TY - JOUR AU - Ayish, Muhammad JF - Javnost-The Public TI - Beyond Western-Oriented Communication Theories: A Normative Arab-Islamic Perspective VL - 10 IS - 2 PY - 2003/// SN - 1854-8377 PB - EURICOM UR - http://javnost-thepublic.org/article/2003/2/5/ N2 - For many decades, communication as a theoretical field of study has been dominated by Western-oriented perspectives that arose in the context of media perceptions in Western Europe and North America. Western communication theories have been promoted around the world as possessing a strong element of universalism. In recent years, this approach has been challenged on the basis of obfuscating the cultural peculiarities of non-Western societies as significant components of communication theorization. In this article, the author presents a normative Arab-Islamic perspective as a basis for future communication theory building in the Arab-Islamic context. Drawing on the notion of “Worldview,” the Arab-Islamic perspective identifies four antithetical conceptual constructs that bear on the nature of communication: individualism-conformity, transcendentalism-existentialism, intuitive-rational processes, and egalitarianism-hierarchy. The author concludes that Arab-Islamic communication patterns are formalistic, indirect, hyperbolic, asymmetrical, metaphysical and orally biased. U1 - Print ISSN: 1318-3222 ER -