MOOC Introduction to Communication Science

Table of Contents
1. The Beginnings of Communication Science ................................................................... 3
An Introduction to Communication Science ....................................................................... 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 3
What is communication? ................................................................................................ 4
Concepts........................................................................................................................ 5
Theories ......................................................................................................................... 6
Transmission of communication ..................................................................................... 7
Reception, signs, and signification ................................................................................. 9
Cultural approach ......................................................................................................... 11
The three approaches compared ................................................................................. 12
A Short history of communication science ....................................................................... 13
A Short History of Communication Science .................................................................. 13
Greek and Roman Rhetorica ........................................................................................ 14
Two schools of Classical Communication Science ....................................................... 15
Rhetorical theory .......................................................................................................... 16
The Dark Ages of Communication Science .................................................................. 18
A Renaissance of our field ........................................................................................... 20
The printing press as an agent of change .................................................................... 21
Towards a modern communication science ................................................................. 22
2. Technical Approaches to Communication Science .......................................................... 24
The Linear Effect-Oriented Approach .............................................................................. 24
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 24
The power of propaganda and the all-powerful media paradigm .................................. 25
Needles, bullets and Martians ...................................................................................... 26
Powerful media put to the test ...................................................................................... 28
Minimal effects ............................................................................................................. 29
Powerful Media Rediscovered ...................................................................................... 30
A revolution in the media landscape: the rise of television............................................ 32
Negotiated media effects.............................................................................................. 33
The Reception and Signification Perspective ................................................................... 34

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An introduction to the reception and signification perspective ...................................... 34

Message construction .................................................................................................. 36
Active audiences .......................................................................................................... 37
Selective processing .................................................................................................... 38
Cognitive shortcuts....................................................................................................... 39
Central and peripheral route......................................................................................... 41
Getting through the filter ............................................................................................... 41
Encoding, decoding and the construction of meaning .................................................. 43
3. Cultural and Social Approaches to Communication Science ........................................... 44
The cultural approach ...................................................................................................... 44
Introduction to the cultural approach ............................................................................. 44
Producing and maintaining culture ................................................................................ 46
Making sense of the world ............................................................................................ 47
Popular culture: Reflection or illusion? .......................................................................... 48
Cultural studies: Birmingham and Toronto .................................................................... 50
Cultural groups ............................................................................................................. 51
How to fit in? ................................................................................................................ 52
Conclusion: Cultural conformity and relativism .............................................................. 54
Student Questions and Debate ........................................................................................ 55
Introduction Questions and Answers .......................................................................... 55
Metaphors .................................................................................................................... 56
The role of media in society ........................................................................................ 57
More metaphors on the role of the media in society.................................................... 58
Primary and secondary research ................................................................................ 60
What’s new about new media? .................................................................................... 61
Globalization: village versus tribes ............................................................................ 63
About the exam ........................................................................................................... 65

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MOOC Introduction to Communication Science

1. The Beginnings of Communication Science

An Introduction to Communication Science

Introduction
Welcome to the course Introduction to Communication Science. My name is dr. Rutger de
Graaf. I’m a lecturer at the Department of Communication Science of the University of
Amsterdam. We’re now standing in the courtyard of the het Oost-Indisch Huis, the
seventeenth century headquarters of the Dutch East-India Company. In this historical
landmark over 150 scientists study and teach the science of communication.

This course is a so-called MOOC. This a new trend of online courses, initially designed by
Stanford and MIT. MOOC stands for a Massive Open Online Course. It’s massive in the sense
that it’s open to a potentially much larger audience that our normal courses which are of
course limited to the available space in a classroom. A MOOC is completely open. Which
means it’s free of cost and designed so that everyone, also without any specific experience
in the field, can enter. Finally, all our lectures, class materials, self-evaluation tests and exams
will be available through an online portal. This of course gives new options to our teaching
environment. You can download all captions for instance. Also, additional links and tips for
further content will be offered at the end of each class. Next to this, there is a small community
in which you can ask questions or share your thoughts on this week’s content.

In this ten-part course we will cover some of the basic theories, models and concepts from
the field of communication. In this first class I’ll talk about the scope of our field of study; what
exactly is communication and how does our discipline relate to other studies like sociology
and psychology? In future weeks we’ll discuss the history of communication theory. Obviously
people have been communicating since the dawn of men, but when and why did
communication theory arise? After that we’ll use three dominant approaches to the field to
discuss our topic further: firstly we’ll look at communication as a means of persuasion, both
from a political and a corporate angle. The second perspective is that of communication
processing, which is, simply put, how we give meaning to a message. The final part of this
course will focus on social and cultural aspects of communication, group dynamics, and
audience formation.

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To test your recall and understanding of each topic, I will often add some MC questions that
you can use for self-evaluation.

What is communication?
The most simple definition is that communication is each act of transmitting information.
Information in the broadest sense of the word: including thoughts, ideas and emotions. Giving
someone a bouquet of flowers is communicating a certain message. Adding to that gift a
verbal compliment (you’re pretty) is another separate act of communication. Blushing because
you have just received flowers and a compliment is again another form of communication. As
social animals we communicate day in day out with spoken words, nonverbal gestures, signs
and symbols. Sometimes we use media to communicate a message. Media are the channels
that we use to communicate. Scholars don’t really agree on the definition of the word media.
Television, Internet, Radio, Mobile Phones, the soapbox we stand on to give a speech. They
are all technical media in a way. Things we constructed to amplify our communication. In the
more broader definitions, we can include our hands, voice and eyes, that we all use to
communicate somehow, in the list of communication channels, of media. In general however,
whenever we discuss mediated communication, or THE mass media, we only mean the first
category.

Over the years scientists from different scientific disciplines have studied these channels for
communication and all these different forms of communication. The results of their studies
have formed the basis of the relatively new science of communication.

Even today, many scholars in other disciplines study the exact same communication
phenomena as we do. We share theories and models and often use the same methods to
analyze and describe our field. It is therefore useful to be aware of how these other disciplines
are connected with ours.

To get an idea of the different levels of communication and how they are connected to other
scientific disciplines, we can look at the so-called pyramid of communication.
On the highest level of this pyramid we find societal communication, which is by its very nature
aimed at a large mass audience. Therefore mainly historians, political scientists and
sociologists studied this perspective.
Under that is the level of institutional communication that is performed by political parties,
organized religions, large corporations and such.

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Then comes the level of group communication. Groups are audiences that feel a high level of
group identification, for instance a family or a fan club. Both institutional and group
communication are in the field sociologists and cultural anthropologists.

We have now arrived to the level of interpersonal communication, basically the

communication between two or more people. Both sociologists and psychologists

Finally there is the level of intrapersonal communication. This would be the communication
you have with yourself. With this we mean all information processing, thinking, internalizing
information and the process of giving meaning to the world around us. Of course this approach
leans heavily on the discipline of psychology.

Concepts
We’ve just seen that different scientific disciplines all study communication. Of course they
focus on different aspects of communication. Some scholars want to understand the workings
of the media infrastructure, others focus on the social importance of communication, political
communication effects or one of many alternative perspectives.

It’s not surprising that communication is studied by so many from so many angles. It fills our
lives and society, we spend tremendous amounts of time communicating ideas, sharing
thoughts, absorbing new information, being entertained or persuaded somehow.
Communication simply put enables us to function as social, cultural and political animals.

It makes sense that these different perspectives have led to a wide spectrum of scientific
thought on the topic of communication. In this course we’ll go out and explore some of them
and try to find our way in this wild jumble of theories, models and concepts. Perhaps a good
starting point therefore is to begin with a brief definition of ‘theory’, ‘model’, and ‘concept’.

A concept is a word or set of words that represent an idea. It’s of course important to clearly
define the concepts we use. Let’s take the concept of ‘identity’ for instance. It’s easy to
imagine two (or more) very different interpretations about what constitutes an identity. Is it
how one views oneself, or perhaps we should also take into consideration how ones identity
is perceived by others. Or is that particular concept better described perhaps with the word
‘image’?
Often scientists squabble over definitions, and rightly so, because it should be clear what we
talk about. These discussions sometimes never stop, and why would they? Different people

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give different meanings to a word, and who can say which are the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ definitions?
At most we can speak about preferred or dominant definitions of concepts but even these
usually change over time and from context to context.

In this course I will often stop to define certain key concepts. I would like to stipulate that these
definitions are unfortunately more often than not quite disputed. If you are following this
MOOC and you had some previous classes in communication or perhaps you have worked
in communication or read books or articles about the topic don’t be surprised when I will define
things slightly different than you have learned. For instance, when I said that media are every
channel that we use to communicate (so this would include the voice) it’s very possible that
you have learned previously that only technical channels are considered media (which would
exclude the voice). Because both definitions, and many more, exist in the scientific field.

To make things more difficult, scientists, like many professionals, sometimes give every day
words a different meaning. If I would ask a random person in the street the definition of the
word ‘text’, most will agree that a ‘text’ is a message made up out of some type of letters.
Communication Scientists however regard each carrier of communication as a text. So a
movie, a song a painting they are all ‘texts’ in our eyes, ready to be ‘read’ by an audience.

Theories
Concepts play an important role in all theories. Theories in their simplest definition are all
statements about reality that seek to explain or predict the relation between phenomena. For
instance, the theory of gravity predicts that if I drop a pen, it will fall to the floor. A specific
predicted result, derived from theory, we call a hypothesis.

Whenever we visualize these statements. This is called a model. Usually the arrows and lines
in these models represent hypotheses. The box on the left in this model represents the
presumed cause, dropping the pencil. We call this the independent variable. The other is the
presumed effect, or the dependent variable. If we change our example and look at the theory
that giving someone a gift causes them to like you better. Than the independent variable here
is gift keeping and the dependent variable is how much you are being liked by someone.

So we can proof or disproof our hypotheses, and in extension the connected theory, by
actually dropping a pen or giving a gift and check if the results corresponds with the expected
result.

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In other words, we test and improve our theories through research. This can be primary
research, where we collect our own data. Or by studying the results of others, so called
secondary research. We have several main means in our field to gather data. The first is
observation, simply observing the phenomenon. Secondly we conduct experiments, where
we try to limit to amount of interfering variables so we can actually proof a causal relation
between the dependent and independent variable. We also use surveys, which is a
questionnaire spread amongst a sample or respondents. The results are usually quantified.
For a more in depth exploration of attitudes we conduct qualitative interviews. Finally we study
the message itself. This is called content analysis. It can be done systematically, where the
results are later quantified. Or it can be done in a qualitative fashion.

Of course this is the ideal scientific situation. In reality many theories can’t be tested. For
instance because we cannot observe the presumed relation. The theory that ‘everything
happens for a reason’ might be true, but we don’t really have access to the methods to test
this. Sometimes a theory will combine a set of theories. For instance The Uses and
Gratification Theory is a complex theory that we will discuss in depth in a later in class. The
point for now is that it contains several ideas about reality. 1) People make conscious
decisions regarding their use of media. 2) People are conscious of their media-related needs.
3) People select the media that is best suited to fulfill their need. These are only a few
elements this theory, but my point is that even though these different statements can be tested
and proven or disproven as separate theories, they are still part of the same theoretical
framework and therefore collectively labeled as Uses and Gratification Theory. So the
definition of theory is not as easy as we first thought.

Some theories don’t even predict anything but serve more as perspectives on reality or to sum
up an approach. They tell us it is important to study some aspects of that reality more
thoroughly. For instance ‘stakeholder theory’ tells us we should study the stakeholders in any
situation and be aware of their various interests and agendas. These perspectives are
sometimes called theory, but we also use the words paradigms or approaches, since they
don’t really fit the dominant definition of scientific theory. That definition stresses that theories
have predictive value. And these paradigms or approaches serve more as view glasses, which
we use to study the world. They amplify some aspects of reality and guide our research.

Transmission of communication
When we talk about theories, the first theory to discuss, is the basic transmission model. This
model reflects dominant thought on communication, by proposing communication as a linear

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process. That starts with a sender, creates a message and somehow ends up with an
audience, a receiver. Laswell, in 1948, made this model explicit. To understand the process
of communication, according to Laswell, we need to consider

Who, says What, in which Channel, to Whom, and with what Effect

Of course, many things can go wrong in this process of communication. When I talk to
someone and a car drives by, it might cause a distraction or it's roaring engine might drown
out my voice. My conversation partner can have other things on his mind and there are many
other things that can cause a disruption of effective communication. It's important to note, by
the way, that communication, in this linear way of looking at communication. It’s only effective
when the desired effect is reached. When the message successfully reaches, and is correctly
interpreted by the receiver.

That many things can distort a correct transmission becomes clear in the transmission model
that Shannon created. This model of communication embodies five elements, like the model
of Laswell. The first element is Sender, which is obviously the person or persons that create
a message. Then comes the Message itself. Thirdly, the Channel that is used to send the
message. Another word for this channel is of course medium and the different channels that
exist are collectively named media. The next element is, like in the Laswell model, the
Receiver. And finally again, we see the Effect.

Here we clearly see that in each of these stages so-called 'Noise' can disrupt the correct
transmission. In our field we define noise as 'Everything that can cause a disruption in the
flow of communication'. So, in our example, the car that passes by can create many forms of
noise.

The sound of its loud engine causes confusion because someone can't hear me correctly or
miss what I'm saying entirely. So, that's one form of noise. Another form is the distraction that
it creates for my partner, so he doesn't really pay attention to what I'm saying and therefore
misinterprets or forgets my message and the desired effect is not reached. The important
thing with these models is that they see communication as a linear process and this in itself
has led to an emphasis on effects. We want to know if communication has a desired effect.
This is a very influential way of looking at communication. It's also very different from another
approach that we will explain further in the next section of this MOOC.

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Reception, signs, and signification

During the sixties critics stood up, they objected against this linear effect oriented approach.
They argued that many people give a different meaning to a message than was intended, but
why should that be wrong? Instead, they focused on the recipients of communication and how
they give meaning to a message, using their own unique toolkit with their own backgrounds
and experiences, knowledge, emotions, et cetera. So in this model, this nonlinear model,
there is no wrong outcome, there is no wrong communication. Everyone gives meaning to a
message in their own unique way.

This idea was hardly new. Scientists had studied the phenomenon of polysemic messages
for a long time. Polysemic meaning exactly that, different people interpreting a message in a
different way.

According to these scientists each act of communication relies on a communication system

without which we wouldn’t understand each other. The study of these systems is called
semiotics or semiology, the so called study of ‘signs’ and ‘signification’. A sign is basically
everything that communicates something. A spoken word, a gesture, a glance, a photo, a
cartoon, a written sentence, a hieroglyph, they are all signs. The process of giving meaning
to these signs is called signification. Without going to deep into this fascinating topic, it’s
important to briefly discuss the influence of semiotic theories on mass communication theory.
This approach views communication not as a linear process but as an exchange of meaning.
The sender puts meaning in a message and the receiver takes meaning from a message.

