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.