Traditions of Communication Theory
theories and perspectives shape the field of communication studies
-these can be divided up into seven categories
1.Cybernetic or Information Theory (transmission)
2-7 All constitutive:
2.Semiotics
3.The Phenomenological Tradition
4.Rhetorical
5.Socio-Psychological
6.Socio-Cultural
7.Critical Theory
TWO MODELS:Transmission (informational) - examines process of sending/receiving messages or transferring information from one mind to another.
Constitutive model- process of production and reproduction of shared meaning
The Information or Cybernetic theory of Communication
Shannon and Weaver Bell Laboratories 1949
research-useful for how as a designer your work makes effective communication.
THREE LEVELS OF COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS:
1.TECHNICAL:Accuracy, systems of encoding and decoding, compatibility of systems/need for specialist
equipment or knowledge
2.SEMANTIC:Precision
of language, what language to use
3.EFFECTIVENESS:Does
the message affect behaviour the way we want it to?
As
the citizens of less
developed countries
are increasingly viewed through the prism of consumerism, control of their values and purchasing patterns becomes increasingly important to multinational firms.
At its peak in
mid-1990s, Baywatch was watched by more than 1 billion people a week in nearly 150 countries.
But
what was communicated?
SEMIOTICS-THE BASIC CONCEPT:
-Semantics:
addresses what a sign stands for. Dictionaries are semantic reference books.
-Syntactics:
is
the relationships between signs. Almost always part of a larger sign system
referred to as codes.
-Pragmatics:
studies the practical use and effects of signs.
Semiotics examines signs as if they
are part of a language.
-Structuralists adopted language as their model in
exploring a much wider range of social phenomena: i. e. culturally shared codes
-Lévi-Strauss for ethnography; myth,
kinship rules and totemism;
-Lacan for the unconscious; psychology, the
subjective aspects of signification, “language is first of all a foreign
one”
-Barthes for the 'grammar' of
narrative;
-Julia Kristeva declared that 'what semiotics has
discovered... is that the major
constraint
affecting any social practice lies in the fact that it
signifies; i.e. that it
is articulated like a language'
-Researching how we make meaning
within any given situation and how art/design is ‘read’ within that situation.
No language-even a visual one if self explanatory, language must be learnt
CODE:
-Danger
due to proximity of a place where aircraft fly frequently at low altitude over
the road.
-Drivers
of cars are obliged to use the road at the entrance of which this sign is
placed.
-Drivers
of cars are forbidden from driving in this area
The Phenomenological Tradition
process
of knowing through direct experience
phenomenon refers to the appearance of an
object, event or condition in one’s perception.
makes lived experiences basic data of reality.
-Merleau-Ponty
“The theory of the body schema is,
implicitly, a theory of perception“
in which "our own body is in the world as the
heart is in the
organism: it keeps the visible spectacle constantly alive, it breathes life
into it and sustains it inwardly, and with it
forms a system”
The weakness of Merleau-Ponty’s position is grounded in his attachment
to semiotics.
The
Corporeal Turn
St Thomas by
Caravaggio
basic physical
nature of communication rests in the fact we inhabit a body and that our senses
are dominated by touch
THE EMBODIED MIND:
Language
is seen as part of that system existing as as neuronal pathways that are linked
within the brain. The key is a physiological classification of coding and
encoding.
Three schools of the
phenomenological tradition:
Classical
phenomenology:
EDWARD HUSSERL:world can be experienced, through bracketing, the putting aside of bias without
the knower bringing his or her own categories to bear. This is often criticised as being an impossible task.
phenomenology
of perception:
Maurice
Merleau-Ponty:contemporary
phenomenology rejects the objectivist view and posits that we can only know
things through our personal, subjective relationship to things
Hermeneutic
phenomenology:the interpretation of being,
extends the subjective tradition even further by incorporating the
communication system itself as a further interpretive mechanism.
Rhetoric:Useful
for thinking through how you are going to achieve certain effects on the ‘reader’ or audience.
- the art of rhetoric can only be learned by practice
- technical problems- lacks good empirical evidence that its persuasive techniques actually work as intended
- technical problems- lacks good empirical evidence that its persuasive techniques actually work as intended
Metaphor; from the Greek: metaphora, meaning "transfer" is
language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects or activities.
-metaphor
enables us to grasp new concepts and remember things by creating associations.
•The study of the individual as a
social being
•Three key areas
•Behavioural
•Cognitive
•Biological
The
sociocultural tradition
-defining
yourself in terms of your identity with terms such as father, Catholic,
student, lesbian, Asian, Yorkshire etc.- defining yourself in terms of your identity as part of a group-group
frames your cultural identity
-context is seen as being crucial to forms and meanings of communication
Critical
Communication Theory:
-The basis of critical
communication theory rests on two
aspects of Hegel’s thinking.
-In
the ‘Phenomenology of the Mind’ the critique was an examination of
various forms and sources of deceptions and illusions that the mind
is subject
to on its journey to absolute knowledge.
-Hegel
believed that human history has a purpose. -assumes
that we are driven by a common interest in freedom and therefore we seek to break free of all systems of overt and hidden constraints.
SLIDE:
•Critical Communication Theory
•A synthesis of philosophy and
social science.
•Critical theory approaches to
communication examine social conditions in order to uncover hidden structures.
•Useful to use when examining the
ways the media produce encoded messages, the ways audiences decode those
messages, and
the power base apparent in these processes.
•Key thinkers and schools of
thought: Frankfurt School, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, disability studies
and feminist theory
•However: Critical theory easily
confuses facts and values, as well as imposing a dogmatic ideology. Critical theory questions the
rational validity of all authority, tradition, and conventional belief,
therefore as a theory it can be difficult to use if the main purpose
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