W2 Models PDF

W2 : Models Prof Dr. Miranda J. Brady {she/her} ([email protected]) TA Sydney Weaver {she/her} ([email protected]) 2024-09-16 8:10 AM TA Wagner Filho {he/him} (wagnerfil...

W2 : Models Prof Dr. Miranda J. Brady {she/her} ([email protected]) TA Sydney Weaver {she/her} ([email protected]) 2024-09-16 8:10 AM TA Wagner Filho {he/him} ([email protected]) Tory Building 210 Currently Reading: - “Mediation” Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Oxford University Press, 1976, pp. 52, 143-146. - Peters, John Durham. “Introduction: The Problem of Communication” Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication, U of Chicago Press, 1999, pp. 1-31. - Baran, Stanley J.; Davis, Dennis K. (2006). Mass communication theory: foundations, ferment, and future. Excerpts from Chapter 11: Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message; Harold Innis: The Bias of Communication; and McLuhan: Understanding Media, pgs. 302-307. Reading for Next Week: - McKay, S., & Tenove, C. (2021). Disinformation as a threat to deliberative democracy. Political research quarterly, 74(3), 703-717. Legend: - Note taken directly from the slide ▪ Note taken from prof. talking, student question responses, or personal inferences and examples. Models of Communication and Media - What models/definitions of communication and media do we have? - What are our assumptions of the purpose of communication and how it works? John Durham Peters - "The mistake is to think that communications will solve the problem of communication. Better wiring will not eliminate the ghosts (bold added, p. 9). ▪ Communication can be misinterpreted; the medium of language isn't perfect, it can't represent exactly what you need it to be, but we still have the need to be understood by peers. ▪ People who use social media, "communications," still often time feel alone. ▪ All this media might help us convey our thoughts, feelings, etc. but it'll never be perfectly conveyed, we will never feel totally understood and close to someone through these media channels. → The longing that we have to be close to each other will not be solved by the communications that we have. ▪ There's so much "noise" or distractions that stop us from understanding the communications, imperfect media and interests that distract us from the point. ▪ "Can we love each other with justice and mercy?" The point of communication isn't about communicating your experience, as no one will ever be able to understand that, but can communication bring us closer as individuals? ▪ Is it about community? Some common models of communication - Transmission model of Communication - Cultural/Ritual model of communication (James Carey) - Both? ▪ What forms of communication necessitate precision? ▪ Dates, times, etc.. ▪ Journalism; emergencies, certain details surrounding emergencies (where the forest fire might be, where to get a vaccine, etc.) Durham-Peters: The "Problem" of Communication - Communication as problem: Noise and misunderstandings getting in the way of clear communication. - People are easily persuaded by media/communication ▪ There has constantly been a fear of media misinformation and the harm of media ▪ Communication as problem has been an issue since the beginnings of communication theory ▪ Socrates and the philosophers, those who try to commune with the dead - The dream of communion and the fear of breakdown - Loneliness and alienation between people Communication (Williams, 1983) - "Make common to many, to impart" - 15th C (Williams, bold added, p. 72-73). - "Latin-communicare: impart/share/make common" (Peters, bold added, p.7). - "common or mutual process" in this sense also involves reciprocity and exchange (p. 72). - Similar to words like communion, commune, community. Media Theory in History - John Durham Peters traces media theory back to the story of Phaedrus (ironically written by Plato) about an encounter between Socrates and Phaedrus. ▪ Socrates asking Phaedrus for Leuciscus's speech, as Phaedrus had told him how amazing the speech had been, but Phaedrus began to read what a recorded scroll of the speech. ▪ Socrates believed that writing controlled the audience from a distance, a static medium as the scroll will never change, and someone reading off a scroll would not have the same feeling as the speaker, and this is seen as manipulative of the audience. ▪ An early story about the importance of the form of medium. Hypodermic Needle/Magic Bullet Theory (1930s) - Very deterministic model of communication - Powerful media/passive audience - Direct effects ▪ Post WW1, effects of propaganda on society, the idea that you can directly influence and impact your audience through media. ▪ There is very little agency that the audience has in this process. ▪ Fear that media systems will control society, with fears of inciting wars The War of the Worlds (Orson Welles) ▪ 1938 radio broadcast, but it was put on to sound like a live newscast ▪ At the beginning it clearly states it was a play, but those who tuned in midway through were met with the concept that Martians had landed on the planet, that creatures were destroying the world. ▪ Mass hysteria, or overstated impact on audience? ▪ An example of hypodermic needle, a powerful medium (broadcasted play disguised as a news broadcast) against a passive audience (those tuning in post-"this is a play"). Propaganda Theory (Harold Laswell, 1920s) - WW1 (1914-1918) and WWII propaganda (1939-1945) - "Propaganda is the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols" (Laswell, 1927, 627). ▪ Propaganda isn't an instantaneous injection; it is the continued injection of symbols and ideas into a community. - Media are a corrupting influence on people, society, and public opinion - based on fears of totalitarianism. - Instability and conflict leave people susceptible to influence of propaganda. - Used powerful "master" collective symbols which evoked strong emotions. - A bit less simplistic than the hypodermic needle model: "People need to be slowly prepared to accept radically different ideas and actions" (Baran & Davis describing propaganda theory p. 83). ▪ From Freud, a bit less focused on rationality, but also a need for feelings; their unconscious desires. ▪ Creation of caricatures; Uncle Sam for the USA, the dehumanization and devilization of the Jewish people in 1930s German media (i.e. comics) to indoctrinate German people to the Nazi party and its beliefs. Democratic Theory (Pragmatists) - Walter Lippmann: The Phantom Public (1925) - Worked with Woodrow Wilson - WWI - Believed the way the presses operated was a major barrier to democracy - Impossible to solve this "problem" of communication, and therefore needed an educated, elite technocratic class to help make decisions for average people because they do not have the education or insight. ▪ If you have a builder, who's focused on building, why do you expect them to know the nuances of the political system? We need a vanguard made up fo people who focus on the political system to inform the general public of the political world; propaganda in a good way; to help people make decisions that are good for them. - C. Wright Mills: Public apathy (masses vs. public) Laswell's (1948) Model of Communication - Whom? Says what? In which channel? To whom? With what effect? (1948) - Linear/Transmission model - Particular view of audiences Shannon-Weaver Model (1948) - Linear / Mathematical - Information Technology - Mathematicians (Shannon worked for Bell Labs) - "Transmission Model" (Sender > Message > Receiver) ▪ Information Source - Sender > Transmitter - Encoder > Channel (which may have noise) > Reception - Decoder > Destination - Receiver ▪ Destination > Feedback > Information Source - What does the model leave out? ▪ Not everyone will receive/decode the message in the same way, whether that’s because of noise or cultural differences, etc. ▪ Fear of how media will impact people Behaviorism (Influence by Psychology/Empiricism) - "the notion that all human action is a conditioned response to external environmental stimuli" (Baran & Davis, 2006, p. 80). - Power of public opinion and persuasion. - Paul Lazarsfeld (who also worked on research related to War of the Worlds along with his wife Herta Herzog through the Princeton Radio Research Project). ▪ People are stimulated by this worry/scare, they might panic; a kind of response. Maybe they’ve been conditioned to worry about things because of news media? ▪ How do you condition someone to act a certain way? The Frankfurt School - Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno - in exile in US during WWII. - The "Culture Industries" in US: music and pop culture heavily influence what we pay attention to and how we see the world. - Lead to totalitarianism and rule by an elite class. ▪ Emerging media might distract people from more important things going on such as totalitarianism. Mass Society Theory (WWII) - "The media of communication were simultaneously an agent for destroying intellectual and artistic standards and the elites that bore them and a means for exercising dominion over and control of ordinary men and women. Both elites and masses, set free from, liberated from, tradition and traditional ways of life, were promptly reabsorbed into the market and consumerism, into mass politics and mass consumption. The only winner in this game were commercial elites, and their technocratic servants in the professions, including the personnel of the mass media." (James Carey p. 19) A very, very brief overview of Media Theory and Cultures (The Toronto School: Harold Innis & Marshall McLuhan) Media Cultures - Harold Innis, Empire and Communication: - Bias of communication: - Space biased media are light and portable (e.g. TV, newspapers, radio) - Time biased media are durable not portable (stone tablet). ▪ The relationship between and how it might influence media. ▪ The