We at the Institute for Communication Studies regards communication as a specific and complex form of social practice. From this viewpoint, it does not suffice for the description and explanation of its properties and functional characteristics to separately address the involved cognitive competences, societal conditions, and the means of communication. Empirical evidence shows that individuals are not able to entirely control the effects of their communication efforts. As a consequence, the co-construction of meaning and coordinated sense making turn out to be not only extraordinarily interesting subjects of investigation but also parameters basically ubiquitously important for the practical success of interaction and cooperation in general. Communication studies necessarily entertain a close relationship with disciplines such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and media studies, integrating the insights of which into a distinctive research framework specifically designed for investigating phenomena of communication.

The communication process is complex and multimodal, employs specific means and often occurs in technologically mediated environments. In contexts of the manifold types of interpersonal communication, the communication process manifests itself as a practical procedure, enacting everyday life and cultural as well as institutional and organizational reality. A variety of societal practices with their distinctive procedural patterns modifies communication processes. In modern societies, this is particularly apparent in institutionalized expectations concerning the type and course of communication processes, in formal participation requirements, and in different communicative roles in professional fields such as administration, health care, teaching, academic education, entrepreneurship, and politics.