Definition of Communication
Concepts

• Concept of communication
• Model of communication
• Elements of interpersonal communication
• Communication vs. mass communication
• Mass communication concept
• Purpose of using mass media

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• Communication
– is the transmission of a MESSAGE from a SOURCE to a RECEIVER.
– a convenient way to describe communication is to answer these questions (Harold Lasswell, 1948)
• Who?
• Says what?
• Through which channel?
• To whom?
• With what effect?

• Communication
– a simple model of communication (Lasswell, 1948)
A source sends a message through a medium to a receiver producing some effect

• Illustrates the Interpersonal Communication – communication between two or a few people.

• Shows a communication between two people using a medium.

1. An information source. Example: a person who creates a message.
2. Encoding – process by which the source translates the thoughts and ideas so that they can be perceived by the human senses.
3. A message, which is both sent by the information source and received by the destination.
4. A transmitter. Performs the physical activity of sending out the message. A telephone is an example of a mediating technology, or a medium, of communication.

5. The signal, which flows through a channel.
6. A carrier or channel. Channels are the pathways through which the transmitter sends all features of the messages, whether they involve sight, sound, smell or touch.
7. Noise, is an environmental, mechanical, and semantic sound in the communication situation that interferes with the delivery of the message.

8. Decoding. The way in which the transmitted impulses are converted to signs that the brain can perceive as meaningful.
9. A receiver. Probably a person or organization who consumes and processes the message.
10. Feedback. Occurs when the receiver responds to the message with what the sender perceives as a message.

 Mediated or machine-assisted interpersonal communication
 Intrapersonal communication
 Small group communication
 Organizational communication
 Public communication

• One way to understand mass communication is to show its similarities to and differences from other forms of communication.
• Similarities:
– communication and mass communication take place through media;
– Both using the same terms of Source, Encoder,
Message, Transmitter, Channel, Decoder, Noise,
Receiver, Feedback.

Interpersonal
Communication
Mediated /Machine-assisted
Interpersonal Communication
Mass
Communication
Message Uses all the senses; private or public, cheap; hard to terminate; altered to fit receivers
Typically verbal and/or visual; private or public; low to moderate expense; relatively easy to terminate; can be altered to fit receivers in some situations
Typically verbal and/or visual; public; can be expensive; easily terminated; same message sent to everybody
Source An individual/single person; has knowledge of receiver
An individual/single person or group; has great deal of knowledge or no
Organization or single person; has little knowledge knowledge of receiver of receivers
Encoding By an individual’s brain; single stage
By an individual’s brain and technology; single or multiple stage
By an organization and technology; multiple stages
Channel The air; potential for many; no machines interposed
The air, technology; restricted to one or two; at least one machine interposed
The air, technology; restricted to one or two; usually more than one machine interposed

(cont.)
Interpersonal
Communication
Mediated /Machine-assisted
Interpersonal Communication
Mass
Communication
Receiver A few individuals in the same location; in physical presence of source; selected by source
A few individuals in the same/different locations; selected by source or selfdefined
Typically many people in different locations; out of physical presence of source; self-selected
Decoding
Feedback
Noise
By an individual’s brain; single stage
Immediate and direct; plentiful
Environmental and semantic
By technology and an individual’s brain; single or multiple stage
Immediate or delayed; generally direct; somewhat limited
By technology and an individual’s brain; multiple stages
Immediate or delayed; generally indirect; highly
Environmental, mechanical, and semantic, with environmental limited
Environmental, mechanical, and semantic, sometimes caused by organizations sometimes caused by organizations
Source: Turow (2009), Dominick (2013)

• Some Definitions of Mass
Communication:
– the industrialized production and multiple distribution of messages through technological devices (Turow,
2009:17).
– the process of creating shared meaning between the mass media and their
audiences (Baran, 2012:6).

• Mass media – the technological instruments, e.g: newsprint, televisions, radios – through which mass communication takes place.
• Mass media outlets – companies that send out messages via mass media.
• E.g. of mass media - ??
• Mass media – magazines, newspapers, television, radio, books, films.

(cont.)
• A ‘medium’ is the channel through which a m______e travels from the source to the r_____r .
• “medium is singular, “media” is plural; radio is mass medium ; radio
and television are mass media.
• Mass media are the channels used for mass communication.

(cont.)
• Definition of mass media:
– technological vehicles through which mass communication takes place
(Turow, 2009).
– diversified media technologies that are intended to reach a large audience by mass communication (Wikipedia,
2013).

