Introduction to Communication and Nature of Communication Course Director: Pierre Ouellet Amini Golestani, Taher

Introduction to Communicationand Nature of Communication

Course Director: Pierre Ouellet

Amini Golestani, Taher

Nature of Communication

1. Communication is a dynamic process. 2. Communication is systemic. A systemic view of communication has four

(4) vital implication: a) Communication is contextual. b) A system has interrelated parts. c) The whole is more than the sum of its

parts. d) Constraints within systems influence or

affect meanings.

Nature of Communication

3. Communication involves communicators. 4. Communication is irreversible. 5. Communication is proactive. 6. Communication is symbolic interaction. 7. Meaning in communication is individually

construed.

Communication Defined

Communication is a dynamic, systemic or contextual, irreversible and proactive process in which communicators construct personal meanings through their symbolic interactions

(Wood, 1964)

A model describes an object, event, process, or relationship. It attempts to represent the essential or major features of what it models.

MODEL

• Presents the essential nature of what it describes by highlighting key features thought important by the model builder.• Visualizes for us how certain features are related to another and provides a more orderly understanding that we might have without the model.• At another level models have heuristic value; that is, they provide new ways to conceive of hypothetical ideas and relationships.

WHY MODELS?

The Aristotelian Model• Was first developed among the Greeks in ancient times• Greek citizens thus placed a “premium” on one’s persuasiveness to his audience. • This quality of persuasiveness is called “ethos.” • Usually, a speaker’s ethos depends on his or her character however Aristotle’s Ars Rhetorica also mentioned the following factors to affect ethos: 1.content2.arrangement 3.manner of delivery4.ethos5.arguments6.logos7.pathos

The Aristotelian Model

(Message) (Listener)

The LASSWELL Model

WHOCommunicator

SAYS WHATMessage

IN WHAT CHANNELMedium

TO WHOMReceiver

WITH WHAT EFFECTEffect

Verbal model advanced by Harold Lasswell in 1948Sequential or linear pattern

The LASSWELL ModelAs a social scientist, Lasswell premised his model upon three key functions of communication in human society: (1)surveillance – a function of diplomats and political leaders to alert society to the dangers and opportunities it faces(2)correlation – a function carried out by institutions such as educators and poll-takers designed to gather, coordinate, and integrate into meaningful form the responses of society towards changes in the environment(3) transmission – a function carried out by institutions like the family, church, school, and community in order to hand down values, norms, customs, and traditions to the next generations

The LASSWELL Model

Lasswell: “Communication must perform its key functions to protect, fortify, and enhance a nation’s stability.”

The SHANNON-WEAVER Model

The SHANNON-WEAVER Model

A model originally designed for telephone communication: EXAMPLE: phone call – information source telephone – transmitter converts message into electronic signal telephone – receiver that reconverts electronic signal into a message message – heard by another person, destination distorting signals – noise Depicts communication as one-way or of linear sequence Depicts noise as an element found ONLY within the message and not throughout the communication process. Mechanical in nature, terms

1st and 2nd Models

SOURCE ENCODER SIGNAL DECODER DESTINATION

Source Encoder Signal

3rd Model

Decoder

Interpreter

Encoder

The schramm’s Model

The schramm’s Model Wilbur Schramm tried many models to convey his insights and finally his fourth model was the charm!

His fourth model emphasizes the “dynamism of human communication.”

People interact in a constant, cyclical fashion. His model highlights the process AND interaction.

BERLO’S Model

BERLO’S Model

Berlo acknowledged the

complexity of the communication process as evidenced by the influence of several factors on communication, to include an all-encompassing system --- the communicator’s socio-cultural framework.

