A communication system and method include a server hosting an interactive voice response or self-help application in a Java virtual machine. The communication application is programmed with a unified communication API, which is provided by a unified application framework. The API provides a set of unified class objects for call control and media control. The unified class objects are constructed from class object primitives of individual standards-based Java call control API and media control API. The constructs are a structured and restricted set conforming to the object model of the application and its states. The API has a unified event handler for both call and media controls and dispatches events to the application based on the type of event and the application state of the object model.