Schema Theory

Theories of individuals as cognitive misers transport these ideas to our understanding of individual information processing. That is, theorist in this tradition look at the forms and structures that help individual process a wide variety of information about the social world in an efficient way. As Wicks (1992 : 119) states, "Schema Theory suggest that people are active are active processor of information and that schematic thinking derives from the need to organize thinking for the purpose of cognitive economy." Though a variety of theories have been developed to explain this process (e.g, theories of plan, scripts, episodes), we use schema theory as one representative way of looking at these concept (But see Mandler, 1984, for a much more specific interpretation of schema theory concept). In other words, as cognitive misers, we use a schema theory as a template for understanding this entire family of cognitive theories. There are two important issues to consider in understanding schema theory. The first issue is a first question of what and the second is a question of how or, in Arbib, Conklin, and Hill's (1987) words, the distinction between the representation and process aspects of schemas. That is, theories have considered both the content of cognitive schemas and the way those schemas are activated as we attempt to understand and behave in social world.

Schema theory in the communication discipline
The concept of schema theory are implicated in all our communicate behavior, for if we are to proceed in a variety of communication situations we must either draw on existing schemas for understanding or, perharps, develop new schemas that will be used in subsequent interaction.


Finally, research in mass communication has also relied on the concept of schemas for understanding communication processes.As Wicks (1992) argues, we have schemas not only for social interaction with others but also for various media channels and programmings.

Source : Katherine Miller : 2001