Transcript CM515 PP on Communication Theory et al

Theories of
Communication et al
(CM515)
Communication Theory
“All behaviour is communication” Gregory Bateson
Anglo/American
(English speaking)
European
(Continental)
Positivism
Mechanical- Shannon Weaver-Cybernetics
Scientism [science] Anti-Science
Marxism and the critique of ideology
Critical Theory (Frankfurt School to Habermas)
Structuralism – Hermeneutics – Poststructuralism/Postmodernism
Feminism/s.....counter-culture, ecology.
Foucault-Derrida-Baudrillard-Butler-Badiou-Zizek
Theories of Communication: A Short Introduction by Armand and Michelle Mattelart
Shannon and Weaver Model of Communication
The ‘process approach’ derives from The Mathematical Theory
of Communication (1949) developed by Claude Shannon and
Warren Weaver (S&W), two engineers at Bell Telephone
Laboratories in the USA. Bell Labs Technical Journal.
Information theory…. re mediated communication.
Alexander Graham Bell ‘invented’ the telephone in 1876 and
was central to the establishment of American Telegraph &
Telephone Company (AT&T).
The main concerns in their model was how channels of
communication (in their case telephone cable and radio wave)
could be used most efficiently.
S&W confronted problems of ‘distortion and inaccuracy’
(DeFleur, 2005).
Shannon & Weaver’s mechanistic model of communication
as outlined in The Mathematical Theory of Communications
(1949) began with “a source which selects a message, which
is then transmitted, in the form of a signal, over a
communication channel, to a receiver”.
Denis McQuail(1998) Mass Communication Theory
Gerbner’s Model of Communication (1956)
Pros of Gerbner’s Model
Cons of Gerbner’s Model
See Introduction to Communication Studies by John Fiske
Model of Communication- Lasswell
Lasswell (1948) developed a verbal (rather than diagramatic model e.g.
Shannon & Weaver) which he applied to ‘mass communications’ and
posed the following questions:
Who
Says what
In which channel
To whom
With what effect ?
Who – What - Which Channel – Whom - What Effect.
Generated a lot of research on the effects of mass communication
(propaganda) on audiences.
See Introduction to Communication Studies by John Fiske
Communication
While John Fiske (1990) analyses what he calls ‘executive models of
communication’ (Shannon & Weaver, Lasswell, Gerbner etc.) his advise is
not to take communication for granted, but to ‘take it to pieces’.
Critical and Marxist theorised have done that in so far as theorising the
relationships between modes of production and communication, ownership
and control, the role of media in the re-structuring of capital, the centrality
of ideology and the symbolic value of commodities and signs.
Is the ‘communication revolution’ (Robert McChesney) possible without a
revolution in the relations of capitalist production?
Hans Magnus Enzensberger: Constituents of a Theory of the Media (1970)
Writing in 1970, Hans Magnus Enzenberger made an important distinction between
Repressive and Emancipatory media.
40 years later how does his analysis stand up?
Hans Enzensberger takes as one of his starting points that:
"Monopoly capitalism develops the consciousness-shaping industry more
quickly and more extensively than any other sector of production; it must at
the same time fetter it . A socialist media theory has to work at this
contradiction.“ (Enzensberger.1979).
In focusing on the emancipatory aspect of communication Enzenberger calls
for socialists to acquire their own wavelengths, and to struggle to restore the
media's full communicative potential. Despite the positive nature of
Enzenberger's approach, the weakness of socialists in developing a viable
alternative media strategy in non-socialist societies, is widely acknowledged
and according to Jean Baudrillard is due to the fact that the Marxist theory of
production cannot be generalised. (Baudrillard.1981)
Enzensberger rejected the Iskra (The Spark)
model of ‘Newspaper as national organiser’- arguing that a ‘fixation’ on
that model of organisation continued to pertain in the 1970s.
