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Lecture 02: Communications Theory

IS246Multimedia Information

Prof. Marc DavisUC Berkeley SIMS

Monday and Wednesday 3:30 pm – 5:00 pmFall 2003

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is246/f03/

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

• Why Study Communication Theory?

• Towards a New Understanding of Communication– Reddy on The Conduit Metaphor– Iser on The Reading Process– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

• Why Study Communication Theory?

• Towards a New Understanding of Communication– Reddy on The Conduit Metaphor– Iser on The Reading Process– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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The Media Problem

• Vastly more media will be produced• Without ways to manage it (metadata

creation and use) we lose the advantages of digital media

• Most current approaches are insufficient and perhaps misguided

• Great opportunity for innovation and invention

• Need interdisciplinary approaches to the problem

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Goals of the Course

• Acquire theoretical and practical foundations to analyze, design, and produce multimedia information systems– Media theory– Media practice– Current and future media systems and applications

• Learn to apply media theory to media design• Gain further experience in project-based

learning and teamwork• Develop an enduring framework and

methodology for media analysis and design

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Course Overview

• Course phases– Theoretical and practical foundations– Current issues and methods– The future of multimedia

• Course assignments– Theory application– Short media production– Final project

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Course Materials

• Purchase Course Reader at Copy Central on Bancroft– Course Readers should be available by Thursday

after 4:00 pm

• Purchase Course Textbooks– David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An

Introduction. 7th Edition. McGraw Hill, New York, 2003. (Available now at CAL Bookstore)

– W. Daniel Hillis. The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work (Science Masters Series). Perseus Books Group, New York, 1999. (Available in a few weeks at CAL Bookstore)

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

• Why Study Communication Theory?

• Towards a New Understanding of Communication– Reddy on The Conduit Metaphor– Iser on The Reading Process– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Communication Theory

• Encompasses a vast array of disciplines– Mass communications, literary and media

theory, rhetoric, sociology, psychology, linguistics, law, cognitive science, information science, engineering, etc.

• Questions– What and how we communicate– Why we communicate– What happens when communication “works”

and when it doesn’t– How to improve communication

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Why Study Communication Theory?

• Our understanding of what, how, and why we communicate informs our– Theory of media and practice of media

production– Analysis, design, and evaluation of multimedia

information system and applications– How we work together in teams– How we read texts and talk with one another

in this course– Law and public policy

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Etymology of “Communication”

• Communication - c.1384, from O.Fr. communicacion, from L. communicationem (nom. communicatio), from communicare "to impart, share," lit. "to make common," from communis (see common).

• Common - 13c., from O.Fr. comun, from L. communis "shared by all or many," from L. com- "together" + munia "public duties," those related to munia "office." Alternate etymology is that Fr. got it from P.Gmc. *gamainiz (cf. O.E. gemæne), from PIE *kom-moini "shared by all," from base *moi-, *mei- "change, exchange."

• Remuneration - c.1400, from L. remunerationem, from remunerari "to reward," from re- "back" + munerari "to give," from munus (gen. muneris) "gift, office, duty." Remunerative is from 1677.

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What and How Do We Communicate?

• What “gifts” do we give each other?

• What do we do with these gifts?

• How does this gift exchange bring us together (or not)?

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

• Why Study Communication Theory?

• Towards a New Understanding of Communication– Reddy on The Conduit Metaphor– Iser on The Reading Process– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Beyond the Conduit Metaphor

• Reddy– Identification of the Conduit Metaphor– Suggestion of alternate Toolmakers’

Paradigm

• Iser– The reading process as a primary example of

the Toolmakers’ Paradigm– Phenomenology of the reading process

• Barthes– New conceptions of “author” and “text”

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

• Why Study Communication Theory?

• Towards a New Understanding of Communication– Reddy on The Conduit Metaphor– Iser on The Reading Process– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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The Conduit Metaphor

• Language functions like a conduit, transferring thoughts bodily from one person to another

• In writing and speaking, people insert their thoughts or feelings in the words

• Words accomplish the transfer by containing the thoughts or feelings and conveying them to others

• In listening or reading, people extract the thoughts and feelings once again from the words

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Conduit Metaphor: Minor Frameworks

• Thoughts and feelings are ejected by speaking or writing into an external “idea space”

• Thoughts and feelings are reified in this external space, so they exist independent of any need for living beings to think or feel them

• These reified thoughts and feelings may, or may not, find their way back into the heads of living humans

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Toolmakers’ Paradigm

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Semantic Pathology

• Semantic Pathology– “Whenever two or more incompatible senses

capable of figuring meaningfully in the same context develop around the same name”

• Example– “This text is confusing.”

• Text(1) = The layout/font of the text is confusing.• Text(2) = The argument of the text is confusing.• Question: Where is Text(2)?