Under influence of semiotic theories, communication scientists became more interested in the
reception of a message and acknowledged that communication can have multiple valid
outcomes.
Let’s look at this classic model, proposed by linguist Roman Jacobson in 1960. He starts with
familiar elements from Shannon’s transmission model:
An addresser sends a message to an addressee using a channel.

He added to the model elements from semiotics, like the idea that every message refers to
something outside of the message which he called context. Also, the specific form that our
communication take, for instance a written word, made up of letters, is called a code.

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Successful communication, according to Jacobson, can only exist when all these elements
are in place. However, each act of communication has one dominant function that relates to
one of the elements in this model.
When the primary purpose of a message is to communicate the emotions and attitudes of a
sender this is called the emotive function. For instance when I write a love letter to my
girlfriend.

The second function is conative. If a receiver is directly addressed to do something specific.

An example is a commercial that tells us to “buy this flavour of ice cream!”.
The referential or descriptive function corresponds with the context and happens when a
message primarily describes a situation. Perhaps a news report is a good example.
Sometimes the main purpose of communicating is to keep the lines open, when we have
coffee each week with a friend for instance. This is called a phatic function and relates to the
channel.
A poetic function means that the message is an end in itself, a painting for example that
aims at being a beautiful and aesthetically pleasing piece of art.

Finally there is the metalingual function, when we use communication to explain the codes
that we use. For instance a dictionary. Another example is the explanation I’m giving right now
In which we are discussing concepts from the field of semiotics.

By focusing on the meaning of a message, signs, signification and the main function of a
message, Jacobson has given us a model that is very different from the transmission model.
It’s also a good starting point to discuss a third perspective that offers again a new angle with
which to view our field.

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Cultural approach
We have just discussed an alternative to the linear effect oriented approach. One that looks
at message construction and interpretation and leaves room for multiple meanings of a
message. The third perspective I want to discuss is a continuation of this line of thought but
shifts the focus to cultural and social aspects of communication. This approach deals with
how we use communication to give meaning to the world around us, construct our own social
reality, the role of communication in group dynamics and social interaction.

This perspective makes use of insights from the field of sociology, social psychology and
anthropology, where much attention is given to the social context in which communication
takes place. It sees communication as the means to share and reinforce ideas, thereby
constantly creating and adapting our culture. Also it sees people as social animals, as such
we are constantly involved in social group dynamics.

To illustrate this approach, let’s examine this communication model, proposed by Newcomb
as early as 1953. The model starts out with two familiar elements: sender and receiver. Let’s
call them person A and person B

Newcomb thought that the main purpose of communication is to maintain some sort of
balance, a harmony or equilibrium in a social system. He therefore introduced a new element,
the social environment that person A and person B share. We’ll call this shared social
environment X for now.

These three elements are all connected to each other in one social system, if one element
changes, this changes the relationship of the three.

I will give an example. Let’s say person A is David, person B is Shirley. Shirley and David are
colleagues in the same department, so this is their shared social environment. If David quits
his job to work somewhere else this means that they no longer have the same shared social
environment, namely, their workplace and shared office lunches. This will inevitably change
the relationship between Dave and Shirley.

Perhaps they’ll decide they enjoyed their lunch breaks so much they will now have coffee
each month, even though they don’t work together any more, thereby going from colleagues
to friends.

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In another scenario David changes jobs within the company and now becomes Shirley’s boss.
This will also influence their relationship somehow. Will they still continue to have friendly
lunches each day?

X can take many forms, the place you work, political allegiance, a group you belong to, it can
even a person. Let’s say X is another co-worker named Ellen. David and Shirley both like
Ellen, until Ellen and Shirley get into a fight. Now David’s relationship with the both of them
will change, he might choose sides, or set himself up as a neutral party. Regardless of his
choice, a new social balance will be found, and equilibrium restored. This according to
Newcomb is the main function of communication.

Later other scientists have continued with this idea, making other theories that specifically
looked at mediated, individual, mass or group communication. In later weeks we’ll go more in
depth on this.

To go back to the core of Newcomb’s model, and also the core of this third approach:
communication helps us get along with each other, make sense of the social world around us
and enables us to function as social animals. Therefore, it’s crucial for a stable and healthy
society. Without communication we cannot feel part of society. We can’t position ourselves in
social reality, for instance by aligning ourselves with in-groups <groups we want to belong to>
or opposing ourselves against out-group <groups we don’t want to belong to> Central to this
approach is the notion that people construct a cultural and social reality by constantly
communicating values, attitudes and ideas. This idea is sometimes called social
constructionism.

The three approaches compared

We’ve made a very broad distinction between three perspectives on our field.
The first approach is the linear transmission perspective. Correct communication in this
perspective causes the desired effect. Therefore this approach tends to focus on effects of
communication.

The second approach sees communication as the production and exchange of meanings. It
is concerned with the construction of messages using signs, and the process of extracting
meaning from these messages, signification. The interpretation of communication can lead to
different but equally valid outcomes.

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The third approach looks at how we use communication to construct our social reality. It
examines the many ways we connect with people around us, by constantly sharing ideas and
thereby constructing, reinforcing (or deconstructing) our identity. This perspective sees
communication as the binding force of every society, group and culture. The potential to bind
of course goes hand in hand with a potential for group deconstruction, audience fragmentation
and cultural alienation.

Obviously there are many more ways to distinguish schools of thought. And I would like to
point out that these categories are by no means fixed or universally agreed upon.
But for this introductory course I will use these basic perspectives as a useful tool to categorize
some of our more widely used theories and models.

In the following week I will go back in time to talk with you a bit about the history of
communication science. Then we will discuss in each week after that one of the three basic
perspectives, the linear effect oriented approach, the reception or signification approach and
the cultural approach.

If you want to know more about the topics we discussed this week, there are links to further
readings, movies, and websites in the online environment of this MOOC. Also, try to test your
recall by answering some MC questions and join the discussion on our online forum. I hope
to see you next week!

A Short history of communication science

A Short History of Communication Science

Welcome in week 2 of our MOOC, I hope you’ve enjoyed our format. You have I hope done
some self-evaluation tests and checked out the further readings section of the online
environment. Since we discuss most theories only briefly, through this section you can explore
it further. Also, visit the forum. Please feel free to give any constructive feedback that you
might have in the thread ‘what do you think of our MOOC? We’re very curious what you like
or don’t like. Also if you want to discuss a topic further, start a discussion on our forum or join
one of the discussions that others started. I’ll often help out by posting answers to recurring
questions here.

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This week we’re going to talk about the history of communication science. And I’d like to
stress that last part. Because we’re going to talk about when people starting talking and
especially writing about communication. So even though we could talk for hours about the
presumed communication methods of prehistoric man and ancient civilizations after that,
about the earliest forms of communication, theories on the development of language, the
introduction of mediated communication, through symbolism in rock art and figurines and
such, we are not going to do so. We are not going to discuss the oldest musical instruments
or the first writing we’ve found, nor the power of communication through architecture and
useable items like coins. Why? Because we have no record that these civilizations thought
about communication on a Meta level and constructed theories about its existence or use.

Instead we’re going to start our journey here in Ancient Greece. Because the writings of the
Ancient Greeks and after that Romans are the oldest books about our topic to survive.

Starting with the earliest Communication Science of the Greeks and Romans we’ll talk about
Medieval times and subsequent lack of Communication Science in those days. Then the rise
of printed texts, the very important Enlightenment and Renaissance of our field. We’ll end this
week’s MOOC with the nineteenth century industrialization and its impact on the
communication landscape. Next week we’ll continue with twentieth century communication
theory.

Greek and Roman Rhetorica

So let’s start by briefly exploring the Classical World of the Greek and Romans. We’ll begin
in the fifth century before Christ, Ancient Greece. Instead of one country we should recognize
that in these times Greece was a collection of independent city-states, some were at war with
each other, and others were allied. A growing number of city-states was adopting democratic
elements in their government such as people’s assemblies, elections, chosen government
officials and such. Even though many cities still had kings or a council of nobles the political
power of citizens was growing, and with it the need for a better understanding of the workings
of mass communication. It’s therefore not surprising that the science of communication
thrived in Ancient Greece. Important historical figures like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were
involved in academic debate on the subject. But besides being an academic science it was
in this time foremost an applied science. There were teachers and academies that taught the
main principles of public speaking, reasoning and persuasion. Ambitious politicians were wise
to learn the different ways of approaching an audience. And not only politicians, but also
lawyers and businessmen were schooled in these matters and made extensive use of it in

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their field. Military commanders like Xenophon and Alexander the Great had studied the
subject at the feet of famous philosophers and used what they learned to keep up moral of
their troops.

So what did the media landscape look like at this time? We already established that public
speaking was important. Greeks made extensive use of symbolic and figurative art, in their
architecture, decorative and useable artifacts. There was a huge diversity of genres in theater
and literature. The alphabet had been rediscovered in the sixth century and books, scrolls,
pamphlets and other written media quickly found a place in the media infrastructure. Many
people, not only the rich and noble, could read and write and most cities had one or several
libraries. The most famous library, that of Alexandria, reputedly contained hundreds of
thousands of handwritten scrolls.

Over the years the power of the Greeks dwindled and was broken by the Romans who
adopted many Greek ways. It’s therefore not surprising that they too learned and try to be
perfect on Greek theories on communication. Together Greek and Roman times span a
millennium of history. So it’s obviously a huge oversimplification to discuss the entirety of
classical thought on communication in a three minute MOOC section. But we’ll try
nonetheless, because their ideas were the basis for scientific thought on communication
during the Middle Ages and Renaissance and therefore in many ways the foundation on which
our modern discipline is built. For a more in-depth and nuanced picture I refer to the Little Box
of Nuance in the online environment of this course and the follow opportunities I give in other
sections.

Two schools of Classical Communication Science

We can make a broad distinction between two schools of classical thought on communication.
The first school sees communication as a way to discover the truth of things.
This school started with the famous philosopher Socrates and his student Plato. They put a
huge emphasis on the role of discourse and logical argumentation in the communication
process. It’s called the dialectic method: which is simply put that logical and rational
discussion will help us resolve differences by finding out which viewpoint is true. Therefore
man’s ability to reason is paramount for a civilization to flourish and advance. Here we have,
in a nutshell, the purpose of communication, to express and critically weigh the value of ideas,
and eventually to discard or perfect them in correlation with their objective worth. As models
go, this one is obviously quite linear. Good communication is rational communication that
helps us to find ‘the truth’ in ideas.
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We can see why so many philosophers who were interested in natural science and finding
out how the world worked, were attracted to this school of thought. Later, Medieval monks
were also charmed by this classical idea of communication to reach the truth. It was in their
opinion a way for pre-Christian Greeks and Romans to see the greater truth of God. So even
though they were not Christians, the writings of Plato and such were copied by Christian
monks and have survived while so many books of their contemporaries haven’t. Usually we
only know they existed because Plato and such refer and react to them.

This second school of Greek communication science was called Rhetorica. Derived from the
Greek (rhḗtōr) which means "public speaker". Rhetorica taught the ability to perceive all
means of persuasion in any given scenario, according to Aristotle in one of his books on the
topic. So it was very much an applied science, where the practicality of theories decided their
worth.

The main purpose was not to find truth but to persuade someone, so essentially to make
something seem like the truth even if it wasn’t. Proponents of this school were also called
sophists, and were often attacked vehemently by natural philosophers like Socrates and
Plato, who above all else searched for the truth. Later, many sophist writing was purposely
not copied by Medieval monks for this same reason.

Despite the disapproval among natural philosophers, Rhetorica was extremely popular in the
Classical world. Not only in Greece but in Rome too the ability to win people over through
speeches was crucial for political or social advancement. Caesar, Marc Anthony, Octavian,
they were all trained in and sometimes wrote about the art of persuasion. Usually they had
studied the basics of Rhetorica in Greece itself. Luckily some books on Rhetorica did survive.
Most notably those by the Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Roman statesman Marcus
Cicero So what exactly did they teach? We’ll talk about some basic rhetorical theory in the
next section.

Rhetorical theory
In the Art of Rhetoric Aristotle somewhat bridged the gap between the sophist and dialectic
method. As a student of Plato he was well versed in the use of the dialectic method or rational
argumentation. But he did not share Plato’s dislike of Rhetorica and wrote an extensive
treatise on persuasive theory. In which rational arguments definitely played an important, but
not an exclusive part.
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Aristotle focuses on the sender aspect of communication. And he uses a simple model to
explain the different stages of sending a message. First the topic of the message is
determined. This is the invention stage of communication. Then the style of the message is
determined. Thirdly and finally the message will be delivered. A politician might have a topic
she wants to talk about. She will then choose her words carefully, what tone should she use?
And thirdly choose the manner of delivery, she might choose to publish a pamphlet or give a
speech. Let’s say she gives a speech. Now comes the stage of delivery: she will use her
stage performance, her gestures and intonation, to strengthen her message.

Successful communication, which leads to persuasion, has three building blocks:

Logos, Pathos and Ethos.

Logos is the use of reason. Basically it resembles what Socrates and Plato taught: rational
arguments based on facts and logic. Our politician for instance might use some statistics to
back her argument.

Ethos is the ‘character’ or more precise the perceived trustworthiness, likeability and
intelligence of the sender. Many persuasive arguments focus on personal traits like this. Our
politician might try to convince us that we should listen to her because she is the expert on
this field. Without rational backing, this is a so-called authority argument. Or she will tell her
audience ‘when have I ever lied to you?’ thereby making it a trust issue and trying to increase
her own credibility. Or she will try to attack the trustworthiness of her opponents. Or try to gain
sympathy by hugging a child in front of an audience. This has little to do with rational
persuasion but might be very effective nevertheless.

Under pathos fall all other emotional appeals, which try to make the audience feel something.
For instance by appealing to fears, hopes, likes, dislikes or sense of humor. Aristotle tells us
to do this by using stories, examples and exaggeration.

Next to Aristotle the most noteworthy classical scholar whose writings survived the ages was
the Roman lawyer, senator, governor and Consul Marcus Tullius Cicero. Cicero whose
speeches and treatises have been studied throughout the ages by students of history and
communication. The same speeches that gained him so much power in the Roman Republic
and allies like Octavian, who later became the first Emperor of Rome. Also gained him
dangerous enemies, like the general Marc Anthony. In the end it was this enmity that caused

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his decapitation during the Roman. His powers of communication had been such a thorn in
his enemies’ eyes, that killing him wasn’t enough. When his head was displayed in Rome,
they stuck needles in his tongue to punish it for all the harm it had done.

You can pick up recent translations of Cicero’s books, like De Inventione (on the invention
stage of communication), De Oratore, (about the delivery), or the popular handbook Rhetorica
ad Herennium in most book shops today. And recognize that even though its written two
millennia ago, most of the theories are still applicable today. An anecdote about Cicero for
instance tells us that he would sometimes purposely drop his papers while walking to the
speech area. His audience then would feel sympathy because that this “accident” could also
happen to them. He seemed more human and fallible and therefore likeable to them.