WHITE’S Model

WHITE’S Model Eugene White gave his communication students a sequence of events that takes place in communication. These eight stages of oral communication are the following:

1.Thinking – a desire, feeling, or an emotion provides a speaker a stimulus to communicate a need

2.Symbolizing – before he can utter sounds, a speaker has to know the code of oral language with which to represent his ideas and in order to make his selection

WHITE’S Model Eugene White gave his communication students a sequence of events that takes place in communication. These eight stages of oral communication are the following: 3. Expressing – the speaker then uses his vocal mechanism to produce the sounds of language accompanied by facial expressions, gestures, and body stance

4. Transmitting – waves of sound spreading at 1,000 feet per second and waves of light travelling at a speed of 186,000 miles per second carry the speaker’s message to the listeners

WHITE’S Model

5. Receiving – sound waves impinge upon the listener’s ears after which the resulting nerve impulses reach the brain via the auditory nerve; light wave strikes the listener’s eyes after which the resulting nerve impulses reach the brain via the optic nerve

6. Decoding – the listener interprets the language symbols he receives and thinks further

WHITE’S Model7. Feedbacking – the listener may manifest overt

behavior like a nod, smile, or yawn or he may not show any behavior at all (covert behavior like fast heartbeat, a poker face, etc.)

8. Monitoring – while the speaker watches for signs of reception or understanding of his message among his listeners, he is also attuned to what’s going on inside him; the speaker is receiving, and decoding messages about himself from his audience in order to adjust to the particular situation

WHITE’S Model

Implies a step-by-step sequence that starts with thinking in the speaker and ends with monitoring with the speaker Communication is a repetitive, cyclical event but the dynamic quality of interaction is not depicted. The speaker is the originator of the communication process and the listener is a passive reactor who does not initiate communication.

DANCE Model

DANCE Model

Represented by a spiraling figure – helix The process of communication progresses or moves forward in a cyclical fashion What we say now influences the future. No literal features or elements.

Helix as a symbol for the dynamics of human communication is visually powerful.

A SYMBOLIC INTERACTION Model

A SYMBOLIC INTERACTION Model

Developed by Wood Language is a system of symbols and words are symbolic. In the course of interaction or shared experiences, people “generate, convey, and invest meanings and significance” in these symbols. Communication is a dynamic, systemic process. The model emphasizes the temporal dimension of communication. Highlights personal construction of meanings and constraints.

THE SPEECH COMMUNICATION TRANSACTION Model (Gronbeck et al)

Speaker

Culture

Situation

Messagehas content, structure, and style

Channel limits or shapes messages

Message is affected by speaker’s purpose, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and credibility.

Listeners

Purpose, knowledge, skills, and attitudes affect listeners’ interpretation of message

Feedback

Listeners’ verbal / visual responsecauses speaker to alter message

Speaker


Premised on speechmaking, this model is comprised of essentially the following components: a speaker, the primary communicator, gives a speech, a continuous, purposive oral message, to the listeners, who provide feedback to the speaker. The exchange occurs in various channels in a particular situation and cultural context.


SPEAKER The speaker must evaluate himself on four (4) key areas every time he communicates: a) purpose; b) knowledge of subject and communication skills; c) attitudes toward self, listeners; and subject d) degree of credibility.


SPEAKER a) Speaker’s Purpose. Every speaker has a purpose or goal to achieve. It may simply be to befriend someone or it may be more complex, as in trying to change one’s beliefs and behaviors. A speaker may also wish to inform or add knowledge, entertain or amuse, impress, inspire or motivate. In all cases, a speaker has direction and, thus, acts in a goal-directed manner.


SPEAKER b) Speaker’s Knowledge. Listeners generally await a speaker with high expectations. Does the speaker display deeper-than-surface knowledge of his subject? Does he share new, fresh, relevant, and significant insights? Is there depth and breadth in his message? Can he be considered an authority on the subject? Does his message make it worth their while?


SPEAKER c) Speaker’s Attitude. A baseline source of a healthy attitude towards self and others is one’s self-concept, a term usually grouped together with self-worth, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-image.


SPEAKER d) Speaker’s Credibility. When listeners judge a speaker to be high in trustworthiness, competence, sincerity, attractiveness, and dynamism, the speaker’s chance of success will be high. Otherwise, his speech communication transaction will be a failure.


