Communication Theory

Communication as Multi-Level Process

Reflexive philosophy develops a communication theory that analyses every communicative act as a multi-level process. Based on the four levels of social reflection, Heinrichs distinguishes four pragmatic levels that are simultaneously present in every act of communication:

Level 1: Information (Content Level)

The factual content of a message — what is spoken about, the object reference. Every communicative act conveys information about a state of affairs.

Question: “What is being communicated?”

Level 2: Expression (Self-Revelation)

The self-revelation of the speaker — what they reveal about themselves through the message. Every communicative act also expresses something about the speaker's inner state, attitudes, and feelings.

Question: “What does the speaker reveal about themselves?”

Level 3: Effect (Relationship/Appeal)

The relationship definition and the effect intended by the speaker — what they want to achieve with the message and how they define the relationship to the addressee.

Question: “What does the speaker want to achieve? How does the speaker define the relationship?”

Level 4: Role (Metacommunicative Level)

The metacommunicative level — the role definitions, interaction rules, and institutional frameworks within which the communication takes place. This level is mostly implicit but determines the possibilities and forms of the other levels.

Question: “In what role, in what framework, under what rules is the communication taking place?”

Relation to Watzlawick and Schulz von Thun

Heinrichs’ model integrates and extends existing communication models:

Watzlawick: Distinguishes content and relationship level — Heinrichs differentiates this into four levels.
Schulz von Thun (“Four Ears Model”): Distinguishes factual content, self-revelation, relationship, and appeal — Heinrichs provides a systematic derivation of these levels from reflection logic and adds the metacommunicative dimension.
Habermas: Distinguishes validity claims (truth, truthfulness, rightness) — Heinrichs relates these systematically to the reflection levels.

The decisive advance over these models is the systematic derivation of the levels from reflection logic, which shows why there are exactly these four levels and how they are hierarchically related.

Communication Disturbances

Many communication disturbances can be analysed as level confusions or level reductions:

Level confusion: The recipient interprets a message at a different level than intended by the sender (e.g., factual criticism is taken as a personal attack).
Level reduction: Communication is reduced to one or two levels (e.g., in bureaucracies: only information level; in advertising: only effect level).
Missing metacommunication: The ability to communicate about communication (level 4) is missing, so structural problems cannot be addressed.