Communication theories entered the field of educational science at the end of the '60s when the concept of educational technology was developed. This concept was defined[3] as a complex and integrated process implying the participation of people, techniques, ideas, setting and organisations in designing, implementing, analysing, evaluation and managing a number of issues related to human learning processes (Stolovitch, Laroque, 1986:10). Such a concept follows undoubtedly the development of educational media just after world war II, then called audio-visuala) instruction. Progressively, these techniques and machines turned not only into auxiliary devices, helping and facilitating the learning process, but soon became the source and the means of learning themselves: it was not only possible to learn with the media but also from de media. This is the conception prevailing today.
Soon, a broader discipline emerged, including teaching and learning psychology, as well as communication theories and the 'mediatic'[4] - known for focusing on mass media and educational communication technologies analysis. The development of semiotics and pragmaticsb) broadly contributed to define and develop this new field of research. It is noteworthy to point out that in the French speaking area, the notion of educational communication was coined after the first analysises of mass media and their educational uses (La Borderie, 1972). Two other interesting orientations are represented by audio-visual methods for foreign language learning and by the visual display of information in textbooks, handbooks, etc. The well-known influence of semiotic references and theory are quite important in these two fields, as we recently showed (Peraya, Nyssen, 1995). From another point of view, we can mention the work of Guislain, Didactique et communication (1990) in which the author analyses educational communication in face-to-face classrooms drawing on pragmatic concepts and rhetoric of persuasion, a concept also developed by N.J. Kapferer in his studies of advertising campaigns. Finally, let us quote Laurillard (1995): "Teaching is a rhetorical activity: a mediated learning process allowing students to acquire knowledge from someone else's way of experiencing the world".
Distance education, for reasons to be developed later, has widely contributed to the development of educational communication. A striking example is to be found in the course title of a distance education curriculum at the London University: "Adults learning and communication in distance education". Finally, for about a decade, a new interest for educational communication has appeared since the development of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) and virtual communication settings such as the Virtual Textual Reality (VTR) (see Mason et Kayes, 1989; Rapaport,1991; Waggoner, 1992; Peraya, 1994-a; Jones, 1995, Zane et Mauri, 1995). Moreover, an important literature is now being published directly on the Internet and available throughout the World Wide Web.
Taking in view the diversity of practices and of research fields related to educational communication, its definition and limits remain quite nebulous. Therefore, in a first step, we need to better clarify and define its main founding concepts.
[3] See Scholer M., (1983) on the history and evolution of this term.
[4] This terminology was used in Canada for quite a long time.