Информация о курсе
Весь документ разработан Димой и Натой и распространяется бесплатно для всех студентов Школы дизайна. Но если вы вдруг вы хотите, мы будем рады любому донату на кокиколу и баблтишке (─‿‿─)*:･ﾟ✧. |
Информация конкретно на этой вкладке актуальна 4 курсу (Б22). Если вы учитесь на 3 курсе (Б23), у вас другие сроки и могут быть другие ЭК. Ждите созвона с учебным офисом.
Смотрите информацию на других вкладках!!!
В течение модуля мы проходим онлайн-курс на платформе Smart LMS. Курс проводится для Школы дизайна НИУ ВШЭ впервые — отзывов прошлых лет нет, как и дополнительных материалов. Курс разработан Школой коммуникаций НИУ ВШЭ. Видео курса не такие большие, но теории много, поэтому лучше смотреть постепенно. Также надо будет выполнить элементы контроля. Презентация курса по ссылке. Программа учебной дисциплины по ссылке.
Что такое коммуникации, теория коммуникаций, как с этим работать и т.д. Элементы контроля нашего курса будут чуть повернуты в коммуникацию бренда — чтобы это было связано с дизайном и продвижением проектов конкретной аудитории.
Метрики не действуют. Оценку 10 получить можно.
Когда: 3 декабря в 09:00 по МСК (длительность 20 минут)
Где: ссылка
Прокторинг: асинхронный с двумя камерами (полные правила)
Описание: тест по первым 4 неделям курса. Вопросы будут с одним и множественным вариантом ответа (должны быть указаны все верные ответы, иначе не будет балла)
При проблемах с тестом: сразу писать на helpexam@hse.ru и администратору со скриншотами
Когда: в сессию 2 модуля
Где: ссылка будет позже
Прокторинг: асинхронный с двумя камерами
Описание: тест по всему курсу
При проблемах с тестом: сразу писать на helpexam@hse.ru и администратору со скриншотами
Когда: 15 декабря
Где: hsedesign.ru
Описание: командный проект для 3 человек (обязательное условие) на английском языке (обязательное условие). 30-50 экранов с текстом и изображениями. Черный тег — visual research, белый тег — communication theory.
The project is a presentation of an imaginary brand, consisting of five parts: 1) the author's reasoning about how communication theory works in the field of design; 2) presentation for a general audience; 3) presentation for a professional audience; 4) a detailed explanation of how the communication theory presented in the online course served as the basis for creating these presentations; 5) a list of literature and sources of images.
Проект необходимо делать строго в команде из 3 человек — не 1, 2 и 4. В ходе работы над проектом вы применяете знания теории коммуникации из курса — как в общении друг с другом, так и при разработке и описании самого проекта.
На английском.
Обычная аудитория — ваши потенциальные клиенты/покупатели.
Профессиональная — как комиссия на просмотре.
Лекции
Hi, and welcome to the communication theory course. In this first lecture, we will discuss a few approaches to the communication itself. So, what is communication? Why do we have to study it, and what is theory, and how it can be useful and applicable to the practice?
But before we start, let us outline a few starting tips which will be useful for you during your classes. So first of all, we want you to go through the suggested books and materials. We prepared quite a set of them, which will be very helpful, if you want to get some more insights about the particular theories, or you want to understand the communication process itself quite deeper.
The second tip would be recalling to your previous experiences. As there is nothing more practical than a good communicational theory, we want you to think a little bit about what happened to you, and how this theory might be applicable to the situations you've been into. And maybe, it will help you to enhance the future communication situations in general.
The third tip is all about sharing. We want you to share your thoughts in the comments, so we can understand how the studying process goes, how do you understand the material, and how do you take it for your personal life, and how it is useful for you there. So, if you don't mind, please provide us with some feedback, and provide us with illustrations on the way how do you apply the theories we discuss in your regular life.
Don't give up if it gets complicated. Some theories are more difficult to understand and to process than the others, but maybe, altogether, we can go through them, and we can provide a proper understanding of the theoretical background of the communication theory and communicate. We hope that this course would attract many students from the various backgrounds, from different professions, and from different studying backgrounds as well. We hope that intercultural aspect of this communication will be helpful for overall theoretical understanding of the communicative process. So communicate, as what we are doing here, is studying communication theory.
So now, we are getting closer to the communication study itself, and before we jump into the course and talk about theory, let us think above the communications. How did humans develop their ability to communicate? Are we the only creatures that exchange messages and symbols in order to create this communicative environment? What is communication itself, and how we can approach it? How do we process this process of exchange with the creation of the meaning as itself? So, what can be the weaknesses, and what are the strengths of the theoretical approaches? This would be the major questions of this class, and why do we study communication in the very beginning?
Well, communication and communication theory in particular, can be called the most practical of the academic disciplines. As we do communicate on an everyday basis from the early morning until the very late evening, we communicate from person-to-person. We communicate online. We communicate when we give public speeches. What can we actually call communication? At some moment, we can think about the medium through which we communicate with people, and writing an article for your blog or writing an article to the local newspaper can be considered as a mass communication as well. Also, communication happens when we just think about the way how things go, and we can understand our society through communicative processes much better, when we just think about the different bodies and organisations who somehow interact with each other. In this case, we talk about this global communication perspective, which helps us to understand the whole nature of the society. So basically, this course would be about all parts of this communicative process, which happens to us and part of which we become.
But the first thing to do is to define what communication actually is. Within the academic discipline, there are more than 200 definitions of the communication. In here, we can outline just a few of them. So here, what we found in one of the textbooks, communication is a relational process of creating an interpretive messages that elicit in the response. So here, Griffin speaks about the process, which kind of works towards the relationship-building between individuals, and is well, during this process, they create and interpret the messages which have been sent. The response as a feedback is also one of the very important features of the communication.
Let's take a look at another definition. Systemic process in which individuals interact with each other through symbols to create and interpret meanings. Again, we speak about meanings, which are created during this process of the interaction, which also is called systemic in this case. Well, if you think about the communication, it is quite systemic, and in different contexts, it occurs during the special processes, which we usually have some goal to imply in.
The third definition of the communication, what we want to present here, is the process of generating meaning by sending and receiving verbal and nonverbal symbols and signs that are influenced by multiple contexts. So here we dive deep into the context, which is important for this particular definition. Again, we see communication as a process of generating meaning. So here, we think about the purpose of the communication, to exchange these meanings and exchange these ideas between individuals, sending and receiving another part of the process.
So basically, in all three definitions, we do speak about the process. Verbal and non-verbal symbols, they occur as they are part of our communication, and this is the particularly message which we exchange, but it's more broken into particular particles. So, as we've seen three different definitions of the communication, which basically talk also about the communication, we can outline the key characteristics. The key points of which authors focus during all of the process discussing what communication basically is.
So, this is the process. Communication never stops, and it happens. It can begin at some point, and it continues through the relationship building or through this delivery of the message, but it also have to be extended, and it's never seen as a part or is something what happens once, and it cannot be understood without the relation to what happened before and what are going to happen next. Within this process, we always have at least two individuals or two groups of people who are involved into the communicative process. This can be called sender and the receiver. Sender is the one who encodes the message, crafting the message, implying the key ideas, and the meaning, which supposed to be transferred and transported to the audience. What is this case can be one individual or a group of individuals, but we call them a receiver. A receiver is the one who decodes the message and try to understand what was meant to be said and implies this idea to himself or herself.
But basically, think about what happens when you like the book. You go through the book, you read the book, and you see the main ideas. You probably would have some thoughts about the way how the main characters look, where do they leave, how do they interact with each other? And then, you see the screen adoption of this book and the director would choose different characters who look exactly not the same as you thought about them when you were reading the book. So here, we see the main problem of this decoding and encoding of the message, because people would understand and process the messages differently.
The next point would be verbal and non-verbal symbols. These are the basic tools we use within the communication. Yes, like we can speak. We speak with the words, but what about our gestures? What about our body language? What about emojis? Can they be interpreted as a text? Can they be pronounced somehow out loud? No. So verbal and non-verbal symbols as elements of this communicative process.
The next part, creating meaning in the message. The message can be seen as another important element here, as what happens between send and receive when they communicate, right? We usually have some particular goal which we want to achieve during our communication process. That's why we created this message which will be transferred from sender to the receiver. But implying this meaning and decoding this meaning, what was to be sent or what was said actually and how it was interpreted by the public? It's a big question of the communication, and we don't have to forget that communication always happens within particular context. When you're doing a public speech, this is a one context. In other conversation between you and your partner during some everyday routine objectives, that's different context. So in this case, the same person would communicate differently. So, we need to consider the context while we are discussing the process of communication.
So now let's move on to the definition of the theory. The most simple definition of the theory is what we know about and how we know it. So it implies two parts. First, is a generated knowledge about the way how universe works, and how we know it. So there is an understanding of the whole process, and the whole process of getting this knowledge from the experiences of people or generalizing different ideas which individuals come up with.
So here with a theory, we want to answer a few questions. First, how does it work? How do interpersonal relationship work? How do family relationship work? How does the media affect us, and what is the cause of this? What it is produces? What this particular relationship will produce in future? So as we know how it works right now, we want to know what the consequences of this or another sort of the interaction. Would it produce fear? May be it will produce another relationship emerging there on the basis of the previous ones. Well these are the questions. What causes it to happen? What were the initial stimulus and initial factors that would define the certain way that relationship will maintain, and how it would be developing? What should be the case of our studying? And what should be the case for our research? What are the particular frames? And what is the framework basically of the whole process of human communication?
How do we use this term theory? We do use it quite often, and I come up with different theories every day. For example, the best coffee should be served before 10 AM in the morning, and maybe later and after 10 AM, the coffee would taste better or maybe it would taste worst. For my case, it would taste worst, because I would be already waking up, and I would not feel this excitement from the coffee. But can we call this a theory? Definitely no, but in this case, we are speaking about the commonsense theory.
Let's take a look to the interpersonal communication. In a commonsense, you never tell any secret or any embarrassing information to the person you first time meet in the bar. This is very good advice, but it does not have any academic or any other evidence apart from the individual experience of yours. So never talking to strangers in a bar, well not never talking to strangers, never telling them various secrets to the strangers in the bar, that would be quite a common sense theory.
The other point when we use the term theory, when we speak about working theory. You definitely do study, or maybe you're a professional already, so you have some sort of guidelines which navigate you through your professional process. So in this case, working theory can be knowing the people you go in for a meeting with. Maybe this is the first time you meet, and you want to develop some sort of enterprise with them. So you have to do kind of research about what other people, and what are you going to do with them in order to be successful during this meeting? So you kind of conduct some sort of preparation and some sort of research. This can be a part of your working theory which guides you through the professional process.
And finally, scholarly theory. This is what we're going to talk about. Well, you will find this very practical, and you will probably have some assumptions about how you've already used this theory in advance before even knowing that there is the whole theory developed about this communication process. But how is it different from to you theories which we mentioned before, it's commonsense and working theory. Well, this is a systematic observation, and this is a systematic research which leads to the development of some sort of generalization about the way how the world works.
So for example, if we already talked about the interpersonal communication. And in the first case, you just have a little part of the knowledge, we will guide you through this interpersonal communication with a stranger. But there is the whole theory which is devoted to the way how interpersonal communication which will develop between two individuals, and this is the case of social penetration theory. So basically, it says that while we're communicating with another person, we would go through in certain stages, and we will disclose an information which can be totally different. We'll start with the very superficial information and exchange some data about ourselves. So where are we from, what are we doing, what's our profession, and the more communication developed, the deeper we go to the topics. Which are close for us, which are quite scary to share with people we don't really know.
Scholars outline that with the whole process of interpersonal communication goes towards the self-disclosure. Basically, the main point of the interpersonal communication is to communicate the concept of self. We want to share out very deepest secret, we want to share our fears, we want to share our understanding of the world with another individual. So this theory on the contrary of the first two, outlines the whole steps in which communication would be developing. And it implies a number of cases which were investigated and studied in advance.
How do we use this term in communication status? We can see theory as an abstract understanding of the communication process. Well once my student in the class asked me question, she raised her hand, and she asked, why do we have to study things which are already there, which they leaf through, but with different words? Why do we have to learn these new words, just to describe what's happening with us right here and right now? That was a very good question, and basically what happens here is that this new definition, they help us to create an understanding. Before, naming the thing, we can't really say that the thing exists. So this abstract understanding of a communication process is very useful. As you acquire the terms and the definitions which will help you to go through the thing, and will help you to describe and understand what's going on.
The second approach is a lens, a lens or a framework through which we see and interpret the world and our everyday practices. How does it work here in this particular case? Well, we probably have some students from different places, and there would be different patterns of the communication. And in this case, interpersonal communication can be developing much faster than in other countries. So this lens just can help us to limit the context of the communication, and help us to focus on a particular elements of the communicated processes and couldn't forget about something else. Anyway, when it comes to the public speech, we can talk about the rhetorics. When it comes to the mediated communication, we talk about the channel and the way how influence occurs between this medium and individual itself. So this lens is quite a limitation. Communication happens with us all the time, and it's never ending process. But in order to study something closer or understand a particular steps of the communication development, we need to focus, and we need to wear these lenses to just limit our perspective at little point.
The third point is a systematic summary about the nature of the communication process. Here it comes with the real objective research which focuses on the very important generalization. So can be people seem the same? Well, as we see communication through the lens, definitely we cannot compare different people and different countries or people who belong to different cultures. But in this case, we can provide a sort of generalizations, and try to systemized the knowledge that we have. So we can speak about the new knowledge which describes the patterns of the communication.
So why do we need theory? Well, the first case is to describe. As I already told you about the case with my student, we need new terms and new words to understand what is going on to focus on something. And this would help us to explain why and how is it happening. Humans are very special creatures, so we do need an explanation, we need to know why does rain? We need to understand why this speaker is more successful than another one. We need to understand how the message that we read in the newspaper would be understood by the other people. The third point is to predict what going to happen. Well the predictive power of theory is quite strong. Because when we are guided by the theory, we can see a little bit further as in the real life, we can usually see what's happening right here and right now.
Transformation of the reality and transformation of our values is another very powerful potential of the theoretical approach. So when we understand, we describe something, we explain it, and we predict it what going to happen, maybe we can be guided, and we can adapt our lives somehow. To adapt our values, to adapt our way of thinking, so we can make a better world in which it would be comfortable and pleasant for us to live in.
So as we see now that theory has quite a few powers, the first, this is the power to explain and provide us with a clear understanding of what is going on in this world. The second power is to predict, so we can now know what going to happen and what causes which effect. And the third is a transformative power of the theory, helping us to understand the society and to see how it can be changed with the understanding.
Let's take a look, a closer look at the place of the theory in our everyday practice. But the first is the research. So what is the research? According to the academic literature, it can be devoted to the systematic gathering of data in accordance with developed methodology, which is based on educated assumptions and followed by data analysis and report. How many terms here? Well, let's start with the third line. The research can be based on educated assumptions. So how we can make our assumptions educated? Well, of course, with academic literature and with little help of theory.
As a researcher, you might question the reality, and you want to understand how this particular process is actually developing and how something works in the life around you. So you start with a research question, and after that with the help of academic literature and with the help of theories you develop your educated guess which is our hypothesis. Well, you got your hypothesis, and now you need to think about how you can prove it or how you can kill it. And you might be interested with the real data which will support your research. So here we are talk about the methodology. We have some sort of predictions, and this is the part where theory is very helpful. So theory basically guiding us through the whole research process, and it helps us to develop the methodology.
So these predictions would go all together with the data collection. We will choose particular tools to get this to acquire the data, which will help us to understand what is the case, what is the case in this particular situation. And after data is gathered, we will go through data analysis, again with the very particular methods which would be applicable within this theoretical framework and within this research approach to the case.
Well, usually research ends up with a report, because you want to share your knowledge with those who are around you. In academia, it ends up with the presentation within the conferences, or it can end up with the paper published in an academic journal. But if you got some knowledge and if you conducted the research, don't mind to share it with others, because it might help us to get more understanding on the communicative processes overall.
So as we now understand the major role of theory in academic research, well even in research in our everyday life, let's take a look at this ongoing cycle between theory and reality, as it actually never stops. And we can speak about theory testing and theory building, as we need to make some additions to the theory and the process is changing. Even with information communication technology, which emerged quite recently, many old theories have to be extended and have to be rethought in this particular case.
So theory testing is when we start with some assumptions from theoretical background and we conduct empirical research. So this research is based on the hypothesis testing. And as we have some sort of predictions, and we go and use academic methods in order to see what is the nature of the reality, and here are we end up with the reality. So going from theory to the reality is called theory testing.
But what if we see something new which was never researched before? Well in this case, we can speak about theory building. So we conduct our exploratory research, and we try to understand the nature of the reality in this case without the theoretical lens, but we can build our own theory. And we can provide the further understanding which can be tested. So as you can see, the cycle doesn't really never end.
As we now know that there is an ongoing research cycle between theory testing and theory building, let's focus on theories itself. Scholars outlined two major types of theories, which can be called objective and interpretive theories. The distinction lays in the epistemological focus, as the essence of knowledge can be different.
Let's start with the objective research and theory. So what is objective theory and research? First of all, it relies on a positivist approach and the classic scientific method, which all focuses at determinism. We humans do have a set of preconditions and a set of factors that would influence our behavior, and we will behave in a similar way in accordance with these preconditions. So we can say that objective research is quite deterministic, as it's looking for the singular truth and the number of generalized clause. They try to outline the variables which will influence our behavior. That's why this research is usually quantitative and relies on a quantitative methodology. For example, we can conduct a survey with a number of variables which we outline in advance. And then we would test what is the dependent and what is independent variable. In this case, we can understand what is the problem.
Let's take a look at an example here. If we are working in the company, and this company is going through some sort of organizational communication difficulties, we want to solve this problem. Let's conduct an objective research here. So we would think, what is the communicative system, and we will take a closer look on the way how the message is distributed from the very top to the bottom and vice versa. After that, we would outline a number of variables, which can be dependent or independent. And then conduct in a survey when all the employees regarding their status, they would feel this form, and after that we will see what part of the communicative process is lacking and what kind of a reconstruction we need. Maybe we just need to add some other tool or device, or maybe there must be another channel that will help to enhance the communicative situation. This will be driven by the research, and it will rely on the objective theory which predicts that organizational problems can be solved if there would be no noise within the system of communication.
Interpretative theory and research, on the contrary, is focusing on the different aspect of the communication as the process. So scholars here believe that communication and the reality can have different interpretation, and we can see it through different lenses. As well, we are communicating and using our words, we create multiple realities. And within these realities, all the processes can be seen differently. Interpretative research relies on qualitative methodologies, as for example, conducting in-depth interviews or doing ethnographic research. The essence and the importance of the interpretive theory here that it calls for a dialogue and for a negotiation of the different meanings, different values which might exist within the field of communication. And it does help us to provide a clear understanding of the situation in the given context. On the contrary, with the objective research which seeks for the lowest which would navigate us through the process.
So if we come back to the example with this organization, which for some reason is suffering with communicative processes, the approach of researchers here would be totally different, as they would come to the organization. And they will conduct the ethnographic research, and they would observe people while they are working. So maybe they will be able to distinguish what are the barriers? What are the communicative barriers, and what are the barriers in their understanding of the working process itself which makes this communication unsuccessful?
So let's not focus on what are the particular differences between objective and interpretive research. So first of all, they have different focus, if objective research is focused on the explanation of data which is being collected, the distinction of the variables, dependent and independent variables, the relationship and the influences between them, that interpretive research is focusing on the understanding of people, and what are the very deep meanings which we apply to the processes, to the communication, to the relationship between us. And as this focus is essential, we need to keep it in mind while we are taking on the theories and while we are applying these theories in the life.
Well, another difference between objective and interpretive research is, well, first is focused on the prediction of the future, the second focusing on clarification of our values. So this understanding of this hidden meanings and the relationships and what is unspoken can help us to understand what is the nature of the reality and how do we supposed to behave within it. That objective research would tend to tell us how the thing will develop in the future with the given preconditions, because it's all clear in all structures, and we expect people to behave quite in the same way.
The next part of the differences and similarities is that the theories would be rather different within this approach. The key aspect for an objective theory is that it should be rather simple, not simple as we make a theory when it's raining you need to wear drain shoes, no, it should be simple in a way that it's not overloaded with different variables with different predictions, as again it's supposed to have quite a clear structure. Interpretive theory would be considered as a piece of art, and aesthetic appeal is quite essential and important for this sort of theory, so the internal logic of this theoretical approach must be not broken, and everything should go smoothly altogether. So we can say that this interpretive theory is good when it has no internal contradictions within it. Well, internal contradictions are not very desirable within the objective research as well, but for objective theory to be applicable in a real framework and in a real life, it needs to specify what is its focus, what are the consequences of human actions, and what are the tragic stories of the communication development in these or another case.
The next aspect we would like to focus on is that objective theory would definitely have a testable hypothesis within it, so it cannot be just a statement or rhetorical statement which requires an open answer. No, in objective research we focus on variables and the relationships within these variables, so if I say that A is influencing B, I must be able to go and test it, and in a better life and in the best way, if it happens, it will be the same for each individual within the given simple. So the hypothesis here should be testable. Interpretive research is calling for the community of agreement, which means that different people with various backgrounds would understand and would be able to negotiate the meanings and the characteristics of the reality which we are discussing.
Moving on, objective theory always has this practical utility, as we did in theory to explain and describe what's going on, and we need to go and utilize it right there right now. It should help us in our real life problems, and it should help us to go through everyday routine questions, it should help us to you focus on political, on social, on interpersonal variables and situations. But good interpretive theory is the one which not just cause for a dialogue, but creates a further understanding on what's going on and reforms the society. Somehow, the good example here would be the feminist theory, which was developing throughout the recently, what, 50 years, and it provided a huge change in an understanding of what is the role of the woman, and what is the place of the woman in the contemporary society, and how she should be approached.
So as we mentioned already, object of research would rely on quantitative methodology, and interpret research would rely on qualitative methodology. It seems to be quite obvious, as in quantitative research we have testable hypothesis, and we have a set of predictions and variables which are all linked to each other, and the relationship between which we want to measure and understand. On the contrary, qualitative research is all about the meaning and the lenses which different people have when they see the world, and we need to understand better the meanings which we employ to their messages and to the situations in which communication process happens.
So when we go on to the course, I want you to think whether this theory would be objective or interpretive. And as for your overall understanding, you can pick your favorites. What do you like? The best objective research? Or maybe it would be interpretive?
So as we already discussed, communication is quite a complicated process which has many particles, many variables, and many parts which we have to consider. We outline two big blocks of approaches within the theoretical background itself. This is interpretive theory and research, and objective theory research.
Let's now focus on the communication theory itself. I want here to talk about Robert Craig's seven traditions of communication theory. He starts with the notion that many, many definitions of communication exist. So how can we distinct and how can we divide these approaches into more or less homogenous parts?
Well, upon his classification, he divides seven traditions: cybernetic, socio-psychological, socio-cultural, critical, rhetorical, phenomenological, and semiotic. Each one of them sees communication differently, which is very important for your research and for your understanding of the process.
What would be the essence of communication? What would be the key point at which you want to focus? In order to find out the theory that fits the best particular situation, you need to understand what communication is for you in this particular context. So let's take a look at the first one.
Cybernetic traditions is communication as a sort of information processes. So here, we focus on the system, we focus at individuals or organizations and the channels which are used in order to transmit the message. Communication within this tradition is always goal-oriented, so we do have sender, receiver. And the sender has an initial goal before he creates the message and utilizes particular communication channel to transmit it or send it.
Still, what is received by the receiver and decoded initially is different from the sender's message. Well, at least it can be different. Still we see communication as a linear or more complex process, but it is about the channel and the noise which may appear, it might not appear within the communicative process.
Still, cybernetic tradition on the theories that lie within the field of this approach, they were the first one to outline the importance of the feedback. Which transformed the way we perceive communication from this linear sender receiver. But for the transactional, when we get the feedback, we can adapt our message and we can adapt our communication strategy itself.
Socio-psychological traditions sees communication as interpersonal interaction. It lies under this umbrella of behavioral approach, focusing on stimuli and reaction. So here, we speak about cause and effect relationships within the communicative process. It's all about expression, interaction, and influence.
We want to understand how different societies, how within the different societies each individual would respond to pretty much the same stimuli. So it originates in psychology and sociology, it tend to be quite objective. And the theorists from the socio-psychological tradition are quite objective.
So basically, they're seeking for universal laws which would be applicable throughout the human interaction and they would try to explain us how we can predict each or another relationship development within different context.
Socio-cultural tradition sees communication as symbolic process in reproduction or production of social order. It's all about context, culture, and social practices. So if we were focusing in the previous tradition at the level of an individual or a group in the way how would they respond to the different stimuli, here, we place an enormous importance on the context, and the way how the society operates itself.
So the social practices which are our everyday routines and the way how we understand and see the world, they are created due to the interaction. So individuals tend to talk to each other and while they are communicating, they create the shared meaning and the shared understanding on what the world is and what this particular situation is.
If you want to conduct your research within this particular tradition, you would want to focus at the practices of individuals, at culture, and at the context in which communication occurs.
Discoursive reflection is what communication for critical scholars. It all originated with the Frankfurt School of Thought, a group of German scholars operating soon after the Second World War. Language and ideology are two main focuses of the critical tradition, as scholars believe that the group who controls the language can actually be dominant within the given society.
What do we call different words? What do we call different things is the essential for the discoursive reflection, as we all live in this discourse which altogether is devoted or it can be reduced to our understanding of life.
So when I use the word democracy, what do I mean under this word? Do I mean just fair elections? Do I mean that there is some competition within the political elites? Or do I mean that there is an open dialog between publics and those who are in power?
So I can think of different ways. The first one is very instrumental as I see at electoral cycle and I see the institutions. And I mostly devote the word democracy and reduced the word democracy for this understanding of the formal structure.
In the second example, I would give the broader sense for the word democracy as it can be seen as an overall structure of the society and an attitude of people towards these institutions and towards these processes. So this difference is embedded into the discourse which is dominant within the society.
Ideology for critical scholars is also very important, as it's embedded and that it also reproduces through the different tools and through the different forms of media. That's why critical scholars are focusing on media itself as mass form of communication which transmits the ideology to the broader publics. And after all, this ideology through media becomes a part of the overall discourse.
So to understand communication, you should break this power balance and the imbalance relationship to understand who is in charge of this language creation.
When you come to the public presentations, you do use all your orative public speaking. This is rhetorical tradition, and it originates in ancient Greece as we know that the most of the important steps and important suggestions on the way how to structure your public speech were developed.
It's all about rhetoric, and the way how we can influence through verbal and nonverbal communication. So here, we talk about the different forms of communication, and it's completely different from all the other listed traditions.
Though it can be seen quite simple, it's very important and essential for the understanding of mass communication.
What is our experience and can we understand the experience of other? Can we really walk in other's shoes? This is the questions which were fundamental for the phenomenological tradition, as it says that communication process can be seen and perceived differently by different people.
So communication as experience of self and others through the dialog is a key focus of this tradition. We consider stem points and perceptions of different people in different situations within the given context.
So if we try to understand how the minority group, understand the reality and how do they conduct their communication? How do they navigate themselves through the communicative situation? We would better understand the consequences of side interactions.
Phenomenological traditions questioning rhetorics and semiotics. As the signs and symbols can be seen differently by people with different backgrounds, and rhetoric as the art of public speaking does not usually work the same different audiences.
The next tradition is semiotic, the one which was questioned by the previous tradition. So here, we speak about signs and symbols as communication seen as sharing meaning through system of signs.
What does it mean? It means that we all have some clues about the reality, and reality is not usually clearly spoken.
If we get into the conversation of two people who know each other quite well, we might not completely understand what's going on or we can misinterpret this conversation. Because these people would already have a list of already spokens. So they have special names and special different jargon for the situations and for the previous experiences they already have.
And us trying to understand what are the signs and what are the symbols within the interaction is quite essential and important.
Representation and transmission of the meaning is always given through the signs and symbols. As we take a look at the commercial and advertising, why do luxury brands have different styles compared to the regular food and products which we can see on the TV screens? Well, because they have different meaning and they want to send the message without actually naming it.
So decoding the signs which we see in all around the world and through the process of communication is the central and key focus of the semiotic tradition itself.
To summarize here a little bit, we do have seven traditions and each one of them sees communication differently: cybernetic tradition, it's all about the linear or not linear process but about the system through which we transmit our message; socio-psychological traditions, focusing at an individual and this behavioral aspect of his communicating practices; socio-cultural tradition would rely on the context and the culture and the way how do we reproduce this culture throughout the communication; critical tradition is all about ideology and discourse; rhetorical tradition is the art of public speaking; phenomenological tradition is focusing on the way how do we understand the experiences of other people and the experiences of the communication practices themselves; semiotic tradition, all about science and symbols which we can decode or which we will fail to decode, who knows?
So you can choose one of the traditions through which in particular situation communication would be seen in a best perspective. As this tradition is more like lens, as it helps us to focus on some essential characteristics of communicative process at a moment and neglect, but educatedly neglect the others.
So now let's summarize a little. Throughout this course, we think of communication as a process of meaning creation through interaction and symbolic exchange of messages within the different context. We'll think a theory as an abstract, thus very structured explanation of the reality through a set of mutually linked concepts. Yes, we will discuss different concepts and imply them into the big theory which describes the reality.
Also, we've been talking about this ongoing research cycle, between theory testing and theory building. Yes, it never stops and you are already a part of this even when you're working not on a scholarly theory, but on the common sense theory or on a working theory.
We need to keep in mind that there are two big groups of theories and research, interpretive and objective. Objective research is looking for the single truth, and interpretive research provides an interpretation, and sees the particular situations within given context through a certain lenses. It's focusing on creating, understanding and providing meaning to what's going on within the communicated situation, while objective research is looking for generalized laws and the relationship between variables, dependent and independent.
Along with the distinction between objecting and interpretive research, we would like to focus at seven traditions of Craig's topology within the communicative theory. We can see communication as a cybernetic processes, socio-psychological, sociocultural, critical, rhetorical, phenomenological and semiotic.
What I want you to do here is to think which approach is more related to use the recent situations you've been confused about some communicative problems which can be solved the use hr theory. How do you see communication, and what is the most important and valuable characteristic of communication process for you in personal?
And as we now know quite a lot about theory and approaches to the theories and approaches to the communication, we will move on to the next part of our course. So what's next? Well, we do have another eight classes upcoming and before I will tell you a little bit of each one, I want to tell you about the homework, yes, we will have a little bit of the homework.
Well, you've already noticed that there are some questions you have to answer within the course. So this is made in order for you to focus on the content and follow us as we will move on with our instructions and lectures. Also, we will have these discussion boards and Facebook group where you will be able to leave your comments, to provide a little bit of feedback, and ask questions for the instructors which we'll be very happy to answer.
Each week, we will have a long test, well, not very long, but it would be a test you would need to take in order to get the grade for this class. As well as sometimes we will do some writing, because writing is cool and writing is very helpful to understand what are you doing and to reflect a little bit because just speaking sometimes is not enough. So we will do a couple of essays that will be checked by your peers. So follow the content of our videos quite tightly so you can provide a fair grading for your classmates.
So what's definitely next? Next is week 2. Week 2 will be all about interpersonal communication, how do individuals interact with each other? How to build, how to maintain and how to develop the relationship to the proper level? What are the variables, what are the differences and what are the key points at which we should focus during this interpersonal communication? I am quite sure that with some recall to your previous experience and with some practice, this module will be able to enhance your interpersonal communication skills, and bring it up to the next level.
After which, it comes with the group communication. In this course, we would follow it from the very essential one to the larger one and more complicated. You definitely are studying or maybe you're working but you must be involved somehow in the group dynamic and the group work. So the week three devoted to the group communication will help us to answer the questions, how to make a tighter group, how to make a better decisions within this group, and what is the role of leadership in group work.
Week 4 is all about persuasion and public speaking. So we would not practice but we might, but we will think about the way how to build persuasive message and how to choose the channels very accurately so the message will reach the audience. It's not that simple as we can think about it, but it's a rather complex process. And it includes a lot of variables and characteristics. So rhetoric is not only about making a good speech or delivering this good speech, but rhetoric is also about the process which the process of delivery of this group speech.
After this, we talk about persuasion, and as a person who would like to be persuasive, we can step into the shoes of media and take a look how media is influencing us. So now as we know a little bit about persuasion, let's take a shoes of media and try see how media is influencing us and our reality. So in this part of the course, during the week five, we focus on the very early media effects. What happened when television and radio came to the agenda and how did it change the ways a user communicated first of all, and how the information dissemination actually restructured with the appearance of mass media?
After this we will discuss cultivation effect of media and the selectivity of our perception, in terms of media consumption. Well, here I would just go a little bit behind it. Yes, we are being very selective in our media consumption, which means that we tend to focus on the media sources we already agree with. And we try to avoid all the sources which would provide the alternative. Does it really happen, how to avoid it, and is audience really passive and can be effective? We will answer all these questions during this week five.
Still, media would lead us closely to the social media. We decided to put it as a separate week, as social media comes along with the big transformation of the society. And we discuss the concept of network society during the week six. We'll talk about online communities and user engagement, how to make it work, and does it really substitute our offline communities or not.
As public relations appeared to be the field where communication is one of the essential focuses, we'll talk a little bit about the PR theories. If you're not a PR practitioner, you might still be interested in the PR week, because PR as public relations, it worked a little bit of promotion can be applicable for an individual level. Anyway, here we move from the level of the individual to the communication between organization. And in public relations it's all about relationship building on just a little bit different scale. So we discussed how the approaches to PR have changed, how companies communicate with each other, and how to make persuasive as well as ethical public relation campaigns. These are the questions and the objectives of the week six.
Moving on, we would focus on critical tradition. You've already cashed a little bit of critical, it's all about ideology in this course. Yes, it's quite complicated, but we are quite sure that thinking about the ideology and thinking a little bit more abstract level we can understand better the parts of communication within the society. That's why we are focusing on critical tradition and we will spend an additional week to go through it.
Week 9, as the last in summarizing one, is devoted to summary and applying this theory to practice. In the ninth week, we try to bring up as many examples from the real-life as it possible, so we can explain once again why communication matters. How to use communication theory, and what is the importance of this communication theory in your life and professional life.
Even though each chapter, each block of this course would be finalized with some sort of research or some practical example, how do we apply one particular theory within the research, throughout the research? On a real life case, we want to bring you more examples as we want and this is one of the most ambitious goals of ours during this course to reach academia and practice.
So welcome to the course and I am really excited about what's going to happen next. See you next week.
Hi, last week we talked about theory in communication, communication in general. And this week, we will focus on interpersonal communication. We will define interpersonal communication, why is it important, understand interpersonal communication through theory and we will discuss a case study which will show you how interpersonal communication can be looked at and how we can apply it further on.
Everyday we are involved in the most common human activity, interacting with others or interpersonal communication. We head off to work and on the way greet those who we meet. We talk with people at work. We discuss our personal issues and concerns with family or friends. We talk with different people while shopping, doing errands, going to the doctor, or taking trip. This multiple encounters differ from day to day but they all underscore that interpersonal communication is an integral part of our lives.
With some persons, we engage in a conversation easily, without a second thought. With others, we find it difficult, intimidating or problem laden and stressful and try to avoid it. Sometimes, we don't know what to say, how to say, or when to say it. Sometimes, we fail to get our message across, which is common by the way, and feel that he or she does not understand me. In some conversations, we find it difficult to listen because of the content, or the manner which the message is presented or we feel frustrated because others do not respond as we expect or pay no attention to what we have to say. These are just a few common problems we experience in interpersonal interactions.
Although, many people commonly believe that they are good communicators. Interpersonal communication is a very, very, very complex issue and each of us can always learn how to better manage it. In this part of the course, you will see how theory and research associated with interpersonal communication will inform you in understanding this complex process. You will also learn a number of important concepts and skills that you can apply to your interaction with others to make it more effective.
So let's define interpersonal communication. We will refer to it as IPC further on in our lecture. In communication theory, IPC has been defined in multiple ways. Some scholars emphasize that it occurs between two individuals when they are able to provide immediate feedback. Others emphasize it's personalized, it occurs between people who are more than acquaintances. Some other authors emphasize a goal approach. We engage in IPC to achieve personal goals through interactions with others.
For the purpose of this course, we will highlight the following characteristics of IPC. It's a special form of human communication. It's different from mass communication which you will study later on in the course. Dyadic involves interaction between two individuals who mutually influence each other. The fundamental means people use to construct, negotiate, and manage their relationships. Although IPC often takes place in the relationships, it can well happen in other social encounters, which do not necessarily imply a long term relationship.
It takes place in different contexts, for example family, personal relationships, workplace, social media; involves different degrees of impersonal communication. Some interaction may be more superficial and impersonal. Consider for example you talk with the receptionist while letting her know that you arrived for an appointment. At Other times, we talk to people on the much deeper level, show more emotional involvement and closeness. Impersonal-personal are two extremes of that continuum. Most of our conversations fail somehow in between or along some points of this continuum.
Meaning is central to IPC. Meaning is understanding meanings expressed verbally and non-verbally, and understanding the meaning, making it cooperative mutual process. Interpersonal communication is the process of message transaction, verbal, non-verbal that occurs between two interdependent persons. Normally, within the context of their relationship, and that as it evolves, helps them to define and negotiate their relationship.
So let's move on. The importance of interpersonal communication. There are several points that we have to mention. Affects our physical and emotional health. What that means? IPC is crucial for and in our relationship. It's always to establish, improve, support, or terminate our relationships, not only with the family or friends or significant others but also at work and at school. When relationship go wrong in marriage, it's normally communication or miscommunication, that the couples see as a problem and the major factor for divorce. Research has also shown that using your IPC skills may improve your performance in the classroom. You all know that.
Second point, it affects our relationships. Third point, it satisfies our identity needs. We establish who we are, understand who we are through communication with others, satisfies our identities needs, and it satisfies our spiritual needs as well. What do we mean by spiritual needs? Through IPC, we express and validate our beliefs, value, and world view.
It also serves instrumental needs. Serves mental needs, what it means? We use communication to get things done. Consider for example manager-employee, teacher-student, or doctor-patient communication.
So, let's summarize. Why IPC is important for interpersonal communication? First, it affects our physical and emotional health. Second, it affects our relationships with family, friends, colleagues, et cetera. Third, it satisfies our identity needs. Fourth, satisfies our spiritual needs. And the last, it serves instrumental needs.
So now, we have discussed or more correctly, defined what is interpersonal communication. So let's move onto the theory.
So let's discuss politeness theory. It was developed by social linguists Brown and Levinson. The theory explains how people use politeness strategies to manage their own and others' identities through interpersonal communication. Why don't we just always say what we mean in the most direct and efficient way? How do we explain and when and how we employ indirect strategies instead? And how those strategies are interpreted by our conversation partners?
The theory builds on the work by Erving Goffman, especially his notion of face and facework, and explains when, why, and how interpersonal interactions are constructed through politeness. In his dramaturgical approach, Goffman argued that human interaction is similar to the theater. There are different scenes with different actors and different audiences. And while interacting with different people, we tend to wear different masks to either highlight or minimize different aspects to our interpersonal communication. It does not suggest that we as individuals appear to be fake, rather that we choose to reveal different aspects of who we are in different situations and with different people. The theory helps to better understand the modern concept of multiple selves or multiple identities and to how those selves are created and enacted through communication. All individuals are concerned with maintaining the face.
So let's look at the basic assumptions and concepts of politeness theory. Face is your desired self-image, the identity you wish to present to others. Think about your interaction with different people in your life. What kind of image would you like to project to your parents, siblings, younger nieces or nephews, friends or coworkers, or the boss for that matter when you are at work, at home, or at play? How different are those images or identities?
There are two dimensions to the concept of face. Positive face is a person's need to be liked and appreciated by certain persons. Negative face is a person's desire to act freely without constraints and impositions from others, to be autonomous and unrestricted. Your interactional partners also have self-images they want to maintain. Your old face needs may conflict with your partner's face needs, which affects our relationships again, with family, friends, colleagues. Each party needs others to help to uphold the desired image. The conversational face occurs as a mutual collaborative work in the conversation. It's a dance between two parties.
Some behaviors may be face-threatening. Common behaviors that endanger someone's face are called face-threatening acts, FTA. The most common communication FTA strategies are apologies, compliments, requests, criticisms, and threats. Politeness theory clarifies how, when, and what strategies are used to uphold one's own face to maintain or threaten the face of others.
Facework is a specific message or strategies people use to prevent or minimize FTA. What it involves? Preventive facework strategies include avoiding certain topics, changing the subject, pretending not to notice an FTA. Corrective facework strategies include avoidance, humor, apologies, accounts, and explanations of inappropriate behavior.
Politeness theory identifies five suprastrategies of facework, from the most polite and least direct to least polite and most direct. Let's look closely at each of them.
Avoidance is not to communicate in the way that would create embarrassment or a loss of face for another.
Going off-record is a hint or indirect mention of a face-threatening topic, thereby minimizing any face-threat. For example, while talking to the neighbor, I'm going to be out of town for the next week. I really don't want how my flowers will survive all this time without water, hinting that the neighbor would volunteer to take care of your flowers.
Negative politeness is when the speaker makes an effort to recognize the other's negative face need, the need to feel free and unrestricted, and recognizes that by committing FTA, he or she creates discomfort and potential restriction by the other. For example, I'm terribly sorry to ask and how that is at least a minute, but could you please do this for me? I know this is really inconvenient for you, I wouldn't ask if it were not really important. This is like a mumbling, and this is exactly the negative politeness.
Positive politeness is when the speaker emphasizes the receiver's need for positive face, need to be liked, using flattering and compliments to camouflage an FTA. For example, you are so knowledgeable on the subject, I feel like I could count on you 100%. Would you take on this project? Funny, isn't it?
And the last, bald-on-record, the speaker makes no attempt to butter up and simply commits the FTA. I expect you do this for me. Will you for me?
Each of these FTA strategies has positive and negative consequences. For example, a direct bald-on-record approach may get you what you want, but may cost you your own positive face in the process. So think, what would be pros and cons of other FTA strategies? Think of your own situation of using them and what were the consequences? So let's summarize. Each of these FTA strategies has positive and negative consequences, as we said. Politeness theory predicts that because individuals typically commit FTA to achieve a desired goal, they will not use strategies that are more polite than necessary.
Let's move on. Let's talk about factors that influence politeness strategies. According to politeness theory, people choose to decide how polite to be according to the following factors. Prestige: if someone has a higher prestige, you will be more polite. If someone has little or no prestige over you, you need not to be so polite. Power: if someone has power over you and you are dependent on them, you will be more polite than with other person who has little power over you. Risk: if what you are going to say to someone is going to hurt them or create difficulties, you will tend to be more polite. If it's not likely to hurt, you need not to be so polite.
Remember, understanding of face, positive and negative, varies across cultures, specific relationships, and even among individuals. When making a decision to commit an FTA, consider its consequences in relation to the context, culture and individual who may be a potential FTA target.
We are closing our conversation about politeness strategy and moving to another one
So, let's move on. Let's talk about Social Exchange Theory, SET.
