MCM 733

1
MCM 733 Communication Theory

• Chapters 1 2
• Understanding and Evaluating MC Theory
• Four Eras of MC Theory

2
Understanding Evaluating

• Overview
• Informed citizens?
• Satire
• Fox News
• Is there a science of the behaviour? Cognition?
  Sociality?
• Why is the link between the above and
  communication so complicated?

3
Understanding Evaluating

• Defining Redefining Mass Comm
• Very divergent theoretical perspectives
• Cognitive science social theory humanism
• Grand theories (TOEs) vs. specific ones
• Mass Comm when an organization employs a
  technology as a medium to communication with a
  large audience.
• Does this fit with Web 2.0 Facebook? Google?
  iPhone? Lulu.com? Youtube? Reddit? Dig.com? Etc.?

4
Understanding Evaluating

• Mediated communication a continuum from
  interpersonal comm (eg. iPhone) to mass comm (eg.
  CBC).
• Hotness/coolness determines placement on this
  continuum (McLuhan)
• New Information Communication Techs (ICTs)
  enable audiences to be active and engaged. (eg.
  myspace, flikr)
• Knowledge Flow is the new Knowledge Capital

5
Understanding Evaluating

• Science Human Behaviour
• Physical scientists capture positive truths
  they uncover the laws of nature.
• Social and cognitive scientists construct
  representational models or snapshots of the
  social world.
• Social neuroscience may prove to be an exception
  to this.

6
Understanding Evaluating

• Why does the public not trust socsci the same as
  phys sci?
• We dont like the thought that we are predictable
• We like to think of ourselves as mysterious
• We dont like accepting that there are causal
  relationships in the social.
• We prefer to think of things relativistically.
• Relativism may feel empowering, but it is a false
  friend.

7
Understanding Evaluating

• Why do scientists have trouble accepting social
  science as scientific?
• It is difficult to establish
• Strong causal relationships
• Replicability of findings
• Falsification
• Cumulative nature of findings
• People dont grow up in controlled environments
• The social and the cultural are moving
  targets

8
Understanding Evaluating

• Four Reasons for the Desert of the Real
• Most of the significant and interesting forms of
  human behaviour are quite difficult to measure
• Human behaviour is exceedingly complex
• Humans have goals and are self-reflexive
• The simple notion of causality is sometimes
  troubling when it is applied to ourselves

9
Understanding Evaluating

• Defining Theory
• Any organized set of concepts, explanations and
  principles of some aspect of human experience.
  (Littlejohn/Foss, 2008)
• Comm theories are tricky
• Many of them
• Variably testable
• Situationally based
• Seem contradictory and chaotic

10
Understanding Evaluating

• Four major categories of comm theory
• Postpositivism, Hermeneutics, Critical theory,
  Normative theory
• They differ in their view of
• Goals
• Ontology the nature of reality, of what is
  knowable
• Epistemology how knowledge is created and
  expanded
• Axiology how values figure in research and
  theory building

11
Understanding Evaluating

• Axiology
• Values have a variable place in mass comm theory.
• Postpositivists attempt to eliminate them
• they cherish epistemic values high values in R/D
  
• They also confront non-epistemic values (emotion,
  morals, ethics)
• Interpretivists wrestle with the proper
  application of values through understanding of
  self and society. Sometimes they bracket their
  values.
• Normativists and critical theorists embrace
  values but have to be careful to not allow values
  to turn into bias or beliefs. They need the
  sanity check of strong epistemic values.

