Lecture 4 - Communtication theory

Traditions of communication theory
-multiple theorys and perspectives shapes the field

Cybernetic theory
Useful for:
-Researching how as a designer your work makes effective communication.
Limitations:
-is is a linear process and is not concerned with the production of meaning itself which is a socially nediated process.

Three levels of communication problems:
Level 1 - TECHNICAL
-Accuracy
-Systems of encoding and decoding
-compatablity of systems/ need for specialist equipment or knowledge.

Level 2 - SEMANTIC
-Precision of language
-How much of the message can be lost without meaning being lost?
-What language to use?

Level 3 - EFFECTIVENESS
- Does the message affect behaviour the way we want it to?
-What cn be done if the required effect fails to happen?

Systems theory
BARB (Broadcastings' Audience Research Broad)

Semiotics - thre basic concepts

Semiantics - adresses what a sign stands for
Syntactics - the relationships among signs
Pragmatics - studies the practical use and effects

Semiotics
Useful for:
-Researching how we make meaning within any given situation
- Teaches us that reality can be read as a system signs and can assist us to become more aware of reality as a construction and of the roles played by ourselves and others in constructing it.

Limitations:
-Prioritises verbal/linguistic structires over embodied knowledge.

No language, even, if its a visual one, is self explanatory. Languages have to be learnt.

The phenomenological tradition
-The process of knowing through direct experience
-Refers to the appearance of an object, even or condition in ones perception.
-Makes actual lived experience the basic data of seality
- A failure in communication can be seen as an absence of, or failure to sustain, authentic human relationships.

The embodied mind
Communitcation seen as an extention of the nervous system. It starts with an awareness of the body. Language is seen as part of that system existing of neuronal pathways that are linked within the brain, the key is a physciological classification of coding and encoding.

- the process of interpretation is central.
-We are interested in what is real for the person

Rhetoric
personification as rhetoric is mostly used to humanise inanimate objects or ideas, such as rhetoric itself. It is a type of 'rhetoric trope' such as
-hyperbole
-irony
-personification

Rhetoric - How do I look powerful, physical
Rhetoric - language being used

Useful for thinking through how you are going to achieve certain effects on the 'reader' or audience.

limitations:
-Only learned through practice. Intervention in a complex syatems involves technical problems rhetorical cant grasp.

Originally used as a rhetorical trope, metaphor enables us to grasp new concepts and remember things by crealing associations.

The sociopsychological tradition
-The study of the individual as a social being
-three key areas
-Behavioural
-cognitive
-Biological

Core process:
RC material - Exposure - Attention - Comprihension - Confirmation - acceptance - Retention - Realisation

Useful for: Deep analysis of the moment of communication

Simple changes in spacing can dramatically change meaning - Gestalt theory

The sociocultural theory
-in defining yourself in terms of your identity with terms such as fathers, catholic etc. You are defining yourself in terms of your identity as part of a group and this group frames your cultural identity.
-looks at how these cultural understandings, roles and rules are worked out interactively in communication.

Context is seen as being crutial to forms and meanings of communication
Sociolinguistics is the study of language and culture

Critical communication theory
-a synthesis of philosophy and social science.
-Critical theory approaches to communication examine social conditions
-postrolonial theory refers to the study of all cultures affected by the imperial process.