Social Exchange Theory is a group of theories that calculate the rewards and cost of personal relationships. SET presents a broad constellation of theories originated in the fields of psychology, sociology, and cultural anthropology in the 1950's and 60's. The idea that interpersonal interaction is guided by calculation of costs and the rewards is central to theories of social exchange. Communication scholars quickly adapted the exchange principles, particularly in the study of interpersonal relationships.
There are two variations of SET are particularly well-known in the field of interpersonal communication: Interdependence Theory and Equity Theory. And these are two theories we are going to look at further on.
So, to summarize a little bit, social exchange theory rooted in economics, costs and benefits, psychology, the concept of self-interest and interdependence, behavioral psychology, rewards and punishments, and sociology, rational choice theory. SET predicts and explains relationship maintenance, when and why individuals continue and develop some relationships while ending others. And of course, there are two variations of SET.
Let's look at basic assumptions of SET. By nature, humans are selfish, motivated to interact with others in ways that serve their self interests. People want to make the most of the benefits while lessening the costs. This is known as the minimax principle. Personal relationships are a function of comparing benefits gained versus costs to receive those benefits.
Let's look at example. A simple example of social exchange theory can be seen in the interaction of asking someone out on a date. If the person says yes, you have gained a reward and are likely to repeat the interaction by asking that person out again, or by asking someone else. On the other hand, if you ask someone out on a date and they reply no, no way, then you have received a punishment that will probably cause you to shy away from repeating this type of interaction with the same person in the future, or more seriously, with others in general.
Now, we have looked at the example. However, many critique this theory for presuming that people always make rational decisions, and point out that this theoretical model fails to capture the power that the emotions play in our daily lives and in our interactions with others. This theory also undercuts the power of social structures and forces, which unconsciously shape our perception of the world, and our experiences within it, and play a strong role in shaping and interactions with others.
Now, we have discussed SET, Social Exchange Theory. And next time, we'll move to Interdependence Theory.
Let's talk about interdependence theory, IT. Don't mix up with IT as IT. Interdependence theory, alternatives and comparison levels. Interdependence means that in social relationship, each person's outcomes or rewards are influenced by another person's efforts.
Let's look at basic concepts and propositions of IT. Social relationships bring both rewards and costs. We seek relationships in which benefits outweigh costs. Relational rewards, those are any benefits we see as enjoyable, companionship, affection, understanding and support, shared money. Relationship costs, those are drawbacks we perceive as unpleasant or that prevent us from pursuing our interests and goals. Having to put up with in-laws, losing independence, sacrificing one's own interests. Just think, how do your friendships benefit you emotionally, materially or in any other way? Can you make a list describing costs and benefits in your relationships with the close friends? Usually we think about friendships, non-costly relationships but this is not what the theory says.
Rewards-Costs=Outcome. People make mental notes of their rewards and costs associated with their relationship. The ratio of the rewards and costs in a given relationship determines the outcome value of relationship. If we perceive that the rewards outweigh costs, the relationship has a positive outcome value. If we perceive the relationship to produce more drawbacks than benefits, it will result in a negative outcome value.
The outcome value is not enough to predict if we will stay in or leave a relationship. But it becomes a benchmark we use to measure our relational rewards in comparison to our expectations and alternatives.
Let's look at comparison level. Comparison level is our realistic expectation of what we deserve from a relationship. What we should be receiving if your partner forgets about your birthday again, you might start contemplating, why am I still with him or her? Expectations may be based on one's previous experience with relationships, more those of relationships, partners or friends, all media representations of relationships.
IT predicts outcome more than comparison level, outcome less than comparison level. If you perceive more rewards than costs in your current relationship and this matches or exceeds your expectations for the relationship, it results in your satisfaction, outcome more than comparison level. If you perceive more rewards than costs in your current relationship but expected to receive even more rewards than you currently have, it produces a sense of dissatisfaction, outcome less than comparison level.
IT recognizes that simply determining one's satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a relationship is still not enough to predict whether the relationship will last or end. Individuals make decisions to continue or end the relationship based on how they perceive their alternatives. What are your alternatives to stay in the relationship? Is anything getting better or worse than the current situation?
Furthermore, comparison level of alternatives (CLalt), comparison level of alternatives is our assessment of how our current relationship compares to our other options, what we could be receiving. For example, outcome equals comparison level and equals comparison level alternatives. Second, comparison level alternatives is more than outcome and more than comparison level. Only when individuals have knowledge of all three elements, outcome, comparison level, comparison level alternatives. It is possible to make a prediction about the state and status of the relationship.
IT predicts that only when we receive or you receive your alternatives to be greater than your outcome and greater than your comparison level, you will end the relationship. Even if satisfied with the relationship, you may perceive that your alternatives are even better. You will terminate the relationship. This is represented mathematically by formula, as we mentioned before.
To illustrate the utility of interaction-based analysis, imagine two scenarios for John and Mary who are deciding where to spend their summer vacation. In one scenario, their interest conflict. John wants to go to a beach resort and Mary wants to go to Rome. In this type of situation, each person will seek to explain his other preference. I need the excitement of Rome and each will engage in cognitive activity oriented towards understanding the other's needs. Does John want to relax because he had a stressful year? The situation makes it possible for each person to display his or her goals and motives, self-centered versus pro-social. Communication and information seeking will center on each person's needs, goals and motives in relation to those of the partner. Whose needs are more pressing? Will Mary be responsive to my needs? The two may rely on fairness norms to resolve their problem. It is my turn or you deserve a break. Thus situations involving conflicting interests are interpersonally rich, affording psychological processes such as self-presentation and attributional activity and activating morality.
In the second scenario, John and Mary's interest correspond. Both want Rome as a destination or vacation. Neither is likely to be particularly concerned with information seeking self-presentation or attribution as there is no problem and nothing to think about. It is not possible for either person to display benevolent motives because the course of action that would benefit John simultaneously benefits Mary. Not difficult to see here, they entail coordination to enjoy the good outcome that are readily available to the pair.
This scenario is very simply illustrate an important claim. The field of communication would benefit from a situation based on the standing of interaction and analysis. But examines each person's need, cognition and motives in relation to one another and the context of the situation in which the interaction.
Let's move on, let's talk about equity theory. Equity theory predicts that a good relationship is one in which a person's ratio of costs and rewards is equal to that of a person's partner. Based on the Adams notion of distributed justice, people think and act so that the rewards are distributed in accordance with their efforts. Equity is thought of as fairness in the distribution of costs and rewards. For example, I cook the dinner, you do the dishes. Equity theory focuses on determining whether the distribution of resources is fair to both relational partners. Propositions and concepts of equity theory: ET suggests we seek relationships in which our ratio of costs and benefits is the same as our partner's. ET proposes that individuals who perceive themselves as either under-rewarded or over-rewarded will experience distress, and that this distress leads to efforts to restore equity within their relationship.
There are three types of (in)equity in the relationship. First, you consider whether your ratio of rewards to cost is equal to your partner's ratio. For example, if one person contributes a great deal to the relationship and the other contributes little, then even if the first person may feel the relationship is rewarding, (in)equity occurs and yields dissatisfaction. Second, you consider your exchange relationship that you and your partner have with a third individual. For example, when you and your classmate engage in a group project and you do most of the work and your partner does little but you both receive the same grade, you will perceive the distribution of rewards as unfair. Third, you compare your relationship to others in similar circumstances. When individuals find themselves participating in equitable relationships, they become distressed. The more (in)equitable the relationship, the more distressed individuals feel.
According to Equity theory, both the person who gets too much and the person who gets too little feel distressed. Underbenefited means giving more to the relationship than you are receiving and may feel angry or humiliated. Overbenefited means receiving more from the relationship than you are giving and may feel guilt or shame. There are, of course, ways of managing those types of situations and we're going to look closely at them. One may restore equity by changing your actions, changing your perceptions of rewards and costs, turning your costs into rewards. It's cognitive distortion. There are ways of managing (in)equitable relationships. Let's discuss. You may restore equity by changing your actions, changing your perception of rewards and costs, turning your costs into rewards, and simply ending the relationship.
When we talk about changing your actions, for example, you may not put so much effort into your relationship or convince your partner into putting more effort. Changing your perception of rewards and costs, turning your costs into rewards. You might change your attitude: "I have to do grow serious all the time, but it's good exercise for me and I can always buy things that I like." This is changing your perception. Ending the relationship: well, that's clear, I guess.
How do we apply ET Theory? Apart from personal relationships, ET has been widely applied to business settings, to dyadic relationships between employee and employer. Among other justice theories, equity theory was the first who asserted that employees seek to maintain equity between the inputs that they bring to the job and the outcomes that they receive from it against the perceived inputs and outcomes of others.
Until now, we have discussed different aspects of social exchange theory. But of course, there are pros and cons of SET. For example, there are ongoing debates that talk about the degree to which SET can account for human behavior. And there are common critiques. People are not necessarily self-serving. People are not as rational as SET seems to portray them. Predictive value: SET is a post-positivistic, logical-empirical social scientific approach and largely rests on propositions that can be tested. Its primary purpose is to predict and explain behavior. As such, it has a fairly high predictive value. Heuristic value: SET prompted further investigations and generated extensive amounts of research, which is good. Practical value: SET has been useful in understanding social relationships in general. There are a lot of situations, wide and small, that we are discussing.
Social Exchange Theory has been useful in understanding social relationships. For example, why people may stay in abusive relationships, no alternatives, or why they choose to disclose personal information to some people and conceal it from others. Costs and benefits to ratio recently has been applied to study family dynamics. For example, costs and benefits of adaptation. Now, we have finished discussing the main aspects of Social Exchange Theory and we'll look into a detailed case study.
So far, we have discussed different aspects of social exchange theory, but how is it really applied in everyday life? We're going to look at the case study which we called a student asking for concession.
There is a situation: a professor is teaching an online course in interpersonal communication. In this course, every week, students are expected to submit assignments on the topic that they studied during the week. A deadline is setup for submitting each assignment. Most students in this class know that taking an online course requires consistent self-discipline and strong time management skills. Also, the course follows what is known as no makeup policy. Late submissions are not accepted.
There are no makeups, as it is stated in the course syllabus. Late assignments will be assigned the grade of zero, unless a student has received prior approval from the professor. If a student has a problem that prevents the student from submitting an assignment on time, the student should contact the professor immediately. The professor will determine the seriousness of the problem and whether it warrants an extension on the assignment. Unless absolutely unavoidable, students need to contact their instructor before missing the deadline, not after. Instructors have the right to decline accepting work for any credit after deadline passes with a few specific exceptions, including but not limited to: if there is an outage of the college internal system that is verified by Central System administrators; if the student has documentation of serious illness or death of a family member, instructors will work with the student to determine an alternative deadline.
Although every student is expected to read, understand, and follow the syllabus, some students still made attempts to submit assignments after the deadline. After having received several late submissions, the professor posted a new announcement on the course page, emphasizing the need for everyone to follow the same rules. Shortly after that, the student contacted the professor by email. It read, "Good afternoon Professor. I am writing to inform you that I wasn't able to submit my assignments on time this weekend due to my transportation and access to Internet failing me. I've completed the assignments and just hope there is any way that I could receive some credit for my missing work from September 17. I understand that there is a huge inconvenience to your time. Please let me know if there's anything that will possible that I could do to make up these points. Please get back to me as soon as you are able."
Well, the professor has to decide how to react. On the one hand, the student sounds fairly vague about the situation. "Due to my transportation and access to Internet failing me." The student does not provide a clear explanation of all of the circumstances. After all, the student could have called the professor to discuss the circumstances personally. Plus, the students in the class have already tried to overcome the rules and submit after the deadline, which in the professor's view sets up an unwanted repetitive pattern and had to be changed. On the other hand, the student sounds fairly polite and considered what would be the best response.
There are several questions for consideration: what are the student's face needs in this situation? What kind of face-threatening (FT) strategies does the student use? Considering this type of relationship, what factors influence the choice of the student's politeness strategies? What are the professor's face needs in this situation? Using social exchange theory, assess the costs and rewards in this teacher-student relationship. How can you apply it to this relationship? Assess costs and rewards associated with the professor's decision, whether to accept the late submission or to reject it. Can you predict what the professor's decision would be?
So what do you think the professor's decision was? Well, I'll tell you. The professor rejected the submission. Whether it was right or not, that's for another theory, but that was the case. So to summarize, throughout this case, we summarized the main aspects of politeness theory, but what are the other theories we covered in this lecture? Throughout this lecture, we covered social exchange theory which is based on interdependence and equity theory with the main assumption of people being pretty selfish while maintaining interpersonal relationships, constantly weighing the costs and benefits. What does it mean for us as communicators? Interpersonal communication is a very initial level of human interaction and that occurs every day.
So now, with all the knowledge acquired, you may rethink your everyday approach to such interactions. Make the most thoughtful, pleasant, and meaningful interactions for both parties engaged. And that happens in various contacts at home, at work, and in public spheres.
Welcome to the week three of our communication theory course. Now, as you know quite a lot about interpersonal communication, we can move to the next step and focus on how communication is managed within the groups. This week we will focus on field theories, discuss the role of leadership, and the process of group decision-making. So let's start. People have the tendency to live in groups. Consequently, group communication is a vital part of our life. Involuntarily, all human beings belong to one or more groups. Do you remember the numerous groups to which you belong? You engage in group communication in your family, social movements, sports team, or MOOC. Groups help us to complete a wide variety of tasks. The knowledge of this course can increase your satisfaction of group communication.
What is group communication? It is the exchange of information and the symbols to achieve shared meaning among group members over a period of time. It is generally perceived that people can achieve more by working in groups with others than they can by working on their own, mentioned Vladimir Gritsenko in 2015. For example, people who participate in brainstorming groups report that they have been more productive than those who work alone. There are three primary sociological perspectives for starting groups. The functionalist perspective is a big picture, macro level view that looks at how different aspects of society are intervened. The critical perspective is another macro analytical view, one that focuses on the genesis and growth of inequality. The symbolic interactionist, this method of analyzing groups takes a micro level view. Instead of studying the big picture, these researchers look at the day-to-day interactions of groups, studying these details. The interactionists looks at issues like leadership style, communicative interactions, and group dynamics.
Of course, every time people gather, they do not necessarily form a group. An audience assembled to watch a street performer is a one-time random gathering. Conservative-minded people who come together to vote in an election are not a group because the members do not necessarily interact with one another with some frequency. Interestingly, people within the aggregate or category can become a group. During disasters, people in a neighborhood, an aggregate who did not know each other, might become friendly and depend on each other at the local shelter. After the disaster ends and the people go back to simply living near each other, the feeling of cohesiveness may last, since they have all shared an experience.
It is difficult to define exactly when a small group becomes a large group. For instance, the ice bucket challenge as a cultural movement united many people across the globe. On the other hand, there are examples when large groups may share a geographic space. An example, nationalist movements are formed by a group identity based on a common language, history, culture, ethnicity or religion. As we know, similarity breeds connection. Hence, it is forming groups. Let's observe key theories where the concept of similarity is central and which give us a deeper understanding of group communication.
Theory of social comparison posited that people would use a reference group, those who are similar to them in various ways. Festinger assumes that we have a need to compare our opinions and abilities with others, particularly if there are no objective standards that we can refer to. Simon Berkovich and Moyer in 1970 distinguished between two dimensions of a message, sources similarity membership and attitudinal similarity. Attitude similarity accounts for one of the reasons we find some people more appealing than others to interact with when others have similar economic, political, and social views. For example, we are more likely to enjoy interacting with them, mentioned Cohen in 2001.
There are two types of similarity, attitude similarity and membership similarity. In attitude similarity, we find some people more appealing than others and more likely to enjoy interacting with them when others have similar social views, economic, and political. Membership similarities created through personal experiences or affiliations with groups, references to social and demographic characteristics. There are motivation of involvement into group. Interpersonal attraction is any force of pairing intensity that draws an individual to another person, including the tendency to move closer to him or her cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally. This leads people to think, feel, and act positively towards someone.
Personal need for affiliation, meaning, or identity, many individuals find their work satisfying in part because it provides them with affiliation and identity in work groups. Since most of us spend more time working than we do pursuing any other individual activity, it makes sense that we come to identity a part of ourselves with it and enjoy it. Organizations spend a great deal of time and energy trying to learn our identity with their group goals and objectives. Groups, whether social or work related, offer affiliation, meaning, and identity to our lives.
Another motivation for involvement into the group is commitment to group goals and activities. Groups have reasons, purposes, and goals for existing that draw us to them. This can range from saving the world to changing the grading system, to finding a new method for marketing a product. Another one is assignment to the group by someone else. We do not always have the option of deciding for ourselves which group we will join. For instance, a leader of the group might assign you a role within that, you find not identify or select for yourself.
There are following key parameters of groups: size, member interdependence, task, group norms, and shared identity. Size also affects communication within the group. In terms of size, the more people in the group, the more issues with scheduling and coordination of communication. Interdependence means groups exhibit interdependence, meaning they share a common purpose and a common faith. It becomes a group when the members are interdependent to the point of each being impacted by the group process. For example, a family sitting around the dinner table discussing family matters or reviewing the day's activities constitutes a small group because of the interdependence.
On the other hand, when a disengaged set of family members sitting together in silence in front of the television set may not constitute a group. Group members are interdependent and coordinate their efforts to accomplish a common task. For instance, they may discuss a topic, write a report, create a new design or prototype. A group norm is perceived as a rule that group adopts to regulate members' behavior. A number of experiments have illustrated how strong the drive to conform group norms can be. It is worth considering how group norms can impact on how group members reach their decision.
The shared identity of a group manifests in several ways. Groups have official characters or mission and a vision statement that lay out the identity of a group. For example, the shared identity of Red Cross as a humanitarian network is formed by one central purpose: to help those who suffer without discrimination, whether during conflict, in response to natural or man-made disasters, or due to conditions of chronic poverty. Shared identity can also be exhibited through group names, slogans, songs, handshakes, clothing, or other symbols.
Let's talk about types of groups. Each type of group can be characterized by the kind of communication that takes place within it. There are many types of groups. By the most common distinction made between types of groups is that of task-oriented and relational-oriented groups. Task-oriented groups are formed to solve a problem, promote the cost, or generate ideas or information. Relational-oriented groups are formed to promote interpersonal connections and are more focused on quality interactions that contribute to the well-being of group members. Relational communication holds the group together. Some people concentrate on getting the job done, while others are much more concerned about relationship within the group.
Team, an ongoing task-oriented group working together, loyal and dedicated to the task and other group members. Teams differ from other types of groups in that members are focused on a joined goal. The purpose for assembling a team is to accomplish more complex goals. For instance, to make an airplane engine. That's not all groups or teams, but all teams are qualified as a group.
Sociologist Charles Horton Cooley suggested that groups can broadly be divided into two categories: primary groups and secondary groups. According to Cooley, primary groups may play the most critical role in our lives. The primary group is usually made up of significant others, those individuals who have the most impact on our socialization. The best example of a primary group is the family. We also interact in many secondary groups, which are characterized by the less frequent face to face interactions, less emotional and relational communication, and more task-related communication than primary groups. For instance, secondary groups are place of employment, classroom, or office.
Let's look at in-group and out-group. An in-group is the group that an individual feels he or she belongs to and believes it is to be an integral part of who he or she is. An out-group, conversely, is a group someone doesn't belong to. Often, there may be feelings of disdain or competition in relation to an out-group. Sports teams, unions, and secret societies are examples of in-groups and out-groups. People may belong to or be an outsider to any of these.
A reference group is a group that people compare themselves to. It provides a standard of measurement. People compare themselves to what they see. Adults, teens, or children pay attention to what music their peers like, what they wear, what they do with their free time. Most of us have more than one reference group. For instance, a middle school girl might look at not only her classmates but also at her older sister's friends and see a different set of norms. Some other examples of reference groups can be one's workplace, one's culture center, or family gathering.
Let's move on and talk about group culture. Cultural dimension of groups is of special interest among communication scholars. Social identity theory and leadership theories provide meaningful view on cultural patterns in group communication.
First, we will cover the social identity theory. Social identity theory asserts: part of our sense of identity and self-esteem is partially derived from groups with which they affiliate. Thus, individuals are motivated to assimilate into a group they believe the alliance is valuable to their desired projected personal identity. SIT assumes that we show all kinds of group behavior such as solidarity within our groups and discrimination against all groups as a part of social identity processes with the aim to achieve positive self-esteem and self enhancement.
Let's talk about cultural identity salience. Cultural identity salience is defined as current emotional or values significance to affiliation with a group. It means that groups are not of the same importance at the same time for individuals. For instance, a rock concert for entertainment option fits to certain social categories you belong to such as single and young. That categories will become salient while you make surfing particular website.
There are two types of identity, personal identity (I) and social identity (We). When the personal identity identified as I is predominant, the needs, behaviors, beliefs, and motivations of the individual are what condition they behave. On the other hand, when social identity identified as we is predominant, behavior is derived from self-categorization over the individual as a member of a group, meaning that they behave in accordance with the group's identifying characteristics. However, both identities personal and social can be presented as called dominant as well.
Let's talk about four-step mental process involved in evaluating others. Social categorization is providing the individual with a systematic means of defining others. It is cognitive process of ordering and segmentation of the social environment. We categorize people into groups to simplify our understanding of the world into structured social interaction. For instance, we use category such as punk or skater to describe groups with a similar and specific clothing style and habits. And we have certain expectations, hopes and fears about people's belonging to social categories.
Social comparison is activated by social categorization. The aim of social comparison in terms of SIT is to evaluate the social groups in which we and others belong. To define an individual's place in society, social categorizations are evaluated in comparison with other groups. SIT assumes that we not only categorize ourselves and others but that we evaluate the groups to get an idea of the superiority or inferiority of our group and of how reasonable and adequate all belonging to it is. We compare it with other groups, their characteristics, members, and benefits. The concept is based on the Festinger theory of social comparison. Festinger assumes that we have a need to compare our opinions and abilities with others particularly if there are no objective standards that we can refer to.
Social Identity. What is it? For example, a student of Higher School of Economics may define herself in terms of the group with which she classifies herself like, "I'm a student. I'm Russian. I'm a woman." She perceives herself as an actual or symbolic member of the group and she perceives the faith of the group as her own. As such, social identification provides a particular answer to the question, who am I?
Self-esteem is the motivation underlying inter-group behavior. SIT suggest a fundamental individual motivation for self-esteem. In his early work, Tajfel stated that the motivation underlying positive social identity is to preserve the integrity of the self-image and later he assumed that the main drive is to reach self-enhancement. In terms of the SIT, the need for positive self-esteem is satisfied by a positive relation of one's own group. If a group membership is crucial to one's self-concept, football club membership to a professional player, social comparisons should lead to positive social distinctiveness and enhance self-esteem.
There are three strategies to reach positive social identity. Social mobility is a strategy used by individuals to produce positive social identity by either leaving one's group to move up the status hierarchy, in the case of subordinate group members, or endorsing limited assimilation of lower status group, in the case of those in dominant groups. Social mobility for instance, is represented one subordinate group members abandoning their language in favor of dominant group languages.
Social competition manifests one subordinate group engaging in linguistic revival movements. Welsh, Catalan, Hawaiian, and dominant groups that implement mass arrests and beatings of those in subordinate groups in the most extreme case, genocide.
Social creativity, those in subordinate groups utilize such defense mechanisms as recasting and negative distinctions into positive one. Black is beautiful, to compare themselves with members of dominant groups. Those in dominant groups are most likely to pursue social creativity when they have status but not power.
Optimal distinctiveness theory (ODT). Individuals are motivated to identify with the groups that provide an optimal balance between the need for assimilation and the need food differentiation. There are some important statements of the ODT, individuals continuously take corrective actions to maintain an optimal compromise between the need to be similar and the need to be different. When one feels sufficiently differentiated and assimilated, they reach a contented state of equilibrium. Members of distinct minority groups were more satisfied and identified more with their in-group than members of non-distinct majority groups. Consequently, in-group loyalty as well as trust are most effectively engaged by smaller, distinctive groups.
Let's move to Role of Leadership. One of the most studied issue of group culture is leadership. Leadership is commonly viewed as a form of social influence. Groups need leaders to keep them stable and encourage to achieve a goal.
Leadership occurs in groups. Groups are the context in which leadership takes place. Leadership involves influencing a group of individuals who have a common purpose. This can be a small task group, a community group, or a large group encompassing an entire organization. Leadership is about one individual influencing group of others to accomplish common goals. Others, a group, are required for leadership to occur. Leadership training programs that reach people to lead themselves are not considered a part of leadership within the definition that is set forth in this discussion.
For example, in an art gallery or organic food shop is likely to expect collaborative decision making and leadership. A small group is formed within the context of such democratic organizations would be influenced by the more extensive and open communication.
Manufactured organizations are traditionally autocratic, interactions are top-down, hierarchical. It leads to formal leadership style when the group leader makes the final decisions but does not include team members in the decision making process.
Less faire system is likely to find within educational institutions. Less faire leader gives group members freedom to self manage and reach and implement their own decisions. An example of this kind of leader might be a teacher who conducts open book exam, leaves materials on the shelves, and tell students to help themselves.
There are types of leadership emergence. In general, some people gravitate more towards leadership roles than others. Designated leaders are officially recognized in their leadership role and may be appointed or elected by people inside or outside the group. Designated leaders can be especially successful when they are sought out by others to fulfill and then accept it in leadership roles. On the other hand, some people seek out leadership positions not because they possess leadership skills and have been successful leaders in the past, but because they have a drive to hold and willpower.
Many groups are initially leaderless and must either designate a leader or wait for one to emerge organically. Emergent leaders gain status and respect through engagement with the group. And its task turn to be others as a resource when leadership is needed. Emergent leaders may play an important role when a designated leader unexpectedly leaves. There are some factors that increase chance to become a leader, which are communication skills and competency, traits, and of course, the situation. The situation, one might say, luck.
What are the roles of a leader in the development of a group? Let's go through them. In the forming stage, the leader must look assert and execute certainly in order to help groups members find their places, create a positive atmosphere, and provide space for communication and interaction.
The leader can guide the group through the storming stage by giving the group practical tasks that help to establish relationships and clarify roles. The leader should show confidence because the stage can get rather emotional.
If a group has reached the performing stage, the leader can step aside and limit his or her role in facilitating the process, thus further strengthening the group's ability to work autonomously, present the group with new perspectives in order to provide the group with further opportunities to develop.
In adjourning or reframing stage, the leader has to provide methods and tools for evaluating what has been done and for readjusting or setting new aims.
In this lecture, we have studied the cultural dimension of group communication. We have observed social identity theory, optional distinct in this theory, and basics of leadership theory. They are important to understand how cultural context, cultural background, social status, position in an organisation, etc., influences in in-group and intergroup communication.
Let's move to Groupthink.
Do you remember a famous fairy tale about emperor who has no clothes? Instead of telling the truth, people pretend to agree with certain things, admire the clothes because it makes them look better. This case illustrates a phenomenon of groupthink.
Irving Janis has made the most significant conceptualization of groupthink. Groupthink is a theory dedicated to understanding the decision-making process in groups.
Janis originally defined the term as a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in group, when the members striving for anonymity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action. Janis in 1972 defines groupthink as a negative group phenomenon characterized by a lack of critical evaluation of proposed ideas or courses of action that results from high levels of cohesion and high conformity pressures. Janis referred to this tendency as a concurrence seeking. Their rationality of decisions is distorted by dysfunctional group and social forces because members come to prize anonymity and agreement over considering all courses of action rationally.
The basic terms of the groupthink theory is antecedent conditions, corresponding symptoms, effect on decision processes and ways the phenomena might be prevented. Janis observes three conditions that lead to groupthink. High levels of cohesion, specific structural characteristics of the environment in which the group functions, excessive conformity pressures.
When groups exhibit high levels of social cohesion, members may be reluctant to criticize or question another group member's ideas or suggestions for fear that it would damage the relationship. Remember the fairy tale? In organization it may show up on group meetings that appear to go smoothly with only positive interaction among happy friendly people, may seem ideal, but these actions may be symptomatic of groupthink.
Janis knows that specific structural characteristic outfalls promote groupthink. They include insulation of the group, lack of partial leadership, lack of clear procedures for decisions, and homogeneity of group members' backgrounds. Internal conformity pressures may still lead group members to withhold criticism of an idea because the norm is to defer to decisions made by organization. Leaders or majority of group members, external conformity pressures because of independent reward or punishment, time pressures or aggressively, there are also factors that can lead to groupthink.
There are eight symptoms of groupthink. Let's discuss each of them. Illusion of invulnerability, that happens when members are highly optimistic and willing to take extreme risks. Collective efforts to rationalize, members cast doubt on validity of information that brings into question assumptions made. Illusion of morality, the moral consequences of a decision go unexplored because group members do not question the morality of the group. Excessive stereotyping, the group use rivals as too evil to warrant serious negotiations with them or too weak or stupid in efforts to defeat the group. Pressure to conform. Pressure is brought to bear against those members who disagree with the group, often through claims that such disagreements are indicative of disloyalty. Self-censorship, members do not voice dissenting or contrary views to the group concensus. Illusion of unanimity, there is a false perception that members have achieved a consensus. Silence is consent. Self-appointed mind-guards, some members take on the role of guarding the group from information that might call into question their effectiveness and morality of decisions made.
There are ways the groupthink might be prevented. It requires oversight and control. It should embrace whistle-blowing, allow for objection, balance consensus and majority rule. According to Hart, to overcome groupthink, members of a group should follow this recommendations. Require oversight and control, which means develop resources to proactively monitor ongoing policy ventures. Establish incentives to intervene. Link personal fate to fate of group members. Embrace whistle-blowing are words suppressing concerns about group processes. Continue to disagree in debate when two satisfactory answers are given. Question assumptions, allow for objection. Provide for group members' exits. Do not play down the moral implications of course of action. Acknowledge private concerns about ethical issues in the group. Balance consensus and majority rule. Relieve pressure on groups in minority positions. Dissuade the development of sub-groups, introduce a multiple advocacy approach to decisions.
The theory of groupthink has retained its appeal in the years and has been applied to diverse groups, not only groups in crisis periods. However, some scholars believe that the focus of the theory is primarily on decision-making groups, juries, councils, etc. In this lecture, we have presented antecedents and symptoms that lead to groupthink and identified some ways to prevent it.
Let's talk about structuration and communication. Structuration theory is influential theory of group communication and social sciences in general. What makes it so popular among communication scholars is its explication role for reflexivity. The synthetic nature and integrative potential of the theory allows to resolve the longstanding dispute: individual versus society. The theory is motivated by popular and social sciences question: Which determines which? Do individuals in interaction construct social order and meaning, or does a pre-given structure determent and constrain the behavior of its human members?
Let's here represent key features of ST. Starting from Giddens' early works to his more recent writings systemized by Hans Englund, Jonas Gerdin, structuration theory in accounting research, application, and applicability. Let's talk about an ontological framework of the theory. To understand the social order of human activities, for example, communication, is to understand the distinction between social systems and social structures.
What are social systems? They comprise the actual activities of human actors, are always situated at a specific time, space settings, are always linked to this specific subject. What are social structures? They constitute the structural properties which allow for the binding of time-space in social systems, are out of time and space with only a virtual existence, are marked by the absence of the subject.
Another important presumption of ST is that generative structures include three institutional dimensions: Signification, Legitimation, and Domination. Structures of signification provide general interpretive schemes necessary for communication. Such interpretive rules provide ways for people to see and interpret events and hence, to give meaning to interactions. Structures of legitimation, on the other hand, provide norms which sanctions certain forms of conduct while structures of domination provide facilities for the exercise of power.
Duality of structure. Two sides of the same coin. Structures and systems are recursively interrelated. They are both the medium and outcome. How come? A third core idea in ST is that structures and system are recursively interrelated through the duality of structure. This idea of production and reproduction are two sides of the same coin is called duality of structure.
Let's talk about Giddens' research of modernity. Modernity is vastly more dynamic than any previous type of social order. It is a society - more technically, a complex of institutions - which unlike any preceding culture lives in the future rather than in the past. Furthermore, on dynamic social order. It is derived from the separation of time and space, the development of disembedding mechanisms, and the reflexive appropriation of knowledge.
The separation of time and space and the development of disembedding mechanism are unavoidable part of contemporary field of education. Modern system of knowledge possession is an expressism. We may trust favorite blogger, TV correspondent, or a friend in Facebook. These experts are disembbeded from time and space because the social space is no longer confined by the boundaries said by the space in which one moves. However, the communication's uncertainty can be managed by re-embedding the expressisive into the structures which we are accustomed to.
Finally, according to Giddens, several late modern transformations have prompted individuals to become even more reflexive. Changes in communication structures and technologies, increasing global flows of ideas, images, for instance, the importance of big data for business goals lead to new intrusions of marketers into private life in one activity on social media might be a key factor for getting a job offer.
Structuration theory is considered a meta-theory, which principles may be applied to various social disciplines. The theory regards social structures as continually produced and transformed through human action. Among communications scholars, it has been used mostly in different areas of organization, communications, such as organization constitution, its culture and identity, communication, networks, mass media, argumentation, and interpersonal relations.
Critical remarks of Clocile eclecticism with abstract theorizing irrelevant to research and with over emphasis on both agency and structure.
Let's talk about symbolic convergence in group communication. The originator of symbolic convergence theory, Ernest Bormann, claims that the sharing of group fantasies creates symbolic convergence. Or as Bormann symbolic convergence theory brought insights from rhetorical scholarship to bear on the study of group behavior. He built the theory on Bale's idea of dramatizing. Bormann noted that dramatizing was a significant type of communication that often forces group cohesiveness.
Symbolic convergence is the sense of community or group consciousness that develops in the group through a non-task-related communication such as stories and jokes.
Key terms, let's discuss them. A dramatizing message is one that contains imaginative language or other creative expression of idea such as allegory, anecdote, fable, wordplay, narrative. According to Griffin, group fantasies are verbalized references to advance outside the here and now of the group, including references to the group's past, predictions for the future, or all the communication about people or events outside the group.
Let's look at major assumptions of the theory. The sharing of group fantasies creates symbolic convergence. Do you remember you won't believe these stories from the classes that brought the group together? If group members react positively and agree with other group members, are trigger to tell their own related stories, it would lead to symbolic convergence and create a sharing group consciousness.
Dramatizing is a significant type of communication that often falls to group cohesiveness. Griffin noticed that the vivid message would qualify as dramatizing if it either describes something outside the group or portrays an event that has happened within the group in the past, or might happen to the group in the future.
Communication creates reality, which means that particular world views are constructed symbolically. Thus, they contribute to an understanding of why those who participate in those world views act as they do. To overlap among individuals' meanings create a shared reality or shared subjective meanings. Shared reality develops in a group through non-task-related communication, such as stories and jokes. When a member used a word play or metaphor, it could shape the groups symbolic reality, if one or more of the other group members amplified it. Once the symbolic identity emerged, it could shape the group's trajectory. For instance, the story about an applicant's strange decision towards university will sharpen group's members' identity and reinforce intergroup competition.
Let's talk about the process. Fantasy theme, character theme settings, themes, actions, fantasy chain, symbolic convergence, rhetorical vision are all part of the process of symbolic convergence. Fantasy theme is the content of the dramatizing message that successfully sparks a fantasy chain. The fantasy theme includes heroes, villains, scenario, setting, and sanctioning agent like god, democracy. Fantasy chain theme develops certain group interactions and there's group consciousness. Symbolic convergence researches have found there is a better chance of a fantasy chaining out when the group is frustrated or when group members solve for any problem. Symbolic convergence theory predicts that the group will converge around the fantasy theme when the fantasy chain catches.
Fantasy chains transformed group from collection of individuals to identifiable group with a group consciousness. For Bormann, symbolic convergence meant the way in which two or more private symbol worlds inclined towards each other, come more closer together or even overlap. Groups that do little fantasizing are seldom highly attractive and cohesive. Such groups tend to be boring and ordinary, mentioned Bormann.
Rhetoric vision means unified way of seeing the world. As Bormann explained, fantasies that begin in small groups often are worked into public speeches, become picked up by mass media and spread out across larger publics. Bormann suggested the critique look for four features that are present in the rhetoric visions, which are characters, plot lines, scene, sanctioning agent. Characters, are they heroes to root for and villains to despise? Plot lines, do characters act in the way consistent with a rhetoric vision? Scene, how do descriptions of time and place increase the drama's impact? Sanctioning agent, who or what legitimates the rhetoric vision?
The theory has a great pragmatic value. It helps to identify potential difficulties with group cohesion. And enhances cohesion when needed in order to create more positive group climates and enhance your future group interactions. For instance, John Cregan and Donald Shules have applied the principles of the theory to organizational communication, market research, and mass media context. Therefore, the elements of fantasy theme can be used to create an appeal that will sell products, politicians, or anything else.
The theory got some critical remarks. For example, James Olivemore contends that SCT does not sufficiently explain why humans are predisposed to dramatizing reality and sharing fantasy in the first place.
Let's talk about functional theory of group decision making, the last theory that we're going to discuss in group communication lecture. John Cragan and David Wright conclude that functional theory is one of the leading theories in group communication. It is highly regarded because it intuitively appealing rational and testable. The theory attempts to explain how and why communication is related to the quality of the decisions groups make.
Let's look at full functions requisites to achieve good decisions. Requisite functions are requirements for positive group outcome. Let's look at problem analysis. Groups must first create an understanding of the nature of the problem, the seriousness and urgency of the problem, the feasible origin of the problem and the consequences associated with not solving the problem.
Goal setting. Next, they must establish criteria by which to judge proposed solutions. If they fail to do this, the decisions are more likely to be driven by politics than reason. Identification of alternatives. Hirokawa and Gouran stressed the importance of considering a number of alternative solutions from which the group members could choose. Hirokawa and Gouran argue that if no one calls attention to the need for generating as many as alternative as realistically possible, then relatively few may be introduced, and the corresponding possibility of finding the acceptable answer will be low.
Evaluation of positive and negative characteristics of each alternative, after a group has identified alternative solutions, the participants must take care to test the relative merits of each option against the criteria they believe are important. It is important to know that Hirokawa and Gouran believed that all four functions serve an important purpose and that no individual function is better than another. They must all be used to reach a high quality decision.
The role communication in achieving good decision. Hirokawa and Gouran make emphasis on the role communication in achieving good decision. First, talk as the social tool, that helps groups reach wise decisions. Second, communication obstacles usually appear when the group members try to reach a tasks for a discussion. Among them such as ignorance of the issue, faulty facts, misguided assumptions, sloppy evaluation of options, illogical interferences, disregard of procedural norms, and influence by powerful members. To achieve good decisions, group members should try to eliminate them.
What are the three types of communication? Hirokawa and Gouran outlined three types of communication in decision making groups. Promotive, interaction that calls attention to one of the four decision making functions. Communication geared towards one of the requisite functions. For example, when the group most spend time on planning while discussing. It is supposed that this is a key parameter for positive outcome. Disruptive, interaction that detracts from the group's ability to achieve the four task functions. For example, the discussion of important issue is postponed because part of the group ignored its importance. Counteractive, interaction that focuses the group. Messages that return and disrupt group back to the requisite functions. For instance, let's go back to relation of candidates for conducting a public presentation.
So to conclude, let's look at some of the critical points of functional theory. The lack of historical and institutional functions. Most of studies have been conducted with groups in laboratories. Stohl and Holmes advocate adding historical and institutional functions because most real life groups have a prior decision making history and are embedded within the larger organization. Thus, the theory isn't relevant in every situation. Lack of attention to the broader context in which groups operate. Most studies have been conducted in the laboratory without historical and institutional context as mentioned. And the static method of functional requisites specified by the theory, one size fits all model.
To conclude our lecture, let's look at the case study. How we apply the theory to practice? Let's look at the case from public relations review of 2017. Believe me, I'm one of you, the role of common group affiliation in crisis communication. Why the case have been chosen? It illustrates the value of theory-based research to everyday life and particularly to public relations. In the context of group communication, this case emphasizes the role of leadership especially in crisis. It demonstrates the practical value of social identity and optimal distinctiveness theories. The case enhances understanding of communication between small and large group creation membership similarity to group affiliation.
Let's define the problem of the case. This research analyzes the effectiveness of a CEO spokesperson affiliation to a social group during a crisis. Based on the notion of optimal distinctiveness, a more effective way to generate identification and its concomitant positive effect seem to be when the CEO spokesperson associates him or herself with a smaller distinctive social group. For example, a specific leisure time community.
What does the research question? The author addressed the following question, whether a group affiliation with a large heterogeneous group, such as parents, can engender similarly positive effects in members of the same social category compared with a smaller and more distinctive group, here an amateur sports community.
Theoretical foundations of the case are social identity theory, optimal distinctiveness theory, membership similarity, role of leadership in crisis. What is the hypothesis? According to the optimal distinctness theory in group loyalty, as well as trust and cooperation, are most effectively engaged by smaller distinctive groups. Therefore, affiliation of a CEO spokesperson with a group that is very large and heterogeneous seems less likely to engender or identification with members of this group, and consequently, with the company spokesperson, than groups that are homogeneous and distinctive. You can see on your screen hypothesis one, hypothesis two.
What about the method? An experiment, reading a textbook by spokesperson. After reading the article, a questionnaire containing the dependent and mediating variables, as well as the manipulation, checks and questions about the relevant personal information. Parental version, "As a father of three children, the accidents make me very concerned." Cyclist version, "As an avid mountain tour cyclists, the accidents make me very concerned." A zero level of the independent variable did not contain any information assigning the CEO to social group, "The accidents make me very concerned."
So we have dependent variables, identification with the CEO spokesperson, message credibility, corporate trustworthiness, purchase intention, NWOM abstention. As for a search sample, 352 panel participants completed the survey and correctly remembered the CEO spokesperson group affiliation. The age range from 30-54, 61 percent were female, 39 percent were male. Expectedly, the bicycle maker was unknown to participants. Membership in the group of parents was considered when participant indicated to have one or more children. Participants were considered to belong to the cyclic group. When they stated to engage in mountain cycling tours at least occasionally, scale points 3-7 on seven-point scale. This resulted in 68 participants with common parent group affiliation and 25 participants with common cyclist group affiliation. To balance the group differences, weighing factors for case does not belong to the respective social group where introduced. Now, you can see on the screen the variables.
And what results do we have? A common group affiliation with a large and heterogeneous group like parents does not engender positive effects. Not corporate trustworthiness, purchase intention, NWOM abstention. A similarity between the spokesperson and address stakes holders that is logical in the crisis context does not seem to be sufficient. Based on research outcomes, affiliation with the smaller and more homogeneous group of mountain bikers was the more sensible choice to achieve the desired effect. Identification also directly influence trustworthiness and purchase intention without message credibility as a mediator. This shows the importance of identification with the spokesperson during a crisis. When people identify with the communicator, it does not matter much what he, she says.
So how do we apply all of this into practice? Speech delivery based on preliminary scholarly research. The insights on measurement and evaluation, the efficiency of group communication. Small and distinctive groups more focused on the customer, for example, specific leisure time group. The insights on testing the results in other communication areas. Communication research is the backbone of effective communication campaigns. By this case, we have illustrated how the group communication theory may be applied to real-world communication problem. We agree. With the statement of John Cragan and Donald Shields, that theoretical development should enhance applications and, in turn, applications should enhance theoretical development. This case is testament to the fact that scholarly outcomes may have programmatic goals and, in the end, may contribute to the solutions for the real-world issues.
