Media Theory Assignment 3
Q2.
The ‘transmission’ or ‘direct effects’ model of communication is an incomplete and
outdated approach to thinking about communication processes in today’s society.
Social and technological change has brought about new means of communication,
which has forced researchers to re-evaluate the model and critique its flaws. Broadly,
the key weaknesses of the transmission model of communication are its oversimplification of the nature of human communication, its linearity, the lack of
credence given to meaning making and the polysemic nature of signs or messages, its
disregard to context, and its disregard for the receiver, or audiences’ agency. A more
complex way of understanding the role of media in our culture could be achieved by
exploring the impact of active and interpretive audiences, making links between
audience theories and the growing use of participatory media, and discussing the
relationship of media to identity and subjectivity. Examples of media research studies
will also be used to illustrate arguments in relation to the role of media in peoples’
lives and how media texts work.
The ‘transmission’ or ‘direct effects’ model has its roots in the nineteenth century
meaning of the word ‘communication’, which partly explains why it has become
dated. Lines of communication were physical and concrete, with the exchange of
information achieved via roads, canals, railways, and through written messages.
(Kress 1988: 4) However, with the shift to the information age and the proliferation of
different types of technology, the way in which we communicate has evolved. A key
metaphor associated with the transmission model, which has proven to be unsound, is
that of the hypodermic needle. This metaphor suggests that the sender transmits an
intended message, which is then directly received and wholly accepted by the
receiver. (Salwen, Stacks 1996: 6) The linearity of the transmission model forces us to
regard the sender and receiver as asocial and isolated, thus presenting an unequal
power dynamic between the two parties. The model assumes that the receiver is a
passive participant in the exchange of meaning, while the active sender determines the
meaning of the message. (Mortensen 1972) Communication is a complex, interactive
process, which relies on the active participation of both sender and receiver, and thus
cannot be accurately represented by a linear system.
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Another key flaw of the transmission model is its assumption that all texts have a
single meaning, and that that meaning is obvious to everyone. Semiotics tells us that
due to the polysemic nature of signs, meaning is contingent on context and signs
generate meaning from other texts. Thus, there is no single, fixed meaning in any
message and as such the receiver’s interpretation is central to the meaning-making
process. The same message could represent multiple meanings, which depend on the
receiver’s situational, social, institutional, political, cultural, and historical context.
(Chandler 1995) An example of this can be found in the research Collins and
Wellman (1982) conducted on young children and their comprehension of television
drama. Despite lacking the required “scripts and schemas”(Livingstone 1990: 52), the
children still made sense of the narrative albeit in a different way.
After the
introduction of the missing script or cue, the children would interpret the text through
their own frame of understanding, irrespective of the producer’s interpolation of the
text. Thus it is clear that context plays an integral role in the process of
communication, which is blatantly disregarded as an influence in the transmission
model. According to Kress (10), “the structures, processes and contents of
communication are given by culture.” A number of theorists assert that culture and
communication are inseparable; they are intertwined in the creation and exchange of
meaning.
In other words, culture brings into existence meaningful objects and
communication exchanges this meaning between social and cultural agents. (Kress)
When taking into account the role of context in meaning making, it is clear that
messages do not solely originate from the sender. Rather, meaning is drawn from an
individual’s established culture and social groups, and therefore messages are never
truly original or the sender’s own.
Most importantly, the model ignores the possibility that the receiver is an active
participant who, rather than passively absorbs meaning, is capable of reconstructing
the message they are offered. The transmission model does not allow for any agency
from the receiver, which is a great oversight. It also does not take into account the
possibility of the receiver already being aware of the message, and the subsequent
mutuality the sender and receiver could enjoy. This contrasts with Carey’s (33) idea
of the model as a “process of transmitting messages at a distance for the purpose of
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control.” If this were the case in all instances of communication, the main purpose of
a message would be to persuade or to engender attitude change in the receiver. This
ignores the fact that there is often contestation and debate around the meaning of
messages, and messages are constantly interpreted and re-interpreted by different
individuals. Lastly, the model disregards the importance of the sender and receivers’
social positioning. This plays into structures of power, authority and solidarity, which
have considerable influence over the way in which people interpret messages and
make meaning. The sheer number of flaws in the transmission model of
communication makes it clear that it is an overly simplistic way of framing our
understanding of the role of media in our culture.
A distinctive feature of the transmission model, which draws on theories of mass
communication, is how all people are treated as an undifferentiated mass, which
elucidates its failure to account for audience agency. McQuail (2000: 40) describes
the mass audience as “large aggregates of dispersed and passive spectators, without
opportunities to respond or to participate in a genuine way.” Despite similar claims
that audiences’ have become “mindless consumers, stupefied and blinded by
predigested cultural texts” (Hodkinson 2011: 119), the idea of active and interpretive
audiences’ has become more prevalent as technology advances. Research into the
genre of soap opera and its impact on the viewer succinctly illustrates the active and
participatory involvement of the receiver. Hobson’s (1990) study of soap operas’ has
found that viewers are critically engaged with the program, whilst actively building
up a complex knowledge about the shows history and characters. Livingstone (45)
expands on this idea by suggesting that the viewer’s knowledge of the show plays
directly into their interpretation and re-interpretation of the text. The complexity of
the text “invites the viewer to impose a certain order or closure according to his or her
own notions of what is likely or desirable or meaningful” (Livingstone 53), which
falsifies the idea that a text has a singular fixed meaning.
Texts are often social, and this has become evident with the shift to audiences that are
productive users. Texts are increasingly interactive and provide the receiver with
opportunities to produce user-generated content on various platforms. A platform
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such as Facebook produces social networks, World of Warcraft produces interactive
and community gameplay, whereas add-on apps for IPhones produce user-guides.
