WEEK 15 – PR 203: Introduction to Communication
Last Week’s Class: Mass Media in the National Arena
-
Communication Policies of Nation States
Surveillance and Power
Censorship
This Week:
- More examples of ideology analysis (which students bring to class)
- Discussions about mass self-communication & online labour
- Preparation of final exam (overview)
Notes from Reading for Discussion:
Technological Convergence and the New Multimedia System:
From Mass Communication to Mass Self-communication
(Manuel Castells)
Convergence of modes (p.58): blurring the lines between the media – single
physical means carries services that in the past were provided in separate ways
/ a service which was provided by one medium in the past can now be provided
in several physical ways
Computer networking & telecommunication (information and communication
technology), since the 1970s, became now the dominant paradigm because of the
potential of digitization and open source software that generate new forms of
local/global interactive communication, often initiated by the user of the
network
Development of many mass media (rapid acceleration of transformative trends):
TV:
The medium has gone from a highly centralized one-way communication system,
based on a limited number of networks of stations, to a highly diverse and
decentralized broadcasting system based on enhanced transmission capacity
= now a medium that combines mass broadcasting with mass narrowcasting
BUT: growing standardization of content (diminishing control by television
networks of ability to decide over the content programming / now more
centrally produced) under semblance of differentiation (product customization
& targeted segmentation of the audience) = impact on journalism: distance to
local events, same news everywhere (for example, buy news from AFP)
Radio:
Automated music broadcasting brings radio closer to iPod model of music on
demand – the potential for customization and differentiation allowed by digital
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technologies was used to disguise central production of locally distributed
products customized for specific audiences on the basis of marketing models (p.
61)
“… technologies of freedom and their potential for diversification do not
necessarily lead to differentiation of programming and localization of content;
rather, they allow for the falsification of identity in an effort to combine
centralized control and decentralized delivery as an effective business strategy”
(61).
Internet & Wireless:
From 1990s:
- Internet got privatized + World Wide Web server and browser got
operational
- Wireless communication technology with increasing capacity of
connectivity and bandwith (Wi-Fi and WiMAX networks) = multiple access
points to the Internet
Result: World-wide diffusion (dependent on wireless infrastructure)
+ increasing the potential for multimodal communication of any kind of data in
any kind of format from anyone to anyone and from everywhere to everywhere.
 Mass self-communication (p.63):
Internet “is the communication fabric of our lives, for work, for personal
connection, for social networking, for information, for entertainment, for public
services, for politics, and for religion” (64)
Incomparable to the mass media (like TV) before – it, rather, transformed the old
mass media:
-
TV continues to be a major mass medium, but its delivery and format are
being transformed as its reception becomes individualized (different
audience relation)
Print press (newspapers): delivery platform changed, also work processes
are transformed; now rather internally networked organizations, globally
connected to information networks and synergy with other news/media
organisations (Internet-based communication in production and delivery)
besides online news through interactive blogging, e-mail, RSS feeds =
component of mass self-communication (since Web 2.0, 3.0 which
produced horizontal networks of interactive communication)
= the proliferation of social spaces on the Internet thanks to increased
broadband capacity, innovative open-source software, and enhanced computer
graphics and interface, including avatar interaction in three-dimensional
virtual spaces.
= distributed to all realms of social life
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New forms of communication: SMS, blog (cf. ‘blogosphere’), vlog, podcast, wiki,
tweet, etc.
+ file sharing and p2p (peer-to-peer) networks (like Kazaa) make the circulation,
mixing, and reformatting of any digitized content possible
Blogs are becoming an important domain of self-expression (mass selfcommunication), but it also enhances ‘electronic autism’!
 Horizontal networks of communication built around people’s
initiatives, interests, and desires are multimodal and incorporate many
kinds of documents.
 A diverse and widespread virtual society is built on the web: it “is not
15 minutes of fame they care about, it is about 15 megabytes of fame”
(Jeffrey Cole, 2008)
Different sites:
YouTube:
Largest communication medium in the world (founded in 2005);
Used by national and international broadcasters to reach new audiences
and connect interested members of their diaspora.
