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.
The Medium is the Messagee. Media Ecology by Marshal McLuhan II
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Do curso por National Research University Higher School of Economics
Communication theory: bridging academia and practice
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National Research University Higher School of Economics
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Mass communication and media effects
In this lecture student will be provided with the brief history of media effects theories and further in-depth explanation of various traditions in media effects. Why some people are being more influenced, how do we select and process the information and what is the role of media in society? All these questions will be addressed in this class along with the case study in the end.
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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
So let's get back to Marshall McLuhan and the whole media ecology concept.
As we already mentioned with
these electronic age and mostly with the digital age we are living right now,
we live in a sort of a global village.
As Marshall McLuhan refers to the global village that
the new electronic interdependence
recreates the world in the image of this global village.
So, what is essential here?
That there is interdependence between different sorts of media and between us,
as we consume this media and we already remember that
McLuhan believed in technological determinism as the medium is the message.
The media is shaping our reality and our understanding of what's going on.
What are the characteristics of this global village?
First of all, it allows us instant communications.
So, the space does not matter anymore and the the time actually does not matter either,
as we can send the message right now and we don't have to spend more time.
It was just like in the very,
very tribal age when people will all come together,
discuss what happened with them during the day.
We live, again, in a village and it doesn't matter that you live in
Australia and your friend lives somewhere in Russia,
here in Moscow, and it's me.
We can exchange information,
and I can share what's going on with me right now with the instant communication media.
Media controls.
Media controls the environment as Marshall McLuhan believes in this and changing
our attitudes to the way how we get the information and how we interpret it.
The next point is global interconnectedness.
We can refer it to the instant communication as instant communication
is one of the particular drivers for this global interconnectedness.
We can manage different projects at the same time,
we can maintain multinational businesses and we know what's
going on and where we can exchange this information.
As just like in the village,
people would work at the same mill.
And for example, it can be a metaphor for
the big transnational corporation as the whole processes would be pretty much the same,
just people located in different places.
And the whole three points would lead us for understanding
of the world as shrinking and expanding at the same time.
So, yes, we do have more opportunities here.
We do know much more than we could ever possibly know
before the media evolved and
before we got all these different types of communication emerging.
But at the same time,
it's shrinking as everybody become closer and these people are now
connected just through the media and
not through the fireplace as it was in the tribal age.
But still, we're living in the global village,
which is a very nice and interesting metaphor, I suppose.
Let's move on to the major assumptions of the media ecology theory.
First of all, it says that media is infused in every act and action in our society.
We need this media,
as we live in the mediated environment and the whole global village
would be impossible without media being a part of our everyday routine.
Media fixes our perceptions and organizes our experiences.
We remember that the medium is the message,
but at the same time the way how we approach information from
the different media would be changing the way how we behave.
If you become really hooked on Instagram,
you probably would want to post more and more pictures.
And now you don't just see the image of
some beautiful tree or some beautiful food there in the cafe,
you see it through the prism of the Instagram picture.
Media ties the world together.
We've all are discussed it.
We're going back to the roots, to the village,
and we know what's happening with different people.
But like few years ago,
no, not a few years ago, but a few decades ago,
we wouldn't even know that it's possible to
know how other people live the different parts of the world,
only maybe with the books.
But with the media, we get this information up to date and online and
we can take a look through the camera
at Trafalgar Square and know what's happening there right now.
So, what does it mean that the medium is the message?
Once again, what is the most important, McLuhan says,
that for any TV program,
the message is always television.
So, what does television means?
What would come to your mind?
For me, it would be entertainment.
So, medium, in this case,
television, would shape the content.
And if we all take a look at the way how the news are presented today,
we would definitely understand that they are presented in the way to
entertain us because television serves
this main function of making our society more
happy and passing us our time with some pleasure.
So the news blogs would become very short and the news
which are shown to us would make us more involved as to entertain us as they're broken.
So, in the first day you will get a little bit of that information.
The second day, you'll get a little bit more of what's going on
even though the information would be available in the very beginning.
So, the medium is the message and this hopefully is clear right now.
Let us summarize here a little bit.
As we already discussed,
what is the role of the media and how it is technologically
shaping our reality and our attitudes and our social practices,
we also refer here to the set of
different personal and social environment that are
created by the use of technological means of communication.
So, we can pick our own preferred communication channels and the news sources,
and each person, each individual,
is somehow maintaining his or her own media ecology.