‘The Plan For an All-Russia Political Newspaper’
Chapter Five from What is to be Done? V.I. Lenin
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/v.htm
Critique Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s Constituents of a Theory of the
Media (1970) from the vantage point of 2012.
http://newleftreview.org/?view=430
REPRESSIVE USE OF MEDIA
EMANCIPATORY USE OF MEDIA
• Centrally controlled programme;
• One transmitter, many receivers;
• Immobilization of isolated
individuals;
• Passive consumer behaviour
• Depolitication;
• Production by specialists;
• Control by property owners or
bureaucracy;
• Decentralized programme;
• Each receiver a potential transmitter;
• Mobilization of masses;
• Interaction of those involved—feedback;
• A political learning process;
• Collective production;
• Social control by self-organization;
“As free as dancers, as aware as footballers, as surprising as guerrillas”
The control over the duplicating machine in the Soviet Union.
“There is no such thing as unmanipulated writing, filming or broadcasting.
The question is therefore not whether the media are manipulated, but who
manipulates them. A revolutionary plan should not require the manipulators to
disappear; on the contrary, it must make everyone a manipulator.”
‘Repressive tolerance’ One Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse
1984 (1949)
by George Orwell
“George Orwell’s bogey of
a monolithic
consciousness industry
derives from a view of the
media which is
undialectical and
obsolete.”
Orwellian vision of all powerful
media with Big Brother and
newspeak …………
Circuit of Culture
Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman
Paul du Gay & Stuart Hall [see the companion set]
Background to the ‘Circuit of Culture’ Mode of Analysis
During the 1970s Stuart Hall (CCCS) developed an encoding/
decoding model of media research.
James Halloran: had previously stressed the importance of
focusing on “the whole communication process”.
Starting with the concept of ‘televisual language’ Hall (1973)
described how encoder and decoder are embedded within a
specific set of social relations, which intersect with particular
frameworks of knowledge and technological infrastructures.
Relationship between ‘societal structures’ – ‘symbolic
structures’ was pivotal.
<<<<
<<<<
Hall’s model
From ‘Semiotics for Beginners’ Daniel Chandler (on-line)
What is Discourse?
In Theories of Discourse (1986) Diane Macdonnell states that during the
late 1960s and early 1970s:
"certain shifts took place in the ways of considering how meanings are
constructed” and "a crucial argument concerning discourse is that
meanings are to be found only in the concrete forms of differing social and
institutional practices: there can be no meaning in ‘language’ ".
Michel Foucault starts by asking how is power exercised and by what
means, then what are the effects of power. Discourse/power- not discourse
and power. Discourse and ‘discursive formations’.
Foucault’s writings highly influential re media and power.
Vis a vis television, John Fiske argues that discourse:
"generates certain ways of talking and thinking about a topic, it is not
reflective of an external reality, but generative. Reality, or rather our sense of
reality, is constantly produced and reproduced discursively"
Channels of Discourse, 1989.
On media and power Fiske also states that:
"as society can only be understood in terms of power and
resistances, of domination and subordination, so too can texts. Texts
also contain dominant, powerful voices, and subordinate intransigent
ones. Their form attempts to exert power and control over their
potential meanings, but this power is resisted by other formal
characteristics, their gaps and spaces, their contradictions, their
irrepressible oppositional voices that must be there because of the
multiaccentual nature of any sign system in a divided society. The
text's struggle to control its readings is met by the oppositional
struggle of its readers to make their socially pertinent readings out of
its resources”.
Channels of Discourse, 1989.
Ideology – the blue in the Stilton Blue of Discourse
Paul du Gay’s (et al’s) model contains 5 ‘moments’:
The Circuit…. is framework to analyse cultural artefacts/texts
and was devised by Paul du Gay et al (1997) during the late
1990s.
When "taken together [5 moments/ points] complete a sort of
circuit...through which any analysis of a cultural text...must
pass if it is to be adequately studied."
‘representation’,
‘identity’,
‘production’,
‘consumption’ and
‘regulation’.
Representation: various media use “signs and symbols to
represent or re-present whatever exists in the world in terms
of a meaningful concept, image or idea” e.g. via ads
Identity: once a meaning is contructed around a cultural/
media product, individual/group identity is then constructed
and reproduced through representation…youth, business
people etc. Walkmans for specific set of potential
consumers.
Production, is the process of (re) production within the
circuit…. ‘making commodities meaningful’.
Consumption: how a cultural artefact or product is used,
how it is made meaningful by its use and in its
spatial/temporal context.
Regulation: regulation on the use of the artifact, e.g.
government regulation such as censorship which is tied into
the wider norms and values of society.
