Communication theory

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Communication theory its relevance to new media
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Senders and Receivers week 3
MS1304
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senders
receivers
Senders and Receivers an overviewof
communication science
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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

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Watch Video

• Monty Python Sermon on the Mount
• What is happening in terms of communication?
• http//www.thetop100.net/the-entertainment-zone/mo
  nty-python-sketches/sermon-on-the-mount/list/z26l5
  1i2330.aspx

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Lecture QuestionHow can new media change the
relationship between senders and receivers?
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The Lecture
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Simple model of communicationThe Lecture
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Transformation
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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).
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The New Media Lecture?
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Network Communicationnew kind of intelligence?
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Pierre Levys 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

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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
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Levys transformation

• one-to-many
• Separation between sender and receivers

• many-to many
• We all have potential to be senders and receivers

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EchoesMarshall McLuhans Understanding Media
(1964)Global Village Thesis

• We are
• nomadic gatherers of knowledgenomadic 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

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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???

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Communication as a subject of academic study
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Origins of the word(etymology)

• Communication comes from the Latin communis,
  "common."
• establish a "commonness" with someone
• share information, an idea or an attitude

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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

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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
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Levels of Communication

• Intrapersonal Communications
• Self image
• Self Esteem
• Perception

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

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• Group Communication
• Group norms
• Formal and informal groups

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

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Models of Communication

• Aristotle - rhetoric
• Lasswell - effects
• Wiener Feedback anti-aircraft detection
• Shannon and Weaver mathematical model
• Schramm adaptation of SW
• Hall - adaptation of SW (with meaning)
• Interactivity the new media

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models of communication

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

• Rhetoric
• Study of oral communication

subject
person addressed
speaker
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1900s
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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.
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The Shannon-Weaver Model (1948)
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NOICE
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Shannonerror checking noise

• Concerned with the transmission of messages over
  noisy analogue channels
• Noise increases over distance
• Analogue solution Amplifiers

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Shannonerror checking noise

• Shannon took a new approach

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technical error checking noise

• Shannons 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

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Shannons 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

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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)

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senders and receivers must use similar systems Or
else information is without meaning
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The Shannon-Weaver Model updated by Schramm
(1965) communication includes five elements
Shannons model adapted for the study of mass
human communication
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The Encoder

• Source expresses purpose in the form of a message

• Message formulated in code
• This requires an encoder

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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

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The Decoder

• The source needs an encoder to translate
• The receiver needs a decoder to retranslate

• Introduces coding dilemmas

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Hall on Code and How to Read Television, 1980
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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 Chandlers Semiotics for
Beginners http//www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4
B/sem08c.html
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Feedback (back to 1940s)
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Weiner, 1948 Cybernetics the study
of control and communication in animals and
machines
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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

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Evolving communication models feedback
Osgood and Schramm 1954
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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

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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)

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• How important is feedback to new media
  communication?

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Computer game scores reduce if sound is turned
off
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Question

• Is feedback the same as interaction?

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Feedback versus InteractionThacker and Galloway
2007 pp. 122-124

• Evolution in two-way communication
• Two models
• Feedback
• Interaction

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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

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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?

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Seminar

• Evaluating a published article
• Reading critically