IV. perception + language + theories of communication EB335 DESIGNING CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS
facts & figures lies, damned lies & statistics facts as subject/object of communicative acts statistical data undermine / reinforce / reframe narratives + perceptions hence the pursuit of better (generally visual) presentation of statistics see Byron Lee on Breakups The Visual Miscellaneum : breakups
communications theory Harold Lasswell (1948): WHO says WHAT in WHICH CHANNEL to WHOM with WHAT EFFECT? [the Lasswell Formula ] W. L. Schramm systematized communications studies in the 1960s Schramm focused on essential conditions for communication (common language etc) between sender & receiver & their experiences of the communicative act DK Berlo (1960) SMCR (Sender, Message, Channel, Receiver) Model
recent theory + practice practical objection to Berlo SMCR model that it overlooks the communication is a meaning making process. See, for instance, Corman, Tretheway & Goodall (2007) re US public diplomacy/nation branding Niklas Luhmann (sociological perspective): double contingency.. communication entails a complex inter-dependence of the receiver s perceptions of the sender s motivations, sender s perceptions of receiver s prior assumptions, which all impact on the communicative act communications then shows the emergent properties of complex systems
a single field of study? seminal 1999 article by Robert T. Craig entitled Communication Theory as a Field 7 traditions of communications research identified: rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, cybernetic, socio-psychological, sociocultural, and critical complementarities & conflicts between traditions might inform a positive meta-discourse about the study of communications
Rhetorical Semiotic Phenomenological Cybernetic Sociopsychological Sociocultural Critical Communication The practical art theorized as: of discourse Intersubjective mediation by signs Experience of Information Expression, interotherness; dialogue processing action, & influence (Re)production of social order Discursive reflection Problems of Social exigency communication requiring collective theorized as: deliberation and judgment Misunderstanding or gap between subjective viewpoints Absence of, or failure to sustain, authentic human relationship Noise; overload; Situation requiring underload; a manipulation of malfuction or causes of behavior "bug" in a system to achieve specified outcomes Conflict; alienation; Hegemonic misalignment; ideology; failure of systematically coordination distorted speech situation Metadiscursive Art, method, vocabulary communicator, such as: audience, strategy, commonplace, logic, emotion Sign, symbol, icon, index, meaning, referent, code, language, medium, (mis)understanding Experience, self & other, dialogue, genuineness, supportiveness. openness Source, receiver, Behavior, variable, signal, information, effect, personality, noise, feedback, emotion, perception, redundancy, cognition, attitude, network, function interaction Society, structure, Ideology, dialectic, practice, ritual, oppression, rule, socialization, consciousnessculture, identity, raising, resistance, coconstruction emancipation Plausible when Power of words; appeals to value of informed metadiscursive judgment; commonplaces improvability of such as: practice Understanding requires common language; omnipresent danger of miscommunication All need human contact, should treat others as persons, respect differences, seek mmon ground Identity of mind Communication and brain; value of reflects personality; information and beliefs & feelings logic; complex bias judgments; systems can be people in groups unprediile affect one another The individual is a Self-perpetuation product of society; of power &wealth; every society has a values of freedom, distinct culture; equality & reason; social actions have discussion unintended effects produces awareness, insight Interesting when Mere words are not challenges actms; appearance metadiscursive is not rearii; style commonplaces is not substance; such as: opinion is not truth Words have correct meanings 8 stand for thoughts; codes & media are neutral channels Communication is skill; the word is not the thing; facts are obpctwe and values subjective Humans and Humans are rational machines differ; beings; we know emdi is not our own minds; we logml; linear order know what we see of cause & effect Individual agency & responsibility; absolute identity of self; naturalness of the social order Naturalness & rationality of traditional social order; objectiiily of science & technology
Rhetorical Semiotic Phenomenological Cybernetic Sociopsychological Sociocultural Critical Against rhetoric The art of hetoric can be learned only by practice; theory merely distracts We do not use signs; rather they use us Strategic communication is inherently inauthentic & often counterproductive Intervention in complex systems involves technical problems rhetoric fails to grasp Rhetoric lacks good empirical evidence that its persuasive techniques actually work as intended Rhetorical theory is culture bound & overemphasizes individual agency vs. social structure Rhetoric reflects traditionalist, instrumentalist, & individualist ideologies Against semiotics All use of signs is rhetorical Langue is a fiction: meaning & intersubjectivity are indeterminate Langue-parole & signifier-signified are fake distinctions. Languaging constitutes world Meaning consists of functional relationships within dynamic information systems Semiotics fails to explain factors that influence the production 8 interpretation of messages Sign systems aren t autonomous; they exist only in the shared pmctices of actual communities Meaning is not fixed by a code; it is a site of social conflict Against phenomenology Authenticity is a dangerous myth; good communication must be artful, hence strategic Self & other are semiotically detertermined subject positions 8 exist only