Communication theory & its relevance to new media

1. Communication theory & its relevance to new media

2. Senders and Receivers week 3 MS1304

3. senders receivers Senders and Receivers: an overviewof communication science

5. 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 Aims of this lecture

6. 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

7. Lecture QuestionHow can new media change the relationship between senders and receivers?

8. The Lecture

9. message Sender Speaker The One Receiver(s) Audience The Many Simple model of communicationThe Lecture

10. Transformation

11. 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).

12. The New Media Lecture?

13. Network Communicationnew kind of intelligence?

15. 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 Pierre Levy’s Collective Intelligence

16. one-to-many many-to-many Interactive media as a transformation in communication Linear movement of message from sender to passive receiver Non-linear movement between responsive sender(s) and receivers

17. one-to-many Separation between sender and receivers many-to many We all have potential to be senders and receivers Levy’s transformation…

18. 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

19. 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…??? Power

20. Communication as a subject of academic study

21. Origins of the word(etymology) • Communication comes from the Latin communis, "common." • establish a "commonness" with someone • share information, an idea or an attitude

22. 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 Human need to communicate

23. McQuail 0n communication and meaning Society Wide Mass Media 'consider it as the sending from one person to another of meaningful messages'. Denis McQuail (1975) Institutional and Organisational political and business Intergroup association-local community Intragroup: family Interpersonal: dyad-couple Intrapersonal: processing information

24. Levels of Communication • Intrapersonal Communications • Self image • Self Esteem • Perception

25. Interpersonal Communication • Social roles • Non-verbal communication • Language and meaning • Institutional

26. Group Communication • Group norms • Formal and informal groups

27. Mass Communication • The development of mass communication • Media analysis • Semiotics • Violence in the media • Advertising

28. 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

29. 2, 300 years ago Aristotle's model of human communication Rhetoric Study of oral communication models of communication subject personaddressed speaker

30. 1900s

31. 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.

32. The Shannon-Weaver Model (1948)

33. NOICE

34. Shannonerror checking & noise • Concerned with the transmission of messages over noisy analogue channels… • Noise increases over distance • Analogue solution = Amplifiers

35. Shannonerror checking & noise • Shannon took a new approach

36. 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 technical error checking & noise

37. 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 Shannon’s communication complicates issue of meaning

38. 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)

39. senders and receivers must use similar systems Or else information is without meaning…

40. The Shannon-Weaver Model updated by Schramm (1965) communication includes five elements Shannon’s model adapted for the study of mass human communication…

41. Source expresses purpose in the form of a message Message formulated in code This requires an encoder The Encoder

42. 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 Encoder

43. The source needs an encoder to translate The receiver needs a decoder to retranslate Introduces coding dilemmas The Decoder

44. Hall on Code and How to Read Television, 1980

45. 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 Beginners http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c.html

46. Feedback (back to 1940s)

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

48. 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 Homeostasis

49. Evolving communication models feedback Osgood and Schramm 1954

50. Telephone feedback 'mmmm’ 'aaah’ 'yes, I see' face-to-face NVC communication feedback head nods smiles frowns changes in posture and orientation gaze Examples of social feedback