Models of communication
As a model of communication or communication theory is called scientific explanations for the description of communication. These theoretical approaches are explained in the communication and media studies, what communication is and how it works, and - make generalizable and theoretical contexts of mass communication, be seen - in the form of models.
- 5.1 S- R and S -O- R models
- 5.2 Two -stage models
- 5.3 Theory of the ineffectiveness of the media
- 5.4 Cognitive effects of media
Everyday Theoretical models of communication
The term everyday theoretically refers to the assumption that also in everyday theories are formed and applied. Theory is not regarded in this sense as some of the practical Separate. The following sections summarize ideas and descriptions that are often mentioned when speaking spontaneously and without reflection on the theme of communication.
Communication as participation
The idea of communication as participation refers to the borrowing of the concept of communication from the Latin ( communicatio ) and the importance of relationships to the following parts, and with parts. Communication is viewed here as the cultural process, is produced in the Community.
The idea of a common character set
Some ideas about communication is based on the assumption that communication is only possible if there is advance a common character set, the same language and a similar socialization of communication participants. These ideas turn out on closer inspection to be problematic. First, can therefore not answer the question of how characters and language arise.
Moreover, the notion of word meanings ( semantics of the object ), including the view differ from the character set ( the subject of semiotics ) and their use ( subject of pragmatics ), even with the same principles of order ( subject to the syntax ) from person to person. This is particularly the fact that also may exist between same-language individuals in need of explanation and extensive communication problems.
The container metaphor
With the container metaphor, the idea of a word or phrase is connected as a container in which objectively determinable meanings are included. Reception is in this metaphor is to extract the meanings of the containers as such again. Meanings, mind and thoughts can be according to this idea in a container "packed" and " unpacked " from it again. Naive ideas go in this case from an identity of meanings.
The idea of communication as an exchange of information
In everyday terms communication is described as an " exchange of information ". In other formulations, the aim or the result of a communication in a " flow of information " is seen. This means a summary of the notice or communication of knowledge, knowledge or experience. "Exchange" can be understood as reciprocity; "River " includes the notion of a direction, which may also be on both sides. In behind these formulations modeling is apart from the communicating. The focus is on what is called " information ".
Expression and impression models
For expression and impression models, one each side of the communication process strongly emphasized. The use of an expression and imprinting model happens in everyday life usually implicitly, that is, it is not clear which model is being used as the basis of claims about communication. Due to the excessive emphasis only on one side there is the danger that the communication process is no longer seen as a social, ie both sides of a comprehensive process, are thinking in the expression and impression only in relation to each other.
The expression model
The expression model describes communication as a process, which is essentially based on the fact, " express ", " content" with the use of sign processes and media. The reception - that is, as to the industries and self-perception and processing using sign processes - plays a secondary or subordinate role in these models.
As a result, communication is viewed as something that begins with the " expressions of something " using sign processes, ie produce with speaking, writing, a shipment. In particularly strong expression models is the reference to producer ( the person who somewhat " expresses " ) apart on potential or actual recipients. In extreme cases, the " expressions of something " equated with communication.
The problems of excessive expression model are that this model provides no way to describe the recipient as communicants. The extreme expression model predicts not communicating, for example, a television viewer with appearing on television man as long as he is no feedback in the current program, so long as he himself nothing " expresses " what can not perceive television Appearing. A moviegoer can not communicate with the actors in the film, therefore, during the visit to the cinema. The reader of a newspaper does not communicate the strong expression model suggests that the authors of the text while reading the lyrics.
The impression model
More rarely an impression model is used that describes the communication as a process, which is essentially based on the fact that by reception arise ( through external perception of the exclusively produced using sign processes ) " content" and using the individual theory of the world ( worldview ) are processed. As a result, communication is viewed as something that starts with the reception. In an especially strong impression models, apart from referring the recipient to the potential or real producers. In an extreme result, the reception is set equal to (the processing of the perceived as a sign or as meaningful ) with communication.
Over- impression model can lead to the concept of communication as a result of neglect of the cover is too far extended to a Production. This would be the case if perception is considered to communicate with the environment.
Scientific communication models
Most scientific communication models are pictures of the communication process in which either individual process elements and their structure ( structural models ), the course of the process ( flow models ), the duties and performance of the process ( functional models ) or determining characteristics (classification models) are shown. Another distinction is that. In process models, system models and hypotheses about the effects In these three basic forms of linear models, circular models, media effects models and sociological models occur, with the increasing differentiation and specification of the models of an intra- scientific development logic.