So rhetorical theory combined larger Meta models on communication and communication

goals with ‘smaller’ practical tips on how to achieve these goals, how to seem right, or
believable, nice, intelligent et cetera. In short, there was a lively academic and widely
practiced communication science in the classical world. As years went by and the Roman
Empire collapsed in to the dark Middle Ages these ideas all but disappeared into the cellars
of monasteries, and libraries of Eastern scholars. If they survived at all.

The Dark Ages of Communication Science

In the Middles Ages the importance of public speaking grew less. The political system was
completely different of course so citizens were basically left out of the political decision making
process. They couldn’t vote and held little political power, beyond the power to rebel. But
seeing that the ruler elite were practiced warriors who wielded deadly weaponry and
impressive armour, both extremely expensive, even this was usually not much of a choice.
Although Rhetorica was taught in Medieval universities to a small elite, it had by no means
the importance of classical times.

Not only was there little to no communication science in the Dark Ages, the communication
landscape had also changed drastically since Roman times.

Alfabecy numbers had dropped rapidly since the decline of Rome. Almost none could write
or read with perhaps some exceptions among the ruler and religious elite. But even among
them evidence suggests readership was not high and probably very limited to those of very
high stations or devoted to academic life in a monastery. It makes sense that written media
became less and less widespread. Important mass communication channels were instead
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oral or figurative in nature. Town criers, architecture, statues and (religious) art were still used
to reach a large audience. Coins were other examples of visual media that communicated
something, typically who was in charge at a certain time. The channels of choice were well
suited for communicating who was in power and how citizens should behave. As we know
the Church played an important part in this and worked hand in hand with worldly leaders to
get this message through. Often there were agreements between rulers and clergymen that
at the start or end of the Sunday mass more worldly news on taxes, wars and other things
citizens should know, were communicated to the assembled people. Since most people went
to church, this was for centuries a very effective method to get a message out amongst the
people if the need arose. Other media also focused on visual and oral communication: plays
and theatre still existed but theatres did not hold the audiences of thousand as they did in
Classical times. Although written media had almost disappeared as a means of mass
communication, printed pamphlets with etchings or other figurative depictions were
sometimes used. In this pamphlet people were informed with use of visual representation.

Some people might think: they printed pamphlets? Haven’t we learned that the printing press
was invented in the fifteenth century by Johannes Gutenberg? Well, actually the printing press
already existed long before this time. However, it was quite expensive to print something
because basically every page had to be carved out in wood, stone or metal. Because the
potential audience that was able to read (and pay! was small, it was usually simply not worth
it. So what was this printing innovation of Gutenberg that everyone always puts so much
emphasis on? It was actually the very cunning introduction of the cliché, a small letter that
could be put in a box to make words and sentences. When the printing was done, the box
was emptied and new words and pages could be formed. This innovation made it much
quicker and cheaper to print texts and is therefore rightly credited as a turning point in
European history and a huge catalyst for the Renaissance. Of course this technical revolution
would probably never have had a huge impact if there hadn’t been an audience to read and
buy books at the same time, which was the result of several long and complicated historical
trends towards a higher alfabecy level and the rise of a potential audience with buying power.
Not coincidentally while the mass communication landscape started to flourish again with the
rise of print media, scholars again started to discuss the topic of communication on a Meta
level. So started the Renaissance, not only of art, science and literature, but also of our
scientific discipline.

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A Renaissance of our field

It was among other things the rediscovery of classical texts by Aristotle and Cicero that started
a renewed interest in philosophy, art and the natural and social sciences. Starting in 14th
century Florence, the Renaissance quickly spread out to the rest of Europe, paving the way
for the Early Modern time. This was to a large degree thanks to the new printing possibilities
that Gutenberg’s invention made possible. Also, the role of Eastern scholars should not be
overlooked. In 265 the Roman Empire had been split in a Western and Eastern half. When
the Western Roman Empire fell in the fifth century its traditions and sciences lived on in the
Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium. In the Dark Ages of Western Europe, Byzantine
scholars still kept extensive libraries of classical literature and continued studying the science
of Rhetorica (although its importance had declined since advancement in the empire was
much less dependent on public speaking and more on connections and status).

Why is this relevant for the Renaissance and subsequent Early Modern times? Well, in the
fourteenth century Byzantine power was crushed by the Ottoman Empire. The fall of its capital
Constantinople in 1453 led to a huge exodus of scholars and artists from the Empire into
Western Europe, feeding the growing intellectual Renaissance with their work, thoughts and
books.

At the same time there was in many countries a shift of power. Religiously there was turmoil
in Europe because of new ideas that led to The Reformation and rise of several new religions.
Most successful was of course the Protestant Church. The Roman Catholic Church lost its
religious monopoly and now had to compete for the faith of the European people. Closely
linked to this was a more worldly power struggle. Democratic ideas from antiquity again
gained wide interest. The introduction of effective weapons like the crossbow, the longbow
and the first fire arms gave the relatively untrained citizenry more military power to enforce
their claims for more political power. That any peasant could now kill a knight with a well-
placed crossbow bolt was a lesson that wasn’t learned quickly by the ruler elite. But after
several successful uprisings and military coups, the idea that it was practical to win the favor
of the masses, grudgingly became more accepted among the continent’s religious and worldly
rulers.

It’s not surprising then, that next to scientific thought, arts and literature, also the printing
industry boomed as this graph clearly shows. Gutenberg’s innovation can be dated in the
1430’s and at the end of the fifteenth century the printing industry had already spread through
Europe and produced more than twenty million copies. A century later this number increased

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to 200 million. Another century later one billion books were produced. We’ll take a closer look
at this printing revolution and its importance for thought on communication in the next section
of our MOOC.

The printing press as an agent of change

In the previous section we discussed the printing revolution. Shortly after the innovations by
Gutenberg, millions and later billions of printed copies spread throughout Europe.
Not only books rolled of the presses. Especially short books and leaflets, collectively named
pamphlets, were printed to entertain, persuade and inform readers. From the sixteenth
century these pamphlets were in many ways the new mass medium, giving information and
opinion on current affairs, spreading the news and commentary on that news throughout
Europe. It was through pamphlets that many religious and political debates were fought out.
It was pamphlets that informed multitudes about great military victories or defeats, about the
gossip that surrounded the European royal houses. Pamphlets had many styles. They could
be serious or very funny. They were written for the learned and those who could hardly read,
and everyone in between.

In sixteenth century Venice the first newspaper was published, and quickly after this also
German, Dutch and English newspapers appeared. But these newspapers didn’t reach a
mass audience, as they remained for a long time a medium for the elite, with a small
readership and focus on foreign political news.

Pamphlets however discussed foremost domestic and even local news. Readership could be
quite high and there is a lot of evidence that suggests that they were read out loud in market
places and in taverns for people who couldn’t read. Illustrations and attention gaining covers
further added to their popular appeal.

This graph shows that, in the Dutch Republic, every newsworthy event or crisis was
accompanied by hundreds of pamphlets. The first peaks are important moments in the Eighty-
Years War (1568-1648) in which the Dutch won their independence from Spain.
Hundreds of pamphlets were published when the Republic was attacked by France, Münster
and Cologne at the same time in 1672. A hateful pamphlet-campaign put the blame at the
feet of two leading politicians, which led to their deaths by a public lynching. i Historical
evidence suggests that political enemies of these politicians were behind the smear campaign
that led to their deaths.

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Examples like these showed contemporary scholars the powers of mass communication. It
clearly paid off to heed public opinion and to be able to use mass media like the influential
pamphlet press. Scholars like Niccolo Machiavelli <1469-1527> approached the topic of mass
communication from this political power angle, using elements from antiquity and combining
these with new ideas. This approach was the starting point of a truly modern communication
science. We’ll look at how that evolved in the next and final section of this week.

Towards a modern communication science

We have strolled with huge steps through the history of communication science starting in the
sixth century BC, through Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and into Early Modern
times. The nineteenth century is often seen as the starting point of modern times and
characterized by industrialization, the rise of nationalism, birth of political parties, birth of
socialism and subsequent emancipation of the masses. The rise of the media as a social-
political and financial power is closely connected to this. The media were able to influence,
make people rich and form or break communities. Let’s briefly go over nineteenth century
thought on this.

First of all we should recognize that despite the power and influence of mass media in former
times, all of this increased substantially in the nineteenth century. Since much more people
were able to read and write, the potential audience for print media grew enormously. At the
same time new print technologies and methods for making papers made it easier and cheaper
to produce books, pamphlets, magazines and newspapers. It became more profitable to cater
to the tastes of a mass audience and therefore literature specifically designed for popular
tastes was booming. Special magazines for women, books for children, newspapers for
members of a political party, pamphlets aiming at villagers in one specific village: it was all
becoming part of daily reality. Most noticeably was the transition from pamphlets as the
primary print medium for news and debate to newspapers. Although they had existed for a
long time, it was only in the nineteenth century that newspapers started to cater to a popular
audience, hence becoming a true mass medium. The new newspaper followed the journalistic
format set out by press barons like William Stead, Joseph Pulitzer and Randolph Hearst in
which the news had to be interesting and attention gaining. New genres like the reportage,
cartoon, illustration and later the photo, the column, featured article and interview were quickly
adopted throughout the world. Financing of the paper also changes: the old newspaper was
often dependent on government subsidies, for which they promised to publish
announcements. The new newspaper wanted a large audience since they got their money
form sales and advertisements revenue. It was less dependent and therefore often critical of

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the government and did its best to find entertain, opinionate and inform on all matters, not
only political. Crime, agriculture, sports, theater, music, household appliances, they were now
all part of the weekly – and when the appearance rate increased - daily news.

Because of these changes, more media, new audience groups and new technologies that
made printing easier and cheaper, the media landscape became an economic force to reckon
with. Also politically the importance of mass communication increased and the attitude of
politicians changed.

In the previous section I explained that scholars started to argue for rulers to be more attentive
to public opinion and the power of mass communication. At first the idea behind this was
purely pragmatic. Later, it was connected to the enlightened democratic ideal that
governments are for the people, and therefore should listen to the people. New political
theories proposed that the government were in some sense representatives of the people.
Mass media were not only a way to influence those people, but also a reflection of public
opinion, and a check on the misuse of power by the government.

It’s important to note that scholarly thought had now evolved to the point that all the different
channels of mass communication were now collectively labeled as being part of one political
institute. In the nineteenth century this institute began to be referred to as ‘The Fourth Estate’.
A term coined by Edmund Burke <1729-1797>. Media as ‘The Fourth Estate’ are instrumental
for any nation, because they function firstly as a channel between government and people,
secondly as a barometer of public opinion, and thirdly as a check on the use of power by
rulers.

The lesson that it paid to listen to your citizens was driven home quite dramatically with the
French Revolution in 1789 when the masses rose and executed king Louis XVI and many
nobles. We can only imagine the shock that went through Europe as this set a dangerous
precedent. We’ll not go in to the historical ramifications of the French Revolution. It’s enough
to note that the subsequent nineteenth century saw many concessions toward democratic
ideals in most European countries. The attitude toward mass communication changed as
well. The idea grew that media had a political power to be either feared or harnessed. Before
the nineteenth century, legislation in many countries had been aimed at controlling the media
landscape, punishing authors that criticized the government, banning pamphlets, books or
newspapers that were deemed politically or religiously subversive. However, these measures
proved unsuccessful as forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest and authors were able to move

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and get their work printed in other countries relatively easy. The Dutch Republic for example
was for many a place where basically everything could be published, as long as you kept
friendly towards the city’s government of course.

In the nineteenth century most countries changed their stance towards media governance.
They actually adopted ‘The Fourth Estate’ principle in their legislation when they explicitly
promised freedom of the press in their constitutions. Journalists at the same time gained
higher status, receiving for instance special clearance to be at government meetings.
Politicians started to make more and more use of the powers of the Fourth Estate instead of
trying to suppress it. Political campaigns were now becoming media scripted events.
Important politicians also had close ties with newspapers. Often as editor-in-chief or financial
backer.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the mass media were widely acknowledged as an
economically, politically and socially powerful institute. Scholarly thought recognized mass
communication as an integral part of our society. The stage was set for the further
development of scientific thought on communication in the twentieth century. We’ll talk about
that next week. I hope to see you then.

2. Technical Approaches to Communication Science

The Linear Effect-Oriented Approach

Introduction
Welcome in week 3 of our MOOC Introduction to Communication Science. Hopefully you
enjoyed the classes of last week and learned a bit more about the history of communication
science and the context in which it developed. It was of course a history in a nutshell, so don’t
forget to check out ‘the little box of nuance’ and the suggestions for further reading. Have you
added to the lively discussions developing on our forum? As you might remember from our
first class, I have divided the main theories in our field in three broad approaches, The first
approach is the linear transmission perspective that focuses so much on effects of
communication, this was for a long time, and perhaps to some extent still is, the dominant
approach in our field. A perspective that is largely concerned with the presumed effects of
mass (mediated) communication, or in other words, the power of the media.

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I’ll talk about this type of theories and how they developed in the twentieth century this week.
The second approach was the processing and signification approach, which will be the topic
for next week. After that, we’ll discuss the third approach that focuses on how we use
communication to construct our social and cultural reality.

But for now, we’ll focus on linear effect oriented theories and the developing ideas on the
power of the media. We left off last week at the end of the nineteenth century, start of the
twentieth century when scholarly thought had now accepted the idea that the media were a
political, economic and social force to be reckoned with. The eighteenth and nineteenth
century had been riddled with practical examples of their persuasive powers. People were
surrounded by a rich media landscape. Different channels, most noticeably print media like
pamphlets, newspapers and magazines clamoured for attention. New audience groups had
been discovered and quickly targeted. The political parties that were born in the nineteenth
century already had faithful followers at the turn of the century. Their party media could count
on a returning audience. These political press served as signposts, telling their voters the
viewpoints of the party and engaging other parties in lively media debates. Freedom of the
press was seen by politicians as necessary for the media to fulfil its purpose as a fourth estate,
a political institute and check on government power, and therefore press freedom was
adopted in many constitutions all over the world.

It’s not surprising that economists, political scientists and sociologists respected the power of
and sometimes voiced an opinion on mass communication. But it was not yet a full-fledged
scientific perspective. This would soon change.

The power of propaganda and the all-powerful media paradigm

After several years of rising political tensions, World War I erupted in the year 1914. I have to
be careful not to make this into a history class, but it’s important for us to realize the impact
of this war on our topic.