Hi, and welcome to the week four of our Communications Theory course. This week, we will focus on rhetoric. We've already discussed a little bit about the group communication, how decision making is going on, how shall we persuade maybe other people within this group decision making and how do we manage relationships within the interpersonal communication.
So let's focus during this week on the crafting of these messages and the delivery of these messages, which basically refers to the rhetoric. We used the word rhetoric quite often. We can speak about good rhetoric within the message, about bad rhetoric within the message. But what does it mean? How do we define this good or bad? How do we persuade others and what is rhetoric in general? Let's take a look at these issues and figure it all out.
But to start with, we need to focus at the ancient rhetoric. Well, it all roots in ancient Greece, and we'll try to investigate the main approaches on the way how rhetoricians would manage their teaching and practice of the great speeches, as rhetoric usually is defined as an art of public speaking.
So how do we define rhetorics in the very beginning? Well, sometimes we talk about rhetoric as empty words, which we use to distort the truth or tell the lies. This is the very bad connotation of the rhetoric, and we don't really rely on this. Actually, what Aristotle would focus on would be that rhetorics is the power of finding the available arguments suited to the given situation. So, here, we are focusing at the persuasion as it is the way how we can communicate our ideas to people and maybe somehow we can adopt their behavior or their attitudes towards the initial goal of ours.
Let's first focus on people who are called Sophists, Sophists means the wise one or a teacher in the ancient Greek, and these group of people were actually focusing on the way how to teach the rhetoric, and they consider the rhetoric to be in our eyes. It was the knowledge generalized from the experience, and it can be very useful for people. Why did it actually all started in the ancient Greece? Oh, well, it was all about the democracy so that inquired a lot of communication as you need to come to the square and then communicate your ideas for others in order to be heard. And the whole art of the situation would be focused on the public speaking in general.
Sophists were a little bit skeptical that anyone could easily discover the truth, so they played with little tricks on the persuasion and on the way how you need to arrange your speech, how to make maybe flattering in some way or maybe persuasive in another way. At the same time, they would focus on the political part and the ethical as well. So even though they have this a little bit of ethical conflict as they would say that you can actually define or you can actually argue in favor of anything, they would still try to outline their ideas and try to communicate the knowledge of public speaking to the rest of the audience.
Sophists actually believed that people had to adjust their notions of what is good, useful and true to the circumstances in which particular communities found themselves. So they were the ones who would place a very essential point at the context of the speech or the whole situation.
Plato and Aristotle as two fathers, I would say, of the ancient rhetoric would have quite different approaches. As you might remember from other courses that Plato was the one who is focused on studying the souls of humans and developed the whole concept of ethos and the ideas, which are embedded in what we call different phenomenon. He actually believed that learning how to properly define and divide an issue into the constituent's part would be an essential part of the rhetorical process in general.
Aristotle, a student of Plato contributed very much on the development of the rhetoric and its focus on as a particular discipline. He developed the main principles of the rhetoric, and he identified three actors of the persuasion process. So instead of just arguing in sake of the argument or trying to talk about our ideas what Sophists would do and try to provide a solid argumentation but in order to influence, Aristotle would focus on what is essential. So he outlined three actors which were the speaker, the speech, and the listener. And, now, when we have these three components of the rhetorical process, we can move closer to the rhetorical analysis, and we can understand how each of the actors and what is the process and how they would behave in the different situations.
Despite Aristotle's current fame, his rhetorical theory was completely leaps during his lifetime by Isocrates. Isocrates started out as a logographer. This refers to someone who is writing speeches for people who, for some reason, couldn't compose their persuasive speech for themselves. Basically, he was hired by different people and he was doing his job, and it was he's very important duty. Later, Isocrates would establish a famous and influential school of rhetoric that was attended by ambitious young men from many Greek city states. He repeatedly argued that achieving his goal of the rhetoric would require three very important things. The first one is a native ability, so you have to have some kind of a background or some kind of a natural predisposition to conduct influential speeches. Then he relied on studying the study as you can understand the whole process as you can implement it into the message creation and how you actually do craft your messages. And the last one, very important part of the rhetorical teaching, studying and practicing is finally practice. So if you practice more, the more you practice, the better you become in the rhetorics. And this means that, basically, we all can acquire the knowledge and acquire the skill of the public speaking, which sounds quite ambitious and which can be very useful for many different situations.
As the background of the ancient rhetoric, where should we focus our attention at when we are delivering the public speech, or we're preparing to this delivery? Well, first of all is the invention of the message. We need to craft it. We need to think of what our arguments are and what would we focus on within the speech. Secondly, this is arrangement or the disposition of these arguments. How do we place it in the correct order? How do we make it attractive? What kind of logic should be followed or should not be followed? Maybe we really need to get out of this logical pathway, and we need to embed some emotional messages within our all speech. The next point would be the style, how you're delivering. So the focus on the audience and the focus on the way how this particular behavior in this particular speech would be accepted or not accepted by the audience is essential. We know it as so like speaking publicly, within the classroom, and speaking publicly here with a camera would be quite different for me and speaking in front of the big crowd would be extremely different while you speak in a small group, but still you need to be persuasive.
Ancient Greeks would focus on the memory as we do need to understand and we need to keep in mind what are we trying to say. So it would be helpful in order of some crisis situations when something goes wrong, and your brain would still carry out the main idea and the way how it's supposed to be arranged. And the last one is finally delivery. Delivery would rely on first four steps here as it does go very close with the style, with the arrangement. So you need to understand your target audience, and you need to understand the way how you would deliver a particular message. So these would be five basic steps, which we need to think of while we are preparing for our public speech. And I hope this part would be quite useful for you.
But even though classic rhetoric is really important and while it was actually the basis for the further development of the theoretical background so for persuasion and public speaking, we can try to think of what have changed during recent times. So let's now switch from the ancient to the modern form and take a look at what actually is changing.
So if ancient Greeks would consider rhetoric as an art of public speaking today, testimony would be quite essential. Ancient rhetoricians, they did not really value factual proof, while the facts and testimony would be virtually the only proofs that I discussed in the modern rhetorical theory. Also, relying on the opinion was one of the underlying processes there. As we did not really, not we, but in ancient Greece, they wouldn't rather have the means of mass communication or Google so they wouldn't be able to check out what is the fact. So basically, people back then would rely on the opinion and the personal interpretation of the phenomena of different people. It should sound solid, it should sound interesting, and it should sound somehow persuasive for the person. Nowadays, even while you were in the class, you can just Google what are the basic assumptions of this or another theory and you can check on what your lecture is sailing you. And when you are in a public meeting, you can just track down what really was the case and what are the basic points there. So, relying on the opinion is not that important anymore as we really do need to find some very solid basis there.
The role of the context and the crafting universal message would be the third and very essential difference here. As ancient rhetorician situated there teaching in a place and time with the constraint, with the habit in more rhetoric treating rhetorical occasions is there were pretty much all alike. We talk about the globalization a lot, we talk about our messages being used in different locations, in different parts of the world. So we try to find out what would be universal, what are the universal laws of public speaking. And this is the focus of the modern rhetoric.
So even with all this difference between ancient Greece and modern rhetoric, we still are focusing what is the essential and like first core part of the whole process. This is influencing the other person, this is achieving our goal on the persuasion. What is persuasion? We can talk about this definition. The human communication that is designed to influence others by modifying their beliefs, values or attitudes. So this is a goal-oriented process, and the main intent here is to achieve this goal of changing behavior or changing values. Also, we are focusing here at the communication means as you can't really go and change the behavior of others within the rhetoric's just forcing them to do something. This would be forcing, that would not be the persuasion. Also, the process of persuasion requires and it implements the initial part of the free will, the concept of the free will of the recipient. As we believe that the person who's being influenced or who is being persuaded would have its own opinion. And this is not again about forcing someone to do something rather than this is working with his or her beliefs and trying to make them change their idea or maybe adopt their idea to what our initial goal is.
And as we mentioned here already, we are talking about the attitudes. Attitudes, what we consider, are the learned evaluations as we come here into this world with nothing. We don't really have attitudes in the very beginning. If we never tried something, we don't have attitude towards it, but even though for example, I don't have any children, I would know that there are some good source of the baby's food and there are some worse things. How do I know it? Well, I learn from my experiences, from experiences of others and from the advertising, generally. So these attitudes and learned evaluation and learned ideas of something else are the essential core focus of the persuasive process, as we will be focusing during this lecture on the way how we can shape attitudes which might finally come out to the change in the behavior process.
So let's move on to the particular theories which would tell us and explain us how the persuasion process occurs and how we can try to adapt to our communicative patterns and our communications style in order to be more persuasive.
As a first part of the theories we're going to discuss today, let's focus on elaboration likelihood model, brought up by Richard Petty and John Cacioppo back in the 80s. This model explains how persuasive message works in the changing of attitude of our reader or the viewer. As we know already, the attitude refers to the learned evaluation. So basically, this process of the elaboration, and the process of persuasion, in elaboration likelihood model is devoted to the cognitive processes. And the way how we elaborate, how we process the situation, involving our current abilities to do so.
Let's take a look, what are the core assumptions here? Well, it focuses on the way how information goes from the sender to the recipient. And, scholars would predict that there are two routes of the way how this communication might happen. There is a central route and peripheral route. What's the difference between these two? Central route is the path of cognitive processing that involves very big interest and very big cognitive effort in order to process the message. So the person who is elaborating message through the central route would be very involved in what's going on, very involved in the topic, very interested to discover some additional facts, very interested in the overall outcomes of this communicative process. Peripheral route, on the contrary, can be seen as a mental shortcut process that accepts or rejects a message based on some irrelevant cues, as opposed to actively thinking about the issue. So this happens, we consume the information through the peripheral route, when it's not actually very relevant for us, when we're not interested, but we still appear as the consumers of this information.
Cacioppo and Petty would define few types of the elaboration, basically two types of the elaboration. The first one is biased elaboration, the top-down thinking in which predetermined conclusions color the supporting data. Basically, biased deliberation occurs when we first say the idea, the main idea, and then we try to support it with some kind of arguments. On the contrary, there is objective elaboration. This is a bottom-up thinking in a way when facts are somehow placed without the bias. So, this is the process of seeking the truth wherever it might lead. And we don't really think about the final goal here. So we're just going through the facts, and we try to be objective as we are dealing with all this facts to summarize and to formulate what is the main idea of the message.
Further on, scholars would develop three types of the elaborated arguments, and they referred to them as strong, neutral, and weak. Strong elaborated arguments would cause a positive cognitive response. As an individual would get more engaged and more interested to elaborate the message, and to understand what were the basic reasons for the attitude change as it might appear. The neutral elaborated argument would end up with noncommittal cognitive response. So the individual wouldn't really decide whether it's going to be interesting for him or not. But still, it touches somehow the way how individual thinks. And the weak elaborated argument would cause the negative cognitive response. As the person would decide not to think about this topic, or try to get away a little bit from the whole message.
So to summarize here, the central route happens, the central route of the information processing appears to us, when we are interested in the topic. And we do have time, we do have cognitive ability, and we know quite enough in order to understand all the concepts, and also we have some sort of goal. So this is quite a goal-oriented way of processing the information. But what is the other one, the peripheral route is the one which is activated quite more often, on the contrary with the central route, as we go under attack of advertisement all the time. As scholars outlined, there are about 5,000 advertisements advertising that we would see during one day. So what are these shortcuts, what are these ways to influence us?
Let's take a look, first one is reciprocation, it can be replaced and said as, you owe me. So if person will already done a favor for us, we would probably do something just in exchange. And there is this core understanding of our social world, and the way how it works in the community. If something was done for you, you would feel obliged a little bit to do something in favor and in back. The next one is the consistency. We've always done this way, so this is the way how you need to do something, or this is the way how you need to place your behavior, change your behavior. This is why you should go do shopping, exactly right now. Because it's been done like this for centuries, it's been done like this for ages.
The next one is the social proof. Everybody's doing it and, yes, people as we're living in the community, we go under some sort of norms, social norms and expectations. And, in this case, we, after saying something, after declaring that we are planning to do something, we would rather want to commit to this behavior. So social proof goes along with some sort of commitment. And, for example, I donate blood from time to time, and I don't really do it in a very frequent mode, but still when I see some poster related to the blood donation, I feel myself as the part of this community. And, as I've already acknowledged that I am a donor, I would rather follow this message. Even though I would think about this as mostly of the social duty, rather than I would deeply go through the facts why this or other certain type of blood is needed. And this was already claimed and this is the social expectation, as well as an expectation from myself what I going to do, what I going to perform in this particular case.
The next way to get the shortcut to you, our attitude change, is liking. So sometimes in the advertisement, you can see quite famous people. And the celebrities, and the image of the celebrities, would be useful because people do have an attitude towards these people. And the individuals who got under the advertising effect would place the characteristics of the celebrity to the product. So basically, we are not thinking about whether this particular yogurt is good or bad. But we would see how this healthy person who's quite successful, and we might think about the way how consuming this yogurt would lead us towards the success. So even it comes not only in the yogurt advertising, but in political campaigns when some celebrity is invited in order to create the overall image of the whole thing as a very positive and very attractive.
The next point when the peripheral route happens is the authority. Well, if someone says you what to do, and if this person has more power or a higher hierarchical position within the organization, or if it's your mom. You probably would just do what mom tells you to do because this person requires and acquires the characteristic of authority. Next one would be scarcity. This is quite frequently used in the advertising as well. So they're kind of threatening us, you need to go and buy these paper plates, because they soon will be all gone. And, well, you better to do it now, as everybody are very, very interested in this paper plates. And we get affected, and it somehow touches us. And we don't really think about the quality of these paper plates, and we don't really think about whether we need them or not. But the fact that it's a limited product makes us more interested, and it just hits exactly the peripheral route.
And the last one is the contrast, so what's the contrast? You come into your work, and you just ask person to do you a very big favor. And the person would expect that this favor would be something quite difficult. And then you would place something very not important here. So, for example, I come there and ask you to do me a very huge favor, and then it would be just, I don't know, sending an email from you. So, on the contrast, you will see that it's not such a big deal, and it's quite easy to do, it's quite easy to perform. So basically, you would probably go and hit onto this peripheral route shortcut, and be quite useful. And you would help the person to get what this person wants.
So as we know now all the components of the elaboration likelihood model, let's take a look on the way how message would go through the set of factors, and end up in the attitude change or will not end up in the attitude change. So, as we can see here at the very top, we do have the persuasive communication which happens. And after that we need to understand whether people are motivated to process. And if they are motivated to process, we can go next to the next factor. If we're not motivated to process we'll just get off of this central route whatsoever, and go to the peripheral route of the information consumption, of the information processing, sorry.
So a few factors which are required for the central route. The motivation to process the information. So, is this topic interesting, does it have some sort of personal relevance, or do we really have a need to get involved and to put some cognitive effort through the elaboration of this message. If yes, we can move on to the next step, whether we're able to process? It doesn't happen always that we are in the very favorable conditions to think about something very deeply. And maybe we can get distracted by whatever is going on around us. Or maybe we're just tired, or maybe something happens with the communication mean. So the ability to process is quite important in the way on how we place the message, and how the message is transmitted through the central route.
After this, we'll think about the type of cognitive processing, so the case for us can be favorable, or unfavorable, or it can be neutral. So we are rather interested in this topic, and we do support the author's ideas. And we really see this as a very good way how we can prove our initial thoughts. And we see the argumentation there is quite solid and valuable for us here. So in this case, we speak about the favorable case, which will cause a strong positive attitude change. On the contrary, if we don't believe to the argumentation, or we see that this is not what we initially thought it would be, or if we do disagree with what's going on there, it would cause us and would follow us to the unfavorable case with a strong negative attitude change. If it's just a neutral case, and all we got is sort of argumentation, which does not affect the way how we were thinking initially, or it's just some sort of an explanation, we'll end up with no attitude change whatsoever.
If all these factors, the motivation to process, the ability to process, and the type of the cognitive processing do not match, and we've already gone to the peripheral route, we would rely on the peripheral cues which were listed before on the previous slides. So is there an authority, is there someone we like, does it somehow feed to our social norms. Or maybe it's just some sort of very nice music, which grabs our attention, there might happen an attitude change. But comparing to the central route processing, this attitude change would be rather weak and it would not last for long. So if we are very engaged in the understanding, and if we really engage in the elaboration of the message, we would end up with a quite strong attitude change. As it would be not permanent, but we would have the argumentation for this. With the peripheral cues we also can get hit by the message but, if they worked, weak attitude change only occurs. And if it doesn't work, and if we don't really like the music which was played, we will end up with no attitude change whatsoever again.
So as we discussed here during this part of the lecture, the elaboration likelihood model is focusing on two routes on the way how information is processed or elaborated brought by the individual. It can be central route, when we are interested and engaged in the topic, and we put a lot of cognitive effort to process the whole information. And there is a peripheral route, which can be hit by different means as persuasion does happen, but it will end up with a weak attitude change most likely. On the contrary, when the central route is activated we might end up with the strong attitude change.
But this is only the theory, which tells us about what are our attitudes, and what are they think about certain issues. How would it influence our behavior, and our actual behavioral patterns? Let's take a look at this issue in the next presentation.
In the previous part of the lecture, we talk about liberation likelihood model, which tells us how we should behave, and how we should act in order to pursue someone to change their attitudes or beliefs. But what if changing an attitude is not really enough for us, What if we want someone to change their behavior? What if we want them to act on our proposal to buy our product or to follow some of the instructions we have? Let's take a look at the Theory of Planned Behavior.
It was developed as an extension on an earlier theory of reasoned action developed by two scholars, Martin Fishmein and Icek Aizen in the 60s 70s and its main assumption, it's all about the rationality of the human action. So basically scholars would intend that people would do something on behalf of their intention. They call this the behavioral intention. It's our plan to act in some certain way. So, it's not us just doing some spontaneous things. We do have something that would influence our intention and these would cause a particular behavior of ours.
Scholars outlined two predictions for these behavioral intention. First one is our attitude and the second one is normative belief. So, what are the attitudes? As we discussed already, this is kind of an evaluation. It's our idea about the idea. It's what we think about the particular issue. So the attitude, let's take a look at technology. The attitude towards technology, you can like technology or you can hate technology. Still it will somehow navigate the way how you use the technology. But your attitude, and being technology in favor of yours or being not in favor of yours, is not really enough because when they become normative beliefs. Normative beliefs are referred to the social norms and to the expected behaviors of ours. As you, for example, do hate technology. And you don't really want your precious smartphone, as you don't want to get stuck on social media, and you're not willing to spend all your time interacting with your phone. But your boss at your work, wants you to be online 24 hours, seven days a week just in case. It doesn't have to happen, It doesn't have to be something scary to happen, but at some point it might. So, it makes him comfortable. And as you want to stay and work at this organization, you might somehow adapt to the expectations of your boss. So basically your behavioral intention is not only about the attitude as the theorists saw the major limitation of the liberation likelihood model in this case. As we do change the attitude but how it will end up in the behavioral change.
Let's take a look at the proposal of Icek Aizen who again back to the theory later in the 80's, as behavioral beliefs and normative belief and attitudes were not really enough here. So at this more complicated table, you can see another variable which appears, and it refers to the control beliefs were the perceived behavioral control. Basically, the main idea here was that attitude is very important. Then the normative beliefs would be quite essential for us as well. But sometimes we are not just able to maintain these or other operation. We are not able to maintain this particular behavior.
Let's take a closer look at all the components of this scheme. So behavioral beliefs are the subjective probability, is that the behavior will produce a given outcome? So, if I make this decision, what kind of the outcome would be? So behavioral belief as something would influence our attitude towards the behavior, which refers to the degree to which performance of the behavior is positively or negatively valued. So attitude can be positive or negative. And if we have a positive attitude towards the behavior, we're most likely to perform this behavior later on. But okay, that's still not enough. It does correspond with our normative beliefs. As we already discussed, this is the perceived behavioral expectations of important referent individuals of group. So, what do others expect me to do, how should I behave in these or other situation? We all do live in the community. And we do have many expectations about how people would behave on their own, how people would behave in their group, how people would behave in particular group meetings or maybe in other situations. So for example, no one would start singing in the theater unless they are on the stage. This normative belief would formulate, would have act the subjective norm. Subjective norm is seen as the perceived social pressure to engage or not engage in the behavior. So now we're here coming a little bit closer to the behavior. How the normative belief would end up, how it would focus and stay in our understanding for what our behavior should be?
And the essential addition of Aizen is control beliefs, with the perceived presence of factors that might facilitate or impede performance of the behavior. So this is what he calls the control beliefs. Do I have the necessary knowledge to make this decision? Do I have the necessary knowledge to perform this action? The sort of control beliefs would be extremely important for our intention to be made as it would influence the perceived behavioral control. It's our own perceptions of our ability to perform a given behavior. All this three parts would form the intention, they would influence the intention. So when we are planning our campaign, we do need to think more about the intentions, about the attitudes. But also we need to think about whether people will be actually able to do these, to perform these or another action we want them to do or not. So what can be stopping them? What would be the factors that limit their possibilities and abilities to move on towards the action itself? Or maybe sometimes we need to start with something very small, and try to check it step by step when the attitude is settled, when the subjective norm is under the control, and the behavioral control maintained here through the little step by step intrusion kind of into the individual's personal life would be more effective, rather than just thinking and assuming that there is no control belief.
So these three factors would formulate the intention of an individual to do something and this might end up in a specific behavior. Basically, that was the whole outlook at the theory. But let's make it clear what behavior is. Behavior is the manifest, observable response in a given situation with respect to a given target. So, basically this is what we want people to do and this is the performance of our intention through their actions. Single behavioral observations can be arranged across the context and times to produce more and broadly representative measure of the behavior. In the Theory of Planned Behavior, behavior is a function of compatible intentions and perceptions of the behavioral control. We do have to keep in mind this behavioral control aspect in order to maintain a successful communicative campaign.
In practice, intentions and perceptions of behavioral control are often found to have main effects on the behavior but no significant interaction with them. Changing an attitude is usually not enough. To make someone act the way you want, you need to provide the attitudal social norm and controllability incentives. As well as, we really have to keep in mind some sort of background factors applicable on the level of an individual, applicable at the level of social circle, or at the level of the information. So what shall we keep in mind? Well, at the individual level, it's all about the personality, mood, emotion, intelligence, values, and the stereotypes that person is carrying out. It's never like that, with people behave in a certain way just because they do have all these essential certain factors and essential attitude towards this action. The education, age, gender, and income would refer to social background factors that might influence the way how the attitude would be formed and how the decision would be made upon the performing and not performing particular action. And the last one is the information. It's all about the knowledge and about the media coverage. Do I have enough of the information to perform particular action? Do I have enough information for this attitude to be influential enough? So maybe I do have a positive attitude. Maybe I do have possibilities to do this, and some social norms and social standards are set in a way that I will be most likely performing the certain behavior. And maybe I even can't do this, but would I do this, should I be inspired, should I be educated in order to perform this? Do I really understand the importance of that particular action? And what kind of knowledge and information do I need to have in order to move towards the favorable behavior? That's a very good question for the communication campaigns for those individuals who are responsible for the communication campaigns.
To summarize here, let's see that we are somehow moving towards the more complex understanding of the persuasive process. So instead of just focusing on the attitude change, we now understand how individual might perform behavioral changes, and how they might adapt their behavior in accordance with the attitudes, with the social norms and the personal control over the situation, the controllability factor outlined by the Theory of the Planned Behavior.
Welcome back. In the previous parts, we discussed what rhetoric is, how to craft quite a persuasive message, and we focused on T theories, the elaboration likelihood model, and the theory of planned behavior. The theory of planned behavior refer to the way how we can shape individual's behavior on the basis of their attitudes, and the norms, the social norms, as the predictors for the intention formation and their following behavior, as well as the controllability as a key factor which allows an individual to perform or not to perform the particular action. Elaboration likelihood model was focusing on the way how these attitudes are shaped, and how they can be changed through the processing of the information within the central route and or within the peripheral route.
What was defining and what was common for these two theories? First of all, that all these theories would see an individual as quite a rational person. And this person would be thinking out through carefully what is his or her intention. And he would understand the major motivations as, all together, people who are planning their communicative campaign would try to understand their motivations. But maybe there can be something irrational in our nature. Maybe we do like something else.
Let's take a look at the narrative paradigm which was proposed by Walter Fisher. And as Fisher wants to answer the main question, what is the essence of the human nature? He tells us that people are storytelling animals. So people are narrative beings, claims Fisher, who experience and comprehend life as a series of ongoing narratives, as conflict, characters, beginnings, middles and ends. So we don't really communicate. In fact, we don't really communicate our opinions, we do tell each other the stories about different aspects of our life. It's all about the phatic communication as Fisher claims. Phatic communication is devoted to communication aimed at maintaining relationship, rather than passing along information or saying something new. So this approach is close to what we really think of communication, as we don't rationally test these or other goals. We do think about the relationship. We do think about negotiated meaning and creating our social realities, along with the way how do we process the communication.
So through this phatic communication, storytelling would be quite essential. As the only form of the information presented for me, I can properly understand would be the story. You probably have already noticed that when you were in class and the teacher would provide you with the many bright examples on how these or other thing particularly works, it would be easier for you to comprehend. There are different types and different means of communication. The written text and the spoken speech are quite different, and they are not to be used vice versa. So storytelling as an essential part underline the fact we create our communication and move it towards the new level which would be comprehended easier.
And let's take a look now at the conceptual frames of the narrative paradigm as Fisher brings us five key terms which we're going to navigate with. So the first one is narration. Narration is symbolic actions, words or deeds that have sequence and meaning for those who live, create, or interpret them. So basically, this is all about our speech. This is all about our story. This is what he calls the narration. Paradigm in this case is a conceptual framework, a universal model that calls for people to view events through a common interpretive lens. This is why the whole approach is called narrative paradigm. So this is quite an ambitious goal, and it's all about trying to provide a proper explanation for the very large scale phenomenon. Basically, Fisher says that he can explain all of us communicating in a different way through this framework, through this approach. This structure would provide a comprehensive explanation of the creation, composition, adaptation, presentation, and reception of the symbolic messages. Yes, we do need to remember that messages as symbolic as the stories are. We don't usually tell the plot just in order to tell the plot, we always want to communicate something more important for us, some of our ideas. And me telling you this story about what happened with me in the metro wouldn't be exactly the story I want to communicate. It's not just the sequence of actions. So for example, I went down to the metro today and I stepped accidentally on someone's feet, and this person would behave very aggressively towards me. It's not just for me complaining about what happened, it's me trying to open the topic of how the aggressive behavior should be perceived in the public spaces. This is me recalling for your pity, and I want you to be empathetic for me, and I don't know, to help me somehow out here. So these stories are symbolic. Why I'm telling this story and showing that I was not aggressive towards this lady in the particular case, that would tell you something about me. So it would have some other meaning unless just the set of events which happened one by one.
All the stories which we tell should follow the law of narrative rationality. Narrative rationality refers to the way to evaluate the worth of stories based on the twin standards of narrative coherence and narrative fidelity. What are these narrative coherence and narrative fidelity? Well, narrative coherence is the internal consistency with characters acting in the reliable fashion. So when I hear this story I will believe you, and it somehow reflects with what I see usually. And this internal consistency we go smoothly, and the story goes smoothly, and nothing interrupts the internal components of the story. Narrative fidelity refers to the congruence between values embedded in the message, and what listeners regard as truthful and humane. So basically this is me trying to apply your story on my own experiences and my values, in order to understand it clearly and to summarize it clearly. So if the story has this characteristic of narrative rationality, we would presume this story as truthful, and we would go under this logic. But it's quite obvious that if the story is solid and it goes smoothly, you would be understood quite wise.
But this narrative paradigm's assumption would go quite on the contrary with the rational world assumptions. In the very beginning, there was the word and it was logos. And as we discussed about the Ancient Greek, about the rhetoric, rhetoric fell somewhere between logos, practical speech, and the pure logic. On the other hand, we had emotional stories and it was trying to somehow to balance them. But now as we are moving towards the modern ages, modern times, as we already discussed as well, we do want some testimony, we do want to follow the logic. And we tend to think that the good speech would be logical, clear, with solid arguments. So here Fisher proposes that it doesn't have to be this way always. And here in this table, we can see the summary of the differences between two approaches, the narrative paradigm proposed by Fisher, and the rational world paradigm.
So to understand it more clear, narrative paradigm sees people as storytellers. And for rational world paradigm, while people are pretty much rational, communication, persuasion, and decision based on the logic of the good reason is essential for the narrative paradigm. The good reason is something that reflects our world and reflects our values, as well as it goes smoothly and fails under the law of this narrative rationality. So basically, the logic of good reason and the logic of going with the flow with the and each story would be more important for us, rather than on the other hand our arguments and the embedded logic within the message. Culture, character, and experiences, they somehow shape the good reasons, these reasons that would be good for us. So our background is quite essential, and Fisher claims that we do need to consider the individual's background, and their personal characteristics to understand and to craft the message which would feed for their perception and not for a perception of someone else. Rational world paradigm on the other hand, relies on strong arguments for scientists and logic. Basically, it doesn't have to break down the initial path on how do we communicate what our idea is.
The next point here is, that rationality is based on consistency and truthfulness compared to the own experience. This is this phenomenological approach. This is where I want to understand what I am thinking, and what was my experience. Do I find some sort of proof in my own life or do I not? If I do find some sort of proof from my own experience, this message would be more powerful and it would influence me rather not influence. Rational world paradigm acknowledges the accuracy of information and reliability of reasoning. Well now it sounds quite boring. Yes this is true. We need to be accurate with the new information, but maybe we don't have to rely on it all the time. And the last one, is that our experience is for narrative paradigms are our stories to create and recreate the reality. So do you remember this social constructivism approach? We are communicating, we are interacting with each other so we can provide a solid understanding of what the world is, what do we call different things and different issues. And we do tell those through the stories. Rational world paradigm sees world and reality as the logical relationship revealed through a reasoned argument. Once again, it sounds pretty boring.
Still, in order to understand and in order to craft a very influential message, we need to somehow combine both of the approaches. The rational world model holds that only experts are capable of presenting or screening sound arguments that the narrative paradigm maintains that, armed with a beat of the common sense, almost anyone of us can be a good referee, and can create a good story, and judge its merits as the basis of the beliefs and the actions which are presented in the story. So the good story goes along with the logic of the good reason. What is the good reason? First of all, values should be embedded in the message. Secondly, we need to reveal those values to the decision made. So the story would sound quite coherent. It would somehow be flagged on the information presented and the outcomes of the information presented. We should keep in mind the consequence of adhering to those values. So somehow, the story which never end, each should has its message in the very end. The story would overlap with the world view of the audience. This is why we do need to know what our target audience is, or what our audience is in general when we are presenting a public speech. The conformity with what the audience members believe is an ideal basis for conduct. So basically, if we will present our audience something they would initially believe, that would be quite successful. But for this, we need to do and drive out our research quite carefully.
So summarizing here, the good story is quite a powerful means of the persuasion accordance with narrative paradigm of Fisher. School would remind us however, that almost all communication is a narrative and that we evaluate it on the basis of the narration. And adding a little bit here to our rational approach to the attitudes formation and the behavioral intention, the power of narration and the power of the good reason might be quite useful for persuasive communication.
In previous parts I would like to have been focusing on how the communicative process goes throughout the persuasion, and what are the elements of these persuasive process. We also outline a number of non practical mechanisms that might influence our behavior. And we talk about the rational part of the human beings, and as well as the people as a storytellers as a narrative paradigm.
Right now, let's focus on the digital rhetoric. On the contrary with what is spoken, and the art of public speaking in the public places, and on the contrary where the mediated communication through the advertising where some interactive forms of the communication. How does it work in the digital world? Are we all rhetorics? Are we somehow trying to maintain our communication to make it persuasive?
Let's take a look. So the digital rhetoric, we do use rhetoric on the very daily basis. Sending and receiving information, and we just come up when we communicate with our friends on social media posting the time line, comment on our friends post and react on their content. You become rhetoric when you share your ideas in a form of monologue or it can be happening in your personal blog or in the form of public deliberation on the internet forums, when a whole bunch of discussion may happen. Even an interpersonal communication can be somehow founded on the rules of rhetoric. So we can persuade our partners through the interaction by instant messages, for example. There are multiple digital social media platforms communication happens there all the time, and we are the part of this process.
Whether it's simply another episode in a continuous history of the rhetoric or is it more or less some kind of rapture? This is our equation to the digital rhetoric here. And scholars do see digital rhetoric as an extension of classic rhetoric in the digital space. Why do we use it? We use it to persuade, to inform, to inspire and to entertain. The main question about the definition within the digital rhetoric exists in the literature nowadays. Do we see just a part of what was happening quite before this? But most scholars would argue that digital rhetoric is the science about the discourse transformation in the digital era. How should we study this discourse in the digital space? Digital discourses can be the new form of discourse or just supposed to go with the logic of an old school or Ancient Greek rhetoric. Digital rhetoric is discovering means of persuasion in realm of the digital space. We might see it a little bit different.
Basically, even though the main ideas are still the same and the whole point of the rhetoric is usually persuasion, the communicative nature of the digital rhetoric might be quite different. But let's take a look on the digital rhetoric through the methods of persuasion in ancient Greece. While it does have to be logical, credible and emotional. And these are the Aristotle's ingredients of the persuasion. Think about your communicative terms on the Internet. Do you really apply to all three of them? And look, this is how we integrated the very first part of our lecture into one of the very last ones to make this story sounds so incredible. We do usually follow the logic and we want to outline the emotional part of our communication as well as we want it to be credible.
Well, there are two ways of the digital rhetoric development. And the first way is the same as in Classical Rhetoric. Ideas teach and people use the variety of forms to present this. For instance as we discussed, rhetoric needs in a stronger facts and evidence as in empirical science became quite predominant after 18 century. However, digital rhetoric is unique because it changes with not only the people minds progress, but also with the technical progress and innovations in the media and the Internet. For instance, video calls and Skype or they would place a higher role on the emotions and the pathways, because people became to see the faces of their communicators and they don't just have to rely on the intonations. Basically, each different tool and each different media would outline and would focus on different senses. Understanding off the senses would be quite essential for the classical rhetorical way of formulating the message and placing it in the right context.
So here, we come closer to the acknowledgment of the importance of the media as the means of communication, which does shape the internal structure of the message. And one of the very important terms here would be visual rhetoric. So as we do nowadays focus on the interactive media, and we do have different tours and different ways of communication, the visual aspect becomes more and more important. This is how YouTube is getting its popularity, instead of reading, people would prefer watching. This is what's going on between you and I right now. You are watching me talking, instead of reading the book. But what do we need to pay attention to in order to make the communication more powerful and more persuasive? Digital rhetoric in a nutshell refers to how we are persuaded by the things that we see. When people talk about the visual rhetoric, you might be inclined to think that they're referring to the way the images are manipulated to skew the way we do perceive things. But here in the visual rhetoric it's too much about image manipulation, and in fact, we need to focus on a few underlying things. They are arranging, the layering, and using the right colors in front. So there is some very basic technical things that might help you with the message creation and the message dissemination further on.
What are the benefits of digital rhetorics? Well first of all it's it's a convergence. As convergence is used highly in digital rhetorics, it's the use of different mediums in one place. This allows increasing persuasion of fact and the interactivity. We do enjoy interactive communication, and we do really enjoy having multiple options on the way how we consume information, how we get this information through. The speed would mean that, you can immediately start a conversation or even organize a local forum or you can start your own event online. People don't really have time to plan and prepare for the conversation here. So speed really defines and shapes somehow the digital rhetoric on of the contrary with which was back in the Aristotle's time. He would say that you do need to practice quite a lot. Here you need to reply on Twitter quite immediately. As for example in the instant messengers, people will get the notification that the message was seen. So you don't have the time for the delay. Interactivity is another feature on behalf of convergence, is a new technological benefit which does benefit the digital rhetorics. Even being less communicable, you can interact with other users and this places you in a very interesting context, which would re-flagged and which would affect the way how are you supposed to craft the message.
Unlimited access to the information as a slogan of our Google era allows searching for facts and evidence in the global net, communicate with people from different countries and the different social statuses but at the same time, we do have to be quite clear and very certain with the facts. We need to check and double check them. As well as the appropriate uses of the different mediums would be a focus of digital rhetorics as a practical discipline, I would say. Appropriate uses of the different mediums in the different spaces allow users to provide how quite heterogeneous content as you can use it for as a text message, as well to persuade your partner to do something which you want. But being more likable on a Facebook for example, for my particular case would usually include adding some visual images on the post. This would get and drive more attention. On the contrary, some people who are quite interesting and they're interested for others in their opinions and what they think about, they would put place more importance on the form of text. So choosing your own way to communicate and choosing the right way and appropriate channel off the communication is quite essential for the digital rhetoric. And all of this is quite possible just because of the wide Internet spread and the new tools and mediums they each appear online.
Digital rhetoric does rely highly on the classic rhetoric as well, but being more interactive, being more complex it requires a set of different skills and actually many more skills in order to maintain this public discourse. Understanding the digital rhetorics and the public discourse within the Internet is important to understand the society. And it's important to maintain yourself quite happy and successful life. Let's now move on to the case finally, and see how all these theories can be applied to the practice.
So as we now discussed quite a lot about the way how persuasion occurs and how persuasive messages can be build, transmitted, and foreseen by the audience, let's take a look at the case. And for these particular class, part of the class, we've chosen the case on persuasion in crowdfunding. And in this study, scholars are applying the elaboration likelihood model on the crowdfunding performance. So what is it all about? Well, you probably do know what crowdfunding is. This is when you do want to raise some money for some sort of project and you just placed your project on the open platform, where all the users who are interested and might make some sort of contribution.
So the crowdfunding in this particular context appears to use the conclusions of transporting alternatives to a traditional forms of investment. Instead of going to some sort of a person or a company who can provide a large contribution and fund your project just completely, you make some sort of an exchange between the audience and your project basically. And after all, when the project is launched, the contributors can contribute back in order to get some benefits from this.
So, what's the focus in this particular research? The focus was at the crowdfunding pitch narrative which implies the entrepreneur's background and the aspirations, the funding-reward structure, and the overview of the product. This is a little bit of a description of the product which you can see at the crowdfunding platform. Once scholars apply elaboration likelihood model as a theoretical ground, they try to understand what are the central routes and what are the peripheral routes ideas which are communicated to the audience through out the speech, throughout this description.
So, the first part is the issue relevant information which is fact-based and it was all about the central role. So, basically scholars would assume that the individual coming to the site would go through the information step-by-step and try to focus on what are the details, what are the particular contributions which he can actually get back after contributing to the project, and all the information which is quite technical and requires a lot of elaboration and the central route of collaboration as in cognitively complex. Peripheral cues as the remaining elements of the message were as well considered. So, what were the parts of this? The main question of this research is how crowdfunding entrepreneurs successfully persuade potential funders to provide capital through the use of issue- relevant information and the peripheral cues. As well as focus is applied to the motivations and ability of the funders, so the contributors to those who would like to pay the money for the project and funded somehow, to influence the way in which persuasion occurs.
So based on the elaboration likelihood model, scholars outlined four hypothesis distinguishing four main characteristics which are the audience or the possible contributors would assume and would elaborate through central route. In the first one is, entrepreneur education. So, what is the education of the person who is launching the project? What's his background? And what how it can be contributing and how it can be the stimuli or the indicator for the further better performance of the project, successful launch in this case. The second one is functional experience of the entrepreneur. And scholars would assume that it would have a positive relationship with the crowdfunding performance. So, the experience in a background way and what are our other successful projects for instance. The third hypothesis and the third factor is the ingredient branding will have a positive relationship with the crowdfunding performance. So we need to think more about branding and we need to try to understand how these actually is performed within the pitch. And the fourth one is that pitching a product that interconnects with or serves as a compliment to an existing successful product will have a positive relationship with crowdfunding performance. Well, basically it's all about the analysis, right? So if I am launching the product, which goes along with another very successful one it might have quite a positive future and it might have quite positive implications, so I might trust the product better.
To summarize here a little bit, we have four factors which go through the central route, which is all about the elaboration, all about the cognitive processing, and all about the analysis, hardcore analysis. Entrepreneur education, functional experience of the entrepreneur, ingredient branding, and connecting the product with the one which already exists and which is successful.
The peripheral route hypothesis would rely on some other features. And as we remember from the elaboration likelihood model, a peripheral route would go through some cues which are not related to the analysis. It's more of emotional involvement or some other sorts of engagement, which can be acquired through a set of techniques we already discussed. So, the first hypothesis is that, portraying the venture as a personal dream will positively influence the performance of the crowdfunding project. Well, definitely a personal dream is something which is not elaborated through the central route, as it's more of a narration, it's more of some sort of emotional involvement within the pitch. The second one, is the portrayal of the group identification between the entrepreneur and prospective funders, will have a positive relationship. So here we speak about the connectedness, the connectedness between the one who is launching the project or the group of people who are launching the project and their audience, their contributors. Again, this is not something you would analyze in order to try to do some calculations on whether these products particularly is going to be successful or not. And the third one, was about the positive tone in the crowdfunding solicitations which will have a positive relationship with the crowdfunding performance. So you would need to think about the way how you craft a new message, how you are using the words, and what is the general attitude, which might influence the attitude of their respective audiences.
Scholars as well, outlined a couple of the funders side hypothesis. The first one is the higher funding commitments will strengthen the effect of issue-relevant information on crowdfunding performance. And the second one is that high funder experience will strengthen the effect of issue-relevant information on the crowdfunding performance. It's all about issue-relevant information and the way how we adopt it throughout the commitments and throughout the experiences, whether we outline them within our pitch or not. So once position on the elaboration likelihood continue, is contingent upon their ability and motivation to access the merits of focal topic with this specific decision context.
How this hypothesis were tested. Scholars went through quite a long and quite a difficult study. The first one was a totally quantitative and it was all relying on the information driven from the Kickstarter. Basically, they found over than 20,000 observations in the population and they have tools in randomly 383 campaigns on the Kickstarter. And then they outline these specific variables which they wanted to test. A dependent variable in this case, was always the one that the venture, the project would meet its funding goal. Across the research throughout the research design, they performed t-tests for means differences across the variety of variables, and these included the project's success, the amount of funds raised, and the number of funders, as well as the number of funder comments as the level of engagement can be tracked through the number of funder comments, the number of project updates. So again, we are talking about the communicative aspect of this whole thing during the crowdfunding. How the entrepreneur is communicating with his audience and contributors in particular, and the rewards offered to the funders, as we all want something in exchange. But none of these variables exhibited significant mean differences. A vast scholars would conclude that it was likely that their sample was statistically indistinguishable from the population from which it was drawn.
