COM 327
January 10 2013
Lineup:
1. Housekeeping
2. Quiz
3. “Communication as culture”
4. Groupwork: 2 models of communication
5. Carey & critical media studies
Housekeeping
Group presentations
- overview of 1 reading from that day
- groups of 3
- 10% of final grade
- Google doc: “COM 327: Group
Presentation sign-up”
- first group next Tuesday? (I will be
generous with marks!)
QUIZ!!!
1. Both models of communication that
Carey presents in Section I have their
origin in ________.
a) politics
b) economics
c) agriculture
d) religion
2. In Section 1, the two models of
communication Carey discusses are the
“transmission” model, which he sees as
dominant in American culture and
thought, and the ______ model.
a) exchange
b) communist
c) ritual
d) utopian
3. In Section 1, what media does Carey
use to compare these two models of
communication?
a) newspaper
b) typewriter
c) telegraph
d) fax machine
4. According to Carey (in Section II), the
Chicago School offers the following
definition of communication:
"a ______ process whereby reality is
produced, maintained, repaired, and
transformed”
a) boring
b) symbolic
c) behaviorist
d) scientific
Too hard? Too easy?
James Carey
“Communication as Culture”
Book was published in 1989, but ideas
in it were developed much earlier.
Critical approaches to communications
media make VISIBLE the relations of
POWER that operate on and through
different media technologies,
industries and practices.
Key Concepts from Tuesday:
-
The goal is to affect
CHANGE in the current
conditions of media
production and
consumption.
So what makes
Carey’s approach
to understanding
communication
“CRITICAL”?
Communication theory (in America) before Carey (and still to this day):
Mathematical Theory of Communication (Shannon and Weaver, 1948)
Theorists Carey uses to discuss the “ritual” model of communication
Raymond Williams (1921-1988)
- one of the founders of cultural studies
- “culture is ordinary”
- key work: Culture and Society (1958)
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)
- Canadian media theorist
- ‘rock star’ academic
- our relationship to communication is like a “fish in water”
- key work: Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1962)
Erving Goffman (1922-1982)
- also born in Canada (pattern..?)
- we are always “performing” our identity
- key work: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)
NONE of these were “communication” theorists or researchers…
Raymond Williams
Previous notions of culture:
1. Culture as foreign
2. Culture as breeding
Culture is
1) The everyday
2) The realm of signification & communication – media
Established the field of “cultural studies” – aka, the role of media in our daily lives
Carey’s connection: culture IS communication.
Marshal McLuhan
“One thing about which fish know exactly nothing is water, since they have no antienvironment which would enable them to perceive the element they live in.”
We’re the fish; media is the water.
It’s impossible to separate our
understanding of the role of media in society
from the effects that media HAS on
structuring our thought and communication.
Carey’s connection:
Communication is the act of constructing
and maintaining the reality we live in.
Media technologies don’t just alter the means of transmission; they transform the content
Critical approaches to communications
media make VISIBLE the relations of
POWER that operate on and through
different media technologies,
industries and practices.
Key Concepts from Tuesday:
-
The goal is to affect
CHANGE in the current
conditions of media
production and
consumption.
So what makes
Carey’s approach
to understanding
communication
“CRITICAL”?
Critical approaches to
communications media
make VISIBLE the
relations of POWER that
operate on and through
different media
technologies, industries
and practices.
The goal is to affect
CHANGE in the current
conditions of media
production and
consumption.
So what makes Carey’s
approach to understanding
communication “CRITICAL”?
Erving Goffman
“Dramaturgical” view of social relations: we’re constantly performing.
We present different versions of ourselves depending on the situation &
‘audience’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlDBi0cyIA
Carey:
We maintain – ‘co-construct’ – our
culture through interactions with each
other & with various media forms &
practices.
(Also: we re-affirm our own identity/ies
through these practices)s
“Ritual” vs “transmission” views
Not just academic theories, but ways of understanding, enacting, and
living our relationship with each other & with media.
Communication as transmission:
“a process whereby messages are transmitted and distributed in
space for the control of distance and people” (p. 15)
Communication as ritual:
“directed not toward the extension of messages in space but toward
the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting
information but the representation of shared beliefs” (p. 19)
Game-burning at Southington, Connecticut (30 miles from Newton)
Now cancelled, because the group (SouthingtonSOS) has ‘already accomplished what
they set out to do’
Which model of communication (ritual vs transmission) were they acting on?
Which model of communication (ritual vs transmission) would they have acted out?
In groups of 4, consider how ‘transmission’ vs ‘ritual’ models would frame one
of the following technologies… use specific (everyday!) examples.
Transmission
Ritual
“a process whereby messages are
transmitted and distributed in space for the
control of distance and people” (p. 15)
“directed not toward the extension of messages in
space but toward the maintenance of society in time;
not the act of imparting information but the
representation of shared beliefs” (p. 19)
Facebook
Statuses are transmission
Can be used for email
Statuses go viral & the actual meaning (“content”)
gets interpreted in different ways.
“a social network”. Commenting/sharing/liking.
- Liking statuses = connection to others; statuse
YouTube
Uploading a video to website.
Anyone can upload any kind of video.
Viewed by anyone, commented by anyone,
likes/dislkes
- “youtube party”.
- Viral videos
- “ritualistic transmission”
Clothing
Uniform designates authority
Uniforms – give power
“Feel different” when put on outfit
Engineering vs design
Carey & communication studies:
1. Opened up the communications theory itself to critical attention
- attention to the ways “effects” research shores up political &
economic power
2. Legitimated as an object of study the CULTURAL study of communication,
opening the door to:
- Political economy (the study of capitalist production & its relation to
socio-economic privilege, aka CLASS)
- Feminist theory (the study of gender as something we DO rather
than as something we ARE)
- Queer theory (the study of heterosexism, its production, and its effects)
- Post-colonial theory (the study of imperialism and its relationship to
ethnicity)
- Race theory (the study of race as a social, political & economic
construction)