idas signs Other s experience is not experienced directly but only as constituted in ego s consciousness Phenomenological experience must occur in the brain as information processing Phenomenological introspection falsely assumes self-awareness of cognitive processes Intersubjectivity is produced by social processes that phenomenology fails to explain Individual consciousness is socially constituted, thus ideologically distorted Against cybernetics Practical reason cannot (or should not) be reduced to formal calculation Functionalist explanations ignore subtleties of sign systems Functionalism fails to explain meaning as embodied, conscious experience The observer must be included in the system, rendering it indeterminate Cybernetics is too rationalistic; e.g.. it underestimates the role of emotion Cybernetic models fail to explain how meaning emerges in social interaction Cybernetics reflects the dominance of instrumental reason Against sociopsychology Effects are situational and cannot be precisely predicted Sociopsychological effects are internal properties of sign systems The subject-object dichotomy of sociopsychology must be transcended Communication involves circular causation, not linear causation Sociopsychological theories have limited predictive power, even in laboratory Sociopsychological laws are culture bound 8 biased by individualism Sodopsychdogy reflects ideologies of individualism, instrumentalism Against sociocultural theory Sociocultural rules, etc., are contexts 8 resources for rhetorical discourse Sociocultural rules, etc., are all systems of signs The social life-world has a phenomenological foundation The functional organization of any social system can be modeled formally Sociocultural theory is vague, untestable, ignores psychological processes that underlie all social order Sociocultural order is particular 8 locally negotiated but theory must be abstract 8 general Sociocultural theory privileges consensusover conflict & change Against critical theory Practical reason is based in particular situations, not universal principles There is nothing outside the text Critique is immanent in every authentic encounter with tradition Self-organizing systems models account for social conflict & change Critical theory confuses facts 8 values, imposes a dogmatic ideology Critical theory impases an interpretive frame, fails to appredate local meanings Critical theory is elitist 8 without real influence on social change
communication & social critique pioneers of critical communication studies were the so-called Frankfurt school of (generally) Marxists writing from the early 1930s on Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Leo Lowenthal, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm saw mass communication for social control, suppression & violence (a la Nazi Germany) vs communicative forms that empowered & liberated Jurgen Habermas: theory of communicative action envisages (normatively) a rational society based on communicational processes that allow emancipation of all individuals hence still modernist (upholding ideals of the Enlightenment)
post-modernism theoretical & analytical approaches to socio-cultural phenomenon, such as mass & private communications, that doubts the Enlightenment values of rationality, knowledge, advancement, & the institutions such ideals lend legitimacy to. challenges the idea of the human self as a subject with a unified coherent reason, thought, feelings & capability for positive action. doubts all universalist theories, meta-narratives, absolute truths focuses on the local, the particular concerned with the roles of language, rhetorical constructs, metaphors etc legitimate certain (unequal) social arrangements
postmodernism: implications reaction against modernism (itself richly diverse) and its scientific and universalist aspirations (eg. in architecture, the international style ) Jean-Francois Lyotard (1979): asserted a shift from grandes histoires to petites histoires (or petit recit; micro-narratives) from mid-1950s, which really was a radical critique of Cold War political dichotomies. postmodernism is essentially an aesthetic, & a label for a certain approach to the critical academic analysis of cultural artifacts it rejects hierarchies of importance for cultural products: making pop culture, street cultures etc analytically equivalent to high culture interested in micro-level agency: relevant to contemporary social-media based communication (though often over-theorized)
stars of postmodernism I Jean Baudrillard: modern societies dominated by signs, information & cybernetic technologies: implosion of the gap between reality & simulation, creating a hyper-reality where simulation is reality. In fashion, idealized cities such as the big Apple version of New York, model homes, even TV drama families,...reality of the simulation becomes the benchmark for the real itself (Woods, 2009: 27) Hyperreality conceals everyday life. Baudrillard does NOT judge this as bad, as it is inevitable, & people are leaving the alienation (of Marxists) of history for modern simulation. incommensurability: fragmentation of society into many cultural forms that deny comparison, finding of commonality Gianni Vattimo (working in hermeneutics: the philosophy of interpretation) suggests a search then for continuity between present & past
stars of postmodernism II Jacques Derrida (& French post-structuralism) semiotic analysis using a technique of deconstruction Derrida saw all text as having binary oppositions (man/woman; local/ global), in antagonistic hierarchy, which deconstruction confronts generally deconstructionism : language & text are signs, referencing other signs, and which defy ultimate claims of truth or decisive interpretation importantly (for us), Derrida et al emphasized the initial complexity of an event or reality (or the author s experience of it) that then shapes the structure of a message (text) and which is never fully captured by it.
