WK 7
20/10/07 00:30
As the 1920s
and their optimism sank below the grind of the
Depression, orientations in the study of communication
changed too, and a new spirit and practice of
empiricism and an adherence to scientific method
entered communication related inquiries. The Depression
and labour-conflict put the ideas of the Chicago School
out of fashion – small town America could not
provide a viable model for the spread of industrial
Modernity. It might have worked in the 1800s, but not
in a world quickly heading for another large-scale war,
tattered by economic hardship, and becoming fuller and
fuller with mass mediated messages, distant yet
intrusive governments, and uncertainty about the
future. It seemed like the mass society theorists with
their theories about the need for propaganda had the
day. But they too, and especially their understanding
of mass society and culture, would be displaced at the
centre of communication inquiries by a turn from
qualitative research to quantitative, experimental and
scientific methods. By the 1940s, the work of Paul
Felix Lazarsfeld – himself a refugee from Austria
and anti-Semitism that came with the Nazi influence
– and his students and associates, showed that
“the crowd” could no longer serve as the
model for mass society. Oddly a picture emerged that
sat somewhere between the small-town of the Chicago
School and the amorphous and atomized mass of mass
society theory.
Cont...
Cont...
WK 6
08/10/07 16:43
Reading Guide
WK 6
CMNS 110 (Fall 2007, Surrey)
Be sure to have a look at useful way to organize the data: See Wikimindmap for propaganda.
NOTE: when using this site, make sure you choose ENG from the drop-down menu unless, of course, you read German which is the default on this site.
What we’ve learned about crowds and their implications for the distribution and practices of power, and how these are related to media uses (e.g. Innis might note that the phenomenon of crowds is an aspect of the oral tradition & its domestication into publics an aspect of the impact of literacy), we can turn to very important question of their “management” by means of ideas and “engineered consent.” Two questions ground the discussion: First: What is propaganda and how is to be distinguished from other forms of consciously persuasive and interested mandated communication?Cont...
CMNS 110 (Fall 2007, Surrey)
Be sure to have a look at useful way to organize the data: See Wikimindmap for propaganda.
NOTE: when using this site, make sure you choose ENG from the drop-down menu unless, of course, you read German which is the default on this site.
What we’ve learned about crowds and their implications for the distribution and practices of power, and how these are related to media uses (e.g. Innis might note that the phenomenon of crowds is an aspect of the oral tradition & its domestication into publics an aspect of the impact of literacy), we can turn to very important question of their “management” by means of ideas and “engineered consent.” Two questions ground the discussion: First: What is propaganda and how is to be distinguished from other forms of consciously persuasive and interested mandated communication?Cont...
WK 5
06/10/07 01:05
At this stage
of the course we'll be leaving much of the
interpersonal dimensions of communication behind (for
now), so as to shift our focus to the emergence of the
mass media and mass audiences. The Chicago
School’s concern with community and democracy
indicate their range of inquiry went well beyond the
interpersonal. As James Carey insists, Innis refined
and extended the Chicago School’s influences into
a macro theory of the relation between power,
knowledge, media, social organization and dynamics of
empires and colonies. But, as we’ve learned,
extended through the work of Erving Goffman,
Chicago’s legacy made significant contributions
to our understanding of the role of social life in
identity formation & the hidden power relations in
interpersonal dynamics. Cont...
WK 4
22/09/07 03:26
The readings
for this week emphasize interpersonal
communication
and build on the theme of embodiment introduced in our
previous discussions of McLuhan, and the importance of
social experience in identity formation explored
through the work of GH Mead. The focus now shifts to
the use of theatre as an extended metaphor for how we
communicate with each other, and to the work of an
interdisciplinary group of scholars known as "The
Secret College" who developed the understanding of
communication further by looking at its darker and
pathological sides.Cont...