First of all that the war was brewing was quite apparent for all in the Western World.
Newspapers, magazines gave a lot of attention to the political and military manoeuvring on
the European continent. In short, some in the media landscape were actually campaigning
for an aggressive stance and seemed to be looking forward to a coming conflict. Perhaps
under the misconception that it would be a short and relatively clean skirmish that would
restore the preferred balance of power. In reality, populations all over the world were
bombarded with patriotic messages and a call to arms. Of course this wasn’t the only content
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in the media landscape, but several years later, scientists that studied what had happened,
noticed the two correlating variables: 1) media that were campaigning for war and patriotism
and 2) a motivated, patriotic population, set for war and many men volunteering to be a soldier
in one of the bloodiest wars the continent had seen.

When the war started, all sides made use of massive propaganda campaigns. Another
important concept from our field, what is propaganda? It’s often referred to as ‘one-sided’,
‘biased’ and ‘unobjective’ communication. Jowett and O’Donnel (1999:6) define propaganda
as ‘the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct
behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist’. The
world had in 1916 never seen such a huge ‘push’ to influence so many at the same time with
use of mediated communication. The political and military leaders had perhaps learned their
lessons from the ancient Greeks and Romans. They too wielded the sword of communication
as if it was just one other weapon in their arsenal, piercing the mind with its persuasive
message.

Again, scholars who studied events directly after the WOI noticed a correlation between 1) an
intensive propaganda attempt and 2) all kinds of effects that were assumed to be the effect
of this propaganda. It was seen as a reason why soldiers marched cheerfully into war. Why
the home front showed such a uniform support and respect for their military. Why enemy
soldiers decided to defect in mass, to be imprisoned in military camps for the remainder of
the war.

The importance of World War I on communication theory is, to put it simple: it created a huge
belief in the power of mass communication through the media. We call this the all-powerful
media paradigm.

Needles, bullets and Martians

The correlation between presumed cause and effect during World War I had massively
increased the belief in the power of the media. It was seen by many as an immensely powerful
tool, either for good or ill. Therefore, not only scientists but governments too wanted to
understand how persuasion through mass communication worked. Scientists all over the
world received funding to further study these phenomena, which of course fuelled research
in to this area. Persuasion through mass communication was a hot topic, both as a danger
and as a potential solution for many problems. Economists were looking for ways to use the
media to turn the financial crisis of the twenties and thirties. Sociologists thought that the
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media could be used to strengthen or weaken role patterns, and they used these ideas to
study the emancipation of women for instance.

All of these scientists basically studied the question: how could one guard against the power
of the media, and how you could harness its potential for your own benefit? Underlying is of
course the premise the media have a huge effect on the behaviour of people.

Also commercially the all-powerful media paradigm thrived. The advertising industry boomed.
Also, market research agencies started to study who read or listened to which medium. Media
organizations needed this info to sell more ads for better prices. These commercial market
researchers further added to existing knowledge on the media landscape and its audiences.
They also standardized techniques to conduct audience research, for instance by large-scale
surveys which were then statistically analysed via a fixed format and repeated by others all
over the world. The market research industry quickly grew and maintained its own standards
on high quality research. Many students who studied these issues in the university went on
to work in one of the growing research firms, using their theories and methods in a more
practical setting, but with the same dominant attitude prevailing that media have a potential
for great effects on the behaviour of their audiences.

We call the theory that mass media have a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its
audiences the hyperdermic needle theory. Basically the sender ‘injects’ the message into the
audience with use of the media. The audience is seen as passive and more or less unable to
resist and immediately affected. It should be noted that effects, in this perspective, are seen
as:
- short term
- immediate
- focused on change rather than reinforcement, and finally
-uniform among the audience, which means that audience factors are not really important

Another word for this theory is the ‘magic bullet’ theory, another cool name for basically the
same metaphor: a sender ‘fires’ his message into the brain of a receiver with use of mediated
communication.

Scholars found many examples of the presumed power of mass communication and went
forth to study these systematically. The most famous example is perhaps that of the Martian
Invasion of 1938, when multitudes panicked because of a radio show in which Mars attacked

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the earth. We’ll discuss this example in the next section of our MOOC, first from the
perspective of the all-powerful media, then from a different angle.

Powerful media put to the test

In New York, October 1938, CBS aired a radio drama about a Martian Invasion. Director
Orson Wells had adapted H.G. Wells’s famous book War of the Worlds for the radio. Most of
the show consists of news reports on the on-going Martian attack. It starts slowly with an
interview with a leading astronomer. Nothing seems very wrong yet, as the interview is
followed by a weather report and performance of an orchestra for the listeners home. While
the story progresses the reports become more frantic and describe several losing battles of
the human army.

This example is often used to illustrate the power of mediated communication since the
broadcast reputedly led to mass panic. Newspapers report that thousands ran scared into the
streets, fires broke out and we get the idea that complete pandemonium ensued. This would
of course indicate exactly what the magic bullet theory predicts: immediate, short term,
uniform effects among the masses.

However, scientists that studied this incident, most notably Paul Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzog,
actually found evidence that suggested a more nuanced picture. First of all, many people had
tuned in long after the show started, thereby missing toe introduction that explained it was a
show. More importantly, they found that contextual factors had influenced the collective
reaction. It was 1938 and news media had informed their audiences on the potential of an
upcoming war with Germany. So people were forewarned that a war might happen. Research
showed that some who panicked actually missed the part about the Martians and assumed it
was a German invasion that took place.

Another important finding was that newspapers had probably exaggerated the ‘widespread
panic’ that followed the broadcast. Reality was perhaps less sensational: yes hundreds of
thousands were frightened to some degree, but in reality most of them had not acted on their
fear, no evidence of hysterical screaming masses in the streets, no suicides by people who
wanted to stay out of the hands of the Martians.

Later Lazarsfeld again criticized the magic bullet theory, this time together with Berelson and
Gaudet when they disproved the hypothesis that voters were persuaded to vote for Roosevelt
because of his extensive campaign.
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These studies are examples of a line of questioning in to the all-powerful media paradigm by
scholars. They were systematically testing the magic bullet hypothesis and had been unable
to reproduce the presumed effects in an experimental setting. Also scientists found that often
in cases of presumed huge effects in real life scenarios, like the Martian Scare of 1938, there
were many other variables to take into consideration, besides media influence. Because
these critical notions were the result of a long list of scientific studies. We call this paradigm,
the powerful media paradigm put to the test.

Minimal effects
I just explained that the belief in the all-powerful media had fuelled academic research into
the topic of mass communication. Although many anecdotes, like the Martian Attack of 1938,
seemed to indicate great effects, further scientific exploration actually failed to prove this
hypothesis. Many researchers now argued that the effects of mass communications had been
overestimated. Also the idea of a passive audience that is either shot or injected was also
rejected.

World War I and later World War II propaganda was again looked at in this light and scholars,
like the influential psychologist Carl Hovland, found that audience members were often not
passive at all but quite able to select messages and block persuasive attempts. Especially
when they were aware aforehand that there was going to be a persuasion attempt (this is the
so called inoculation theory, the core premise of which is basically that a prepared audience
is better able to resist persuasion). Also they found that it was often difficult to prove the power
of media in reality because there are too many variables in real life to reliably ascertain the
effect of one specific variable like media influence.

When Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet studied the effects of the Roosevelt presidential
campaign of 1940, they found that people were not swayed by the campaign efforts. There
was some influence but this had more to do with reinforcement of a position someone already
had than with change. Another element of the magic bullet theory was debunked by this. Also
the researchers found that people were in fact influenced quite a lot, not by the media but by
so called opinion leaders. Opinion leaders are those who influence and inform the people
around them. Typically opinion leaders expose themselves to media on order to be informed
and reinforce their standpoints with arguments.

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A so called two step flow model was proposed where people are influenced by opinion
leaders. The media use of these opinion leaders was of course very different than the old
powerful media model would suggest. They actively sought out media they wanted to use,
made selections based on their own opinions, wants and needs. So basically they are quite
powerful and not easily manipulated at all.

The powerful media paradigm was discarded and scholars like Lazarsfeld proposed a
‘minimal effects’ theory instead. Media are only one of many variables in a situation, and often
not the most influential one by far. People are more likely to be persuaded through social
means and therefore media use and influence should be studied from this perspective. Not
viewing the audience as uniform and passive but in fact taking into consideration audience
factors, seeing that effects can differ from person to person and group to group.

This approach can be characterized by a famous quote from Berelson "Some kinds of
communication, on some kinds of issues, brought to the attention of some kinds of people,
under some kinds of conditions, have some kinds of effects." (1949)

Although the minimal effects paradigm was becoming more popular, two things happened
that sparked a new popular belief in the powerful media idea. Firstly we gradually learned
more and more about the Holocaust. The world needed theories that explained how this could
have happened and why so many had kept silent during the reign of Hitler. Secondly a new
mass medium quickly rose to prominence, drastically changing the media landscape and
people’s daily lives. Television.

Powerful Media Rediscovered

While scientists all over were adhering to the minimal affects hypothesis, a different contrary
trend led to a so-called rediscovery of the powerful media paradigm. One important reason
for this were the many presumed effects of communication during the Second World War.
Not only historians but sociologists too pointed at the concerted propaganda efforts of both
the Allied and Axis forces. Specifically the situation in Nazi Germany that had caused so many
to agree with and later not object to Hitler’s policies was an important theme for study. This
new paradigm that formed, the Powerful Media Rediscovered was slightly more nuanced then
the older Powerful Media paradigm. Scientists had learned from the studies of Lazarsfeld and
Hovland and such that direct, immediate and uniform effects were difficult to prove. But ever
since World War II there was a growing body of scientific work forming that suggested strong

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long term, indirect and personal effects. New theories on powerful media were more nuanced
than the older ones, and saw the effects more in terms of reinforcement than actual change.

Not only scientists objected to the minimal effect theory: popular belief in the Powerful Media
Paradigm remained strong, and only grew after the war. Many people working in
advertisement, political campaigning or in the media could not come to terms with the minimal
effects thesis and added anecdotal evidence that further supported the idea of a powerful
media. World War II propaganda had in the popular eye been extremely influential (even
though scientists were still arguing this) because it had helped create a huge social support
for the war effort.

The idea that the media had failed pre-war Germany was also apparent. Why hadn’t the
Fourth Estate stopped to rise of Hitler? What was the use of a check on government power if
it didn’t stop something like this from happening? These and other instances (were media
owners misused their powers for instance) led to a Commission on Freedom of the Press to
investigate the democratic role of the media. In 1947 they published their report, which is still
the basis for most modern thought on this, and concluded that yes, like the fourth estate
model the press is crucial for a healthy political system, because they serve as a platform for
opinions of the people and serve as a check on government power. However, unlike the
Fourth Estate model, which included that the media should be free of any constrictions, the
Commission proposed a) that in order for the media to serve the people, there should be
guidelines that govern media behaviour. b) That the basis of these guidelines should be a
feeling of social responsibility. This is why this model is called the social responsibility model.
c) The Commission stated that every political institute needs check and balances, therefore
also the media can’t be completely without restrictions. There is room for government
interference in extreme cases. d) However, it is preferable to avoid extreme measures,
therefore the media should govern themselves through a system of a professional codes of
ethics, upheld by a self-imposed regulatory body.

It is this Social Responsibility Model that is in fact dominant today. Every country has of course
its own variation, but usually there is some system were media organizations adhere to the
rules set out by a committee made up of media professionals. They don’t hold any official
legislative power but media organizations agree that this court can fine them and such
whenever the professional code is breached.

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The introduction all over the world of this new system of media governance clearly shows that
(despite the fact that scientifically the issue was under debate) the powerful media idea was
still widespread. This belief further increased with the rise of television.

A revolution in the media landscape: the rise of television

Earlier I pointed toward World War II as a reason for the popular and scientific reluctance to
accept a minimal effect conclusion. A second reason was the arrival of television in the 1950s
and 1960s as a new medium with even more power of attraction than its predecessors. The
effects of television were presumed huge, but not in the old ‘magic bullet’ way. Not so much
direct, short term and uniform, but:
a) Long term, with repeated exposure. One new theory called cultivation proposed that after
repeated long term exposure audiences tend to shift towards the dominant media viewpoints
on matters.
b) Indirect effects, much more attention was given now to indirect effects like associated
effects. For instance, when we see a commercial of a muscular man eating ice cream we
might not run into the shop to immediately buy an ice-cream, but perhaps after several
commercials like this, we will associate this particular brand with a healthy appearance,
thereby increasing the likelihood that we’ll prefer this brand. These types of effects are also
typically longer lasting that the bullet and needle effects.
c) Personal effects. Now it was appreciated that one audience member is not the same as
the other. Effects therefore are pluriform and have to be studied in context. A violent cartoon
might have a completely different effect on a child that watches it alone than on a child that
watches it with siblings or parents.
d) Reinforcement rather than change. Studies increasingly indicate that reinforcement effects
are quite strong, people remember and process content selectively, based on their own
knowledge and predispositions. Therefore things that connect with their preferred reality will
sooner be processed. A topic that we’ll discuss more in length in the next weeks by the way.

Television was in so many ways a new platform: it captivated its audience, created new worlds
within a media reality. Television shows had a huge impact. Unlike the paper, people watched
TV together, so in many ways it was a social medium as well. It was a topic for discussion in
everyday life. You could quickly isolate yourself if you weren’t aware of new programs and
shows on television. Hypermediality, when people reference media content, became one way
of opening yourself up or closing yourself of to a group. We can imagine the new co-worker
who is the only one who hasn’t seen a new series on TV. He’ll probably feel as though he’s
less part of the group now. And probably, to some extent, this is true. Television became a
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preferred way to spend time, alone or together, shows and series were a way to identify
yourself, as an audience member or even a fan of that particular program.
Social Learning, when people learn skills or how to behave in situations in a social setting,
proved to be quite effective through television. Even though I have never been in a fire, I have
some idea of what to do and avoid because of many movies and series. If these ideas are
correct of course remains to be seen, but I do have some inkling based on media exposure.
Just like I think I know what to expect in a courtroom, space shuttle or dinosaur attack. Not
because of direct experience, but through mediated experience.

Other scholars established Socialization effects or television. Socialization is when we learn

norms and values in a social way. Just like we learn from our parents, family and friends, we
learn from television as well.

All of these effects were probably not unique for television compared to other media, but they
were very apparent in television.

So was probably the rise of television more than anything that caused a final paradigm, a
compromise between minimal and powerful effects. This is the dominant paradigm of today,
that of negotiated media effects.

Negotiated media effects

The final paradigm I want to discuss with you this week is a compromise between the minimal
effects and powerful media perspectives. Combining elements of both models the negotiated
media effects model states that media and communication in general (not only mass, the
focus is broader than that) have a potential for great power.
Effects can be short term, direct, immediate, after one shot exposure et cetera. However,
more often, strong and enduring effects are based on long term, repeated exposure where
the content reinforces rather than changes the audience’s beliefs.

