Communication Models for the Study of Mass Communications

Denis Mcquail, Sven Windahl

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317900672
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: Social Sciences

Presents the main existing models of the mass communications process which have been developed during the last thirty years, providing brief descriptions of the most significant concepts and ideas in the study of mass communication, using graphic and verbal models.

1 INTRODUCTION

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1.1 SCOPE AND PURPOSE

This book has a dual objective. On the one hand, it seeks to bring together and to present, in a succinct and accessible form, many of the models which have been developed to describe or explain the process of mass communication. On the other hand, it aims to represent the main lines of thought about mass communication which have emerged during 40 years of research. At certain points we have drawn our own models to reflect important conceptual developments or relatively new fields of enquiry. In this much revised edition, over ten years on, we have omitted some earlier models and added new ones, both in order to take account of developments in the field and to extend the range (especially in Ch. 7 to 9). Some of the early basic models are certainly dated, but we have kept them for historical reasons and because they provided the foundations for later work.

There is more than one way of telling the history of ideas about mass communication and the one we have chosen follows a tradition in which mass communication can be seen as a specific form of a general phenomenon, in which the main elements of sender, message and receiver take on distinctive characteristics and meanings. We hope to shed light on these meanings by starting with some very simplified and general versions of what any communication relationship involves and then proceeding to deal with the effects of mass communication and with the relationships which hold amongst the main participants and between the participants and their society.

In focusing on mass communication, we have inevitably to neglect interesting developments in the study of inter- and intra-personal communication and of communication structures and flows within groups and organizations. Nevertheless, our own view of mass communication is of a process which is co-extensive and interactive with other types of communication network and process. While different specialisms have emerged in the study of communication which seem to have little in common by the way of theory, method or aim, we would prefer not to mark clear boundaries around the substance of any one ‘communication system’. We anticipate a future in which existing boundaries will become even less clear than they are at present and when communication technology and new expressions of communication need will produce different structures, relationships and possibilities of effect.

1.2 THE USES AND MISUSES OF MODELS

In the first edition we commented on the relative lack of interest in communication models at that time. This no longer seems to be the case, presumably because the advantages we perceived are now more widely acknowledged. Even so, the potential advantages and drawbacks call for some further comment. For our purpose, we consider a model as a consciously simplified description in graphic form of a piece of reality. A model seeks to show the main elements of any structure or process and the relationships between these elements. Deutsch (1966) notes the following main advantages of models in the social sciences. Firstly, they have an organizing function by ordering and relating systems to each other and by providing us with images of wholes that we might not otherwise perceive. A model gives a general picture of a range of different particular circumstances. Secondly, it helps in explaining, by providing in a simplified way information which would otherwise be complicated or ambiguous. This gives the model a heuristic function, since it can guide the student or researcher to key points of a process or system. Thirdly, the model may make it possible to predict outcomes or the course of events. It can at least be a basis for assigning probabilities to various alternative outcomes, and hence for formulating hypotheses in research. Some models claim only to describe the structure of a phenomenon. In this sense, a diagram of the components of a radio set could be described as ‘structural’. Other models, which we call ‘functional’, describe systems in terms of energy, forces and their direction, the relations between parts and the influence of one part on another.

The models presented in this book fall mainly into the latter category, simply because all communication is in some degree dynamic and involves some elements of process or change. Even so, some of the models are very simple and tell us little about the forces at work which relate elements to each other. While models in general can be purely verbal, or diagrammatic, or mathematical, we have presented only those which are both verbal and diagrammatic.

It has been argued against the use of models that they tend to trap their originators and users within rather limited confines which they then become eager to defend against attack. Such a tendency can have a delaying effect on the development of a science, although this has probably not happened in the case of communication research, where old models have tended to be soon discarded or modified. A similar risk is that a model, or even a succession of models, can tend to perpetuate some initial questionable, but fundamental, assumptions about the components of a model or the processes at work. An example in the field of communication is the tendency to represent communication as a one-directional process in which a ‘sender’ deliberately tries to influence a ‘receiver’. Such a representation tends to deny the circularity, negotiability and openness of much communication.

It should at least be remembered that there are some risks in using models, even for heuristic purposes. They are inevitably incomplete, oversimplified and involve some concealed assumptions. There is certainly no model that is suitable for all purposes and all levels of analysis and it is important to choose the correct model for the purpose one has in mind. One of the purposes of the book is to give some indication of the proper purpose and level of different models, partly by showing how they have been used in communication research. The reader should become aware of the possibilities of testing models against circumstances or cases and of adapting any given model to suit the chosen application. The models presented are not so sacred that they cannot easily be given a somewhat different shape and formulation. It should become apparent that anyone is in a position to construct their own models of a given aspect of the communication process and we hope that this book will encourage students of mass communication to adopt this process as a means of elucidation.

We view models primarily as aids to thought which are especially appropriate in the study of communication. Why they should be so appropriate is not easy to demonstrate, but it may stem from the fact that communication is a binding force in social relationships without at the same time being visible or having tangible and permanent forms. Acts of communication take predictable or recurrent forms within a given structure of relationships and have consequences for this structure without being readily open to observation. There is, consequently, an attraction in being able to ‘draw’ the ‘lines’ which stand for the links we know to exist but cannot see and to use other devices to show the structure, topography, strength and direction of relationships. So much of the subject of communication has to be dealt with in verbal abstractions that it is an aid and a relief to have at least something ‘fixed’ in graphic form, however much the element of abstraction may remain.

