Lecture 4 - Communication Theory

‘ Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect’


7 Traditions of Communication theory


> Cybernetic/Information Theory
> Semiotics
> Phenomenological Tradition
> Rhetorical
> Socio-psychological
> Socio-cultural
> Critical Theory
//
Cybernetic/Info Theory
>Information Source - Lecturer
>Transmitter - His voice
>Noise Source - Door, System speakers
>Receiver - Us
//
> Failure to communicate areas - bad language
Destination - You
\\world war
Communication was vital
Bell Telephone Laboratories


>communication problems


1. Technical  form of technology
Systems of encoding and decoding






2. Semantic
Precision of language
How much of the message can be lost without the meaning being lost?
What language to use
Shannon and Weavers feedback system


3. Effectiveness


Does the message affect behaviour the way we want it to? What can be done to get the required effect to happen


BARB - Broadcasters Audience Research Board
> Who is the audience and does the media work in relation to them


Semiotics//


Semantics -
Synthantics
Pragmatics


‘World is a semisphere’
Trainer - Started as just a supporter for running now its seen as a social status symbol. Expensive trainers etc etc


mediate communication in order to understand


Sign for plane
Highway code




Rhetoric
//
Voice
Personification

Lecture 5 Jean Boudrillard & Hyper-reality

Jean Boudrillard & Hyper-reality




Key focus of lecture : Question of reality


'Holidays are coming' - Coca Cola advert
'Its always the real thing'


Santa - product of realisation , metaphorical illustration of representation
Late 1930's design


Wired.com - Mexican version of coca cola
'When we consume soda we taste the branding not the product'
In a study most couldn't taste the difference between Pepsi and Coca Cola
The Coca Cola brand was prefered to Pepsi - brand trumps taste








Jean Boudrillard (1929-2007)
French Philosopher
Cultural Critic
Theorist
Photographer


Pioneered the political economy,Post modernism,Popular culture,
Media theory






influences


Giles Deluze
Roland Barthes
Jacques Derrida
Helene Geas
Michel Foucalt




Structuralism


Claude Levi Strauss
Roland Barths
Jacques Laean
Louis Althiser
Andreau Gaudon
Julia Kristen








Guy Debord
> Author of the society of the spectacle (1967)


Marxist theorist who revised Marx's main concepts to analyse commodity relations, in the age of consumer culture




Karl Marx
> Pioneering philosopher economist, theorist.
> Developed critique of political in an industrial age, functions on basis on the labour theory of value
'mode of production' capitalism constitutes.


Ferdinand de Saussoue


Linguist
pioneer of semiotics
language functions on the basis of theory of value




Marcel Mavas


Anthrapologist
gifts are only given as part of a exchange is something is rewarded

The Gaze

Gaze is a relationship dialogue

Panoptic system
Under whos gaze
institution/ est.

self conscious  gaze at yourself equals in Self regulating

Men look at women and watch themselves being looked at'
>A woman is always accompanied by an image of herself'
>Taught to survey herself critically'
>How she appears to men is the success of her life'
Idea of what it is to be a woman / blueprint and idea?
> Intra-digetic - looking at herself
Voyeuristically gazing at anothers body'
Passively available sexual object
Camera & Photopresentation are palyed at a home agenda - Made persperctive
'To photograph is to appropriate the thing that is being photographed'

Lecture 3

Psychoanalysis is the analysis of the options and controls we choose in life
Ways of thinking
How we examine other objects
> Laura Mulvey - Visual Pleasures & Narrative
> Hollywood films 
> Heroes - male damsels in distress
> Women exist as a sexual object


scopophilea - the pleasure of looking at other bodies as objects
- Instinctive desire to look


Narcisstic identification
- For mulvey spectators identify with the male hero in narrative films


The mirror stage
- Projected nation of ‘ideal ego’ in image reflected
- Childs own body less perfect than reflection


Contradiction
1 - Scopophilia - sexual stimulation by sigh
2- Narcissistic identification with the image seen. Cinema thrives on this contradiction


Degas : Le Viol (The rape)
Intradiagetic, character image that gazes at the subject
Extradiagetic gaze - direct address to the viewer, the gaze of a person in an image looking atw us, more affecting


Intra - Defers our guil
Extra - Enhance our guilt


Computer games often use different forms of the gaze. The hitman series enable you to choose either an intra diagetic or a suture.


Conclusion: - different forms of the gaze evoke different structures of power
> We can objectify and identify
> Visual culture employs different forms of the gaze, to evoke structures of partriarchy

Panopticism

The Panopticon:


Designed by Jeremy Bentham - 1791
Metaphor fro hierarchy in contemporary culture
> Hosptials
> Schools
> Army




Michael Foucalt (1926-1984)




The Greed Confident (late 1600's)


'Houses of correction' to curb unemployment & idleness




> Made to work in the houses, improving their moral fibre. Teaching how to be a moral member of society
> Hides away deviance, shut away from society. Represses deviance




Eventually, seen to be a gross error. Various would corrupt each other, degeneration of moral fibre.
Segregation was brought in.
> Invention of asylum
> Shift from physical control to mental control
> Started the rise to 'superhuman' status in doctors and psychiatrists




The pillary
Public humiliation, physical co-ersion




Disciplinary Society and Disciplinary Power


Discipline was seen as a technology not just a punishment
> The idea that we change, under surveillance - controlling
> Modern sense of discipline




1791 - Jeremy Bentham design 'The Panoptican' proposed


> Circular prison, guard tower in the middle
> Institutional gaze
> Exact opposite of a dungeon
Different psychological effect - always observed


Interactives - the individual, the conscious state
That they are 'always being watched'


Self regulation - Regulating behaviour, limiting chance for collusion
Psychological torture




> Reforms people
> Helps treat patients
> Helps instruct school children
> Helps confinement to study the insane
> Helps supervise workers
> Helps put beggars and idlers to work




Faucalt is describing:


> Change our behaviour to what an invisible power is making us do


Modern bars - Open plan
People self regulate
Panopticism is everywhere


Being surveyed changes how we act
Disciplinary society produces what Faulcalt calls 'Docile body' - easily controlled


> Self monitoring
> Self correcting
> Obedient tolerances




Men watch women. Women watch men watching them




Facebook - Panoptic
Adverts target people and the things they like // marketing