COURSE OUTLINE - KEY TAKEAWAYS

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course offers a comprehensive overview of what it means to study communications. Students will explore classic definitions and models of communications and trace how these notions have changed with the introduction of new media, new messages, new communicators, and a more active and participatory audience. They will explore communication theories, communication media, the key power players in the realm of communications (particularly in North America), and the role of the audience.

Week 01 - Notes

Key Terms and Definitions Resource

Artifact 01 - Communication Coach Alex Lyon. “What is Communication?” YouTube, 04 May 2020.

Communication: The process of generating meaning by sending and receiving symbols and signs that are influenced by multiple contexts. MW - a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior

UNMEDIATED & MEDIATED COMMUNICATIONS

Unmediated…

Intra-personal (self talk)
Inter-personal (face to face between two people)
Group communication (three-plus people communicating)

Mediated…

Interpersonal mediated communication (phone, texting, messaging)
Mass communication (public communication becomes mass communication when it is transmitted to many people through print or electronic media)
Digital communication / social media (mass groups of individuals communicating with and able to respond with equal force to senders)
- What’s the most usual form of INTERPERSONAL MEDIATED COMMUNICATION that you engage in? Do you text most of all? Do you use messaging apps, or do you call people on the phone? The most common form of mediated communication that I engage in would be by use of messaging apps. Primarily, I usually communicate with my friends through Facebook or Instagram Messaging. I also use apps such as Discord, Snapchat, and What’s App to communicate with people. Finally, I use e-mail, and text messaging to communicate, but these are not utilized as frequently as the other apps I just listed.
- What’s the most common form of MASS COMMUNICATION or MASS MEDIA that you consume? Do you subscribe to print newspapers? Do you get your information through social media networks, sites, or apps? I get most of my information through social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Through these, I subscribe to different news organizations that I trust, which includes several independent organizations such as BREAKING POINTS as hosted by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti.
- What’s the most usual form of DIGITAL COMMUNICATION or SOCIAL MEDIA that you utilize to send and receive messages? In terms of social media, I have both personal accounts and fine art related accounts with Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, among others. I’m working to be more mindful of how I use these platforms, especially in terms of how I interact with others on the platform. It’s important to me that I communicate with respect but honestly, that can be difficult to do, and I find I can at times respond in kind, especially to someone who is being rude.

Media: From the Latin word medium, meaning middle. The media is the communication mechanism — “in the middle” — that conveys aspects of the world and society to the receiver (audience). MARKET BUSINESS NEWS -

“The term media, which is the plural of medium, refers to the communication channels through which we disseminate news, music, movies, education, promotional messages and other data. It includes physical and online newspapers and magazines, television, radio, billboards, telephone, the Internet, fax and billboards. It describes the various ways through which we communicate in society. Because it refers to all means of communication, everything ranging from a telephone call to the evening news on television can be called media.”

Agency: In media studies, to study agency is to investigate the influential action. Agency refers to the active participant in media, and that can be human, technological, software or something else. When an audience, producer or institution has agency, they believe they can use the medium how they choose — they have some power. MW - “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.”

When you think of the most common medium that you consume, whether it’s the radio, music, magazines, etc. - WHO has agency? Who is influencing power in that context?

Text: In media studies, this is a unit of meaning for analysis: a film, TV show, video game, website, book, song, newspaper article, social media post, app, etc.

TRANSMISSION MODEL OF COMMUNICATION

Artifact 02 - Communication Coach Axel Lyon. “Transmission Model of Communication: Shannon & Weaver.” YouTube, 16 Jun 2017.

Messenger / Producer / Organization / Group

Medium (form of communication)

Audience

S = Sender

M = Message

C = Channel

R = Receiver

Lyon notes that in the transmission model of communication, COMMUNICATION occurs when a message has been sent and received. The model doesn’t account for nonverbal communication (face to face dynamics), feedback (a response from the receiver), interpretative dynamics, and the model doesn’t account for the fact that people are complicated, and sometimes a message isn’t specific enough.

What is the most popular medium that you consume? Is it a book, newspapers, TV ads, graphic novels, movies, songs, videos, magazine articles, TV show?

BERLO’S SMCR MODEL OF COMMUNICATION

David Berlo’s SMCR Model of Communication represents the process of communication in its simplest form. The acronym SMCR stands for Sender, Message, Channel, and Receiver.
Berlo’s SMCR Model of Communication (1960) describes the different components that form the basic process of communication. Because this communication tool also emphasizes the coding and decoding of the message, it can be used for more efficient communication.

The source ENCODES a message, the receiver DECODES it.

Artifact 04 - Patricia Jenkinson. “Communication Models: Basic SMCR Model.” YouTube, 01 Aug 2013.

ARISTOTLE’S MODEL OF COMMUNICATION (RHETORIC)

Four Week MBA - Aristotle’s Model of Communication

Marketing Eggspert > The Aristotle model of communication is focused on the speaker’s role to deliver a speech on an occasion for a specific audience to create a favorable effect. The Aristotle model suggests that when a speaker gives a speech, the communication process occurs in one way fashion- from speaker to receiver.

Hence, as per this model, a communication process is divided into 5 primary elements- speaker, speech, occasion, audience, and effect.

Artifact 05 - Image - Aristotle’s Model of Communication

Artifact 06 - Purposive Communication. “Aristotle’s Model of Communication.” YouTube, 13 Sept 2020.

STUART HALL’S MODEL OF ENCODING & DECODING

Wikipedia > “The Encoding/decoding model of communication was first developed by cultural studies scholar Stuart Hall in 1973. Titled 'Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse', Hall's essay offers a theoretical approach of how media messages are produced, disseminated, and interpreted.[1] Hall proposed that audience members can play an active role in decoding messages as they rely on their own social contexts, and might be capable of changing messages themselves through collective action.”

Artifact 07 - Al Jazeera. “Stuart Hall - Race, Gender, Class in the Media.” YouTube, 02 Mar 2017.

Artifact 08 - barlibo. “Stuart Hall’s Encoding / Decoding Model.” YouTube, 21 Oct 2020.

Revision World > “Reception theory as developed by Stuart Hall asserts that media texts are encoded and decoded. The producer encodes messages and values into their media which are then decoded by the audience. However, different audience members will decode the media in different ways and possibly not in the way the producer originally intended.”

Artifact 09 - Grant Abbitt. “reception theory - audience theory.” YouTube, 20 Apr 2014.

Artifact 10 - Media Focus. “Stuart Hall and reception theory.” YouTube, 17 Jun 2020.

CRAIG’S SEVEN MAJOR TRADITIONS IN COMMUNICATION THEORY

The seven traditions of communication are the following: rhetorical tradition, semiotic tradition, phenomenological tradition, cybernetic tradition, sociospychological tradition, sociocultural tradition and the critical tradition.

Artifact 01 - edX Series. “Craig’s 7 Traditions in Communication Theory.” YouTube, 06 Apr 2021.