Friday, Jul 24, 2026 The claims desk. Receipts included. POWERED BY LENZ
IsThis

GENERAL

The Claim

According to Gorden, there are four functions of communication: social communication, expressive communication, ritual communication, and instrumental communication, with instrumental communication being the formal function that includes providing information, education, persuasion, and entertainment, as supported by Wright (1986) and Effendy (2017).

The Short Version

The claim stitches together a real but poorly sourced Gorden taxonomy with unsubstantiated scholarly attributions. While several secondary sources do associate four communication functions (social, expressive, ritual, instrumental) with William I. Gorden, the assertion that Wright (1986) and Effendy (2017) support this framework is not demonstrated by the evidence. Wright's 1986 work addresses a distinct mass communication model, and no Effendy (2017) source is available for verification. The "formal function" label for instrumental communication is also unverified.

Caveats

  • Wright's 1986 work concerns Lasswell-derived mass communication functions (surveillance, correlation, cultural transmission, entertainment), which is structurally distinct from Gorden's social/expressive/ritual/instrumental taxonomy — the claim conflates these frameworks.
  • No Effendy (2017) source is present in the evidence pool, making the attribution to Effendy entirely unverifiable.
  • The Gorden four-function model is documented only in derivative, low-authority Indonesian-language web pages and student repositories — no primary source by Gorden has been identified to confirm the original framework or the 'formal function' label.

The Receipts

  1. Mass communication: a sociological perspective : Charles R. Wright

    Internet Archive

  2. A communication-based intervention for nonverbal children with ...

    PubMed

  3. Mass Communication: A Sociological Perspective

    Google Books

  4. Communicative Acts of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders in ...

    PubMed Central

  5. Teacher Communication Effectiveness in the Learning Process

    Semantic Scholar

  6. Functions of Media | PDF

    Scribd

  7. Communication intervention for children with autism

    UCL Discovery

  8. Instrumental communication

    HAL Open Science

  9. Cross-Cultural Differences in American & Palestinian Expressions of ...

    American University

  10. fungsi komunikasi menurut para ahli - Pariwisata Sumatera Utara

    Pariwisata Sumatera Utara

+ 18 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

GordenOnong Uchjana EffendyWright