The circular diagram an enhancement on the linear model, not only indicating an
eternal circuit of meaning in which feedback becomes part of the flow from B to A,
from audience to sender- from decoder to encoder.
The challenge is to contextualise an audience for a new social media within the
Culture of Circuit, exploring its pluses vis a vis Hall’s encoding/decoding (E/D).
Advantages over E/D include its circular rather than its linear nature whereby the
sender tends to be privileged.
A + B as dialectal relationship
B+ A as dialectal relationship
Dialects important in understanding relationship between audience and texts.
See Heraclitus, Hegal, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao and the list goes on and on.
Hierarchy and the dialectal
A
+ B as dialectal relationship
B+
A as dialectal relationship
See Anthony Wilden’s Mind and Structure
Circuit of Culture
Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman
Paul du Gay & Stuart Hall [see the companion set]
Politics as Mediated Message- Communication of Politics
Introducing Democratic Communications in the Information Age (1992) Janet Wasko
contrasts the time a messanger took to run 26 miles from Athens to Sparta to seek
help for the besieged Greeks in 490 B.C. to the media (CNN et al) coverage of the
first US military attack on Iraq and Kuwait in January 1991.
• Discusses the role of communication in democratic society;
• How new information technologies enhance or inhibit democratic movements for social
change;
• Social movements reliance on mainstream media to convey messages to the public;
• What is the prognosis for democratising communication as well as for democraticisation
through media or information systems
Framework for the book:
Democratisation of media and information technologies, or participatory and
alternative media forms and democratic uses of information technologies.
Democratisation through media and information technologies, or media strategies of
various social movements & groups devoted to progressive issues & social change.
Blog Theory by Jodi Dean
http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/files/dean--blog-theory.pdf
Cultural Theory
Raymond Williams (1980) defined culture in terms of the ideal,
the documentary and the social.
In terms of the 'social' he distinguished three levels:
• lived(as a particular way of life);
• recorded (culture as an expression of a particular way of life);
• culture of selective tradition (cultural analysis as a method of
reconstituting a particular way of life).
Culture: "the study of relationships between elements in a whole way of life.
The analysis of culture is the attempt to discover the nature of the
organisation which is the complex of these relationships".
From 'The Analysis of Culture' in The Long Revolution
“We use the word culture in these two senses: to mean a whole way of life-the common meanings; to mean the arts and learning--the special
processes of discovery and creative effort’” from ‘Culture is Ordinary’
Culture as Signifying System
Semiology/semiotics applies structural linguistics to signs that can be ‘read’.
Structuralism is a method of analysis that investigates below surface meanings and
concealed structural laws that predetermine meanings.
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). also suggested a ‘science of signs’ that went
beyond language and took into account a variety of signifying systems (precious
metals, fruit, fashion etc.).
Central to de Saussure’s linguistic analysis is the distinction between the signifier
(or sound-system) and the signified (concept) suggesting that the relationship is
largely arbitrary. 'Dog' = a furry four legged creature.
Sign – Signified - Signifier
Andrew Milner and Jeff Browitt(1994) Contemporary Cultural Theory
Photographs are highly iconic and transmit a reality, that is embedded in a complex
conveyor belt of meaning between photographer and public. Iconography is the
knowledge of meanings attached to pictorial representations.
Paris Match
June 25-July 1955.
In Mythologies (written in 1954-'56) Roland Barthe developed the following method
of analysing visual information:
Used the image of the black soldier he’d seen in a barber shop.
1. Denotation/descriptive/content/literal meaning.
The first level of meaning.
SIGNIFIER
(Medium-Photograph)
SIGNIFIED (Referent)
(A black soldier)
SIGN
(Image of Black Soldier)
2. Connotation/associations/form/style.
The second (but related) level of meaning.
SIGNIFIER
(medium-Photograph)
SIGNIFIED
(A black soldier)
SIGN
(patriot, hero, the myth of French unity etc)
Susan Sontag’s On Photography
Photographs as appropriation.
Rather than being representations or interpretations of the
world Sontag suggests that the photograph is nearer to being a
piece of the world.
A fragment of time and space.
The photograph as the product of an instananeous choice.
As such it captures the world as it was for that moment, those
parts we intended for the picture and those accidental.
