Intro to Mass Communication

Episode 1

Communication• Definition: The transmission of a message

from a source to a receiver.• Harold Lasswell (1948) political scientist

description:• Who?• Says What?• Through Which channel?• To whom?• With what effects?

In fact, it is misleading to think of the communication process as starting somewhere and ending somewhere. It is really endless. We are little switchboard centers handling and rerouting the great endless current of information.... (Schramm W. 1954)

NOISE

• Physical noise:• Semantic noise

Physical Noise

1. A loud motorbike roaring down the road while you're trying to hold a conversation 2. Your little brother standing in front of the TV set 3. Mist on the inside of the car windscreen 4. Smudges on a printed page 5. ‘Snow' on analog TV set 6. Pixilation in digital TV sets

Semantic Noise

1. Semantic noise is difficult to define.

2. It may be related to people's: a) Knowledge level, b) Communication skills, c) experiences, d) Biases and prejudices…

Examples of Semantic Noise

1. Distraction 2. Differences in the use of the code3. Emphasizing the wrong part of the message 4. Attitude towards the sender 5. Attitude towards the message

1. Distraction: There is no physical noise which prevents the message from reaching you. You hear it, but you don't decode it.

You are physically very attracted to the person who is talking to you. As a result, your attention is directed to their deep blue eyes rather than what they are saying. Equally, your attention could be distracted by the other person's peculiar twitch and so on. Or think of when you watched the TV news: the reporter was standing outside Hamra Street, but behind him a woman was yelling at her husband. As soon as the report's over you realize you have no clue what it was about.

2. Differences in the use of the code: There is nothing which physically prevents the elements of the message from reaching you, you simply can't understand it.

A person is blabbing on about fishes and loaves in Swedish. A language you don't understand.

Jag är mycket lycklig.

3. Emphasizing the wrong part of the message:

Maybe you can think of an advertising campaign which has been so successful with some new style or gimmick that everyone is talking about it. However, no one has actually noticed what product is being advertised.

4. Attitude towards the sender:

You're talking to someone a lot older than you. On the basis of their age, you make a lot of assumptions about the kind of code appropriate to them - and the conversation goes wrong because they were the wrong assumptions.

5. Attitude towards the message:

I may have a very positive attitude to the Aramaic-speaking bearded chap in the flowing robes. But, despite that, I'd be unlikely to find him very persuasive even if he were talking to me in English about his fishes and his loaves. He believes in transcendent beings and I don't. Whilst I may respect his right to hold to what I consider to be silly convictions, I can find little respect for the beliefs themselves. So, unless he can find what I consider a more convincing explanation of this particular trick, he's wasting his breath, however convinced he may be.

EncoderInterpreterDecoder

Organization

Delayed Inferential feedback

Input from News sources, art sources, etc.

Many identical messages

The mass audience

Many receivers, eachDecoding, interpreting,Encoding

Each connected with a group in which the message is reinterpretedAnd often acted upon

Definition of Mass Communication

1. It is the process of creating shared meaning between the mass media and their audiences.

2. Communication by means of mass media which reaches all or most people in society.

Culture

• Culture is the learned, socially acquired traditions and lifestyles of the members of a society, including their patterned, repetitive ways of thinking, felling and acting...

(Harris, 1983).

Culture

• Culture lends significance to human experience by selecting from and organizing it. It refers broadly to the forms through which people make sense of their lives, rather than more narrowly to the opera or art of museums.

(Rosaldo, 1989)

Culture

• Culture is the medium evolved by humans to survive. Nothing is free from cultural influences. It is the keystone in civilization’s arch and is the medium through which all of life’s events must flow. We are culture.

(Hall, 1976)

Culture

• Culture is an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbolic forms by means of which people communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.

(Geertz, 1973)

Culture

• Culture is learned.• Culture is shared within a group.• Creation and maintenance of common culture

occurs through communication/mass communication.

Functions & Effects of Culture

• Culture provides information that helps us make meaningful distinctions about right-wrong, appropriate - inappropriate, good-bad, attractive – unattractive…

• How does it do this?

• Example, thinness and beauty?• Mass Comm imapcts your perception through

messages disseminated by media: – movie heriones – Mean guys fat– Thieves black– Fathers The simpsons– Brothers mean to sisters– Sisters mean to brothers

• (Mainstream / Dominant culture) challanged

Dieting& BodyImage

Hollywood starLindsey Lohan

Just My Luck (2006) $7,500,000

Mean Girls (2004) $1,000,000

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004) $1,000,000

Freaky Friday (2003) $550,000

The Simpsons

Defining differentiating Dividing & Uniting of Culture

• National Culture versus bounded culture• Whale: fish in water or mammal?• Lebanese and stereotyping, labeling:• When we travel, fits us partially or maybe not at all• Categorizing people within the same culture• Italian, Asian, black neighborhoods: what do we

expect to find?• Smaller cultures help us differentiate ourselves

from others.

Division Problems?

• Differentiation leads to division:• 911 challenged American Muslims’ patriotism• CAIR reported 25% increase in anti-Muslim bias

2005-2006

• Communication/miscommunication serves to maintain and divide

• Culture: collective experience

• Co-culture: group experience

Seven years later

Defining

• Culture is the world made meaningful; iot is socially constructed and maintained through communication. It limits as well as liberates us; it differentness as well as unites us. It defines our realities and thereby shapes the ways we think, feel, and act.

Mass Communication & Culture

• Mass communication composes the audience.• Contributes to the making of culture• Contributes to the maintenance of culture• Mass media acts as – cultural storyteller (values, truths, behavior)–Cultural forum (a debate forum of our

culture; media industry vs. audience responsibility)

Looting vs. finding

Technological Determinism

• Technology is the predominant agent of social and cultural change.

• What drives culture is the way people use technology.

• Example, family interaction changed by TV.

Impact of Money

• Money shapes mass communication.• People can be either consumers or products.

Characteristics of Oral Culture

• No written language.• Face-to-face communication.• Helps define culture, it structure and operation.• Meaning is specific & local.• Knowledge is passed orally.• Memory is crucial.• Myth & history are intertwined. (storyteller)

Literate culture

• Literacy: the ability to effectively & efficiently understand and use written symbols.

• Meaning & language unified.• Knowledge is communicated over long

distance & time.• Culture, memory history & myth recorded on

paper.

Impact of Literate Culture

• Culture is not local.• Expansion: commercial, political & military.• Empires replaced local communities.• Power & influence in the hands of the literate.

Media Literacy

• The ability to effectively & efficiently comprehend and use any form of mediated communication.

• Components?

Components of Media Literacy

1. Critical thinking skills; independent judgment.2. Understanding of the process of mass com.3. Awareness of media impact on society.4. Strategies for analyzing media messages.5. Awareness of media content as cultural

reflection6. Cultivation of enjoyment, understanding,

appreciation.7. Understanding of production skills.8. Understanding of ethical responsibility.

Family Guy The Simpsons

Media Literacy Skills

1. Understand content & filter out noise.2. Understand the power of media messages.3. Distinguish emotional vs. reasoned reaction.4. Develop heightened expectation of media

content.5. Knowledge of genre conventions & style.6. Thinking critically of content regardless of source

credibility.7. Knowledge of media language = production

values.

The Daily Show: A mix of news & comedy genres

The Daily Show: A mix of news & comedy genres