Transcript Week 3. Empiricism

empiricism
the American tradition
in brief
first decade of 20th century – 1940s, United States
-trend: the construction of social sciences on an empirical
foundation
-idea: social sciences could play a role in solving great social
problems
-focus: micro-sociological approach to the modes of
communication
at issue
whether American democracy could survive in the crowded
slums of rapidly growing cities
… tremendous growth in the United States after the Civil War
… massive migration to the United States from Europe (end of
19th , beginning of 20th century)
• The Chicago School
- pragmatic: seeking to improve the world by studying its social
problems
- concern with the study of the city; fast growing cities –
problems of immigration, crime, and social problems
- committed to direct fieldwork and empirical study, employing
qualitative methods too (social surveys, community-based
statistical research, participant observation, case-study
methods)
the figures
 Robert Ezra Park & Ernest Burgess: ‘Introduction to the
Science of Sociology’ (1921) – the basic process underlying
social relationships was competition
 George Herbert Mead: ‘Mind, Self and Society’ (1934) –
theory of social behaviorism: analysis of experience;
importance of language, symbols and communication in
human group life
the theory
 ‘human ecology’
- ecology: the science of the relationship between the
organism and the environment, understood as the sum total
of the conditions of existence
Park systematically attempted to apply the theoretical
framework of plant/animal ecology to the study of human
communities
the parameter
 community:
- a population territorially organized
- whose individual units live in a relationship of mutual
interdependence that is symbiotic rather than societal
in this ‘biological economics’ relationships between individuals
are governed by the ‘struggle for space’
… organizing principle
 competition
competition and the division of labor result in forms of
unplanned competitive cooperation that make up the
symbiotic relations of human organization
the ‘organic community’ can be observed in various phases –
ex. the cycle of ethic relations (competition, conflict,
adaptation, assimilation) in immigrant communities
the model of human ecology
any change affecting the existing division of labour or the
relations of the population to the land is conceived in
terms of: equilibrium-crisis-return to equilibrium
investigates: the processes by which balance is maintained
once it is achieved, and the processes by which transition
is made (when balance is disturbed) from one relatively
stable order to another
criticism
- tending to biological determinism
- seeing the adaptive mechanisms by which equilibrium is
maintained as an inevitable basis for social existence,
discounting the more radical possibilities for social change
occurring through human agency
still a significant tradition
 microsociology:
- investigation (ethnographic methodology, participant
observation, life-story analysis) of social interaction,
based on the subjective experience of actors in society
- ethnographic description of the symbolic interaction of
actors
the field
- the city as a ‘social laboratory’ with its symptoms of
disorganization and marginality; or the city as the locus of
mobility
- 1915–1945: contributions on how immigrants became
integrated into US society
- interest: in ethnic communities, the assimilating function of
newspapers (foreign language), the nature of information,
the profession of journalism (and what distinguishes it from
social propaganda and municipal advertising)
and the media
Park identified (1916) the newspaper as the great medium of
communication, since it was on the basis of the information
which it supplied that a public opinion rests
his work suggested the media of communication as active sites
of competition and conflict, paying attention to ‘cultural
struggles’ rather than ‘communication effects’
shift of the focus
Chicago school shifted the focus of communication research
with the aim of understanding the cultural contexts in which
individuals produced, used and made sense of media
… cultural studies
Workshop I
passages from:
Park (1967) ‘The Natural history of the newspaper’
• ‘Mass communication research’
another current:
from cultural/historical interpretation of communication…
… to social-scientific explanation (functionalist analysis
relying on quantitative methods)
the figure
Harold D. Lasswell
political scientist teaching at the university of Chicago,
deeply interested in questions of propaganda, public
opinion, public affairs and elections
- the Lasswell formula
- hypodermic needle hypothesis (see week 5 – media
effects)
the first element
‘Propaganda, Techniques in World War’ (1927); Lasswell’s
interest reflected the era in which he grew up
- innovations in propaganda by the British in World War I
(1914-1918)
- claims by the advertising and public relations industries in
the 1920s about their ability to ‘engineer consent’
- use of propaganda by fascists in Europe and communists in
the Soviet Union during the 1930s
the instrument
how and under what conditions propagandists could be
successful
methods of dissemination appeared to be indispensable
instruments for ‘governmental management of opinion’
propaganda was the only way to generate the support of the
masses; moreover it was more economical than violence,
corruption or other comparable techniques of
government
it was a mere instrument; it could be used for good or for ill
- functionalism and the media
Lasswell provided a conceptual framework for the
functionalist sociology of the media – the communication
process fulfils three main functions in society:
- surveillance: provide information about the
environment
- correlation: explain and interpret events, and, in doing
so, provide a means of connecting the different elements
of society
- transmission: socializing and educating; disseminating
cultural heritage from one generation to the next
the model
Lasswell: ‘The structure and function of communication in
society’(1948)
a convenient way to describe an act of communication is to
answer the following questions:
- who?
- says what?
- in which channel?
- to whom?
- with what effect?
the parameters
- who? – communicator
- says what? – message
- in which channel? – medium
- to whom? – receiver
- with what effect? – effect
privileged techniques
- content analysis, which provided scholars with
elements for orientating their approach to the public
aim: to achieve an objective, systematic and
quantitative description of the manifest content of
communications
attention: to the constant evolution of knowledge, behavior
attitudes, emotions, opinions and actions
extending the model …
the model provided a formula for many researchers: ex.
Braddock (1958) added two more facets of the
communicative act:
- who?
- says what?
- in which channel?
- to whom?
- under what circumstances?
- for what purposes?
- with what effect?
the context
- practical objectives
all these studies were required to yield results calculating
the effectiveness of:
- army propaganda efforts
- governmental information campaigns
- corporate advertising campaigns
overall
Lasswell’s model shows a typical trait of early
communication models
it more or less takes for granted that:
- the communicators has some intention of influencing the
receiver
- communication is as a persuasive process
missing …
Lasswell has been criticized for having omitted the element
of feedback
this criticism, however, should not obscure that fact that it
is even today a convenient and comprehensive way of
introducing people to the study of the communication
process
Workshop II
passages from:
Lasswell (1948) ‘The structure and function of
communication in society’
#
- Barlow, D. & Mills, B. (2009) Reading Media Theory:Thinkers,
Approaches, Contexts. London: Pearson
- Lasswell, H. (1927/1971) Propaganda Technique in theWorldWar.
Cambridge: MIT Press
- Mattelart, A. & Mattelart, M. (1998) Theories of Communication: a
Short Introduction. London: Sage
- McQuail, D. & Windahl, S. (1993) Communication Models: for the
Study of Mass Communications, 2nd edition. London: Pearson
- Rogers, M. E. (1994) A History of Communication Study. NY: Free
Press
coming next week …
Information Theory:
- systems approach
- cybernetics
reading text:
- Rogers, M. E. (1994) A History of Communication Study.
NY: Free Press (chapters: 10, 11)
thank you
for your attention