So, the second part of the study had more of the qualitative data, and it was the decision experiment. Driven by the experimental research design, 154 participants were accumulated in order to go through the narratives, and then assess whether they would participate, whether they will contribute in this project or not. And a number of scales was developed on the basis of the interests and afterall, it was all taken through the statistical analysis. But not trying to go very much into the method here, as we understand now there were two stages. The first one was a quantitative analysis, when people, the scholars here in this particular case, they just went through the data and they understood the particular characteristics and try to measure if there was some sort of a correlation between the core characteristics of the text of the speech where the potential outcomes and with real outcomes within the situation. And the second part was all about the people, how they would understand, and how would they process the narrative in this particular case exactly.
So, what were the findings here? What are the results? Well, we can outline the three major ones as they were driven by the considerable support from Elaboration Likelihood Model for the crowdfunding sources. The first one is that, entrepreneur-specific and the product-specific issue relevant information are positively related to the crowdfunding performance. While this is quite an obvious thing and it does mean that people who get on the Kickstarter and who go through the whole bunch of the offers there, they did some sort of analysis. And they want more details, and they want this to be quite relevant for themselves, as this is quite a process, and it does require a lot of the cognitive effort to analyze what's going on. The second point is that, crowdfunding performance is enhanced by the presence of peripheral cues. The first one is about portraying the venture as a personal dream. While this sounds just particularly very nice and yes, when we go back to the case and if we go back to our theoretical background a little bit here, we would get the sense of the narrative paradigm, right? So, if I am telling you the story about my personal dream and my personal aspirations, you might try to apply the story to yourself, and this would have some sort of narrative rationality for you and you might be more encouraged for the action by these particular move within my narration. Espousing a group identity is quite a good characteristics to enhance the performance of the crowdfunding process, as we think a lot about the identities. And again, this is a peripheral cues, peripheral road, and here, we are focusing on the way how can we identify. And again, we have this little reference to the storytelling, and to other social norms, and our identity matters, which can be used as a tool to drive the peripheral road focus. The third one was using a positive narrative tone. Well, no one likes dry messages, which are just being very reportive and not very engaging. This is quite an obvious one. But once again, it has nothing to do with our cognitive processing. If we are very interested in the topic, we want just dry facts, do we? No, according to the study, we don't. And the third point here is, as crowdfunding experiences and funding commitment increase, the influence of issue relevant information of funders decisions to provide capital increases as well, and it goes vice versa. So, if theories are more of a relevance within the issue, which is described to the needs of the audience, it would be more successful.
So to summarize here, what we can drive from the Elaboration Likelihood Model application to our real life experience. Well, first we are talking about the attitudes and as well, this particular case is somehow leaves behind the decision-making. But at the same time, it does consider a decision making, as we see the performance as an actual case, as an actual action, which can be calculated within the numbers. So basically, if we are planning our communicative campaign, it can be public or it can be just, I don't know, something related to the personal life. We need to focus on both. The first one is the argumentativeness of the case and the way how we plan and how we stage the whole process. So, the elaboration will be useful for those who go with the central run. And the second one, is all about peripheral queues. We should focus on them. We should never leave them behind, as they bring more success to the real life projects. So, that was the case. And I think that we can also apply here the conclusions from the narrative paradigm theory, as it was just outlined throughout the peripheral cues for the particular studies. Basically, what the rhetoric is about, that it's all about both rationality and some peripheral road cues which we can transmit to our audience, all about our emotional contribution, and our co-construction of the social reality. That's why we need to be good authors and we need to use the very nice and appropriate words in order to achieve our goal and be persuasive.
Hi and welcome back to our Communication Theory Course. This is week five and this week, we are focusing at Mass Communication and Media Effects. Now, as you know a little bit of persuasion from the previous lecture, we can see how media and mass communication in general shapes our attitudes and how does it influence us.
But first, let's clarify what is mass communication. Well, it all started with newspapers, and with the printed press invention, we got the possibility to spread the news across the community, across the society. So, many people can be affected and basically, first of all, they can get the information from the same source.
So now, let's focus on the way how media is affecting us. In the very beginning, we would align the early theories of mass media and communication. This is three of them: the hypodermic needle model, Two-Step flow, and the Gatekeeping. Hypodermic needle theory or another name for this theory is magic bullet theory, was the first attempt to explain how the mass media affects the audience, and these effects appear to be direct, immediate, and very powerful as it all ended up in the behavior change, as our population, after receiving this message, we change the attitude or change the behavior pattern.
So, how does this magic bullet or this hypodermic needle work? Well, first of all, it all goes in accordance with the fast race and popularization of radio and TV. With a widespread, more and more of people got the same message. So, effect finally became mass and we can speak about this same effect at the same audience rather than bypassing information through different people, through different sources, and through different media.
Well, the audience is passive and heterogeneous. This is what scholars found out in accordance with the research and it was quite surprising for them. Well, basically, we all think that humans and individuals, in general, they have some sort of thinking and they would go and critically get through this information. Still, one of the major assumptions of the hypodermic needle theory, which was based on empirical research, is that this audience is passive and heterogeneous.
The emergence of persuasion industries such as PR and advertising somehow actually changed the whole market and the whole sphere of the relations between people. And finally, scholars and professionals, PR practitioners, advertising practitioners, they've been counting on this, in fact. They've been trying to track how the message is influencing.
Well, it was a very first and very surprising effect on the audience and there was quite a new phenomena. So, many people got influenced. And this monopolization of the mass media during Second World War in Germany showed very surprising result. How the whole population, the whole country in general, got under the same idea which was, after all, appealing as very wrong and very destructive for the society.
So anyway, this was the case and it was a very important question for the scholars as well as for the practitioners. So, how does it work and how does it affect the audience? As a very good example, we can see in the 1930's, during the radio broadcast of the words, it was performed like very real news broadcasts.
So, as you might remember, recalling to this experience, people actually decided that there were some aliens around and they started to run away. There was another illustration on how media can affect big, very large, enormous audiences in a very brief and direct way. So, this demonstrates this hypodermic needle theory as the people consumed information and they really believe that this was happening.
So, if we want to summarize here, the audience is heterogeneous and the audience would react to the idea which is mediated through the media channel in the very same way. So basically, it led PR practitioners and scholars to understanding of this very high, very rich media effect.
So the next theory you want to take a look at, is Two-Step flow theory. It was first introduced by Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet in the book of People Choices, which is a 1944 study focused on decision-making of the voters during the Presidential Campaign. As scholars expected to find down this immediate media effect on voting intentions, their expectations were dramatically broken.
Respondents they talked to, mostly replied and recalled to the experience of discussions with their personal contacts, rather than getting information or recalling this information from the radio and newspapers. Later on, Lazarsfeld and Katz developed the Two-Step flow theory. Basically, it stands for information from the media moving in two distinct stages. In the first place, opinion leaders receive the information and then opinion leaders pass this information.
So basically, we try to get away from the direct and immediate effect. It's not just media and the consumer. We got another role, another person, another institution of an opinion leaders. So, who are these opinion leaders? Well, first of all, these are people who pay close attention to mass media and they do have professional competence so they can interpret news and they can provide their own personified and very maybe interesting, maybe not very interesting. But anyway, it would be their own interpretation of what is happening.
Second of all, these opinion leaders are influential and they have quite wide media coverage. So, how do we trust people? We trust them because they have some sort of competence in the field we're interested in. And in this case, we would consider them as opinion leaders and we'll get information from them. These opinion leaders at the same time, must be very similar to those who they try to influence.
We will discuss this a little bit later when we move on with our media effects series but a little bit of disclosure from the very end of the lecture. Yeah, we do tend to consume information from those with whom we agree the most. So, yes. Opinion leaders are similar to those they influence.
Opinion leaders as we can summarize here, they interpret messages as we have already discussed in the very introduction. The message which is sent is usually not the one we actually receive. So, let us imagine the situation. A mom, very good, very nice mom is watching a TV program and in this TV program it have some content which says some particular toys which are sold in the toy store may cause aggressive behavior from the child.
So, she gets this information and then interpret it as she gets her son and they go together shopping for a little bit of toys. And finally, her son would call for this toy and he would say, "I really want it." How would mom change his behavior and how she would interpret this news? She might probably say that, it wouldn't be the case if she says that this toy won't cause you having an aggressive behavior and you will end up socially, not very inclusive. She would say that, "I'm sorry this toy might be a little bit dangerous for you. Maybe it will cause you some allergies or something else."
So basically, at this example, we can see how the information gets into Two-Steps and the opinion leader, in this case, is mom. She has all the power and authority to tell new information for her son, and her son must be, most likely, looking at her and behaving like her as their relatives.
So, the theory that refines the ability to predict the influence of media messages and it does provide an explanation on why certain theories failed. Well, it's recalled to this magic bullet or a hypodermic needle theory. Still, it was criticized after all. Many theories got criticized. First of all, this is the significant proportion of the population do not rely on opinion leaders, or these opinion leaders might vary, or you have this ability of critical thinking and you preferred to go through the information yourself and provide the analysis.
So, the critics overall, were that on this theory cannot describe all the cases. Well, this is sort of criticism which many theories do get. The last theory of the early theories of media effects would be the Gatekeeping. It was first introduced by Kurt Lewin, the social psychologist and he was the one and the first one, who coined the Gatekeeping term and the noun 'gatekeeper', which basically stands for the one who is responsible for the decision-making process.
First, it was widely used in psychology and then moved to the communication field with the with the research of David Manning White of the University of Iowa and he was the one who conducted the first research, it was empirical research which proved the Gatekeeping theory is existing.
So, it was in 1949 and Manning asked a newspaper editor. Let's call him Mr. Gates, to keep the copy of all the information of all the news which came to his office from different places, from the different news sources during one week, and this editor, he agreed. He agreed to provide an explanation and show the materials.
So, when this color compared, what kind of information, what sort of information was finally published on the contrary with the whole bunch of information, which was received, he decides and he summarized that the selection and the decision which was made, was very selective and it was very influential.
So, what do we refer to the Gatekeeping? Gatekeeping is the process through each information is filtered for the dissemination. The gatekeeper, it can be person or can be a social institution, decides what information would be communicated to others and what should not really.
This Gatekeeping process does have social, cultural, ethical, and political influence as it sets the agenda, as it sets all the information which we will finally consume as the community, as a society. There can be few levels of the Gatekeeping. Level number one is the level of individuals. Their decisions are usually personal and they rely on their own ethical background, their preferences and what they think is important for the communication within this field of the information. So, they decide what shall they communicate. So, this is the level of individuals.
The next level is organization and procedures. It exists within the environment of social institutions. Usually, that would affect the Gatekeeping process. So, the decisions in the company or when it's not directly regulated by one person, they usually made in accordance with pre-established and somehow generalized sets of practices. So, this level of organizations and procedures is something summarized and something which goes over and over in the same way. So, some patents which exists in certain organization.
The next level is the level of the social institutions themselves. So events, a variety of degree that they are culturally available as used items. Some of the terms for the agenda might not be applicable to the sudden agenda or to the certain institutions. So, the decision is made on this level.
And the last level would be recalled and referred to the communities and societies, as culture and cultural matters, indicators of social significance, which include political and political indicators. They might influence the selection of decisions and these decisions would finally affect the extent to which different parts of our reality are covered and how they are covered.
Later on, this theory would be developed as the Gatekeeping, as just this very basic process outlined another influential person or another influential institution but we can call this an element of the whole communicative system.
So, during this overview, we have an image of the evolution of communication theories in media effects in the very, very beginning. First, we started with the direct influence as the magic bullet goes and it affects the audience in the same way. Then, we have opinion leaders who appear and opinion leaders disseminate information. So, we got another pod, another element of the communicative system of this process, of information transferring.
And now, we have gatekeepers as well. So, we got another additional, it can be fourth, if I am not mistaken here, the fourth element. So, we have the sender and we have the receiver. In the very middle, we do have the gatekeeper who kind of sorts all of the information which comes and can further pass it to the opinion later.
Well, if we combine two theories, we can think about merging opinion later and the gatekeeper, that this would be a very strong individual who would have a very big influence on those who are affected by the media. So now, let's move on to more sophisticated theories of media effects.
As we discuss the early theories of media effects, let's move on to something more sophisticated. And that would be agenda setting and framing.
In the first part of our lecture, we discuss those immediate facts from the magic bullet theory, and then we discuss the roles of people or institutions who appear and shape our perspective and actually shape what will we see and what will we get from the news.
Agenda setting theory introduced first by McCombs and Shaw basically speaks about mass media having this very powerful effect. Media does not tell us what to think, rather it tells us what to think about. Maybe we can recall to the role of the gatekeeper who decides what kind of information would appear in the news here.
But before McCombs and Shaw, it was widely hailed that media and news coverage mainly reflects public interest, covering issues which were the most interesting for the audience. If we are there, and if some newspapers telling about our president's dog, we must be really interested and we're looking for more information about the dog of our president.
But yet, this idea of a media agenda kind of reflecting the interest of the public was disapproved when scholars found out that media certainly does have their own agenda. And the best here is to refer to this quote, "It's not what to think but what to think about".
But how did it happen and how did this research happened? It was all based on the research on presidential elections, which happened in 1968, 1972, and then followed by 1976. Scholars developed two criteria, the length and the position of the news story in the media, while it would be newspaper, probably, as we speak about length and position, and the similarity of agenda with the voters perceptions.
Basically, they would go through all the media and all the newspapers that would talk about the elections and then talk to people and ask them, what is important happening in this country and what is important for you as an individual.
They're finding, supported the initial hypothesis of correlation between what voters think and what voters think is important and what media highlights in their coverage. Still, here we speak about correlation, the correlation happens that two variables, they change together. If A raises then B raises, or if A raises, B decreases. They just change together in accordance with each other.
But it does not provide an understanding where it does not speak about the causal influence. It doesn't mean that media does affect people, but they just figured out that yes, it's somehow reflecting the reality.
The major assumptions of agenda-setting theory is first, media does not reflect the reality, but it rather filters and shapes it. It's not what voters probably want to think or it's not what voters are interested in, it's rather what they've been told to think, or not to think, but what to be interested in.
The second point of agenda-setting theory is that media focuses their attention on some very particular issues. And this is an agenda for events that should be seen as important. After all, we can move on to some types of agenda setting.
Who are those influentials and where does it appear? Well, it can be public agenda setting. It refers to the issues which are portrayed in the media and the public's priorities. Then secondly, it can be media agenda setting. While all the past such as the institutional roles and the processes that are influential within the selection of issues and content covered in the media, these are those gatekeepers.
And the third level would be policy agenda setting. The media coverage and its influence on the legislative agenda, the policy-making inviting etc. We figure it out. Media can be influential and it does set us a certain focusing point which we would like to see more precisely. And finally, we will just assume that they're more important than the rest.
But how and who is the most affected? Scholars come up with two terms. It can be called the need for orientation or the index of curiosity. They say that people with high relevance and high uncertainty, at the highest level of the need for orientation, are those who will be most likely exposing themselves to the media and adopt the media issue agenda.
If I do not have enough information and I really need to figure it out what's going on, or if I am very much interested in this topic, I would get more affected. It doesn't mean that we have to stay unpresent, not to be interested in anything, it just means that we need to apply some critical thinking and take a look for example at international agenda because local agenda usually focuses on some issues which are important for the local community.
But maybe something else is going on at the same time, but it was just avoided and cut by the editor of the newspaper or the editor or the TV channel from the broadcasting. And these people would decide that it's not relevant, you should not think about it and you should not think that this is important. This is agenda setting.
Later on, this story was developing and another theory comes out and this is framing. You might be a little bit familiar with framing which is sometimes called the second-level agenda setting. And here, when it comes to this theory, we say that media not only influence what we think about, but it still does influence the way we think about different topics.
Why is it second-level agenda setting? First, the influentials, the editors in our case of spreading the news, would set the agenda, so they would select particular issues. But how else they can play with what's going on in their media coverage? The transfer of salience of an attitude object frontward through the image created. Basically, they put more stress on some issue which could have gone, not very specifically described.
Or this can be the transfer of salience of a set of attributes the media associate with an attitude object frontward. We will put in front our understanding and our perspective of this or another case. Framing as a concept is commonly used to explain media facts on the more deep level. It is frequently seen as an extension of the agenda setting theory, which we all know stands for prioritization.
After this prioritization, we kind of stimulate the decision-making process by highlighting some aspects of the news in our particular case and eliminating the others. But how we can de-frame the news? As you can see at this wall, the central organizing idea for news content that supplies the context and suggests what the issue is, can be made or provided through four different approaches. The selection, the emphasis, exclusion, or elaboration.
The selection, this is the first-level agenda setting. We select the news and we basically prioritize. The emphasis, we put more highlight on some issue and we would not do this to another one. Exclusion stands for the exclusion of these particular news from the agenda, and the elaboration is occurring when we provide a solid explanation for what is happening.
Framing sometimes is referred to as scattered conceptualization, or what is it, framing? First of all, we can provide the definition of a particular problem. So, we, as those who are influencing, we say what is happening. For example, there is a river in our neighborhood and it is being polluted. We can speak about this problem quite differently. We can say that this is the environmental problem. It can be seen as a very big environmental problem. Or at the same time, it can be seen as a problem of manufacturers who have their factory nearby and they just don't have phones or they don't have tools or they don't have any financial support to somehow change the way how they reduce these wastes.
The second attitude towards framing or the second approach to framing, can be the causal interpretation. So, what is causing what? So, I can say that this is pollution and this is the problem in the local neighborhood and the cause of this problem is the factory. Other way, I can say that the cause of this problem is our government which does not support manufacturers. This would be a different framing of the news. So, it would be a different perspective at pretty much the same event.
Moral evaluation or treatment recommendation. I can provide my own personal feelings and I can speak about whether it's ethical or not to do these or other issue. So, when the readers would go through this, probably the readers with more empathy, they would get my ideas and they will take them more personally, or I can speak about the people. I can speak about the locals who are suffering from these water pollution.
Let's take a look at the classic example, how framing can actually happen and how it does influence us. Please take a look here. We have the case of 600 people suffering from the deadly illness. And in the first place, people who would be the part of this experiment, they would be provided two solutions for this problem and there would be treatment A and treatment B.
And treatment A states that, if we use this medication or these pills we would save 200 lives. Treatment B provides us with the different outcomes that would be 33% chance of saving all 600 people and 66% of chance that we're not saving anyone. Then the same people would be, or maybe it's not the same people, it rather better be different people, but within this experiment the next group was suggested and provided with a solution number two.
So, the treatment A, 400 people will die with the use of this medicine. And in treatment B, there would be the 33% chance that no people will die and 66% again that all of them would die. So, what do you think would be most usually picked, as solution number one and solution number two are exactly the same?
Well, in the situation number one, respondents would choose the treatment number A as it sounds more positive, as more people would survive. And in the second case, people would just try to keep and turn for more possibilities where at least some possibilities, because 400 people dying sounds just too scary.
So, now we know what framing is and this happens when we go to the public agenda and we've seen that some events in different mediums can be highlighted in a different way, can be seen in a different way. But how can we figure it out? What is the case, and how to deal with framing, and how to identify the frames within this agenda, as the second level agenda say?
Here we provide you with a brief example, not the example, but the few steps of the frame analysis which can be conducted. Frame analysis, in the very beginning, it was brought by Erving Goffman back in 70s. So, first of all, when we have something confusing and we have a suspicion that there is some game play by different media within the case, we first need to identify the context of the case. So, what is going on? Secondly, we select several articles which describe this case and restructure the key parts of the case.
So, as Erving Goffman was very famous for his dramatic attitudes as to what is going on within the communication and here, we need to understand like how this performance is played. So, what are the plots? What are the plots in this particular case? On the third step, we would outline our main characters and their attributes. So, how these people, it can be people or a social institution, how they're characterized within these different plots?
After all, we will distinguish the reasoning. So, what is the cause? Who is the one to be blamed? That would be our number four step. And then, we would look at linguistic, cultural and rhetorical mechanisms. Maybe, authors of the particular articles would be somehow playing with words or they would provide some more personal or more dramatic explanation for the whole process.
And if we go through all these five steps, later on we can compare. And in this case, we will be able to identify what are the particular frames which exist in the point of view of the media outlet. We can call this a media outlet.
But we don't have to forget, that it is essential to recognize frames. But when you understand what the frames are, you need to know and you need to remember, that you do have some frames in your own head. And they are already embedded. And it all comes with the culture and the surrounding and with the context in which we exist. What is our profession? What kind of the attitudes do we have to life and to what is going on?
So, understanding the discourse and understanding what is going on within this issue, is only possible when we understand how do we, at our particular standpoint, will view the reality and what are our frames.
So to summarize here, we during this lecture discussed agenda setting theory and we discussed framing. Agenda setting theory stands for the notion that media would affect the audience, but they don't tell the audience what to think rather than what to think about. Still, there is a little bit more as the second level agenda setting or framing which actually says what to think to the audience from the point of view of a media.
Now, knowing about this mechanisms, probably we will be more critical to our own media consumption and maybe the reading of the news would be different for us.
In the previous part of our lecture, we were talking about agenda setting and second level agenda setting theory, which refer to framing. And we realized that agenda of different media is directly reflecting and kind of influencing what do we think about. As well as the way how do we frame the use are influencing our attitudes to what is happening in real life.
Right now, let's focus at the media ecology perspective which was brought up by Marshal McLuhan, famous for his very interesting quote and sometimes pretty confusing, the medium is the message. So how did it happen? This theory was outlined by Marshal McLuhan in 1960s. But the term and the media ecology concept itself was coined by Neil Postman, kind of his student, the person he met at the university there in Canada later in 1968.
So the group of scholars was working towards the new understanding of the media. And they stemmed it at the point the media should be understood ecologically. Ecologically referring to, what do we have in nature? So there were different medias, and they are in some sort of relationship with each other. And everything is evolving and everything is changing within the media perspective.
Their main point was that symbolic environment is determined by the technology. Later, we will discuss the approach of technological determinates within social media and understanding of social media. But here, McLuhan was the pioneer. And we can't speak about him being a little bit ahead of his time in this point as he understood that, the medium and the outlet is somehow changing our understanding of what the content is.
The message for McLuhan and this school of media ecology is secondary as the medium is the message. But let's first of all understand what is the media? The media refers to generic term for all human-invented technology that extends the range, speed, or channels of communication. So media is everything, all the means of communication which we use in order to disseminate information.
The medium would be a specific type of media. For example, it is a book, newspaper, radio, television, telephone, film, website or email. So here, he says that the medium is the message, which basically means that for our message the most important is the structure within the message is created. User is the one who has the power to determine the message at the same time. So basically, the user is the content.
Okay, it sounds really, really confusing, and we will go through it. But as we already discussed what person would understand, is the information received might be quite different from the information which was sent originally by the sender. This is what the user, and user's interpretation of what he received is the most important. So the content in this case is user and his own perception, his or her own perception. That's why the user is the content.
So how did the evolution of media happen? As the world was evolving, as the species were developing, the same attitude mediachology carries for the species as the media. And as McLuhan outlines, there was first tribal age. When the news and everything was going on, all the fairy tales, all the information was transmitted only orally.
And people will come to the fireplace and they will see each other, they would rely on their senses, they would listen to the story and they would get it. And those who have the information were very important as they were the only ones who had the access for this information.
And that first change occurs with the alphabet, and now we can actually write down something and information can be stored. And now people become a little bit more distracted from each other. We don't come back to the fireplace as we can read something in the book. Well, though books were highly difficult to find, they still existed and the information became stored and the more understanding of what's going on can be provided.
But the main thing here is people getting a little bit far away from each other. It's not a tribe anymore. The next to have of this people living their own life instead of negotiating, discussing all the time happens with the invention of the printing press, which was the revolution and we moving to the print age, when the news can be disseminated immediately. And many, many people, mass audience actually can receive this news. And this is when we start talking about mass communication itself.
And the very dramatic change happens with the invention of the telegraph. It happened in 1850 and that was the beginning of the electronic age. People become closer and all the information became very easily transmitted. So the whole media influence were changing, and with this electronic age McLuhan says, we're moving towards the global village.
And we are kind of going back to the tribal age as now we can see others and they're very easily accessible. And we can communicate different news and we can see different events there as it is, as we are present there. Yet nowadays, scholars talk about us living in the digital age, which makes the communication even faster and more instant. We definitely do have all the mobile devices which are very different from the telegraph and it makes us living in the even more global village.
So now as we understood how media were evolving due to the time, and how the dominating sword of media within the society was influenced in the society, let's take a look at the definitions of McLuhan's hot and cool media. So he provides us with the distinction on two different types.
Hot media extends single sense in high definition and provides solid involvement with little stimulus. On the contrary, cool media requires the user to fill the gaps in provided information and participate actively with significant stimulus.
As there are recent examples of print, book, radio, photography, movie, and lecture for the hot media, on the contrary, we see telephone, speech, cartoon, TV, and seminar as a sort of cool media. And you obviously have the question how TV appears to be cooler than a book, for example. Let's take a look then.
If we bring an example of a photograph which has a very high definition as it said here on the slide, we can see all the details of this photograph. We can even zoom it and we have a very clear picture of what the author or an artist wanted to show us.
On the contrary with the cartoon, we only see the symbols for hair, for the clothes, and we can put an additional effort to understand what was the meaning. So in case of the hot media, of the whole idea of the message is quite clear without rather more involvement of the one who is consuming this content.
And in terms of the cool media, additional effort is required. A very good example between lecture and seminar, at the lecture, you just listen to what the lecture is telling you. And at the seminar, you need to participate, your feedback is very important and you're very much involved.
So now we know what all the hot and cool media is about and that the medium is the message. And let's move on to the global village in the next part.
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.
As we now discuss the media effects within the media ecology and the way how different means of communication shape our perspectives and the way how do we approach social reality, let's now move on and focus at the cultivation theory. Just like all the theories devoted to the media facts, it's focusing on the way how media is changing our attitudes and our behavior.
But this particular theory was mostly focusing at one medium, which is television, just like the media ecology approach. You may say that quite many people nowadays have no TV at home. And thus this theoretical approach would be useless as we are losing our attachment to the television and we're using different sorts and different means of the communication nowadays.
Still, the cultivation theory might be very helpful to understand the media effect on the very radical level of the influence, and as well as this approach highlights the important of the content itself, and is direct influence on the perceptions, rather than on how technology is shaping our view of the reality.
So let's take a look what was it like. The whole approach was developed by George Gerbner in the 70s, and it was all focusing on the TV, as TV was seen as the dominant force which shapes modern society. The core assumption of the theory is that it predicts not the directing of our thinking, but the direct impact of television on the way we perceive the world.
So it's all about the embedded frames, which are transmitted through the television, which we used in order to construct our reality. So the most we know, or at least we think about what we know, we have never experienced personally. And we need to add our experiences in order to have the complete view of the reality.
So these stories which appear on television, they just changing the way how we see the missing parts of what's supposed to be in our world here. So the stories that animate our cultural environment to reveal first of all, how things work. Well, you might never be a fireman so you are watching a TV series about firemen and the understanding and perception on the way how people in the fire department would work would come directly from this TV series or it can be a movie.
Describe what the things are. The description of the sudden processes and the way how different things happen in different parts which are on the border and away from our experience. This is quite an important function of the television. Also these stories from television, they tell us what we need to do about them. So they add a little bit of reality, and they provide us with an understanding, how should we perceive different people within the next upcoming situation of the social reality.
For example, you'd never been dealing with the police, but you see a lot about law enforcement too serious, or maybe it can be shows, any other shows on the TV. And In this case, in particularly dialogues between characters and the representatives of the police, would shape your attitudes. And after that, this is the TV series which is navigating you through the difficult situation when you get caught by the police, for example. Hopefully, it would never happen.
So what are the basic assumptions of the theory? The technological advancements make storytelling available in a large scale and the main source is the TV. Remember it was in 70s and, yes, TV was quite the dominant source of the news, and source of the entertainment and TV become quite cheap, so it was everywhere in states, and generally it would go on across the world.
Stories present co-construct. Stories which are presented, they co-construct our view of the reality. So we cannot have all the experiences. We need to fill the gaps in our knowledge. Mass media at the same time cultivates attitudes and values which are already presented in culture.
So the people who are making the TV series, they kind of get the information from somewhere, and this information is just exaggerated, or it might be shown with a different focus, or it can be just slightly different. But the high dominating forms of the cultural standards, they would be reproduced through the mass medium.
Why TV was chosen for the theory? First of all, it was fundamentally different from any other sources and forms of the mass media. It was quite a storyteller and it was interactive more or less, and I provided and activated as many instances as it was never possible before.
And as well, it was quite interesting to see the dramatic shift as the television spread really fast and almost 98%, 89% of the American homes had a television by this time. Still, television has limited effects so these effects can be tracked.
So for the purposes of this research, Gerbner was conducting a very interesting study while he was tracking how much people are watching TV, and what their view and perception of the reality is. First of all, he outlined three categories of the viewers. Heavy viewers who would watch a lot of the TV, light viewers who would be just watching slightly, less than ten hours a day. And moderate viewer, those who can be stuck between those two categories. So they're not spending too much time, but they're not avoiding television.
After that, he would be comparing the presence of TV consumption to measuring the cultivation differential, which brought him to the main conclusion of the mean world syndrome. So what is that? That first thing is the people who are exposed to the TV version of the reality for a longer time, so the heavy viewers, would have exaggerated belief in a mean and scary world due to the extensive broadcast of the violent content, which was called the mean world syndrome.
The study was taken in a few steps and the respondents were asked how many people live in the United States, how many people work in the law enforcement. And during the week, what are the chances of yours to be involved in some type of violence? And should people be trusted?
But as you can predict, the heavy viewers would significantly overestimate the number of people who work in the law enforcement. As well as they would underestimate their real life danger as they consume too much of the violent content. And they co-constructed their view of the social reality with this content. So definitely they would not trust much people, but people should be trusted.
What are the other cultivation effects? There are two effects which Gerbner brings up to describe the way how this cultivation works. The first one is the mainstream effect which stands for individuals with less direct experience being more affected by the media. And the second one is resonance effect. Individuals with a more direct experience will be affected more by the media.
So basically, you will be affected anyway if you know how does it work in the reality or how it doesn't work. But these two names, and these two definitions would be helpful in order to provide an explanation of how the cultivation process happens.
The research and method, as an individual, you might be interested in how and what parts of the reality are commonly constructed for you by the media. And maybe you can do this little research on yourself, first of all.
But for the scholars, the most common variables in the cultivation framework are the media use, perceptions, behavioral intentions, and personal experiences. So you need to measure all four of them, and then try to seek for the correlation between media exposure and the other dependent variable.
It's usually conducted through several steps and first you need to identify this stable pattern within the TV content, or in the case of Gerbner, it was violent. And you go through the institutional process analysis as there are some people who would manage the way how content appears to the public and those gatekeepers who actually will build up the agenda for the upcoming media translation.
And the message system analysis is when you focus on the message itself, and you're trying to break it down into particles to understand what is the major focus of this message. And then you see the cultivation analysis. Basically this correlation between dependent variable and independent variable. So does the TV or any other type of content consumption influence the way how we think about the reality?
So to summarize here, cultivation theory assumes that there is a strong power of the TV on the reality. Yet it can be done with any other medium, doesn't have to be a TV or early cultivation of the violent content. The primary message of the TV does not reflect the reality. But here we need to question what is the reality, and how the social norms, standards, and attitudes cultivated through the variety of media sources actually work, and how do they shape our society?
At the previous portfolio lecturer, we were discussing the cultivation effect of the television on the audience. But maybe audience within the media effects can be seen a little bit different. Maybe we do carry on some sort of critical thinking and we can choose the information which we like.
This is what we're going to discuss right now and this is the theory of the Selective Exposure, which refers to the way how we can reduce Cognitive Dissonance. But let's clear up first. So, what is Cognitive Dissonance? Let's think of an example. There is a test in the class. You're a student and you're definitely not ready. You decided to go out the night before and now, you're not prepared at all.
You know and you agree that cheating is bad and looking at someone else's test results is not a very good idea. But still, you find yourself cheating. Now, you're experiencing two confronting cognitions which Leon Festinger, the author of the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, suggests leads to the way as we know as Cognitive Dissonance, basically.
What can you do in this situation to make yourself feel better and comfortable? Let's take a look at the Cognitive Dissonance Theory to outline the possible reactions here. But first, we need to think of what the Cognitive Dissonance is all about.
Well, the basic assumptions of the theory are that first of all, individuals do hold multiple cognitions about the world and ourselves, they seek for this cognitions to be consistent, so they would be in a good relationship with each other and they will be supporting each other. Cognitions stands for basically a thought. So, you don't want to have two confronting thoughts in your head.
Experience of the dissonance when the two thoughts are confronted forces us to reduce or eliminate it or to somehow achieve the balance within these cognitions. In this case, we can speak about different directions in which we can move so some behavioral outcomes which are ending up with these cognitive dissonance appearance in the very first place.
The individuals are motivated to select the messages that would match their own beliefs, so you would want to avoid this cognitive dissonance. Let's take a look at the classic example which was the very initial beginning for the Cognitive Dissonance concept emergence.
It was conducted in 1959 by Leon Festinger and his team as three groups of students, who were invited to conduct one extremely boring task. And these three groups of students, in total it was above 71 students, had to react and respond to this test quite differently. The first is the control group. They were just conducting the task and they were left alone.
The second group was paid one dollar to conduct this task, while one dollar was still quite little money even for 1959. And after conducting this task, they were asked to tell the following students to say that the task was really interesting. The next group, the third one, was paid $ 20 to do the same thing. So, they were doing the boring stuff and after that, they would say that the task was interesting for those who would come back to continue with the activity.
So, what was the results of the experiment? After everybody went through this task, students were asked to estimate how interesting was it and to rank it. So, the findings show us five of the students who were paid $ 20 and the students from the control group, who were not paid money, but they were not asked why at the same time, they would say that task was dull.
Right. But the group which was paid one dollar would rate it a little bit high and say it was not that bad. So here, Leon Festinger decided that there must be some kind of stimula which would influence the difference with these two responses to completely the same stuff. It was called Cognitive Dissonance. What's the explanation here?
The group which was paid one dollar were the one who was suffering from this Cognitive Dissonance as they had to lie, which they didn't like, but they lied for very little money. Two other groups had justification. The first, the control group, they were just participating in the experiment and they didn't have to lie so they just did it, so they were completely honest with each other and with others.
As for the other group, who got paid $ 20, they did it for money. So basically, lying for money is quite okay. And this emergence of two confronting combinations was the cause which influenced the group who got paid one dollar to estimate this task a little bit high.
So, let's summarize what are the possible relationships between the cognition. The first one is Consonant Cognition. It's where everything is okay and there is no cognitive dissonance at all. Irrelevant Relationship, it's when these two cognitions are not really in relationship with each other so it doesn't bother us. And the Dissonant Relationship, which caused that problem after all, is when our two cognitions or actions are inconsistent with each other and we would try to find the ways to eliminate it.
When we talk about our general understanding of some particular issue, we can speak about the Ratio of Cognitions. This is the proportion of dissonant to consonant elements. And if some of them is increasing, we will try to eliminate it. There are few ways in which we can respond. Usually, you would end up with either behavioral change so, we will change the action which is inconsistent with the way we are thinking, or we will change the attitude. So we will be like, "No I don't really like cheating."
Let's go back to our very first example and see what are the possible reactions on this cheating situation. Well, the first one is to revoke the decision. I will never do this again and you just go cheating so, you have an explanation. That was the one very exceptional case. You don't plan to do this once again. We all have the right for the mistake.
The second one is to increase the attractiveness of the chosen alternative. If I won't do it, I will never graduate this year. So, you put yourself in the situation where there is no other option. The third option is to decrease the attractiveness of unchosen option. So unchosen option here, in this case, is not to cheat. Everybody cheats. Why wouldn't I be the one who doesn't? What makes me quite different from the other people?
The next one is to reduce the importance of the decision. This test was worth only 10 percent of the final grade. So, it's not important whatsoever. I can cheat and it's not the major problem of my life or it's not gonna be somehow paying to me after in the future.
So, here we can see the change of the attitude. We can also change our behavior. So, our initial intention was to cheat and we found ourselves thinking that cheating is really bad. So, we can just change the behavior and not to cheer them to just change to get the grade which we actually deserve.
Okay. Here is the cheating situation, but how does it work in terms of the media effect. This theory has stimulated a great deal of the discussion and its implications are used for quite a variety of the situation. And here, we speak about selective retention, which is according to the definition is the human tendency to remember messages that are consistent with our existing attitudes and beliefs.
So, we tend to remember all the good stuff which happen to us and me personally, I always forget about all the bad stuff which happen, so it wouldn't bother me and my perception of myself. So the theory makes the predictions about whether people will seek information and what kind of information they will seek for.
It makes a prediction about human thought and behavior after making a decision, so this would be referred to the post-decisional dissonance as well. After, for example, the case when we purchase something and after a while, some sort of alternatives appear in the new market, we will suffer that why we would not wait for a little while, why we would not get these option instead of the first one. So this post-decisional dissonance is also something which may occur.
The implications of the Cognitive Dissonance theory for persuasion as well as the specific form of the persuasion, the cold air into the theoretical background. So, the Cognitive Dissonance theory is very influential in terms of the media effects.
Let's now focus at what is called the Selective exposure and this is the part of the theory which it's directly referring to cognitive dissonance as well as to the media effects. So, media has the selective effect on people but it happens just because the audience is really active and people would tend to consume the information which will somehow correspond with the existing beliefs and the attitudes.
The status with them, the Selective Exposure theory focus on factors that lead to these selective exposure or the factors that mediate the process whereas, other studies deal with the consequences of the selective exposure to information processing.
How we can speak about examples here. So, the first, what are the causes which will force me to pick these but not the different information and the second type of the selective exposure effects is how the public agenda and how our decisions and how our thoughts about what's going on within the society vary due to the differences in media consumption patterns.
How do we research this fear of the selective exposure? Well, first of all, we ask responses to do some self-report. So what is the type of media you can see? What are your existing thoughts? And how do you approach the reality? When it comes to the political behavior, selective exposure must be quite influential theoretical framework to explain why certain people choose certain types of media and avoid others.
Well, they do it just to avoid cognitive dissonance. But now we can provide a clear understanding and clear explanation for distinguishing this different types of people and distinguishing this different groups who would focus on different patterns of media consumption.
Laboratory experiments are quite widespread as well. So it happens when you get some people together and you ask them to mark down what are their ideas of, for example, about the presidential elections and about one and the second particular candidates who were fighting there in order to get the chair.
After that, you would provide your respondents, the people, who are participating in this experiment with some materials who would have some sort of information which will be either a negative or a positive to one or the other candidates and after people consumed this information, you just ask them to do the same routine over again and to see whether their attitudes have changed or it didn't.
Well, guess what might happen. People with the certain ideas would just avoid the information which is not favorable to the thoughts and to the cognitions they are carrying already. So this is one of the ways how we can prove the selective exposure of facts seen like real life situation.
Observations is another way. You can observe yourself, you can observe other people and talk to them about what is their media consumption practices and what are their tastes and what are their attitudes.
Selective and forced exposure to the media content as you can track how people or individuals get through the information. Are they really being selective? Are they avoiding some parts and some materials or not? And the forced exposure when you again face the person with the confronting ideas and see how is it happen. Maybe there is going to be some sort of behavioral change and person will just run away from this experiment. Or maybe he will end up in the changing attitudes so the person will change their attitude towards what's happening.
Well, as we have seen within this part of the course, audience has been taking more and more active role when it comes to the media effects. Still, it is very important to consider the means of communication and the medium particularly when we think about spreading the information and transmitting it from people or from some particular sources to the broader audience.
Now, let's speak a little bit more about the role of the audience and its attitudes in the next section.
Well, during the first few sections of this lecture, we were talking about the way how media is influencing people and we discussed all the media factors, cultivation, and selective exposure, which actually brought us to the understanding that people can be selective and people can somehow participate and involve critical thinking in their immediate consumption patterns.
What if we change the whole approach of media effects upside down and think about the audience as an active participant of these communicative process? Well, this is what Uses and Gratifications theory's talking about and the main message here is that the audience is active. Let's take a look.
It was introduced by Blumer and McQuail back in 70s, 80s. It appears as a respond to the Media Effects Research, as not all the studies would follow the logic of media effects and the predictive power of media theories was not enough to describe what is happening and to tell what is going to happen.
This theory is extremely audience-centered and basically, it talks not what media does with people, rather than what do people do with media and how do they consume this information, what are the purposes of this.
Let's take a look at basic assumptions. So, the first one is that the audience is chasing certain goals in media consumption. While we can think about it as a quite true story, as you rather would choose or watching some some funny movie after the long day at work instead of going through some difficult drama series which will make you intense and a little bit uncomfortable, maybe, as you are compassionate to the characters.
The second assumption is the choice of the audience is made upon the needs. So, we are not just chasing this special goals, but we do have certain needs and then we can formulate these goals, and then we make a clear decision about what we are going to watch or why we are not planning to do.
Third assumption is that media compete with other resources for this needs satisfaction. And this assumption helps us to describe why there are so many different source, types, and sorts of media, which are focusing on different issues. But they can be generalized and sorted out in different categories. So, maybe, the main distinction here is that audiences would choose this media because they want to satisfy their needs. That's quite an interesting approach.
The next assumption is that people are able to explain their media use pattern and assess the value of each of them. This one is quite doubtful, because we cannot always say why and why not we are doing these or other particular action. This assumption of the theory was falling under a little bit of the criticism after all.
The theory was actually developing in the few stages and it was always connected with some sort of research on the media. It all started with Herta Herzog and researched back in 1944, as she was trying to understand what's the needs for soap opera listening at the radio. And she found out that the respondents would outline emotional Visual Thinking and Learning as the main needs that they're satisfying through this media consumption.
After all, in 1954 Wilbur Schramm measure the amount of gratification individuals received by different media usage. And these findings were quite quick contradictory to the previous research and the theories which standard for audience being passive and largely influenced by media industry.
So, what are the needs? Back in 1954, Abraham Maslow introduced his hierarchy of needs. And here, nowadays, we can try to apply this hierarchy to the different media types and sorts, which we use in order to satisfy maybe this needs.
Can we satisfied our physiological needs? Definitely do. We can email our friend, we can text them and ask them to bring us some pizza or on weekend, make a post on Facebook, they were very hungry and the need would be finally satisfied.
Our safety need can be satisfied, while we are getting the psychological safety, basically. Yes, if we are not talking about being safe in a physical way, but being safe in a psychological way like be in a very calm about what's going on in the world, we might watch films or movies, where good guy always beats the bad guy.
Moving to the belonging needs. Why you're watching TV series with multiple episodes and multiple seasons, you do develop some kind of relationship with characters. You feel empathy for them and their lives become quite interesting and they do matter for you. In this case, we can speak about per social relationship. You kind of do have a relationship with this characters and you do feel yourself as a part of their life and you do place yourself in their life.
Esteem needs. Well, what do we do when we need to raise our self-esteem? Well we can, first of all, watch some educational content, as well we can go online and get some tips and advises. They're very helpful and they do help us resolve this particular problem.
Self actualization. Well, welcome to the world of social media with user generated content, which you can create, you can share, and you can somehow communicate the concept of self, which we were talking about during our first lectures. And you can show the world what are you think about and what are your ideas. Sometimes, you get approved by the society and at this point, it will be the peak of this self actualization.
