th is point in his experience with the

communication model ( 1956) was that "most of the work on measurement

22of in ternational communication flows is yet to be done."

Having discussed his main theoretical in te res ts , his hopethesis

about in teg ratio n , and his operational d e fin itio n s o f communication

flow , i t is now possible to make some sort o f an assessment of

Deutsch's use of the communication model in th is study.

21. Ib id . , p. 154.

22. Ib id . , p. 160.

Deutsch: Ana lys is

Deutsch's hypothesis about in tegration as a function o f cross­

boundary mail flow is taken from the two-way communication system

model« Since his basic premise is that an organism must give about as

much information to Sts environment as i t gets from its environment,

his assumption must be, i t seems, that the organism, to survive, i oee,

to maintain i ts e lf and perform adequately, must exchange information

with its environment, or perish. Based on what we have seen from

communication theory and the idea of organization as the input of in­

formation, th is is a sound assumption. But common sense and a l i t t l e

re flec tio n on the h istory of some important countries indicate that

many nations can and have successfully existed in v ir tu a lly complete

Iso lation from the rest o f the world (e .g . , China before P erry ). This

must be the case—a t least in the measurement of the indicators chosen

by Deutsch. In other words, even i f a country sent no m a il, students,

or immigrants abroad or its scholars fa ile d to c ite any foreign schol­

ars in th e ir work, the country would be able to survive, maintain

i t s e lf as an organized s ta te , and be e ffe c tiv e in other areas of trans­

action such as trade, foreign conquest, or foreign investment. Thus,

by themselves these indicators (but mainly mail flow) of integration

cannot be a t a l l conclusive. But they can, as Deutsch admits, be used

to substantiate "q u a lita tiv e " information about a country's degree of

in tegration or is o la tio n ; these indices can also help to lend an idea

of the magnitude of some phenomena which might otherwise seem

inconsequential.

53

From another perspective, Deutsch's model could be considered

as a form of the un id irectional system. I t could be viewed as simply

a description of certa in message flows a t certa in points in time. In

th is mode, the model would not have the feedback c a p a b ility ; although

i t would be erroneous to^suggest that there was not a continuous pro­

cess going on ( i . e . , a constantly s h iftin g D/F r a t io ) . But, Deutsch

never supplies the structura l evidence or conceptualization fo r the

type of feedback process which would, a t le a s t, describe the exchange

of information taking place. -

A second area of analysis must focus on Deutsch's use of the

concept of messages. He c le a rly recognizes the p rin c ip le that the

individual message conveys no information. Messages must be received

in quantity , as aggregates (functions) or sequences of symbols, before

they create patterns a t the receiving end of the transmission. Though

Deutsch has been c r it ic is e d fo r weighting a l l of his "messages"

equally— i . e . , not distinguishing among the contents o f certa in mes­

sages such as post cards and diplomatic le t te rs — he is vindicated by

the communication theory dictum concerning patterns as opposed to theS

content of individual messages.1* Deutsch is r ig h tly concerned only with

the transmission and reception (flow ) of long sequences o f messages.

Thus, his measurement of gross volume is a generally acceptable indica­

to r of communication flow and can be re lie d upon to t e l l the observer

a t least something about the sta te of the system's information-

organization condition (in e ith e r the one-way or the two-way communi­

cation system). But, in the f in a l analysis, Deutsch's focus on the

volume of the flow alone fa l ls severely short o f the understanding

which has already been established in Chapter 2 about the nature o f

the transmission o f messages as sequences of symbols with d is tin c tiv e

s ta t is t ic a l ch arac te ris tics ,

Deutsch acknowledges that there are other dimensions of commu­

nication flow besides volume ( 1» e ., speed, f id e l i t y , number of o rig ­

inal choices, and e ffec tiven es s ), but he realizes that data on volume

w ill be the most read ily availab le and the most descriptive of the con­

cepts he has operationalized as flows—with the least amount of work.

The most that could be said fo r the flows which Deutsch succeeds in

quantifying is that these flows do infuse (when they are coming into)

a country with a certa in type of information which tends to "organize"

the e n tity in spec ific ways. For example, immigrants into a country,

as Deutsch suggests, may be thought of as messages. They can change

the demographic structure of th e ir adopted country (or portions of i t ) .

A large contingent o f immigrants from Cuba, fo r examp1e , has had an

impact on the State of Florida by th e ir very presence. In addition ,

th e ir m inority group status, the p o lit ic a l connotations of th e ir migra­

tion , and th e ir impact o f the job market, schools, and housing capabil­

it ie s of the State are a l l factors associated with the fa c t that they

have come.

At other times in American h is to ry , the Negro slave, the Ir is h

immigrant and the Polish immigrant have a ll been inputs to the United

States, measurable not only as volume (as Deutsch recognizes) but also

by th e ir peculiar and sometimes common characteris tics as communication

55

flow 0 The conditions o f th e ir emigration and the conditions o f th e ir

reception in the new country constitu te transmission characteris tics

which might be e ffe c tiv e ly probed to find out about the characteris tics

of the source (abandoned country) as well as the s ta te o f the overall

system in terms of how i t handles the flow— ioe», performance thresh­

old*

To carry the example a l i t t l e fu rth e r , I suggest that a p ro f ile

on an immigration flow could be developed to any degree o f d e ta il de­

sired* This p ro file could be construed as the s ta t is t ic a l character

of the sequence. Various received sequences could be analyzed to re­

veal th e ir p ro file s and an increasingly more d e ta ile d , complete d e f in i­

tion or "p icture" of the e n tire sequence could be constructed. At any

ra te 9 perhaps each of the indices used by Deutsch could be used in

th is more sophisticated way in order to more closely approximate the

theoretical and engineering ideal and a t the same time get more out of

the data. But, always, i t should be remembered that studies of th is

type can only be corroboration fo r the q u a lita tiv e investigations which

tru ly investigate the human interaction which is , in the end, the only

level a t which real understanding and subsequent in tegration can take

place.

Cross-boundary output could be treated in much the same way as

input was treated above; but, in ad d itio n , i t should be noted that

C ybernetica lly , what a system or an organism "puts out" is action— fo r

the purpose of maintaining i t s e lf by adjusting to its environment.

There is an exchange of information w ith the environment, to be sure.

but i t has th is manipulative ch ara c te ris tic —action* An organism

perceives its environment by taking in information; th is i t does by

sensing its position or s itu a tio n w ith in the environment and persuing

its goals by a lte r in g its behavior in ways which w i l l lead to goal

achievement. Again, its outputs are a c t iv it ie s (motor, glandular, or

nervous) which are themselves programmed to help the system achieve

its goals.

Viewed from th is feedback perspective, Deutsch's ratios of

flows do not make too much sense. He equates out-flow with in -flow

and hypothesizes that in -flow divided by out-flow (D/F) w i l l y ie ld a

measure or an index of in teg ra tio n . But the receip t of a small amount

of information from the environment— say in the form of a perception of

heat a t the fin ger t ip s —can tr ig g er a larger motor response in the arm

and body of many times the amount of information taken in by the sen­

sory receptors. Thus, without c la r if ic a t io n from some quarter, i t

remains, a t best, an “oral communication" from Wiener that an input-

output ra tio o f one to one ( 1/ 1) is the ideal against which to measure

any system's performance. One might be tempted to think that a ra tio

o f 10 to 1 would be more “normal" fo r Deutsch's data (and he does

speculate that la rg e r, more advanced countries might show a consistent

p ro c liv ity to stay up a t a high D/F ra tio o f 15 or more); but th is

would be an erroneous concession to what appears normal, as well as an.

admission that his o rig in a l premise ( 1/ 1) was fa u lty .

