Our society thrives on the constant influx of information from sources spanning all over the world. Media outlets report things instantaneously; something that is only possible due to the ability of these sources to communicate and convey their messages. Communication can readily be described as the transfer of information or knowledge from one station to another. The Transmission Model of Communication developed by Shannon and Weaver breaks down the process of communication into five basic stages. The first stage is the information source, which is responsible for producing the original message. Next is the transmitter, which encodes these packaged messages into signals. Followed is the channel stage where these encoded signals are adapted for transmission. A receiver then decodes the original from its transmitted signal and lastly the destination holds a point for the message to arrive. This model, although widely accepted to a certain extent, can truly only be held as a fundamental basis to be further developed and analyzed. Shannon and Weaver developed this model to put a mathematic value on each individual stage to increase measurability. Its “usage may be adequate for many everyday purposes, in the context of the study of media and communication the concept needs critical reframing.” While the model serves as a basis to display the transmission of a message, it fails to convey anything more and ignores the feedback that is essential in all forms of communication. It “fixes and separates the roles of 'sender' and 'receiver'…It is a linear, one-way model, ascribing a secondary role to the 'receiver'.” [1]
“By definition, mass communication is a message created by a person or a group of people sent through a transmitting device (a medium) to a large audience or market.” [2] In Hardt’s “Myths for the Masses”, he explores the contrasting fundamental elements held by communication and mass communication. Hardt finds mass communication to be an overwhelming force that drives our nation. He lists appealing to the masses as a driving force for “defining relations among people and events.” While Hardt digresses into how privatization and commercialization are the driving forces behind this media based distribution of information, there holds one primary difference in the basis of the two communications. The technological allowance for such mass media “overturned a delicate balance between the authenticity of individual expression and the inauthenticity of institutionally manufactured articulations of reality.” [3] Mass communication removes any sort of individuality that a source of information may have previously held. It is packaged in its own unique way and holds the stereotypical commercialization stigma that attempts to define society.
The power of the Internet overwhelmingly changes the traditional Shannon Weaver model of communication. While the model is posed to represent a basic conversation, it provides a one-way path that is uncommon in the realm of the Internet. The Internet displays information that is in a constant state of flux; always being altered, delivered and read. The transmission of information is not a simple interaction, but a display for the masses. A single status update is delivered to hundreds if not thousands of individuals. In technical terms, the Internet holds a far more advanced path of delivering information that the basic model. Rather than one encoding of the information, the information is constantly being packaged and translated into different computer languages for each transmission that is being made.
[1] Chandler, Daniel. "Transmission Model of Communication."Prifysgol Aberystwyth / Aberystwyth University. 18 September, 1995. http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/trans.html 05 January, 2011. Internet.
[2] Lane, Beth. What is Mass Media? The Changing Role of Mass Communications and the Media Industries. Suite 101. 29 June, 2007. http://www.suite101.com/content/what-is-mass-media--a23017. 05 January, 2011. Internet.
[3] Hardt, Hanno. Myths for the Masses: an Essay on Mass Communication. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. Internet.
No comments:
Post a Comment