So then, in the 70s Blumler and McQuail conducted a number of the research on Uses and Gratifications, driven by the idea that people would like to satisfy some of their needs with the media consumption and a few dimensions of this needs and the few dimensions of this uses were outlined by them.
The first line is diversion. Diversion of your own personal experiences as you can see. Something you've never seen before and in the media comparing with your life. Diversion, not only your personal experiences, but diversion of your passing time, like routine, as you want to be involved in some other activities.
Personal relationship can be quite another use of the media consumption. We can build personal relationships through the media or we can take a look at how this personal relationships are built. Personal identity, as we mentioned previously in our into interpersonal communication part, we can only speak and we can only understand ourselves through the prism of others. So, we need these communicative process, so we can negotiate our identity and see what we really are.
So, this personal identity might be built with the usage of media as you compare yourself to different people from the TV, from other media outlets and you see their stories and you try to think how would you respond to these or other situation in the same context.
And the last of the uses is surveillance, as you want to see how the other look and this is your sort of ethnography research. You're just curious about the way how our lives goes.
So, this theory might be quite applicable in many different contexts and in many different cases. We need to keep in mind while thinking about the applications that the meanings, they are taken by the audience from different media materials may vary dramatically. And in this case, different groups of people would have different intentions to use and utilize particular different means of media.
These theories applicable pretty much for everything from the old media, from the Internet research to mobile applications and video games. As practicing professionals, we can understand what are the needs of our audiences and we can present them what they really do look for right now.
And what is the main methodological approach here? The main method is we usually speak about motive scales development and it would derive from the case-to-case, as many different approaches to the Uses and Gratification and many different tables with the multiple uses have been outlined by the scholars.
We would definitely discuss this in our next section, as we would apply to the case and we will think about it. I will discuss the real research, but first, let me focus at some limitations of this theory.
It is that, considering audience is a goal-oriented and media consumption might be a little bit overestimated. This is the main point of the critics, as we should not neglect the media facts from the previous theorists and think that audience can definitely do control themselves and all their behavior as very reasoned and they understand what are their current needs. So, they plan and they never move outside from this planned behavior.
Also, individuals cannot choose their media environment on their own, as they are limited for their resources. That's another limitation. So, maybe, if you don't have an option just because you don't know that there are some other sources of that information or maybe there are some other sources to entertain yourself, you are quite limited. So, you don't have the broad perspective. You might be shaped, still, by the media you are using even though your uses are quite satisfied and they can be satisfied more.
So, to summarize here, the audience is active and let's discuss the ways how we can study and how we can apply it to practice in our next section, and let's go to the case.
So, hi, and if you're watching your cell phone right now, I would like to encourage you to take it away, as we are going to focus now at some applications and extensions of the Uses and Gratifications Theory which we discussed in the previous chapter of this lecture.
So, I hope that you all read and at least you scanned, you went through the article for this case analysis. And today, we are talking about motivations for multi-screening and this is an exploratory study on motivations and gratifications.
So, what is the case? Well, just take a closer look at multi- screening processes which refers to the watching TV in preforming preforming other activities on mobile media simultaneously, or in a sequence. Here, they would like to focus on goals, need, preferences, and expectations of the audience while they're involved in this multi-tasking, multi-screening activities.
A few terms from the theoretical background are very important for us to understand through their own the theory of Uses and Gratifications, and here, I would like to outline a few steps and a few key terms from the article.
The first one is that attention distribution has profound implications for marketing and advertising effect. This is how our author explained the applicable side of this research. And well, it does. Probably, many of you do have the experience of multi-tasking while multi-screening and watching TV doing something else with your cell phone at that time.
Well, still, we need to understand how does it work in terms of marketing and advertising as well as we want to understand the whole nature of us as human beings having quite a freewheel and making a decision to do multitasking activities, because of the lack of the research is what motivated this particular study.
Authors, first of all, focus at connected and distracted viewing as a key definition to understand the nature of multi-screening process. So, what is the theoretical background for the research? Well, author outlines that the market research was the first one to be occuring in this field as people who work for the companies, and people who work for the research center as dealing with internet and TV consumption, advertising and marketing, they are really interested in this pattern changing as multi-screening is quite a new phenomena and more and more people get involved into this action.
But what is the limit of the market research is that it does not provide the clear understanding of the whole phenomena rather than focusing on some clear data. So, here, the attention distribution has the profound implications for marketing and advertising affecting as we have to acknowledge this for our theoretical implications into the professional field.
So, what is the theory which underlines the further research? First of all, author outlines a connected and destructive viewing as two concepts, which help us to understand the way how I thought of how the individual would react for this multi-screening situation.
The connected viewing is first to connection between what is being watched and to the activities which are preformed with the phone. This is me when I am watching the series, and I usually start watching from the very first season but from the very last season, and in the very last season, there is a lot of going on and I don't really understand, what are the relationships between characters and really do need to Google it.
Distracted viewing is the opposite thing. So, you are using smartphone when TV content is not engaging whatsoever. This can happen when it comes to the advertising. No one likes to see advertisement. So, basically, you just use your phone to check on social media and to try to entertain yourself a little bit and to get rid of this quite irritating material which is played on the TV.
So, what are the gratifications for the multi-screening and what are the gratification from the using mobile phone while you watching TV? Author first acknowledges content gratification and the process gratification. You have to understand what is the most important, like what are you watching there or what is the process for you? If the process is more engaging, well, you would have a different attitude towards the whole situation of the multi-screening.
The second typology of gratification is utilitarian ineffective. Utilitarian refers to the things that can be done which are very important for you. But this is mostly like word duty, too. This is a function which you are planning to perform and you're performing in order to increase productivity. Affective involves the emotional component here. And this is something that you like or something that gives your pleasure. It's not about getting things done.
The next typology is resource enhancing and recreational. So, the first one does imply some sort of an offer from your then the second one is going smooth and easy. Efficiency and connectivity. It goes somehow with the parallel with utilitarian and affective with our first point here. Efficiency is all about technological convenience, information exchange, so you are again trying to increase your productivity. And the connectivity can be about social networking.
So, one of the most usually performed functions within the multi-screening process as taken on the social media, so you can connect with your friends, you can discuss some sort of stuff which is going on on the TV, and these would be quite different from filling up some forms which important for your tomorrow's appointment.
So, what was the method for this research? Well, let's start with the research question. So, for this particular study, scholar wanted to understand what this specific motivations that would trigger multi-screening processes.
For these purposes, the four focus groups were conducted with the age difference of the respondents, of the participants varying from 18-25. Others refers to the sample as a purpose of sample as they all were the multi-screeners and they acknowledged themselves as a multi- screeners. So, he just invited the volunteers from the pool of university students.
Still, the research is quite interesting as this practice of multi-screening might have quite many options, the first one is the choice of device, content, activity setting, articulation of how and what are you using. The multi-screening for the multi-screening purposes. It can be only understood through the prism of motivation and expectations, which is quite impossible with the quantitative study.
As we discussed the approaches to the quantitative study, it just great detail, I would say, and the search for the correlations and the search for statistical analysis here, the method or focus group was chosen to uncover some initial intentions for using particular sorts of media or for using particular ways to communicate while performing the multi-screening.
So the focus group here is the best feeding, and I found this quite an interesting approach for understanding particular case. Focus group is when fewer people get together and with the little bit of guidance of moderator, they would answer some questions. So while everybody's listening to each other, and people can express themselves, they can choose different words to put the meaning and to explain what are they going through.
And these direct dialogue with many people who can encourage each other to speak more and who can quite be a little bit influential at the same time, but still it opens the great platform for the dialogue. So focus groups are there.
Let's discuss now the results. So what are the findings here? Well, first of all, score found out that destructive viewing is more common rather than the connective viewing. And it happens due to the lack of engagement from the TV, and people just not really interested in the TV content or they want to be distracted somehow.
The changing platform of the TV was another interesting finding, as many of the younger respondents would tell that they are watching TV content on their laptop, so they are changing the platform, they changing the medium itself, still try to be committed to the content that they're interested in which comes with the television.
So about motivations and gratifications. We already outlined that the most frequently appealing motivation was effective. So people come there for emotions, for some sort of communication rather than for getting things done. And these affective motivation will include such practices as going through the social media, and texting to your friends, communicating within the instant messengers.
Few of the utilitarian practices and utilitarian motivations appeared as well, as you want to get some content related searches while you were doing some work. And these motivations and these practices would be connected with the different gratifications.
Mostly people do multi-screening in accordance with this research, along with the social interactions. So they would use their mobile phones in order to connect, to get connected with their friends, family, or just go through the lives of their friends and family.
The information gratification was the least frequently used as entertainment was also quite frequent. How can we interpret these data? Why is it important for us? We would like to understand why certain social practices work or did not work, how our reality is changing, and what are the uses and gratifications of the different sorts of media.
So, this viewing and the particular case, can provide us with the better insights on the way how we can navigate our communicative campaign or it can provide us with the insights of how we can spend our time, maybe more useful while we're watching some stuff and entertaining ourselves with social media for example, or maybe we can get some work done.
So that was quite a long lecture. Now let's summarize what we discussed in terms of media effects during this time. So, early theories of media effects, they predicted the immediate and very powerful fact all of the content on the audience,. Then we moved onto agenda setting and framing, discussing how certain institutions or individuals would form the agenda and would navigate us through the world of the news, maybe even showing us some very distinctive parts of the processes and neglecting the others.
After that, we discussed media ecology, F. Marshall McLuhan with his key quotation as the medium is the massage. We understood that media and media effects can be seen ecologically, and these can be all understood through the prism of technological determinism. When the technology defines the reality.
After discussing this aspect of media effects, we moved onto cultivation theory and focused on television as one of the most powerful in back in the 70s and maybe in the 80s, effects on the way how we could construct and change our understanding of the reality as television and the medium content itself is being complimentary to the way how we perceive what's going on around us.
The next theory of selective exposure based on the assumptions of cognitive dissonance theory, told us that audience might be little bit selective, and the proper explanation was because of two confronting cognitions can never live in our heart. So we would tend to follow the information we would already agree with, instead of going with some controversial stuff.
The most active audience is seen through the prism of uses and gratifications theory. This theory assumes that audience can be extremely active as they do understand their needs and they can select the media which they would like to be exposed to.
So, these are the major approaches to the media effects. And hope that these approaches, knowing this approaches, will make you more mindful media consumer and it may help you in your own practical life as communication practitioners.
Hi, and welcome back to the course. This is week six, and this week we're discussing social media. The emerging approaches to social media, theoretical perspectives, and practical implication.
But before we move onto the theoretical part, I want to ask you a question. What is the first thing you do early in the morning? Well, first, you need to forget about the alarm, you finally woke up. What do you want to do next? For me, it would be my yoga practice. And what I really want to do is just stretch and get into this day. But usually instead, I would just go and scroll my Facebook feed line and then I see what happens overseas over this night. If it doesn't work, I go on Instagram and check on the pictures that have been uploaded. Again eight hours from me, because in the United States, for example, while I was sleeping was brand new day. So even if I finally decided to do my yoga in this morning, I would go in YouTube and find my instructor who has shown me some postures, gestures and definitely wish me a great day.
So social media becomes an essential part of our life. And it's integrated with our day routine from the very early morning. But let's take a look what social media is. Well, by the definition it's a group of Internet-based applications that are built on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content. The most important part for us is user generated content.
Social media appear online in early 2000s. And by the year 2015, it was just 15 years, over 200 operating social media website appeared online. What are the examples of these social media? First of all, it all started with blogs and User Generated Content was provided there. What do you want to share with publics? Do you want to tell your lifestyle story? Do you want to share some experiences of yours that happen before? Would you like to discuss some political or social issues? You can do it on blog. This is a very personalized page where you can share your own ideas.
While secondly, it's microblogs, hello Twitter. Here, we can share some ideas, very short and brief ones. While definitely Twitter is taken a part in our political and social agenda, we track the use of celebrities and politicians over the Twitter. We try to track the life of others over the Twitter because we are interested exactly in this content and in the news updates. Social networks created the revolution in social media. And Facebook nowadays is one of the most often downloaded applications, as well as one of the most opened websites among the people.
And well, what do you do the first thing you come to the work? You open your Facebook page and check on the news. And then you can get your cup of your morning coffee and continue with a working routine. So social networks provide a very different opportunity to share the user generated content and to create it and to upload it online.
Instant messengers, are they just a mean of communication or should we put it all together with the collective of these social media websites. With the case of recently merged instant messenger telegram, we definitely can speak about instant messengers taking this niche and moving towards the social media as itself. Because in this case, it's not just the opportunity to chat with your colleagues, with your friends and create multiple conversations with big groups of people. But you can stream the information, you can exchange this information with others while you creating a channel through which you share your thoughts, ideas, and the content that is generated, guess by whom? By user.
But what are the key features of social media? First one is interactivity. You can have the opportunity not just to content with another person or with a group of different people, which can be described as some kind of social interactivity. We can also speak about the technical interactivity. You can create multiple sources of content and you can use different tools to share it and distribute it.
The second feature is the temporal structure of social media. It can be synchronous and asynchronous at the same time. When it comes to synchronous communication, it means that by the usage of instant messages, we can exchange information simultaneously. And this creates the special atmosphere of intimacy as you can feel the presence of your friend right there in your phone or near by you at the couch. Asynchronous communication appears when you get the updates from the Facebook group you're following from the the celebrity's group you want to track. And in this case, you can participate with a little bit of delay and at the same time, you might track the changes that happen there overnight, for example.
Still social media provide us fewer social cues, just like Internet itself. Let's take a look at this illustration. Here you can see the conversation between two friends, and one is apparently inviting this second person to the birthday party. Why and how we can speak about the excitement of this person having upcoming birthday? Well, a number of emojis are used and this person's definitely looking forward to this party. Still the reply is quite short, but who knows? Maybe there would be an extension and maybe this person is just busy. Anyway the person sends in message in the very first place might be a little bit anxious about the reply of his friend. So in this case, we cannot get the context completely which can tell us that the Internet basically does have fewer social cues.
Storage and replicability, well, thank you, Internet. And finally, we can store a lot, a lot, enormous terabytes of information online and we can share it with other people. But at the same time, all the changes which have been made online, they can be tracked. And replicability of the knowledge is another essential characteristic. What have been done online stays online, but you should keep in mind that it can be repeated and it can appear in some other place.
The last feature of online media which help us to change our social practices is its reach. So now you can message your friend and your message would get instantly to him right now and right there. The reach is enormous, and basically, you can maintain the projects you will never be able to maintain without the usage of social media. The other feature is mobility. The social practices which we use to maintain offline are moving towards online. And you cannot only shop in the online stores, but at the same time, you can communicate with people who are selling your stuff. Basically, we're just moving all the experiences, maybe not all of the experiences, but many of them, to the online sphere which is very comfortable for us and this is one of the distinctive features of social media.
But as we already mentioned that some things are changing within our social reality, let's take a closer look of what exactly is happening here. First of all, it's our interpersonal communication. Yes, it was definitely very difficult to arrange a meeting back in 15 or maybe 20 years. But now we cannot meet another person without our mobile phone, because we cannot expect what's going to happen with this person if he or she does not show up in 15 minutes. Definitely interpersonal communication is changing. It's making us much closer to those who live far away from us. And who we cannot reach by original means as like friendly conversation with a glass of wine.
At the same time our other practices which involve interpersonal communication are changing. For example, the recruitment process, over 25% of employees are found via Facebook or LinkedIn or other social media websites, which is a very distinctive characteristic of our age.
Community and communication is another thing that change over the time. How do you usually spend your leisure activities, tell me, 50 years ago? You definitely go to the community center, find the people you like and they all live nearby, and you all will definitely have some very nice time together. Now you can contact with those who live really far away and you can be a part of a very large community making the very large change if you're interested in some kind of social change. Or you can just be a fan and follow other people online. So the community is moving towards the online sphere, and social media is something that help us to provide the tools, the necessary tools to arrange and to make it happening.
The other thing that is changing is mass communication and news dissemination. We don't really speak about us looking for news, rather than we speak about news looking for us. They can find us on Facebook, they can find us in the Instagram and definitely on Twitter. Social media provide us with the very good opportunity to see the news we definitely want to see. And I hope you remember the theory of selective exposure we discussed last week during the lecture five. And you will never try to limit your news consumption to the sources that you don't just particularly trust by sources that you particularly like.
This point, which is very closely linked to the second one, to the community and communication, is changing the way how do we engage publics in different source and activities through these participatory techniques. What is discussion nowadays? Do people really go somewhere to the square, gather together, and discuss stuff? Do they go to the pub and discuss things which is essential for political or maybe social agenda? Now people come online and they create the new conversations, forums, and blogs. They use different sorts of social media to discuss what is essential for them and what is important.
But with the emergence of social media, these participatory techniques which would rather end up in real action previously, might end up with the term called slacktivism nowadays. Is it equal if you put a like or share to some very important for you, political post on a Facebook? Or you would go out on the street and show that what you want and you would apply your opinion and say it out loud within the demonstration? That's a very questionable thing, and we need to discuss it further on.
And the last but not the least is that practices of commerce, marketing, PR and advertising are changing. Nowadays, almost 25% of the content which exists online is branded. We want these products, services, and goods to be there. We want to communicate with the pizza place we particularly like just to ask whether they have this new type of pizza or they don't. If you want to purchase a new cell phone and you don't really want to buy iPhone for some reason. You're looking for something more interesting, you would go on Facebook and you ask your friends what is coming? What is interesting and what can they recommend you? So basically some kind of communication might happen if one of your friends who's working for the cell phone company. Anyway, commerce, marketing, PR and advertising practices are changing with the emergence of social media. Now we can communicate with brands and now we can communicate with others about this brand. As well as we can leave the feedback while using some sort of service or good. And we definitely want to share it with our friends and the close ones.
Still, as we are dealing with communication theory, and hopefully some of you appear to be students, and some of you would do research on social media one day. What are the most hot topics in the research areas within the social media? First of all, it's a health-related communication. With the emergence of social media, it's changing differently. Just recently I opened my phone and the navigation application just recommended me to see the doctor online. I didn't want to do this, but I was quite amused how someone can provide me with consulting over my health just online. It's a new practice and a lot, tons of different information related to health care can be found online. Still, we need to be very cautious about this and try to track what is the difference approaching the communication between real doctor and real patient and online doctor with a real patient.
Education and learning, this is what we're doing here right now. Social media and we can consider Coursera to be definitely a social media as a help for your comments, your shares, and your discussion which appear later after this lecture. And definitely, we need to focus on the way how learning can be integrated into this gamified process of the communication.
We also have to take a look at the community dimension. We're going on online, how do people communicate with each other? How do they integrate and why some social media groups and networks are more popular in comparison with another ones.
Information dissemination, fake news, Twitter, social media, Facebook. What is happening? How do individuals try to focus at their own media stream and how do they find the news that they particularly like? Or is it news that follow us everywhere? How to make the informative agenda more informative and how to focus it on the individual and make it customize?
The other point is IT and computer science. Well, this is not something I'm an expert at, but all the algorithms that made possible online dating matches that can be possible, targeted advertising, and other complicated, rather complicated things. They are really important for us as social scientists, because as we will discuss later on in this lecture, technology is kind of changing us. And in this case, technology is making a direct influence on the way how we approach social life and on the way how do we structure our everyday practices?
Business and marketing is also changing, and we discussed this already. How do you make your product more successful online? How do you make it more successful online as well? That's a good question, and theoretical backgrounds can provide us with some conceptual explanations that will be useful for the further conceptualization.
Organizational and group communication, should we have social media in our company or we should just focus on something else and relate on interpersonal communication offline? How do we make group communication more engaging and more productive? These are the very good questions for the research.
Political and social engagement, focusing on the way how do we organize an action and remembering the cases of Arab Spring. We really want to see how the Twitter revolution's coming, and how are they happening? And do we need some sort of preconditioned society in order to make it happen? Or it's just natural instrument that goes and which is adopted by the society which just helps us to take advantage of this less hierarchical structure in order to fight the hierarchical structure. So anyway, these are a number of very good research questions for you to find out.
So now as we know now what social media actually are, let's move on to the theoretical approaches that can help us to describe and explain what's going on there.
So now when we know what social media is, let's focus on Theoretical Prospectus, finally. There are three of them. In all three of them outlined, first of all, the way how social media emergence. Second of all, what are the major practices and how does it shape the social reality. And basically, the third thing is the consequences on social reality which social media have.
Well, the first one is technological determinism. As you can see on this slide, it focuses on the way how technology derives social structure, interaction patterns, and cultural values. The technology in this case is conceptualized as an external agent that acts upon and changes the society. One of the approaches of theoretical approaches with lines under the concept of technological determinism is the networks approach, which sees the whole structure of our social reality within the online as a system of nodes which are connected into the networks and we will definitely discuss this one little bit later.
But what is it linked to? As you remember, you might remember from the previous lecturer, Marshall McLuhan once said that the medium is the message. Well, what does it mean is it was devoted to the television as an emerging and new medium of the society by then, that the message of the television is always television. What would be the key message of social media? Is it a call for action? Is it interactivity? Is it constant participation and instant feedback which is only possible online? Is it integration of multiple users simultaneously and over a higher level of engagement? Well, the answer can be both.
As we've already discussed and we will discuss later, that social media does satisfy most of our needs. We can actually first of all, order a pizza and satisfy our need and hunger. We can create a very interesting content which would be liked and shared by our friends and the fellows on the social media. So we can try to find the purpose of ourselves and we can try to reflect and create something brand new and very interesting for the society. All the answers here might be possible and applicable but what should we keep in mind is that while social media are here with us and we use it we become more used by it and this is the key message of technological determinism.
Well, think of your fitness bracelets for example, if you have one. If I had one, I would definitely change my attitude towards my health, and towards the variables through which I can understand the way I feel right now. If before fitness bracelet, I felt okay, or rather okay, or very well in the morning, now I know what my pulse is, how many steps I've made during the day, or how many calories I consumed during the day, and how should I feel. So this fitness bracelet as some sort of technology is changing my approach to the way I understand myself which was possible actually without it. The same thing happens with social media.
For example, let's take a look on the Instagram. The more you upload, the more you want to upload. How do you pick the content which you would place there? How would you pick the content and how would you think of the reaction of people to this content? Do you really keep it in mind? Do you really go to the show to make a picture, so you can finally share it? And, isn't the concert the main focus of your presence there rather than the report on the way how it happened? So basically, technological determinism tells us that people are changed through the technology with the emergence of the technology. And social media here, would be the driver for the changing patterns of the social reality.
So if you are doing the research on social media, you can keep an eye on the independent and dependent variables, on the way how our society is changed with emergence of this new media. If you are doing your communication campaign, you might think about this special technological innovations that would trigger your audience and make it more engaged, and maybe with the change in their routine practices, they will get more interested and more involved in the project that you are trying to promote.
Another approach to the way how technology is connected to the society and the social processes is social construction of technology. Well, this is completely opposite from the technological determinism as it stands for technology arising from the social processes. So here, if we focusing on the social media, we'll think that social media is just the replacement of our everyday social interactions we're used to.
As you can see at this quote, scholars are totally against technological determinism as they claim it inadequate as explanation and dangerously misleading, because human beings, and not the machines, are the agents of change. As men and women, introduce new systems and machines that alter their life world. And one of the theories, which is explaining, which can be very useful as a framework here, is social constructivism, another is connectivism.
So people are primary sources of change as they create and transform their reality. In this case, social constructivism is a theoretical framework, stands for us, knowing the world through the interaction with others. And through this interaction only while we are facing different people with different opinions, we can understand what the world looks like. So we create a number of stable perceptions or the models of this reality. And through the social constructivism, we see social media has an extension of our real world, where it just reproduces our practices and norms.
This interpretive lens can be very helpful to understand why social practices are different in different countries, because here we have a very good cause like the cultural patterns that exist in the society and the ways people are used to communicate would influence the patterns of the immediate consumption and their social media usage.
If you are doing your research in learning, I would definitely suggest you to try connectivism as a theoretical framework. It is focused on connecting specialized information nets and the connections that enable us to learn more and more important than our current state of knowing. So basically, this is a theoretical framework about learning. And maybe at some point, you would like to do research on Coursera, so here, we can try to understand how our actual social practices are embedded into the processes of technological communication between people.
If you're planning to do your communication campaign and you want to have some pre-knowledge which comes from the theoretical perspective, we definitely suggest you to take a look at the social media as a living structure. We might be pretty reflective to what's happening in the real world, and maybe if you are designing and use social media or if you are planning to add some special features, try to see what people like to do in their leisure time or for their work.
The third approach is social shaping of technology. Well, here it's pretty easy. It stands for the mutual influence between technology and social world at the same time. So basically, this is us shaping into technology and technology shaping our perceptions. Pretty convenient and pretty clear, right? As it stands here for this quote, the consequences of technologies arise from a mix of affordances, the social capabilities technological qualities enable and the unexpected and emergent way that people make a use of those affordances.
So, here is the example, affordances theory or affordance, the concept of affordances. It's quite new in the communication world and it does not really integrate into a complete and very well design theory. Still, we think about the opportunities with which social media provide us in the way how people actually use it in the reality. So, all these buttons which we really need to click which say click, click, click, click at these buttons, actually making us click on these buttons and follow towards different content and some different websites. Can we send messages? Can we upload pictures? How we can present ourselves on social media? These are the affordances, so these opportunities. But how do we understand them? What is Facebook post for me and what is Facebook post for you? Is it a public speech or is it something you would like to share with the closest ones? That's another very interesting and perspective lens to understand the social reality on the Internet.
So to summarize, now we discuss three main approaches to the social media as a big theoretical blade matter frameworks. The first one is technological determinism which stands for us being very much influenced by technology, and the technologies being a major driver for this change. The second one is social construction of technology, which claims that social media arise from the social processes. They might be a little different but in the very essential part of it, they have social nature. And the third one, which is social shaping of technology, which stands for both technology affecting people and people affecting technology mutually at the same time. Which one would you like the best? You will see it through the lenses of particular theories we're going to discuss later.
So, as we already discussed, there are a few very big perspectives on the way how we can understand and perceive social media. But as we already mentioned here, that social media are influencing us, in the way how do we interact with other individuals and the way how our social reality is structured. One of the big theoretical frameworks is the theory of networks. Let's take a closer look at what networks are, and how these networks are appearing in our everyday lives.
Even if the metaphor of networks is quite common nowadays, it's pretty young as a concept and science, describing the way of social organization. Yet, the social networks of the individuals are as old as mankind and probably people existing before the social networks appeared actually, somehow constructed their own networks as they needed some sort of people for different purposes. And in the 18th century the metaphor of the nervous system was applied to the social structures.
Nowadays, these networks appear at every level of our existence. The first, at the individual level as the individual is a center of the network, combines different people around him in order to make his existence easier and this individual would address different people for different purposes. Organizational networks, when the big company are somehow integrated into the common activities and they try to see what others are doing and at the same time they are making big big projects. Our society as a society level can be seen as a network as well, as a number of different structures are operating at the same time.
Well, this network approach was driven mostly by the emergence of information communication technology as we moved from the industrial age, with the focus on the production of services, to the information age, when we focus on the information distribution and exchange. You know already a little bit about the systems theory from the presentation number four in our four lecture on public relations theories, and I am sure that you are more than familiar with the social networks as an active user. So this chapter won't be very difficult and it would go smooth and easy.
A Spanish sociologist, Manuel Castells, introduced the new approach to the society and this is a network approach. He claims this to be a new form of social architecture. For Castells, network is a system of nodes through which communication occurs, which altogether forms an open system. Why is it an open system? Well, first of all, it's open for the new members of this network and as well as it can be seen as a very flexible organization which can expand and shrink in time.
This organizational system is driven by the emergence of information communication technologies. First of all, it's internet. Secondly, social networks which can be seen as a product of our overall organize a network structure and mobile technology, which allows us to communicate with different people, in different places, in different time, regardless this place and time. Overall, all these things would imply some structural changes on our social structure.
The network society has no center and it does not have the hierarchy, which is applicable for the old fashioned societies. It also follows the binary logic of inclusion or exclusion. So, the node within the system can be easily substituted. It can be rejected or it can be included in order to system operate itself overall. Castells assumes, that technological development is one of the most important individual preconditions for the structure of these networks to be appearing and emerging in the society, as he's actually very positive about this network structure.
He says, that social organization in a networked way would share the features of flexibility, scalability, and survivability, which will bring us to the more open minded society and for more resilient society as well. So, what is this flexibility? Well, first of all, networks can reconfigurate according to the changing environments and at the same time they will maintain their goal. So for example, if something happens in the surrounding, system can easily adapt this network by just changing the component of the network. So basically, it stands for the claim that there are no people who cannot be substituted for somebody else.
Scalability is another important feature. This network systems can expand and shrink in size with little disruption. So system itself, would operate on a certain level, and with appropriate tasks, it can just add some new elements which would allow to duplicate or multiply a number of tasks which have to be maintained. Survivability, again, if we speak about the resilience of the network system would be more effective to solve different problems, as with the emergent risks from the environment. It will adapt, and it will continue operating with a different configuration and those nodes and codes which are distributed within the system can be reproduced with certain instructions in different place, or in a different time, or on a different scale. So basically, if a hierarchical structure keeps the way it is, the network structure is flexible, scalable, and surviving over the emerging attacks of the unfriendly environment.
When Manuel Castells introduces us to this network society, he claims the main thing here is that there is no attachment to the geographical location and we actually do exist in the timeless time and space of flow. Let's take a look at this and try to understand what does he mean here. Well first of all, there is no attachment to this geographical location and person can be simultaneously in different places and the linear time makes no sense anymore, because we can do several functions at the same time, so time becomes timeless. And during this lecture, you probably have already checked your mobile phone and reply to messages which means that you're, first of all, a very multitasking person, but secondly, your destruction, this hierarchical structure of the linear process of education. So you can do few things at the same time.
But the most important for you here is to get into this space of flow, when the project can be done and can be maintain, through the network structure within the distinction of the geographical location of the person, or the time zones which used to be quite important for people back centuries ago.
So, where can we find these networks? As Castells claims, they exist on each and every level and we can find these networks from the very first level of the individual, coming up to the bigger perspectives and bigger networks. Well first of all, it's urban networks, we take a look at the way how our city constructed. It's quite a complex process to maintain all the services and distribute all the goods, and make an arrangement between people. So, urban networks must be seen as like a primary for our urban age network society.
The global networks will have within their nodes as the centers, which are connected with each other larger scale organizations. It can be governmental bodies, it can be countries, it can be unions of countries. Organizational networks can be found within the organization. It can be the case of multinational companies, which connect different countries with the same business interests, or it can be networks of the same company, located in the same country, but distributed unevenly within different places, civic networks.
With this changing approach to the social reality, people understand that the network structure is much more flexible to organize civic action and increase the engagement. The hierarchical structures as we mentioned already not on top of the rating anymore, because they cannot adapt to the changing environments. So, civic networks and the structures can respond very quickly to what is happening in the country. For example, with the recent hurricanes, or the recent events, some natural disasters which happened in the country. Civic society would mobilize and provide people with the necessary services and goods, upon the request rather than they would collect it in a centralized way somewhere.
Individual networks. This is about us, this is about us maintaining our own network, which allows us to not just survive, but to live a happy and easy life within the new social structure. This is us, trying to find the people we need for different purposes in maintaining this networks, so we can respond to the tasks that we get from the environment quite fast. So, as I mentioned the level of an individual here.
Let's move on to the concept of networked individualism introduced by Barry Wellman, who says that societies must be seen as networks, and the networks of the networks. The networked individualism as an operating system they describe the ways in which people connect, communicate and exchange information, exist on different levels. But in essential, this is us maintaining our own personal networks in order to achieve our needs.
So basically, what happens at the personal level? There is a human who wants to achieve his or her goals, and this person would modify during his life, the network of other people and groups to whom this person would be linked individually, in order to feed his or her social reality at this point. Basically, if you are changing your job, for example, you might change the number of people who are you contacted with. If you are dramatically changes here, for example, you firing and you become an artist after being a scientist for a long time, then your personal network will be changed as well, in order to be adapted to what you need and what you want from these people.
This network would exist for multiple users as you operate with different people at the same time. So it doesn't have to feed into one precondition. There are people who are linked to each other, and these people can be linked to each other too. Sounds like quite a complex system, but this is networked individualism. This system is multithreaded and multitasking at the same time. So, maintaining your personal network would affect on how you see your own social reality.
The concept of networked individualism is used widely in the urban research, for example, as you want to understand how people are communicated with whom, and what would be communicative ecology of the people living in certain areas, how we can enhance this communicative systems, and how we can make the living of the certain person better? This is a very good question of the research.
So during this section, we discussed two approaches, which both have the network as a center, as a new way which is structuring our social reality. As we are changing and moving from the hierarchical structures to a more mobile, flexible, and interesting, from the point of view of the scientists network structures. Let's take a look what happens in the very center of the systems in this notes.
Even though we've been discussing the network structure previously in the last chapter, now let's focus on the online communities. And hear the concept which was introduced to two distinct different types of these communities, as well as of some engagement partners. So maybe at one point, you will be interested in maintaining your own online community or you are an active participant in another one. This theoretical framework will help you to understand how does it happen and what are these drivers for the engagement.
But in the very beginning, we better to focus on what is online communities. Let's take a look what do we call the communities. First of all, it should be composed of a considerable number of people. Can we call the community our chat on WhatsApp with our colleagues? Well definitely we can, but if its number is more than five at least, right? Because we do share some common purpose in with chat and we exchange information. And it is a very essential and very useful tool for communication.
But still, when it comes to online communities, we talk about big number of people. These online communities would maintain public conversation for a pretty long period time with sufficient bonds. What are the important things here? First it's the conversations. So we do create community not just to exist and to exchange information one way. So this would be called just media when I want to tell you something through the medium I would do it. But it would not be community without the feedback and without the conversation started between you and me.
With sufficient bonds, we need to have some kind of a shared purpose in order to you to get there and into this communities. And then you will come back again to continue this conversation. Online communities become stable places of discussion on the Web with important support of ICT, which stands for Information Communication Technology. Of course, this is an online community, It should be online. Have a goal of organizing and sharing certain types of content among their members.
The goal of the community, it can be applied and it can be applicable for community in general. Or it can appear at the level of an individual. Still, we have some purpose while engaging in the online community. So this is one of the features we don't have to forget about. And it can be extended to the next feature, our common needs, orientation, behaviors, profiles and goals, which are actually the elements of this online community. As we come online, we create our profile, we want to share information. We create this user generated content, which will be exchanged between us and the people we are interested in.
So as we outline the key characteristic of online communities,they are first of all they do exist online. They do gather a considerable amount of people. They do maintain conversations and discussions or some sort of information exchange within these people. And they are stable and goal-oriented.
If you want to understand what kind of communities is in front of us, we probably need to develop some sort of criteria. So we can make a distinctive classification of these online communities. First one is the utilized digital technologies. These groups can collaborate through emails, discussion boards, wikis, forums, and other technologies which Internet provides us with. And all this group would definitely, if we remember the technological determinism, will definitely share different social interaction parties. So if the digital technology utilized within the communicative system is one and very important criteria for classification.
The second criteria is the topic of interest, obviously, because usually people tend to gather around some sort of topic. The type of commitment, this is what we're going to discuss more closely in a few seconds. Identity-based and bond-based communities, which disclaimer here. Identity-based communities exist when people share the common identity within the group and they like the group. And the bond-based community appear when people just like the individuals in this group.
How often different users visit the community and what are the reasons that drive them to join and participate. They can be another variable for your research when you try to understand what type of community you are in or you are looking at.
So finally we can come to the definition. Online communities can be seen as Internet connected collective of people who interact over time around a shared purpose, interest or need. Commitment and participation there is voluntary, as no one is coming to the community being forced. And it's better for you to join the community on your own free will.
The users participate in there, it can be a different sort of participation. You can just track the activities which appear online within this community. You can create some kind of a content. You can get very involved, even offline, and move on from the online community to the real world. And definitely one of the most important features is the contribution. Community cannot exist on their own, we need to contribute there somehow.
But what are the main questions on which we are focusing while studying communities in little group which exist online? The first one is why users contribute and how we can make them engaged? What are the drivers for the commitment and how can I make you come back to my online community? How do these people interact with others within the community and outside of this? Well, our theoretical framework can help us to answer all these questions.
One of the most interesting approaches to the community structure and the parlance of the communication is the distinction between common bond and common identity communities. Which was introduced in late 90s by social psychologists. There are two types of group attachments. Some group memberships are based on the sharing category of the membership. While others are based on the attraction to the fellow group members. And this typology allows researchers to make predictions of how behaviors differ between the two types of groups.
Common identity groups will compromise members who share the social category and they are attracted to the group as a whole. And somehow they are losing their identity while being belonging to this group. More specifically, members of common identity groups are attractive to the groups norms, goals, activities, and other defining features.
On the contrast, common bond groups, they appear while people are attractive to each other and they like each other as an individual. So in this case, there will be different parlance of the social interaction between them. So as we already discussed, the common identity groups, they build upon the social categorization and the in-group interdependence. Because people, they are coming onto some sort of shared purpose, they lose their identity a little bit, still contributing towards the common group identity.
There is an intergroup comparison, and this attachment would lead to on topic discussion, mostly, and comparison with others from outside of this existing group. The high confirmation to a group norm is another sign of you, of an individual, sort of losing its own identity while being a member of this group. Newcomers in this group would feel welcome and the turnover of the group membership is quite alive as people are coming and going in the group. Supporting its own survival would be passing through a number of different members.
On the contrary, this common bond group is what can be called a group of friends. The social interaction there would be a little bit different, as people disclose more of a personal information and they share a lot of interpersonal similarity. In this group, and on the contrary with a common identity group, people would not focus on essential topic why they come there for. But rather a number of different topics will arise. Off-topics discussion, they are more than welcome. And this group would share the direct reciprocity within their community. Newcomers would for some time not feel very welcome there or they will not come there very easily, as this group is already formed. And the individual which is coming to this group would have to show that this person is definitely similar to the ones who have already existing there.
But before we move on from the common bond and common identity communities, let's take a look at two concepts which are very important for the group dynamic itself. First one is self-disclosure, this is why we come here for. This is why we come to the group, why we enter the group. And as we studied during our part of interpersonal communication, self-disclosure is one of the essential needs of an individual. As we want and we will communicate our concept of ourselves to feel accepted by the society, to feel understood by the society.
So if you are managing online community, there should be an affordance or a chance for people to conduct and contribute the self-disclosure into the overall process somehow. Still, online community would be most successful with a high level of reciprocity is when we won something back while we are contributing. So it can be some sort of a gratification. It can be some sort of a treat which people get for the active involvement into the life of the online community.
But definitely, self-disclosure and the risk process are not enough to maintain the user engagement within the online community. What is user engagement through the framework of a theoretical perspective? Well, this is a process and it appears during and after human-computer interaction. Why does it happen after? Because as individual left our online community, we want this individual to think about it and to come back. People interact with content systems in the environment. So, this is again one complex system which should be managed by the contribution and participation of others, most likely reciprocally.
So, what are the functions which we want social media to perform in order to keep us engaged? Well, the first one is definitely communication because we all common land for communication purposes in the very beginning. We want to get linked to other people, we want to exchange information, and we want to send the important messages for those who appeared not to be right there, right now.
The second point is collaboration. This is this case of Wikipedia. Some people get engaged not just because they want to share the knowledge they have, but they rather do like this process of collaboration on a sudden topic. I do like to work with other people, but for some reason, I never anticipated in collaboration within the Wikipedia. Maybe, I really need to think about it.
The other point is multimedia experience. This is what comes with YouTube and this gamefication within different social media platforms. We want to try on new things, we want to see different content, and it makes us a little bit obsessed and sometimes a little bit addicted to what's going on. So, multimedia is always good as a sort of engaging variable for other social media platform.
Reviews and recommendation, this is why we come online quite often, because we want to see what other people think about the services and goods they've already purchased or consumed. This is the case of Amazon, for example, where you can find a number of products with the complete and very diverse reviews, or it can be a case of another social media website where we can find the customize suggestions for the movies we want to see because there definitely are some people who share our tips and they can be helpful for us.
Entertainment, entertainment is again all about the YouTube. We do like to spend our time and we do still want some television there. This is where we come for the pleasant time and consuming an incredible amount of the information because we want to feel less stressed, and we want to relax, and we want to pass our time somehow. So, entertaining content is another good point for the social media to be engaging.
Learning, this is what we do here. Well, hopefully, we do combine entertainment with learning somehow in this Coursera course, but learning as a mutual practice which is linking different people together gives them some sort of gratification after this process. So, we can see learning as a very valuable instrument for increased user engagement online.
But now, let's focus more specifically on the social media engagement and on the functions that individuals can perform online within the social media. Well, first of all, it's a presentation of self. As we already mentioned, we do want to communicate our concept of self which can be provided through a very outlined and the very thoughtful strategy of the self presentation. We think about the stuff we post on the social networks, we think about the comments we leave and overall, it creates another area of our existence which is also us, but it lives by itself somewhere else.
Also, the self can be quite different. Scholars outlined few aspects of self which exist online and they come to the conclusion that the true self is what actually is there, the true self is us, still us, but it combines the version of us, what we want to be, with the preexisting, existing skills and sets and characteristics that we already have.
The next thing we can do is to actually act and participate somehow, but still, scholars claim that the most contribution comes from the smallest part of the audience. Maybe we think about the way how we can improve our social media websites to make it more engaging for the audience. As we already remember from previous lectures, the audience is active and we come online to do something to satisfy our own needs which are existing already.
As we can see from this adopted version of Maslow pyramid, we can satisfy pretty much all of the needs through the social media here. Starting with the physiological needs, as we are hungry, we can message our friend and ask him to come over and bring some food. Well, this is some sort of mediated communication as well as we can create something very special posted on Facebook and feel this self actualization through the sharing, through the process of sharing the content we created with other people.
But what comes here as the better gratification of the online media we focus first of all on satisfying our need in the information. It can be information about other people lives, it can be information about what's going on in this society, it can be information on how do others interpret the events which are happening there right now, as well as we are bonding in bridging the social capital. Social capital stands for our attachment to other people and our opportunity to get in touch with them somehow.
So, when we come online, we focus on the way how we can maintain our social networks and interpersonal relations with different people to increase this social capital to find more people we may need some help. Another aspect to focus our positive experiences, positive experience occurs with us when we are in this condition of the flow, when we are driving or we're going through the social media and we can experience pretty strong emotions.
The usage and activity do count and it's all about data in this case. And in order to understand what are the drivers and what are the most frequently used practices within the special community on the social media, we need to think and count the actions which been before most frequently. And the social context, again, we come to the socialization and to the communication with others. Social media and lively discussion makes the experience of particular website or the online community being more attractive for the users and can bring more interest and increase the engagement trade of the participants.
So, as online community scheme change, but cannot really substitute offline communities, we still think about the ways how we can get engaged. And as online communities provide us with additional possibilities to be present and to feel more attached to different people, they have strong power to find contributors and to break across the organizational and cultural borders.
