Klaus Krippendorff, Ph.D.
- Gregory Bateson Professor Emeritus of Communication
Klaus Krippendorff researches the role of language and dialogue in the social construction of reality.
Klaus Krippendorff’s research focuses on the role of language and dialogue in the social construction of reality: identities, institutions, cultural artifacts, power, Otherness, and meanings; emancipatory epistemology (hermeneutics) of human communication and the design of technology; content analysis, semantics, pragmatics of social interaction, and related research methods; conversation theory, information theory, and cyberspace; and second-order cybernetics of complex communication systems and their reflexive, self-organizing, and autopoietic properties.
The following are links to lists of Krippendorff’s publications, organized by subject area:
- Social Constructions of Reality
- (Second-Order) Cybernetics
- Critical Scholarship
- Content Analysis
- Design
Click here to view software and information about Krippendorff’s Alpha Reliability.
Education
- Ingenieur (grad.), State Engineering School Hanover (Germany), 1954
- Dipl. Design, Ulm School of Design (Germany), 1961
- Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana, 1967
Selected Publications
“Design Discourse” in Der Offenbacher Ansatz: Zur Theorie der Produktsprache. Transcript, 2021.
Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology, Fourth Edition. SAGE Publications, 2018.
“On the Reliability of Unitizing Textual Continua: Further Developments.” Quality & Quantity, 2016.
Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology, Third Edition. Sage, 2013.
“Agreement and Information in the Reliability of Coding.” Communication Methods and Measures, 2011.
“Human-Centered Design: A Cultural Necessity.” Collection 3, 2011.
The Content Analysis Reader. Sage, 2009.
On Communicating: Otherness, Meaning, and Information. Routledge, 2009.
The Semantic Turn: A New Foundation for Design. Taylor & Francis, 2006.
Design: A Discourse on Meaning. University of the Arts, 1994.
Information Theory: Structural Models for Qualitative Data. Sage, 1986.
A Dictionary of Cybernetics. American Society for Cybernetics, 1986.
Communication and Control in Society. Gordon and Breach, 1979.
Courses
- COMM 660 Content Analysis
- COMM 760 Discursive Constructions of Realities
Annenberg Presentations at ICA 2018
We've compiled a helpful list of all presentations being given by Annenberg authors.
Klaus Krippendorff on Video
In this special episode of The Drexel InterView paying tribute to the 125th Anniversary of Drexel University — where “art, science, and industry” are at the institutional core — host Paula Marantz Cohen delves into discussion with Krippendorff and Raizman about the transformative power of design, as well as the intersection of design, culture, technology, and art aesthetics in a global market.