But, in id en tify ing these ratios of Domestic to Foreign mail

flow , Deutsch may have uncovered something which he did not an tic ip a te

and which could not be dea lt with under his concept of in teg ratio n .

His concept of cohesion was less developed than his concept o f integra=

tio n . A country's in ternal mail flow (or communications of a l l kinds)

may be construed as an indicator of its s ta te of organization and

cohesion. Perhaps Deutsch's concentration on the ra tio masked the

re la tiv e importance of the domestic flow by i t s e l f . This flow might

represent what Deutsch called "secondary" message flow w ith in an

organism by which i t informs a l l the sub-systems of the s ta te of the

whole system— keeping i t ready to receive and process "primary" mes­

sages from the environment, Deutsch had stated th is d ifference in

types of messages in his e a r l ie r a r t ic le on communication models; but,/ 23

apparently he did not consider i t germane to the 1956 study.

F in a lly , i t is important to remind ourselves that the quan­

t i f ia b le flows of in ternational communication a re , and must be, pat­

ently d iffe re n t from the q u an tifiab le flows of communication

engineering. When the communication engineer speaks of coding and

modulating a source's output, he is ta lk ing about sp ec ific operations

which can be carried out on the signal to make i t transm ittable or to

match i t to the channel. He can make predictions about a future trans­

mission based on his knowledge of the source's past performance. In

short, his knowledge of the characteris tics of the message, o f the

channel, of the transm itter and rece iver, and of the requirements o f

the operator or the d es tin a tio n --th is knowledge— is nearly complete.

On the contrary, the scholar who wants to know something about the

23. Deutsch, "On Communication Models," p. 369.

performance of an in ternational system or sub-system is confronted on

a l l sides w ith imprecision, ambiguity, and the semantic fac to r: a l l

which make his task of flow perception, id e n tif ic a tio n , and measure­

ment exceedingly d i f f i c u l t , i f not impossible. And in the end, he can

never be sure that what he has observed is the resu lt of in tegration or

the cause of i t .

To round out the c ritic is m is to note that Deutsch does not

even discuss channels. Evidently, he takes them fo r granted because

they are e ith e r not important or because they defy id e n tific a tio n and

description. But channels are a v ita l element in communication en­

gineering and theory; and fo r th is reason, i f no o ther, i t would seem

imperative that a model builder in in ternational re la tio n s , or in any

d is c ip lin e , would a t least account fo r th e ir insign ificance, i f he

cannot deal with them as variab les .

No c ritiq u e of Deutsch's use of the model could leg itim ate ly

accuse him of misusing the concepts because he used what he could—

what he perceived as relevant and applicab le . He had to match his con­

cepts to his subject m atter. This is how he defined them. The indices

which he id en tifie d are not bereft o f s ign ificance; but they are

severely lim ited in th e ir correspondence with the ideal concepts d is ­

cussed e a r l ie r ; and they lack the precision of logical re lationship

which characterizes the communication model o f Chapter 2 . This c r i t ­

icism does not invalidate Deutsch's work. I t only q u a lifie s its

veracity as an operational manifestation of communication modelling.

59

Innovation is welcome, so long as i t is fu l ly explained and

deviance is accounted fo r 0 But serious epistemological and method­

ological problems can arise when a researcher changes some of his

premises and not others; and when he attempts to make his whole e f fo r t

hang together on a common-sense in terp re ta tion of the subject m atter.

Russett; Responsiveness

Russett's study of Anglo-American relations is an extension of24

Deutsch's search fo r indicators of in teg ratio n . But Russett has

chosen a more spec ific focus than Deutsch's general in teres t in

in tegration . Russett chose to investigate what he called responsive­

ness. Responsiveness can be understood as a cybernetic concept ( i . e . ,

a process involving communication and contro l) . I t connotes an or­

ganism's or a system's sensory awareness of its environment, its commu­

nication with that environment, and its attempt to control its own be­

havior based on the sensory information from its environment. In other

words, by a process of feedback, the system organizes and reorganizes

i t s e l f in order to maintain its id en tity and survive in its environ­

ment.

What Russett has done is to id en tify a p a rtic u la r instrumental

process— responsiveness—which characterizes the state of integration

a t a p a rtic u la r time. Deutsch was attempting to investigate the s tate

of a country's integratedness with its environment by certa in

24. Bruce M. Russett, Community and Contention (Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts In s titu te of Technology Press, 1963).

6 0

measurements of flows which he f e l t were indicators of progress toward

or away from th is state of in tegration .

Taking up where Deutsch le f t o f f 9 Russett narrowed the scope

of his inquiry to two countries and chose to investigate one of the

primary processes (responsiveness) by which a country matches its

caoabi1it ie s to its loads. I t is s ig n ific a n t, even c ru c ia l, that

Russett redefines the concept of integration fo r th is study. In

Deutsch*s terms, the United States and B rita in would already be in te ­

grated. Deutsch*s d e fin itio n of in tegration asserts th a t, w ith in a

te r r i to ry , a "sense of community" is attained and certa in in s titu tio n s

and practices become '(strong enough and widespread enough to assure,

fo r a 'long* time, dependable expectations of ‘peaceful change* among

its po p u la tio n ."^

Russett's d e fin itio n asserts no f in a l i t y to the process of

in tegration; but rather i t turns on the dynamic ongoing nature of a

relationship between a country's c a p a b ilitie s fo r responsiveness and

the loads placed on those cap a b ilitie s by another country. Russett

explains: " I f we say two countries are becoming more integrated, we

mean that the growth of c ap ab ilities is outpacing the increase in

loads. . . .Thus integration is a process, and we shall re fe r to the

ra tio of c ap a b ilitie s to loads a t any time as the s ta te of Integra-26tio n , of which responsiveness is largely a function."

25. Karl W. Deutsch, e t a l . P o lit ic a l Community and the North A tla n tic Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957)» P. 5 .

26. Russett, Community and Contention, p. 39.

61

In Russett8s theoretical framework, responsiveness is a

general term— d is tin c t from a spec ific response. Responsiveness is

"the probabi1jtv that the demands of one party w il l be met with indul-27gence rather than deprivation by the other p a rty ," This frees him

from the deductive imperative of having to show which request evoked

each response; besides, the flow of responses— the trend or pattern o f

responsiveness— is what is sought, in keeping with the princip les of

communication theory. But, the in a b ility to locate the feedback

channel and id en tify the nature of its process is a serious short­

coming, i f the researcher is concerned with th is process s p e c if ic a lly ,

and not ju s t w ith a description of a communication network in general

terms,

Russett id en tifie s two types o f actors who can exh ib it re -

sponsiveness: (1) Governments acting o f f ic ia l ly ; and (2) individuals

acting u n o ff ic ia lly (e ,g 0, government o f f ic ia ls or members of in terest

groups), A spec ific demand placed on one party may be met in one of

three ways: (1) The demand may be given atten tion and indulgence; or

( 2) i t may be met w ith a tten tion and p a rtia l indulgence; or f in a l ly

(3) a demand may be d e lib e ra te ly ignored or inadvertently unnoticed and

the resu lt w il l be deprivation. Russett admits that while i t is pos-

, s ib le to make ana ly tica l d is tin c tio n between inadvertent and deliberate28deprivation, i t is v ir tu a lly impossible to do so in p rac tice . But in

the long run, de liberate inattention to a series of demands or request

27. Ib id . , p. 30.

28. Ib id .

' ' ' ■ )

62

would probably become apparent and thus no real problem arises

( i . e . , when the technical level o f communication has been assured,

tested and proven fo r certa in types of messages, i t would probably

become apparent that the problem o f non-responsiveness was, in fa c t,

a semantic problem—or perhaps, the effectiveness problem).

