Communication helps us to understand ourselves too

Matt RolphSlides prepared for Prof. Carlos Godoy

Rensselaer Polytechnic

Institute

Why study Communication?

• Communication also allows for collective knowledge to emerge. Collective knowledge increases survival skills and technological advancement. Why don’t we see the prototypical Renaissance man anymore?– Exercise to demonstrate this

– Survival skills task

You: Communication Theorist

• In this course, you will– Respond, analyze, and become more

familiar with many leading and key communication theories

– Theorize yourself, or, at least, begin the work of a communication theorist

– Think, read, and discuss

Readings

• Are optional– The best, most valuable, and most primary

sources are provided whenever possible for your reference – this is a chance for you to learn from and work with important resources. It is up to you to make the most of it.

– Material will also be covered in class in lecture format

What does it mean …

• … to be a communication theorist?• To some extent, you are one already. You don’t

need to be a professional in a communication-related field to begin.

• Theorists explain what is happening, has happened, and will happen.

• Can we explain the changes new forms of communication have made to our lives? How will life be different today than yesterday or tomorrow?

• Theory– “A set of systematic, informed hunches

about the way things work”– Theory is not law, nor set in stone; neither is

it solely abstract speculation.

What is a theory?Em Griffin

What is communication?

• When you ask this question you are really asking two questions:

• 1) What is communication as an abstract concept?

• 2) What does it mean to study communication as a discipline.

• Let’s start with the first question: What is communication? Can you define it?

Communication?Em Griffin

• Communication:– “The relational process of creating and

interpreting messages that elicit response” – A large and growing field of academic study

connected to many other disciplines

Transmission model

• Griffin’s definition implies a transmission model.

• Is this the only possible model?

Message created1Message

transmitted

Via medium2 Message received and interpreted3

Where do messages come from?

• Where do these messages come from? • What is a thought? What is an idea? • How can I know what is in your mind?• How does an idea relate to the world?• How can my mind represent what is

around me?

Trying to answer these questions…

• Leads to a language game of sorts. The questions cannot be answered by a functional transmission view of communication.

• Foucault and many other postmodern scholars argue that the discourse itself, not the substance of the meaning behind the discourse, reifies or functions to produce the objects of knowledge that are then studied by social scientists.

• This means we often fail to recognize that language often fails us --which can short circuit the creation of meaningful theory (trapped by the discourse).

Terms

• Discourse: the ongoing discussion about what communication is and does and how it all works (or does not work)

• Reifies: verifies, certifies, is evidence of• The discourse itself reifies the existence

of communication … but …

Is language enough?

• Do words always represent tangible things?

• Do we always agree on what they mean?• We seem to share meaning, but how?

The word ‘communication’

• … is related to ‘communing’, bringing people together.

• … is also related to ‘common’, meaning free to be used by everyone or belonging to everyone.

Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). P. 476

• One of the earliest examples of this shift from a ritual to a transmission view of communication.

• Proposes that knowledge is built up from ideas, either simple or complex. Simple ideas are the basic building blocks; combine in various ways to form complex ideas.

John Locke1634-1704

Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). P. 476

• Two types of experience that form simple ideas in the human mind: – sensation, when the mind experiences the

world outside the body through the five senses, and

– reflection, when the mind turns inward, recognizing ideas about its own functions, such as thinking, willing, believing, and doubting.

Religion

• As a thought experiment, let’s consider religion.

• Can it be explained as coming from sensation or reflection? What do you think?

Locke and Language

• Locke points out weaknesses and common abuses of language, i.e. words do not immediately and obviously mean the same thing to all people.

• This problem has four main causes: 1. a word may imply a very complex idea

2. the ideas that words stand for may have no constant standard anywhere in nature to judge them against

3. the standard that ideas refer to may not be easily known, and

4. the meaning of a word and the real nature of the thing referred to by the word may not be exactly the same.

So what?

• Locke believes in and is engaged in communication, but is well aware of – and struggling with – its limitations.

• The fundamental philosophical question of whether or not we can actually know anything is always with us.

Piece vs Text

• Griffin defines the term ‘text’ to refer to examples of communication like Locke’s essay.

• The term ‘piece’ is also valuable, because it implies artistic interpretation, and can apply to a broader range of types of communication.

Durkheim

Émile Durkheim (1858 - 1917)

• Society itself is the source of knowledge, including scientific knowledge … a society can neither create itself nor recreate itself without at the same time creating an ‘ideal’ (p90)

• Durkheim sees value in the collective conscience in creating knowledge (going beyond Locke’s experience and sensation.)

Durkheim and Religion

• Both science and religion are the outcomes of impersonal, collective thought.

• Religion is a social creation, and is society divinized … Durkheim stated that the deities which men worship together are only projections of the power of society.

• Religion is social: it occurs in a social context.

Anomie

• Durkheim defined the term anomie as a condition where social and/or moral norms are confused, unclear, or simply not present. Durkheim felt that this lack of norms – or of pre-accepted limits on behavior in a society – led to ‘deviant’ behavior.

• Anomie = Lack of Regulation / Breakdown of Norms

Marx

• [Inevitable] conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat … leading to breakdown and revolution.

• According to Marx, the main task of any state apparatus is to uphold the power of the ruling class; but without any classes there would be no need for a state. That would lead to the classless, stateless communist society.