MESSAGE a) Content. Mere facts or descriptions do not make a content. Something more substantial is needed. A speech’s content is the substantive and valuative materials that form the speaker’s view of a topic, and of the world. Content can be likened to an umbrella in whose shade certain select ideas and information come under. Content is conceptualized by the speaker according to his purposes for a particular audience.


MESSAGE b) Structure. Presenting ideas, facts, and information any which way is structure of some sort. But a speaker’s structure needs to be one in which his ideas, facts, and information can be properly and effectively understood through patterns or coherent arrangements or sequencing of ideas. Such arrangement gradually guides and leads listeners to grasp or comprehend the speaker’s message. At the end there must be unity of thought.


MESSAGE c) Style. Personal and impersonal, intimate or distant, poetic or plain, reportorial or impressive, you communicate your speaking style when you select certain words and arrange them in some way. Style often refers to those aspects of language that convey impressions of your personality, your view of the world, and your individuality or uniqueness as a person.


LISTENER a) Purpose(s). Often listeners come to listen with single or multiple expectations. Some want to hear the latest on a raging controversy, others simply want to see what a person looks and sounds like, and still others come to be entertained or humored. Speakers must match their listener’s expectations in order to succeed. It is important to know that listeners want their needs satisfied.


LISTENER b) Knowledge and Interest. Do the listeners know little or much about the topic? Would they care to hear or be attracted to listen to the topic at hand? A thoughtful speaker would not initiate a message without first studying his audience on these two critical areas, areas of high impact.


LISTENER c) Command of Listening Skills. Listeners vary in listening skills. Some are naturally receptive while others can’t wait to hear the speaker’s final “thank you” or “good day!” Others persevere through the long chains of reasoning while the rest are struggling to see the point. The degree of appreciation in a listener is a function of his listening skills. Training in the discipline of listening is vital to any form of human communication.


LISTENER d) Attitudes. Since attitudes of persons are generally shaped by the values they hold, it would be unwise for a speaker to antagonize his audience with contrary opinions. Listeners tend to seek out speakers whose beliefs and views they already agree with, and retain longer those ideas they strongly approve of. A speaker who wishes to alter listeners’ views must start from familiar and common ground then slowly build up to his contrasting ideas.


FEEDBACK • Two-way flow of ideas, feelings and information from listener to speaker;• May be verbal or non-verbal like yawn, frown, nod or shake, smile or laugh.• The speaker adapts, adjusts, alters, and modifies his speaking behavior in order to respond to such signals. • It takes skill and sensitivity to spot cues in audience behavior.


SITUATION • Your speech is affected and influenced by the physical setting and social context in which it occurs.• A social context is a particular combination of people, purposes, places, rules and conventions that interact communicatively.• Societies observe certain customs, norms, and traditions that form the framework for social interactions.


CULTURAL CONTEXT • Elements of communication may have different meanings depending upon the culture, or society in which the communication takes place.• The serious or thoughtful communicator needs to examine and analyze the culture he is in at the time.

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

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 Agesto 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.

HermeneuticsSystematic analysis of message to explore itsmeaning – 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 isnot in words but in thought.

DramatismProposed by Kenneth Burke…Communication is not an appeal to emotions orreason/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;

InterpersonalInterpersonal Mass Communication Mass Communication

Telegraph Newspaper/ PrintTelephone Broadcast

TV/CableRadio Films

Internet

Criteria: • number of participants;• control over communication i.e., what is said? To whom? Why? When? Where

TechnologyTechnology

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

NoiseSource

ReceivedSignal

Transmissive ModelTransmissive Model

Shannon and Weaver’s model

Sender Message Receiver/Effect

Transmissive ModelTransmissive Model

SS MM R /RR /R11

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

ProducerReader

Referent

MessageText

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

http://www.atkinson.yorku.ca/~sosc2410/

International Communication

Theory

Tomasz Płudowski, Ph.D.