In VR, when we are speaking about the media ecology,
we focus at this everyday experience and the way how social practices are changed.
The shaping power of technology refers to the bias of communication as we don't really
get the message as we are as consumers for the media and the message itself.
But at the same time, technology shapes it.
And it's not very clear and it's not very straightforward anymore.
But rather it's mediated and with this mediation it becomes understood differently.
The medium is shaping us because we partake of it
over and over until it becomes an extension of ourselves.
Each medium has an interface which determines
communication style and perspective outcomes.
This is one of the most important things that we need to
carry out from the media ecology,
as understanding the way how the content is framed in this case through the media and
the social practices which are following
the consumption of this media is essential for McLuhan,
and understanding the individual's personal environment with
the understanding of the determined communication style
is the core of media ecology approach.
Every medium, at the same time,
would emphasize different senses and would encourage different habits.
As we already discussed,
we are focusing on the experience of the technology.
And if television drives for our attention with the visual images, with the sounds,
social media might use different techniques,
as social media are quite vary a lot whole side of what they're offering.
A newspaper would be definitely different from the television,
and if we're comparing those,
they do emphasize different senses.
So understanding the perception of the message and crafting the message
for television and for the newspaper would go in a different way.
Getting back to the ecological perspective,
media can be considered as pieces that live in
the same ecosystem and they're interconnected by developed relationships between them.
So, basically here, we don't just speak about the ecology of an individual
who builds it all around him through the different means of the media consumption,
but we speak about ecology as we already referred to this evolution of media,
of ecology with the technology itself,
technology and different means of the communication.
And in different societies,
it can be different.
And it should be the case for the closed research and It might
help us understand why certain societies are functioning in a different way.
Why do people are putting more or less emphasis on some problems and neglecting others?
So complexity of these media ecosystems
can happen just due to the hybridization of media,
as we wanted to be more and more
involving and what drives the consumer would be incorporated
into the new media ecosystem where
the new media type has emerging social media we've already discussed.
So, now let's summarize here a little bit.
Well, first of all, the medium is the message.
Well, why is it important to understand this?
It's not just how Instagram is changing us and
changing our approach to go into the cafes,
go into the concert or just meeting out with friends.
It's important for us that we are choosing the right medium to transmit our message.
Let's imagine the situation that you're working on a project and it's pretty late,
but you just right now got
the very brilliant idea and you want to share it with your colleagues.
What kind of communication will you choose in order transmit this message?
Well, let's pretend it's midnight.
Can you send an instant message?
What this instant messaging mean for this given context?
Does it mean that you're good friends or you been working so close that
you can break the social norm of not disturbing people after the working hours,
or does it mean that this is a very big emergency and you do want an instant reply back,
or are you just sending the message hoping that the person
on his or her own time would get through this message?
Maybe it will be better to send an e-mail.
But will e-mail consider the sense of emergency in
this case and the sense of getting very close to the deadline?
So, choosing the right medium for your message is quite
important as it is important for us to understand how technology is shaping us,
how the medium is shaping us and our perceptions.
The other point of media ecology is that media does never extinct, It just evolves.
It just evolves just like the processes and the nature.
And for radio, thats not very popular anymore,
unless you're driving in the car and you're listening to the radio.
We do have podcasts now.
And it's again the same understanding, the same talking,
the same discussion, which you can hear out
loud but in a different word, in a different form.
The keyboard just was evolving from
the typewriter to the laptop and now we have it as the smartphone.
So, different media is evolving and
the new means of media are emerging due to the hybridization.
Still media ecology theory suffer from a lot of criticism.
And well, first of all,
critics will say the medium is not the message and the user is not the content.
Why would you say that?
Its quite a metaphorical language and lack of clarity
was one of the aspects for this criticism.
Also, this media ecology approach was
criticized that it takes away the free will of an individual.
Why would I be driven by the television?
Why would I change my understanding of the reality because of the television?
Why would I become hooked on Instagram and why would
I change my understanding on what my social life is?
So this technological determinism as as
a very big part of media ecology theory was under a lot of critics.
First of all, we are the humans and we are those who invented technology,
which was shaped and built just like we are,
so we can make our lives just a little bit easier.
But, we will discuss this constant battle
between technological determinism and what the other approach is,
called social construction of technology,
in our lecture 6.
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