This perspective:
- combines the insights of political en economical scholars with those of psychologists,
sociologists and even cultural anthropologists
- looks at human development and sees persuasion as something continuous. Something
that is not to be avoided, because we need it to function. It can’t be avoided without losing
that which connects us with others. Many studies with children were now done, to find out
more about the role of communication during crucial development phases. Also, many
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societal problems, like crime, prejudice, aggressive and anti-social behaviour were now linked
to communication, either as a cause or a possible solution (often both).
- Sometimes tries to back qualitative statements with quantitative data, thereby aiming to
measure the subjective.
- Looks at all kinds of effects. Agenda setting for instance is a theory that proposes that the
media don’t tell us what to think, but what to think about. The media agenda therefore
influences the public agenda, if the marriage of some celebrity is much discussed in the news
it will probably feature higher on the public perception as well. The media tell us which items
are important, where important things happen and why. The amount of attention given to
environmental pollution by the media causes a higher percentage of people thinking about
this subject and a higher percentage of people evaluating environmental pollution as a
serious/important problem.

A second theory is framing. Frames define problems, shape possible solutions and basically
help a person deconstruct a message in a particular way. In these photos the same news
event, the tearing down of Saddam Hussein’s Statue, is depicted. The frame is however quite
different, thereby probably changing how we deconstruct the message.

We can see that these types of theories no longer focus on the intention of the sender but
rather on message construction and deconstruction. So no longer the linear effect oriented
approach but a focus on the construction and the reception of a message. On processing and
signification.

We are going to continue with that topic, next week. I hope to see you then!

The Reception and Signification Perspective

An introduction to the reception and signification perspective

Welcome back to Introduction to Communication Science. This is week 4 of our course. So
far we have talked about the history of our field (in week 2) and last week we discussed the
linear effect-oriented approach. I’m glad to see the course is inspiring many discussions on
our forum. I’m also grateful for your many remarks about the course and suggestions for
further reading. You’ll see that I have frequently added your suggestions to our Little Box of
Nuance section. So thanks for your help improving this course, this is what a MOOC is all
about!

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As you know by now I’m using a very broad distinction into three schools of thought to discuss
our field. I’ve said before that these categories are by no means fixed, but I find them useful
nonetheless. First the linear transmission perspective; then a new focus on reception and
signification; and at roughly the same time a focus on social and cultural effects of
communication.

The topic for this week is the second approach: the reception and signification perspective
(or perhaps I should say perspectives, because there is a distinction here that I will cover
later). Next week we’ll talk about communication as a social and cultural force.
I will use week 6 to answer questions you might have. Post your questions on our forum. I’ll
make a selection of recurring themes and further explain some of the more complicated
theories and concepts that we discussed. Week 6 is all about class interaction, so let me
know which topics you want to cover in week 6.

Week 7 is very exciting because it is our exam week! You need to do the self-evaluation tests
each week and pass the exam to complete this course and get a certificate of
accomplishment.

In week 8 we’ll discuss the exam and look back at our MOOC. It’s a behind the scene look on
how it was made, why it was made and for who it was made. I would also love to say
something about who you are, what your background is and why you enrolled in this course.
There is already a survey in place to get this information. It would be great if you participate.

Okay, back to the topic at hand. Last week we started with the linear perspective. I explained
how the First World War fuelled research into our field and led to a belief in direct and uniform
effects. The audience was seen as passive and defenceless against mass communication as
a hypodermic needle or magic bullet. Later this belief in the power of the media became more
nuanced. When scientific studies failed to prove the all-powerful media hypothesis, this led to
the more sceptical minimal effects hypothesis. But World War Two and the rise of television
clearly showed that mass communication indeed could have huge effects under some
circumstances. It was now appreciated that effects were not always direct, uniform and short
term but quite often non-immediate, long term, indirect and different from person to person.
Eventually the negotiated effects paradigm balanced a belief in powerful effects with the
notion that the audience was actually capable of selecting and blocking messages and using
them for their own ends. This line of thought was also very apparent in the reception and

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signification approach that had gradually developed since the sixties. We'll further discuss
this approach this week.

Message construction
I explained in our first class that in the nineteen sixties communication scientists started to
pay more attention to message construction and deconstruction under the influence of
semiotics and literature studies. From literary theory we adopted the idea that everything that
communicates something is a ‘text’ that can be ‘read’.

The most influential model from semiotics was perhaps this nineteenth century model by
Ferdinand de Saussure in which he explained that a sign was made up of two things. 1) A
signifier, which is the form of the sign and 2) the concept it represents, the signified.

This word: ‘love’ is a set of black lines to a white background in this case on your computer
screen. That’s the signifier. The signified is the concept of love.

If we take a traffic light. The signifier is a red light hanging over the road. The signified is the
idea that you have to stop.

But, the process of giving meaning to this sign, in other words: the signification, is not the
same for everyone. Although it’s quite clear for most people that they have to stop for a red
light, for Judith it also means that she will arrive late at her job interview. She will react very
differently to the red light than Megan, who was not in a hurry at all.
Semiotics tells us that there are two levels of signification: denotation and connotation.
Denotation is the first order of signification, the explicit meaning of a sign (in this case a red
light). Connotation is the second level of signification, it is what the denotation represents, all
associated meanings (in this case it means stopping, but is also results in anger and
frustration for Judith because she might be late at her interview).

We can easily imagine different people reacting very differently to this sign, adding their own
unique background to the signification process. So imbedded in this model is the idea of
polysemic messages. Messages with a different meaning for different people. Some signs
have a widely shared connotation. On a denotative level it’s a black little drawing against a
white background. On a conative level most people will recognize this as the representation
for the ladies room. Of course on a very personal level the connotation will still vary depending
on how desperate someone needs to use the toilet!
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The Jacobson model from 1960 is a clear example of how these ideas were adopted by
communication scientists. It combined the well-known transmission perspective (sender,
message and receiver) with several of the elements we just discussed (but with a different
name): Each message, according to the Jacobson model, refers to something outside of the
message: a context. A red traffic light refers to the concept of stopping. A love letter refers to
the concept of ‘love’.

Another new element was the explicit mention of the ‘code’ of a message, which is the form
that a message takes (in semiotics the ‘signifier’). So in our two examples the codes are a
red light and a letter consisting of words written in a specific language. This latter code
requires a complicated skillset. One has to be able to read but also know the specific language
in which it was written. Then, when the explicit meaning was read, the individual audience
member can add his or her own associations to the signification process. Creating a unique
outcome on a receiver level.

Active audiences
The idea that message deconstruction requires certain skills, and varies from person to
person depending on their background, knowledge and predispositions certainly supposes a
lot of audience activity. Traditionally the audience was seen as massive, uniform and passive.
Unable to select or block messages. Therefore media organizations and advertisers,
whenever they commissioned an audience study, were mostly interested in how many people
were exposed to a message. They basically wanted to know their so called ‘reach’ since the
number of people you reach is an important indicator of the economical worth of advertising
space. Advertisers paid more for a spot in media with a high reach.

But, when gradually the idea of the powerful audience came into sway, reach became a more
complicated concept. Instead of the simple definition ‘amount of people that are exposed to
a message’ Roger Clausse (1968) proposed the following hierarchy of reach. First the
‘message offered’ (Let’s say I’m doing a direct mail campaign. This level of reach would be
the amount of letters that I sent out), the second level is ‘message receivable’ (the amount of
people that have a mailbox and are therefore able to receive my letter), thirdly ‘message
received’ (this is the amount of people that actually received my letter. Please note that this
is the traditional reach definition). On a fourth level is ‘message registered’ (since we can
imagine many people will throw away this letter they didn’t ask for without reading). And fifthly,

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‘message internalized’ the highest level of audience activity, everyone who read the letter and
thought about it.

Commercially the highest level of audience activity, internalization, is obviously worth more
to advertisers and hence media organizations than merely the people who receive a
message. So not only scientists, but also market researchers, were very interested in
audience activity and the question how and why people select certain messages for
consumption. Why they choose to be part of an audience.

This was also something new, compared to the traditional passive audience paradigm, that
people chose to be an audience member, they made conscious decisions about which media
to use. And they did this to fulfil their media-related need, because they wanted to be
informed, be entertained, pass the time, belong to a group or any other reason. This idea of
an active audience that was aware of their media-associated needs was already studied in
the early 1940’s. In the sixties the theme was rediscovered and made explicit in the Uses and
Gratification theory. Many important scientists like Katz, Blumler and McQuail made use of
this theory and further explored the issue. They focused on the needs of audience members.
Primarily they tried to answer the question why people use certain media. This theory sees
people as actively seeking out the media that suit their needs best. If I want to laugh I’ll watch
a sitcom on TV. For an evening of safe suspense, you might pop in a DVD of some exciting
new detective series or read an exciting book or comic book. Everyone is aware of which
media serve their needs best. So the next person might not choose a book, but will reach the
same goal by using a computer game. If you want to know something about communication
science one person might read a book on the topic and the other will follow this MOOC. Or
you can do both of course, compare the two and start a discussion on our forum.

Selective processing
Uses and Gratification studies taught us that people were actively seeking out media to fulfil
their needs. It makes sense that when people are able to open themselves up to specific
content, they can also close themselves off to certain messages.

Closing oneself off to messages may be seen as a coping mechanism. Scientists who studied
the brain discovered that, since we are constantly bombarded with sensory input, in order to
make sense of the world around us, and not get overwhelmed, we are very adept in blocking
unnecessary input and on the other hand selecting and amplifying relevant data. Note that
these processes are usually subconscious, meaning that they also occur when we do not
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intend to filter out information. A simple example of this, in a crowded room our brain will filter
away background noise and conversations that we are not interested in, focusing on the
people we are talking to. Amplifying their voice and blocking other sounds. But if someone in
one of those other conversations would suddenly drop our name, we would probably hear
that. Our brain knows that we are probably interested when people start gossiping about us!

Hastorf and Cantril studied this phenomenon in 1954. They asked several university students
from Princeton and Dartmouth to count the amount of violations in a Princeton-Dartmouth
football game. Princeton students reported more Dartmouth violations and Dartmouth
students had ‘seen’ more Princeton violations. Both groups, despite the fact that they had to
observe seemingly simple and objective facts, had processed the message in a different way,
filtering out unwanted information – whenever their own team made a violation – and
amplifying information that corresponded with their predispositions.

These and similar findings later led to the proposal of the so called Hostile Media Effect. In
1982, the first major study of this phenomenon was undertaken by Vallone, Ross and Lepper.
Pro-Palestinian students and pro-Israeli students were shown the same news and asked to
count the amount of pro- and anti-Israeli and pro- and anti-Palestinian references. Both sides
found that the media were biased against their side. Pro-Israeli students counted more anti-
Israel references and fewer pro-Israel references than the students who favoured the
Palestinians. And vice versa.

These studies indicate that there is an actual difference of perception between members of
the same audience. They see, hear, remember and process messages differently on a
subconscious level. This is called a cognitive bias. We think we are objectively watching the
news or a sports game but in reality our mind is already serving as a filter: making selections
and blocking out unwanted information.

There are many reasons why a cognitive bias can take place. We’ll discuss some of the main
ones in the next section of our MOOC.

Cognitive shortcuts
The study of cognitive biases tells us that we process information subjectively. Sometimes to
the extent that our perceptions get distorted, clouding ‘simple and objective’ facts like the
amount of violations in a football match.

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Having cognitive biases is in many cases a very effective and healthy phenomenon because
people simple cannot handle balanced processing of all input. Can you imagine being
conscious all the time of all your senses? You’ll probably be overwhelmed in seconds! It’s
great that our mind is able to subconsciously make all of these processing decisions. Although
we may be inclined to see biases as limitations, we could also view them as cognitive
shortcuts since they speed up information processing.

Perhaps the best known theory about cognitive biases is the theory of cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive Dissonance is a theory from psychology that explains how people handle conflicting
feelings, ideas or beliefs. I’ll explain this with an example. Roger feels he is a well-read
intellectual. His friends start talking about the classic book War and Peace. Everyone has
read it except Roger. The belief that he is a well-read intellectual clashes with the fact that he
is the only one amongst his friends who hasn’t read this classic. The theory predicts that
Roger will try to avoid the discomfort of this cognitive dissonance. He can do this in three
ways:
1) by making one of the discordant factors less important,
2) by adding new elements to his beliefs that make the picture fit (create consonance),
3) and finally by changing one of the clashing factors.

So to avoid cognitive dissonance Roger could say: well, who cares if I’m well read. It’s not
that important! Or not having read one classic hardly makes me illiterate! Or, he could create
consonance by adding new elements to his beliefs For instance by thinking that – being an
intellectual - he obviously hangs out with other well-read intellectuals. It’s therefore not
surprising that his friends have read the classic. Finally he could change his view: either by
thinking “apparently I’m not that well-read” or “War and Peace is actually greatly
overestimated as a work of literature”

The theory explains how people balance their beliefs with reality. Sometimes this can lead to
enormous opinion changes. The classic example of this is the fable of the Fox and the Grapes
by Aesop. In the English translation “Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes
hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he
went away, the fox remarked, 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.'”
Aesop sums up the moral of the story “People who speak disparagingly of things that they
cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves”.

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The fox had clearly reduced cognitive dissonance by changing his beliefs (the third option)
and deciding that the grapes he had craved before were actually sour. Now you also know
the origin of the expression ‘sour grapes’.

Central and peripheral route

A very different theory that makes use of the cognitive shortcut idea is the Elaboration
Likelihood Model or ELM in short. It was proposed in 1979 that information can be processed
through a central or a peripheral path. When recipients process via the central route they
think about a message extensively. The message passes through the different processing
stages. The peripheral route, however, is a shortcut. It’s activated by so called ‘peripheral
cues’ like humour, credibility of the source, fear, or desire. The theory tells us that persuasive
attempts should take into consideration the predispositions of the audience, specifically a) the
motivation to understand a message and b) the ability to understand that message. An
example. Tom wants to buy a car. He wants the best one out there within his price range so
he is a) motivated to compare information on cars. Also let’s assume Tom is b) able to
understand the information that different brochures and websites give him. Because Tom is
both motivated and able, the central route of persuasion will yield the best persuasive result.
Having sexy models on the hood of his car will less likely persuade him. His friend Charles is
also looking for a car. He is perhaps able to compare cars but actually not so motivated to go
through all of these sites and brochures. Therefore the peripheral cue of the sexy model will
perhaps work on him.

These are just some examples of many theories on cognitive shortcuts. It’s important for every
student of communication to understand to some degree how and why cognitive shortcuts
work. Everyone has them. Because, even though cognitive shortcuts do not always lead to
the best logical decisions, they save a lot of time and energy!

Getting through the filter

In the previous sections we talked about message construction and audience activity. We
saw that people – contrary to the traditional mass audience paradigm - are actually quite
adept at selecting the messages they want to process (both on a conscious level, by selecting
specific media for consumption and an unconscious level because of cognitive shortcuts).

We all have our own shortcuts or filters based on our personal background, experiences,
interests et cetera. But studies also suggest different ways in which our cognitive shortcuts

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are actually influenced by mass media. So maybe in some ways, our filters are not so
personal and unique after all.

