Conceptual Qualification of Motivation in the Design of Communication Environments: ab ovo

Abstract

Contemporary studies on communication impacts, conditions, methods of public opinion formation, and the functioning of the communication environment often overlook motivational components, which may be crucial for effective communication activities. At best, scientific research highlights widely recognized theories, such as Abraham Maslow’s theory, establishing links between communication actions and potential motivations or motives. However, empirical studies on motivation within any field of activity in the socio-communication paradigm remain limited due to both objective (such as research complexity and audience reach) and subjective reasons. The relevance of the proposed study primarily lies in integrating motivational and needs theories into the scientific paradigm of communication impact studies, which will ultimately encourage the active use of these categories in communication activity modeling and enhance scientific interpretations of these activities. The main objective of this study is to consolidate the approaches of 20th-century researchers and their successors into a single model that accounts for the correlation between established and validated tools for typical communication needs. A comparative analysis of definitions of motivation and needs, along with globally recognized theories and approaches to classifying these phenomena, has been conducted to establish the communicative potential of their actualization within the communication environment. The methodology used in this study is shaped by the content of the examined materials and the approach to their classification. Key methods applied to the research sources (definitions and descriptions of theories) include formalization and generalization for identifying core parameters of motivation and needs understanding, qualification of the communication determinants of motivational and needs theories, comparative analysis to contrast interpretations of motivations and needs, and the hypothetico-deductive and modeling methods, which were used to form the primary indicators of communicative actualization in motivational theory and suggest the categories for communication analysis to define the potential for using communication techniques and tools for specific approaches to understanding motivation. A significant finding of this research is the disclosure of the communicative potential of various motivational and needs theories, as well as the identification of marker categories for the effective use of communication tools in positioning motivational theories within a discrete communication environment.