Comm. 1510-01
Mon & Thurs
4:00 to 7:50 p.m.
Russell Sage
Laboratory 4510
Lecture 2
Introduction to Communication Theory
Prepared by Matt Rolph
For Prof. Carlos G. Godoy, Ph.D., Esq.
Does technology drive
history?
• The answers you give depend
on your perspective on the
meaning of ‘drive’ and your
opinions regarding
technology and history.
• A simple yes or no answer
isn’t usually enough –
though starting there may be
the first step on a viable
path to outlining a theory.
• Is there a ‘right answer’?
Communication Cosmos
Different approaches
have different views
re: history and
technology,
among other
Socio-cultural
linguistic
things.
Social psychological
Interpersonal
Cybernetic/systems
Media ecology
structure of a
society
Communication
Critical Tradition:
Frankfurt School
Semiotic
Shared meaning
Rhetorical
Tradition
Phenomenological
Virtual reality
Right / True
• Another fundamental
philosophical question has
to do with right answers and
‘truth’.
–
–
–
–
What is truth?
Why is it that?
Where does it come from?
How is it useful in
communication?
• What are some examples of
truth?
Common Knowledge
• What are some examples of
‘common knowledge’?
• Are these truths?
– Always? Never? Sometimes?
Aristotle
• People are easily distracted
and swayed
• ‘Inartful’ persuasion:
arousal of emotions,
obfuscation of ‘the truth’
• People know ‘the truth’ when
they hear it, and prefer it
• Rhetors artfully persuade by
knowing the audience,
knowing common truths, and
choosing the right words
Aristotle
RHETORIC
Aristotle
(Ἀριστοτέλης)
384 BC–322 BC
Rhetoric
• Early, classic (literally,
as in classical) theory of
communication
• An historic academic
discipline; thousands of
years, hundreds of theorists
• Focused on persuasion:
– “Rhetoric” is “the faculty of
observing in any given case the
available means of persuasion”
(Aristotle, Rhetoric 1335b).
Aristotle
• Ethos
– Moral competence, expertise,
knowledge
– Translation: ‘convince the
audience you are awesome’
• Logos
– Logic, data
– In other words: ‘give them
numbers and pertinent facts’
• Pathos
– Emotion, passion
– As in: ‘know what gets them
going and use that’
Aristotle’s Model of Communication
Adapted from Ehninger, Gronbeck, and Monroe
A Speaker
Arrangement
•Ethos
•Logos
•Pathos
•Strategic
ordering of
elements
Invention
•Word choice
•Flow
•Clarity
Delivery
•Moment of
speech
•Timing
•Execution
Style
An audience
Result: a memorable, persuasive moment
framing the desired message
•Persuaded
audience
Memory
Syllogism
• An enthymeme is an
incomplete syllogism (a
premise is unstated)
• A syllogism states all
premises:
– Major premise
• No homework is fun
– Minor premise
• Some reading is homework
– Conclusion
• Some reading is not fun
Enthymeme
• An informally
stated syllogism (a threepart deductive argument)
with an unstated assumption
that must be true for the
premises to lead to the
conclusion.
• A kind of deductive argument
• Aristotle’s enthymeme’s
include probable unstated
premises, common truths.
Enthymeme
• We cannot trust this man who
has lied in the past.
– Premise: People are consistent
/ liars can never be trusted
(unstated – because it is
‘common knowledge’)
– Premise: This man has lied in
the past (stated)
– Conclusion: This man cannot be
trusted (stated)
Dialectic v. Rhetoric
• Dialectic (Socrates, Plato):
Seeks to arrive at truth,
universals, via an exchange
of arguments; in contrast,
rhetoric has a rhetor
(speaker) and an auditor
(audience)
• Dialectic seeks to test the
arguments; in contrast,
rhetoric is focused on
persuasion
Inductive v. Deductive
• Inductive reasoning: from
particular to general
– Socrates was mortal, Plato
also, and so it is clear all
men are mortal.
• Repeated observation of
particulars lead to general
understanding
• Deductive reasoning: from
general to particular
– All men die. Socrates was a
man. Socrates, therefore, died.
• Stated rule leads to conclusion
Where does truth come from?
• How is it made? Via reason,
logic, and arguments?
• Do you agree with
Aristotle’s contention that
it is more persuasive than
other information and that
people can recognize it?
• Where did your opinions
about the question of
whether technology drives
history come from?
Walter Fisher
NARRATIVE PARADIGM THEORY
Narrative Paradigm
• People are essentially
storytelling creatures
• We make decisions on the basis of
good reasons
• History, biography, culture, and
character determine what we
consider good reasons
• Narrative rationality is
determined by the coherence and
fidelity of our stories
• The world is a set of stories from
which we choose, and thus
constantly re-create, our lives
Storytelling
• Not all stories are created equal.
• Fisher contends that everyone has
an innate ability to determine the
narrative rationality (interpreted
value) of stories via two steps:
– First we examine the narrative
coherence. Does the story hold
together?
– Then we check the narrative fidelity.
Does the story match our own beliefs
and experiences? Does it (at least on
some level) portray the world we live
in? Does it ‘ring true’?
Kenneth Burke
SCAPEGOATING
Kenneth Burke
1897-1993
Kenneth Burke
• Life is drama.
• The key is not persuasion,
but identification.