Gillian Rose’s Visual Methodologies
The ‘good eye’
Iconological analysis (Erwin Panofsky)
Semiotic analysis (Peirce, Barthes, Eco et al)
Psychoanalysis and image analysis (Freud, Mulvey et al)
Content analysis- “based on counting the frequency of
certain visual elements in a clearly defined sample of images
and then analysing those frequencies”.
‘visual elements’ a codes or ‘code categories’.
Sites of production-image- audience
- Technical modality (e.g. Internet, television et al)
- Composìtional modality (Content, Colour, Spatial et al)
- Social modality (Socio-economic ‘practices’ that ‘surround
an image’)
UCD Irish election poster archive
http://www.ucd.ie/archives/html/exhibitions/election-posters.htm
Steve Hilton’s Conservative
poster of Tony Blair -Demon
Eyes(1997 UK Election) when
deemed unacceptable by the
Advertising Standards Authority,
disliked by Ted Heath but
celebrated by Campaign as the
poster of the year.
Formerly with the Saatchi, Hilton
is now centre stage in Cameron’s
bid for power.
Established Good Business
(http://www.goodbusiness.co.uk/i
ndex.php)
Conservative Party UK Elections, 2010.
Poster design: Euro RSCG
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240734/As-pre-election
-campaign-steps-gear-meet-Dave-airbrushed-poster-boy.html
Conservative Party poster/youtube campaign UK Elections 2010
"I've never voted Tory before but..." - Julie's story
http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2010/02/Never_voted_Tory_before.aspx
Gene Hunt Poster 'Turns To Ashes' For Labour
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100404/video/vuk-gene-hunt-poster-turns-to-ashes-for-37e89e1.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/01/labour-gordon-brown-hard-man#zoomed-picture
See Labour’s A Future Fair for All image
http://www2.labour.org.uk/home
Design principles:
1. Put as little as possible on the poster (design or text);
2. Arrange the design and lettering to attract the passerby’s attention;
3. Consider where the poster will be hung or displayed;
4. Consider how effective it will look next to other political
posters;
5. Text and design large enough the can be seen from a
prescribed distance, usually 30 to 45 feet;
6. Use harmonious colour combinations;
7. Design and text must complement each other;
8. Use a modern art style;
9. The design should not detract from the impact of the
words.
Prop Art (1972) by Gary Yanker Studio Vista. London
Rational versus emotional appeals
Figurative versus non-figurative posters
Poster types: political party posters; pressure group posters;
government – sponsored posters; privately-sponsored
posters;
Poster function: Persuasion; Commemoration;
Announcements; Fund-raising; Satire/Criticism
The art style of political poster
Symbol used to present the ‘political message in capsule form’
But some symbols open to different interpretations e.g. dove.
Pre- motif to symbol. Used as a ‘distinguishable feature’ such
as the image of a factory = workers in ’68. If universally
recognised such as hammer and sickle becomes a symbol.
Prop Art (1972) by Gary Yanker Studio Vista. London
‘Photography and Electoral Appeal’
“Some candidates for Parliament adorn their electoral
prospectus with a portrait. This presupposes that
photography has a power to convert which must be
analysed.”
Why a photograph?
“[...] photography is [...] an anti-intellectual weapon and
tends to spirit away ‘politics’ (that is to say a body of
problems and solutions) to the advantage of a ‘manner of
being’”;
Roland Barthes, Mythologies
39
Why a photo?
“[...] a photograph is a mirror, what we are asked to read is
the familiar, the known; it offers the voter his own likeness,
but clarified, exalted, superbly elevated into a type.”
“The conventions of photography [...] are themselves
replete with signs.”
Barthes, Mythologies, p91
40
41
‘Photography and Electoral Appeal’
“A full-face photograph underlines the realistic outlook of the
candidate [...] Everything there expresses penetration, gravity,
frankness: the future deputy is looking squarely at the enemy,
the obstacle, the ‘problem’.”
42
‘Photography and Electoral Appeal’
A three-quarter face photograph [...] suggests the tyranny of an ideal [.]
[T]he gaze is lost nobly in the future, it does not confront, it soars, and fertilises
some other domain, which is chastely left undefined.
Almost all three-quarter face photos are ascensional, the face is lifted towards a
supernatural light which draws it up and elevates it to the realm of higher
humanity[.]
