This course is about communication on various levels. Over these 9 weeks we will cover a number of theories, cases and applications in the field of communication science. We will start with the foundational concepts of communication theory, defining what the theory is and going through a number of approaches to communication itself. Each week you will have a test to check on your progress and understanding. We also have a final text in the end of the course and a little bit of writing. As Oscar Wilde said, if you cannot write, you cannot think. If you cannot think, others will do thinking for you. So we find writing and reflecting pretty important for our classes. Along the course we provide you with in-class materials: lecture presentations, articles and additional readings. If you really want to get into the topic, don’t avoid this extra work. Although a substantial part of this course is theory-based, communication theory has a very practical application. Communication is an underlying process which creates and develops relationships, communities, societies. We communicative on a daily basis via a variety of means and channels. In our globalised and increasingly interconnected world, communication skills are essential in both the personal and professional spheres. It is our goal to leave you with a contextualisation and conceptualisation of communicative processes that will poise you to hone your own communicative skills — in other words, to put theory into practice.
Getting Online: Social Presence and Etiquette of Digital Era
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Communication theory: bridging academia and practice
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National Research University Higher School of Economics
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Theory guided communication
The final lecture revises all the chapters discussed so far and brings some insights on how theory can be applied to practice. Here we also introduce you to some aspects that haven't been covered.
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Olga SolovyevaLecturer
Integrated Communications Department, Faculty of Communication, Media and Design
Maria MordvinovaHead of BA Program in PR and Advertising
Integrated Communications Department, Faculty of Communication, Media and Design
[SOUND] After discussing media effect,
we focus particularly on the social medias.
A new emergent form which is shaping our reality and changing our attitudes to
the communication and our practice of the communication.
At this little part, let's refresh what was there and
also let's take a look at the discussion.
Where there is some sort of digital etiquette, and how do we live and
view social media in digital era?
So we started with the distinction between three main approaches to social media and
particularly, and technology in general.
The first one was technological determinism.
The basic claim of technological determinism is that technology
is shaping our reality and changing our patterns of communication and
perception of the reality, and the overall understanding of the social life.
Another opposite approach is social construction of technology.
It stands for individuals, humans, being the creators of technology and
that technology is reflecting our social reality, and
can be seen as an extension of the way of how we used to do things.
And the third approach, social shaping of technology is a little bit of everything,
as it confirms and admits the mutual influence of technology on humanity,
and our social standards and social life patents on the technology.
After that, we move to networked understanding of the new social reality.
So how are we conducting and maintaining our relationship?
We are getting off and away from the approach of these communities,
and we don't really belong anymore to the particular communities.
Rather then, we have a net,
a network of different individuals who are connected with one another.
And this leads us to the networked individualism as the concept of
an individual being very rational in maintaining this network of
the context on the everyday basis.
And even though we've been focusing mostly on the networks and
the individualistic approach to maintain social context,
we still focus on the online communities as a new form of social organization.
We distincted two types of communities, common-bond and identity-bond communities.
Common-bond would refer to the group of the individuals who just like each other,
and they get together and laugh.
Because they do have some sort of an interest in one or another.
And the identity-bond online communities was referred to these associations and
to these organizations where people are kind of losing their identity,
as they like the group identity more.
And they're ready to neglect pieces of their own identity.
And the last part, there was all about social media engagement.
How do you make an engaging websites, online communities?
What are the patterns of the social media engagement and what do we like the most?
Do we like interactivity?
Do we like the network structure?
Would we be interested in commenting?
Would we be interested in co-creation?
There were quite many approaches which we outlined.
And after that, we move to the affordances theory as a theoretical framework
which outlines the opportunities that social media is providing us with.
This is quite a good, quite solid approach,
which is used frequently in the recent research on the social media.
How do we understand this opportunity?
What is liking on social media for us?
What is commenting?
How do individuals perceive these affordances of technology and
how do they react on these affordances?
So that was all about social media, but isn't there something left to say?
You may want to understand what's the distinction between real life and
the social media life, and here we want to bring out the concept of social presence,
which was disclosed within the social presence theory.
It was first brought up without any particular
context of the online and mediated communication.
And social presence was defined as the degree of salience
of the other person in the interaction and
the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationship.
So how are you present within the particular relationship and
how will you understand this relationship?
Speaking about two individuals interacting, one can be always there,
always in time and completely engaged in the conversation.
So we will speak about this person as being very present and
contributing into a relationship.
On the contrary, the other person might seem absent,
so there is nothing like social presence then.
After that, scholars would adapt these concept of social presence
to the mediated communication and it was put into the definition of the degree to
which a person is perceived as a real person in a mediated communication.
Do we really understand the people online as real people or something different?
According to this course,
social presence as a construct was mainly composed of two components or concepts.
So the first one is intimacy, intimacy is all about being
close to the other person who you're interacting with.
It can be navigated and influenced by a number of factors,
it could be physical distance, the eye contact, smiling,
personal topics of conversation when it comes to the nonmediated reality.
