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Introduction to Media Studies

What is communication?

Shahbaz Ali
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`ommunication as not only an essential human, social and
psychological activity, it is also unavoidable.
Basic axiom: Ɲyou cannot not communicateƞ (Watzlawick et
al.)
Then again, the breadth of communication defies the attempt
to offer any simple, encompassing definition.
From the dance of bees, to primate interaction; from the
messages of the media to codings of discourse and ideology;
from stylings of the body, to unintentional expressions and
signals; from the devices of language and the tropes and
themes of literary criticism, where does communication begin
and end?
 



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Êiven that a number of disciplinary approaches will be
necessary in the study of communication, one of the
challenges we will have to face is a willingness to engage a
variety of different theories and approaches to what weƞre
studying.
(IMP: as most of the evaluation is based on your understanding and use of these theories)

A useful exercise: devise your own brief Ɲworking definitionƞ

of communication. Weƞll come back to this; if this course is
successful, you should have occasion to question and
enlarge many of these understandings by the end of the
course.
There will be a variety of necessary conceptual
disagreements in the approaches we encounter: it pays to
isolate these tensions.
 ` 


 


 

 
`ommunication understood as a 

  







 ; the universality of communication (think
for example of `homskyƞs Language Acquisition Device); the need
to communicate to survive; the sociality of communication
(evolutionary imperative to communicate)
`ommunication as
  

  


 
;
concepts of language, interaction, communication have become
increasingly important in social theory; the Ɲdiscursiveƞ or
Ɲcommunicationalƞ turn in the social sciences has seen a move
away from the problematics of consciousness, towards; a means of
implementing change, of attaining consensus and understanding
A problem of optimal design (efficiency, effectiveness); an
awareness of ambiguity and misunderstanding ƛ importance of
communicative efficacy in a multicultural world
 `



 


Monologue / dialogue (Television Vs. Web 2.0)
By sensory modality: vision, auditory, smell, taste, touch.
Often a predominance of verbal communication methods, we
should not forget, non-verbal and para-verbal (sub-vocal
utterances, etc)
Informal: ad-hoc, spontaneous / formal: professional, official
Theory: `ommunication and language
language as general model = semiotics, semiology
A theory fallacy: a late achievement is taken as basis model
[Like taking the elephantƞs trunk as a model for all noses]
 









 

Face-to-face Mediated, formal

prototypes: chat, conversation, prototypes: public speech,

dialogue newspaper, television, radio,
internet, pamphlets, book

@w co-presence
@w unity of time and space,
@w everyday activity
@w spontaneous
@w immediate response
@w concrete others
@w speaker / audience defined
@w communality of code
@w equal rights of participants
@w absence
@w disjunction of time and space
@w planned, purposive, constructed
@w delayed response
@w stereotypical others
@w speaker / audience vague
@w multiple codes
@w asymmetry of rights
@w third party technical
arrangements
 ð    


  



1. O

 ! individual is 1 O

  
! open to
aware and can report discussion, distribution

2.   ! cognition at the 2 
 ; can be

fringe of consciousness, which discussed if needed; seen
can easily become fully unproblematic; routine issues
conscious;
3     ! cognition
3. 
 ! cognition and and emotions that are not
emotion that are not shared; fast and efficient
represented, but can become so problem solving in collective
under specific conditions/ routines; can become topic of
efforts discussion with special effort

4.  ! repressed 4  


cognitions and emotions, no [unspeakable]! taboo problems;
voluntary control; leads to bothers many group members,
neurotic behaviour but only secretly discussed;
leads to inefficient group action
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All communication seems to involve signs or codes, or, at
very least, a variety of signals and expressions.
We might understand signs as Ɲsignifying constructsƞ ƛ as
artefacts or signs that refer to something other than
themselves.
`odes, by contrast are the systems into which signs are
organized and which determine how signs are related to one
another.
Expressions seem to allow for a greater degree of latitude in
interpretation and understanding; signals, by contrast, seem
to rely on a greater degree of immediacy, although they too
may include a degree of ambiguity.
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We may f
ll
w Fiske ˜0 i riskig a few m
re
geeralizai
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Sigs,
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ƞ
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he life
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 sh
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f is ulural l
ai

O his basis: a very geeral, eaive defiii

f

mmui ai
 as Ɲs
ial iera i
 hr
ugh messagesƞ.
   
