The History of Communication

Once upon a time there was the Athenian Government which struggled with violence for many many years. Finally the Athenians decided to come up with a solution to their problem which commanded that two changes take place. They created an adversary system, which was a system of justice in which a person was guilty until proven innocent, and a democracy. The democracy created a more stable system of government for the Athenians. Because of these changes, the people started to use their words as swords therefore making persuasion an imperative skill. Debate was now more popular than fencing-the nerds were now cooler than the jocks. That status-quo had been turned upside down.
The Athenians had now created a new problem and the biggest nerds on the planet saw their opportunity to invade. They were called Sophists. Sophists were the first teachers of communication who studied rhetoric, communication, persuasion, and taught people to speak their minds publicly. The first “king” of the sophist was a dude by the name of Corax. Corax agreed that argumentation and persuasion opened up a level of uncertainty in life. Then, Corax’s right hand man, Protagoras saw even deeper into his friends’ ideas and believed that the side who makes the stronger argument wins.
Soon after Corax died, a man named Gorgias came along and commanded the new group of Sophists. Gorgias was the Kennedy of the Sophists. He was young, hip, and dressed well. Gorgias was also very sociable, and showed the people that public speaking could be exciting and inspire change. He also added the need to adapt to his/her audience when speaking in public-such as the public forum (a place where individuals came to discuss issues). Gorgias’ friend Hippas also said that speakers need to be broadly knowledgeable about something and stay updated on the topic. After the time of Gorgias and Hippas, you Isocrates, the Great Sophist, brought all of the ideas of the Sophists together into the 4th century.
The next years would cause turmoil for many people because Isocrates discovered the hidden secret of the Sophists, in that if you can teach someone to communicate effectively, you can also teach them to communicate unethically. But, thankfully, Superman (Aristotle) came in to save the day! He created formal logic, using syllogisms which allowed people to make certain claims as long as they were grounded in universal principles. Aristotle served as a mediator for Rhetoric. He saw both sides and declared that it was an individuals’ ethics that would decide if Rhetoric was a good thing or bad thing. For Aristotle, rhetoric was the art of discovery and that all was available by means of persuasion in any given situation.
By this time Aristotle was the “King” of communication. He developed his ideas in threes. His first idea was that communication has a purpose, second, that there are three types of oratory (forensic, deliberative, and epideictic) Forensic oratory looks at the past for justice, deliberative oratory allows one to speak to influence future action, and finally, epideictic oratory was used for ceremonial and celebratory speaking. Also, that persuasion is accomplished through three different kinds of appeals: ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic). Arisotle also created five skills needed to communicate effectively: invention, disposition, style, memory, and deliberate.
After Aristotle, comes along John Locke. His definition of communication was that it is a great instrument that ties society together. He said that we use communication to make sense of our live and need to study it in order to know how to best use it.
Knowledge is our greatest possession and throughout history we can see a tug of war going on with our knowledge. All knowledge is stolen. We have stolen it from each other, have taken it back, and have stolen it again and again to obtain what we know today.


As I was reading through the history of communication in our text I thought about how interesting it was that these people even came up with such ideas such as communicating through public speaking and especially by persuasion. For me, it has always been common knowledge that I could use words to say things and get others to do what I want – or get something that I want.
When I was younger I first learned how to persuade my little brothers and my little sister to talk to my mom and get her to let us go to swimming or go to the park. But as I got older, I used the art of persuasion on them and got them to let me play with their toys or give me money so that I could buy some candy at the local gas station a few blocks away. Ethos, pathos, and logos became my three best friends.


One of the most interesting aspects of the history of communication was the fact that we used information as a weapon and stole knowledge from each other all those years ago. In a way, it was kind of a good thing because it allowed for the spread of knowledge. In today’s society, a person can acquire knowledge just about anywhere. The internet opened up great resources as an information super highway. A person is able to access any document they want. Back during the fourth and fifth centuries, libraries were just being created and books still had to be translated. Some information still had yet to be written down because of oral tradition.
In my opinion though, the best part about reading about the development of communication was reading about the Christian crusaders that captured the library at Alexandria. That seems like a really nerdy thing to do. Who would feel victorious capturing a library? Seriously?
But it definitely reminded me of the movie National Treasure. In this movie, Nicholas Cage plays a guy named Ben Gates. Gates’ family had a history with history. For years his family has been part of a group trying to find a certain treasure – lost in the pages of history. So, along the way there are clues that he must find in order to lead him to where the treasure is. Eventually, it leads him and his friends to thousands of lost and sacred artifacts – including the scrolls from the library of Alexandria.

Dues, M.,& Brown, M. (2001). Boxing Plato's Shadow: An Introduction to the study of human communication (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.