But nowadays, people do have a limited attention spans and they have do changing priorities. So, attracting their attention can be the greatest challenge for the people who managing online communities nowadays. Within this, it's important to cultivate member bonds and the sense of common identity at the same time even though we distinct two types of online communities which stands for identity bond and common bond. Both these aspects are very important in order to maintain a healthy online community.
So, as to retain top contributors as well as to take in new members providing users, most of the opportunities to be present and to express themselves to get positive experience within the given context is important. Thus, this is a difficult task to maintain still. As a researcher, you might be interested in the changing nature of online communities, you want to track these changes and provide an explanation and here, you can use the theoretical frameworks which we discussed.
As we already discussed, what is the group communication within the social media, and how we can think, and how we can interpret the drivers for the user engagement within the online communities. Let's now move on to the social media and the affordances which it provides to us, as for users and the framework which can be helpful to understand the nature of social media through the research as we are doing research here.
Now let's go online and let's take a look on the Facebook for example. What do we see there, first of all, it's updates from the online communities we are following, these are updates from people we are following, and from those who are part of our social network and the friend list. But as for my personal experience, I'd never get enough of likes from people who are part of my previous workplace. When I post some stuff, a ball was going on at the University, which pisses me of, f honestly, and then I come to this people, they would just tell me that they never saw this news online and they never seen this post, that's why, they did not reacted to it somehow. This is the algorithm of the Facebook and this is the algorithm how it structures our news line, what should we see first, what should we see next, and what we should never see. And these can be considered as one of the affordances of a particular social media, this hidden algorithm. But there are many more.
What can we do, what are the possible actions which we can perform on the particular social media? Can we post pictures, can we upload videos, can we share information, can we like? Or there can be different sorts of like, for example we can super like something. Let's take a look at the concept of affordances.
Initially, the concept of affordances was brought by Gibson back in the late 70's. And it does not really apply to the world of social media or the world of human-computer interaction whatsoever. And nowadays, we define affordances as the clues to the ways that people understand and negotiate technology in everyday lives. These are the possible actions which I can perform and the way how do I perceive these possible actions, as a part of this sudden technology.
Originally, it was the term or the concept itself was founded in ecological psychology and it was based on the perceived properties to perform actions. How do I see myself or how do I see my surrounding performing certain sort of action and how will I interpret these actions? Norman, Donald Norman, in 1980s appropriated the term into the context of human-computer interaction. He defined the affordances as it perceived in actual properties of the thing, preliminary, those fundamental properties that determine just how this could possibly be used.
Norman was concerned with what people saw rather than simply what environment can afford. Is this like is just like or it can be something else? How do I interpret the post? Is it for me a part of the sole disclosure or is just the update which I want to provide to my friends and surrounding? While affordances according to Gibson were latent with the environment, Norman argued that if these were not perceived, they could not be classed as affordance because they could not be acted upon. If I don't understand what I am doing with that technology, it cannot be seen as affordance.
First, we can come to the realization how and why do we utilize the particular technology or the particular tool in the social media, in our context with the Facebook example. So while Gibson's original concept of affordances emerged out of visual perception, Norman's affordances were grounded in human-computer interaction and particularly in the design elements of the online spaces. This is why the concept of affordances is particularly interesting for us in order to interpret what's going on in this field, and in order to understand how we can perceive different media and social media websites.
If we want to dig deeper in the concept of affordances, we need to understand this initial difference between what was first and how do we adapt the term to the mediated environment. As for Gibson, affordances were one of action possibilities, for Norman, affordance is more about the users' perception of the action possibilities. So basically, here, it was quiet reflective function in a Gibson point of view, in the Normanian, affordance would be linked to actor's past experience, knowledge, culture and other variables which might appear within the communicated framework, and within the communicative system the individual exist in.
If we apply the concept of affordances in our research or in our routine research, without being a scholarly research, we need to keep in mind all past experiences that might influence the understanding of affordances and the perception of this.
What are the types of affordances that can be distinguished in academic literature? First of all, we can see the action possibilities and the perceptions. This is what we've already discussed. Actions do not have to be performed and actions can be perceived differently, which can be very important for us as we are doing our marketing strategy, as we are thinking how to integrate social media platforms in our campaign. How would users perceive these actions and how would they react to that? Would it be this game, would it be some other sort of activity, which will make them engaged and integrate into the whole communicative campaign?
The next thing is distinction between social affordances and the technological affordances. Once again, the same post on Facebook would be perceived differently by the technological structure of the social media and what is the social meaning of this action which I perform. And the last distinction is perceived affordances versus real affordances. What are the perceived affordances? They can vary from individual to individual, and the real affordances combine the social and technological simultaneously at the same time.
Summarizing here, let's make it clear what affordances are. Affordances are the possible actions and the perceptions of this actions which we can perform over the social media and their particulars surrounding. It can vary from the human to human and all the people perceive these affordances in a different way, but still we can find the common understanding within some social groups. And now from this point, let's move on to the certain example and see how the research in the affordances can help business or how it can help to enhance the computer-mediated communication between customers and, in our particular case, business.
In this section of our lecture, we are going to apply the theory to practice finally in understanding affordances theory through the lens of a real-life case. Well, this is not a real-life case, rather than this is a real-life research, and is devoted to the tourism sector. White room sector maybe, I really do want to go on vacation already but anyway, taking a look at how do hotels manage to enable their customer engagement. This is what scholars have already done, would be quite interesting and it will be quite interesting for you when you decide to go on vacation and you'll be booking the hotels.
So, what is the case? As I've mentioned already, we are focusing here at the tourism sector and at the hotel business in particular. Here in this research, they are applying the concept of affordances to understand how the customers are getting more or less engaged into the social media communication with their businesses.
So, what is the research case? This is the multiple case study as scholars focusing on leisure and business hotels at the same time so they can understand better the social media practices, and the ways how the management of this hotels direct and manage the communication with their external publics. Scholars conducted a number of semi-structured interviews with two high-performing hotels with the representatives from the two-high performing hotels and two low-performing hotels, while performing in terms of social media engagement of the users and of the guests of their businesses.
Informational follow-up, the number of informational follow-ups was conducted in order to clarify some information and some findings, which have been conducted by the researchers. Social media engagement was measured by the number of Facebook followers average response per post and average likes per post. The number of Twitter followers was as well considered as two main platforms were taken into the consideration, as we can see here, is Twitter and Facebook. Researchers rely on a quantitative data in order to understand what the performance rate, I would say, of these particular hotels.
So, as a number of semi-structured interviews was conducted with the managers responsible for social media strategy, scholars are outlined five steps in action-reaction, as they call it, process towards the better practices of social media maintenance of the managers. Basically, it all starts with an initiative. So, one of the members of the team, they initiate some sort of adjustment to the social media strategy. When it becomes performing within approval, with some sort of adjustment, it might be more successful as this step was found mostly in the high-performing hotels. After all, it was followed by the reflection and evaluation of the results of such media or social media campaign in particular.
So basically, within the communication and while interviewing these people who are conducting their successful practices, scholars came to use the concept and to use quite a model of the way how the action and the social media can be arranged and managed by the professionals.
So, what are the main findings? What are the key affordances in the tourism sector which we can find here? Well, first one is a persistent engagement, as they call it. It's a constant online dialogue with the customer. The technological affordances in this case would be multimedia, content creation, and interaction. What does it mean? It means that in order to be successful online, we should use the forums of the social media of these persistent engagements and basically, we are creating some sort of a content.
For example, we just changed something in our hotel. Let's go and share it with the people who are engaged into our network. Let's go upload it on Pinterest. Let's go upload it on Facebook, so people would be able to reflect and see that some life is going on within this entity, and this hotel actually exist. So, this engagement, which was initiated by the side of the hotel, engages customers to see what's going on there and it grabs their attention.
The second affordance which comes with social media is a customized engagement. This is only possible on the individual level. So basically, this is what hotel do as they try to adopt their services to the people who they already know. What are the technological affordances that allows us to perform this function and to use this affordance as a customized engagement? Well, this is the profile visibility. First of all, we need to know the people who've been to our hotel previously, and we need to know what they like, and we need to create some sort of a personal connection and constantly monitor what's going on with them. Well, maybe they will come sooner or later to the place which is close to our hotel and they might get engaged and got more interested in special offers which we adopt specially for them.
The third affordance, which can be provided by the social media, is a triggered engagement. Well, this comes for the big hotels and the big entities mostly, as it's all about tracking the events in the real-time, tracking events online. For example, we are conducting an event and we definitely do know that some people are there and we definitely do know that there are some possibilities for us to see and to track what these people think about their experiences during the event. So basically, what we do here, we track the activity of the customers which are engaged and which are into our place, right here and right now.
As we are coming, for example, for the conference, and something is not really working there. You can go and tweet about it. The managers and people responsible for the social media strategy, in just except from just adopting the communication which goes from them to the customers, need to collect the feedback from these customers. And if it happens real-time, the real-time feedback must be provided as well.
So these three affordances, persistent engagement, customized engagement, and triggered engagement were the major findings of the scholars conducting this research on a pretty applicable case. So here, we can understand how the concept of affordances can be used and utilized in the real life, in real action. So maybe, if you are managing some sort of a website, or maybe you are managing an online community, or maybe you are into the social media and you are maintaining your own project, try to think what are the affordances of your particular platform and how do people perceive it? Do they like it? What is their favorite action and what would be things that they use the least? And how do they feel about it? Which is the most important? So this is how the concept of affordances can be applied to our practical life and how it help us to solve the real life cases and problems.
Hello everyone. Welcome to the week seven of our communication theory course. Last week, we discussed social media merchants and their radical approaches to communication. And today, we're moving towards the applied communication, and we're going to discuss public relations.
Bill Gates once said that if he had one dollar, he would spend it on public relations, really? Let's find out what it is, how we define public relations, what the functions of public relations are, where we work for those skills are.
Alright, Public Relation Society of America defines public relations as a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics. There are several key points here. First is the strategic communication process. It is a process, so it's not a one time deal when you write the press release and they send it out. No, it is a daily basis routine, and it's a strategic, so it's lined with organizations strategy. It has to force a mutually beneficial relationships, so the relationships the organization builds doesn't only benefit the organization but they also benefit the society, they the receiver of those relationships.
It is a two-way communication process. So, we want to think about public relations not as a one-way communications process, not as a management function when we tried to pester it and tried to do something to ensure that what we want is done. No, it is a two-way communication process. In that process, we change as well as an organization and the society changes as well as a society.
Relationships, the key point in public relations is the relationship. And the last thing, it is the public nature of the public relations. We live in the society, the organization exists because the society lets the organization exist. So the whole public nature and how we help the society to become fully functioning is also highlighted in this definition.
Let's see what the functions of the public relations are in the organization. Well we wear many hats, we have to do a lot of things. First we do research. It includes anticipating, analyzing, interpreting public opinion issues. We have to know the trends, we have to know the context, we have to know what the competitors are doing. We have to know what the publics are thinking about us. We have to ensure that we meet our goals. We have to report to our management and say, we were effective you know we've done a good job, so we have to do research.
We have to do publicity and media relations. This is a very traditional function of public relations. Really, until now, many think of public relations as media relations. We built a relationship with the media, we make sure that media writes about us. And the best achievement of public relations is to have publicity, is when media writes about us for free, because we created some really interesting content, really cool stuff, very important for publics, very important for the audience. So, we build relationships with the media.
We also support employee relationships. Employee is actually one of our key publics in the organization itself, it's supported, so it's important that everyone understands how their organization is working, what we're doing, where we're going to go, what our plans are, what our values are, and the employees, every single person have to understand why they're there. So, they would stick to the organization and they would identify themselves with that organization.
Community relationships are also important. Organizations exist in some sort of community, whether it's a local community, whether it's a virtual community or community of some other sort. But you have to ensure that those who are around us feel good about it. Because, you know from that communities, people are going to come to work in our company. The families of those people, they will come and they will help our company to prosper. We have to think about the community as well.
Problem management, well that's also one of the key functions of ours. And when we talk about problem management, we talk about crisis management a lot. And really management remembers about public relations many times when there is a crisis going on. It's very difficult for us, really, to get money for us sometimes. But whenever crisis is there, they say okay, people, media talks very bad about us right now, so public relations people go and talk to them and solve this problem, so they would start talking good about us. And that's the whole new approach, not the new approach, it's the whole new reality of public relations crisis communication per se, so we have a new theory course on that topic.
We also do Industry relationships. We have to build relationships with our industry partners, with our B to B partners. We have to understand what the competitors are doing because our competitors, a lot of times, they are our partners as well.
Investor relationships. This is relevant for publicly traded companies because they have investors, they have shareholders, they have stakeholders. And those people, they have a right to know what's happening in the company, and they have to be ensured that they put their money in a safe place. So, as a publicly traded company, you have to ensure, and you have to build, you have to ensure your shareholders are feeling good, they're confident, they're satisfied. And you have to build a investor relations, you have to have this function in the company.
Government relationships. Well we live in a society, we live in countries and every country has a government, and we have to build a relationship with a government as well. And, one of the functions also is that public relations sometimes, often, they do lobbying. So we come to the organizations and we come to the governments and we lobby interests of the societies, of the communities, of the organizations, some public policy we're trying to change it. So, government relationships are also important.
Marketing communication. Well this is what we talk about when we build relationships with the client, with the consumer, with those people who buy our products, right, with the customers. It's one of the important relationships for us. And really, it depends on where you are working. If you working in the publicly traded companies, so probably for you investor relationships are going to be the key. But if you are working for a corporation that sells their product to the consumer market, probably marketing communication is going to be the key for you.
Corporate image management. We work on corporate reputation, we create our reputation management strategies. We could create a brands, we have to understand those things, and we have to know how to do it. We also conduct all kinds of special events and we do consultancy. So, we provide all kind of consultancy services, job management, at all levels of the organization all in regards of the polls decisions, courses, in regards of the product development, reputation, image and so on and so on and so on.
Next, so, we have all those functions, all the stuff we're doing. What's the skills we have to have? The skills are multiple, there are very many of them. I'm going to list just a few. The first one and the key one is writing. Really, if you want to get the step into the public relations department, many times you just have to know how to write. And first public relations professionals, they came from journalism, so they were journalists at first and then they were public relations professionals. So writing is a key, you have to write good, you have to write fast and you have to write with regards to your audience.
Research, as I already said, we do all kind of research, critical thinking, asking questions, saying no, I don't think maybe this is good, maybe this is not that good. Let's try it again and let's see, maybe something we can do better. Now, problem solving as I just said, crisis management, you have to know how to solve problems and we have to be ready to solve problems. Public relations is one of the most stressful professions out there, so we have to have the skills to be able to get yourself together and go over there and solve the problem.
We have to know how to listen. We have to develop empathy. And from that, we also have to understand the context around us. And since the world is becoming more and more globalized, we have to understand other cultures, we have to understand other languages, the globalized context. Everything is interconnected right now, and there are no separate points out there, so we have to understand that they have to develop this understanding, listening empathy skills as a professionals.
Now we're finally moving to Public relations theories, that's the point of our lecture today. So I already said the functions, we defined what public relations is, we talked about the skills. But, really, to be able to put it all together in the structure, we have to understand what the theory is, and how public relations theories work.
There are multiple public relations theories, we're going to discuss only six of them. And they say that there's nothing more practical than the theory because theory helps you to do your job better. Public relations is a very applied communication, we work, we do things, but theories helps us to do this and helps us understand why we're doing it and why we can do with better.
So let's start with a historical perspective on public relations. In 1984, Grunig & Hunt identified four models of public relations: press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetrical, and two-way symmetrical. Let's go and talk about each of them.
Press agentry, this model of public relations existed, was practiced in 19th century mostly, or the beginning of the 20th century as well. It is characterized by propaganda, by persuasion, by manipulation. Really, there was a one way communication, they wanted to influence audiences to behave in the way the organization desires. Truth was not essential, public relations, well, I want to call them public relations partitioners, but okay, public relations partitioners lied that time. So they came up with all kind of pseudo-events, they just wanted attention from them the media, that was their goal, to receive that attention.
There was not much research done, very little, the maximum they could do, they could count clips. And the key figure was Barnum, and he's a very interesting guy, he's a showman, he was a showman. He came up with all kind of crazy ideas so people would write about it, so media would write about it. He was a manager of the circus, he was a owner of the circus. And he, one time, came up with a story that he found this slave, black slave, she was very old, who was a nanny of Lincoln President, and he said, she was 161 years old. And people started talking about it, okay, she looked very old and it seemed to be true at first, but then they found out it was not the truth. So they start talking about it, everyone was talking about it, it was interesting and he was the first one to coin the term as, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Really, if people even talk bad about you, it's still good because you receive attention, so that was Barnum.
Another case of his, he also came up with the idea he married and an opera singer and it was also a big hoax about it because, again, it was a pseudo-event. It was an event, per se, it wasn't truth, he came up with this just to receive the media's attention.
The next error is error of public information. It takes place in the beginning of the 20th century. It is also one-way communication, it used press releases to inform public about what is happening, what is happening in the organization, what happened in some sort of accident. Truth is essential over here. Again, there is little research about what publics are doing, they could do how much attention we received, they could do readability, to check if the text they're writing is readable, easy to read. And the key figure in that area is Ivy Lee.
Ivy Lee was a journalist at first but then he became a councilor for John Rockefeller. And he's considered to be the father of the public relations ethics because he was the first one to say that, okay we have to tell the truth, we have to tell the truth, we have to tell the truth, we have to build a reputation and we have to tell the publics they have the right to know what is happening. For example, one time there was an accident at the railway station, and instead of hiding it, instead of positioning it in a good way, he just said, okay let's tell the truth that there was an accident and there were people harmed and this is what we did. And he was also able to change the perception of Rockefeller as a bad guy, as a capitalist, to the good guy who is responsible for society, because Ivy Lee said, okay, you have lots of money, let's give it to charity and let's talk about it, because you do good things, so let's just let people know that you actually do good things.
We talked about one-way communication theories, right? Press agentry and public information. Now, let's talk about two-way communication and models, two-way asymmetrical and two-way symmetrical. Two-way asymmetrical, middle of 20th century, it uses persuasion and other manipulation techniques to influence audiences. It has imbalanced effects, what's happening is that research is done but it is done to influence audience. The organization itself doesn't change, they want to persuade audiences to do the things the organization wants to do. And the key figure was over there Edward Bernays.
He is actually also considered the father of public relations. He was the first one to establish public relations course in New York, and he wrote the book, Crystallizing public opinion. And by the way, he was the nephew of the Sigmund Freud, so this is where they're coming from. One of the cases that he established was that he did, he persuaded that smoking is actually good, smoking is actually a freedom. And he did it for Lucky Strike sale of cigarette, where he said that okay, women are forbidden to smoke, and he persuaded women to smoke and walk in the New York Easter parade. And people saw it, and they saw it as a revolution, and they saw it as a good thing, so he basically persuaded the whole world that smoking is okay, that smoking is good, and smoking for women is actually not as bad for their health, there was no talk about it, but it's good for their freedom, their rights.
Two-way symmetrical, this is the fourth model of public relations. And this model is considered to practice in the end of the 20th century and well, in the 21st century as well. It uses communication to negotiate with the public, to resolve conflict, to promote mutual understanding, to respect, organization has to respect the public, we have to have respect between the organization and the publics. It has balanced effects, so it does research, and does substantial research on the audience, on the public, but it does so not only influence the public, but also change itself. It wants to help the society to become better, to become fully functioning, so the society, the public, and the organization, they both change. And key figures are here, there are numerous of them, the Grunig itself who wrote this historical perspective on public relations, other educators, we're going to talk about them in next theoires they are going to discuss.
So we've talked about four models of public relations: press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetrical and two-way symmetrical. All right, two models have one-way communication and two models have two-way communication. We talked about historical perspective on it, so right? We talked the way post practice. But when we looked at them today, contemporary practices of public relations, we will also see those models.
For example, press agentry, well, show business uses it, sports and theater, they use all kinds of hoax, all kind of bigger events, something that maybe hadn't happened but they want to grasp your attention, all kinds, divorces and stuff like that, this is all press agentry model. Public information, government, non-profit, business organizations, they all use it, well, this basically saying truth, right? They publish we did that, we did that, we did that, and we are going to do that, we are going to do that, then we receive the money and this is what we spend it for, so this public information just telling you the truth what happened.
Two-way asymmetrical, competitive business uses it, all kind of clothing businesses uses it, right? They're not really changing, well, they see the trends, but they really want to influence you. They see, okay, you like cars, good cars, you like to be cool, so this is how I'm going to position my business, or you like comfort, this is how I'm going to position my business. Two-way symmetrical, business and non-profit, they also use this, and really, Fortune 500 companies, they tend to use two-way symmetrical model. This is when an organization changes, right, with the publics, they do research, they ask public's opinion, and they help publics to be better, they help them to solve their problem, one the public's having in their life, in their daily life.
The next theory is the Excellence theory. It is the normative theory of public relations. The key question that theory answers, what is the value of public relations? How must public relations be practiced and the communication function organized for it to contribute the most to organizational effectiveness? The theory explained the best practices of public relations, really, it tells what you have to do to be the most effective and to be good for the society as well.
The case study is the Excellence study, there is the whole book written on that study and it's called "Manager's Guide to Excellence Public Relations and Communication Management." If you get a chance, please read that book. Excellence study was a 15-year long study conducted by International Association of Business Communication, and there were 300 organizations took part in this study. They answered the questions on the survey and the organizations were from the US, the UK, and Canada. CEOs, regular employees, and public relations professional, they're all answered the questions of the survey.
Excellent communications by Lindeborg, is communication that is managed strategically meets its objectives and balances the needs of the organization and the needs of the key publics in a two-way symmetrical communication. So, this is how excellent communication looks. So what are the characteristics of excellent public relations or excellent communication function? There are four categories: empowerment of public relations, communicator roles, organization of the communication function and its relationship in the organization itself, models of public relations. Let's talk about each of them.
Empowerment of public relations function, really, their senior public relations executive, he has to be involved in the strategic management process and communication programs have to be built as part of the strategic programs. It has to be built for strategic publics, which are identified as part of the strategic progress, strategic thinking. Communication programs for strategic publics are managed strategically, so again, it's not a one-time deal when you did it and you forget about it, you have to do it on a daily basis. You have to know where you came from, where you are, where you're heading to, and how you are going to get there.
The senior public relations executive has to be member of the dominant coalition. Really, he is not a person to whom CEOs always come, you can say, "Okay, you do this, you do that." He's the person who is also there, sitting at the table, and tries to figure out the strategy of the whole organization. At the very least, it is acceptable with public relations professional, the senior one, has a direct reporting to the CEO but he has to be at the table, he has to be there and think with all other senior managers. And another characteristics, is that diversity is embodied in all public relations roles, which means both women and men can be executives, can be senior executives, regardless of the race, regardless of the ethnicity, of the nationality. Diversity would help organizations to prosper and what really helps to build the global-thinking, remember the one we talked about, when we talk about the skills?
The next one, communicator roles. A strategic manager should be a strategic manager, he's not a technician, he's not an administrative manager, right? He has to be a strategic manager and he has to head in the public relations unit. Again, so he is not just doing things but he's actually thinking how things should be done, and how they should provide the organization with more effectiveness with better relationships. He has to have the knowledge to be the strategic person, to be the strategic manager, has to have the skills, experience to conduct that function, to perform that function. Both men and women must have equal opportunity to occupy the managerial role, we're coming back to the diversity question here.
Organization of the communication function in the organization itself is the third category. So, what is that? Basically, public relations should be an integrated communication function, so it has to be integrated in all activities of the organization, and it should have, public relations should be separate from all other functions, so it's not marketing, it is not HR, it is not media, it is actually public relations and it has a separate function and has had that responsibility and this function has to be reported. The effectiveness of this function has to be reported to, and the CEO of the organization.
Models of public relations theory, we already know about them? We know four, we know Press Agentry and public information, we know two-way asymmetrical and two-way symmetrical. So, the excellence theory is actually saying that if you want to be excellent, you have to practice two-way symmetrical model of public relations and their unit, the communication unit of the organization, the management of your organization, it has to have the worldview for that practice for the two-way symmetrical. The programs which are based on the two-way symmetrical model, they are going to build relationships, they are going to maintain the relationship, this is their focus and the senior PR executive, they have to have knowledge again and practice and the skills to be able to build those two-way symmetrical models to build those two-way symmetrical communications.
And another very important part is that symmetrical system of internal communication must also be executed in their position's self. Remember we talked about how employees is also the key public for their organization, so they also had to have the word to say, and to change their organization, and to say how they feel in their organization, and have a word, and have the right to influence where organization is going, to influence the values of the organization.
However, it is also said that Excellence theory cannot be excellent, it called it excellent in all of the countries because every country has its own culture, including language, has some political system, has its own economic system, own media system, own level of economic development, the extent and nature of activism, and all those characteristics, all those conditions are going to influence how the excellent communication is actually practiced, and excellent communications is going to play between those roles. They are every country in every partition in every country is going to find that mix of excellent communications for their profession, for their practice.
The next theory we're going to discuss is the Situational theory of problem-solving. Well, Grunig was also the author of that theory, but Kim also helped him out. And if you really look at the theory of public relations and the science of public relations, you'll see that Grunig is one of the major brains in developing the public relations theory.
Key questions of that theory, how publics solve problems? Who are the publics of the organization that we need to build a relationship with? This theory explains when and why individuals become active in communication behaviors and decision-making, and this theory is applicable for basically all problem-solving in your life.
Let's define publics first. Publics arise when individuals face a similar problem, recognize the problem, and organize to resolve the problem. The key idea is that the more one commits to problem resolution, the more one become acquisitive of information pertaining to the problem, selective in dealing with information, and transmissive in giving it to others. It's a little bit different, a little bit shaky, maybe a little bit difficult to understand at first, but let's just go and step-by-step discuss what it is.
Here's the scheme of the theory, again, right? A little bit too many variables over there, but don't get scared, well, we are going to go from the backwards. First, we're going to discuss the communication action of problem solving, we're going to see what it is, what are the various kinds, how we can communicate to solve the problem. So, and from that, we are going to build all the way up and really define what defines our communication actions.
So, how we communicate to solve the problem? Really, you can look at yourself and see for yourself how you communicate, what you do if your face the problem, what you do first? There are three different things: Information selectivity, information transmission, information acquisition, and each one of them can be passive and can be active. Let's go and discuss each of them.
First, information selectivity, well, this is an extent of a problem solver's directness in acquiring and sharing information either to economize his or her cognitive resources in problem solving or to optimize his or her preferred solution and end states. There is Information forefending, this is active selectivity and there's Information permitting, this is passive selectivity. In forefending, we don't let information that we don't feel relevant to come to us, we really close, we close ourselves from this information, we get only relevant stuff. While Information permitting, it's okay, the information can come to us, we're permitted to come, we're relaxed, we don't really look at the relevance, we're okay if the information is going to come to us. As information forefending increases, problem solvers become more specific, systematic in pursuing of relevance and delinquent information to reduce information overload or information inconsistency, so basically, the more we care, the more specific and systematic we become.
Information transmission, this is the next option for us, the next way for us to solve the problem. This is an extent of a problem solver's directedness in transmitting and forwarding information. There could be active information forwarding and there could be passive information sharing. When we forward information, we want the whole world to know about it, we don't care if the world asked, we just do it, we forward. While information sharing, well, we are not going to force information because we want to, if someone asks, then we might share it with him, but we're not going to try to persuade anyone and share and forward this information to anyone. Now, this is passive, I share it when someone asks.
Information acquisition, there is an extent of a problem solver's directness in gaining information. And again, you can look at your own behavior that can be Information seeking, which is active, and there can be Information attending, which is passive. When we seek information, we go and we scan and we plan and we look for those resources and we will look for those books, and now, you're going to be interested in public relations, we are going to go and look for those public relations books and those public relations theories and articles, well, I believe in this. While in informational attending, this is a passive, it's okay when it comes, right? It's like how we're scanning our social media, well, it came, I liked it, okay, it went further, so this is just attending, this is not active seeking, this is attending.
Now, let's see what defines our communication behavior, right? So, how we behave? Why we behave the way we're going to behave? What are our independent variables? So, what defines our communication action? There are actually two things: The Referent Criterion and Situational, Motivation in problem-solving. Let's discuss the referenR Criterion first. It is any knowledge or subjective judgmental system that influences the way in which one approaches problem solving. It can be decisional guidelines, you know how to do it because you have an instruction how to solve it. It can be an experience in the past, you already solved those problems. It can be your improvisation skills, you have the skills to improvise in solving the problems. It can be, "this must-be-solved" attitude, "I don't care but I am going to solve it." Basically, if you think about it right now, with our theories, we provide you with the Referent Criterion on how to solve public relations problems, those are instructions very often.
The second thing is Situational Motivation in problem solving. It is a state of situation-specific readiness to make efforts to solve the problem, it's when you care about the problem, do you really care about it? It is defined by three things: Problem recognition, Involvement recognition, and Constraint recognition. Here they are.
Problem recognition, one's perception that something is missing and there is no immediately applicable solution to it. That could be perceptual problem, that could be cognitive problem. Perceptual problem is a discrepancy between expected and experienced states, a badness-of-fit. This experience may be easily and quickly resolved by a preconscious problem solving effort. For example, you drove and you saw the traffic light changed, you haven't really thought too much about it, you just changed the lights and you just put the stop, change the gears in your car, so you solve the problem, that's it. You encountered the badness-of-fit, there was a discrepancy between expected and experienced states, but you solved it very quickly, you haven't thought much about it. However, a cognitive problem is the absence of the ready-made solution to a perceptual problem, so you see that something is not right, something is missing, but you don't actually know how to solve it right now, and it requires an assessment of the situation. You have to answer the question, what caused the problem? How close is it connected to me? How it can be approached? What types of obstacles are on my path of solving it? A cognitive problem always follows a perceptual problem, so you have to first identify what's missing, and then really, if you haven't found the solution to it right away, you have to think about it, how are you going to solve it, right?
The next one, a characteristic that define situational motivation is involvement. It is a perceived connection between the self and the problem situation. Basically, if you perceive that this is important to you, that if it's really relevant to you, it happens in your own community, it happens on your street, it happened to your family, then, you are involved, it's important, it's relevant for you, it touches you, it touches your emotions, it maybe, touches you physically. When the perceived connection is low, people are likely to be passive in communication behavior, however, when you really care, you are going to be active, right? Because you will want to solve the problem.
Next one, constraint recognition. Constraint recognition is an extent to which people perceive there are obstacles to their ability to act. The greater their perception of obstacles, the less likely they are to seek information or to act on information. Basically, how you perceive the constraints is going to define how you're going to behave. If you feel that, "There is nothing I can do," you're not going to do anything, right? Because you feel like you are tied, you feel like someone put chains on your hands, so because of that, you won't act. So those are your perceptions of constraints, recognition of constraints.
So now, right? If you look at it one more time, it's not that scary anymore, right? We have independent variables, and we have the dependent variable, our communication action, which can be, we actively select, or we basically select information, we transmits information, or we acquire information that we want. As one perceived a problematic state, its connection to him or to her, the absence of constraints in doing something about it, the motivation to solve the problem increases, and even if motivation is high and the person has experience of solving the problem, he or she will be more active in communication behavior. In other words, he or she will purposefully fulfill information, forwarded, and acquire.
So, by your motivation and by your communication, you're going to be divided into different publics. There are actually five of them: nonpublic, latent, aware, active, and activists. Nonpublic, those people, they don't really face the problem in question, they have no social, economic, political, ideological, philosophical, or geographical ties to the problem or issue, they're not touched by this problem, the problem doesn't influence them. So if an earthquake happens somewhere else, those people might not really care about it because well, it didn't happened to them.
Latent public, those are the people who face the problem but are not aware of it, the problem is not relevant for them, or they do not have an option about it. For example, those are the people who are sick but they don't know they have this illness, so they should have faced the problem, and they suffer from this problem, but they don't know about it. Aware, people who are aware of an issue, but they don't care about the issue to become involved, they don't have time or mental energy to become more active, perceive constraints in solving, or they also may perceived constraints in solving the problem. For example, a person, he's sick, he knows about it that he is sick, but well whatever, "I don't have energy, I don't have money, I don't have time to solve it, I can live like that, maybe a little less, but I'll live like that." Or they may be perceived constraints, right? "There's no way you can fix me, there's no way I can be healed, so why would I spend my time and energy to do something about it."
Active publics, those are the people who started working for solving the problem, they create an issue and they perceive no constraints against solving the problem. So they know that they're sick and they're actively trying to get better, they go to look for doctors, to look for information, they're doing this themselves. But activists public, that's the next step, right? They also know the problem, they also tried to do something about it, but they actually do it altogether, they collect into associations, into all sorts of unions, join others to solve that problem, that are many of them already.
These publics, right? The difference of this, the different motivation, the different communication behavior will require different public relations practices. For nonpublic, well, no problem touches them, why would they care? Why we will spend money on communicating with them if they don't needed as well? So no communication needed. For latent public, they don't seek communication but they actually have the problem, so what we need to do, we need to be really creative in attention-getting, have you come up with cool content, something very flashy to get those people see us and get their attention. We also have to communicate that there is a problem and there are ways to solve this problem.
Aware publics, they know about the problem, they may or may not process your communication, but you need to tell them that there are no constraints. You need to communicate that there are ways to solve the problem to those people because they know their problem, they suffer from it, it's just that they don't have this mental energy to do something about it, so you have to help them out to solve it, you have to motivate them to solve it. Active and activists, those are active people, okay? Those people are going to go and they're going to create troubles for you if you don't maintain high public profile, if you don't give more details, those are the most active people, they're going to ask more and more, more information from you, so you have to be very active in meeting their needs and even exceeding their needs and expectations.
The fourth theory of today's lecture is the Relationship Management theory. Ferguson was the first one to start talking about the switch from the communication perspective where we try to persuade publics, where we try to communicate with them, where we try to identify publics to really try and understand, we have to think about the relationship. This is the key for our theory, for our practice and she wrote in 1984 "Understanding public relationships requires more than understanding communication processes and effects, it's may require understanding organizations, understanding publics and understanding the larger social environment within which these two social units exist."
Center and Jackson in 1995 wrote "The desired outcomes of public relations practice is public relationships, an organization with effective public relations will attain positive public relationships." So what is the key question of the theory? What types and processes of management are most effective in identifying and focusing on the common interests and shared goals of organizations and publics over time, to generate mutual understanding and benefit?
Relationship definition, Ledingham and Bruning, the key of authors of the theory, they defined relationships as the state which exists between an organization and its key publics in which the actions of either entity impact the economic, social, political and/or cultural well-being of the other entire team. Broom also another key author of the theory said that relationships consist of the transactions that involve the exchange of resources between organizations and lead to mutual benefit, as well as mutual achievement. Again, we see relationship in the relationship both sides change, both sides benefit and there is some sort of transaction of resources in between those sides.
What are the relationship indicators and outcomes? When we understand that okay we have a good relationship with this person, with this organization, or no I think maybe we should do a better job to get the better one. So, there are six things that good relationships are characterized: control mutuality, trust, commitment, satisfaction, exchange relationship, communal relationship. Let's go and discuss each and one of those.
Control mutuality, it is a degree to which the parties agree on who has the rightful power to influence one another. Although some imbalance is natural, stable relationships require that organizations and publics each have some control over the other, so basically, there is a respect between the parties, they are on the same level.
Trust is the next one, one party's confidence in and willingness to open oneself to the other party. It has three dimensions: integrity, dependability, and competence. Integrity, the belief that an organization is fair and just, really, we think, okay this is an honest organization because they say what they do, they do what they say. Dependability, the belief that an organization will do what it says it will do. Competence, the belief that an organization has the ability to do what it says it will do.
Next one is commitment, commitment is an extent to which each party believes and feels that the relationship is worth spending energy to maintain and promote. There are two dimensions: continuance commitment and affective commitment. Basically, continuance commitment is a certain line of action, I am committing to that relationship, I am going to do something to maintain this relationship, I am going to do something to promote this relationship, I'm committed because I have to, because I need to because I feel like. Affective commitment is an emotional orientation, I want to commit to this relationship because I like it because I love it because I wanted, this an effective commitment, you have emotions to commit to that relationship.
Satisfaction also is another indicator of a good relationship, if you're satisfied that's a good thing. The extent to which each party feels favorably toward the other because positive expectations about the relationship are reinforced. A satisfying relationship is one in which the benefits outweigh the costs, really, if I gave in the relationship more than I was given, I'm not going to be satisfied, there must be an equal exchange, there must be a cost-benefit analysis in which both party are going to be benefited and both parties are going to be satisfied, all right. So, control mutuality, trust, commitment, satisfaction they defined the kinds of relationship, they are the major indicators.
And now, we have two kinds of relationships which I consider to be the best. Those are exchange relationship is when one party gives benefits to the other only because the other has provided benefits in the past or is expected to do something in the future. So basically, I did a favor to you and I expect that you return this favor because well, I gave a favor to you and now I expect you're going to do the same because I expect you're also a good person, and you have these feelings that, "Okay, now I owe you." It's like giving money, I gave you money, I expect you return this money.
Communal relationship, in a communal relationship both parties provide benefits to the other because they're concerned for the welfare of the other even when they get nothing in return. So, it's like your parents, they give you money and they don't expect you're going to return those money, well, sometimes you do sometimes you don't, right? But they just want you to feel good, they want you to go to a movie or go to a theater. There could be a one-sided communal relationship and there can be mutual communal relationship. One-sided is when only one party in the relationship really gives benefits and gets nothing in return because they care about you, because they want you to feel good, but you on the other side, don't really care about it, okay, you just give something in return, but you would think that maybe they will do something more, something better for me. And mutual communal relationships actually both sides care and both sides give things to the other without expecting anything in return.
Developing communal relationships with key constituencies is much more important to achieve than would be developing exchange relationships, well, because they're nicer, it's nice to think about the welfare of the other without expecting anything in return. However, we want to live in an excellent world, in the ideal world and there are other types of relationships. Those are, you see them here on your slides, covenantal relationships, or win-win relationship, contractual relationship, exploitive relationship, manipulative relationship, and symbiotic relationship. Let's go and talk about each of them.
Covenantal relationships, or win-win relationships, a covenantal relationships mean both sides commit to a common good by their open exchanges and the norms of reciprocity, it's basically a partnership. We work for common good, want to achieve this common good, the development of our society, the democracy, business development, it can be anything, but you have the partnership relationships between the other, you respect him, and you have open exchanges, you let another person to speak, and things like that.
The next one, contractual relationships, it appears when you sign the contract, one parties agree on what each should do in their relationships. It's basically when you come to work and you sign the contract that I'm going to do this, that, and that, and you're going to pay to me for this, that, and that, this a contractual relationship, it determines what each party should do.
Exploitive relationships, in exploitive relationships, one take advantage of the other, when the other follows communal norms, or when one doesn't fulfill his or her obligations in an exchange relationship. Basically, in exchange relationship, what happens, I give you money, I expect to return those money, in exploitive relationship, I give you money, and I expect you return those money, and you say, "Nope, I don't care, I don't give it to you, I never received it, I don't know you, forget about me." This is an exploitive relationship.
Manipulative relationships, happens when an organization knowing what publics want applies asymmetrical or pseudosymmetrical approaches in communicating with publics with an intention to serve its own interest. Often, manipulative relationships happened with the media, when organizations manipulate the media, so the media will change the public's perception which is good for us, good for an organization. So this way, we benefit, the media doesn't benefit, they don't give us anything back, we don't give anything to media anymore, so we just manipulated them to achieve our own goals.
Symbiotic relationships is the last one, symbiotic relationships happens when organizations, realizing the interdependence in the environment, work together with certain publics with the common interest of surviving in the environment. This is not the communal relationship, when you exchange something because you cared about another, no, you exchange something in a symbiotic relationship because you are interconnected, you are interdependent, and if you don't do something, you're also going to struggle because if another person is going to go down, you're also going to go down. So, there is a symbiotic relationship, you have something in common that keeps you both going further.
This is the continuum of types of relationships based on that concern for self interest and concern for the other's interest. So, exploitive is the most self-interest relationships, while one-sided communal is when you care about the other even without noticing that another person doesn't care about you, so this is the biggest concern for the other. And exchange, covenantal, and mutual communal relationships, or win-win strategies, is the kinds of relationship the organization wants to achieve, wants to nurture, wants to foster.
There are also other typologies of organization-public relationships that are multiple. A relationship can be personal, professional, it can be multi-party, one party, communal relationships, or community relationships. But they also can be strategic, and not strategic, and strategic relationships are those that have some sort of consequences on us, on the organization, and not strategic, they actually don't have any consequences on us. So, public relations makes organization more effective when it identifies the most strategic publics as part of strategic management process and conducts communication programs to develop and maintain effective long-term relationships between management and those publics.
So, one more time, what effective strategies of public relations should do to nurture and manage those relationships? Identify the most strategic publics, plan, implement, and evaluate communication programs to build relationships, and measure and evaluate the long-term relationships between the organizations and these strategic publics. Here, there are two things to know, though, organizations do not need relationships with all the publics, and not all public relation strategies, programs, or campaigns are equally effective in building relationships.
Now, lets talk about the strategies, there are multiple, we are going to look on just about a few of them. The first one is the access, members of publics or opinion leaders provide access to public relations people, as well as public relations representative or senior managers provide their representatives of publics with similar access to organizational decision-making processes. Basically, there are situation when you have access to that person, you know how to go and get in contact with him, or how to talk to them, you have their email address, you have their phone, you have their website, they have open translations of their meetings, so you have to an access to their decision making process, you understand what's happening.
Positivity, well, you see this hyper personal on the slide, but it's basically anything the organization or public does to make the relationship more enjoyable for the parties involved. In other words, interacting with partners in a cheerful, uncritical manner, you have to be happy. People like to talk and build relationships with happy people, with people who smile, who don't have problems, and who make your life better, easier, and more enjoyable, so positivity is important subject to maintain relationships.
Openness, openness of your mind, openness of your thoughts, in other words, directly discussing the nature of the relationship and disclosing one's desires for the relationship. So, you talk to the person, and you say, "Okay, this is why I want to talk to you, this is why I like you, this is where I came from, this is where we're going to go from this." As more transparent you are, the more open you are, the more trust a person is going to have for you, for the relationship you're going to nurture with him or her.
Assurances, communicating one's desires to continue with the relationship, saying, "I'm going to stay with the relationship with you because I like you, or because I want you," I don't know why, but you need to assure another person that you're not going to break up, we're not going to forget about this person, or about this organization, or about the public, you care about it, you always think about it, about them, so you have to assure that you are going to stay in this relationship.
Networking, organizations building networks or coalitions with the same groups that their publics do, so as environmentalists, or unions, or community groups relying on common affiliations and relations. It's when you build connections, while you come to the party, you come to the conference, you do networking, right? You meet different people, you gather information from them, you give them your information, and that's how you also build and maintain relationships, you network.
Sharing of tasks, organizations' and publics' sharing of solving a joint or separate problem, which are in the interest of either the organization, the public, or both. You have to do something together, again, when you look at the relationship management theory, very often, you have to look at your own personal relationships and you'll find the ideas on how to manage the relationship. So, sharing the task is basically doing something together, "Okay, we have this problem, it is dirty on the street, let's go all together, organization, and you, and pick up the litter and get the streets clean." This is sharing of task, you live on the street together, and you do the cleaning together.