MySpace:
Second-largest video-sharing site in 2008
Wikipedia:
Open-source encyclopedia
Facebook:
World’s most successful website for social interaction
World of Warcraft:
Largest online gaming community
Second Life:
Most successful social space of virtual reality that combines sociability
and experimentation with role-playing (but reproduces features of our
society, including the pitfalls such as aggression and rape, real estate) –
but also educational platforms and political demonstrations
“Wireless communication has become a delivery platform of choice for many
kinds of digitized products, including games, music, images, and news, as well as
instant messaging that covers the entire range of human activity, from personal
support networks to professional tasks and political mobilizations. Thus, the grid
of electronic communication overlies everything we do…” (69).
+ Advantages: new usage for grassroots organizations & pioneering
individuals: low-power radio stations, pirate tv stations, independent video
production = low-cost production & distribution
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“… the growing interaction between horizontal and vertical networks of
communication does not mean that the mainstream media are taking over the
new, autonomous forms of content generation and distribution. It means that
there is a process of complementarity that gives birth to a new media reality
whose contours and effects will ultimately be decided by political and business
power struggles, as the owners of the telecommunication networks position
themselves to control access and traffic in favor of their business partners and
preferred customers” (70).
Conclusion:
Mass self-communication = mass communication because it reaches a
potentially global audience through p2p networks and Internet connection.
It is:
- multimodal: allows reformatting in almost any content
- increasingly distributed via wireless computer networks
- self-generated in content, self-directed in emission, self-selected in
reception by many who communicate with many (senders are globally
distributed and globally interactive)
Possibility of unlimited diversity and autonomous production of most of the
communication flows that construct meaning in the public mind!
But: processed and shaped (although not determined) by organizations and
institutions that are largely influenced by business strategies of profit-making
and market expansion.
Where Have All the Workers Gone?
(George Packer, The Newyorker)
General problem: we don’t see the face of the (blue-collar) worker anymore (cf.
Amazon) = absent from the public imagination
Online companies are ubiquitous (everywhere) but no physical presence or a
human face anymore! – just click ‘BUY’ but no face behind the seamless online
experience
-
Invisibility of work and workers in the digital age is as consequential as the
rise of the assembly line (in the industrial revolutions) and, later, the
service economy.
With work increasingly invisible, it’s much harder to grasp the human
effects, the social contours, of the Internet economy.
It takes an effort to realize that the tech economy is man-made.
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Yet, today we see new concentrations of economic power = Amazon, Google,
Apple, Facebook, Microsoft…
Seen as public resources rather than private corporations (cf. their company
rhetorics/mottos):
-
Facebook: “more open and connected world”
Google: “organize the world’s information and make it universally
accessible and useful”
Amazon: “Earth’s most customer-centric company”
But: these companies also buy other companies, like Facebook buying
WhatsApp for profit.
The whole trend of antitrust policy for the past thirty years, continuing
with the Obama Administration, has been to disregard monopoly in the interest
of low consumer prices and greater “efficiency.
With merging companies for the sake of global competitiveness, jobs
are more and more destroyed!
So: how regulate monopoly and competition on Internet (like Progressivism)?
Example (from History, one century ago): Progressivism in US with two
camps – New Nationalism (Theodore Roosevelt) who want to regulate the
monopolies (as efficient feature of industrial economy) in the public interest,
rendering a central government as equal to the big corporations, and the New
Freedom (Woodrow Wilson) who want to liberate individual enterprises and
eliminate (corrupting) monopoly power. –> both influenced the New Deal
Where are the New Nationalists and New Freedom fighters today?
-
Some argue for giving users a share of the wealth in the Internet economy
that requires their participation.
Human beings have the capacity to shape and reform it for the public good!
Preparation for exam
-
Learn the theory and concepts (definitions) from after the mid-term exam!
Look again at the contents from before the mid-term in terms of how it is
related to mass media (messages) – so general understanding of semiotics
and communication models is still needed!
Learn to apply your knowledge: ideology analysis, critically reading
advertisement and other mass media messages
Focus on the comprehension of the texts (arguments) for discussion about
actual developments in Turkey today: press freedom vs censorship,
use/ban of social media, etc.
Exam date: Tuesday, 6 January 2015, 1.30pm.
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