• Broadcast media such as radio, recorded music, film and television transmit information electronically.
• Print media use a physical object such as a newspaper, book, magazine, pamphlet or comics to distribute information
• Digital media, sometimes referred to as
new media, including the Internet, smartphones, and any other medium that uses computer-based technology.

(cont.)
• Mass media can also be referred to a broader definition, not only the mechanical devices that transmit and sometimes store the message (TV cameras, radio microphones, printing presses) but also the institutions that use these machines to transmit messages, including the people, policies, organizations, and technologies that go into producing and distributing mass comm.

Purpose of Using Mass Media Enjoyment
- The desire for enjoyment, or personal pleasure, is a basic human urge.
- Watching a television program, finishing a newspaper crossword puzzle, even reading an advertisement can bring this kind of gratification to many people.
- Eg: News stories, dramas, and sports - can ignite everyday talk with friends, relatives, work colleagues, and even strangers. This is called “social currency” – media content that is used as coins of exchange in everyday interpersonal discussions.

Purpose of Using Mass Media Companionship
- Mass media bring pleasure to the lonely and the alone.
- A chronically ill hospital patient or a home-bound senior citizen may find companionship by viewing their favourite sports teams on TV, or listening to the music of days gone by on the radio.
- Sometimes, media can even draw out people who feel troubled and in need of friends. The term “para-social
interaction” describes the psychological connections that some media users establish with celebrities they learn about through the mass media.

Purpose of Using Mass Media Surveillance
- Using media for surveillance means employing them to learn about what is happening in the world around us.
- We do this everyday, often without realising it.
- Do you turn on the radio or TV each morning to find out the weather or traffic jam? Have you read classified ads online to look for a job, concert tickets, or previously owned furniture?
- All these activities are illustrations of using the mass media for surveillance.

Purpose of Using Mass Media Interpretation
- Although surveillance through the mass media satisfies many people, it supplies only part of what they want to know about the world.
- They also want to find out why things are happening – who or what is the cause – and what to do about them.
- When people try to find reasons, they are looking for interpretation.

• Definitions of media literacy:
– The ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate messages in a variety of forms (National Leadership
Conference on Media Literacy, 2000).
– The ability to apply critical thinking skills to the mass media, thereby becoming a more aware and responsible citizen – parent, voter, worker – in our media-driven society
(Turow, 2009).

• Media literacy empowers people to be both critical thinkers and creative producers of an increasingly wide range of messages using image, language, and sound.
• It involves finding meanings beneath the surface of movies, ads, news, and other types of media content. It also involves reasoning clearly about controversies that may involve the TV shows you watch, the albums you hear, the magazines and books you read, etc.
• It means becoming a more aware and responsible citizen – parent, voter, worker, in our “media-driven society”.

1. Media materials are constructed.
2. Media materials are created and distributed within a
commercial environment.
3. Media materials are created and distributed within a
political environment.
4. Mass media present their ideas within primary genres of entertainment, news, education, and advertising.
5. People are active recipients of media messages.
6. Media representations play a role in the way society
understands its reality.

• Consider Authorship—who created this message and why are they sending it?
• Evaluate the Audience—Who are the intended targets of these media materials? How might people understand these materials similarly and differently?
• Determine the Institutional Purpose—Why is the content being sent?
• Analyze the Content—What values, lifestyles, and points of view are represented in (or omitted from ) this message?
• Identify the Creative Techniques—What creative techniques are being used to attract my attention?

• The revenues of individual media industries has increased over the years.
• In any mass media organization, these six
primary activities must be concerned:
1. Production
2. Exhibition
3. Finance
4. Distribution
5. Audience Research
6. Government Regulation

• These six primary activities are related to
five major genres of content, which are:
– Entertainment
– Information
– Advertising
– News
– Education
• Content – the material that a mass medium firm produces, distributes, or exhibits, eg: TV programs, news articles.

• No media business can exist without content that attracts consumers, or audiences.
• Audiences – the people to whom a media product is directed.
• Media practitioners – the people who select or create the material that a mass medium firm produces, distributes or exhibits.
• Media practitioners must aware that the kinds of content they produce, distribute and exhibit must be attractive to audiences if they want to ensure the flow of money, to compete and to sustain.