Collegium Civitas, October 20, 2005

Globalization

• Process Whereby World Is Made into Single Place with Systemic Differences

• Elements: Transborder Capital, Labor, News, Images, Information Flows

• Main Engines: TNCs, TMOs

Media Globalization Aspects

• Space-time Compression

• Changing Working Habits

• Information Accessibility in Most Remote Places

• Impact on Local Cultures

• Media Events Providing Common Experience and Uniting Globe

Limitations of Global Village

Uneven Access to Information

• Media Distribution per 1,000 citizens

• Knowledge Gap

Media Distribution per 1,000

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

Pakistan India Japan

NewspapersRadiosTV's

Unbalanced Flow of Information

• World’s News Agencies

• Monopoly Control over Flow from and to Developing Countries

• North-North

• North-South

• South-South

Structure of Global News Flow

North North

South Soth

New International Information and Communication Order

UNESCO Conference, Belgrade, 1980

• Elimination of Present Inbalances and Inequalities

• Elimination of Negative Effects of Certain Monopolies & Exessive Concentrations

• Removal of Obstacles to Balanced Dissemination of Information

New International Information Order, contd.

• Plurality of Sources & Channels of Information

• Freedom of Press & of Information• Freedom of Journalists• Developing Countries to Improve• Sincere Will of Developed Countries to

Help

New International Information Order, contd.

• Respect for Each People’s Cultural Identity and Right of Each Nation to Inform World about its Interests, Aspirations and Values

• Respect of Right of All Peoples to Participate in International Exchanges of Information on Basis of Equality, Justice and Mutual Benefit

NWICO

• In the past, much of the IC debate focuse on the NWICO, which respresents:

1) An evolutionary process seeking a more just and equitable balance in the flow and content of information

2) A right to national sefl-determination of domestic communication policies

NWICO

3) At the international level, a two-way information flow reflecting more accurately the aspirations and activities of less developed countries (LDCs)

NWICO

Ultimate goal:

restructured system of media and telecommunications priorities in order for LDCs to obtain greater influence over their media, information, economic, cultural, and political systems

Conflict over NWICO

• LDCs postulate measures that clash with strongly held journalistic traditions and practices in the West:– Government control of the media– Limited reporter access to events– Journalistic codes– Licensing of reporters– Taxation of the broadcast spectrum

Balanced Flow of Information

• Approved by UNESCO in the 1970s

• Even that idea criticized as interference with free flow and free market mechanisms. Only an open and free flow of information is consistent with the goals of a truly free press

NWICO

• Not merely a theoretical issue

• Used to legitimize a governmental role in disseminating information in several states, notably in Africa (in Liberia journalists need permits to cover information, no permit ever given to use the Internet)

International News in Western Media

• The average mass circulation newspaper in the West carries less international news than ten years ago (with the exception of time around 9/11)

Reasons for less international coverage

– Costs ($250,000 per year to place an equip one)

– Restrictions from censorship to jailing– High turnover of foreign correspondents– Trend toward ”parachute journalism”-flocks

descending in scenes of conflict to trivialize and sensationalize complex issues

– Lack of public concern, as reflected in the trend toward light, fluffy, and trendy journalism

Changes in International Media in 1980s and 1990s

American Media

• Background

• Deregulation

• Unprecedented Corporate Growth

-Mergers

-Concentration

-Conglomeration

-Monopoly

Media Research

• Most research looks at micro issues such as: – agenda-setting– Violence– Ownership

Or a specific medium such as:– Print– Television

NWICO offers a macro approach,

so do the following theories:

Theories of International Communication

• Electronic Colonialism Theory (ECT)

• World-System Theory (WST)

• Free Flow of Information

• Modernization Theory

• Dependency Theory

• Structural Imperialism

Theories of International Communication, cntd

• Hegemony• Critical Theory• The Public Sphere• Cultural Studies perspectives• Theories of the Information Society• Discourses of Globalization• A Critical Political-economy of the 21st

century

Electronic Colonialism Theory

• Throughout history there have been few successful efforts at empire building:

– Military Colonialism (B.C.-1,000 A.D.)