Having discussed responsiveness in terms of Russett’ s general

theoretical framework, i t is now possible to explore his d e fin itio n o f

responsiveness in greater d e ta il . He asserts that p o lit ic a l units

(countries) have certa in ca p a b ilitie s which are: (1) The capacity to% '

act (e ,g , , m ilita ry strength, wealth, s ize — "power"), (2) the capacity

to perceive and communicate ( i , e , , c a p a b ilitie s which he ca lls a tten ­

tion and communication such as perception o f one's v ita l interests and

communication of those perceptions to another p o lit ic a l u n it's decision

making centers); ( 3) the capacity of mutual id e n tific a tio n (th is cannot

e x is t without exercise of the attention-communication capacities but

i t need not always fo llow these c a p a b ilit ie s ) . C ap ab ilities (2) and

(3) are of prime in teres t to Russett: "A ll these f a c i l i t i e s —atten ­

t io n , communication, and mutual id e n tif ic a tio n —we shall c a ll 'capab il­

it ie s fo r responsiveness,' They must carry the demands which each29

country makes on the o th er," While c ap a b ilitie s fo r action (number 1

above) sometimes overlap with c a p a b ilit ie s fo r responsiveness, Russett

contends that i t is useful to conceptually distinguish the two because

action presupposes a cap ab ility to act while responsiveness only

presupposes an intention to ac t,

29. 1 b id , , p, 27.

63

So f a r , Russett has said that a country has certa in c ap ab ili­

ties fo r responsiveness which are a tte n tio n , communication and mutual

id e n tific a tio n * Now i t is necessary to describe what he called the

loads or demands which ac tiva te the process o f response. Demands are

not only formal requests or demands, but also "informal requests, pleas

made by p riva te individuals or agencies e ith e r to the government or to

other private ind iv iduals , and merely ’ s itu a tio n s ” that need a tte n tio n ,

whether or not an e x p lic it request is ever m ade,"^ Loads or demands

have three characteris tics which distinguish them: (1) D irection—

degree of complementarity or c o n tra rity with other demands being made

on the decision making center; (2) number; (3) weight--importance

attached to the demand by the requester.

What occurs, then, is that a country has loads placed on i t

and attempts to deal w ith those loads by exercising its cap ab ilities

fo r responsiveness, Russett’ s theoretica l framework constitutes a

model of a process which is represented by a ra tio of cap a b ilitie s to

loads. As he says, "the responsiveness of A to B is thus largely a

function of the ra tio o f the c a p a b ilitie s fo r responsiveness which A

directs toward B over the loads coming from B to A a t any given

tim e," But Russett recognizes that no s ituatio n is ever so simple.

He admits that c a p a b ilitie s can never be precisely specified or

30, Ib id , , p, 29,

31. Ib id ,

64

measured and that "the state of a f fa irs In the in ternational arena is

also an extremely important v a ria b le .

C apab ilities fo r responsiveness— a tten tio n , communication, and<

mutual id e n tif ic a tio n — require certa in " fa c i l i t ie s " fo r th e ir re a liza ­

tio n . These fa c i l i t ie s are e ith e r formal in ternational and supra­

national in s titu tio n s fo r channeling a tten tion and communication; in­

formal practices which do the same thing; or merely habits and memories

of a tte n tio n . These fa c i l i t ie s depend upon certa in physical channels

fo r the transmission of perceptions such as te letype machines and

telegraph lines; but Russett is not concerned with th e ir existence.

He recognizes that some delay is b u ilt into these channels but he con­

siders i t normal; and he states that the importance o f the channels

lies in the frequency of th e ir use. "This use, the contacts ac tua lly

made, is what we mean by the fa c i l i t ie s fo r communication and atten tion

between nations

Given a two-country system in which demands and responses are

exchanged, how does Russett go about measuring the extent of the re­

sponsiveness which would characterize the state of in tegration ex isting

between the two countries? How does he a c tiva te the model?

Russett chose what he determined were the f iv e most normal

years of Anglo-American re lations as the periods o f time which would

y ie ld the most va lid and revealing information about Anglo-American

32. Ib id .

33. ib id . , p. 27o

65

re la tio n s . The years 1890, 1913$ 1928, 1938, and 1954 were years, he

concluded, which were not beset by any v io len t upheavals or extraor­

dinary events (wars, fin an c ia l crises) and would probably not y ie ld

data skewed in e ith e r d irec tio n — toward or away from a normal state o f

in tegration and the subsequent level of responsiveness. What kinds

of data would be most appropriate and ava ilab le fo r tracing the trends

in each country's c a p a b ilitie s fo r responsiveness?

As indicators of the a tten tion c a p a b ility , Russett measured

"the proportion o f space devoted to the other country in e l i t e news­

papers, the proportion of references in scholarly research to work done

in the other country, and the amount of a tten tion given another nation

34in a s ta te 's education system." The indicators he chose in order to

characterize and measure the communication cap ab ility were "trends in

mail flows, trade in goods and services, telephone and telegraph commu­

n ica tio n , student exchange, travel fo r business and pleasure, various

kinds of contacts among members of the e l i te s , magazine and motion

35p ictu re exchange, and m igration ," F in a lly , as indicators of mutual

id e n tif ic a t io n , he notes that many of the same measures of communica­

tio n - -p a rtic u la r ly movies and m igration --are also useful as measures of

th is las t c a p a b ility . "Other indicators of mutual id e n tific a tio n are

the amount of approval expressed in the e l i t e papers and in mass36

opinion as measured by survey data ." _____________

34, Ib id . , p. 31.

35, Ib id .

36, Ib id .

66

A fte r each of these indicators had been measured fo r each

yearly period in question* a statement about the level o f responsive­

ness of A to B and B to A could be made (conveniently* A and B can be

thought of as America and B r ita in ) . But i t is important to remember

that Russett insists on a combinational resu lt based on a l l three of

the measured c a p a b ilit ie s . In short* a l l three indices must point in

the same d irec tio n — eith e r toward indulgence or toward d e p r iv a tio n -

before a judgment can be made about the conclusiveness of the data.

This approach, he fe e ls , avoids the need to weight the indices. For

him, "a tte n tio n , communication* and mutual id e n tific a tio n are a l l

37essential to responsiveness; there can be no weighting of the th ree ."