(cont.)
Three important questions to be answered by Media Practitioners regarding the audience:
1. Thinking about audiences and defining target audiences
Through demographics, psychographics, and lifestyle categories.
Demographics – characteristics by which people are divided into particular social categories. Demographic indicators – eg: age, gender, race, income – help media executives group individuals into categories that will be most attractive to their target advertisers.
Psychographics – categorizing people on the basis of their attitudes, personality types, or motivations.
Lifestyle – activities in which potential audiences are involved that mark them as different from others in the population at large.

(cont.)
2. Creating content to attract the target audience
- A key challenge for many people who work in mass media industries is knowing what kind of content to present to their audiences, and how to present it.
- Suppose you are in charge of programming for TV3; that is setting the television schedule for the coming year, 2014.
Your job is to set up the menu of shows that the owners of
TV3 hope will attract ten of millions of viewers to their airwaves every day. Question: what will grab people’s attention? Who can create it?

(cont.)
2. Creating content to attract the target audience
- Sometimes the answers to these Qs are based on intuitions and experiences. i.
choose creators with good track records – that is, a history of success.
ii. conduct Research and Development (R&D) activities – to systematically investigate potential sources of revenue, by:
- Surveys
- Focus group
- Analysis of existing data

3. Measuring the content’s success with the Target Audience
- Examining whether the content the company puts is a success or not.
- The easier part – how many magazines or movie tickets were sold.
- In cases where sales are not involved, such as with radio, broadcast TV and the web, ratings companies conduct regular surveys to count audiences in order to help executives determine how many people watched particular programs.

• Major categories of media content are called genres .
• A genre is a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, marked by a distinctive style, form or content.
• The primary genres that media practitioners discuss are entertainment, news, information, education, and advertising.

• The word entertainment derives from the
Latin ‘tenere’, means “to hold or keep steady, busy, or amused”; associated with enjoyment.
• Media practitioners define entertainment as material that grabs the audience’s attention and leaves agreeable feelings, as opposed to challenging their views of themselves and the world.
• However, this doesn’t mean that people who work in the entertainment business always stay away from informing or persuading.

• Four sub-genres of entertainment:
1. Festivals
2. Gaming
3. Drama
4. Comedy
• Combinations of elements in subgenre is called a formula – characterised by three major features: setting, typical characters and patterns of action

The formula for drama:
• Setting
The environment in which content takes place. Eg: a doctor show such as Grey’s Anatomy takes place in a hospital.
• Typical characters
Those who appear regularly in the subgenre. Eg. In Grey’s Anatomy, the typical characters are doctors, patients, nurses, and medical technicians.
• Patterns of action
The predictable activities associated with the characters in the settings. Eg: in Grey’s Anatomy, patterns of actions of doctors may be predicted in each episode.
• What about the formula for reality TV show?

• Involves the telling of stories, similar to entertainment. However, news stories are
constrained by facts, whereas entertainment stories are not.
• News contains a beginning, a middle, and an end.
• Journalists – Reporters, directors, editors, producers, and other people who work in the news business.
• A journalist – an individual who is trained to report nonfiction events to an audience.
• Their reporting can be in print (newspapers, magazines), or electronic media (radio, TV, the Web).

• Four subgenres of news:
1. Hard News
2. Investigative Reports
3. Editorials
4. Soft News

• Information – the raw material that journalists used when they create news stories.
• Information is a widely used and lucrative mass media commodity.
• Many companies bring together information and package it in a multitude of ways and offer it for sale, by using:
- Information gathering and distributing
- Information research and retrieval

• An advertisement is a message that explicitly aims to direct favourable attention to certain goods and services.
• The message may have a commercial purpose or be aimed at advancing a non-commercial cause, such as the election of a political candidate or the promotion of a fundraising event.
• Advertising – the paid insertion of products into TV shows and movies in order to associate those products with certain desirable characters or activities.

• Three broad sub-genres of advertisement:
– Informational advertisements
• Informational ads rely primarily on a recitation of facts about a product and the product’s features to convince target consumers that it is the right product for them to purchase.
– Hard-sell advertisements
• Messages that combine information about the product with intense attempts to get the consumer to purchase it as soon as possible.
– Soft-sell advertisements
• Ads that aims mostly to create good feelings about the product or service by associating it with desirable music, personalities, or events that the creators of that product or service feel would appeal to the target audience.

• Education genre means content that is purposefully crafted to teach people specific ideas about the world in a specific ways.
• Eg: Sesame Street
• Types of media that can be used in education:
– Textbooks
– Workbooks
– Course-packs
– Wall maps
– Flash cards
– Software
– Online services