COMMUNICATION THEORY - lecture

 Lasswell's maxim:

“Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect"

- Lacking a unifying theory, the field can be divided into seven traditions

- Multiple theories and perspectives shape the field of communication studies.

- Cybernetic or Information Theory  (Transmissional)

- Semiotics  (Constitutive)

- The Phenomenological Tradition          

- Rhetorical

- Socio-Psychological

- Socio-Cultural

- Critical Theory

Two models:

- Transmission

- Constitutive


THEORIES


- Information/cybernetic theory of communication: Shannon and Weaver Bell Laboratories (1949)
- Systems theory: links over theories 
- The Phenomenological tradition: process of knowing through direct experience


THREE LEVELS OF COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS


1. Technical - accuracy/compatibility
2. Semantic - precision of language
3. Effectiveness - does message effect behaviour


AUDIENCES AND SOCIAL CLASSES


- National Readership Survey
- Upper middle
- Middle
- Skilled working
- Working
- Subsidence
- Managerial
- Intermediate
- Small employers
- Lower supervisory
- Semi routine
- Routine
- Never worked


Main categories:
individuals, adults, men, women, housewives


SEMIOTICS


- Semantics, addresses what a sign stands for
- Syntactics, relationships among signs
- Pragmatics, studies practical use/effects of signs