Global Comm. section 2 (1 of 3)

Pamplona, February 2010 Paolo Volonté - Politecnico di Milano 1

Communication in the Era of Globalization


Paolo VolontéSociologia dei processi culturali

Politecnico di [email protected]

http://paolovolonte.wordpress.com


Communication in the Era of Globalization

Today:What Does it Mean To Communicate?


What does it mean to communicate?


The exchange of ideas, information, etc. between two or more persons. In an act of communication there is usually at least a speaker or sender, a message which is transmitted, and a person or persons for whom this message is intended (the receiver).

Communication







Jakobson’s diagram


My suggestion


The “hydraulic model” of communication



The hydraulic model of communication


The hydraulic model of communication


The process that occurs when ideas, information and feelings are conveyed between individuals or groups of individuals for deliberate purposes. (Buguley 1994)

Communication


A process of transmitting and receiving verbal or non-verbal messages that produces a response (Murphy and Hildebrandt 1991)

Communication


The hydraulic model of communication(Roman Jakobson)


The hydraulic model of communication(Paul Watzlawick)


The two main assumptions of the hydraulic model

1. A “message” exists in itself as something independent from an experiencing subject, it holds its own meaning intrinsically, its “true meaning”.

2. Messages – thanks to this characteristic – can be “passed on” from somebody to someone else, or “shared” among two or more subjects.


sender ------ receiver message ------

code

channel

context

Criticism of the first assumption


BURRO


Only getting into a specific context and referring to a specific context any message acquires the faculty of communicating.

There is no “objective” context. A context is always from the point of view of an observer.






What is the experience context of a specific observer? The current experience he is doing here and now from his own point of view; His/her body of memories, imagination, dreams; The whole heritage of experiences he/she has “embodied” in the course of time; He/she isn’t aware any more of them, but they keep on affecting his/her behaviour and choices; Values, tastes.




The “content” of a message, the “meaning” of a word or an image, the “sense” of an everyday life situation rise only when the message, the word, the situation get as new features into the experience horizon of somebody.


Principle:

No kind of mental content can “pass on”, nor can “be shared” by two different minds, since any experience of the mind of the other can be gained only through the mediation of events occurring in the external field of perception: for instance, alterations occurring on the perceived body of the Other.

Criticism of the second assumption



The “hydraulic model” of communication

Technology

Global Comm. section 2 (1 of 3)