Some messages for instance, go through our filter because the media tell us that they are
important, that we should concern ourselves with them, form some sort of opinion on them.
Last week I discussed the agenda-setting theory, which proposes exactly this: the media don’t
tell us what to think, but they do influence what we think about. McCombs and Shaw asked
people, in their study of the 1968 presidential election in the United States, what the most
important election issues were. Interestingly enough, the results corresponded to a large
extent with the amount of attention these items were given by the local and national news. Of
course we could assume that news professionals were keen observers of public opinion and
therefore the news media serve as a mirror of the public agenda. But McCombs and Shaw
suggested the exact opposite: that the amount of media attention influenced the public
agenda. They called this theory Agenda Setting. The idea in its simplest form is that media
tell us which (news) events are important, who important people are and where important
things happen. The theory is usually used in relation to the news. Since the seventies, many
studies have added to our knowledge of agenda-setting.

One important later addition to the theory is the concept of priming. Researchers noticed that
people, when asked to evaluate political candidates, use the criteria that the media give
attention to. It’s called priming. I will explain: if the media give a lot of attention to, let’s say
the near-extinction of pandas, then people are primed to connect this item to their evaluation
of political candidates. So basically they will start by asking “what is politician X’s view on
panda extinction and how does he or she plan to battle it?” If the media give a lot of attention
to the economy, then people will link this to their evaluation. A movie review can also prime
the potential audience, if the review goes on and on about the special effects, then the
audience is more likely to include the special effects in their evaluation process. If the review
focuses more on the storyline, than the audience is primed to pay attention to that. You can
see how priming is an addition to agenda-setting, media don’t persuade people to think this
or that, but they do influence what people think about (when evaluating).

Of course some items won't receive any media attention at all. This has become a separate
field of study within communication science called Gatekeeping. It is, simply put, the study of
how the filtering process of the media works. Gatekeeping theory addresses the question why
some items are let through the ‘gate’ while others are filtered out. Media professionals who
can make the decision to admit topics through the gate (or keep them from them from the

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media agenda) are called gatekeepers. The theory was proposed by Lewin in the nineteen-
forties (Lewin, Kurt. "Forces behind food habits and methods of change". Bulletin of the
National Research Council). While the theory originally focused on the mass media, today
the theory also addresses interpersonal communication.

So before messages can reach our own personal filter, they are first filtered by gatekeepers
in the media. If you think about, it’s a miracle that messages reach us at all!

Encoding, decoding and the construction of meaning

We talked this week about a lot of different aspects of message construction and processing.
I want to end with Reception Theory, because it bridges this week’s perspective with the
cultural approach that we will discuss next week.

Stuart Hall 1974/1980 is often mentioned as one of the frontrunners of reception theory (also
known as reception analysis or audience reception). It’s a theory that focuses on how the
recipient receives and gives meaning to a message. Hall – influenced by Semiotics- saw
communication as a negotiation between sender, text, and receiver.

A communicator ‘encodes’ a message with meaning. Recipients take meaning from that
message. Hall called this ‘decoding’. We talked before about the use of codes and signs in a
text. In a way the reader ‘negotiates’ with the text, relying on his or her knowledge,
experiences, cultural background, et cetera. This negotiation can lead to different outcomes,
the principle of polysemic messages: the idea that messages can be interpreted by many
people in many different ways. The opposite of polysemic messages are monosemic
messages, messages that have only one meaning. Umberto Eco uses the terms open or
closed texts.

Perhaps it would be more useful to see the distinction between open and closed texts as a
dimension, where some texts leave more room for interpretation than others. A math formula
is relatively closed, while an abstract painting is relatively open. Likewise, a painted portrait
is considered more open than a photo portrait. But an abstract painting would in comparison
be even more open. It’s all relative.

To explain his views further, Hall came up with the encoding/decoding model in which he
explains the different ways a receiver can decode a message.

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Let’s say Rose publishes a brochure. Rose is a conservative politician and argues in her
pamphlet for more use of nuclear energy as an alternative for the use of fossil fuels. There is
going to be an election on this and Rose want people to vote for her. It is read by Jake. The
sender – politician Rose - has some intent when she encoded or composed her message.

1) If Jake completely internalizes the message and decodes it in the way Rose intended,
he agrees and is going to vote for her. This is the ‘preferred reading’. According to
reception theory this is more likely to occur when Jake and Rose share a cultural
background. For instance if Jake is sympathetic towards the conservative party. If
there is a higher cultural proximity between sender and receiver, there is a higher
likelihood of a preferred reading taking place.
2) Of course, Jake could also partly decode it in the preferred way, but also reading it
partly different. Stuart Hall called this a ‘negotiated reading’. For instance Jake could
agree with Rose’s arguments but he decides to vote for someone else.
3) 3) A third way of decoding this message would be total rejection by Jake. He reads
Rose’s pamphlet but completely disagrees and he concludes Rose is completely
wrong and doesn’t deserve his vote. This is an ‘oppositional reading’. This is more
likely to occur if Jake and Rose are, culturally, further apart. If, for instance Jake is a
staunch supporter of liberal politics.
You can see that implicit in Reception Theory is the idea that communication serves as a
carrier, reflection and producer of culture. This theory therefore bridges this week’s and next
week’s topics.

The construction/signification approach and the cultural approach complement each other. I
would like to end this week’s MOOC by emphasizing that in fact these perspectives on
communication are intertwined. Next week we’ll discuss this further when we cover the
cultural approach. I hope to see you then!

3. Cultural and Social Approaches to Communication

Science

The cultural approach

Introduction to the cultural approach

Welcome in week 5. I want to thank everyone who has already participated in the survey and
I would like to urge the rest of you to give us a minute of your time to answer some questions
about yourself and your motivation to follow a Massive Open Online Course on
Communication Science. I’ll present the results in week 8 in our ‘MOOC about the MOOC’.

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As you can see in the course outline, we have come to the end of the scripted part of this
course. Because this week, week 5, is actually the last week I had prepared. If you finish week
5 you have heard everything that I set out to discuss with you in this introduction course. There
is of course much more to say about communication. That’s why next week is all about what
you want to cover. We have been working day and night on eight new lectures, inspired by
your comments on our forum. Next week, we will visit some new topics and revisit a few
theories that deserve a bit more exploration.

Okay, but what are we going to do this week? Where were we? We have moved from the
history of our field, to theories that view communication as a one-way process with only one
correct meaning to theories that focused more on message construction and deconstruction.
This week I’ll talk about the cultural approach that sees communication as a carrier and
building block of our social and cultural world.

In the last lecture of week 4 I already explained that this cultural approach should be seen in
light of the increased focus on recipients and the signification process. It’s typical that Stuart
Hall, a frontrunner of the reception perspective, also studied and put a large emphasis on
cultural and social aspects of communication. He explained that cultural proximity effects the
transmission of a message. In simple words people will understand each other better when
the different parties are culturally closer to each other. A simple example of this is language,
one of many indicators of culture. It’s more difficult to understand someone from a different
country simply because they speak in a different language. And if countries, like Britain and
The United States, share a language that tells you they have some sort of cultural link. Hall
explained that communication can either identify someone as ‘belonging’ to a culture of a
group for instance, or show that they do not belong. Also, culture is something that changes
all the time and has to be renewed. We have to keep communicating or we’ll lose touch with
our culture. You can imagine if someone hasn’t left his house for years, the world will have
changed! Our hermit might feel like a cultural outcast because of it. Finally communication is
necessary to make sense of the social world around us. Therefore when you study recipients
and how they give meaning to a message, it makes sense to also study cultural effects.

So you can see that this week’s perspective is a continuation of last week’s. They actually
developed and became more prominent at the same time, in the sixties. We’ll start our
exploration there.

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Producing and maintaining culture

We have been talking about culture and communication, but what is culture exactly? Let’s start
by defining this tricky concept. There are, as always, many definitions in the field. Some see
culture as an internalized, and shared, set of unstated assumptions, procedures, ways of doing
things that have been internalized to the extent that people do not argue about them (Triandis,
1972). Other definitions focus more on the fact that culture identifies us. It creates a feeling of
belonging or not-belonging, for instance this definition by Hofstede who sees culture as “the
collective programming of the mind which distinguishes one group (nation, society) from
another” (Hofstede, 1991).

One of the earliest and most influential definitions is by Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917) who
defined it as “that complex whole, which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom,
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Important
elements in this definition are the fact that people share culture. This process of sharing makes
us belong in society. So culture has everything to do with our own individual identity, with a
feeling of belonging to society, to a larger group and to a cultural framework.

The study of human culture, and the differences between cultures, became a core research
theme of the scientific discipline of Anthropology. One of the questions anthropologists, and
most notably Franz Boas (1858-1942) raised was how universal is human culture and how
can we study it? Boas introduced the principle of cultural relativism, which meant that there is
not one universal human culture but in fact many different ones, each equally valid in its own
context.
Scientists should, according to Baos, acknowledge this diversity, which is difficult because we
intuitively tend to see our own culture as ‘right’. Still we can overcome this cultural bias by
studying, observing and participating in different cultures. And what should they study,
observe? Basically everything! Since culture is communicated through all kinds of cultural
acts: dance, song, literature, interpersonal interaction, daily routine, behaviour, et cetera. It’s
all part of the cultural framework that identifies a society.

These ideas became the dominant approach of cultural and social anthropologists in the
twentieth century. Their influence spread out to other scientific disciplines, like communication
science, in the nineteen sixties. This culminated in the foundation of the very influential
Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in 1964. This centre inspired scientists
all over the world to study cultural aspects of communication. It prospered under the leadership

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of its foremost scientist and later he also became the director of the Birmingham Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies: Stuart Hall. You might remember from last week that he was
also the leading scholar in the field of Reception Theory, the theory that focused on the
recipients of communication and how they give meaning to a message and use
communication to give meaning to the world. This idea fitted neatly within the Cultural
Approach. Let’s further explore this in the next section of our MOOC.

Making sense of the world

You might recall from our first class the Newcomb model. One of the basic models we covered
in our first week. The model contains the elements A, B and X. A is the sender, B is the receiver
and X is some shared social factor that 1) influences the relationship between A
& B and 2) is influenced itself by this relationship. Let’s say A is Anton and B is Barbara. Anton
and Barbara are friends and both like the movies of the famous director Xavier.
Xavier’s new movie comes out and Barbara absolutely hates it, she thinks it’s pretentious and
boring. The relationship between Barbara and Xavier has changed. She is not such a big fan
anymore. As a result the relationship between Anton and Barbara might change as well, since
they now completely disagree on their appreciation of this movie and Xavier’s directing. Also,
Anton’s relationship with Xavier might change, perhaps he will start to see this movie in a new
light as a result of Barbara’s criticism or he will defend him avidly and as a result become an
even bigger fan.

This model is important because it is one of the first communication models that include the
idea of a social environment that influences the communication process and is itself influenced
by the communication process. It contains the idea that communication is used to construct
and maintain a social reality. A reality that’s very personal for every individual.

This theory, that communication is a building block of a social reality became popular in the
nineteen sixties. In their influential book ‘The Social Construction of Reality’ (1966) Berger and
Luckmann's argue that all knowledge about everyday reality, all knowledge that we take for
granted, even simple and even objective ‘truths’, are actually born from and maintained by
social interactions. We ‘know’ that lying is wrong, that boys play with cars, that motorcycles
are cool, that we should obey the law, because as children and adults we are programmed by
parents, friends, family, class mates, and indirectly by mediated communication, with ideas of
what is real. We are socially taught seemingly fixed ‘rules’ and ‘truths’ that are in reality social
constructs. This reality is unique for every individual. Our own reality lives, evolves and dies

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with us and in a way we are at the centre of it. This is the theory of social constructionism that
was further developed by scholars in the sixties and seventies.

A key element of social constructionism is that people do not construct reality by themselves.
We need to communicate with others to make sense of the world. To understand the ‘rules of
live’ and know where we belong and don’t belong. This perspective completely challenged the
idea that reality is fixed and objective, and that the truth of that reality can be proven by
scientists. This meant that scientists, according to social constructionists, had to study how
reality was formed in the mind of people, how they use social interaction and mediated
communication to create and maintain their personal image of reality. New, more qualitative,
deeper and explorative methods were required for this. Communication scientists borrowed
new methods from anthropology, sociology, political sciences and literature studies to gain
insight in how reality, or culture, is formed with use of communication. New popular methods
were in-depth interviews, textual analysis and historical and socio-political analysis. Scientists,
like the adherents of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, were also
more and more interested in the social and political context in which communication was
produced and received. We’ll discuss that further next.

Popular culture: Reflection or illusion?

In an earlier section we talked about the principle of cultural relativism. In other words, the idea
that different cultures exist at the same time. Even though all of these cultural realities are
equally valid, some are more popular than others. Popular cultures are communicated on a
large scale and both through personal and mediated communication. The umbrella term for
these types of cultures is popular or pop culture. Scientists are, for different reasons, very
much interested the study of this so-called pop culture. They study carriers of pop culture, like
songs, movies, literature, game shows, video games and basically everything that is deemed
popular and communicates mainstream values, ideas and ‘truths’.

Interest in this field has increased since the sixties. That’s why I want to briefly discuss this
research theme with you. First of all, why are we interested in pop culture? Many different
reasons actually. I’ll name a few without any particular order:

Pop culture is often seen as a reflection of mainstream society. The idea is, if we study pop
culture we learn how society works, which rules and truths are in place and where power
resides. Do you recognize the influence of social constructionism?

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To continue this line of thought, pop culture is considered a building block of a shared social
reality. That it is surely worth studying!

Some scholars oppose this reflection thesis. They argue that pop culture is actually
artificially created. It is in fact a fake culture, or a fake consciousness. It is not a reflection of
mass society but in fact something created by powerful members of the elite, who control the
media landscape. These powerful few created pop culture to keep themselves in power.

That’s, according to this theory, the main function of pop culture, to maintain the current power
structures. So pop culture is designed to keep the masses ignorant. To distract the audience
and keep their thoughts away from the unfair distribution of wealth and power in the world. To
teach people to obey the law and powerful institutions. To keep some knowledge from the
public agenda and keep people’s mind on other inconsequential things like scandals involving
actors or rock stars, or what’s going to happen on tomorrow’s soap opera. This also explains
why pop culture, according to many scholars, does not provoke thought, is unoriginal, and of
low quality.

This theory was first developed by members of the Frankfurter School. A group of loosely
affiliated scientists that were particularly active in the nineteen twenties, forties and sixties.
They were not only scientists but also very politically active. Their theories and findings were
often used to show the need for social change and emancipation. Frankfurter scholar were
often accused of being Marxist. And not without reason. Indeed, the Frankfurter School tried
to explain why the revolution that Marx had predicted, where labourers of the world would
revolt, hadn’t happened. Their answer in a nutshell: because pop culture, communicated
through mass media, is specifically created to prevent it. To keep us docile. In a way, the
media serve as ‘opium for the people’, creating a passive audience that’s is unlikely to start a
revolution. If you want to connect theories, this Frankfurter approach actually fitted nicely with
the old mass audience paradigm that we covered in week 3. This traditional audience
paradigm saw the masses as passive and unable to select and block messages.

