Communication theory & its relevance to new media

Senders and Receivers week 3

MS1304

Senders and Receivers: an overviewof communication science

senders

receivers

Aims of this lecture

• To look at communication models and their relevance to new media

• To look at communication as a subject of academic study

• To consider how theories of communication inform notions of– Senders/Receivers– Technical context– Social and cultural

context– Power – Design

Watch Video

Monty Python – Sermon on the Mount• What is happening in terms of

communication?

• http://www.thetop100.net/the-entertainment-zone/monty-python-sketches/sermon-on-the-mount/list/z26l51i2330.aspx

Lecture Question

How can new media change the relationship between senders

and receivers?

The Lecture

Simple model of communicationThe Lecture

message

Sender

Speaker

The One

Receiver(s)

Audience

The Many

Transformation

Packet Switching

The rapid transmission of small blocks of data over a channel dedicated to the connection only for the duration of one packet's transmission. Each packet can

take a different path from sender to receiver (Paul Baran, 1964).

The New Media Lecture?

Network Communicationnew kind of intelligence?

Pierre Levy’s Collective Intelligence

• 1998 pp. 140-141

• Charts the role of information & communication technology

• Its effect on communities and social processes of sharing knowledge

• Transformation…

– ONE-TO-MANY

– MANY-TO- MANY

Interactive media as a transformation in

communication • one-to-many • many-to-many

Linear movement of message from sender to passive

receiver

Non-linear movement between responsive sender(s) and

receivers

Levy’s transformation…

• one-to-many– Separation between

sender and receivers

• many-to many– We all have potential

to be senders and receivers

Echoes…Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media (1964)

Global Village Thesis• We are ‘nomadic gatherers of

knowledge…nomadic as ever before, free from fragmentary specialism… involved in the total social process as never before; since with electricity we extend our central [nervous] system globally, instantly interrelating every human experience.’

See McLuhan on Automationp.358

Power

• In the communication process, power belongs to those who send messages and to whom no return can be made

• Baudrillard, J. (1988). Selected Writings. Ed. M. Poster. Tr. J. Benedict. Oxford: Polity Press.

• Both McLuhan (1964) and Levy (1998) infer that a…

• ‘transformation’ in communication empowers us

• Communication process is democratised…???

Communication as a subject of academic study

Origins of the word(etymology)

• Communication comes from the Latin communis, "common."

• establish a "commonness" with someone• share information, an idea or an attitude

Human need to communicate

• Dimbleby and Burton (1994) identify reasons why we need to communicate…

• Power• Survival• Co-operation• Personal needs• Relationships• Persuasion• Social needs• Economic• Information• Making sense of the world• Decision making• Self expression

McQuail 0n communication and meaning

Intrapersonal: processing information

Interpersonal: dyad-couple

Intragroup: family

Intergroup association-local community

Institutional and Organisational political and business

Society Wide Mass

Media'consider it as the sending from one person to another of meaningful messages'. Denis McQuail (1975)

Levels of Communication

• Intrapersonal Communications– Self image– Self Esteem– Perception

• Interpersonal Communication– Social roles– Non-verbal

communication– Language and meaning – Institutional

• Group Communication– Group norms– Formal and

informal groups

• Mass Communication– The development of

mass communication– Media analysis– Semiotics– Violence in the media– Advertising

Models of Communication

–Aristotle - rhetoric

–Lasswell - effects

– Wiener Feedback – anti-aircraft detection

–Shannon and Weaver – mathematical model

–Schramm – adaptation of S&W

–Hall - adaptation of S&W (with meaning)

–Interactivity – the new media

models of communication

• 2, 300 years ago Aristotle's model of human communication

• Rhetoric• Study of oral

communication

speaker

subject

person addressed

1900s

Lasswell and Mass Media Research

Harold Lasswell (1948). "The Structure and Function of Communication in Society." In Lyman Bryson (ed.), The Communication of Ideas. Harper and Row.

The Shannon-Weaver Model (1948)

NOICE

Shannonerror checking & noise

• Concerned with the transmission of messages over noisy analogue channels…

• Noise increases over distance

• Analogue solution = Amplifiers

Shannonerror checking & noise

• Shannon took a new approach

technical error checking & noise

Shannon’s formula established that, despite high levels of channel noise, any message could be encoded at the source so that it is received ‘error free’ at its destination

• Established information theory

• Use of binary system (1 & 0) in the coding of information

Shannon’s communication complicates issue of meaning

• Technically messages are not measured in terms of meaning

• Information measured in amount of possible messages

• Certainty (order) • Uncertainty (disorder)

• In Shannon's formula

• Meaning and information are opposites

• More new information means less meaning

Contemporary communication is problematic

“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” (Baudrillard,1994 p. 79)

senders and receivers must use similar systemsOr else information is without meaning…

The Shannon-Weaver Model updated by Schramm (1965) communication includes five

elements

Shannon’s model adapted for the study of mass human communication…

The Encoder

• Source expresses purpose in the form of a message

• Message formulated in code

• This requires an encoder

The Encoder

• When you communicate, you have a particular purpose in mind

• you want to sell something

• you want to provide information

• you want to convince somebody

• you want to persuade

The Decoder

• The source needs an encoder to translate

• The receiver needs a decoder to retranslate

• Introduces coding dilemmas

Hall on Code and How to Read Television, 1980

Hall, 1980• Dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully

shares the text's code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading

• Negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests

• Oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the text's code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference

See Daniel Chandler’s Semiotics for Beginnershttp://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c.html

Feedback (back to 1940s)

Weiner, 1948 Cybernetics the study of control and communication in animals and machines…

Homeostasis

Feedback Loop

information about the result of a transformation or an action is sent back to the input of the system in the form of input data

Results in stability

Osgood and Schramm 1954

Evolving communication models feedback

Examples of social feedback

• Telephone feedback

– 'mmmm’– 'aaah’– 'yes, I see'

• face-to-face NVC communication feedback

– head nods– smiles– frowns– changes in posture and

orientation– gaze

feedback

We are but whirlpools in a river

of ever-flowing water

(Norbert Weiner, 1948 p. 96)

We are little switchboard

centres handling and rerouting the

great endless current of

information.... Schramm W. (1954) quoted in McQuail & Windahl

(1981)

How important is feedback to new media communication?

Computer game scores reduce if sound is turned off

Question

• Is feedback the same as interaction?

Feedback versus InteractionThacker and Galloway 2007 pp. 122-124

Evolution in two-way communication

Two models 1. Feedback2. Interaction

Interactivity about freedom?

• New media supposed to equate to new freedoms (???)

• Technologies of control on the wane – more communication, more democratic (???)

• Not so say Galloway and Thacker (2007)

• Networked model of control• More communication means

more control • More monitoring, surveillance,

and biometics

The lecture

The main issues from the lecture – Why study communication? – How effective/relevant are models of communication?

- consider areas of significance in new media– What is the relevance of the Shannon and Weaver

model– How have models changed – linearity, feedback and

interactivity– What role does technology play in (re)shaping the

communication process?– Freedom or control?

Seminar

• Evaluating a published article– Reading critically