Russett recognizes that there might be a question about

whether an indicator was a cause of community or an e ffe c t of an a l ­

ready existing sense of community. He answers th is question by invok­

ing the pervasive influence of feedback. He concludes that "most of

the aspects of cap ab ility that we shall examine are in fa c t both cause

and e ffe c t . The messages not only contribute to the development of

community but also are themselves promoted by the community's e x is t­

ence, as the two elements are mutually re in fo rc in g ." ^

Since.he is concerned, not with the factors which promote a

trend in a p a rtic u la r c a p a b ility , but with what the overall trend is ,

and its e ffe c t on in teg ra tio n , he fee ls absolved of the alleged sin of

conceptual ambiguity in th is area of mutual reinforcement. In

37. Ib id . , p. 32.

38. Ib id . , p . 33=

addition , he declares the role of force in in tegration as outside the

scope of his study, since he is concerned with two nations which have

b u ilt th e ir integration on free and cooperative associations fo r

problem solving,,

Russett: Analysis

One of the f i r s t things which should be apparent about

Russett's model is its great v a rie ty o f indicators (grouped under the

three cap ab ilitie s ),, While th is could conceivably be a sign of the

greater a v a i la b il i ty o f data ( fo r Russett as compared with Deutsch),

i t is , more probably, a function of Russett's more ambitious design

(and i t should be noted that Russett's study was o r ig in a lly done as

his doctoral d issertation under Deutsch) 0 By iden tify ing many more

types o f flows as "message1* flows, Russett is acknowledging the fa c t

that nearly every public event— i ee 0, every event that becomes public

knowledge— is ac tu a lly a message of sorts which conveys information

about the conditions of the system in which i t takes place. Thus, by

attempting to expand his l i s t of indicators of a tte n tio n , communica­

tio n , and mutual id e n tific a tio n to include some q u an tifiab le flows of

events, Russett is follow ing the p rin c ip le of examining more and more

of the relevant sequences of symbols or events which occur in the fo r ­

mal and informal relationships between two countries. Id e a lly , i f one

could examine a l l o f the sequences o f events of human existence, one

could decode the sequences and "get the message" of h is to ry . But,

6 8

th e o re tic a lly , one does not even have to decode a ll the sequences

in order to learn a t least something about the character o f the

transmission,

Russett is rather careless in his use of the concept of re­

sponsiveness, A n a ly tic a lly , he divides the concept into three compo­

nents (a tten tio n , communication, mutual id e n t ity ) | but he then admits

that these components are sometimes indistinguishable from one another

in p rac tice . In the data co llection and c la s s ific a tio n stage, then,

i t must be necessary to make some rather a rb itra ry decisions about

whether an event should be lis te d as a tte n tio n , communication, or

mutual id e n tif ic a tio n . Furthermore, when there is an overlap, should

a c ap ab ility be counted under a l l three categories? This would destroy

the distinctiveness of the component aspect of responsiveness by admit­

tin g , perhaps, that everything is re lated to everything (which may be

tru e , but i t is not a very useful revelation fo r purposes of descrip­

tio n , le t alone explanation),

Russett1s d is tin c tio n between a sp ec ific response and respon­

siveness, as a general condition, is consistent with communication

theory's principal in terest in the pattern or sequence of messages

which conveys information. Each response is a yes-no or on-off prop­

o s itio n , i , e , , e ith e r indulgence or deprivation is the nature of the

specific response. Together, a series of deprivations and indulgences

te l ls the observer something about the source ( i , e , , the sender),

In a sense, Russett has constructed his responsiveness concept

in a way that seems to p a ra lle l the engineering d is tin c tio n between

69

the source and the transm itter* The ca p a b ility of mutual id e n tif ic a ­

tion could be thought of as the source of the messages. In other

words, a l l the previous experiences, memories, lo y a ltie s , and a ttitu d es

o f a nation (w ith , toward, about another nation) could be thought o f

as a fund or source of possible choices from which the transm itter

selects when a message is ac tu a lly communicated. The actor (govern­

mental or ind iv idua l) could be thought of as the transm itter of the

message, since he inputs the response (pos itive or negative) into the

channel„ The transm itter could be viewed as a modulating and coding

device which prepares the message fo r transmission,

Russett chooses to disregard the influence of physical channels

on responsiveness—accepting the technical problems o f delay and assum­

ing general adequacy. This is not a c tu a lly an unreasonable assumption

because, in in ternational re la tio n s , a l l the actors would be faced with

ostensibly s im ila r parameters of channel capacity. On the other hand,

i t could be argued that channel capacity is a lim itin g fac to r and care­

fu l a tten tion ought to be paid to i t ,

Russett does acknowledge the p o s s ib ility of overload a t the

receiving end of a communication c h a n n e l H e admits that the deci­

sion making centers of government, which must be a tte n tiv e to requests

from the other countries, do become overloaded by the in flux of demands

and requests; and th is overloaded condition forces certa in internal

reorganizations in manpower (and sometimes structure) to allow the

decision centers to handle the extra load. During these overloaded

40* Ib id , , p , 28,

periodss and because of upheavals in the larger system (outside the

two-country system), decision centers may become overloaded to the

point of breakdown. When th is receiving function has deteriorated too

fa r , i t is l ik e ly that non-responsiveness (between A and B) w il l in­

crease due to in atten tio n .

Russett does not label this overload (which results in inatten­

tion ) noise, but i t could be construed in th is way. His model has no

way of managing the noise problem in periods o f great in ternational

stress; and this is why he had to choose "normal" years fo r the study.

In any event, these normal years were chosen in an attempt to discover

what the normal flow o f requests and responses might look lik e ,

Russett has used the idea of decision making centers in surprisingly

close conformity to the meaning and function of receivers (discussed

in Chapter 2 ) .

The discussion of overload above leads to the discussion of

another problem in Russett11 s model: the general d e fin itio n and use of

the concept of loads or demands. In i t i a l l y , he acknowledges three

components of loads: d ire c tio n , weight, and number. The theoretica l

importance of these loads is placed on par with that o f the concept of

responsiveness. But i t turns out that loads and demands are studied

as much more amorphous "situations" and threatening trends or a t­

mospheres of " f r ic t io n ," than the re la t iv e ly more precise delineation

of ca p a b ilitie s which he provides. Trade discrim ination and investment

r iv a lry , fo r example, are considered as indicators of loads. The im­

portant element which is central to communication theory is preserved.

however, in his treatment of loads0 He adheres to the p rin c ip le that

i t is the probabi1itv generated by the sequence of loads which is im­

portant* Thus loads-as-a-general-condition of tension is a good way

to conceptualize the p ro b a b ilis tic s itu a tio n in which responsiveness

reveals the state of in tegration*

The most serious flaw in the model is the exclusion of events

which occur outside the immediate system of Anglo-American concerns®

But, given the fa c t that l i t t l e happens a round the world which the

United States fee ls is not in its in te re s t, i t may be a se lf-co rrec tin g

deficiency (so long as the United States is one o f the countries in

the study)®) By choosing "normal*1 years, and by trea tin g the outer

in ternational system as irre le van t to the Anglo-American sub-system,

Russett has severely lim ited his model to considerations which, in the

long run, may not be very accurate or in teresting e ith e r to the student

or the p ra c titio n er of in ternational relations®

I t is in teresting to note that Russett ac tu a lly develops sev­

eral measures of responsiveness along the conceptual lines of response

of individual and response of government® By measuring trade, invest­

ment, and a llian ce trends, for example, he is investigating governmen­

ta l or systemic trends; while his a tten tion to e l i t e a ttitu d e s ,

perceptions, and so c ia liza tio n points to his in teres t in individual

responsiveness® This cleavage is a most important fac to r in assessing

the characteris tics of the messages a spec ific type of source is lik e ly

72

to put outo For th is reason, i t is puzzling why Russett did not

attempt to tabulate separately his trends in governmental and ind iv id ­

ual responsiveness.

F in a lly , the place of the concept o f feedback in Russett's

model must be analyzed. Aside from several apologies about the

"mutually re inforcing" interdependency ex is ting between the three

ca p a b ilitie s and the sta te of in teg ra tio n , Russett makes no overt

attempt to f i t the concept of feedback into his model. He acknowledges

the fa c t that i t Is d i f f ic u l t to d istinguish between the cap ab ilitie s

as causes of integration and the c a p a b ilitie s as e ffec ts o f integration

already achieved; but he w rites th is ambiguity o ff w ith a reference to

Wiener's development of the concept. This is not adequate treatment

fo r a concept which is essential in a two-way communication system. In

short, he provides a f a i r ly adequate v is ib le s tructu ra l p icture of the

forward channel linking each country with the o ther, but he leaves

the feedback channel poorly defined and v ir tu a lly without p ic to r ia l

id e n tity .