12
Understanding Evaluating

• Postpositivist theory
• Positivism knowledge can only be gained through
  empirical, observable, measurable phenomena
  examined through the scientific method
• Post-positivism all of the above the fact that
  humans are not deterministic and constant in the
  same way gravity (Dennet)

13
Understanding Evaluating

• Hermeneutic Theory
• No wish to explain, predict, control social
  behaviour
• Wish to understand how and why that behaviour
  occurs in the social world
• Hermeneutics the study of understanding,
  especially through the systematic interpretation
  of texts and actions.
• Social hermeneutics how those in an observed
  social situation interpret their own lot in that
  situation
• Texts are writ large any product of social
  interaction
• Relies on subjective epistemology the
  researcher as interacting with the community
  (cognitivism Pinker)

14
Understanding Evaluating

• Critical Theory
• Know the social world so that you can change it
• Openly political challenges existing way sof
  organizing social world and the people and
  institutions that exert power within it
• By reorganizing society we can give priority to
  the most important social values
• are concerned with how power, oppression,
  privielge are the products of certain forms of
  communication throughout society
  (Littlejohn/Foss, 2008)

15
Understanding Evaluating

• Critical Theory (cont.)
• Knowledge is only useful when it is used to free
  the oppressed
• The real the knowable are the product of the
  interaction between structure (political and
  social organization of the world) and agency (how
  humans behave and interact in the world).
• Reality is simply the product of the dialectic
  (struggle) between the two. Control the struggle
  and you control reality.
• Emancipated people have taken control of the
  struggle

16
Understanding Evaluating

• Normative Theory
• Postpositivism and hermeneutics are
  representational.
• Critical theory is non-representational it
  focuses on struggle.
• Normative media theory is neither it sets an
  ideal standard against which the operation of a
  given media system should operate to
  conform/realize an ideal set of social values
• Ontology the real is situational
• Epistemology comparativist
• Axiology Value-laden

17
Understanding Evaluating

• Evaluating Theory Postpositivism
• How well does it explain the event, behaviour or
  relationship?
• How well does it predict future events,
  behaviours, relationships?
• How testable is it?
• How parsimonious is it?
• How practical or useful is it?

18
Understanding Evaluating

• Evaluating Theory Hermeneutics
• How much new insight into the event, behaviour or
  relationship does it offer?
• How does it clarify the values inherent in the
  interpretation, not only embedded in the object,
  but of the researcher?
• How much support does it generate among other
  researchers?
• How much aesthetic apeal does it have?

19
Understanding Evaluating

• Evaluating Theory Critical Theory
• All of the hermeneutic questions plus these
• How useful is the critique of the status quo?
• How effective is it in providing a critique of
  elite power?
• Does the theory enable individuals to oppose
  elite definitions of the social world?

20
Understanding Evaluating

• Evaluating Theory Normative Theory
• How stable and definitive are the ideal standards
  of operation against which the media system under
  study will be measured?
• What and how powerful are the economic, social,
  cultural and political realities surrounding the
  actual operation of a system that must be
  considered in evaluating its performance?
• How much support do other researchers lend it?

21
Understanding Evaluating

• Mass comm theory is really
• Mass comm theories

22
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Convergence is a buzzword (Googlezon)
• However, convergence also entails
  reorganization and profound change in
  society, culture, economics, politics and even
  cognition.
• Technology evolves in a continuum
• New media and AI have expanded our consumer
  choices, but also reshaped our social and
  cognitive landscape

23
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• We will take a historical look at the evolution
  of mass comm theory
• Social, cognitive and even physical/mathematical
  theories are the product of the metaphors we live
  by (George Lakoff).
• New theories respond to old ones, the change is
  jerky, and chronologically unstable
• Social theories are the product of people and
  they are dynamic. They flow through collective
  consciousness like water, filling gaps and
  eroding the banks of society and cognition.
  (epigenetics)

24
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• We will survey the following four eras
• Era of Mass Society Mass Culture
• Era of Limited Effects
• Cultural Perspectives Challenge Limited Effects
• Meaning-Making Perspectives on Media

25
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Era of Mass Society Mass Culture
• Move to urban environments, growth of print media
  that produced cheap, accessible newspapers
• Some theorists were optimists more info, better
  citizens
• Most were pessimists industrialization was a
  disruptive force, detaching people from the land
  to objectify them as workers in factories, mines
  or bureaucracies.