Conversational style, we are humans, we're in the human business, we're in emotional business, we're in the business of communication, so we have to stay humans, always have human touch, and we have to think like humans, even though we are business people. So, the style we have while talking to people, have to be conversational, has to have human touch.
The next theory about this course is dialogic theory. The theory explains how public relations practitioners should ethically build quality relationships with publics by having a dialogue with them. So we talked about different kinds of relationships, we talked about management of relationships, but now we're talking about the quality of relationships, really how we should build those relationships in an ethical manner using dialogue.
Dialogue refers to a process interpersonal group and organization public interaction that focuses on honesty, truth, and positive regard for the other. It is any negotiated exchange of ideas and opinions. Key authors Pearson, Kent, and Taylor. Idea, the main idea of the theory, organizations should be willing to interact with the publics in honest and ethical ways in order to create effective organizational public communal channels.
Dialogue includes five features: mutuality, propinquity, empathy, risk, and commitment. Let's go and talk about each of them. Mutuality, the recognition of organization public relationships, an acknowledgement that organizations and publics are inextricably tied together, we're together, we depend on each other, so we must collaborate. Collaboration is when each opens himself to the other person and truly accepts his or her point of view as worthy of consideration, so we don't just blame the person who thinks differently and say, okay, you are not on our community, we don't want to have friendships with you. No, everyone has an equal opportunity, has an equal right to speak up, and we consider their point of view as worth of consideration.
The next as I mentioned is spirit of mutuality, it's an exercise of power, control that should be avoided. Basically participants should feel comfortable discussing any topic, they should feel that they are going to be free of ridicule if they say something, this is what equal mutuality and spirit of mutual equalities, it's when everyone feels comfortable, equal to discuss what they feel, what they think and how they went to proceed together in collaboration, in building relationship with you.
Propinquity, the temporality and spontaneity of interactions with public, immediacy of presence, communication is in the present before the decisions are made. So we don't talk to the publics when we when already made the decision and now we are going to let them know that we've done what we wanted, know, we communicate with them in the present before we even make a decision, so the publics would help us to form our decision to shape it to make it mutually beneficial. Parties have to have a shared space of place to communicate, whether it's a website, whether's it's a place for meeting on the street, or something which was accepted by both party as a shared place of a communication.
Temporal flow, dialogue is rooted in the present, but focused on equitable and acceptable future for all involved, so we're talking about the future, right? In the present, we talk right now, but we want both of us to benefit from our interaction. Engagement, participants are accessible, they give their whole self to encounters, so you cannot do five things at one time, if you are building relationships and you are communicating right now in this dialogue or with another person, you are with him in this dialogue at this very moment.
Empathy, empathy is atmosphere of support and trust that must exist if dialogue is to succeed. It's characterized by supportiveness, dialogue involves creating a climate in which others are encouraged to participate, and their participation is facilitated. So we invite people to talk to us, we support them, okay, you may think differently, but talk to us, let's talk to each other, let's decide, let's think about it, let's see how we can help each other.
Communal orientation, public relations aims at building communities, we live in the world where the whole world is broken into communitist, different ones, and we can think when one community or another community, but in any case, we try to build this community, make it stronger, and build relationship between communities as well. Conformation of public goals and interest, acknowledging the voice of the others in spite one's ability to ignore it. Organizations acknowledge that those who do not agree with the organization need to be heard, so even though organizations, they have power, they have resources, they have money, people who usually don't like the products, right? To someone customer, they don't have as much power as the organization does, social media provides customers with that power, but it's not to the same amount as the organization has the power, so even the organization has the power to ignore what their customers seeing, they should not do it, they should listen, and they should work together to solve the problems.
Risk, dialogue is always a risk, because interaction with individuals and publics requires interaction on their own terms. So it's vulnerability, you share information, and you don't know where this person with your information is going to go, right? You share your belief, you share your desires, you can be ridiculed for what you feel, for what you think, so they make participants vulnerable, risk includes vulnerability. Unanticipated consequences, communication is unrehearsed, it's spontaneous, you come, you talk to the person you have in plan, even though you have strategy and everything in the world, but this moment right now you are in the present, you go and talk, it's spontaneous, it's unrehearsed.
Recognition of strange otherness, the unconditional acceptance of the uniqueness and individuality of others, consciousness of the fact that the other is not the same as oneself nor they should be. People are different, they can be different, we're all different, and it's actually beautiful that we're all different, so this acceptance of the uniqueness of the others, it's also a risk.
Commitment, the extent to which an organization gives itself over to dialogue, interpretation, and understanding in its interactions with publics. Genuineness, dialogue is honest and forthright. Commitment to conversation, the goal of conversation is mutual understanding and benefit. Commitment to interpretation, individuals should set aside their differences to understand the positions of others before the positions are evaluated. So basically, you have to state very clearly as you're committing to your conversations and you're committing to understanding that another person, and you're committing to find that decision, that problem solution that would benefit both of us.
The dialogic theory, though we talked right now about the principle and the features, very often applied online. So for a dialogue to happen online, it must have dialogic loop, usefulness of information, generation of return visits, the intuitiveness and conservation of visitors. Let's go and discuss each of those principles of dialogue online.
Dialogic loop, web sites should allow publics to query organizations to allow organizations to respond to questions and concerns. Employees must be trained to respond to online queries and be available to do it. Basically, on your website there must be Q&A questions, right? There must be contact information, there must be opportunity for comments, you have to collect this feedback from the people, you have to have a phone, so people could call you, right? A chat, so people could answer the questions with you. And the employees of course, because the information overload and different requests that publics have, employees have to be ready to answer those questions, this is specially relevant for such business as banking or government or some health organizations. So this dialogic will continues, interaction continues conversation between publics and the organization which is supported through online communication, online facilities of the website.
Usefulness of information, organizations of their web site should post information with general value for all publics, including the statement of the organization's philosophy or mission. Information must be useful and transparent, publics should have an opportunity to sign up for information like the updates, and there must be contact information of organizational members. Usefulness of information, when I come to the website, I expect to find there something of value for me, I expect to know what kind of organization it is, I expect to know okay, where they registered, what is their story, what kind of people work there. If it's a non-government organization and I'm donating some money for organizations, I expect to know where this money was spent, how much they collected, what's the average amount of money received or donations received. So useful transparent value for all publics, and it's always nice when you can leave your email and sign up for some updates, and you'll receive them on a regular basis, you don't have to go to the website every other day, but you'll just receive them, either on your email, by your email subscription, or even when you like a page and you follow the company on the social media, you receive some updates over there as well, and the contact information, we already talked about it.
Generation of return visits, sites should include features to make attractive for repeat visits, update information, changing issues, special forums, new commenters, on-line questions and answer sessions, consultants and etc. Explicit statement inviting users should also be included. Well basically, when I come to the site, I see that something is going on over there, and if I come again, I want to see something else, did something happen over there, right? I'm not going to come to the side and see other time same things, it need to be something to be interesting for me to come again and again and again. So this is why information should be updated, this is why there should be interesting stuff going on, exhibitions, events, and new products, some cool information in terms of how to use or how to fix the problems, how to use the product, something of value for me.
Intuitiveness, sites must be easy to use, it's said, I think if you click three times and you haven't found what you want, it's already too much, so sites should be as easy as in three clicks, a person has to find what they're looking for. They should be organized and hierarchical, there should be a site map, major links to the rest of the site search engine box and a low reliance graphics. About low reliance in graphics there are different thoughts, but the reason for that and Internet is not working well everywhere, and if you come to the website and it's downloading to load, it takes eternity for the site to download, most likely you will never come back to the site again, so this is why the website, any online information should be easily downloadable, it should be easy for you use.
Conservation of visitors, websites should contain only essential links with clearly marked paths for visitors to return to the sites. Advertising should be put at and the bottom of the pages, short loading time, and use of additional applications on this site. Well, when you go to the site and you see those advertising, just jumping onto you, you're just closing your eyes, closing the website, and you go and decide we'll never, ever see you forever. Really when the person comes, it should be almost like coming home, not very interesting, very easy to use. And important thing to note here is that the links on your website, they shouldn't go and take you everywhere, they should actually let you be on that site, or if you open a page, a link on your website, it should open on another page on your web browser, otherwise you can lose this person who came to you and was taken to somewhere else.
The last theory about today's lecture is the theory of Fully Functioning Society. So we talked about communication, right? How we communicate with different publics? How we should communicate to the excellent? What models of PR is out there? Then we switch to relationships, where relationship was the focus, was the main outcome of our practice. We talked about dialogue which helps to build quality relationships.
But you see in all those theories, we haven't talked much about the society, about why public relations exist in society at all. So, we always talked about the organization and the public. With this theory, we remember that we live in the society, and public relations actually help so the society to become fully functioning. So, let's see what the main ideas.
Society consists of multiple collectivities, people living and working in groups with varying degrees of agreement, permeability, trust, power, and interdependence. Individuals and collectives are confronted with a relative fraught with chaos, entropy, and turbulence to which they wish to bring order by exerting control through enlightened decision making. So basically, in two words, life in a very chaotic society, different ideas, the media information is just flowing on us all the time and we have to do something with this, we have to find out what's the true in all of that and we have to make an enlightened choice.
So public relations help to make that enlightened choice. It is a force to foster community as blended relationships, resource distribution, and shared meanings that advance and yield to enlightened choice. It is a steward of multiple interests in harmony and collaboration, it is a steward of democracy and Robert Heath is the main author of that theory, main Idea maker.
Seven premises of the theory: legitimacy, corporate social responsibility, power symmetry, collision of interests, interaction of collectivities, social discourse and meaning creation, community relationship dynamics. Legitimacy, to help society to become more fully functioning, organizations must foster legitimacy. How they're doing it? We are being reflective, and public relations help them to be reflective, right? We're willing to consider and instrumentally advance others' interests, remember the dialogue? We think everyone is equal in their right to speak up and the right to have another point of view.
We're being collaborative in decision making, being proactive and responsive to others communication and opinion needs, and we are working to meet or exceed the requirements of relationship management, including being a good corporate citizen. So, we're not only building relationships but we're actually building relationships for the good of the society. Second, corporate social responsibility, an essential part of the legitimacy. In the word culprit, we mean here all collectivities, so not religious organizations, but non-government, all kinds of small communities, everything that's organized and functional are considered to be a corporate.
There are possibilities seen when the organization meets or exceeds the normative expectations of stakeholders and stake-seekers. In that way, the organizations achieve a level of good that helps the society become more fully functional. Power symmetry, the key idea of power is a key idea in public relations. Power is a counterpart of legitimacy, it is the essence of reflective management. What we need to do? We have to be reflective in our management, we have to assess whether our power is used only for narrow interests or for the larger interests of society.
We have to exercise this responsible power control and power comes from shared meaning as well as the ability to influence outcomes. So organizations, they have resources and many times they have power, so public relations in their organizations help to balance this power and to see that it's used to benefit both organizations, public, and the society at large. Collision of interests, interests are an irrefutable part of the human experience, from our interests comes our expectations. They can be altruistic, selfish or self-centered. For our interests, for our expectations, form social contexts, our understanding of the world, our understanding goals of the society and we interact with publics.
Organizations interact with individuals to balance those interests. This effort toward balance foster expectations that people construct and share. Basically, when we find this common ground, in our interests, in our expectations, in our relationships, we become better members of society. The next one is interaction of collectivities. Society is a complex of collectivities engaged in various dialogues and distributions of power resources. So, we have organizations, we have corporate organizations, we have small organizations, we have government, we have associations, we have unions, we have hospitals, we have people, just local small communities on the street on your neighborhood.
So all of those, they have to communicate, and when they communicate, they construct and share and norm-based expectations. And in those expectations, individuals seek to make enlightened choices in the face of risk, uncertainty, and reward and cost ambiguity. So, we help us public relations, help to find this common ground, find a way to make this enlightened choice, find a way for those collectivities to build relationships with each other, to understand each other, and share the meanings of their norms in the society.
Social discourse and meaning creation, we don't do just advocacy, right? We do advocacy, we do a lot of things in terms of persevering and seeing our point of view. However, we also use other forms of discourse in which help people to co-create meaning and guide the activities which lead them to coordination. People create a sense of culture that defines what actions are allowable and expected for civil society. So, there's an Ekman theory and there are all other theories, so basically we help to create this culture, we help to create those norms of communication.
And the last one, Community Relationship Dynamics. A relationship must be symmetrical, it must fit between stakeholders and stakeseekers and reflect the dynamics of communitas rather than corporatas. And here we have to define communitas and corporatas, and it's better to understand those terms differing them because they're different, we have to divide them. In communitas, people see themselves as their organizations and the organizations as bound together, they share instrumental and symbolic reality. In contrast, corporatas thrives on partisan exploitation as organizations intrude into, dominate and manipulate any stake exchange.
So let's talk a little bit more about variables that define communities. Communities, communitas must be open, they foster two-way communication based on listening, shares values, shares information, being responsive, respectful, candid, and honest. Trustworthy: build trust among publics and clients, being reliable, not exploitative, and dependable. Communitas are cooperative and they engage in collaborative decision making, assures that the needs and wants of the organization and stakeholders are met. Communitas aligned, they have shared interests, rewards, goals with those of stakeholders or organizations and stakeholders and the publics have those shared interests.
Communitas have comparable views opinions, fosters mutual understanding and agreement to co-create meaning. And there must be commitment of course, supports the community by being involved in it, investing in it, and displaying commitment to it. So the organization must commit to building community, must commit to foster a mutual understanding, must commit to align their shared interests with the stake holders. So by doing this, they build communitas rather than corporatas.
Key concepts, all the theory, we discuss the premises, we discuss the ideas. Key concepts: public sphere, it is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion, they can influence political action. The second definition of public sphere is that it is a site for the production and circulation of discourses that can in principle be critical of the state. The idea of public sphere was brought by Habermas and he saw it at that time as just place, it can be a bar or a club where people would come and they talk about their ideas.
And they talk freely, they're not afraid that someone is going to come and grab them and put in jail for their thoughts, no, they discuss over there, they discuss and they try to find the shared meaning about it. So this is the idea of public sphere. The next concept is a civil society, Downey and Fenton defined it as a place where individuals and groups are free to form organizations that function independently and that can mediate between citizens and the state, the place where autonomous public spheres reside. So we have public spheres, we just talked about them, bars, let's put it this way, sites where people talk and we have civil society where those public spheres resides.
So in one civil society, there are many of those spheres everywhere, and those spheres should have relationship between each other. Civil society includes a broad variety of organizations and relationships among those organizations and those relationships are crucial for collective goal achievement at the local state and international level. We always think about society, so we have civil society, in that society we have public spheres, we have relationships which are going on between organizations, publics, government, associations and the stronger those relationships are, the freely the information goes, the better the norms are established, there is more trust in those relationships, the better for the civil society, the stronger the civil society is.
The next concept is a social capital, those are the features of social organizations such as networks, norms, social trust, social capital facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. Social capital leads to civil society and public spheres because it builds trust, so without social capital there is no civil society, without social capital there are no public sphere, basically it helps those two other concepts to become, to appear, to be stronger, to be better. But there are different kinds of social capital, there is bonding social capital, one that's in a group, and it's between this tight-knit group, so people believe each other in that group but they don't believe other people and they don't really want to talk to the other people, this is bonding social capital.
And there is bridging social capital, that's cross-cutting ties across different social groups, so the group's trust promotes cooperation and participation in civic life, so they still trust each other in the group, but they trust other people as well. And our goal as public relations practitioners build both bonding social capital and bridging social capital and bridging for a democracy is even more important. Eric Sommerfeldt wrote that "Public relations, when it builds collective trust, cross cutting relationships, and facilitates a plurality of views, creates the social capital requisitive for communities to form and societies to function."
Really, basically we build communities, we build societies, and we help those organizations, those communities, those societies to work together for the public good. We help society to become fully functioning.
So now, let's look at the case study, how we can apply a theory to practice? I chose the dialogic theory for the case study, and it's used in online communication, its application to the online communication. The author of this study was Seow Ting Lee.
The focus of this study was to understand user reactions on the Singapore government-led public relations campaign, Facebook campaign, on love and marriage. The campaign called, Beautifully Imperfect. The campaign was a powerful larger pro-family efforts to reverse low marriage and birth rates, the outcomes for relationships were also evaluated. So it was a Facebook campaign, which aimed at building relationships and changing people's attitude towards marriage and towards birth.
The campaign was evaluated against the dialogic features of online communication, such as Dialogic loop, Intuitiveness, Usefulness of information, Generation of return visits, Conservation of visitors. And the author used two methods to evaluate the relationship, evaluate the campaign communication, focus groups and content analysis.
So what they also found is that while campaign met some technical and design criteria of dialogic communication, it failed in cultivating relationships with young Singaporean adults. So even though the Facebook, the social media was used, it was still one-way communication and no relationships were fostered.
Dialogic loop, there were no offers of regular information through email or no direct responses by the organization to questions or comments from users. So users didn't feel like talking, like having dialogue with their organization, having dialogue among the users. Generation of return visits, the page was updated rarely, so why should come there again? There's no updated information.
Intuitiveness, users liked visuals, but didn't like the organization of their visit to the page. So when they would enter the page, there would be an advertising, or there would be a video, the same one all the time, which they would have to watch, so they didn't really like this, this circulation of the organization related to the page. Usefulness of information, there was no quality information about the main ideas of the campaigns, so there was only a few details, but really why? What is the deep understanding? Why exactly I want to do this? Why exactly marriage is important? Why it is important in the lifetime journey? There was no information like that.
Conservation of visitors, the requirements on the theory were met, not very many external links and fast loading time. So the website, it was said, met this technical exam criteria, but then relationships weren't cultivating. In the Facebook campaign, Beautifully Imperfect was a one-way communication channel, there was no dialogue and the organization just wanted to tell what they think about it, they didn't try to listen to the public's concerns, interests, or to what they think about it.
The campaign didn't persuade single Singaporeans to date and get married. And as the author said, the campaign entitled, Beautifully Imperfect, to persuade individuals to accept their partners' imperfections, remains just that, beautifully imperfect. By recollections as we've just learned in our course is, one of the many instances of social influence, it can help us to communicate and it can help us to build relationships.
But then, it can also help us to build a better society, a society which is more fully functioning. It can create shared social meaning, negotiate relationships, influence and yield to influence, create and resolve conflict, distribute resources, manage power's resources, exalt and yield to control, manage risks, shape and their support to preferences, work to resolve uncertainty, force to trust, engage and support in a position, distribute your worth and quest, forced inter-dependency and make enlightened choices.
So what I've done here is, set you would last to spend at home public relations, we don't know. But what we learned today is that, public relations definitely help societies to become fully functioning, it helps build relationships, it thinks about shared and social meanings, and it makes friends for organizations. So if you love making friends, if you like make the world a better place, you should consider public relations as your profession.
Hi, and welcome to the week eight of our communication theory course. Last week, we discussed social media and theories related to mass communication and society. Over that part we came to the conclusion that our reality is being constructed by media. This week we are focusing on one very special dimension of the communication theory, it is critical approach. When I say critical, I don't mean judgmental, rather than referring here to the whole body of scholarship that explores historical, cultural, and ideological lines of authority that underlines social conditions.
But let's start with the very beginning with Karl Marx. Karl Marx is a German political philosopher and economist, who is the founder of modern communism. With Friedrich Engels, they rolled the Communist Manifesto and launched it into a series of books, most notably the three volume, Das Kapital. Their method is the dialectical analysis. This method, which is the art of knowing truth by uncovering their contradictions in the reasoning of one's adversary exposes to the underlying struggle within opposing forces. The argument here is that the individuals can liberate themselves and change the existing order only by becoming aware of the dialectic of opposing forces in the struggle for power. Karl Marx is the most important figure in this social political theory because his ideas did not only totally change the intellectual history vector but also affected real politics. And thus, the result in countries of Eastern Europe and particularly in the USSR, the communist ideology was established for the full 20th century.
First, we cover the main ideas which are narrated in the Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels argued that the means of production determines the very nature of society. This is the linear idea of the base superstructural relationship. The economy is the base of all social structure, including instructions and ideas. Look at the scheme, shortly describing the foundation of Marxism. Base is a two-fold structure. It consists of the means of production, for example, machines which are used in production and relations of production, which are social classes relationships. Superstructure includes all non-economical spheres, media, culture, politics, and etc. Hence, we can formulate the most important idea in classical Marxism, base shapes the superstructure, superstructure maintains the base.
Marx defined his theory as the critique of political economy. His focus was on the last stage of social and economic development, which still remains as the predominant one. To separate the stage from other ones, Marx assumes that the economy is the base of all social structure. Hence, we could separate periods in history according to the main molds of production. In capitalistic systems, profit drives production and thus, dominates labor. Working class groups are oppressed by the group in power who benefit from profit. All institutions that perpetuate domination within capitalistic society arise from this economic system. Only when the working class rises against the dominant groups can the liberation of the worker be achieved. Such liberation furthers the natural progression of history in which forces in a position clash in a dialectic that results to the higher social order. Remember, that dialectic is based on universal laws and the development of nature, human society, and thinking whether eternal moving and changing phenomena of nature and society is based on revealing internal contradictions and the struggle of opposites, which leads to transition from one quality to another.
Let's discuss Marx's critique of ideology. Despite the focus on the base, Marx also comments on the superstructure. Hence, we'll move to the critique of ideology, which is formulated in Theses on Feuerbach. His critique is devoted to three understandings of ideology. Hegelian idealism, part of the superstructure, functionally explained false consciousness. We can summarize that for Marxist, ideology is the false consciousness which wrongly navigates people actions. Unfortunately for Marx, his theory per se, became one of the most predominant ideology of the 20th century. Raymond Aron wrote the book Opium of Intellectuals where he criticized the French intellectuals fashion of Marxist views.
Overall, a number of approach is to Marxist communication theory can be taken. They all focus on two kinds of problems. The first one is particularly devoted with the ideology, this is the politics of textuality. This approach has to do with the ways the media produce encoded messages, the ways audiences decode those messages, and the power of domination apparent in this processes. Scholars might also study the way certain kinds of media content, such as network news are produced and how those depictions are understood by audiences, so as to perpetuate or oppose the power of certain dominant economic institutions such as government.
Let's focus on superstructure, Cultural Marxism. Maybe for the Marxists are not only interested in economic domination but also focus on the culture as a superstructure. In communications, this line of investigation examines the relation amongst media, other institutions, and the ideology of culture. Cultural theorists are interested in how the dominant ideology of a culture subverts other ideologists via social institutions such as schools, churches, and the media. Both traditions focus on the evils of class society and the struggles that occur among different social forces. Gyorgy Lukacs, in history and class consciousness, focuses on the analysis of class consciousness, ideology, and verification. According to him, all work and action has an aspect of consciousness, ideas and material changes of the world are therefore, not independent but inherently connected.
Let's move to Frankfurt School. In the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, we see one of the longest and the most famous traditions of Marxism. This tradition of understanding human society not only strictly developed Marxist ideas, but moved the focus to critique rather than the political utopia invention. Let's cover briefly the history of its institutionalization. To begin with, the Frankfurt School grew out of the Institute of Social Research, which was founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt by Felix Weil, a political scientist with a passion for Marxism. One of the major purposes of the Institute was to study the dynamics of social change.
First years, Carl Grunberg served as a director and stressed the historical context to research. Max Horkheimer served as director for the years from 1930 to 1958. Horkheimer stressed the interdisciplinary nature of the Institute's research program. When National Socialism came to power, the institute fled to Geneva and to New York, being attached to the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. In 1941, the Institute relocated to California. During second world war, the members of the Institute settled in various parts of the United States. In 1949, Horkheimer and Adorno returned to Germany and in 1951, they re-established the Institute of Social Research with Horkheimer as a director. Marcuse, among other members, remained in the United States. The Institute disbanded in 1969 but its influence continued in the work of Jürgen Habermas, representing the second wave of critical theory.
Let's discuss in detail Adorno and Horkheimer. We start from the Adorno and Horkheimer ideas. Adorno and Horkheimer view capitalist society culture industry as an aspect of enlightenment, which has betrayed itself by a long instrumental logic to take over human social life. This idea was elaborated in their book, "Dialectic of Enlightenment." According to Adorno and Horkheimer, culture industry is a main phenomenon of late capitalism, which encompasses all products and forms of light entertainment. All these forms of popular culture are designed to satisfy the growing needs of most capitalistic consumers for entertainment. Products of the culture economy take the appearance of artwork but are in fact dependent on industry and economy meaning they are subjected to the interests of money and power. All products of the culture industry are designed for profit. This means that every work of art is turned into consumer product and is shaped by the logic of capitalistic rationality. Art is no longer autonomous, but is rather a commodified product of the economic relations of production. The main argument of them is that the commodification of culture is a commodification of human consciousness.
Adorno and Horkheimer asserted that the culture industry eradicates autonomous thinking and criticism, serving to preserve the reigning order. Let's move on. Let's discuss how Adorno and Mass Society. Theodor Adorno led his personal life focusing on the following aspects of popular culture and mass society. Adorno was deeply skeptical of instrumental reason, viewing it as a potentially totalitarian and deeply damaging of both internal human relations, as well as the relations between man and nature. In this critique, Adorno does not suggest an anti-science stance but questions the assumption that we can totally know our world through instrumental reason alone. For Adorno, the totalitarian nature of instrumental reason manifests itself in the limited perception. This allows manipulating public opinion with the aid of standardized popular culture.
Let's discuss Adorno and Popular Culture. Adorno was also a composer. Hence, his focus in culture was connected to the Jazz popularity, that is why a lot of his ideas are illustrated with examples from the development of music sphere. Overall, the idea is the following: The increasing totalized nature of cultural hegemony is a direct result of the industrialization of culture. The latter assumes its total administration by the establishment. The establishment uses standardized products in order to achieve a kind of universal language to transmit through the culture particular ideology and gain the profit.
Let's move on, let's discuss Critique of Popular Culture. Besides Adorno, Walter Benjamin also focused on culture in the 20th century. Benjamin's insight here is that each human sensory perspective is not completely biological or natural. It is also historical. Benjamin sees the transformations of art as an effect of changes in the economic structure. Historically, works of art had an aura, which he defines as an appearance of magical or supernatural force arising from their uniqueness. The aura includes a sensory experience of distance between the reader and the work of art. The aura has disappeared in the modern age because art has become reproducible. The aura is an effect of a work of art being uniquely present in time and space. A reproduced artwork is never fully present. If there is no original, it is never fully present anywhere. However, the loss of aura seems to have been both positive and negative effects for Benjamin. On the one hand, he sees the aura, authenticity and uniqueness of works of art as fundamentally connected to the insertion in a tradition. The reproduced work of art is completely detached from the space of tradition. It loses the continuity of its presentation and appreciation. On the other hand, responses to art became increasingly collective where the individual reaction is produced or compounded by the reaction of the entire audience. Early works, even when exhibited in galleries, did not lead to an organized mass response.
Adorno and Communication. Let's go back to Adorno. His figure is particularly important for us because he explicitly defines communication as a form of interaction in the social world. First, we need to separate cognition and communication. Cognition is the production of new individual knowledge and the reproduction of individual knowledge. When the former creates knowledge, the latter organizes social interaction and establishes people's relation to each other and the objective world per se. Cognition's objects are nature and society. Individuals do not always have to communicate with other humans in society to form and reproduce thoughts. They can merely observe and thereby gather experiences that form and reproduce knowledge. Individuals also do not have to work in order to cognize. They do not have to create social use, values out of nature and culture that satisfied general social needs. Adorno shows that there is a dialectic of the social and the individual and the objective world in the communication process. Communication is a symbolically expressed social relation that allows the individual A to relate to others O, and others, individuals O to relate to A and other individuals as they others. Complicated? No, not really. They together and individually relate to the objective world that consists of nature and society.
Let's move on and discuss Herbert Marcuse and One-Dimensional Society. Herbert Marcuse is another follower of the critical theory. Many further scholars refer to him as the father of New Left, one of the most influential social movements of the second half of the 20th century. He's also one of the last utopists in critical theory. He used dialectics in order to uncover another views of the social structure and suggest a system alternative. His view on modern society is formulated in the book One-Dimensional Man.
This book was written in 1962, but much of it reads as if it could have been written today. The largest difference from the present situation is that, contrary to 30 years of neo-liberalism and the latest wave of cuts, Marcuse was writing at a time when the welfare state was growing and ordinary people were becoming more affluent. This gives a different sense to the repressive aspects of the context. The one dimension of the title refers to the flattening of discourse, imagination, culture, and politics into the field of understanding the perspective of the dominant order.
Marcuse contrasts the consumer society with the previous situation of two-dimensional existence. One-dimensional thought and reductionism are characteristic for dominative societies that want to legitimize the domination of one group or class over another and employ simplification of reality for doing so. Critical theory explains one-dimensional consciousness by the concept of dialectical thinking. Dialectical thinking is reality as complex, a developing process full of potentials of change. And as contradictory, it assumes that for each pole of reality there is a second pole that opposes the first pole and points towards a different reality.
Dialectical thought is therefore two-dimensional. It operates with transcendent critical notions. Let's look at technological rationality. In such society, humans function like an automatic machine that has only a limited set of available response behaviors. People there are reduced to particular functions to maximize the system profit. Conformity is induced through repetition and habit, with people lulled into a sense of hypnosis by the repeated rhythm of factory work and mass consumption. Marcuse marks that as the technological rationality.
In addition, the rational and the real are fused in the pure instrumental nature of technological rationality as means-ends calculation within the frame of what can be observed. It becomes impossible to negate the system, in other words, to say that the system is wrong or irrational in a widely recognized language. This is because everyday language is rejigged towards always referring to functions within the system.
What about ideology and social media in Marcusean theory? Media tools function for communication between citizens and establishment. Capitalist media subsume communicative use-value under the logic of exchange-value so that the commodification of content, audiences, users, and access turns them into means of capital accumulation and the diffusion of ideologies. Media in this system become individual private property. That enhances the wealth of the few by exploiting the labor of the many and reaching the masses with ideas often representing particularistic interests and realities.
Media represent only interests of the establishment, narrating the one-dimensional way. Capitalist media are necessary means of advertising and commodification and spaces of ideology. Advertisement and cultural commodification make humans an instrument for economic profit accumulation. The goal is that human thoughts and actions do not go beyond capitalism. Do not question and revolt against the system, and thereby play the role of instruments of the perpetuation of capitalism.
It's necessary to mention the repressive tolerance. As many scholars argue, in order to guarantee plurality in public opinion, we need to achieve a high level of tolerance. Only in a plural society would we suggest a reasonable critique and freely communicate with each other about the scope of socially meaningful questions. Marcuse argued that tolerance is repressive and administered. Tolerance and intolerance exist when there are indoctrinated individuals who parrot, so that alternative voices are not present, and when monopolists and ideologists dominate the media and the public sphere.
Let's talk about your Jurgen Habermas and Public Sphere. Jurgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher who continued the Critical Theory tradition, but changed this in a personal manner. Habermas questioned the Category of Public as the main one in his further Communicative Action and Deliberative Democracy Theories. What the Category of Public meant in bourgeois society, and how its meaning and material operation were transformed in the centuries after its constitution?
Habermas' critique of bourgeois society shows first its internal tension and the factors that led to its transformation and partial degeneration. Second, the element of truth and emancipatory, but then showed that this contained despite its ideological misrepresentation and contradictions. In a nutshell, a public sphere adequate to a democratic polity depends upon both quality of discourse and quantity of participation.
Habermas develops the first requirement in elaborating called the classical bourgeois public sphere of the 70s and 80s centuries was constituted around rational critical argument in which the merits of arguments and note that the identities of arguers were crucial. Habermas talks about early bourgeois public spheres and transformation of the public spheres. Transformation of the public spheres that Habermas describes turn largely on this continual expansion to include more and more participants, and the development of large scale social organizations as mediators of individual participation.
He suggests that ultimately this inclusively broad degeneration in the quality of discourse, but he contends that both the requirements of democracy, and the nature of contemporary large scale social organization mean that it is impossible to progress today by going back to an elitist public sphere. Habermas matches print media and market economies. Habermas shows the intimate involvement of print media in the early extensions of market economies beyond local arenas.
Long distance trade, for example, meant that traffic in news almost as immediately as a traffic in commodities. Merchants needed information about prices and demand, but the newsletters that supplied those needs very quickly began to carry other sorts of information as well. The same processes helped to engender both a more widespread literacy and approach to the printed world as a source of currency significant public information.
The bourgeois public sphere institutionalized according to Habermas not just a set of interests and then the position between state and society, but the practice of rational critical discourse on political matters. Thus for example, critical reasoning entered the press in the early 18th century sublimating the news with learned articles, and quickly creating a new genre of periodical.
The very idea of the public was based on the notion of a general interest sufficiently basic that discourse about it need not to be distorted by particular interest at least in principle, and could be a matter of rational approach to an objective order, that is to say, of truth. Hence, Habermas formulates two meaningful definitions for his theory: Bourgeois public sphere and public discourse. Public Sphere adequate to democratic polity depends upon both quality of discourse and quantity of participation.
Habermas does not mean to suggest that what made the public sphere bourgeois was simply the class composition of its members. Rather, it was society that was bourgeois, and bourgeois society produced a certain form of public sphere. The new sociability, together with the rational critical discourse that grew in the salons and coffee houses and other places, depended on the rise of national and territorial power states on the basis of their early capitalist commercial economy.
But what about our days? Overall, we can simply compare two states of public sphere, past and present ones. What do we know about modern conditions of society? What kind of public sphere does the mediator society produce today? Is the public sphere in decline today?
The weakening of the public is not just a matter of new entrants being mere consumers or substandard participants. On the contrary, Habermas asserts the consumption of mass culture increases with the wealth, status, and urbanization. The most that can be said is that the consumption levels are highest for those whose wealth is outshaped their education. And the result is that the public sphere as a whole is transformed, not just diluted there on the edges.
This transformation involves a literal disintegration with the loss of notion of general interest and the rise of consumption orientation. The members of the public sphere lose their common ground. The consumption orientation of mass culture produces a prolific ration of products designed to please various tastes. By means of these transformations, the public sphere has become more an arena for advertising than the setting for rational critical debate.
Juergen Habermas has drawn attention to the importance of integrating communication into Critical Theory of Society. Any Critical Theory of Communication must therefore inevitably take Habermas' works as one of its starting points.
Critical Theory Beyond Habermas. Let's rethink critical theories of communication. A key question that arises in modern context is what is the relationship of labor and communication? If there is a significant role of information and communication labor in the contemporary economy, then the separation of the economy as base and the rule of meaningful information that is communicated among humans as superstructure, which we would do being classical Marxist, cannot be held up so easily.
Given then that information labor and the culture industry collapse, the boundary between base and superstructure, Horkirchner assumes that there are four different theoretical ways of how labor and communication can be related. These are economic reductionism, cultural reductionism, dualism, and dialectic.
Alfred Sohn-Rethel is the author of Economic Reductionism. He assumes that Marx would not have worked out the theory of mental and manual labor which would, however, be important because abolishing the division of labor is a precondition of classless society. He distinguishes communication by signs from commodity exchange. Commodity exchange does not depend on language, on what we communicate to each other. Nothing regarding the essence of things needs to be communicated. The separation of intellectual and manual activities would be a consequence of class-based societies.
According to Sohn-Rethel, 20th century capitalism abstract thought in the form of the separation of manual and mental labor found its expression in Taylorism and automation. The unity of mental and manual work, the abolition of the division of labor, would be a precondition for the establishment of socialism. Sohn-Rethel, however, does not separate the economy and knowledge in a dualist manner. He rather uses knowledge of the economy by arguing that the economic world determines the thought world.
Let's continue and talk about cultural reductionism. Jean Baudrillard is a post-modern French philosopher who was the follower of cultural reductionism. Whether there is some positive influence of Marx visible in Baudrillard's early works, he later became profoundly anti-Marxist. Baudrillard claims that Marxist concepts cannot explain the erratic or radical logic of the sign, the symbolic real, culture, and language. Marxism would focus on nature as a reality in the economic process.
One implication of Baudrillard's approach is that he draws a boundary between the material and immaterial. Baudrillard argues that Marxism is a productivism that frames the whole world in the language of production and disregards social exchange. Communication and science do not simply exist but need to be produced and reproduced. Communication is not a form of exchange but human social production of shared meanings through which they interpret each other and the natural, social, economic, technical, political, or cultural world.
Given this, Baudrillard argues that the mass media are not real media because they do not enable responses. They are anti-mediatory and intransitive and fabricate non-communication.
Further works of Habermas follow the direction of dualism. Habermas's theory of communicative action makes a sharp distinction between, on one hand, a purpose of instrumental that is oriented on success, and on the other hand, communicative action that is oriented on reaching understanding. Work is for Habermas always an instrumental, strategic, and purposive form of action, whereas communication's goal is to reach understanding.
Linguistic communication is inherently not dominated, oriented on understanding, and reaching a good society. He essentializes linguistic communication as naturally pure, fair, good, etc. For Habermas, language and linguistic communication are authentic forms of social relations that he considers to be expressions of that normative good and potentials for a good society.
We also need to cover dialectics as a form of approach for further theories. According to this, communication is the social production of meaning in society. It is the social process of shared and joint meaning-making with the help of symbolic reduction and symbolic interaction. All social relations are communicative. The boundary between the individual and the social is also the boundary between non-communication behavior and communication.
Behavior and communication are not separate but there is a dialectic of the individual and the social. The individual is the social being that can only individualize himself or herself in relations to others. The social is a productive relation between the individuals that produces and reproduces structures in society. Communication is based on structure/agency-dialectic. It is neither a mechanical reflection of the world nor an isolated individual behavior.
Meaningful information is not simply a passive cognitive resource that is expressed and transmitted. It is also not simply a copy of our outside reality. Overall, communication requires media for the encoding, diffusion, and decoding of information. Media in each of these steps can be technologized and based on nature and human capacities.
So how do we apply everything that we have discussed in lecture eight into practice? It may be useful to conclude this reflection on one-dimensional modern closer to the current state of affairs. More than left movements, particularly followers of the modern anti-capitalistic movement such as "Occupy" that flourished briefly in 2011 and have now mostly disappeared, are aimed to construct message in public sphere, which critics the global poverty and inequality. There were also many anti-globalist movements from the beginning of 2000. But were they so successful?
Consider the wider context on one-dimensional societies. There is no meaningful opposition in the political, social, and media worlds. All new forms of opposition become paralyzed before being formed. So how can opposition form? How to respond? As Marcusean says, "How can that minister individuals who have made the mutilation into their own liberties and satisfactions liberate themselves from themselves as well from their masters?" How is it even thinkable that the vicious circle be broken?
In order to answer on the questions, we should dip in the condition of modern society and disclose its oppressive tendencies and Marcusean way. We will follow the Fuchs book who tries to discover them in more than context, Social Media Today. Social media became a new form of cooperation. Many researchers emphasize the role of Internet in rebels, revolutions and other forms of protest cooperation in 2000. Social media became the hope of revolutionist to overcome one-dimensional thinking and repressive tolerance in the mass media.
However, social media technologies such as Facebook and Twitter are based on complex terms of use that enable the commodification of personal data and the exploitation of users digital labor. You can easily collect data about society in social media and transmit through them an ideological message. People indeed, need the cool months base. Social media which is support do not establish social networking. They require a redesign of social media in such a way that their privacy-enhancing, advertising-free, user control, not-for-profit, and allow the users, let's say in formulating the terms of use.
Today, computer technology has become a network and mobile means of information, communication and collaboration. Marcusean could of course, not analyze mobile phones' Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. His critical thought and concepts are however still well suited to be one of the methodological foundation for critical theory of the Internet, digital and social media.
At the level of ideology, social media tried to destroy and force tail the complexity, multidimensionality and the electricity of communication and society representing only potential advantages and be silent about social media aspects of domination. Social media ideologists present capitalist online platforms as something purely advantageous. Here are some examples. Internet capitalism use quite comparable neo-liberal ideologies for legitimizing themselves. Social media ideology is a form of one-dimensional thought. It is silent about exploitation and disadvantages that users may have from capitalism and capitalists states control of the Internet.
Here are the examples of the most popular users on Twitter, by most popular means, most followed. Repressive Tolerance as another aspect of the opposition oppression is also recognizable in social media. Social media usually presents various forms of communication as fuel freedom, in which everyone can participate without constraints, where everyone can speak and be visible, heard and seen. Thereby the image of a tolerant free and pluralistic societies convey.
Modern social media's tolerance is, however, a form of repressive tolerance. Social media ideology tries to hide their repressive character of censorship and power asymmetry that is at play. In social media, every consumer of information can be a producer, who creates and disseminates information. Celebrities and online platforms operated by the world's largest advertising and online companies like Google and Facebook show the reality is that these are empty promises and that hierarchies of ownership and their reputation create asymmetries of voice and visibility.
As a consequence, some are more connected, visible, read and heard, retweeted, reposted than others, which in turn, summit and advances status hierarchies. The tolerance, freedom and plurality that social media promised in capitalism turned out to form an ideology.
Hi and welcome to the week nine of our Communication Theory course. This week is devoted to summaries. So, we will do a little bit of discussion of all the theories we covered so far during first previous eight weeks, as well as we will try to apply this theoretical concepts on our everyday routine life. As you already know, there is nothing more practical as a good theory. So, let's go find out and what we begin with were some approaches to theory itself and communication.
We discussed many different definitions and came up with one which sees communication as a systemic process. It's systemic because it does not exist in one particular moment. It was starting at some point before the communication actually happens and the whole communicative process is defined by what words previously. As well as, communications usually chasing some sort of goals which are navigating us through the whole process. And this process which are systemic does not involve the exchange of the words or the text itself, rather than its symbolic exchange as what I say, does not have to be completely what I say. It's usually what I mean.
So, within this process, we try to negotiate the shared meaning and come to the overall our idea which we want to get through the process of communication. So, we are negotiating the shared meaning to understand what others think and to check whether what they think is the same thing that we think. And the whole communication process is embedded in the cultural context and this cultural context does somehow influence the way how we think about things and the way how we communicate in our everyday life.
So, what were the approaches to Theory of Communication? As we outlined seven traditions of Craig's within the field of Communication Theory, we first thought of communication as information processes through the lens of cybernetic tradition. Then we moved to the socio-psychological tradition and we thought about the communication as the interpersonal reaction and interaction between individuals which is driven by what's going on, some mental processes within one's head. The cultural socio-cultural approach to communication is defined as symbolic process and reproduction of the social order. So how cultural context is influencing our communication and communication practices theory and communication as a discourse of reflection is seen within the paradigm or within the tradition of critical tradition, which was interesting for us as we talked a little bit about ideology and the way how it's influencing our life.
The art of public speaking and a little bit of [inaudible], this is what communications is seen through the rhetorical tradition. Then we moved to the phenomenological approach as we understand others through the dialogue and through the discussion as we try to get and selling shoes and understand what's their picture, what's their standpoint, and how do they approach the reality. Symbols and Signs, semiotic tradition, I hope you remember all seven and in your understanding of the communication, there would be a little bit of distinction between the ways how we approach communication and the way how we actually act.