In summary, th is analysis finds Russett's model to be a f a i r ly

close approximation o f a communication system as described in Chap­

te r 2 . His use of the basic concepts is generally sound; however he

does f a i l to make the process of feedback very c le a r. He has made an

ambitious attempt to demonstrate the factors involved in integration by

dealing with an instrumental process of in tegration— responsiveness.

His empirical referents fo r communication flow are re la t iv e ly numerous

and varied; they promise greater breadth o f sequence id e n tific a tio n

73

and decoding,. The reduction of uncertainty by information in flux is

apparent, though undiscussed, in the re d e fin itio n o f integration as a

continual, building process.

McClelland: Event In teraction

I f Russett succeeded in increasing the number of indicators of

in teg ra tio n -o v e r the number employed by Deutsch=”McClelland has

fashioned, out of the communication model, an approach to in ternational

re lations which has the po tentia l o f trea tin g a l l events as relevant

•'messages'* in a communication system,,^ McClelland's approach, gather­

ing newspaper accounts of events, c lass ify ing them into categories, and

computing the frequency o f each type o f event, considers flows of

events as the flows which reveal patterns of in ternational behavioro

McClelland views the in ternational configuration o f nations as

a system (made up of sub-systems) which is characterized, a t any given

time, by the flow of events taking place* As they occur, these events

form patterns and structures of in teraction among the actors in the

system* He recognizes, with communication theorists and engineers,

that in a given sub-system consisting of two countries "one of the

things that would be p ro fita b le to discern would be the patterns and

sequences and successions of actions of one side and the responses of

the other s ide;" but, admitting the complexity of th is type of dynamic

41 * Charles A* McClelland, "Access to B erlin ; The Quantity and Variety of Events, 1948-1963," Jo David Singer, ed* Q uantitative In ternational P o litic s (New York: Free Press, 1967)0

lh

feedback analysis , he concludes that "how to do th is most e ffe c tiv e lyI fO

s t i l l remains an unsolved problem,.

Not being able to say precisely which action or event (by one

actor) produced a subsequent event or response by another ac to r,

McClelland contends that an "a ttra c tiv e a lte rn a tiv e is to raise the

question of how the opposing actors ‘mix’ th e ir behaviors over a speci­

fie d length o f t im e ," ^ This is a good hypothetical question which

comes d ire c tly out of communication theory’ s understanding of the

s ta t is t ic a l characteris tics of a source0 In other words, an examina­

tion of the s ta t is t ic a l characteris tics of the message sequences pro­

duced by a source may, in time, y ie ld (1 ) a knowledge of the kinds of

message patterns to expect from the source and thus (2) an understand­

ing of the performance of the communication system* From Chapter 2 ,

we know that by examining the past sequences of messages from a source,

i t is possible to say something about the probable fu ture production

of sequences of messages* But, as always, i t is the flow or the tim e-

series sequence which yields an increasingly complete p ictu re of the

ch aracteris tic performance of a communication system*

McClelland's focus in th is study is what he c a lls the problem

of the "acute in ternational c r is is *" Because crises are dangerous to

peace and create untold tension in in ternational re la tio n s—p a rtic ­

u la r ly when the superpowers are involved—McClelland feels that an

h is to rica l examination of the events leading up to and following a

42* Ib id * , p* 169*

43* Ib id *

75

c r is is may y ie ld important insight into the "change of s ta te" of the

p a rtic u la r in ternational system. This change of s ta te would be re fle c ­

ted in the type of events which occurred and th e ir "m ix," i 0ee, the

re la tiv e frequency of certa in types of events a t d iffe re n t times. The

threshold of event in tensity and v a rie ty , beyond which the system w ill

change from a non-crisis to a c r is is s ta te , is the conceptual objective/i/.

of this examination o f past events,

McClelland's preoccupation w ith crises and th e ir characteris­

tic s is epitomized by his b e lie f that

the s ig n ific a n t varia tio n in the flow of action in a sys­tem is the central in terest o f in ternational system anal­ys is , , , oThus, the long-term objective of both theory and research on the in ternational system is not to find out everything about the system; i t is only to construct an appropriately complex and s u ff ic ie n tly accurate set ofperformance indicators so that 'readings' o f the s ta te ofthe system can be taken a t any time, ^

To apply these theoretical in terests to a concrete system, and

to test his propositions about acute in ternational crises in general,

McClelland studied the sub-systemic c r is is defined by the problem of

access to B erlin during the years 1948 through I 963, He considers the

B erlin access s ituation to be a sub-system of the larger East-West sys­

tem of p o lit ic a l events. Narrowing the focus in th is way, he is able

to consider only that certa in class of " lo ca l" events which is relevant

to the sub-system. These local actions are defined as events which

"have (1) challenged d ire c tly the Western position in B erlin and on the

44, Ib id , , p, 160,

45, Ib id . , p, 162.

76

access routes, or (2) have been defensive measures mounted against

these ch a llen g es ,"^ He s p e c ific a lly excludes the actions of o f f ic ia l

government agencies— high diplomacy— because of his desire to avoid

any consideration of motivation or perception.

Iden tify ing and c lass ify ing the relevant local events con­

s titu te s the major preoccupation of the study, i t seems, The New York

Times Index was used as a source lis t in g of events pertaining to the

B erlin s itu a tio n . When co llected , th is chronology o f events consti­

tutes , in a very crude way, the flow o f action in the sub-system. The

tes t of sorting the "re levant11 events from the irre levan t ones was ,

the simple question; "'Does this item re la te d ire c tly to moves made in

the East-West action fo r position and access e ith e r to and from B erlin

or w ith in B e r lin ? '" ^

When the relevant items had been selected (1791 of them), each

of them was coded or translated to f i t into one of the most appropriate

of 18 d iffe re n t categories of action . The categories were chosen to

conform as closely as possible to the language used in the Index; and

a set of synonyms was developed fo r each category. The categories

settled on were as follow s: Accede, Withdraw, Request, Propose, Bar­

gain, Convey, Abstain, Protest, Reject, Deny, Accuse, Demand, Warn,48Threaten, Decree, Demonstrate, Force A ttack, I t should be apparent

46, Ib id , , p, 160.

47, ib id , , p. 167,

48, Ib id , , p, 168,

77

that the l i s t Is rank-ordered to denote a range of actions running

from cooperation, through bargaining, to extreme c o n flic t; but there

is no assumption o f in ternal distance between types„

The next operation on the data was a calculation of the f r e ­

quency of the occurrence of each type of action , fo r each of the two

sides (East-W est), fo r several d iffe re n t time periods (e .g . , each month

and y ear). McClelland could have stopped here, as Deutsch and Russett

did , s e ttlin g fo r the gross measurements o f volume and v a rie ty of

events. But he chose to subject his frequency data to a fu rther set

of manipulations based on techniques from information theory.