Even though the Frankfurter School does not have many supporters today, their negative
views on popular culture is now often seen as somewhat elitist, it is historically important
because of they were the first to focus their questions on how pop culture was created and
how it related to a larger societal context. We’ll talk about several more modern approaches
to pop culture in our next section.

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Cultural studies: Birmingham and Toronto

In our previous section we talked about the interesting but somewhat outdated Frankfurter
School. Let’s discuss two other, more modern, schools: The Birmingham and the Toronto
School. Like the Frankfurter School the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies, championed by Stuart Hall, was also very much interested in power structures,
communicated through pop culture. A central theme in the Birmingham School was the theory
of Hegemony. The core idea of which is again that pop culture communicates the dominant
cultural framework. This framework, per definition, even without actually being artificially
designed that way, communicates that dominant power structure, who is in power, what the
rules are, who to obey, what is considered ‘good behaviour’ et cetera. This cultural hegemony
appears implicitly in all carriers of pop culture: literature, songs, movies, game shows, soap
operas, bill boards, commercials, newspapers, et cetera. So even without knowing it, we are
constantly being programmed with rules and truths that benefit the status quo.

In later years the Theory of Hegemony lost its importance. Fiske for instance takes a very
different approach. He sees the worth of pop culture in its universal appeal. The fact that many
people respond to a certain music album it is an indicator of its cultural quality. It is in other
words in synch with the dominant social reality. You can see that Fiske actually sees popularity
as an indicator of quality. Quite a difference from the Frankfurter School that regarded pop
culture as an oppressive tool designed to keep us ignorant and passive. If a movie appeals to
millions of people it is culturally closer to than an elitist theatre performance that only a handful
of people visit and appreciate. Note that this way of looking at quality actually gives a lot more
power to the audience. It assumes that if many people like something, it has cultural worth.

A very important alternative to the Birmingham School is the Toronto School. This approach
focuses more on the channels of communication, the media themselves. Marshall McLuhan
is the most important scientist in this school of Cultural Studies. His famous quote is “the
medium is the message” (1962). He meant that culture is influenced more by the
characteristics of a medium than by the actual content. The cinema, for instance, is all about
the experience of going to a theatre. Perhaps you go on a date with someone, buy popcorn,
wait for the movie to start, talk about the previews, sit in the dark together et cetera. All of this
is influenced by the particular channel. You have probably experienced something like this
yourself. Do you still remember the specific movies it was you saw? You could just as easily
see the movie at home, saves a lot of money and you can pause it if you need to go to the
toilet. The movie experience in the cinema and at home are of course completely different, not
because the content is different but the channel you use is. McLuhan explains that media all

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have their own characteristics that imbed themselves in the experience. If I tell a joke to your
face it will be different than if I send it to you by a text message. That’s why, according to
McLuhan, we should study that way specific channels, change and form our culture. New
media will by their very nature always disrupt the status quo because they allow for new ways
of communicating, new ways of shaping reality.

Technologies, according to McLuhan in his ground-breaking book ‘The Gutenberg Galaxy’

(1962) are not only things we use to make life easier, they actually re-invent us as people. For
instance the printing revolution, made possible by the innovation of the printing press,
completely changed the way people interacted, how they formed ideas and shared cultural
values and truths. With every large media revolution, like the printing revolution, the rise of the
newspaper and television mankind was culturally re-invented. It allowed new ways for people
to talk to each other, to connect. New ways to pass the time. New ways to give meaning to
the world around us and explore the difficult question of who we are. McLuhan predicted in
1962 the rise of television and computers have ushered in an electronic age that will again
force society to restructure itself to deal with issues like increased feelings of uncertainty,
social fragmentation and globalization. I would like to discuss these topics with you, in our next
chapter.

Cultural groups
One defining trait of culture is that it identifies us in relation to other people. We've talked about
his before: a shared culture corresponds with a higher feeling of belonging. A cultural distance
can create a feeling that you don’t belong. Imagine John, an adventurous traveller from
Amsterdam. John takes a trip to the Amazon to live for a while amongst a tribe there. This
tribe will have a different language, different music, customs, behaviour, a different way of
celebrating birthdays, perhaps even some different morals than John is used to. Even though
John has a great time, he feels, because of these differences, that he is not part of their culture.
When after a few months he lands in Amsterdam and embraces his friends and family, he
immediately feels at home again and experiences a sense of belonging. People in the airport
are already culturally closer to him than the very friendly, but culturally different, tribe he has
visited.

So culture helps us identify where we belong, with what group we fit in. But it's not really that
simple is it? Because we are not members of only one culture. This is another important thing:
there are cultures on all kinds of levels. Within Western Culture for instance we can make
many subdivisions like Western European Culture, Dutch Culture et cetera. You can even

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distinguish culture on a very specific group level, for instance within one group of friends, co-
workers, fans of a popular television series, hobbies, special interests, moral values, your
fashion sense, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, you name it. Being in a group
means sharing something with the other members. Being a member of a group therefore has
everything to do with your own personal identity and the group identity. That's why being part
of a group carries emotional weight. It is this shared element, the shared culture that creates
a feeling of belonging.

Let's take another traveller, Maud. Maud also just returned, not from the Amazon but from a
long holiday in Spain. In Spain, she has become a huge fan of Flamenco-dancing. She had
many other Flamenco enthusiasts to share this passion with, but back in the Netherlands, her
friends and family there don't really know the dance. Luckily there is the internet, and Maud
soon finds webpages where she can discuss his dance and share music with people from all
over the world. Maud is now in fact a member of a global cultural group of Flamenco fans,
next to being part of the Dutch culture, the Amsterdam culture, and many other groups she
feels connected with.

Of course, things don't always stay the same. Maud might lose her interest in Flamenco after
a while, leaving the group or making membership a less important aspect of her identity. Or
the dance itself might undergo changes, splitting up the groups in conservatives and
progressive Flamenco lovers. All this is completely natural. It is in fact an important element
of the principle of cultural relativism is that cultures change all the time. Many things can cause
sudden culture shifts like new technology, population shifts, resource shortages, new art
forms, wars, political decisions and many more, but it’s important to realize that change is also
inherent to culture, so suddenly or gradually change will occur. You can imagine that all this
change and cultural diversity causes much uncertainty in our lives. That's why, even if we are
not always aware of it, we are constantly communicating to minimize the discomfort of
uncertainty, to adjust, to keep in touch with cultural reality, with society and the groups we
identify with or want to belong to. We'll explore this further in our next section.

How to fit in?

In the previous section we talked about groups and how they are formed and maintained by
constant sharing of cultural communication. Ideas, values, rules, this can all be part of a group
identity. And simple being a member doesn't bring you any guarantees for the future. Since
cultural reality is in constant motion, we need to keep communicating to keep fitting in, to

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reduce our uncertainty of how to behave, what values are dominant, which ideas are accepted
et cetera.

Many theories have been created around this idea. For instance the Uncertainty Reduction
Theory (Berger and Calabrese, 1975). They said that people a) live in constant uncertainty
about the world around them, their position in it and the cultural rules in place and b) that we
use communication to reduce our uncertainty. There are according to this theory, three main
communication strategies to deal with uncertainty. I'll explain with use of an example from my
own experience. I visited a wedding reception recently and had with me an envelope as a gift.
I wasn't quite sure however what I was supposed to do with the envelope. Give it to the happy
couple? Hand it in somewhere? It was a tightly scripted event and I had just witnessed the
master of ceremonies freak out about some detail so I felt some pressure to do the correct
thing. Basically three options were open. 1) First of all, I tried to see what other people did. So
I tried observation. Berger and Calabrese called this the passive strategy. I didn't really see
anyone doing anything with gifts but perhaps they had already done so earlier. Observation
did not help in my case. 2) Secondly, I started asking other wedding guests, friends I knew,
what I was supposed to do. This is an active strategy. In my example, this also didn't help
because the people I asked had the same question. 3) The third and final strategy is the
interactive strategy, asking someone at the source of the uncertainty. In my case I went to the
master of ceremonies and heard there was a box for envelopes in the other room, I was not
supposed to give it to the wedding couple themselves since that would hold up the line. I was
glad I asked.

Whenever we find ourselves in a new and uncertain situation we need to culturally adapt with
use of communication. This could also apply to a new topic. Even amongst a group of people
who know each other longer, a new topic can still generate much uncertainty, since no-one
knows yet what the dominant group view will be. There is a well-researched tendency amongst
people to feel pressured by the dominating opinions in a group. This is called group pressure.
It's sometimes portrayed as explicit, young kids trying to convince their friends: "Don't be dull,
come on and come to the dance on Saturday!" But a perhaps more interesting form of group
pressure is implicit: the group does not have to explicitly pressure their members, since they
will adopt dominant group behaviour and express dominant group views without being told to.
We call this 'conformity'.

Famous examples of this are the Asch experiments, conducted in the fifties. In its simplest
form: the test subject is asked to sit in a group. He thinks they are all test subjects there but in

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reality he is the only one, the rest is all in on the experiment. A picture of a line is shown and
next to that a picture of three lines. The group is asked to say out loud which of the three lines
is the same length as the first line. The task is simple. First everything goes as it should and
the test subject is feeling more and more comfortable. But then, the fake test subjects start
giving wrong answers. A startling 75% of the test subjects went along with the group in at least
one case. So they gave a wrong answer under this implicit group pressure. These results
have of course sparked a series of studies that tried to reveal why people fold under group
pressure and why people find it so difficult to openly disagree with public opinion. More on this
in our next section.

Conclusion: Cultural conformity and relativism

We have just discussed the fascinating phenomenon of conformity. People adjusting their
behaviour as a result of group pressure. After the Second World War, scientists looked to
these type of theories to explain why so many people had kept quiet during the reign of Hitler.
Quite obviously during the War there was a very real fear of punishment, but also according
to Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, a fear of being socially isolated. Her theories explain exactly
how conformity works on a large scale. Noelle-Neumann (1974) supposes that people are in
essence social animals. Therefore we need to be part of our social environment.
Consequently, we are afraid that if we disagree with dominant views in society, we will isolate
ourselves.

And we know, according to Noelle-Neumann, exactly how to behave to prevent this. Because
we have become very good in monitoring public opinion, in seeing which views and actions
are popular and which are taboo. Because of our fears, there is a tendency to keep silent
whenever we disagree with popular views, and not voice opinions that are unpopular. She
called this the Spiral of Silence, because if everyone is silent about their disapproval, of let's
say Hitler, then others will observe this and are more likely to keep silent themselves as well.
Thus, conformity breeds more conformity and it becomes possible that a silent majority is
following the lead of a very loud minority. Although the theory was developed with Second
World War Germany in mind, but applies in many current situations, both on a societal level
and a group level. It explains how we use uncertainty reduction strategies to tweak our
behaviour and even our own views, to fit in better socially and culturally.

Okay, these are some theories out of many that cover how we use communication to give
meaning to the world around us, to construct as you will a cultural reality. We have also talked
this week about how we don't do this by ourselves, but in fact constantly create and maintain

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this reality within cultural groups and society as a whole. Leading in fact to many cultural
realities existing at the same time. The principle of cultural relativism. On the other hand some
theories suggest one dominant cultural reality, communicated on a large scale through pop
culture and strengthened by people's tendency to conform to public opinion. Well, this ends
this week's lectures on the cultural approach. But the discussion will continue. What do you
see around you? Cultural relativism or indeed one dominant culture? Scholars are still divided
on the issue. So, I'm very curious where you stand in this debate, let us know on the forum!

Next week: In only five weeks we went with the speed of lightning through a complicated forest
of scientific thought. It was of course necessary to take some shortcuts on the way and leave
some things out in order to reach our destination in time. And I’m thoroughly impressed with
how fast you have all processed such a huge amount of information in such a short time and
without any actual class interaction outside of the virtual world. Next week we have time to
slow things down a bit and focus on issues that could use some more attention. It’s all about
your input. Many of you have already added suggestions on our forum that I will use. So next
week a lecture completely inspired by your feedback. I hope to see you then!

Student Questions and Debate

Introduction Questions and Answers
Welcome to our last week before the exam. I hope you are up to speed with everything. If not,
take the time to go over the lectures you missed, take a tour on the forum and read the text
files we have made available. You can download all subtitles, so basically the texts of each
lecture. And the answers of the MC questions are now below each week’s practice questions,
also downloadable. This was a recurring request on our forum that we have been working on
for a while. It is now available. I hope it helps you in preparing for the exam.

This is week 6 of our course. As you know we already covered everything we set out to do in
the previous weeks, discussing at a rapid pace some basic models and concepts, the history
of our field and the linear, construction/signification and cultural approaches to communication
theory. This week is an unscripted week that I want to use to go over some student questions.

I received approximately 200 questions to cover this or that item. Some questions were posted
on our forum; some came through Twitter and Facebook. Even some per email, even though
I temporarily hid my email address in the university database, you were quite adept in finding
me! No worries, all suggestions were welcome, and I wish I could cover them all, but as every

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week, we have 8 short lectures, so I’ve made a selection based on how many times a topic
was requested and how well it fitted with our course goals. One very important thing. I will add
questions to the exam about these topics by the way, so in that aspect, this week is no different
than others.

We only had a few days to prepare so we have kept things basic this week. You will be seeing
me some more than usual and we have kept the visuals simple, but hopefully as effective and
entertaining as before. I hope you enjoy them. Oh, and let us know what you think of this
week’s more lean approach. We are learning just like you!

Metaphors
I received several questions about the use of metaphors throughout this course. A metaphor
is a figure of speech, when we describe something by calling it something else. So it’s an
implicit comparison. If I call an enterprise a ‘sinking ship’ everyone will know it’s doomed to
fail. If parents call their kid’s room a pig sty, they think it is a huge mess LIKE a pig sty. By the
way: if they would actually say “your room is so dirty, it looks LIKE a pig sty’, that would officially
be a simile, an explicit comparison, not a metaphor (which is as I said implicit).

Quite some metaphors have passed in these last weeks: fourth estate, hypodermic needle,
the media agenda, to name just a few. “Why do scientists do this?” asked one student “It
seems a bit strange to me that people who are trained in only talking about facts and things
they can prove use all of these colorful expressions” And indeed we do, they are in fact quite
important in scientific and non-scientific discussions about our field.

That is why this is the first question I want to cover: metaphors, why do scholars use them?
Well, the answer to this is quite simple really: because they are such a powerful
communication device. Metaphors contain a wealth of information, that most people
immediately grasp, all buried beneath a simple concept. A good metaphor has a high level of
shared connotation, in other words, most people will have the some associations. Most will
understand that the hypodermic needle theory has this name because it refers to directly
injected messages that have an immediate effect. That the audience has no defense for it. All
of this associated meaning automatically pops up when you think about a hypodermic needle.