The expansion of the Roman empire throughout most of what is today Europe during the Greco-Roman period

– Christianity Colonialism (1,000-1,600)Militant Christianity of the Crusades that sought to control territory from Europe to Middle East. Beginning 1095, 200 years of crusades led to the establishment of new European colonies in the ME. The territories were seized from Muslims as Western civilization became the dominant international force

– Mercantile Colonialism (1,600-1,950)

Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas became objects of conquest by European powers that sought markets, raw materials, and other goods unavailable at home in return sending colonial administrators, immigrants, a language, educational system, religion, philosophy, high culture, and a lifestyle that frequently were inappropriate for the invaded country. International status was a function of the number and location of one’s foreign colonies

– Electronic Colonialism (1950-Present)

In 1950s and 1960s rise of nationalism in developing countries and a shift to a service-based, information economy in the West set the stage for the fourth and current era of empire expansion

Electronic Colonialism

Represents the dependent relationship of LDCs on the West established by the importation of communication hardware and foreign-produced software, along with engineers, technicians, and related information protocols, that establish a set of foreign norms, values, habits, values, and expectations that, to varying degrees, alter domestic cultures, habits, values, and the socialization process.


The concern is that this new foreign information will cause the displacement, rejection, alteration, or forgetting of native or indigenous customs, domestic messages, and cultural history. LDCs fear EC as much as MC. Whereas MC sought cheap labor, EC seeks minds. It is aimed at influencing attitudes, desires, beliefs, lifestyles, and consumer behavior.


As the citizens of LDCs are increasingly viewed through the prism of consumerism, control of their values and purchasing patterns becomes increasingly important to multinational firms. Tools: Western media messages, e.g. at its peak in mid-1990s, Baywatch was watched by more than 1 billion people a week in nearly 150 countries.


EC relies on the long-term consequences of exposure to these media images and messages to extend the West’s market’s, power, and influence.

World-System Theory

• Provides the concepts, ideas, and language for structuring international communication. WST was proposed and developed by Immanuel Wallerstein.

• WST proposes that global economic expansion takes place from a relatively small group of core zone nation-states out to two other zones of nations-states, these being in the semi-peripheral and peripheral zones

World-System Theory

• It is assumed that the zones exhibit unequal and uneven economic relations, with the core nations being the dominant and controlling economic entity.

• Core nations – exert control and define the nature and extent of

interactions with the other two zones– provide technology, software, capital, knowledge,

finished goods, and services to the other zones which function as consumers and markets

World-System Theory

• Core– Capital-intensive, high-wage,high-technology

production involving low labor exploitation and coercion

• Periphery– Labor-intensive, low-wage, low-technology

production involving high labor exploitation and coercion

• Semi-periphery– Core-like actiivties, periphery-like activities

Core Nations (30+)

Semi-PeripheralNations (20+)

Peripheral Nations(100+)

World-System Theory

Free Flow of Information

The concept reflected Western, and specifically US, antipathy to state regulation and censorship of the media. It was part of the liberal, free market discourse designed in the post-WWII bi-polar world of free market capitalism and state socialism. As such it was part of the Cold War discourse. The FFI doctrine assisted the West in advertising and marketing their goods in foreign markets, in ensuring continuing influence of Western media on global markets, and in strengthening the West in its ideological battle with the Soviet Union. Also helped communicate, in subtle rather than direct ways, US government’s points of view to international audiences

Modernization Theory

• Complimentary to the doctrine of free flow in the post-war years was the view that international communication was the key to the process to the modernization and development of the so-called ‘Third World.’

• Daniel Lerner, MIT, The Passing of Traditional Society (1958)- early 1950s research into audience exposure to radio in Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iran. Hypothesis: exposure to the media made traditional societies less bound by tradition and made them aspire to a new and modern way of life.

Documents

Introduction to Communication and Nature of Communication Course Director: Pierre Ouellet Amini Golestani, Taher