Descriptive models
Political scientist Harold Dwight Lasswell formulated a word model based on its Lasswell formula " Who says what in whichChannel to splat with what effect? " (Who says what in which channel to whom with what effect? ) In 1948 in an essay in which he dealt with the structural- functional analysis of communication processes. He created so in the sequence of five questions a principle of order to describe the processes and defined at the same time the research areas of communication science ( communicator research, media content research, media analysis, media audience research and media effects research).
The communication model of Bruce H. Westley and Malcolm S. MacLean (1957 ) was developed in the tradition of the gatekeeper research. In systems theory, the process of message switching is represented as multiple selective and dynamic -feedback process.
The communication model of John W. Riley and Matilda W. Riley (1959 ) deals with the social integration of the communication partner. Communicator and recipient belong to social groups (eg, primary group ) that mediate the communication and thus influence the communication behavior. It gatekeeper properties in the mass media, the type of selective perception, the quality of the interpretation, keeping a message and the response to this will be considered by the reader. Regarding the media effect sees this model, the mass communication as an element of the entire social system and factor among other factors on individual and social behavior. Mass communication and social systems influence each other. Sociological and social-psychological issues are involved in mass communication research by communicator and recipient are seen as elements of two social structures, which are in a Interpendenz ratio to each other.
The Schema field of mass communication by Gerhard Maletzke (1963 ) is considered a social psychology -oriented model, the reflexive and interactive mechanisms of communication. It sets out four positions in the mass media process: the communicator, the message, the medium and the recipient. Each position influences the other.
The Materialistic communication model by Wulf D. Dog (1976 ) points to the relationship of mass communication with the socio-economic conditions of a capitalist organized society - in terms of materialist theory of society. It is assumed that the communicator, produced as a news production operation its means of production, ie, the modern mass media and thereby transported statements primarily as goods and used for capital utilization.
Messaging models
In many cases, communication is described with the so-called transmitter-receiver model. This model emerged from the mathematical theory of communication between the two mathematicians Warren Weaver and Claude E. Shannon.
The information technology communication model is a relatively poor structural model. A " source of information " ( information source ) selects a "message" (message), which may consist of written or spoken signs. The "sender" (transmitter ) turns it into a signal that is transmitted over a communication channel to a " receiver " (receiver ). By sources of interference (noise source) the original signals can be distorted.
The Shannon -Weaver model is based on technical aspects of signal transmission. Information here has nothing to do with meaning, but refers to physically identifiable signal quantities and processes, and it treats the probability of occurrence of such a physically identifiable events ( signals and signal combinations ). Examples include the telephone, the telegraph or the radio. Therefore, this model is not suitable for the description of social communication processes.
Media effects models
S- R and S -O- R models
The transmitter -receiver model (also hypodermic needle Concept, Transmission Belt Theory or Magic Bullet Theory, 1920 ) connects the stimulus - response model with the theory of mass society. According to this model, each individual is achieved by stimuli via the mass media in the same way and takes this responsibility in the same way, so for all individuals in a similar response is obtained. The content of the communication and the direction of the effect (the effect ) within the meaning of the stimulus-response model equated. The mass media are seen as powerful propaganda and manipulation tools, using which one can draw entire societies. The simple idea of a mechanistic stimulus-response function of the mass media did not last, it is even doubted since the 1990s that this model has been introduced in the communication of scientific discourse at the beginning of the 20th century - in fact it was used below to illustrate a tendency to more differentiated concepts in the history of communication science models.
The stimulus-response model, so the equation of contents and effect, was rejected both in psychology and in media studies, as it can not be concluded that an appropriate response of the recipient of the knowledge of the stimulus. The SR theory was extended to the SOR - concept (based on the SOR paradigm ), whereby the individual as the mechanisms of action of factor influencing Try advanced as an "object " at the center of attention. Application found the model, in the sense of valuing the individual psychological disposition in mass-communication active process, especially in the 1940s in the research setting, for example by the research group around Carl I. Hovland.
Two stage models
The communication model by Lazarsfeld based on a study of the presidential election campaign in the U.S. in 1940 by the sociologist Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet in their choice study "The People's Choice " (1944). In it she explored the processes of opinion formation among voters, starting from the then prevailing notion of the strong effects of the mass media (press and radio). Instead, the decision of the voters but was less determined by the influence of the media as through personal contacts with other people. Media was rather selectively used by facing towards certain media offerings that support one's own opinion. So the election advertising reached only those voters who had already opted for a party, and reinforced in them the existing settings. The researchers came to the conclusion that ideas flow from the media to opinion leaders and from these to the less active sections of the population. This hypothesis of the two-step flow of mass communication ( two-step flow hypothesis) shows a departure from the theory of the all-powerful media, as between the media and the recipient of opinion leaders was settled as an additional selection instance. Effects of the media depend on conditions in the social context - thus in principle outside the media itself - are. Nevertheless, a traditional stimulus-response thinking, was arrested, not between the attention to media content and the influence on the attitude change differed; that is, the processes of transmission and dissemination (transmission and diffusion) were equated with the process of influence ( Persuasion ).
