Interaction analysis: meaningless in the face of relevance

Interaction analysis has become a standard tool for process-oriented research. Although now a researcher has a choice of instruments, the majority of these are based on the same concept of communication: the sender-receiver model. Communication is treated as a discrete and encoded process that progresses uniformly in time. We critically discuss these assumptions and the limits they put on communication research. It is asserted that instruments for interaction analysis based on the sender-receiver model restrict themselves to the more superficial levels of interaction and are unable to register the more significant events. Therefore they cannot account for a very essential feature of the communication process, namely the creation of meaning. Alternative options are discussed.