media culture would shift depending on emerging media technology. - Media cultures - Orality - Writing - Print ▪ Gutenberg print - Electronic Communication ▪ Telegraph ▪ The emergence of these technologies shifted culture. Those within the media culture might not realize or perceive the shift. ▪ Oral Culture: - Privacy less important than social whole - Individual authorship not important. - Performance is central. - Passed from one generation to the next. ▪ Oral cultures have shifting details, changing each time a story is shared. ▪ Emphasis on linearity, intergenerational knowledge transfer. ▪ More focus on interpersonal stories. ▪ More social bonds, i.e. Phaedrus. ▪ Performance is necessary ▪ A change is oral to written culture is a significant evolution. - How is written culture different from oral culture? ▪ Literacy is not widespread, only the elite were literate. ▪ Literacy is recorded, more permanence, details are more important. ▪ Authorship matters. ▪ Culture shift, what values are more important. ▪ Innis is concerned over how written culture was control over distance, the elite class hold the knowledge and therefore writing was a tool for power. - More durable preservation of texts. - Saves more detailed information. - Nature of communication changes, no longer face-to-face. - Knowledge is hoarded and controlled. - Literacy becomes power. - Enables empire. - How does culture change with movable types and the printing press? ▪ More people have access to literacy, therefore being literate became more widespread. ▪ Language becomes more standardized, cultural contexts and "jargons" become erased over times, standardized language. ▪ Democratic potential ▪ Influenced commercial culture, advertising, yellow journalism. Moral panic over "cheap" literature, the effects of some stories on kids, etc. - Print Culture: - Becomes difficult for the Church to control - Non-religious texts are created. - Precision sharpened - Standardized spelling and dictionaries. - According to McLuhan, "Printing altered the very structure of human consciousness and thought" (McLuhan qtd. In Grossberg et. al, p.42). - Elizabeth Eisenstein, Democracy is encouraged by writing & print: - Political literature, pamphlets, etc. - How did electronic communication change things? ▪ The profound effects of electronic communication on our nervous systems, how it impacts us, and greater society, at a neurological level, with the invention of the telegraph. - Telegraph (Samuel Morse, 1844) - Reorganized people's conception of time and space and allowed for new kinds of organizational control. - Instantaneous transmission, confounding notions of time and space. - The telegraph enabled the rapid transmission of information across space. - Telegraph: Railroad/Standardize time. ▪ Edgar Allen Poe poem Maelstrom, where the fisherman is trapped in the boat, waiting, during a storm. McLuhan uses this as a reasoning for our experience, we can’t truly understand what's happening to us with our current media technologies until the "storm" passes, or until the next step in the evolution of communication occurs. McLuhan - Media as an extension of man and the senses (sight, hearing, touch) through time and space. (e.g. Print was an extension of the eye while television was an extension of the sensory system). - Hot Media (high definition/ high sensory data) - Cool Media (participatory) - Media shifts change people, society, and culture. - "Global Village," enabled through electronic media. ▪ For McLuhan, electronic media exhibited the global village, everyone experiencing the same thing at the same time. ▪ While McLuhan was cheery on the concept, the global village has many nuances and downsides. ▪ Does the global village enable democracy? ▪ Enables accountability; with records of everything said, seen, and heard, you can be kept accountable for what you've done. ▪ Media creates an echo chamber in its algorithms, its overly personalized. END OF LECTURE Summary Key Topics - A brief overview of a few models concerning communications: - The transmission model, focusing on message delivery - The Cultural/ritual model, highlighting communication's role in reinforcing societal norms - Hypodermic Needle Theory and the Propaganda Theory explore media's powerful influence and manipulation. - The Shannon-Weaver model addresses technical message transmission - Behaviorism considers media's impact on behavior - The Frankfurt school criticizes media's role in mass culture and control - The Toronto school, including Innis and McLuhan, examines how different media types shape society and culture, with McLuhan's "global village" concept reflecting the profound effects of electronic media. Key Words & Definitions - Culture, global village, mass society, media, media evolution, media influence, media manipulation, public opinion, cultural shift, technological determinism. Off Topic Takeaways - Assignment 1 Due by Tuesday, September 24th at 5pm.