26
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Era of Mass Society Mass Culture (Cont.)
• Mass Society theory is based on nostalgia
• For a rural time
• A golden age
• Every generation has a version of the Mass
  Society theory when it feels threatened
• Politically, Mass Society theory is embraced by
  both Left and Right
• Theories held interest of social elites (Left or
  Right) who felt threatened by change (eg. penny
  press and yellow journalism)

27
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Science leads to limited effects theory
• Paul Lazarsfeld began to empirically study
  communication and society (eg. surveys and field
  experiments to understand and solve social
  problems).
• He argued that while empiricism was primordial,
  it was important to not fall into pure modeling
  or descriptivism
• Important finding rather than being shaped by
  media, researchers found that people developed
  ways to resist media influence (eg. religion,
  family, friends)

28
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Science leads to limited effects theory (cont)
• Limited Effects Media tend to reinforce social
  trends and strengthen rather than threaten the
  status quo. So existing trends are amplified
  through the media.
• This gave media a very limited role in the lives
  of individuals
• These theories tend to be labeled Administrative
  theories (i.e. help improve organizations) and
  their research Administrative Research.

29
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Science leads to limited effects theory (cont)
• Elite pluralism blended limited effects notions
  with social and political theory
• Democratic society is made up of interlocking
  pluralistic groups led by opinion leaders who
  rely on media for info about the world
• Leaders are active and engaged, but followers are
  apathetic
• By the mid-60s communication scientists stopped
  looking for media effects. The problem was they
  were looking in the WRONG PLACE (i.e. the rise of
  cognitive neuroscience)

30
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Cultural Theory Challenge Limited-Effects
• Europeans had to find a way of processing the WW
  II.
• Euros skeptical about scientific approaches
  accused them of reductionism. This trend was
  linked to anti-Americanism
• Rise of the Neo-Marxists
• Media enable dominant social elites to creat and
  maintain their power
• Mass media is a battleground where elites attempt
  to convince the oppressed to accept being
  dominated

31
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Cultural Theory Challenge Limited-Effects
• British Cultural Studies (based on Neo-Marxism)
• Discovered that people resisted hegemonic ideas
  in media and propagated alternative
  interpretations of the social world
• Hegemony manufacturing consent without coercion
• Cultural theory began as a deterministic model
  (i.e. media have direct big effects) but
  eventually established itself as a non-scientific
  competitor to limited effects model

32
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Meaning-Making Perspectives on Media
• Limited effects models have changed considerably
• Influenced by cultural theories but also by new
  ICTs
• Framing theory expectations of the social world
  to make sense of the social world).
• Media Literacy the ability to access, analyze,
  evaluate and communicate media messages
• Active audiences use media content to create
  meaningful experiences

33
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Meaning Making Perspectives on Media
• Media effects are now acknowledged to be long
  term
• Levels of Analysis where the researcher focuses
  will influence the scope of the impact of the
  research
• Macroscopic sociocultural effects
• Microscopic individual effects

34
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• Meaning-Making Perspectives on Media
• Limited effects denied that advertising could
  have sociocultural effects
• This enables advertisers, politicians and govts
  to claim innocence we are just tapping into
  existing social trends, we are just giving the
  audience what it wants.
• Critical and cognitive effects should constrain
  advertising, if these effects are real (eg. we
  dont eat things that are poisonous).

35
Four Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• New Frontiers
• The Mind/Brain the future of communication
  theory is not socio-cultural. It is cognitive and
  neuroscientific.
• A whole new world of AI-inspired technologies are
  changing EVERYTHING in our lives.
• Knowledge is being transferred to machines
• We are beginning to understand the interplay
  between experience and the biology of our brains

36
Five?!? Eras of Mass Comm Theory

• A Fifth Era Cognitive Science of Media
  Information
• Cognitive science and neuroscience will
  completely reshape the field.
• Why the new ICTs are mostly the result of
  findings from cognitive science (eg. Bots, neural
  networks, intelligent search, catered
  advertising, neurofocus).
• Media is being modeled on the human
  mind/emotions/perceptions/senses.