Audience savvy? Marxist notions of alienation and false consciousness (a la Antonio Gramsci etc) suggest audience passivity & gullibility re mass communications later Frankfurt school writers such as Fromm, Horkheimer, Marcuse & even Habermas also often implied or explicitly stated this However postmodern writers see more scope for audiences to make a message their own, through finding new elements of meaning: audience exercising agency However, old school Marxists & Frankfurt school writers are critical of postmodernists disinterest/pessimism about the lack of political consciousness by audiences in positions of socio-cultural weakness.
intervening conditions a range of factors impact on the degree of influence a message might have on the receiver as seen, audience perceptions of the sender s intentionality & interests audience framing of the message: their cultural, experiential cognitive prisms through which they perceive the message & channels it takes audience activism re interacting with channel, interrogating the message itself at multiple levels of potential signification, reinterpretation & redeployment of the message for the re-sender s own purposes
firewalls against influence Norris & Inglehart (2009): firewalls that diminish the impact of cosmopolitan communications on foreign cultures, at 2 levels.. individual level: social psychological learning processes, & limited resources and skills that constrain access to foreign cultures & communicative acts societal firewalls: internal barriers to information dissemination resulting from political controls, media business logics, infrastructure limitations etc with the consequence that diversity of cultures, values, and perceptions remains larger than much commentary on globalization suggests
cognitive science across disciplines, cognitive science and related disciplines (brain science in general, behavioral studies) are having a large impact the physiological mechanisms of human perception and emotions are much better understood sub-disciplines such as behavioral economics are showing systematic perception biases, which qualify rational choice models of individual action eg. prospect theory, framing effects, fairness norms, risk perception, endowment effects, ambiguity aversion & much more as studied by Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and others.
audience resistance in designing communicative acts, we might seek to take advantage of the kinds of cognitive bias that are now well documented yet these bias also place limits on the freedom of communicative action designed communications also show generally show strikingly little success in stimulating an audience to counter-intuitive acts, except under limited conditions yet such conditions are critical objects of study as they may shed light on the worst abuses of leadership & communicative efficacy in mobilizing others to evil or tragic acts (mass murder, mass suicide etc)
a sign re action
reaction?
dying?
audience psychology communicative acts often, by (conscious or unconscious) design, seek to promote an emotional state in an audience affect / affective states (bundles emotions, feelings - subjective takes on emotions - and moods together) emotional states of audiences.. emotions contain 4-5 elements: physiological (bodily symptoms), motivational (action tendencies, expression, subjective experience (feelings about the emotional state) + cognitive appraisal. Some see the latter as independent.
theories of emotions somatic explanation (bio-feedback:) emotional states are influenced by bodily reactions / changes (James-Lange theory held indeed that determinancy was predominantly from bodliy change to emotional experience). cognitive explanation: emotion as disturbance that works as such: cognitive appraisal, to physiological response, to action. perceptual explanation: bodily reactions as proto-cognition. Instinctive physiological reactions to certain events are a form of perceiving that does not need, a priori, thought and conceptualizing process. affective events explanation: prioritzes events, then attitudes and behaviours; communicative orientation
message attributes resonance: at an (intended) emotional & or rational level with the target audience [the overarching outcome] timeliness: critical to achieving resonance resilience: the message should stick, & not be vulnerable to subversive recall or redeployment coherence: within the message stream, and across channels authenticity: should not be easily discounted originality: does it have the distinctive signature of the sender; does it buttress a particular brand personality appropriateness: should be aligned with the ethical norms of the target audience and all other stakeholders