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

• Why Study Communication Theory?

• Towards a New Understanding of Communication– Reddy on The Conduit Metaphor– Iser on The Reading Process– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Iser on the Literary Work

• Literary work has two poles– Artistic

• Text created by the author• Reddy’s signals – Text (1)• Metaphor of “stars”

– Esthetic• Realization accomplished by the reader• Reddy’s Repertoire Members – Text (2)• Metaphor of “constellations”

• Literary work comes to life in the interaction between text and reader– Virtual dimension– Gaps

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Iser on the Reading Process

• Phenomenology of reading process similar to phenomenology of perception– Anticipation– Retrospection– Gestalt– Illusion-building/Illusion-breaking

• Interaction with repertoire (familiar)• Alien associations (unfamiliar)

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

• Why Study Communication Theory?

• Towards a New Understanding of Communication– Reddy on The Conduit Metaphor– Iser on The Reading Process– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Roland Barthes

• Death of the Author– Who is the “I” that writes?– The reader constructs the author by means of the text

• From Work to Text– Method: “The text is experienced only in an activity of

production.”– Plurality: “The text is plural.”– Filiation: The author returns to his/her text as a guest– Text is a social space which coincides only with a

practice of writing

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

• Why Study Communication Theory?

• Towards a New Understanding of Communication– Reddy on The Conduit Metaphor– Iser on The Reading Process– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Discussion Questions (Reddy)

• Ryan Shaw on Michael Reddy– The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which Reddy alludes to

early in the essay, can be summarized by two principles: 1) our thinking is determined by the language we speak, and 2) people who speak different languages perceive and think about the world differently. To what extent does Reddy agree with these principles?

– In September MIT will officially launch OpenCourseWare, a free, open publication of MIT course materials. Wired magazine gushes that OCW is “an MIT education, open-source style.” What might Reddy have to say about OCW?

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Discussion Questions (Iser)

• Dan Perkel on Wolfgang Iser– If you agree with Iser that there is a process of

anticipation and retrospection while reading or that the reader is constantly making decision while reading that lead to a realization of alternatives, do you think that this is occurs in the conscious or subconscious of the reader? Does it matter with regards to Iser's main argument on these processes?

– What does Iser mean by the term “illusion” (1st used on page 284)? What does he mean by the borrowed term “alien associations?” What is the relationship between the two is the reading process according to Iser?

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Discussion Questions (Iser)

• Dan Perkel on Wolfgang Iser– Near the end of the reading (1st main paragraph on

page 292) in a discussion of the subject-object division, Iser suggests that the removal of this division “puts reading in an apparently unique position as regards the possible absorption of new experiences.” In regards to what is reading “unique?”

– To what activities is Iser comparing reading? Do you agree? Are there other activities which leads to similar experiences?

– Would it have been helpful or even feasible for Iser to have included examples from literature in support of his main arguments? If so, what types of examples would have worked?

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Discussion Questions (Barthes)

• Melanie Feinberg on Roland Barthes– How is Barthes' conception of the author-reader

relationship similar to Reddy's toolmaker's paradigm? – Is it significant that Reddy's examples focus on

dialogues between two people, while Barthes' examples focus on written texts, for which the author is not physically present (even through an intermediary, as Reddy describes)?

– Does the type of media affect the author-reader relationship?

– How does Barthes differentiate Work and Text?

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Discussion Questions (Barthes)

• Melanie Feinberg on Roland Barthes– If a Text is dependent on a reader's active

construction of interpretation, what implications does this have for creating metadata in a standard way?

– Barthes talks about the tendency to reduce reading to the level of consumption, where the reader does not actively participate in the construction of the text. Certainly there is a popular conception that audio and visual media, in contrast to writing, are more “consumptive.” (Barthes gives the example of avant-garde film and art, which, he says, people find “boring,” because they are not prepared to engage with it.) Does this indicate that the conduit metaphor is even stronger in relationship to multimedia than writing? How does this affect our understanding of multimedia?

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Discussion Questions (Reddy)

• Prof. Davis on Michael Reddy– How can an implicit theory of communication

affect our analysis and design of multimedia information systems?

– What are some examples of multimedia information systems that embody the Conduit Metaphor or the Toolmakers’ Paradigm theory of communication? How might they be redesigned?

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Today’s Agenda

• Review of Last Time

• Why Study Communication Theory?

• Towards a New Understanding of Communication– Reddy on The Conduit Metaphor– Iser on The Reading Process– Barthes on “Author” and “Text”

• Discussion Questions

• Action Items for Next Time

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Sign Up for Office Hours

• Prof. Marc Davis– Thursdays 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

– 314 South Hall

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Readings for Next Time

• Wednesday 09/03– Ferdinand de Saussure: Course in General

Linguistics”