Viewing his 18 types of action as possible choices or a lte rn a ­

tives which each side had an equivalent chance of selecting or "emit­

t in g ," McClelland proceeded to quantify the amount of information in

each time period— information defined and lim ited by the number of

choices involved. As outlined in Chapter 2 , the a p r io r i uncertainty

in a s ituatio n involving the selection of a number of equiprobable

a lte rnatives can be measured. McClelland did th is fo r each actor and

time period under study, c a llin g th is measurement the maximum uncer­

ta in ty of the s itu a tio n . Then he figured out the absolute uncertainty

fo r each actor and time period— based on the actual number of events

occurring in each category. F in a lly , using these two measurements of

uncertainty, he constructed the ra tio o f absolute to maximum uncertain­

ty , c a llin g i t the re la tiv e uncertainty o f the s itu a tio n ( i . e . , each

p erio d ). And th is measurement represented the "va rie ty " of events

In it ia te d by each side in the East-West c o n flic t over access to

Berl in

McClelland concluded th a t, when the re la tiv e uncertainty

measurements fo r each actor were arrayed in monthly or yearly succes­

sion, the highest measures of v a rie ty coincided with the "known" c r is is

periods of 1948 and I 96 I ; that is , the mix of the number of actions

taken by each side increased during a c r is is period and th is was re -eg

flee ted in the re la tiv e uncertainty index fo r each period,

McClelland: Analysis

I t has already been noted that McClelland's use o f information

theory techniques is in conformance with the princip les of information

and uncertainty in communication theory. His concept of events as

messages is also a leg itim ate use of the idea that the number of prob­

able events in an a p r io r i s itu a tio n is ind icative of the amount of

information which can flow when the choice is made among the a lte rn a ­

tiv e s . Wiener provides a spec ific support fo r th is conception of mes­

sages as events. He speaks of a message transmitted in a l l directions

a t once--as a sort o f "to-whom-it-may-concern" message—which radiates

out from its source u n til i t is received by some concerned receptor.

R ightly , McClelland attempts to iso la te his sub-system an a ly t­

ic a lly from the larger system. This makes sense because of the

— 1 ------49o Ib id . , p. 172.

50. Ib id . , p. 184.

51. Wiener, Human Use, pp. 96-97=

79

necessity to reduce the scope of the problem to manageable proportions

and in terms of the inherent problem of constructing a simple yet

convincing model„

He has to concern himself w ith the " lo c a l11 s itu a tio n . Other

message-events may be related to the problem (e .g . , a Korean war may

d is tra c t the a tten tion of the actors from the local s itu a tio n ) butj

these remote events are too d i f f ic u l t to id en tify w ith the sub-system

and are thus le f t outside its boundaries. Th is , p ra c tic a lly , is

McClelland's only way of "getting on" w ith the study. His attempt to

show that perturbations in the larger system cause perturbations in the

sub-system seems inconclusive since his data array fa ile d to show one

out of the three major crises which ac tu a lly did occur during the 16

year period .^2

McClelland's focus on a threshold as a graphic indicator of a

c r is is s ituatio n is a leg itim ate , i f awkward, borrowing of the p r in c i­

ples involved in receivers. Jumping an a ly tica l levels fo r a moment, i t

is possible to view the threshold idea and the system performance idea

as in terre la ted parts o f a communication system. Since McClelland's

goal is to develop a method of "reading" the system to determine its

state a t any given tim e, the system's performance could be viewed as

"on" when the threshold had been reached and "o ff" when the performance

level fa ile d to reach the c r is is threshold. But th is makes the whole

system into a c r is is system—with undue emphasis on a c r is is as a good

performance. Further, th is approach (threshold) screens out a l l the

52. McClelland, "Access to B e r lin ," p. 184.

8 0

in teresting and important phenomena which occur below the threshold

1 ine»

Another problem with the model is that McClelland fa i ls to

account fo r the “quiet periods"— except to say that the system is non­

existent a t these less intensive times. His quiet periods were a r­

b i t r a r i ly defined as periods of time in which fewer than f if te e n events

of a l l types occurred. Below th is le v e l, he f e l t that the system was

not in existence because nothing much was happening. This is not

very h e lp fu l, even though i t does re lieve McClelland from the burden

of his problematic data. To rid himself o f th is lackluster data, he

reduces the number of relevant months fo r scrutiny from the orig ina l

192 (16 years) to 41 This amounts to nearly an 80 percent reduction

in the "active" or functioning "on time" of the sub-system. By any

standards, th is appears to be a wholesale decimation of the data base.

Only 41 months are used to c o lle c t, on the average, about f if te e n

events per month—and that is counting East and West together. In

addition to the small s ize of the relevant sample (in months), i t is

c le a rly inaccurate to postulate that the system, the communication

network, goes out of existence simply because no messages are sent over

i t .

McClelland admits that his method of data gathering (scouring

the Times Index) is wrought with severe de fic ien c ies . He also acknowl­

edges the fac t that his resu lts , using information theory techniques,

53. Ib id . , p. 173.

54. Ib id . , p. 182.

81

are severely lim ited by the paucity o f events in most months of the

test period. What th is leads one to suspect is that McClelland's

fascination with the p o s s ib ilit ie s of information analysis (in the

technical sense) led him to seriously overestimate the strength of his

data, and thus, the conclusiveness of his findings.

The major fa u lt which must be pointed out in McClelland's

study is his reliance on an extremely small number o f events to repre­

sent his "flow" or sequence of messages. Event analysis is possible

and consistent with communication theory; but. i f too few messages are

considered, i t v io la tes the sense of the message as i t is known in

communication theory.

Another in teresting problem with th is model is one which

McClelland mentions but disregards—out of necessity. He admits that

there is a school of thought that would c r it ic is e his behavioral

approach to the problem of c r is is . This c r itic is m focuses on the psy­

chological component of in ternational c rises . McClelland notes that

th is psychological approach "might reg is te r to a lim ited extent the

perceptions of national a c to rs ,” by proceeding with "some type of con-CC

tent analysis of diplomatic messages and statements. . . ." But he

dismisses th is approach in favo r.o f his own. Perhaps he does this be­

cause of the greater ease of co llectio n or the supposed advantage of

escaping from the in terp re tiv e problems of semantics.

But, th is type of analysis, o f diplomatic messages and s ta te ­

ments, might demonstrate that the sub-system was very much a liv e during

5 5 ° Ib id . , p . 165.

82

those alleged "quiet periods." At any ra te , th is type of communication

between actors cannot be a r b it r a r i ly dismissed as unimportant simply

because other "hard" data provide an a ttra c tiv e or easy a lte rn a tiv e .

A f in a l general assessment of"McClelland's adaptation of the

communication model must include a comment on his choice o f "quantity

and varie ty" of events as indicators of some sort o f c r is is in the

system. He is forced to admit that his measurements of va rie ty (using

information analysis) are not e n tire ly independent of his measures of

quantity or volume. Given the fa c t that he must discard much of his

data when i t does not y ie ld conclusive evidence of a flow , one is

forced to ask: Why not s tic k with volume or quantity i f i t is almost

as i l lu s tra t iv e o f the c r is is he seeks to identify? The answer would

be, obviously, that his methods and his techniques got the better of

him. He was fascinated with the idea of a threshold which might be

v isu a lly apprehended and with the pred ic tive p o s s ib ilit ie s which that

threshold e n ta ile d . But without a great deal more volume in his com­

p ila tio n of relevant events, i t appears to be only an in teresting

hypothesis (threshold) which defies tes ting—a t least fo r the present

techniques of data gathering.

