Meta-communication

Meta-communication is a secondary communication (including indirect cues) about how a piece of information is meant to be interpreted. It is based on the idea that the same message accompanied by different meta-communication can mean something entirely different, including its opposite, as in irony.^[1] The term was brought to prominence by Gregory Bateson to refer to "communication about communication", which he expanded to: "all exchanged cues and propositions about (a) codification and (b) relationship between the communicators".^[2] Meta-communication may or may not be congruent with, supportive of, or contradictory to that verbal communication.^{[citation needed]}