Media consumers now have the opportunity to become media producers. Social
networking sites are reliant on active participation, which includes making, uploading,
writing, commenting, reviewing and organizing. Fans of television programs can now
share their passion to a global community through different forms of expression such
as fan websites, fiction, mash-ups or blogging. The sense of community that fan
websites provide, and that the Internet facilitates, fosters an environment for cocollaboration. Fan fiction in particular is an example of the way in which audience’s
actively re-interpret messages they receive. Fans of a pop-culture franchise use a
show’s pre-established characters and story arcs to write supplemental stories to fill in
plot holes, spin-off, or to create their own version of the episodes, chapters, or
relationships etc. The television show Supernatural has a cult following on websites
dedicated to fan fiction, with many stories depicting or assuming a romantic
connection between the two brothers. The popularity of this coupling has resulted in a
feedback loop to the directors and producers of the show, who have made both subtle
and obvious mention to it in numerous episodes. Thus, the receiver can influence the
sender through the growth of participatory media.
Online computer games challenge the transmission model’s applicability to an even
further extent. Audiences’, in this case players’, are far from the passive receivers’
depicted in the model. They are an integral part of the production process of the text,
as games “draw on their audiences’ inputs, require participation, and give feedback
and rewards.” (Humphreys 2005: 37) With the advent of the Web 2.0 online games
have become increasingly sociable, as developers have created coded affordances like
chat bars that allow players to further entrench themselves in social networking. In
games such as EverQuest, the narrative alters from person to person, which is
indicative of the central role of the receiver. The audience plays a central role in the
creation of the text, with their choices making gameplay a unique experience for
every individual. EverQuest has no conclusion, as the text is produced through the
players’ consumption and is added to via their feedback. Most games of this nature
bind players in a “contractual relationship to an End User License Agreement in
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which they give up ownership rights and Intellectual Property rights to in-game
content.” (Humphreys 41) This means that even though the text is produced through
the players’ consumption, everything included in the game belongs solely to Sony.
This new media form generates a new relationship between the developer and player,
which were previously seen as independent of one another. The role of players’ in the
involvement of games introduces a more “nuanced power dynamic” (Humphreys 42),
as each party is dependent on the other.
The growing participation of audiences’ as productive users has a significant impact
on the way in which we relate to each other, they way in which we construct our
public identity, our sense of privacy and public space, and the way in which we
understand ourselves. Foucault’s theory of panoptical surveillance can be applied to
today’s society and the construction of our sense of self. The panopticon is a type of
building designed to allow an observer to watch all inmates of an institution without
them being able to tell whether or not they are being surveyed. (Foucault 1975)
Although not constrained by a literal building or construction, today’s society is
subjected to this disciplinary form of power. Everyone is constantly under
surveillance by media, and the development of computer processing and storage
power has made this information easier to be taken advantage of. (Andrejevic 2002:
231) This constant surveillance helps to construct and enforce social norms that
become naturalized and thus part of one’s sense of self. As a result, people are ranked
and differentiated by this pervasive, normalizing judgment. Those who don’t comply
with the norm are brought up to community standards, sometimes without even
realizing. The influence of the media itself as a tool is completely disregarded in the
transmission model of communication, and needs to be taken into account. The
relationship between identity and subjectivity is at least partially formed through
engagement with media.
The ‘transmission’ or ‘direct effects’ model is an overly simplistic and outdated way
of thinking about communication in today’s media driven society. A number of
academics have critiqued this model of communication over time and have laid bare a
number of its inherent flaws. One of its main deficiencies is that it does not take
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context into account, or the way in which contextual factors effect audience
interpretations. The model is also unidirectional, assumes that the sender and receiver
are asocial and isolated, and allows no agency from the receiver. Technological
advances have prompted the rise of participatory media such as social networks,
online games, and fan fiction. Interactivity within these spaces is indicative of active
and productive audiences who are not passive conduits for information, as the
transmission model would suggest. The proliferation of media has sparked social
change, with concepts of identity and subjectivity the most affected. With the rise of
productive audiences and participatory media, the transmission model is fast
becoming obsolete.
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Reference List
Mark Andrejevic (2002) ‘The work of being watched: Interactive media and the
exploitation of self-disclosure” in Critical Studies in Media Communication, 19, (2),
p. 231
Carey, J.W. (1988) Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. New
York, Unwin Hyman Inc., p. 33
Daniel
Chandler
(1994)
The
Transmission
Model
of
Communication,
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/trans.html, accessed 3/11/2011
Michel Foucault (1975) Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison, London,
Penguin (trans. Alan Sheridan 1977), pp. 170-204
Dorothy Hobson (1990) ‘Women audiences and the workplace’ in Mary-Ellen Brown
(ed) Television and Women’s Culture, London, Sage, pp.61-71
Hodkinson, Paul (2011) ‘Chapter 6. Media as manipulation? Marxism and Ideology’
in Media Culture and Society. An Introduction, Sage, LA, London. p. 119
Humphreys, S. (2005) Productive Players: online computer games’ challenge to
conventional media forms. Journal of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies,
2, (1), pp. 37-42
Gunther Kress (1988) ‘Communication and Culture’ in G. Kress (ed) Communication
and Culture: An Introduction, Sydney, New South Wales University Press, pp.4-19
Sonia Livingstone (1990) ‘The Active Viewer’ in S. Livingstone making Sense of
Television, Oxford, Pergamon Press, p. 45, 53
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Dennis McQuail (2000), ‘Concepts and Models’ in McQuail’s Mass Communication
Theory (4th ed.), London, Sage, p. 40
David Mortensen (1972) ‘Communication: The Study of Human Communication’ in
Chapter 2. Communication Models, New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co
Michael Salwen, Stacks D (1996) An Integrated approach to communication theory
and research, Routledge, p. 6
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