Therefore metaphors are well-suited to discuss complicated issues. And using metaphors
saves a lot of time. Probably most people will understand what you mean with a metaphor

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intuitively and without further explanation. So, if you are arguing a greater point and don’t want
to pause to explain each step on the way, metaphors are a useful tool.

If I compare the audience of a message to a group a spoon-fed babies, then everyone will
understand that don’t mean that audience members are new to this world, or that they are
regarding this world with curious ever-learning eyes. No, I am saying that the audience is 1)
not active 2) not blocking information 3) not selecting channels or content 4) all experiencing
communication (their food which is fed to them) in the same way. If you think about it, a lot
was communicated implicitly when I used this metaphor. And it took a lot more time to explain
it. That’s why we use them in science.

But this is all a bit abstract of course. So in the next section I want to discuss some actual
metaphors that we use in our field. And you will see how much information one metaphor
actually contains.

The role of media in society

I received many variations of the question: What role do our media have in society?

Let’s start by saying that scientists see many roles for the media. Since we were discussing
metaphors earlier I want to show the wide variety of possible answers by discussing some
popular metaphors that are used to discuss the media’s role in society.

A popular metaphor in discussions is always the window, by which we mean of course that
the media give us a wider view of the world, enabling us to see more of the world than our
own experiences allow. Metaphors contain a wealth of information, hidden in one seemingly
simple concept. A similar metaphor for example, but different on one important detail, is the
mirror metaphor. A mirror, like a window, refers to the fact that the media widen our horizons.
I have never travelled to the North Pole, still documentaries and movies give me an idea of
what it’s like out there. But, the mirror metaphor allows for a distortion of this reflection.
Obviously, the picture the media paint is not exactly the North Pole, but in fact an incomplete,
and therefore distorted, image. Selections have been made and we see only parts of the North
Pole, no matter how well-made the documentary is. Even a 24/7 webcam that shows us the
North Pole only shows us a part of reality. Therefore, instead of a mirror, scholars sometimes
use the metaphor of tainted mirror or broken mirror, to indicate that the reflection is not pure.

Much research is focused on these selection processes, what gets attention and what doesn’t.
You might remember that we call these types of studies gatekeeping studies. This approach

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views each medium as a gatekeeper, stopping some content and letting other items through.
So this is another metaphor that we use frequently. A similar comparison is the filter metaphor,
basically indicating the same thing; the media only show us part of reality.

Some theoretical approaches go even further, they claim that media show us a fake reality,
hiding the truth from us. Remember the Frankfurter School? Scholars from this school of
thought argue that pop culture is created by the powers that be to keep the masses ignorant
and keep their minds from revolting. The media, in this theory, work as opium for the people.
They keep us quiet, distract us and keep us happy with non-thought provoking entertainment
and tabloid journalism. Think back to ancient Rome when the Caesars kept the powerless
population from rising up against the elite with free gladiatorial games, chariot races and
theater shows. The media in these types of theories also function as a screen. They block us
from reality, showing a fake, soothing, non-thought provoking reality in return. Think back to
the propaganda of the First World War for instance. Even when Germany was clearly losing,
their propaganda pretended they were still winning, ignoring defeats in the news and basically
showing a completely false picture of the war.

Now that we are talking about propaganda, another metaphor that’s often used are the well-
know hypodermic needle or magic bullet comparisons, referring to the media as a means of
persuasion, ‘injecting’ or ‘shooting’ the audience with messages to which they have no
defense, creating instant effects. Would-be persuaders are of course always looking for the
magic keys of persuasion in order to manipulate and control. In these theories, journalists are
not critical of governments and big corporations. Basically the media are a lapdog of the elite.

More metaphors on the role of the media in society

In our previous section we talked about several metaphors on the role of media in society. We
ended with several metaphors that stressed the manipulative powers of the media landscape.
Luckily, most metaphors on the media’s role are not so negative.

Many scholars today look at the internet and the wealth of information there and see a perfect
platform, podium or forum for people to get their voices heard. Religious or political groups
have their own media that serve as a signpost. Essentially ‘showing the way’ to their followers
and explaining the world from their specific perspective. An example of this is the political party
press or the newsletter of a church.

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The threshold to go online where you can potentially reach a huge audience is of course
relatively low if you compare it with other media that have a high reach, like television, radio
or newspapers for instance. So many voices and opinions can be heard online, audience
members can basically stroll around in this market place of ideas and take what they want,
what suits their needs and interests. And through all of these channels, people find each other,
find others with the same tastes and views, allowing them to connect with each other. From
that perspective media create a social or cultural network and form the glue that holds modern
society together.

Is your mind already dazzling from all of these metaphors? Just a few more to drive home the
point: with all of this richness of content, both online and offline, it becomes easy to drown in
an ocean of information. That’s why we need search engines and opinion leaders to help us
navigate these treacherous waters.

Fortunately the media also function as teacher, educating us and making us more informed.
Sometimes they protect us from danger, like a sheep dog or guardian, for instance by
explaining the health hazards of smoking in anti-smoking campaigns. Media can also take on
the role of the even more protective watchdog, this is when the media protect us by exposing

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the misuse of power, for instance by politicians. The classic example of this is the Watergate
Scandal when a journalistic exposé forced American president Nixon to resign.

As you can see from this long, but still incomplete list: there are many metaphors that we use
to discuss this complicated topic, the different roles of media in our society. Why don’t you
help us expand this list, on our forum?

Primary and secondary research

I received several requests to tell you a bit more about the difference between primary and
secondary research methods and explain a bit when we use the first and when the second.

The most basic distinction between primary and secondary research is this. Primary research
is when we use original data. It is simply put, new data

Secondary research is when we study the results of others. Because these results are often
published in scientific journals and books, we also refer to this as a literature study. And
because you often sit behind a desk reading these articles, it’s also named desk research.
Secondary research is basically the systematic review of existing knowledge.

So when do scholars perform primary or secondary research? Well, we often do both in

different stages of a larger study. Let’s say I’m interested in the effects of fear appeals in anti-
smoking campaigns. More specifically: I want to know if a Dutch anti-smoking campaign
should make more use of them in order to become more effective. I will start by exploring the
existing literature on the use of fear appeals, anti-smoking campaigns, health campaigns in
general, studies in to why people smoke, when people block fear appeals, et cetera. I
systematically collect all this secondary data, basically the research findings of others, and
analyze these results in order to come up with some expectations of what would happen if we
would use more fear appeals in Dutch anti-smoking campaigns. In some cases, if time, money
or practicality forces us to limit ourselves to a literature study, this is where my research ends.

But often, if I want to really understand something and delve deeper in to the question, I want
to study this further and in more detail. Existing studies might have been conducted in other
countries for instance, so I’m wondering if these results will also be true in the Netherlands.
Or, it’s also possible no study has looked specifically at this target group or what happens over

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a prolonged period in time. A review of the existing literature can leave us with a thousand
questions and things we want to check or explore in more detail.

So now I need to conduct my own, primary, research. My desk research has left me with
several research hypotheses that we will set out to prove or disprove with original data. If the
research findings you find in the literature are reliable I should be able to replicate them. This
is why replication of existing studies, sometimes with only one small variation, is an important
scientific tool. In order to be sure of what we know, we keep checking it and keep changing
the research context slightly to see if that makes a difference.

Of course next to checking the reliability of existing data, primary research also allows us to
radically expand on existing knowledge by adding completely new research variables, leading
to new insights into previously unexplored relationships.

So in a nutshell: we usually start with secondary research. That’s why, whenever we discuss
research methods, we should not forget this important category. Many questions have already
been asked and answered by scholars all over the world and a systematic review of existing
data will allow us to formulate hypotheses and more specific research questions. The
introduction of digital search engines has greatly increased our ability to find and use existing
studies, our ability ‘to stand on the shoulders of giants’ as it were. Famous words by Newton,
now the motto of Google scholar.

After we have studied existing knowledge we test our expectations and further expand on this
by conducting primary research, if we have the time and money that is.

What’s new about new media?

I received a couple of requests to say something about ‘new media’. There is of course a lot
to say about this, but for now I want to limit myself to a quick discussion on new media theory.
Before we continue, could you think about some old media? Just note the first ones that pop
up in your mind. And which media are new? I asked this question in many classrooms: usually
my students mention mobile phones, the internet, tablets or blue ray discs as new media. Old
media that are mentioned are the newspaper, books, television and radio.

Take a few seconds to think about why you consider this medium old and the other new. What
is the definition of a new medium?

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While you are thinking about this, I want to share with you the following, typical quote, from a
scholar:

“[The new medium] will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use
their memories (…). [Learners] will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing;
they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome
company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”

What medium do you think this critical scholar had in mind? The internet? You often hear
people say things like this about the internet. But this quote is actually about the written word
by the famous philosopher Plato. Plato wrote these critical notions on the written word around
360 Before Christ.

There are many historical quotes very similar to this one referring to other media that were
new at one time in history, like the first printed books in the Late Middle Ages, the new
phenomenon of the popular newspaper press in the nineteenth century, radio in the early and
television in the late twentieth century. The point I’m trying to make is this: it’s important to
realize that all media were new at one time or another. Because it’s easy to fall into the trap
of only seeing our current new media, internet, mobile media and such, as new. This has led
some scholars to come up with very specific definitions of new media, claiming that new media
are always interactive, promote user participation, et cetera. But is this useful? Basically what
we are seeing here is new media theory built around specific and only current examples, like
the internet or mobile media. These types of theories explain what’s happening right now, but
you can’t really use them to explain the phenomenon of new media in general. These theories,
built around the new media of today, hardly fit the situation where the written word was
introduced or the book printing revolution changed the face of Europe. Also, in designing
theories to fit current examples lies another danger, because it’s very probable that these
theories become outdated as soon as a new medium arises.
Therefore, many scholars argue against the practice of creating new media theories to fit
current examples. The influential Marshall McLuhan gave a great example when he proposed
his own theories on new media, not by dwelling on modern-day examples, but by skipping
back and forth through time, showing in fact that his theories apply in all of these historical
and modern situations. One of his main observations was in fact that all of these media
revolutions throughout history were always caused by a new technology. This perspective is
called technology determinism, because important shifts in human development are, in the
end, attributed to innovations in technology. The printing revolution was made possible by

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Gutenberg’s innovation of the press. The internet was made possible because computer
networks were developed. Et cetera. Another important conclusion of McLuhan was that all of
these shifts in the media landscapes had huge effects in society: the printing revolution led to
the Renaissance and Enlightenment. The rise of the internet has heralded a modern digital
information age.

Other scholars have followed in the footsteps of McLuhan, even though they don’t always
agree with his views, they too strive to formulate theories and definitions on New Media that
capture the entirety of the new media phenomenon, and not only current examples.

Globalization: village versus tribes

A few students asked me to say something about cultural globalization. What is cultural
globalization and what kind of trends do we see?

Remember how in week 6 we discussed that culture, and in fact our own perception of reality,
is both formed and maintained by communication? Cultural communication is basically all
communication, because we always implicitly communicate values and ideas, even when we
are listening to seemingly meaningless music, or watching an entertaining soap opera, or
reading a simple comic book: they all communicate something about the culture in which they
were produced.

Well, cultural globalization is, simply put, an international reach of cultural ideas and values,
as a result of a global communication of messages. According to most scholars there was
always some extent of globalization as people travelled throughout history. Historical
developments, like wars, colonization, increased international trade, increased education,
increased international tourism. These trends were all reasons for a growing interest in
international affairs and created the context in which an international communication
landscape could develop. But the rate of globalization has increased with the reach of our
mass media. It started slowly with cultural carriers that travellers took home, like little statues,
jewelry or coins. The globalization pace quickened with the rise of print media. Books,
pamphlets and newspapers made international travel of cultural messages more widespread.
In the nineteenth century for example, English and American newspapers were read
throughout the world. Perhaps this is also the start of a dominance of an Anglo American
culture in global communication.

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Movies and television programs were again a new step in the globalization trend. A picture
says more than a thousand words. Well these new audio visual media brought pictures and
sounds. And again, they were mostly Anglo-American TV shows and movies that travelled the
world.

These cultural messages did not only travel the world, they also influenced the people they
encountered. People felt culturally connected through movies and television series and such
with people on the other side of the globe.

The globalization trend has only increased in recent years, mainly due to the rise of digital and
mobile media that a) give us immediate access to a rich assortment of cultural content from
basically every country in the world and b) allows us to communicate with people in other
countries easily and instantly.

It is quite clear that today we have an international communication landscape that exists in a
variety of media like books, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, cinema and the
internet. But what exactly is its effect on the formation of culture throughout the world?

As you know, culture creates a feeling of belonging. That cultural messages are now spread
internationally is, according to some, reason to believe that a ‘global village’ is emerging,
where people feel connected with each other, regardless of their country of origin. The global
culture that is communicated through our mass media is the binding force of this village. It
connects us. Optimists believe that all this cultural sharing will lead to 1) greater understanding
and 2) a lessening of cultural misunderstanding and conflict.

However, other scholars see a very different trend. Yes, people are now forming groups with
others from other countries, but at the same time, societal cohesion in general is weakening
as a result. Members of these groups feel more connected to the group than to society. This
trend is called tribalism, and in fact means that as smaller groups become culturally stronger
they become more and more isolated from larger society. These groups form modern day
tribes. Their strong group culture is carried by their own specific channels with their own
culturally approved content. The group identity becomes increasingly different from
mainstream society that it in fact starts to oppose it. Therefore, scholars that believe in this
new tribalism trend actually predict more cultural misunderstanding and more conflict as a
result of this.

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About the exam

In the final clip of this Question and Answer week I want to answer some questions I received
on the exam. What to expect? The exam consists of one hundred multiple choice questions.
Each question has, just like the weekly practice questions, three possible answers, only one
of which is correct. I have tried to make the questions comparable to what you are used to,
so I don’t expect any surprises there. The topics are of course everything that we discussed
in the weekly lectures, and just to avoid misunderstanding, that also includes this week's
contents. The contents of the Little Box of Nuance, however, are not part of the exam. I will
ask you to define concepts, name theories and models, mention important scholars,
technological innovations, pick the correct approach that fits one particular statement. All of
these things. Basically everything that we practiced. Well I recommend that you use the text
files we've made available of the lecture transcripts and the practice questions. I'm sure they
will come in handy.

Just something else. I can imagine it's very tempting to use offline or online help while making
the exam. But I strongly recommend against this. As you know, your certificate and grade is
solely for yourself. It does not give you university credits and it is not comparable to our regular
certificates. It is a certificate of participation. An indicator of your interest in our field, and your
personal commitment and dedication to follow this course through. Therefore, make it a real
reflection of your knowledge and understanding of our course contents. I’m sure you will value
it more that way.

I wish you good luck for next week.

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