Immediacy would, in this case,
refer to the measure of psychological distance that a communicator puts between
him and herself, and the object of the communication.
Once again, we are talking here mostly about a new reality of the offline.
And we will discuss the factors which will navigate and will influence your online
communication through the framework of social presence theory a little bit later.
But to outline here is that the main point, in most cases,
the higher the social presence level is,
the better the understanding of both the speaker and the message would happen.
So what are the factors?
There are quite a few.
The first one is social context.
We've already discussed it so
you want to be a little bit closer with the recipients of the information.
So familiarity in this case would not be a crime.
You would like to manage and maintain this formal and
informal relationship to build the trust, and to think about the access and
location, and the way, how do you interact with each other.
So you want to see what are these users' characteristics,
as no one really want to talk and to maintain the communication
with some abstract person without anything social, anything personal.
And anything which describes this person as a human being.
Another dimension can be understood through the online communication.
There are some sort of affordances, once again, and
there are some sort of factors that would influence our
approach to the technology and put them to the communication.
So are you having the particular skills to maintain this online communication?
Is it a real time discussion or it's postponed discussion?
What are your language skills in terms of intercultural communications,
intercultural communications context?
What are the characteristics of the discussion which are outlined?
Do you have any norms and any rules, and
what is going on within this particular moment and within this particular context?
The third dimension we want to focus at is interactivity.
Do we have the timely response?
If it's instant communication, probably, social presence would be more obvious.
As when you are talking to real person offline, you do get response more or
less like in the same time and then we're moving on to the communication styles.
Are they different?
Do we have some sort of influences of the intracultural or
just different backgrounds which users might have within this communication?
What is the length of the messages?
Is it written in the formal or informal way?
It would influence the concept of the dimension of the interactivity so
it can influence the understanding of the presence of you
as an individual participating and the others as your audience or
your partners sort in this communication situation.
The size of the group would be also important
as well as the communication strategies.
So you need to keep in mind quite many aspects when you are talking about
social presence and when you are building the social presence within
a particular mediated platform within the particular technology.
But what can be the overall advises maybe some tips about surviving
in the global village?
As Clinton says, we do live in the global village right now.
We can be talking about maintaining networks on a daily basis.
With the whole concept of networked individualism, you cannot actually live
alone, and you cannot rely on the community which you have.
So you basically do want
to be closer with those who are essential members of your network right now.
But don't want to forget about those who are kind of gone
that you might get some need in them overall in some time.
We need to beware the timeless time.
As Castells would mention, his concept of what the timeless time is basically space.
We do have a new understanding of the mediated communication.
And we need to focus on the way, how do we
structure our everyday activities, as we can get lost in this timeless time.
So even though the time is not linear and you can maintain too many things
simultaneously, maybe sometimes it's better to focus on the essential ones and
those which are particularly important for you right now.
Check on your social network accounts.
And, yes, you do know that social networks are purpose and
part of the interest of quite many people.
When you were thinking about the work and you were applying for a job,
the HR specialist would most likely take a look at your social media profile.
What is the image which was transmitted there?
Who are you in the real life and during this job interview,
and who are you in your profile on Facebook?
That matters nowadays, and we do need to think about it.
Social networks and the real life communication, there was quite
an interesting experiment as one person would go out on the streets and
start behaving like on social media but in a real life situation.
So she would come to people and be like, okay, I'm following you now,
I am following you, I'm just interested in you and I just started following you.
The response of this people was quite interesting, and some of them would not
really accept what was obvious and quite all right within the social media.
In real time would seem quite outrage and
quite different and not really socially accepted.
So thinking about the patterns and
thinking about the media effect we discussed previously, how would our
patterns of using social media influenced our real life communication strategies.
Maybe we do adopt some sort of understanding through
the social media reality.
What's the importance of the Instagram and the way the how do you see the world?
Do you see it through the square pictures now or you do still
have a old school approach to what you were eating for your breakfast?
Are you going to post it or not?
So taking a look at how technology is changing you is quite interesting, and
just let's do a little bit of experiment.
When it comes to the creation of your communities,
we need to remember this identity bond and common bond.
As well as when we are going to participate in some sort of community.
Check out your reasons.
Why are you there?
And who is the part of this community?
Do you really want to be there?
And do you really want to give up a little bit of your identity just to
follow some sort of cooler identity of the group?
Picking communication channels would be another great tip.
So what is the message and how will you transfer it?
Again, recalling to the Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message.
And the channel which we are particularly picking would provide as
the recipient with the sense of the different feeling towards it.
So is it an important message?
Or is it a formal message?
Can it or it cannot be transmitted throughout the instant messenger so
it's better to use an email?
All these things we have to consider and
all these things are nowadays seen as a part of these digital etiquette.
And thinking about it and reflecting on the ways how media and
social media here for this case is changing us and
how we are using social media can be a key of your focus for
this little bit research on yourself and the way how others interact with you.
[SOUND]
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