The Interactive Communication Process (ICP): A model for integrating science, academia, and profession.

A closer look at the three areas of action in communication permits us to conclude that the discipline faces a serious crisis. First, an epistemological review shows a fragmented body of theories. Secondly, there is a plurality of separate traditions within academia. Third, the professional field is technologycentered and lacks expertise since there is little connection between theory and practice. Our goal is to analyze the three-fold state of the discipline and to propose a conciliatory model. The Interactive Communication Process (ICP) is based on an interactive process in which a human subsystem (a processor), conditioned by his or her psychological and social and cultural state, interacts with another communicative subsystem (another human or a technological processor) to elaborate or process a message conveyed through some space (channel) in a certain time (synchronous or asynchronous). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]