Karl Marx(1818 - 1883)

Karl Marx and Religion

• Marx begins this essay with a criticism of religion, which he claims is the premise of all criticism. Feuerbach used religion as the basis of his transformative method. Marx follow his lead by saying that "man makes religion; religion does not make man" (p. 53).

Karl Marx and Religion

• Also, religion creates [according to Marx] the illusion that people are happy.

• He advocates people abandon this ideal and demand real happiness, which, he states, can only be found in the material world.

Freud: Civilization and the Individual

• Fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual:

• Individuals quest for freedom to act on instinct and civilizations demand individual conformity and the repression of instinct.

• Primitive instincts (to kill, for sexual gratification) are harmful to communities; thus civilizations create laws and punishments for when laws are broken.

• Therefore, people are unhappy.

Sigmund Freud(1856 - 1939)

Freudian Theory

• Humans have a set of immutable instincts, cravings to act on sexual desire without limits and to commit violence (against authorities or sexual competitors)

• Humans are governed by the pleasure principle, seek pleasure, and pleasure comes from acting on instincts

Freud

• Where does meaning (and messages) come from in Freud’s theory?

Weber: Legitimate Domination

• Not everything economically based

• Three types of ‘legitimate domination’:– Legal– Traditional– Charismatic

Max Weber1864-1920

Weber

• How does the communication infrastructure of today reify these precepts of legal, traditional, and charismatic leadership?

Theory

• “theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’ . . . . We endevor to make the mesh finer and finer” ~Karl Popper

• Theories are different lenses which allow us to see things differently, not creating the picture but bringing it in (or out) of focus

• Theories are maps of objective behaviors and subjective meanings

Micro, Meso, and Macro

• Note that everything can be considered on different scales:

Macro

Meso

(middle)

Micro

Theories Video

• Theories as Nets, Lenses, & Maps:• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4Tyyz3oVck

What is the nature of human nature?

• Break into groups and discuss for a few minutes

What is the nature of human nature?

• Continuum between essentialism and constructivism

• Essentialism- we are creatures trapped by the structures of society/biology

• Constructivism-we create our own human nature– In next class we will ask: Does technology

drive history?

Humanistic vs. Social Science

• There are tensions between humanistic approaches (human centered, sometimes experiential) to Communication and those in social science (which uses a lot of numerical data, metrics, and attempts to implement scientific methodology).

Humanistic vs. Social Science

• Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research Methods To Inform Theories

• Experiments – (Often on the micro level)• Survey Research- Price-public opinion• Textual Analysis (culture industries-

critical analysis)• Ethnography (Reading the Romance-

Radaway)

What makes a theory good?

• Explains the data (draws order out of chaos)

• Prediction of future events: general tendencies…hard to predict individual behavior on the micro-level (although cognitive modeling is attempting to do just that now)

• Relative Simplicity – Occam's Razor-for two plausible explanations…accept the simpler version

• Hypothesis can be tested somehow• Practical Utility – the famous “so what” question!

Traditions in Communication

• Communication is exciting but also can be confusing because it straddles many fields: anthropology, psychology, sociology, economics, political science.

• We are forming a science of human behavior that bridges these disciplines, truly an interdisciplinary area.

Question 2: What is Communication as a Discipline

• Seven Traditions in Communication

• 1) Social Psychological Field: Persuasion, Influence, personality, fear appeals, expertise, attitudes.

• 2) Cybernetic Tradition: Communication as information procession---how to improve processing….organizational communication, family systems, based on the concept of feedback– Shannon’s model of reduction of uncertainty in

communication------communication is seen as an applied science. Cutting down on background noise that will confuse the message

Seven Traditions in Communication

• 3) Rhetorical Tradition: the oldest tradition, that of speech, distinguishes us from other animals. The role of artful public address is the precursor to much of the literature on persuasive communication.

• 4) Semiotic Tradition: the process of sharing meaning through signs….and how their interpretation impacts society. Words have no logical connection to the things they are said to represent.

Seven Traditions in Communication

• 5) Socio-cultural tradition: linguistic structure of a society ….a cultures language dictates what we think and do.

• 6) The Critical Tradition: Frankfurt school (Adorno, Horkheimer) rejected the economic determinism of Marxism but continued the tradition of critiquing society mainly through the study of media (dulling sensitivity to repression, duping the masses). Science is not value free.

Seven Traditions in Communication

• 7) Phenomenological tradition: the only way to understanding is to attempt to understand what it’s like to be a specific person. This perspective is getting renewed attention in interpersonal communication field with the addition of virtual reality systems (Stanford), displacement experiments and race switching.

Communication as a Discipline

Socio-cultural linguistic

structure of a society

Social psychologicalInterpersonal Cybernetic/systems

Media ecology

Rhetorical Tradition

Semiotic

Shared meaning

CommunicationCommunication

Where are you?

Phenomenological Virtual realityCritical Tradition:

Frankfurt School

Communication as a Discipline

Socio-cultural linguistic

structure of a society

Social psychologicalInterpersonal Cybernetic/systems

Media ecology

Rhetorical Tradition

Semiotic

Shared meaning

CommunicationCommunication

Where are you?

Phenomenological Virtual realityCritical Tradition:

Frankfurt School

Syllabus Overview

• 10% in-class participation• 20% Course Presentation• 25% Midterm Exam• 45% Final Exam

• Assign readings for the next few weeks- Volunteers?

Your grade

In-classPresentMidtermFinal

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