Introduction to Communication

AK/SOSC 2410 9.0/6.0

Summer 2005

Course Director: Pierre Ouellet

Course Outline

for the purpose of this course, the mass media

will be considered:

• as an apparatus;

• in terms of behavioural/effects research;

• ethnographically, i.e. in relation

to the audience;

• in terms of cultural & symbolic behaviour.

What is Mass

Communication?

Introduction

to Communication Studies

Mass Communication

Lecture Outline:

• Definition of communication;

• modes of communication;

• a brief history of communication studies;

• contemporary disciplinary approaches;

• types of communication;

• two basic approaches to communication studies and research;

• basic assumptions.

Communicatus, p.p.

Communicare

old meaning• to impart - to share -

to make common;

• initial sense of

participation;

• idea of transmission;

• the effect of forces.

new meaning• the act of transmitting;

• giving/exchanging information, signals of messages by talk,

gesture or writing;

• a system for sending

and receiving messages.

Modes of Communication

• language;

• gestures, signs and signals;

• images and representations/symbolic

structures;

• unconscious dimension/ideology;

• possibility of miscommunication/

denotative fallacy.

A Brief History of Communication

• Ancient Greeks

• Romans

• Middle Ages

• Enlightenment

• Modern Communication Theory

Ancient Greeks

• Corax of Syracuse (465 BC)

• Sophists - Gorgias of Leontini (Sicily)

• Plato

• Aristotle

• Isocrates

Plato and Rhetoric (428-347 BC)

• The Gorgias

• The Phaedrus

• Summary

Plato’sGorgias

• Rhetoric is not an art (techne);

• rhetoric does not give power;

• rhetoric has little value in protecting

against wrong and suffering;

• Rhetoric should not be used to escape

just punishment.

Plato’s Phaedrus

• A dialogue about the nature of speech making;

• by extension, about difference between oral and written forms of expression;

• theory of forms as theory of relationship of content to effect;

• relationship between rhetoric and phiolosophy.

Plato and Rhetoric

• Summary:

– rhetoric represents style over substance;

– rhetoric represents technique over truth;

– implies a deep distrust of then role of emotion in human communication;

– rhetoric is too often used to deceive because it does not distinguish between conviction and knowledge;

– enduring intellectual legacy.

Aristotle’s Rhetoric (384-322 BC)

Aristotle defined rhetoric as “ the

faculty of observing in any given

case the available means of

persuasion.” (Book I - Chapter 2)

Aristotle’s Rhetoric

• Communication is purposive;

• it is based on the intention of affecting others;

• its effects can be evaluated and measured in terms of effect, and also in terms of the truth;

• rhetoric consider not only what is or was, but also what might be.

The Three Types of Rhetoric

• Deliberative/political – THE GOOD

• Judicial/forensic – JUSTICE

• Epideictic/ceremonial - VIRTUE

Aristotle’s Rhetoric

• Aristotle identifies three types of appeal:

– Ethos - personal appeal of the speaker;

– Logos - the value of the arguments;

– Pathos - appeal to emotions in support of

arguments.

Aristotle’s Rhetoric

• Rhetoricians need to develop five skills:

– Invention - ability to generate ideas;

– Disposition - ability to organize ideas;

– Style - use of appropriate language;

– Memory - ability to recall facts & ideas;

– Delivery - use of voice and gestures.

Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Summary:

Aristotle provided the first systematic study of “the art of persuasion;”

Established the place of “probability” in argumentation;

His legacy survived through the work of Quintillian, Cicero and others as “the five canons of rhetoric;”

Rhetoric became on of the seven liberal arts taught in universities for over 2,000 years.

Isocrates

• Communication is basic to all human life;

• We not only communicate with others but with ourselves;

• Communication develops the power to think and speak well;

• It is therefore fundamental to the development of social institutions.

From the Dark Ages

to the Middle-Ages

• Collapse of the Roman Empire (300 AD);

• Augustine of Hippo (354-430);

• Return of the Moors to Europe (700-1100 AD)

• Fall of the library in Toledo (1100);

• Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).