McClelland's apology fo r his focus on volume is hauntingly

sim ilar to Deutsch's, made some eleven years e a r l ie r . Deutsch admits

that "where such q u an tita tive models are attempted, . . .they raise the .

question of operational d e fin itio n s and techniques of measurement fo r

the variables they e m p l o y . A n d he goes on to concede that volume

56. Deutsch, "Communication Flows," p. 144.

83

w ill be the most eas ily measured variab le or dimension of communication

flow . Again, he realizes that "most o f the work on the measurement o f

in ternational communication flows is yet to be done,"

Eleven years la te r , McClelland must also admit that "the

changes in quantities in some time periods stand out and can be d is t in ­

guished re ad ily , but often the meaning of the numbers tend to be ob-

scured," He, too, makes the standard disclaim er and the a ffirm ation

of tomorrow:

At some future date, the rearranging and testing of d iffe re n t combinations o f indicators probably w il l become a major re­search preoccupation. Meanwhile, the task is to begin the construction, one a t a tim e, of possible indicators in the expectation th a t, sooner or la te r , they w il l be assembled and used in an e ffe c tiv e composite form of measurement,^

Thus, in a s p ir i t of honest, i f irreve ren t, scepticism we can

ask: How fa r have in ternational re la tions scholars come in the

application of the communication model to the study of in ternational

relations?

57» McClelland, "Access to B e r lin ," p, 169,

58, Ib id , , p, 162,

CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSION

Whether our investigations in the social sciences be s ta t is ­t ic a l or dynamic—and they should p a rtic ip a te in the nature of both— they can never be good to more than a very few decimal places, and, in short, can never furnish us with a quantity of v e r if ia b le , s ig n ific a n t information which be­gins to compare with that which we have learned to expect In the natural sciences.

Norbert Wiener Cybernetics. p. 191.

8n the beginning, the task undertaken was to probe the ques­

tion ; How has the communication model been adapted to the study of

in ternational relations? To answer that question in fu l l would have

been a monumental task. But what was learned here was the manner in

which three d iffe re n t authors attempted to operationalize some of the

concepts basic to the theory. The adaptation, however, has not been

a complete success— nor should we have expected i t to be so.

At the end of Chapter 3 , i t was noted that McClelland had ex­

perienced substantia lly the same problems and expressed essen tia lly

the same reservations as Deutsch had in his early use of the model.

This does not mean that the trend postulated e a r lie r is non-existent.

That old problems of finding va lid and measurable indicators of flow

s t i l l haunt present day applications of communication theory is not

evidence that the trend is non-existent. Rather, the recurrent

84

85

problems of finding and measuring, in large q u an tities , su itab le in­

dicators of flo w --w h ile trying to adhere to the meanings of the basic

concepts of communication theory and the princip les of th e ir in te r­

re lationships— has, simply, been an extremely d i f f ic u l t enterprise®

McClelland's new work in event analysis may prove to be the most useful

adaptation o f the theory which w i l l be able to help scholars in th e ir

study of the in ternational system. But, as has been pointed out, there

are serious problems of data gathering and manipulation which s t i l l

need study and refinement.

Returning to Wol in 's understanding of the function of th e o ry -

mentioned in the beginning of this thesis— i t can be modestly claimed

that th is investigation of the basic concepts of communication theory

has helped to c la r ify the concepts and has led to a be tte r understand­

ing of th e ir in terre la tio n sh ip s . But, is i t necessary that these

rigorous d e fin itio n s be imposed on the subsequent applications which

have been made of the theory?

1 th ink that I am inclined to agree with Kaplan who refers to■)

a model as "the embodiment of a s tructura l analogy," And, he con­

tinues, "no theory is to be condemned as 'merely an analogy' ju s t

because i t makes use of one," The conclusion which I reach, then,

1, Kaplan, The Conduct of In qu iry , p. 266,

2 , ib id .

86

concerning the application of communication theory to subject matter

foreign to i t is , w ith Kaplan, that

no two things in the world are wholly a lik e , so that every analogy, however close, can be pushed too fa r ; on the other hand, no two things are wholly d is s im ila r, so that there is always an analogy to be drawn, i f we choose to do so,, The question to be considered in every case is whether or not there is something else to be learned from the anal­ogy i f we do choose to draw i t . 3

This "something else to be learned" is precisely what is gained by the

application of the model to the in ternational system. I f the In te r ­

national re lations scholar does not try to push the analogy too fa r ,

i f he avoids the fa lla c y of what Kaplan c a lls p ic to r ia l realism

("The mistake of p ic to r ia l realism is fo rgetting that the s im ila r ity

exists only in a given perspective, that i t depends upon a p a rtic u la rbmode of representation." ) , then he can use the model to describe and

even to understand the in ternational system --if not to explain its

processes.

The conclusion which may be apparent from the above observa­

tions is that the communication model is an analogy. I t is a conven­

ient way of ta lk ing about certa in processes in in ternational re la tio n s .

I t can disclose relationships in a new l ig h t . I t can help the student

and the scholar to a better understanding of events by providing him

with a perspective—a framework fo r analys is . But, in the end, the

analog— the model— cannot re a lly begin to explain the processes or

3. Ib id .

4 . Ib id . , p . 287.

87

the performance of a system cast in communication terminology. Speak­

ing of the Incautious philosopher, but using words of no less impor­

tance to the social s c ie n tis t, Hans Reichenbach comments on the nature

of explanation.

S c ie n tific explanation demands ample observation and c r it ic a l thought; the higher the genera lity aspired to , the greater must be the mass of observational m a te ria l, and the more c r it ic a l the thought. Where s c ie n tif ic explanation fa ile d because knowledge of the time was in s u ffic ie n t to provide the righ t genera liza tion , imagination took its place and supplied a kind of explanation which appealed to the urge fo r genera lity by satis fy ing i t with naive para lle lism s.Superfic ial analogies, p a rtic u la r ly with human experiences, were confused with generalizations and taken to be explana­tio ns . The search fo r genera lity was appeased by the pseudo explanation. 5

He adds that "a l i t e r a l in terp re ta tion of analogy thus supplies a

pseudo explanation, which by the u n c ritica l use of a p ictu re brings

many d iffe re n t phenomena together under one label

These are the dangers and the fru s tra tio n s of attempting to

adapt a theory from the re la tiv e ly precise s c ie n tif ic f ie ld of commu­

nication theory and engineering fo r use in the social sciences—

p a rtic u la r ly in ternational re la tio n s . The adaptation must not be so

simple that i t is of no use fo r understanding and description; but i t

must not attempt to be so complicated and comprehensive that i t becomes

a pseudo explanation.

Even i f we decide to use the model in moderation—expecting

neither too l i t t l e nor too much— there is a danger, Kaplan says,

5. Hans Reichenbach, The Rise of S c ie n tific Philosophy (Berkeley; University of C a lifo rn ia Press, 1963), p. 8 .

6 . Ib id . , p. 13.

’’that the model lim its our awareness o f unexplored p o s s ib ilit ie s of

conceptualization. We tin ker with the model when we might be better

occupied with the subject matter i ts e lf ." ^ This danger bothered

Norbert Wiener too. He was firm ly convinced "th a t society /coul<l7

only be understood through a study of the messages and the communica-O

tion fa c i l i t ie s which belong to i t ; . . But he was reluctant to

place his blessing on social science attempts to usurp the communica­

tion model— the study of messages— and he resisted , apparently, certa in

pleas addressed to him which had urged him to apply his ta lents to

social problems. He was hesitant to ta lk about cybernetic explanation

in society, noting that

to begin w ith , the main quantities a ffec tin g society are not only s ta t is t ic a l , but the runs of s ta tis t ic s on which they are based are excessively short. . . .For a good s ta t is t ic of society, we need long runs under essen tia lly constant con­d itions . ju s t as fo r a good resolution of lig h t we need a lens with a large aperture. . . .Thus the human sciences are very poor testing-grounds fo r a new mathematical technique.9

Perhaps these words» from the master from whom he had learned the

language of the new science, had f in a l ly caught up with Deutsch; be­

cause, in 1966, he indicates his repudiation of the s in g le , a l l -

encompassing point of view provided by the communication model and

writes what amounts to an epitaph on the passing of the period during

which i t dominated his thinking:

7. Kaplan, The Conduct of In qu iry , p. 279e

8 . Wiener, Human Use, p. 25.

