Lecture Notes: Communication Theory

Laswell Theory of Communication

Shannon-Weaver model, including feedback (not on model).

Three levels of potential communication problems
Level 1: Technical
Accuracy
Systems of encoding and decoding
Compatability of systems.need for specialist equipment/knowledge

Level 2: Semantic
Precision of language
How much of the message can be lost without meaning being lost?
Which language to use?

Level 3: Effectiveness
Does the message affect behaviour the way we want it to?
What can be done if the required effect fails to happen?

Communicator A > Encode with language > Message with medium > Receive and Interpret > Communicator B > Encode with language > Message with medium > Receive and Interpret > Communicator A

BARB: Broadcasters Audience Research Board
Audience categories such as men, children, adults

Audience sub categories/demographics
A: Upper Middle- lecturers
B: Middle- Teacher
C1: Lower Middle- Call Centre worker
C2: Skilled working- Plumber
D: Working- Unskilled workers
E: Bottom- Relying on state

Semiotics
Semantics addresses what a sign stands for
Syntactics: the relations among signs
Pragmatics: how to apply the theory- making it practical.

Systems theory is interdisciplinary

Semiosphere
Semiotics are languages. Medicine boxes, for example, all look similar and can be recognised as having their place in a pharmacy.

Barthes grammar of narrative
Levi Strauss ethnography and semiotics
Lacan relates semiotics to psychoanalysis

Trainers
Trainers being bought to send signs not to be practical running or exercise shoes. They had become a sign- people trying to send a signal.

Limitations of semiotics
Prioritise structure over usage

Semiotics
Panzani Image code

Building codes

Danger, place and Airport analogy. How do we decode this?
Semiotics presumes that readings are clear.
Gestalt Psychology: Psychotherapist/Psycho The Rapist
Changing patterns are key. Why are we in tune to this? A change in the pattern is noticed.

The Phenomenological Tradition
Phenomenon refers to the appearance of an object
Authentic human relationships lack, but are needed

The embodied mind
Body and mind are joint
Physiological classification of coding and encoding
faces and emotions. Animators use prosthetic protractor. Phenomenological thinking.

Interpretation
the process of interpretation is central
What is real for the person

Rhetoric
Hyperbole
Irony
Personification
Art of persuasion
Socrates/Plato.
Rhetoric used for power in males in ancient civilisations when speaking at senate. Problematic though as used by dicators.

Pictures without con(text) are meaningless. They need to be anchored to mean anything.

Metaphor: Memory Theatre.

Socio Psychological
Constitutive
Cognitive
Biological

Socio Cultural Tradition
Yorkshire ISP: better because of culture
Cultural traditions work out interactively in communication
Accents mean something
Mediate culture

Socio critical
Christ sensitive analogy.

Lecture Notes: The Gaze

Call of Duty
1st Person & 3rd person options- the 1st person is preferred.
What causes us to engage with hurt? Power & gameplay.

Pyschoanalysis is the analysis of the options and controls that we choose in life.

Laura Mulvey
Visual pleasures - Narrative Cinema

Scopophilia
- Pleasure of looking at others bodies as object (Freud)
- Perversions and objects

Narcissistic identification

Mirror stage: Jacques Lacan
-A childs own body is less perfect than reflection e.g Radioactive Man/Comic Book Guy

Structures of looking
-Cinema thrives on this

Male is not to be looked at & represents power

Suture
-Spectators look through eyes of the actors in the film
-Suture can be broken to make viewer feel guilty

Spectators gaze- looking at one
Intradiagetic gaze- looking at others in scene
Extradiagetic gaze- looking outwards e.g TV newsreader/break 4th wall

Etant Donnes- Being Give. Are we being given the power of the gaze?

Blog Task: On Popular Music

Kylie Minogue: Can't Get You Out of My Head.

Can't Get You Out of My Head proves that 'the whole structure of popular music is standardised' (Adorno, 1941). It successfully manages to stick in people's heads because there are very few aberrations, and when they occur, it soon 'leads back to the same familiar experience'. One can fully know what to expect in the entirety of the track just from listening to the introduction. Adorno describes it as 'the whole is pre-given and pre-accepted'.

Adorno states that 'it is imperative to hide standardisation' and this is because 'the reality of individual achievement must be maintained'. In this instance for example, Kylie retains her individual image but is merely another cog in the wheel of Parlophone.

Woman as Object

Much like many of her videos, this video portrays Kylie as an object to be admired. The entire concept is based on a scopophilic pleasure.

In terms of beauty being dictated from men, is there any better example than Kylie's video for 'Slow'? There is a heavy spectators gaze with Kylie often in the emphasised centre of the shot.

Both of the videos shown above are almost so obvious in demonstrating the standardisation of popular music and displaying the woman as an object that one would be forgiven for thinking the videos are parodistic. Of course in truth, the tracks are not parodistic, they are simply pre-digested.

Blog Task: The Panopticon

London Underground’s Oyster Card is a prime example of panopticism. While it claims to make journeys and paying easier, and arguably does, it also has a secondary role as an extra security force- tracking each persons movements from the moment they touch in, including how long they have been on the network.

In a metaphorical sense, this is a devolution of power. Foucault states that ‘each street is placed under the authority of a syndic, who keeps it under surveillance’ (Foucault in Discipline & Punish, 1977, P61). In this case, a metro network has been placed under the authority of a syndic.

He also mentions that ‘the crowd is abolished and replaced by a collection of separated individualities’(Foucault in Discipline & Punish, 1977, P65). Perhaps formerly, commuters thought they could merge into one mass- now each is tracked as individuals.

It’s also a clear example of submitted power by the bearer; ‘the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they themselves are the bearers’(Foucault in Discipline & Punish, 1977, P65). No-one is forced to get an Oyster card, but an increasing majority submit to it.

Oyster has enabled outer stations to not have ticket barriers; instead penalties ‘may’ be incurred if you do not touch in/out; comparable to the Foulcauldian idea that ‘there are no more bars, chains or heavy locks’(Foucault in Discipline & Punish, 1977, P66).

Oyster claims to be an easy fare paying system when actually it cannot be linked to any specific use. Foulcault says a panopticon is a figure of political technology that may and must be detached from any specific use. Through Oyster’s party-political foundings (a Livingstone project) used for other purposes (security/tracking/surveillance) and its obvious use, it is a clear example of a panoptic method of control.

Foulcalt, M (1977), Penguin Books Ltd, London