The Enlightenment

Two Distinct Approaches to Rhetoric

a- Conformity with the classical framework;

b- the development of the elocutionary

movement

• invention

• organization

• style

• delivery

The Elocutionary Approach

• Hugh Blair (1718-1800)

• Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres (1783)

• George Campbell (1719-1796)

• The Philosophy of Rhetoric ( 1776)

• Richard Whately (1787-1863)

• Elements of Rhetoric (1828)

Modern Rhetoric

• The early 20th century saw a synthesis of

• Rhetoric

• Oratory

• Elocution

• English

• Adopted the term speech to identify the discipline

• 1 - Concerned with the making of speeches

• - to be studied according to humanistic perspectives;

• 2 - Concerned with the act of speaking

• - to be studied using the social science.

• Eventually becomes speech communication then simply communication.

Other Interpretive Models

• Argumentation Theory;

• Hermeneutics;

• Dramatism;

• Critical Theory;

• Postmodernism;

• Epistemics.

Argumentation Theory

Steve Toulmin (1958) Philosopher of

Science

Elements of argument- Data – specific facts known or evident;

- Claim – conclusion drawn;

- Warrant - the general principle or truth that

links data to claim.

Hermeneutics

Systematic analysis of message to explore its

meaning – message is divided into Cortex and

Nucleus (surface structure and deep structure).

- Littera – grammar - immediate meaning;

- Sensus – semantics – historical sense;

- Sententia – interpretation – 3 spiritual senses

- sensus tropologicus

- sensus allegoricus

- sensus anagogicus

I.A. Richards New Rhetoric – notion that meaning is

not in words but in thought.

Dramatism

Proposed by Kenneth Burke…

Communication is not an appeal to emotions or

reason/logic, but the creation of identity with the

audience.

Act – communicating a message;

Agent – person or entity communicating the

message;

Agency – means of communicating the message – channel – institution;

Scene - Context in which the act occurs;

Purpose – intention of the act.

Critical Theory

- First identified with Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer and the Frankfurt School;

- Jurgen Habermas and The Public Sphere;

- uses Marxist theory for social analysis;

- belief that quantitative methods are not suited for issues of social value;

- Focus on Work;

Language;

Power.

Postmodernism

• A response to the perceived failures of modernity. Its most prominent theorists are Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, Fredric Jameson, David Harvey, Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard and others.

• Discusses the world and social practices in terms of discourses - fragmentation – deconstruction -power - illusion and the disappearance of the real and the loss of the Meta-narrative.

Epistemics

• Epistemics – the social construction

of knowledge.

Disciplinary

Approaches

• linguistics;

• sociology;

• psychology;

• philosophy;

• anthropology;

• education;

• everyone.

Types of Communication

• interpersonal communication;

• mediated communication;

• mass communication;

Interpersonal Mass Communication

Telegraph Newspaper/ Print

Telephone Broadcast

TV/Cable

Radio Films

Internet

Criteria: • number of participants;

• control over communication

i.e., what is said? To whom?

Why? When? Where

Technology

Two Approaches to

Communication Research

Procedural/Material Approach

The Transmissive Model

*

Phenomenological/Subjective Approach

The Ritual Model

The Transmissive Model

Concerns

Applications

The Transmissive Model

• Belief that messages can be analyzed;

• understands communication as a process;

• interested in how messages affect behaviour or

state of mind of the receiver;

• relationship between sender-message- receiver

- with emphasis on receiver;

• accuracy/efficiency of communication;

Source Transmitter

Signal

Receiver Destination

Noise

Source

Received

Signal

Transmissive Model

Shannon and Weaver’s model

Sender Message Receiver/Effect

Transmissive Model

S M R /R1

The Ritual Model

Concerns

Applications

Ritual Model

• Interest in interaction between people as well as people and texts;

• concern with cultural role of texts;

• meaning is the effect of the encounter with the text;

• process of negotiation between Sender and Receiver is dynamic;

• failure of communication is significant i.e., meaningful.

Meaning

Producer

ReaderReferent

Message

Text

Assumptions Regarding Mass

Communication Research:

• interdisciplinary approach;

• structural dimension;

• transmission;

• relationships;

• social interaction.

Some Forms of Mass Media

• Print: books - newspapers - magazines - posters

and billboards

• Television - Film & Video;

• Radio;

• Audio recordings;

• the Internet.

Options

Home

First Slide