 


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he g
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(A) + B + ` + D = social communication; consider ƝAƞ
internalised speech;
` + D = social and public communication in the narrow
sense
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Persuasion, political communication, propaganda, public
opinion, rhetoric,
social influence, diffusion, public relations, rumours, mass
media effects, social interaction.
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`ommunication as tansmission of messages
`oncen with how sendes and eceives encode and decode
messages
Questioning of how tansmittes use the channels and media
of communication
Issues of efficiency and accuacy ae cucial
`ommunication is a ocess by which one eson affects the
behaviou and state of mind of anothe.
Daws on social sciences, sychology, sociology, and tends to
addess itself to acts of communication.
Social inteaction: the ocess by which one eson elates to
othes, o affects the behaviou, state of mind o emotional
esonse of anothe (and vice vesa).
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`ommunication as the oduction and exchange of meanings
How do texts, messages, inteact with eole in oe to
ouce meaning? What is the ole of texts within a given
cultue?
Pioitization of actices of signification; misunestanings
ae not necessaily the esult of miscommunication ƛ they
may esult because of cultual iffeences btw sene an
eceive.
The main metho of stuy is tyically a vaiation on semiotics
(the science of signs an meanings); it aws uon linguistics
an the ats, an tens to focus on communicate contents
in thei contexts; it aesses itself to woks of
communication.
Social inteaction: that which constitutes the iniviual as a
membe of a aticula cultue o society.
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Developed in WW2, apropos radio and telephone
technology, S & W were concerned with working out how
channels of communication could be used most efficiently;
how might one send the maximum amount of information
along a given channel, and measure the capacity of a
channel to carry information
`ommunication presented in a simple linear model, which
has subsequently attracted many derivatives and critics.
The source (decision maker) decides which message to
send; the selected message is then changed by transmitter
into a signal (physical form of message) which is sent
through the channel to a receiver
(In conversation my mouth is the transmitter, the signal is
the sound waves which pass through the channel of the air,
and your ear is the receiver).
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Whether originating in the channel, the audience, the sender, or
the message itself, noise always confuses the intention of the
sender and hence limits the amount of desired information that
can be sent in a given situation in a given time.
S & W model helpfully identifies three levels of problem:
The 

 problem: how accurately can the message be
transmitted? (`hannel failure; wrong channel; noise)
The  
problem: how precisely is the desired meaning
'conveyed'? (Problems with coding/decoding)
The
   problem: how effectively does the received
meaning affect conduct/behaviour?
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A message that is completely unexpected, or the opposite of what
is expected (i.e. entropic message which contains more
information and unpredictability), will need saying more than
once, often in different ways, and may need some special
attention.
      
         
 

  

     
 



    
 
 

   


   
     
  
 

    
  
  
 

      



     


    

 
 
   

The st function of redundancy is with overcoming practical
communication problems, problems associated with accuracy and
error detection, with noise, or the nature of the message or
audience.
°
 
 
Entropy can be understood as axu unpredctab ty; t s
often, effectve y, what consttutes a councaton prob e.
Structurng a essage accordng to shared patterns, or
conventons, s one way of decreasng entropy and ncreasng
redundancy.
Sayng Ɲhe oƞ n the street s sendng a hgh y redundant essage
ƛ but t s not a councaton prob e, but an nstance of phatc
councaton, an act of councaton that contans nothng
new, no nforaton, but that uses exstng channe s sp y to
keep the open and usab e.
In sayng ƝHe oƞ one s antanng and strengthenng an exstng
re atonshp; re atonshps on y exst on the bass of frequent
councaton.
Phatc councaton, by antanng & reaffrng re atonshps,
s cruca n ho dng a socety or county together; conventona
behavours/words n nterpersona settngs reaffrs soca bonds.
 §
 





  
There is a reliance here on the conduit metaphor: pipe, channel,
Ɲepidermic needleƞ, transport, transfer
Meaning here is simply contained in the message; however even if
sender and receiver share the same identical codes (itself a questionable
assumption) the resonances/implications/distinctive meanings of such
codes may differ (?!)
S & W emphasize that improving the coding will increase semantic
accuracy ƛ but there are also cultural factors at work here which the
model does not specify: the meaning is at least as much in the culture
as in the message.
Sender megalomania, monological, one-way communication
Limited application: only for technical systems, not social meaning
The effectiveness problem of (behaviour change) makes communication
seem like a practice of manipulation or propoganda
§  
 


§peaker message Recipient

 on-identical,
Overlapping C1 C2
`ode systems
  
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`ommunication is based on the use of codified signs; the

understanding of all signs is modelled on language [=linguistics]
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Tes of signs ˜a sign stands for refers to something else
smbol: conventional association with reference: e.g. letters;
index: correlated to reference: e.g. smoke refers to fire;
icon: artial similarit to reference: e.g. a madonna icture ˜no
not the singer;
Stud of signs
sntax: sign-sign grammar Ɲthe dog was in the kitchenƞ
semantics: sign-referent literal meaning Ɲwas˜dog in kitchenƞ
ragmatics: sign-sign use actual meaning: Ɲthere is now a messƞ
 ' 
   

 







  
Analysis & explanation (theory), or learning a Ɲbox of tricksƞ
(plumming);
Efficiency, effectiveness (technique), or persuasion to what end
(ethics)
Design to control (power), or critique & empowerment
(enlightenment)
  

 
 
 


Evolutionary, born with, versus ontogenetically learnt
Signal & semiotic codes versus speech acts and inference;
Rhetoric, persuasion versus reaching mutual understanding;
Prisoners of discourse versus agency and intentions of speakers;
Power of social influence versus possibilities of resistance;
Social representation versus individual message processing