A further development of the simple notion of a poorly differentiated two-stage process towards a multi-step flow model was made in the 1950s by the realization that opinion leaders are also even more influenced by personal contacts as through media, ie there are " opinion leaders of opinion leaders ."
The separation of opinion leaders, as someone who passes on information only, and non- leader, as the sole receiver of information, could not be maintained. After the so-called opinion - sharing model after Verling C. Troldahl and Robert van Dam ( 1965) extends the transmission of mass media spread information and opinions in a personal conversation is not one-sided but mutual. So there are in the course of mass-communication diffusion process (ie, the dissemination of information via mass media) a group of people ( opinion leaders or opinion - Givers ), well-informed and interested and pass subject-specific information and opinions expressed within interpersonal communication processes, and such persons, want to get these from callers ( Opinion - Askers ) - the two groups influence each other and are alternately Opinion - Givers and Opinion - Askers. A third group, the Opinion - Avoiders, does not set the two interactive communication activities and is also less of the mass media.
The American Journalism scientist David M. White transferred in 1950 the approach of the social psychologist Kurt Lewin, accordingly, it is in almost all social institutions strategically important doors, locks or switching points at which individual decision makers ( " gatekeeper " or " lock-keeper " ) occupy key positions on the process of news selection and developed as the gatekeeper approach. These examined White, the selection behavior of agency reports an editor of a newspaper in a small American town. White postulated two reasons for the publication of decisions of the editor: on the one hand, certain messages are not published due to individual decision criteria because they were not as interesting, poorly written or classified as propaganda. On the other hand, is based publishing decision on formal criteria such as the length of the agency report or the date of transmission to the office. Criticized the approach of the gatekeeper research the emphasis on the individual selection criteria of journalists and the neglect of institutional and technical influences of news selection.
Theory of the ineffectiveness of the media
The American communication scholar Joseph Klapper took over in 1960 in his thesis amplifier the realization of the two- step flow of communication, according to which the mass media can not cause any change in attitude, but rather reinforce already existing settings. Klapper relies on the theory of cognitive dissonance of the psychologist Leon Festinger. Festinger assumed that the perception of contradictions in the knowledge and opinion of people is perceived as unpleasant and individuals try to reduce or avoid these contradictions. The derived hypothesis of a selective communication use (selective exposure ) states regarding the use of media that individuals actively seek the information that support their beliefs and their beliefs avoid contradictory information. This approach to date has influence on the advertising research.
Cognitive effects of media
The knowledge gap hypothesis ( Knowledge - Gap ) by Phillip J. Tichenor, George A. Donohue and Clarice N. Olien (1970 ) takes - similar to the cultivation theory - the concept of media literacy an important role. It is assumed in this approach assumes that the media taught knowledge is used by different parts of the population in different ways: people with higher socio -economic status or a higher formal education process information provided by the mass media, better and faster than those in which these properties in lesser extent present. As a result of increased media offers the knowledge gap between the two populations tend to grow.
Elisabeth Noelle - Neumann formulated a concept in which the media in the 1970s with the theory of the spiral of silence - in contrast to the amplifier hypothesis - strong effects are assumed again. In order to avoid social isolation tilt Noelle-Neumann people to conceal their views when it contradicts a presumed majority opinion. Faith people, however, to represent the majority opinion, they tend to express their opinions publicly. Thus, the (seemingly) prevailing opinion is expressed more and more frequently, the (seemingly) weaker increasingly rare. The mass media provide a picture of the presumed majority opinion and take on an articulation function by conveying linguistic representation model for seemingly dominant positions - a relief to be able to take this position in the public.
The agenda - setting approach of the two communication scholars Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw ( 1972), as assumed in the theory of the spiral of silence, of strong media effects: the media generate by selecting the topics public discourse and give them significance, because the issues that are taking in reporting high value, are also used by the recipient considered important.
In the agenda -building approach (1981 ) Go, the two sociologists Gladys E. Lang and Kurt Lang believes that the media agenda is the result of selection and construction processes themselves. Media productions such as press conferences, exclusive interviews, etc. that are initiated sent by PR and advertising professionals, determine the media agenda, even before they can take effect on the public agenda setting.