Mediated Communication
1.
If we accept functionalists' understanding of community, community should be understood in terms of ‘network.’ As the term ‘network’ signifies, then, what is indispensable to the maintenance of community is ‘communication.’ Community and what gives life to community, i.e., communication, are the ever-present speculation of Chicago sociology. Herein, while this might sound like a truism, human communication requires certain tools, i.e., media. The most fundamental tool for this is language, and face-to-face communication becomes more effective with the help of language (and gestures.) In a sense that all human communication necessitates tools for it, it is always ‘mediated’ in a strict sense. (The term ‘mediated communication’ might be illogical in this sense, as a type of a tautology) With the advent of mass communication, however, a new form of communication other than face-to-face relationship comes into being. I would like to call it ‘technology-mediated communication,’ and this specifically refers to communication that is mediated by mass communication (TV, radio and newspapers).
2.
By mediated communication, naturally, mediated social relationship occurs. Horton and Whol consider the mediated social relationship as ‘para-social.’ The suffix ‘para’ symbolizes their understanding of this new form of social relationship. It is close, and yet it is incomplete because para-social relationship is maintained by fabricative apparatuses of the ‘persona.’ Mediated communication, especially when it is communication about mass events, is vulnerable to dramatization, i.e., “structuring” (Lang & Lang, 335). In other words, “an amorphous, episodic, somewhat dull event” (Katz and Dayan, 123) can be amazingly embellished by the perspectives of encoders. Lang & Lang find here the possibility of mass propaganda (or manipulation) which targets vulnerable citizens. Overall, Lang and Horton investigate the ‘bias’ and pseudo-characters of mediated communication focusing on fabricative and biased operation of mass media. In a more extreme form, Harold Innis and Mashall McLuhan explore the formative power of media focusing on the nature of media. To them, the media, not the contents of the media, is the message: the outcomes of mediated relationship are determined by the bias which is intrinsic to the media. By focusing on the inherently formative power of media, Innis and McLuhan not only explain the outcomes of mediated relationship, but they expand their perspectives to the comprehension of the bias of civilization. Innis investigates the bias of media in terms of time(duration) and space(expansion). McLuhan explores how the bias of media (media hot and cool) significantly affects sense-balance of human beings, so that human behaviors and civilization. To be sure, both Innis and McLuhan exactly display the same stance in understanding media in a sense that they firmly believe media scholars should “pay attention to the ways in which the tools we shape work to reshape us” (Meyrowitz, 209): in their views, the modality of mediated communication is already determined by the nature of media and technology.
3.
The bias of media operation (encoding bias) and the bias of media itself – we can perhaps presume that these two biases over a long period will to some extent determine the outcomes of mediated communication. If we add one more dimension, i.e., the bias of decoders (audience research), the nature of mediated communication can be more fully understood. I believe delving into these three biases constitutes almost the whole focus of communication studies.
If we accept functionalists' understanding of community, community should be understood in terms of ‘network.’ As the term ‘network’ signifies, then, what is indispensable to the maintenance of community is ‘communication.’ Community and what gives life to community, i.e., communication, are the ever-present speculation of Chicago sociology. Herein, while this might sound like a truism, human communication requires certain tools, i.e., media. The most fundamental tool for this is language, and face-to-face communication becomes more effective with the help of language (and gestures.) In a sense that all human communication necessitates tools for it, it is always ‘mediated’ in a strict sense. (The term ‘mediated communication’ might be illogical in this sense, as a type of a tautology) With the advent of mass communication, however, a new form of communication other than face-to-face relationship comes into being. I would like to call it ‘technology-mediated communication,’ and this specifically refers to communication that is mediated by mass communication (TV, radio and newspapers).
2.
By mediated communication, naturally, mediated social relationship occurs. Horton and Whol consider the mediated social relationship as ‘para-social.’ The suffix ‘para’ symbolizes their understanding of this new form of social relationship. It is close, and yet it is incomplete because para-social relationship is maintained by fabricative apparatuses of the ‘persona.’ Mediated communication, especially when it is communication about mass events, is vulnerable to dramatization, i.e., “structuring” (Lang & Lang, 335). In other words, “an amorphous, episodic, somewhat dull event” (Katz and Dayan, 123) can be amazingly embellished by the perspectives of encoders. Lang & Lang find here the possibility of mass propaganda (or manipulation) which targets vulnerable citizens. Overall, Lang and Horton investigate the ‘bias’ and pseudo-characters of mediated communication focusing on fabricative and biased operation of mass media. In a more extreme form, Harold Innis and Mashall McLuhan explore the formative power of media focusing on the nature of media. To them, the media, not the contents of the media, is the message: the outcomes of mediated relationship are determined by the bias which is intrinsic to the media. By focusing on the inherently formative power of media, Innis and McLuhan not only explain the outcomes of mediated relationship, but they expand their perspectives to the comprehension of the bias of civilization. Innis investigates the bias of media in terms of time(duration) and space(expansion). McLuhan explores how the bias of media (media hot and cool) significantly affects sense-balance of human beings, so that human behaviors and civilization. To be sure, both Innis and McLuhan exactly display the same stance in understanding media in a sense that they firmly believe media scholars should “pay attention to the ways in which the tools we shape work to reshape us” (Meyrowitz, 209): in their views, the modality of mediated communication is already determined by the nature of media and technology.
3.
The bias of media operation (encoding bias) and the bias of media itself – we can perhaps presume that these two biases over a long period will to some extent determine the outcomes of mediated communication. If we add one more dimension, i.e., the bias of decoders (audience research), the nature of mediated communication can be more fully understood. I believe delving into these three biases constitutes almost the whole focus of communication studies.
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