But what we did not talk about was intercultural aspect of communication. There are quite many courses which are devoted to this aspect and they are quite thoughtful and they can give you many different tips on a way how do we assess and how do we assert communication with different cultural context. Let's talk a little bit about it here.
So what is intercultural? Well, first, we need to focus on the communication context, at which situation it happens. Is it intercultural conference? Or intercultural event? Or maybe you were a foreigner travelling abroad? Then you do usually have some sort of intercultural expectations driven by stereotypes as well as intercultural perceptions. This is how do you understand the whole process through the lenses of stereotypes which we all are carrying. And within the interaction, we talk about symbolic exchange once again as we share our symbols and what do we think the words actually mean with other people who might have quite a different perspective and meaning negotiation is what actually happens here.
How do we navigate the process? What are the theories or approaches which can be quite useful? First of all, there is a distinction between low and high-context cultures. The high-context cultures, they rely on implicit communication and they do rely on the context. The low-context cultures rely on explicit verbal communication and people within the different approaches to the communication, low or high-context, can communicate differently.
What do we think about the high-context cultures is when the meaning is not quite clear. So, we try to focus on how the communication occurs and what is the perception of different people and we don't usually say what we mean. In low-context cultures, for example, it can be Germany or it can be Holland, Western cultures in general, the focus is on what is said and you always have this definite meaning which you want to transmit. The example of high-context cultures, in this case, would be in Asian countries where we try to think about the whole process of negotiation. And when, as we know, the concept of face for all our interpersonal communication course, we know with the people there they are trying to save the face. So, the context is quite important here.
As other members of low-context cultures used solution orientations more than members of high-context cultures, members of high-context cultures use non-confrontation more than members of low-context cultures. So, when you're thinking about the context and when you are thinking about moving abroad, you need to consider this aspect and it might change your expectations quite a lot.
The power distant index is quite essential concept as well. As when you're working in different cultural environments, you might expect different attitudes between people who were conducting the tasks and the managers. We can distinguish high power distance index and low power distance. These approaches would vary between the countries and as low power distance would be more friendly. It can be seen as more friendly and where you can talk more about what do you think about and what are your approaches, you can be more proactive. Well, if there is a high-powered distance within the communicative environment, you might be little bit frightened to speak out loud what you actually think.
In other intercultural dimension is the aspect of collectivism and individualistic. So, cultures can be collectivist and individualistic. What about Collectivism? It does rely on the implicit communication pattern so it's not very obvious what other people think. The whole collective would try to maintain the formal harmony so the argument is not a very common feature within the collectivistic society. It does prefer the small group as it's quite easier to maintain this formal harmony within this small group. It's publicly arranged within one formal line. So if we're following this line, we are all following this line. No argument is there. No one loses face. Once again, we recall to the concept of face and you would not humiliate, you would not argue publicly with the person even if you do have some contradictions towards this person. And individual identities, individuality in general, within the organization is not that important. So individual would identify him or herself with the whole organization as a part of the collectivist culture.
Individualistic culture relies on explicit communication as you can say out loud and it would be quite obvious what you are saying. Individuality there is salient as you want to show who you really are and with the approach of who you really are, you make the contribution to the whole group work. Why group discussion is possible and encouraged, on the contrary with small group preferences, well, it's quite obvious as we want to get as many ideas as possible and the individuality is what is the focus of this. Open for challenge and debate. The individualistic community is usually open for this challenge and debate. So the negotiation process and the process of discussion is essential there to get what is right, instead of following one direct way. And face consciousness is weak. So here, you would not really care. Well, not you but the representative of individualistic society would not really care what other feels and would try to show what is his or her ideas.
The next concept is Uncertainty Avoidance Index. So we can provide two distinctions between high uncertainty avoidance cultures and low uncertainty avoidance cultures. Well, high uncertainty avoidance would place quite the big role, the guilt for mistakes as it would be quite uncertain and it would provide a very stressful situation for this culture. Still, in the low uncertainty avoidance cultures, risk-taking is essential. The guidelines and instructions are important and they play huge role in high uncertainty avoidance cultures. And on the contrary, we do see how individual and the individual approach to maintaining the work, to speak in publicly, would be in the center. High uncertainty avoidance cultures prioritize accuracy when low uncertainty avoidance prioritize innovation. So, in the first place, you need to go and do everything in a way it's right rather than a creative approach and something new which might came from the case of this uncertainty is important for the low uncertainty avoidance cultures.
If we know now, quite many of new concepts which are all dealing with intercultural competence, let's take a look at our perspective and how can we do it. Well, my first advice is to be mindful. So, you need to do a little bit of research and a little bit of critical thinking before moving abroad or getting engaged into the intercultural process. You need to follow what is the context and be aware of the context. So you need to understand what are the different variables which we can use to estimate the whole environment of the group in which we are going to be and other projects which we are going to participate in.
We need to keep in mind the power distance as we don't want to break some barriers and to come a little bit too close rather than was expected. We should adopt our conversation style to the uncertainty avoidance as well. So, how should you communicate your ideas? Should it be explicit or implicit? You need to understand the whole work environment before you get in. And given the track of group dynamic and multicultural surrounding is quite essential as you can navigate it and play with it a little bit now knowing all this theoretical approaches.
How do you develop the competence of communicating within the intercultural environment? The Staircase model predicts that it will go through four stages. First, we know nothing about it. So, it's Unconscious Incompetence. Then, we understand we know nothing and they would be the stage of the conscious incompetence. Well, conscious competence comes when we know and we are quite sure what we are doing because we do know the theoretical background of it. And finally, when it would be just some sort of a routine, some sort of for the knowledge which is embedded in our hats, we come to the final stage of unconscious competence.
So, I hope that all the information which you've been given or which you already know for your own experiences will bring it to the stage of first conscious competence and then to the unconscious competence and we will be very successful within the field of intercultural communication.
The next topic we move to was interpersonal communication, our second week. So interpersonal communication is the process of message transaction. It can be verbal or nonverbal, which occurs between two interdependent persons normally within the context of the relationship. And that as it evolves helps them to define and negotiate their relationship in the future.
So which theories we covered? The first one was interdependence theory, which focuses at the engaging and the relationships of both individuals that would have some sort of expectations from the relationship and from the person. Closeness was the key to all the relationships, and it was the key concept within this theory. So we talked a little bit about self-disclosure and the way how do we communicate with others and talk to them, communicate to them the concept of ourselves.
Next theory was equity theory. It's all about people acting and thinking in a way that rewards are distributed with their efforts. So I would think consciously before engaging in a relationship, whether I will benefit from it or would not. Politeness theory, on the other case, it clarifies how, when, and what strategies would be used to uphold someone's face. We talk about the concept of face once again, and to maintain or threaten the face of others. The face in this case is the public image that we all are willing to maintain. How to uphold a face and how we can communicate with others to change the expectations and the approaches to another face?
Apologies, compliments, requests, criticism, threats, all these strategies were discussed in framework of the politeness theory. And we move to the social exchange theory, which predicts and explains how relationship would be maintained, why would it begin, and how is it ending as, again, talking about the costs and benefits. Social exchange theory assumes that humans are selfish and the interaction serves their self-interest. And this theory was relying on two other we've already discussed, the interdependence and the equity theory.
So as you remember, as we refresh all these theories, now we want to focus on how the conflict happens and what is the place of the conflict in interpersonal communication. So there are a few conflict components. There are goals and there is interdependence between two individuals because conflict would make no sense if we would not be interesting. We would not have the goals to the other and we would not be somehow dependent on this person and the communication as the key component of this process and of the analysis of the conflict.
Let's outline a few stages through which conflict would develop and would hopefully dissolute. The first stage is latent conflict. Underlying conditions within this stage are present and they could create the conflict. So it does not happen still, but we have some awareness of what's going on. The next stage is emergence. When it's emergence, both parties in the conflict realize that their goals are incompatible. Then we start feeling the conflict. The emotional input comes here, the emotional input of the conflict that results from the perception and awareness of the existence of these incompatible goals. It's finally found and understood by others.
Then we manifest the conflict. Incompatible goals are communicated, and we say that we don't like something. We don't want this. And okay, let's engage in the conflict. And then you would go through the de-escalation when communication would change its approach and would go on a little bit different scale as we already discussed it. We manifest it, we hopefully discuss it, and hopefully you will count on the stage of de-escalation. And then after when it's all communicated and all clear and all settled down, we'll have the conflict aftermath. So there will be still some side effects of what happened between two individuals.
So what are the traditional approaches and the practices of the communication practices which we have within the conflict management? We can define five of them. The first one is avoidance. Obviously, just give up all your goals and you get out of the conflict zone and you don't want to deal with this. Not the best case, obviously. Accommodation is when you are ready to give up all the benefits from the conflict situation, and you're ready to get to what other persons want. The next approach would be the competition, when none of the parties is ready to give up their goals and to change their opinion. Collaboration would be the best one. When two parties negotiate, what are the possible ways to get out of the conflict and each of them finally gets what they want? And the last one is compromise. Giving up a little bit of your goals, and well, in other party was giving up a little bit of their goals, we could be quite successful and it's a win-win situation anyway.
At the very last point here, let's focus at four worst approaches and four worst communication styles which can fire and light the conflict, as John Gottman calls them the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Well, it would be the first criticism, attacking someone personally by attacking the personality or its character, not the best way. And when you catch yourself in being too critical in a bad way on someone, it's better to stop there as the conflict would escalate later on. The contempt is taking criticism from the first point one stage further, and it refers to an intention to hurt someone or insult. When you're very pissed off and you don't really want to communicate much but you still want to hurt others to get some sort of satisfaction.
Another bad side of the conflict and another bad communicative strategy is defensiveness, which occurs when an individual is compelled to explain the motives of his or her behavior. And the stonewalling as avoiding behavior when you just escape the tension is not a good road to take within the conflict management and within the communicative case or situation. So identifying each of these four approaches and four negative behaviors would be helpful for you in order to solve the problem and to get closer with this person and to maintain a healthy environment within it.
So as we already discussed, interpersonal communication is something what happens with you quite all the time. It happens at home, it happens at work, it happens online. And we do need to understand what are the strategies and what are the tactics of what can be helpful and useful within the dialogue with another person. Trying to avoid criticism, trying to avoid critical situations with a very healthy ways of communication will help you out in these cases. And next time, well, you might try to distinguish that there is some tension between the two of you. It's better to sit together and talk and identifying some very unhealthy behaviors which would lead to the conflict on the very early stages would be thus very important.
During our third week, we've been focusing on group communication. What are the groups? What is the group dynamic, and who is the leader? And how he or she is changing the group dynamic within the group? Let's take a look at the theories we talked about and focus a little bit at networking.
So we're starting with types of groups and the role of leadership. Who is this strong leader, how he or she should be navigating the process? Then we identified different symptoms of the groupthink. The groupthink is something that is killing the group dynamic overall, and it makes the whole decision-making process quite affirmative. And at the same time, not creative as an individual there falls under the self-censorship and not able to speak out his or her ideas.
Then we move to the social identity theory. Social identity involves a compromise between two opposing needs, the need for assimilation and the need for differentiation. Individuals are motivated to identify themselves with the group which would provide an optimal balance between these two needs, so who we are, what the group is and how to combine this all. Optimal distinctiveness theory outlines theoretically what was pretty empirically that the members of a distinct minority group identified more and were more satisfied with their in-group than members of the non-distinct majority groups. So this differentiation between two types of the groups can be helpful when we talk about the predictions of this group dynamic.
Next theory was symbolic convergence theory. We talk about fantasizing and the role of communication which is creative and which can enhance the communication within the group and make it and bring it up to the very new level. And the functional perspective on group decision-making which was focusing on four steps, which are additional to make a decision within the group. These were first the problem analysis, then it was the goal setting. So we understand what our goal is, then we identify as many alternatives as possible. And the fourth one was thinking about what is good for each, all for the alternatives, and what is bad. So evaluation of the possible outcomes from each decision.
So leadership, as we kind of focused on leadership with our first part of the week. Leadership means different things to different people around the world. And these different things might happen differently in different situations. Too many of the word different, but well, this is the case. So for example, it could relate to community leadership or religious leadership, political leadership, or maybe it would be something would happen in the closed circle of the very close friends. Leadership style is an approach which leads to adopt and reflect the person within this role, rather than to use the authority.
So we are speaking about the world where the role of a leader is quite essential as we believe, and there's constant growth and constant development. But what happens with us when it comes to the online leadership, to the virtual leadership as scholars applied it? So what are the tips on virtual leadership?
On the way when we're working on a project in a very different dimension which is online rather than offline as we used to. Well, first, even that it's a virtual dimension, we need to focus and remember the social aspects which are essential for our communication. Maintaining the presence and trying to create the understanding of how we can be and how can we behave as a real person within the real life situation is quite essential as well.
So when we move on to the work, we need to focus on co-creation of the information rather than generating. So this is the approach of the work itself, and we want to make it more valuable and mindful for our team. While we are communicating even online, we do co-create some sort of shared reality. And within this process of co-creation, you, as a leader, you would need to focus on the whole attitude which individuals involving in your project would have towards this project.
And even though this is a virtual dimension, we need to think that the planning and emergence are still there. And it should be somehow prioritized within your approach to the work. Informal into formal, but this is how we need to change our way of communicating. So this is already a very different approach to the way how we maintain work. And we need to redefine etiquette of the words around it somehow as the digital etiquette is not quite definitely identified already.
When you come to the company where you do have some sort of induction process, where you know about the values and the mission of the company, the same thing should be happening there, but in a little bit more informal way. Working with the diversity is another focus of the virtual leader as you need to understand what are the special aspects which people are following and which we are focusing and chasing within this group work.
So while you are following all these steps, you would establish a new context. And it should be clear and it should be read through this digital world and when you can feel something in real life situations. When you again come to the company to the workplace, you need to feel this through the text, through the symbols, through the strategic processes which you will maintain and set within your working environment. Don't forget about the conflict, workload, and stress. We're all still people even when we are seen through the screen from the device you have to communicate with your partners or groups.
So summarizing here, how we can apply theory to practice. We came up with a few top group communication tips. The first one chase the theory and follow the theory of the goal setting, this functional perspective. So don't forget about taking on the alternatives and making the decision quite thoughtful. The next one is the focus on relationship as we discussed in the interpersonal communication part. The group communication cannot be very helpful and very healthy and successful without the relationship as it's not only about conducting the tasks.
And this relationship can be maintained through the point of symbolic communication. So you try to think, what are these symbols, what is the meaning, what is the meaning which you want to communicate to your group? Reciprocity as a very basic concept, as a very basic step, which you need to follow when you are working with a group. So no one would do something more as people are quite selfish by their nature. So everything and the communication within the group needs to be reciprocal. So we would like to get an exchange for what we already gave up.
Following up and taking on whatever is going on within the community. It can be online, it can be offline. Is essential here as you don't want to lose the track of what's going on. Chasing the diversity and thinking about the multiple ideas will help you to avoid the groupthink. And will help you to get a few new perspectives on the problem solving, or maybe just generate new ideas and provide you with some insights. Getting online is another good tip.
So even though you have some group which is operating in the offline reality, you might want to maybe somehow take it to the offline. It will get you to this instant communication and 24/7 communication as well. Maybe some people would be more willing to share their information and ideas within the online sphere rather than speaking publicly offline.
Summarizing here, I hope that some theoretical frameworks and approaches will enhance your group participation and the group work you're engaged in. And maybe it will be useful for you to get into the shoes of the leader and take the project or take any group communication at the new particularly new level.
Over the week four, we were focusing on rhetoric and persuasion. Rhetoric as an art of public speaking, and persuasion as our way to transport the influential message, and to change someone's attitudes or behavior.
So what was there? We started with the classic rhetoric and the approaches of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates on the way how to communicate the message and how the public speaking actually should happen. We talked a little bit about democracy and the role of rhetoric within this democracy, as an individual would be rather interested and motivated to share his or her ideas in order to shape the whole situation within the Polis or within the city he's living at.
Now, we move to the narrative paradigm which sees all the people as storytellers. We talked about the way how we should structure our speech to make it influential and to make it touching and changing people's attitudes so people would actually believe in that. The main point of the narrative paradigm was that, we as storytellers, as storytelling animals, don't really want to follow the arguments, and we don't really rely on facts. Rather, we rely on the logic of good reason—what sounds coherent for us, which all goes together, and which reflects and correlates with our own experiences; this would be rather more influential.
The next theory was the elaboration likelihood model. We focused on the way how we can change people's attitudes by understanding which road it would take by that individual to elaborate the message. The central road would be taken if the person is engaged in the very beginning and interested in the whole topic. These individuals would put a lot of cognitive effort to elaborate the message and process it through their head and thoughts. The other road is the peripheral road. When we are not really ready to apply some cognitive effort or we're just not really interested in the subject, the message will just pass, but it may touch somehow. When the authority is indicated or there appears someone or something which we like, we can transfer the attitude towards the something that we like to the whole communicated message.
Next theory was the theory of planned behavior. We talked not just about the attitude change, but rather about how we can influence individuals to change their behavior and actually go and do something. The basic assumptions included the subjective norm which we all have—how our acting and behavior would be understood by the community and what social norms are embedded and how they expect us to behave. These influence us when we think and plan our behavior. Another aspect is our own general attitude, and both these two go together and would be influenced by controlled beliefs. Can we do the action? Can we do what is expected? And can we do what is planned? This was the most important addition of Isaac into the theory.
Then we moved to digital rhetoric and talked about how we should communicate online. We went through a number of practical tips and the distinctiveness between the online environment and the offline environment. Rhetoric works in a digital space, but still it works a little bit differently. To outline the importance of rhetoric and bring up some fun facts, a fun experiment called the so-called Dr. Fox effect was conducted.
An actor, a professional actor introduced as Doctor Fox, was invited to conduct a lecture on game theory and physician education. There was quite a big group of psychiatrists, psychologists, social work educators, and educational administrators who were following his lecture. Even though he was a good actor, he knew no words from the whole lecture he was conducting and basically did not understand what he was talking about. Still, after this lecture—which went quite successfully—the group from the audience was assessed and people were asked to provide feedback on whether he was engaging and whether it was interesting. It was claimed to be very engaging and very interesting. Some people from the audience even mentioned that they really read the scientific papers of Dr. Fox.
The effect was quite impressive, as the public actually believed that this was the real professor, the real professional from the field. This case and study somehow changed the further approach of learning theory and the way we understand the information given in lectures. Student satisfaction was found not to correlate with what they actually learned from the lecture.
So, how do we make our presentations? How do we make our message delivery more persuasive? First of all, storytelling is influential as we want to focus on the way we present our story and we don't really want to make it all dry facts and numbers. The next point is that we need to pick the right emphasis to communicate our message through the right road—would it be the central road, assuming that your audience would be interested and engaged in the topic, or the peripheral road? You need to consider both in real life cases when thinking about your communicative strategies, as you might want to get both cases done and you want the public to be engaged completely.
The last point here is all about mentalization. When you think about delivering your speech, think about the audience in the way how they understand it. Mentalization theory refers to thinking of what the other person is thinking. It sounds quite complicated but if beforehand, practicing your speech, you try to play out what your audience would get from this—their attitudes, their predispositions towards what your words would be, and how the process of their thinking would be arranged—it can be quite helpful and your speech would be delivered more successfully.
So, that's pretty much all about rhetoric. You might want to check out some other courses on rhetoric or some practical tips on public speaking. You should definitely do it as rhetoric is still influential both in the online and offline world.
Over the fifth week of our communication theory course, we discussed some theories related to media effects, how media and mass communication in general affect us, how it affects and shapes our perception of social reality, and how this co-constructs the way we understand it and perceive it.
So what was that? Well, we studied some early theories of media effects. The first one was hypodermic needle theory or the magic bullet, stating the immediate effect of media content on the audience. The next theory, two-step flow, introduced us to the concept and role of an opinion leader, the person who first gets information and then disseminates it to the public. But this person, this opinion leader, would tinge this information somehow, and he wouldn't send the initial message. Rather, this person would get the interpretation of the message. Gatekeeping is the process, and the gatekeeper as a person, institution, or organization acts as another filter between the information and the publics.
After that, we moved to the agenda setting and framing theory. Framing can be seen as the second step of agenda setting. In agenda setting, media is not telling us what to think but rather what to think about. So media and decision-makers are setting the agenda and making silent what they consider more important. We perceive these issues as more important. Framing is all about frames which form our perception of reality, and this is the perception of reality we get from media, as media can highlight some aspects and particularly neglect others.
When we discussed agenda setting and framing, we moved to the media ecology of Marshall McLuhan. He was rather complicated. The medium is the message, the content is the user. We are living in a global village where everybody is interconnected. We need to understand how media is changing and shaping us, as media ecology theory lies within the paradigm and framework of technological determinism. So media appears, technology appears, and this technology changes our perception of reality.
After that, we moved to cultivation theory, focusing on television as something that co-constructs our reality. We talked about an empirical study on violence and how violence is cultivated among the audience, so heavy viewers would understand the world as a scarier and more dangerous place compared to people who don't consume as much television content.
Then the media effects theories shifted focus. We talked about the audience not being just affected but rather being a little bit active with some sort of voice. Selective exposure theory, rooted in cognitive dissonance theory, states we will seek information we probably agree with, so we're selective in media consumption.
The next theory presents a new perspective: as consumers, the audience is extremely active and quite rational—well, maybe not fully rational but thoughtful in media consumption, as use and gratification theory states. We consume some media and avoid others to satisfy our needs. So it was all about media and media effects.
But what was left? To fully understand the relationship between media and society, we can focus on media logic theory. Media logic theory states that common media formats and style serve as means of perceiving the world. Today, the deep rooting of media in cultural consciousness means media consumers need only a few moments with a particular TV program to understand if it is a new show, comedy, or reality show. This is all about the content we see and the format.
Our culture somehow uses the style and content of these shows, which get transferred into reality. For example, after watching many political debates on television, you pick up the style and logic by which the whole communicative process is structured. After watching these debates and getting involved in real-life debate, you try to do it just the way it was shown on television.
Basically, media logic is about us adapting and taking the style and logic of TV or other mediated content into our everyday routines and realities. It doesn't happen on an individual level only; it also takes whole institutions. So how do you communicate with audiences when promoting goods or services? You apply media logic, and the most powerful form of advertising is television. We try to adopt the way media creates its content and bring these patterns into our lives.
Understanding these underlying processes and patterns can be helpful to get clear on realities. We don't duplicate reality exactly; media, like the theater, exaggerates certain aspects. Reality shows about relationships on TV do not reflect real relationships accurately.
That's why we need theories summarizing experiences of real individuals living in non-mediated environments. To apply theory to self, first, mind your own frames—this is all about critical thinking. We will discuss this more later, but you need to understand the ideology behind content. What are the reasons news are presented in a particular way on specific channels?
The next step is understanding your own media ecology. Are you overloaded? Not overloaded? How should it be maintained? What are the information and communication sources? How is it all created? How does information from outside through media change your attitudes and reality?
That's an important question for everyone to think about. Next is to research your attitudes. What do you agree with? Are you really following the logic of selective exposure? What do you think and look for? Maybe something is left behind that you haven't covered or thought about. This alternative perspective can bring new understanding.
We should not let media shape our reality. We need to be thoughtful and mindful consumers. We co-construct our reality with media consumption, and you don't want your reality to be like what you see on television. Getting to know media, understanding the fashion and ways it structures reality, and getting clues about similarities between media agenda, media lifestyle, and communication style versus real life is very important for us as individuals who have critical thinking and free will to engage in communication and relationships we want—not to be navigated or manipulated by media.
During the fifth week of our course and discussing media logic, we can reshape our attitudes toward media and media facts. Knowing that we are affected by media is essential to keep being more critical, rational, and to understand world perspectives more clearly.
After discussing media effects, we focused particularly on social medias, a new emergent form which is shaping our reality and changing our attitudes to communication and our practice of communication. At this part, let's refresh what was there and also take a look at the discussion about digital etiquette and how we live and view social media in the digital era.
We started with the distinction between three main approaches to social media 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, perception of reality, and overall understanding of social life. Another opposite approach is the social construction of technology, which states that individuals, humans, are the creators of technology, and technology is reflecting our social reality and can be seen as an extension of the way we used to do things. 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 patterns on technology.
After that, we moved to a networked understanding of the new social reality. So, how are we conducting and maintaining our relationships? We are moving away from the approach of these communities and we don't really belong anymore to particular communities. Instead, we have a network of different individuals who are connected with one another. This leads us to networked individualism, the concept of an individual being very rational in maintaining this network of contexts on a daily basis. Even though we've been focusing mostly on networks and the individualistic approach to maintaining social context, we still focus on online communities as a new form of social organization. We distinguished two types of communities: common-bond and identity-bond communities. Common-bond refers to groups of individuals who just like each other and get together because they have some interest in common. Identity-bond online communities are associations or organizations where people lose their individual identity as they prefer the group identity more and are ready to neglect pieces of their own identity.
The last part was all about social media engagement. How do you make engaging websites and online communities? What are the patterns of social media engagement and what do we like most? Do we like interactivity? Do we like network structures? Are we interested in commenting or co-creation? Several approaches were outlined. We then moved to affordances theory, a theoretical framework outlining the opportunities social media provides us. This is a solid approach frequently used in recent social media research. We considered how we understand opportunities like liking and commenting on social media, how individuals perceive these technological affordances, and how they react to them.
That was all about social media, but there was still something to say. The distinction between real life and social media life brings out the concept of social presence disclosed in social presence theory. This concept was first introduced without specific context to online or mediated communication. Social presence was defined as the degree of salience of the other person in interaction and the consequent salience of interpersonal relationships. How are you present within a relationship and how do you understand the relationship? When two individuals interact, one can be always there, always in time, and completely engaged in the conversation, contributing to the relationship. Conversely, the other person might seem absent, so there is no social presence.
Scholars adapted this concept of social presence to mediated communication, defining it as the degree to which a person is perceived as a real person in mediated communication. Do we understand people online as real people or something different? Social presence as a construct is mainly composed of two components: intimacy and immediacy.
Intimacy is about being close to the other person you are interacting with, influenced by factors such as physical distance, eye contact, smiling, and personal topics in non-mediated reality. Immediacy refers to the psychological distance the communicator puts between themselves and the communication object. These concepts relate mostly to offline reality, but we discuss their influence on online communication later.
The higher the social presence level, the better the understanding between speaker and message happens. Factors influencing social presence include social context; you want to be closer to information recipients, managing formal and informal relationships to build trust, considering access and location, and interaction style. Familiarity is beneficial. Knowing user characteristics is important because no one wants to maintain communication with an abstract, impersonal entity.
Online communication involves affordances and factors influencing our approach to technology and communication. Do you have the skills to maintain online communication? Is it real-time or delayed discussion? What are your intercultural communication skills? What characteristics and norms govern the discussion? These aspects influence interactivity, and instant communication enhances social presence due to timely responses.
Communication styles matter; intracultural differences, background, message length, and formality influence interactivity and social presence. Group size and communication strategies also matter. You need to consider many aspects when building social presence on mediated platforms.
Some tips for surviving in the global village include maintaining essential network members and not forgetting those who are less active but might be needed later. Beware of timeless time, a concept by Castells, describing a new understanding of mediated communication where time is non-linear, and activities occur simultaneously. Sometimes focusing on essential things is better.
Social networks are important when job hunting because HR specialists might review your social media profiles. The impression and image you transmit online matter in real life and job interviews.
An experiment had someone acting like on social media but in real life, following people and showing interest. People's responses were often negative, showing that social media behaviors are not always accepted in real life. This raises questions about how social media use influences real-life communication strategies.
Does Instagram or similar platforms influence how you see the world? Do you see it through square pictures or with an old-school approach? Are you likely to post your breakfast or not?
When creating communities, bear in mind the difference between identity-bond and common-bond. Think about why you participate in a community and who is part of it. Do you want to give up part of your identity to follow a group identity?
Picking communication channels is also important. What is your message and how will you transfer it? According to Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message. The channel affects the recipient's feelings toward the message. Is it a formal or important message better suited for email instead of instant messaging? These considerations form part of digital etiquette.
Reflecting on how media and social media change us and influence interactions can be key to better understanding ourselves and others. This reflection helps you navigate communication and relationships in the mediated world.
A World Week number seven, we discussed public relations with our guest lecturer. And during this priority course, I want you, invite you to focus and to think a little bit about the way how public relations through the prism of the organizational communication and a communication between organization and publics can be actually applied to once individual.
So let's talk about public relations and refresh what was there, as well as let's discuss the self-promotion or self-PR. What are the theoretical approaches which can navigate us through this part?
So we studied with full models of PR and the Excellence theory. Full models of public relations is a historical perspective on PR. It explains how the theory and practice were developing from the 19th century throughout to these days. At the same time, excellence theory is the normative theory of PR. It also is focusing on the way how PR should be practiced, as it have to be more effective. And how it can make more contribution through the function of public relations within the organization for the whole organization as well as to the society. Then we move to our relationship management theory, which has its emphasis on a relationship and predicts how to build beneficial for organization as well as for the society of relationships within the PR. Public relations are all about the relationship. So it does have some very similar sounding and it sounds quite the same. So here, we're not talking about the efficiency mostly, but how to get this efficiency through the well maintained relationships.
After that, situational theory of problem solving was discussed, which as no surprise here, is focusing on the way how publics tend to solve their problems in different situations. And how PR practitioners on their authority and their functions need to communicate with these public swore somewhat in need or in problem.
Dialogic theory is the most ethical theory of public relations. It talks how to build effective communication channels for the organization and as result to build a quality relationship with the public. But here again, we are focusing on the way how communication should be symmetrical. It should be a dialogue, it should not be one way communication which is the most important message from this theory. And we were finishing with the fully functioning society theory of PR. It legitimize the role of PR in the society in general. So it's not all about propaganda, it's not about changing public opinions. It's advocating that the community hold the transcendent meaning for individuals who are linked to organization. And these individuals they do want an organization that connects them to such.
So basically, it has this integrative function and it explains how PR function is integrated throughout the whole system, not just focusing on the needs of the organization. And excellence, on the other hand, and on the effects which can be achieved throughout the practice of pure function rather than how the contribution is maintained, why is it important? because a lot fo the talk and a lot of the debate was around the PR as being the manipulator as not being the legitimate part of the whole society in general.
But when it comes to UPR and to the UPR of the itself it's not the public relations of self, but this is you maintaining your image within the public relation. We move to the Goffman, and his impression management theory. As you can see here at the slide, Goffman states that when an individual enters the presence of others, they commonly seek to acquire information about him. And at the same time the other individuals, they can rely on what the individual says about himself or on documentary evidence he provides as to who and what he or she is.
Basically impression management is not only about what is said, and what is spoken out loud. But it's also about all the other symbols and signs which we do before on the stage. So what was his theory all about? Well the most interesting part here is that government sees the whole impression management and the whole communicative practices of impressing others through the metaphor of a play. So we are coming on the stage and we are performing in front of the audience, in front of the others.
Well here is the famous Shakespeare quote, all the world stage and all the man and women merely players. Well for Goffman, this is what it is, and we come to the stage to give information to. So we speak it out loud and we give all the other symbolic parts of our identity which are transmitted through not spoken, not verbal symbols, but through the others.
So the impression management theory would outline how individual actors create, maintain, defend, and often enhance their social identities. The case here, the key term is social identity throughout the assumptions, setting, prompts, and scripts in this play metaphor.
Impression management explains the motivations behind a complex human interactions and their performances. The motives for this goal is based on the assumption that the target audience impression above the individual groups and organizations become really important for them, and they become the reality for the target audience.
Authors, philosophers, and social science researches have long interpreted the reality each individual actually has when he enters this stage. And what he believes he is doing on the stage, so we can either see the real thing or the imaginary.
And the impression exists in the sublime level throughout the socialization. And generally does not manifest until the actor either succeeds or fails to resonate with the perceptions of the target audience. And the target audience transforms this performance as it's mutually influential process.
So here, we're not just acting, we do get some clues and some keys from the audience. And we try to get closer them as all we want their expectations and their understanding of our role when we actually play to be pretty much the same, what was our initial goal to communicate.
So this role with this play metaphor with us being actors and having some certain probes as we do in real life. It can be the room, it can be the context of the situation, it can be other people who are somehow interacting with us. It does provide a fair framework, so we will understand how this performance is accurately integrated into the play in general, as the play can be the whole communicative situation.
So the whole act of maintaining this relationship through out the particular case. So how is the impression management important for us as we are individuals who are integrated into the network. And we do see now and we knew that the world is all about net working. You need to promote yourself somehow, but sometimes we think about networking as something dirty, something annoying, something that would be distracting other people. And we want to get rid of this part of our business practice usually.
What is networking? Networking is seen as the act of making context with other individuals and organizations with mutual interest to develop beneficial relationship. So here actually, it's not a crime and things scarcely happening here.
How to build and maintain the leveraging relationships, it's very important for, it's a part of the professional competence. And any professional would like to extend his network and to make it more beneficial for the organization and for himself or herself.
What are the top networking tips, which we can drive and drive through the public relations theory, right? As we're moving just from the big ground level of making the relationship work, to the smaller scale level of promoting ourselves.
So first of all, we need to think about two way symmetrical communication. Well it should not be one way, and we want our network and our communication to get some response.
Secondly, we are building relationship, so it's not just talking about our effectiveness and our benefits, which we can bring throughout this communication and throughout this relationship.
We want to build a relationship on the basis of empathy and listening. So it's not the point for you to go and just dump a whole bunch of the information on the other person. So this person would proceed it and understand whether he or she is interested in you or not.
It's all about speaking and listening at the same time. We do need to manage and clarify what our relationships within organization is. So maybe if we come from the very first level and will practice our networking skills on our colleagues or on the colleagues who we don't really know yet, we might get a new interest.
We can open the new door to the new sphere our organization is dealing with, and to get new context throughout there. It can be quite interesting, and it's just a practical tip that we can apply.
Communicating the problem solving. So we have this approach within the networking and it doesn't have to come with a very good things at the very beginning.
So when we do have some troubles within the networking, we need to communicate clearly and we need to talk about it. We can approach our colleagues or our future colleagues as the stakeholders and throughout the stakeholder theory, we might think about them a little bit different.
So think about them as contributors, as people who your'e responsible for and people who are responsible for you. So we're here thinking about this mutual interdependence, and if you have this approach of the mutual interdependence on the very initial level.
It might just make the way your... relationships will be developing a little bit different, it might come up to be a little bit more flourishing.
Finding creative ways to maximize the outcomes, it's always about the way how do we present ourselves. So here, we kind of going back to the rhetoric, but at the same time we're thinking about the ways to diversify, to make an outstanding presentation of ourselves.
So this networking will be remarkable and it would be remembered by the other person. So basically, it's pretty much all about the public relations and the public relations applied to one self ways of maintaining the network and trying to border our networks.
So, over the previous week, you were talking about critical theory. But what is critical in critical theory? We use this term, critical, when we want to talk about criticism, or judgment, or something with a negative connotation. Well, now you know, the critical theory is nothing like that. It's just another point of view on the ways how society is functioning.
But in this part of our lecture, I want to refer to the critical theory and go through it once again, as well as to think about the essential skill of critical thinking which will be quite useful for you to go through the critical tradition one more time. So, we started with the Marxism. We recall to the foundations of the orthodox Marxism covering the critique of political economy and ideology. Marx's concept of society seems that there is a base and a superstructure where the former shapes the latter, and the latter maintains the former. According to Marx, the economy is the base of all social structure. That is why Marx criticizes the ideology, emphasizing that there is not any abstract essence, there is only social relations.
After that, we moved to the Marxist heritage which is the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory of Society. As you remember, critical theory is a synthesis of Philosophy and Social Science, which was established in order to uncover repressive tendencies and weakness of the modern social structure. I do want to add Horkheimer, elaborated the concept of cultural industry to explain the logic of our consumer society and popular culture. Humans in such society are passively manipulated, and throughout political change was quite hopeless, and it was seen as quite hopeless.
Marcuse and the concept of the one-dimensional society was another stage of our pathway throughout the critical theory. Marcuse was also worried about the future of capitalistic society, and he elaborates the concept of one-dimensional society which is administrated by the political establishment. People are reduced to the particular social functions and have no critical thinking, which we'll try to develop later. And this lack of the critical thinking gives them and takes them away from the two-dimensional thinking. So, they only reproduce what is the establishment ideology, which is transferred for them from top to the bottom, and it can be also transmitted through the main source of the news and the main agenda site or the mass media.
After that, we moved to the Jurgen Habermas. And Habermas did not only criticize the modern society, but he also tried to explain its transformation in order to suggest some strategies which will be useful in our coming, the state of the social structure. He elaborated the idea of the public sphere which is quite commonly known as the public of private individuals who join in debate in various issues. Basically, he even introduced the communicative action as this possible mode of coordination of human life. And overall, described the ideal species situation for a productive human communication and following collaborative decisions.
So, public sphere, this is the place and this is the concept where everyone can be heard and everybody will hear the other opinions. And ideal communicative situation might be not really real in our time frame and in our conditions and within the different context, but this is something we need to chase. This is something we need to focus on while we're developing our public institutions, so we can function more fully as the society.
So, we also, after that, kind of covered what has become with the critical theory of the society beyond Habermas. Still, the question is, what is the relationship of labor and communication? Four are paradigms which are two types of reductionism, dualism, and dialectic allow answering this question. But the theory of recognition of Alex Honneth has become the most significant one, assuming that social recognition is the presupposition of the whole communicative action.
So, the theory was developing and changing throughout the time, and we do still play a very important role of this power balance and the power relationship as well as media and communication media as the source of this influence and the tool to transmit the agenda and opinions to the society, as well as to manipulate society somehow, and communication as an essential process which does co-create the reality and actually shapes the reality throughout the public discourse.
So, as we already refreshed and we now remember all about the critical theory, here, we want to refer to the intellectual skill of analysis which is critical thinking. We mean by critical thinking, thinking with some sort of complexity, getting above the surface of the knowledge, exploring various cultural, historical, and ideological factors that might influence our understanding of the reality.
So, basically here, we talk about the knowledge, the essence of knowledge, and the way how do we understand and perceive this knowledge which is transmitted to us throughout different sources. So, what comes with the critical theory? While we used to follow the mainstream idea that the knowledge communicated by the public institutions as schools or even when we are speaking here, by me right now, must be factual and neutral.
But paying attention to the main assumptions of the critical theory, we can reconsider somehow the knowledge which comes to us. As in the reality, knowledge tends to be socially constructed. And after that, we understand that we have this sort of thinking problem as the knowledge is being socially constructed, and it might have some influences throughout the context of the situation.
We need to think about the way how we're thinking about the problem. So, if we have some sets and certain criterias, and certain context we living in, do we really consider it as being stable or do we take it away from our mind and consider it critically? It can be the case of discrimination for some reason. For example, you do not believe in the discrimination, but it doesn't stop you from actually engaging in the process of discrimination. So, if you don't think about it, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, and it doesn't mean that you are finally doing it.
So, we need to be present and aware of the constant threat of this lacking or missing thinking, even thinking about the way how we are thinking. Sounds quite confusing. Okay, let's move on and talk about what is thinking critically about the problem.
Thinking critically about the problem moves us to the totally different approach from purely believing to the conscious and careful analysis. Considering confronting points of view and the cultural aspect in the broadest way, we will have a different approach to the way how the reality is structured and to the way how do we approach this reality.
So, what can be the idea of the lifestyle? What kind of life should we live? Well, lesser thought would insist on inevitable and continuous progress, while my other opinions, they might end up in peace and mindfulness in everyday routine. So, what is the way? How do we actually live this life? Is it somehow affected by the cultural context, by the ideological context, by some message which was transmitted, those who are in power in order to kind of create our reality and get us stuck there? Are we driven by our values? Or we do use and we commit to the values which exist in our culture by just accepting them?
While that's an ongoing discussion that would provide a lot of room for thinking and further understanding on the whole essence of the way how do we get the knowledge, and how do we shape it through our experiences, and how do we understand the reality.
So, thinking critically about the problem leads us to the way how do we express what we are thinking. It can be two. It can be informed knowledge or an opinion. Opinion is devoted to what we build upon the common sense understanding, what's going on? On the contrary, we do have informed knowledge. And informed knowledge which is something we're trying to follow here, something we want really to operate with, as we do quite a careful analysis of the situation, and we mind the context, and we mind the power balance, and we mind all the influencers who were institutions which can somehow shape our thinking and our opinion about the problem.
So, these would be the informed knowledge, as you already do know something and you did a little bit of the research. Thus, the next time you share your thoughts, think rather, what's the underlying background that supports it, and how do you construct your argument during the communication?
And the last point which lead us from the critical thinking theory, it's all about ideology, and ideology is everywhere. Thinking critically requires understanding of that knowledge as socially constructed as well as it carries out a piece of ideology which is embedded through this construction. So, accepting the social dimension of the knowledge here is essential. And we do need to focus on what could be the factors, political, historical, cultural factors which are influencing this knowledge.
Thinking critically and being critical in terms of his careful analysis and consideration of different aspects of our reality influencing the way we're thinking and the opinions or some sort of informed knowledge which we get from the media or from other people is essential nowadays, as we don't want to be tricked and we don't want to be manipulated by the media anymore.
So, these are the very last slides of our communication theory course. Throughout this course, we discussed quite many things. The theory itself and the ways how do we understand communication and theory. We discussed interpersonal communication. We touched a little bit of the group communication. We moved off to that to the rhetoric as the art of the public speaking, discussed the media facts, and also, we talked quite a lot about the social media as a special form of this mediated environment. We talked about PR as public relations and the way how we can apply public relations through our self-promotion.
Also, the last part of our course was all about the critical theory. And I hope that throughout this course, you acquired the important skills to apply the theoretical and abstract concepts and constructs on yourself and on your practical aspects of your life. And hopefully, you will make your life somehow better.
So, here, I am saying you my very last goodbye and wish you good luck with the final test.
Тесты курса
Тесты на оценку
a. Sociopolitical
c. Power binding
f. Semantic
g. Epistemological
e. Marshall McLuhan
b. complex
In communication theory, the global village is a concept introduced by Marshall McLuhan. It suggests that modern electronic media (like TV, internet, and social media) have connected the world so closely that it now resembles a small village where everyone knows each other’s business and can communicate instantly across distances.
The lecturer compared communication in a traditional village — where people gathered around a fire to share stories face-to-face — to today’s instant digital communication. For example, in the past, villagers would meet to discuss events; today, people use social media, video calls, or messaging apps to connect instantly with others across the globe.
Several decades ago we should write a letters or call another family members, but now we can send photos, videos, voice, text and even emoji messages in our family's chat.
The lecture begins by describing the invention of the printing press and the rise of print media. Today, mass media determine what people think about, how they think (and feel) about those topics, and generally shape people's perception of the world.
e. Magic bullet theory
c. Critical
c. Yes
c. Karl Marx
d. Andy Warhol
f. Vladimir Lenin
a. It is focused on a relationship between those who communicate in the first place
c. Pathos
a. The right to speak is under pressure
b. Because of the exploitation of users' digital labor
c. Due to commodification of personal data