9 . Wiener, Cybernetics. p. 34.

8 9

Cybernetic models as well as information and communication theory can be applied in p rin c ip le very w idely, but they cannot cover comprehensively a l l o f our knowledge o f soci­e ty , There are important processes in social development which are not p rim arily communication processes or control processes and where, therefore , cybernetic models are not h e lp fu l,10

Yet, even though the communication model has fa lle n out of

fashion—whether because of the d i f f ic u lty of applying i t or because

of the fu s illa d e of “slings and arrows of outrageous p ro b ab ility"— i t

s t i l l contains some useful analogies o f processes in the in ternational

system which have not been explo ited.

This thesis has investigated communication theory through the

meanings of its basic concepts. In add ition , fo r c la r i t y , i t has pro­

vided the reader with the visual and conceptual aid of illu s tra tio n s

u t i l iz in g communication engineering apparatus. That these conceptuali­

zations and common-sense understandings of communication processes have

so thoroughly permeated our everyday language is abundantly and r ic h ly

obvious. I f i t were not so, i t would have been exceedingly hard to

describe the concepts a t a l l . Therefore, the systems perspective and

the language o f communication and cybernetic theory have become part

of our vocabulary and our way of th inking . To have had such a great

general impact is no mean accomplishment fo r a theory. Whether the

technical aspects of its adaptation to the study o f in ternational re la ­

tions (or any other d isc ip lin e ) are ever worked out in fu l l d e ta il , i t

10. Karl W. Deutsch, "The Theoretical Basis of Data Programs," Richard L. M e rr itt and Stein Rokkan, e d s ., Comparing Nations (New Haven, Conn.: Yale U niversity Press, 1966), p. 31.

can be unequivocally stated that communication theory has enjoyed

a wide and extended application in the social sciences.

REFERENCES CITED

B e llp Do A0 Information Theory and its Engineering A pplications*3rd ed itio n . London: S ir Isaac Pitman and Sons L td ., 19&2.

Berelson, Bernard, “The State of Communication Research,1* Public Opinion Q uarterly , vo l. 23, no. 1 (Spring 1959), pp. 1-5.

B rillo u in , Leon. Science and Information Theory. New York: AcademicPress, In c ., 1956.

Davison, W. P h illip s . International P o lit ic a l Communication.New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965.

, and George, Alexander C. "An Outline fo r the Study of Interna­tional P o lit ic a l Communication." Public Opinion Q uarterly ,Special Issue on Communication Research (Winter 1952-1953), pp. 501-511.

Deutsch, Karl W. "On Communication Models in the Social Sciences." Public Opinion Q uarterly , v o l. 15, no. 3 (F a ll 1952), pp. 356-380.

___ , P o lit ic a l Community a t the In ternational Level: Problems ofD efin ition and Measurement. Garden C ity , New York: Doubledayand Co., 1954.

"Shifts in the Balance of Communication Flows: A Problem ofMeasurement in In ternational R elations." Public Opinion Q uarterly , v o l. 20, no. 1 (Spring 1956), pp. 143-160.

, "The Theoretical Basis of Data Programs." M e rr it t , Richard L.and Rokkan, S te in , eds. Comparing Nations: The Use of Quantita­tiv e Data in Cross-National Research. New Haven, Conn.: YaleUniversity Press, 1966.

Deutsch, Karl W ., B u rre ll, Sidney A ., Kann, Robert A ., Lee,Maurice J r . , Lichterman, M artin , Lindgren, Raymond E .,Loewenheim, Francis L . , Van Wagenen, Richard W. P o lit ic a l Community and the North A tla n tic Area: In ternational Organiza­tion in the Light of H is torica l Experience. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton U niversity Press, 1957.

Goldman, Stanford. Information Theory. New York: P re n tic e -H a lj, In c .,1953.

91

92

Hershberger, W. D. Principles o f Communication Systemso Englewood C lif fs , New Jersey: Prentice-H al1, In c ., 1955®

Kaplan, Abraham. The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology fo r BehavioralScience. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1964.

Kh inch in , A. I . Mathematical Foundations of Information Theory. New York: Dover Publications, In c ., 1957®

McClelland, Charles A. "Access to B erlin : The Quantity and Varietyof Events, 1948-1963®" Singer, J . David, ed. Q uantitative In ternational P o lit ic s : Insights and Evidence. New York: FreePress, 1967, PP® 159-186.

McMi1lan, Brockway. "The Basic Theorems of Information Theory."Annals of Mathematical S ta t is t ic s , v o l. 24, no. 2 (June 1953), pp. 196-219®

Pask, Gordon. An Approach to Cybernetics, Science Today Series.New York: Harper and Brothers, 1961.

P ierce, J. R. Symbols. Signals and Noise: The Nature and Process ofCommunication. New York: Harper and Brothers, I 96I .

Porter, Arthur. Cybernetics S im plified . London: English UniversityPress, L td ., 1969®

Rapoport, Anato!. "Lewis F. Richardson's Mathematical Theory of War." Journal of C onflic t Resolution, v o l. 1, no. 3 (September 1957), pp. 249-299®

Reichenbach, Hans. The Rise of S c ie n tific Philosophy. Berkeley: U niversity of C a lifo rn ia Press, I 963.

Richardson, Lewis F. Arms and Insecurity: A Mathematical Study ofthe Causes and Origins of War. P ittsburg: Boxwood Press, i 960.

Rothstein, Jerome. Communication. Organization and Science. Indian H il ls , Colorado: Falcon's Wing Press, 1958.

Russett, Bruce M. Community and Contention: B rita in and America inthe Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts In s t i­tu te o f Technology Press, 1963®

Schwartz, Leonard S. Principles of Coding. F ilte r in g , and Information Theory. Baltim ore, Md.: Spartan Books, In c ., 1963.

93

Shannon, Claude E. "The Mathematical Theory of Communication."Shannon, Claude E. and Weaver, Warren. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: U niversity of I l l in o is Press, 1949.

, "Communication in the Presence of Noise." Proceedings of theIn s titu te of Radio Engineers, vo l. 37, no. 1 (January 1949),pp. 10-21.

Smith, Bruce Cannes. "Trends in Research on In ternational Communica­tion and Opinion, 1945-55.11 Public Opinion Q u arterly , vo l. 20, no. 1 (Spring 1956), pp. 182-195.

Weaver, Warren. "Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication." Shannon, Claude E. and Weaver, Warren. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: U niversity of111inois Press, 1949.

Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in theAnimal and the Machine. New York: John Wiley and Sons, In c .,1948.

, The Extrapolation, In terp o la tio n , and Smoothing of StationaryTime Series: With Engineering A pplications. New York:John Wiley and Sons, In c ., 1949.

, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society.New York: Avon Books, 1967.

Wolin, Sheldon S. "P o lit ic a l Theory: Trends and Goals." In ternation­al Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vo l. 12. New York: McMillan Co., 1968, pp. 318-330.