1.3 DEFINITIONS AND TERMS

The central concept in this book is communication. It has been., defined in a number of ways, but we do not wish or need to be tied to one particular definition, since the authors we refer to have different notions of the concept. But the following examples give us some idea of the variety of meanings involved:

The transmission of information, ideas, attitudes, or emotion from one person or group to another (or others) primarily through symbols (Theodorson and Theodorson 1969)

In the most general sense, we have communication wherever one system, a source, influences another, the destination, by manipulation of alternative symbols, which can be transmitted over the channel connectin.g them (Osgood et al. 1957)

Communication may be defined as ‘social interaction through messages’ (Gerbner 1967)

Thus, in the most general terms, communication implies a sender, a channel, a message, a receiver, a relationship between sender and receiver, an effect, a context in which communication occurs and a range of things to which ‘messages’ refer. Sometimes, but not always, there is an intention, or purpose to ‘communicate’ or to ‘receive’. Communication can be any or all of the following: an action on others; an interaction with others and a reaction to others.

Sometimes the originators of models point to two additional processes, that of ‘encoding’ (atthe sender end ofthe model) and that of ‘decoding’ (at the receiver end). Encoding means that the message is translated into a language or code suitable for the means of transmission and the intended receivers. Decoding refers to the re-translation of the message in order to extract meaning. In a conversation between two persons, the encoding function is performed by the speech mechanism and (for nonverbal communication) muscles making possible gestures, etc. In such a case, the senses of hearing and sight perform the decoding function. In mass communication encoding can referto technical transformations necessary for the transmission of signals and also to the systematic choice of words, pictures and formats according to established procedures and the expectations held about audience experience.

In many models, the concept of ‘feedback’ is employed. In general, this refers to any process by which the communicator obtains information about whether and how the intended receiver has indeed received the message. Such information can help to modify ongoing or future communication behaviour. In a face-to-face communication situation this may take the form of questions, requests to repeat something, gestures, responses and so on. In mass communication, feedback of these kinds is mainly replaced by: audience research;. sales figures; studio audiences; tryouts; letters and phone calls. But it can also take the form of response directly from superiors, colleagues, friends and other personal contacts.

As we have seen, many of the basic terms in communication take different meanings when they refer to mass communication and we need to have a different characterization of the latter. A frequently cited definition is as follows:

Mass communications comprise the institutions and techniques by which specialized groups employ technological devices (press, radio, films, etc.) to disseminate symbolic content to large, heterogeneous and widely dispersed audiences (Janowitz 1968)

This points to most of the variations and additions that we need to take account of. The ‘sender’ in mass communication is always part of an organized group and often a member of an institution which has functions other than communication. The ‘receiver’ is always an individual but may often be seen by the sending organization as a group or collectivity with certain general attributes. The channel no longer consists of the social relationship, means of expression and sensory organs, but includes large-scale technologically based distribution devices and systems. These systems still have a social component, since they depend on law, custom and expectation. The message in mass communication is not a unique and transitory phenomenon, but a mass-produced and infinitely repeatable symbolic structure, often of great complexity.

Of particular significance in mass communication are: the public and open nature of all communication; the limited and controlled access to ‘sending’ facilities; the impersonality of the relationship between sender and receiver; the imbalance of the relationship between them; the intervention of institutionalized arrangements between sender and receiver. In reality, there is no single universal form of the mass communication process and the diversity of the reality accounts in part for the multiplicity of possible models to represent the whole or parts of it.

1.4 EARLY COMMUNICATION MODELS AND MASS COMMUNICATION RESEARCH

Mass communication research, stimulated primarily by concern over the political influence of the mass press and later over the moral and social consequences of film and radio, extends back at least until the beginning of the present century. Research into communication in general had its origins in the wish to test and increase efficiency and effectiveness in the spheres of education, propaganda, telecommunication, advertising and public and human relations. Research activity began with practical concerns and was fed by developments in psychology and sociology and by general advances in methodology, especially the use of experiments, social surveys and statistics.

It was not really until after the Second World War that a focus on communication as such was articulated. Just as much early empirical research was largely an American phenomenon, so it was in the United States in the post-war period that the possibility of a science of communication was first discussed. The decade of the 1950s proved to be fertile in model-building activity, which can be taken as an expression of the search for growth and unity in the study of communication. According to Johnson and Klare (1961), it was a mathematician, Claude Shannon, who first provided the stimulus to social scientists to formulate their thinking about communication in model form according to the terms outlined above. The initial appeal of this approach can probably be related, first of all, to the predominance of the current interest in effects and effectiveness, secondly to its consistency with the stimulus—response model of behaviour control and learning which was fundamental to psychology (see 3.1) and thirdly, to the growing wish to order and codify existing knowledge and enquiry in mass-communication research.

1.5 ELABORATION OF THE BASIC MATHEMATICAL MODEL

The simple sender—channel—message—receiver model was rapidly modified during the 1950s according to the interests both of the students of interpersonal communication and of mass communication. The changes took account of several important aspects of human communication. One was the need to incorporate more fully and as an essential component, the occurrence of feedback. Associated with this is the recognition of the non-linearity of communication processes. They are typically circular, recurrent and spiralling, since the change brought about by communication initiates a new ‘loop’ at a different point and on a different plane (to use spatial analogies) than the start. These are...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Basic Models
• 3 Personal Influence, Diffusion and Short-Term Effects of Mass Communication on Individuals
• 4 Effects of Mass Communication on Culture And Society
• 5 Audience-Centred Models
• 6 Media Organization, Selection and Production
• 7 Planned Communication
• 8 New Media and the Information Society
• 9 International Communication
• Index