43
44
The Stenner
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/
opinion/2009/0123/1232474674893.html
General election posters and signs
The law in Ireland forbids the erection of posters/signs on poles or other
structures in public places unless you have the written permission of the owner of
the pole or other structure in advance of putting up the posters/signs. There are
no rules in place regarding how far in advance of a general election that posters
and signs can be erected. However, local authorities have the power to introduce
bye-laws if they so choose to set down when promotional material can be
erected. Local authorities also have the power to remove these items should they
disintegrate or cause a litter nuisance.
Following a general election, a party/candidate must remove posters within a
seven day period. After that date, an on-the-spot fine of €150 is issued by your
local authority in respect of each offence. Your local authority will remove the
poster as the fine is issued. If a party/candidate has been issued with a fine and
refuses to pay, they can be prosecuted in the District Court by your local authority
to enforce payment. The maximum penalty in the District Court following
summary conviction for non-payment of the fine is €3,000.
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/government-in-ireland/elections-andreferenda/national-elections/the_general_election
Resources on Political Art and Posters
Prop Art (1972) by Gary Yanker Studio Vista. London
Zazzle Posters: http://www.zazzle.co.uk/political+posters
Paris ’68 Posters: http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Paris/paris.html
Mark Vallen’s Art for Change website: http://www.art-for-a-change.com/index.html
London Poster Collective – 1970s – political posters on Ireland
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/posters/thepostercollective/index.html
London Poster Collective – 1970s – political posters on a range of themes
http://freeartlondon.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/poster-power-cinema-action/
Protocol for the Erection of Temporary Posters/Notices on Dublin City Council
Property to Advertise Public Meetings/Events
http://www.dublincity.ie/WaterWasteEnvironment/Waste/Documents/Posters_Protoco
l.pdf
On-Line Resouces
The power of the political poster by Stephen Collins (Irish Times)
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0516/1224246670
595.html
Linen Hall Library- Troubled Images
http://www.linenhall.com/northernIrelandPoliticalCollection.asp
Obama posters: http://www.changethethought.com/obama-2008/
Print Your Own Barack Obama Posters
http://leler.com/politics/posters/
Claire Fowley (CS thesis 2009)
A Visual Analysis of Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Election
Campaign Posters
Research
One head (administrative research).
Second head (critical research).
Third head (revolutionary research).
Corleck Head
Books in the DCU Library on Democracy and Media
Democratic Communications in the Information Age by Janet Wasko and Vincent Mosco,
Democratization and the Media Edited by Vicky Randall.
Democracy and New Media Edited by Henry Jenkins and David Thorbur
Democracy, Inc. : the Press and Law in the Corporate Rationalization of the Public Sphere
by David S. Allen.
No Questions asked : News Coverage since 9/11 by Lisa Finnegan
Democracy online : the Prospects for Political Renewal through the Internet
Editor, Peter M. Shane.
Democracy and Communication in the new Europe : Change and Continuity in East and
West Edited by Farrel Corcoran and Paschal Preston.
Democratizing Global Media : One World, Many Struggles
Edited by Robert A. Hackett and Yuezhi Zhao.
Media, Democracy and European Culture by Ib Bondebjerg and Peter Madsen.
Democracy Without Citizens : Media and the Decay of American Politics
by Robert M. Entman
Reviving the Fourth Estate : Democracy, Accountability, and the Media
by Julianne Schultz
The People's Right to Know : Media, Democracy, and the Information Highway by
Frederick Williams, John V. Pavlik, editors.
Democracy and the News by Herbert J. Gans
Democratizing Communication? : Comparative Perspectives on Information and Power
Edited by Mashoed Bailie, Dwayne Winseck.
The Silent Revolution : Media, Democracy, and the Free Trade Debate
Edited by James P. Winter.
Internet Resources on Democracy and Media
Type in ‘Media and Democracy’ and you’ll find clips like the following:
Rich Media, Poor Democracy (You Tube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfRXaORNSK8
'Communications and the materialist conception of history: Marx, Innis and technology‘ by
Sut Jhally,
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/7.1/Jhally.html
‘Is there an Autonomist Model of Political Communication?’
http://jci.sagepub.com/content/35/4/335