Scripts

Understanding and production of messages and social behaviors are based on communicators’ prior knowledge, which is organized and structured by schemas (Bartlett 1932; Rumelhart 1980). Over the years, researchers have identified different kinds of schemas, such as frames, story schemas, macro-structures, scenarios, mental models, scripts, and memory organization packets (MOPs). Scripts are event schemas; that

Let me tell you a simple story: John went to a restaurant. He ordered lobster. He paid the check and left. Now let me ask you some questions about your understanding of this story: What did John eat? Did he sit down? Whom did he give money to? Why? These questions are easy to answer.