The New Wave of Pragmatism in Communication Studies

This article examines two recent discussions of pragmatism in the field of communication and media studies: Chris Russill’s reconstruction of a pragmatist tradition based on the theories of William James and John Dewey, and Mike Sandbothe’s neopragmatist design for media philosophy. The main contention of the article is that Russill and Sandbothe advocate an unnecessarily narrow conception of pragmatist thought, one that tends to exclude the contribution of Charles S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism. After the presentation of Russill’s and Sandbothe’s positions, the article attempts to meet their explicit and implicit criticisms of Peircean pragmatism. More specifically, it is shown that Peirce does not advocate “transcendental universalism”. In conclusion, the article argues that his broad conception of experience is preferable to the radical empiricism of James, and that Peircean habit-realism is not only compatible with Dewey’s pragmatism, but may in fact provide the most fertile starting-point for pragmatist communication inquiry.