• Rhetoric is for defining the
nature of situations.
• The speaker seeks to achieve
identification with the
audience.
Dramatistic Pentad
In Substance
• Man is the creator of the
negative. The negative is
the basis of human
construction of hierarchies
of knowledge …
– Act: what was or will be done.
– Scene: generally thought of as
where and when; context of act.
– Agent: entity that could be
construed as performing an act.
– Agency: the methods or tools
used to perform the act.
– Purpose: goal of the act
Guilt
• The ultimate goal is to
purge ourselves of guilt.
Guilt is created through
symbolic interaction.
• Guilt comes when we are
estranged from the natural
world or estranged from
others in our world.
• Guilt serves as a motivating
factor that drives the human
drama
Mortification v.
Victimige (Scapegoating)
• Mortification: purge guilt
through self-blame, admit
they are wrong, ask for
forgiveness.
• Victimage: blame problems on
someone else, lash out on
who people fear, designating
an external enemy, a
scapegoat.
Sandra Ball-Rokeach
VALUES AND MEDIA
Truth v. Values
• Truth is usually considered
an absolute (as in: true or
untrue)
• Values are usually
considered relative
• Values may be individual or
collective, personal or
cultural
Rokeach Value Survey
• Please complete the survey
Rokeach Value Survey
Media & Value Choices
• Value frames are linguistic
windows or interpretive
schema deployed by the media
• There are two types:
• Terminal values or desired
end states (e.g, freedom,
equality, family security)
• Instrumental values are
preferred modes of conduct –
(e.g., behaving honestly,
lovingly, etc…).
Media & Value Choices
• Everyone has value systems,
so the media are quick to
code all stories in terms of
value frames to connect with
audiences. Values strongly
influence attitudes,
behaviors and perceptions.
• A value-choice frame
consists of two or more
values in a state of tension
or conflict (as in freedom
vs. equality)
Rokeach
• Argues that great societal
change leads to a state of
pervasive ambiguity
• Traditional, communal means
to deal with stress are no
longer active
• Process of settling
ambiguity and dealing with
stress is through media play
(watching television).
Media Dependency
• Life is so complicated for
some that they rely more on
the media to provide needed
information/frame choices.
• Personal goal salience,
threat, and ambiguity play a
major role in the
individuals dependence on
the media.
• An asymmetric relationship.
C. Wright Mills
SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
C. Wright
Mills
1916-1962
Sociological
Imagination
• Humans cannot be studied
apart from the social and
historical structures in
which they are formed and in
which they interact.
• As structures proliferate,
change, and become more
interconnected, they become
more consequential for those
subject to them
(“powerless”) or with power
over them (“power elite”).
Example
• The number of white collar
occupations is connected to
changes in technology and
the needs of business
• This work requires certain
skills; therefore,
educational infrastructures
adapt to generate workers
with those skills
White Collar
• “Intelligence” in the
traditional sense is not
rewarded in white-collar
work; instead job
performance and promotion
are due to success with
routinized work and in
following bureaucratic rules
and dictates.
• Therefore, education systems
become similar.
Types of power
• Coercion: physical force
• Authority: comes from rank
or position in a
hierarchical structure
• Manipulation: power wielded
without the conscious
knowledge of those upon whom
it is used
– Mills saw a shift from the
power of authority in the past
to that of manipulation in the
middle 20th c.
Two forms of
TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM
Hard view
• Technology drives history
– Inventions or discoveries of
Fire, Wheels, Spoken language,
Written language, and so on,
all the way up to radio,
television, MP3 players, HDTV
and etc. create the entirety of
what we call history.
Soft view
• Technological change drives
social change but also
responds to social pressures
Betterment of Mankind
• To early American
revolutionary thinkers:
progress meant the pursuit
of technology and science in
the betterment of mankind.
Benjamin Franklin refused to
patent his inventions.
Progress?
• However, this view changed
as the pace of technology
quickened.
• Technological determinism
became compatible with the
search for political order
Technology
• The term technology, a
relatively new word, itself
became imbued with a
mystical quality.
• Technology ‘made’ people
happier---advertisers began
to pick up on thisironing, washing machines,
…advances in technology were
assumed to bring social
progress
Criticism
• Thoreau argued that “men
have become tools of their
tools” …..even Marx was a
technological determinist.
Men would, in his ideal
Communist state, be become
tools for the mega-machine.
Jacques Ellul
• Ellul argued that with the
integration of the machine
into society ‘technique’ was
becoming the dominant mode
of thought.
• "Each of us, in his own
life, must seek ways of
resisting and transcending
technological
determinism.... The first
act of freedom is to become
aware of the necessity”
Langdon Winner
• Technological artifacts have
politics.
• “the very process of
technical development is so
thoroughly biased in a
particular direction that it
regularly produces results
heralded as wonderful
breakthroughs by some social
interests and crushing
setbacks by others.”
Problems
• Technology is no longer
transparent – we don’t
understand how most things
work.
• Societies must understand
the implications of
technologies they employ.
Postmodernism
• Postmodernists argue that the
power that dominates people
slips out of our grasp to
attack or control
• Assumes the technological
narrative has run amok
• Fatalistic, pessimistic
• distinct from Langdon winners point of
view which still sees the potential in
technology if we educated, demystify
and inform the citizenry of the
consequences of their use.