Lecture
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1. Group: roles, leadership, communication |
Man is by nature a social animal. Sociocentric instinct calls him to unite in groups of various interests with their own kind (the 'insidious prophecy' of nature). Some of these groups are fairly stable and exist for a long time (family), some are created for a specific purpose for a short time (bus passengers or participants in a business project). |
Two main constituent features of the group:
common interests of group members and
communication between members.
Without interaction and exchange of views between members, the group cannot be formed.
Consider the main types of groups: family, informal and formal .
Family group: this is involuntary (parents are not chosen), a long-term group with diverse common interests (blood ties, blood ties, blood feuds). The primary goal of the family group is to master the human language and other means of communication, survival and behavior education.
Informal group: this is a friendly group, voluntary, not necessarily long-term. Common interests in the group: the game, as well as socialization, learning and entertainment through the game. It also models social relations in formal groups, identifies and asserts its own individuality through 'friction about the environment'. The latter is particularly well seen in adolescent groups: get-together, imitation of adult relationships, playing mothers and daughters, school, war, street and courtyard gangs.
Formal group: this is both a voluntary (music school, clubs and clubs) and an involuntary (school, army) group, with a fixed term and terms of membership (from day to life), established structure and relationships between members (school charter, university, party, the constituent documents of the company; informal 'sayings' type you boss - I'm a fool), set goals and objectives (eg, education: education and socialization; production: production of goods, services, profit, social: realizations tion of social problems and relations). In addition to the statutory tasks, formal groups can perform non-statutory. This includes the development of relationships (joint parties and trips to nature); social protection of group members (medical and legal assistance, kindergartens and rest homes); personal development and image creation (an employee of Xerox, professor at Yale University, McDonald's employee ; image identity is supported by various kinds of “slogans”: if you are a Komsomol name, name is supported by your own affairs ); development of natural inclinations and talents of members of the group or obstacle to this (school, prison).
Characteristics of the group :
relationships and communication between members (relationships are not necessarily good, they can even be competitive and hostile: like spiders in a bank );
goals, interests and tasks generally recognized for members (without communication, common goals do not provide a group, for example, a crowd at a bus stop );
the system of values and norms of behavior generally accepted for members (the Charter of the guard and garrison services, the Charter of the CPSU, the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism );
a set of behavioral roles and patterns of communicative behavior in a particular situation developed by group members (for example, at a meeting: chairman, secretary, presidium ; less official: our little fool, our Napoleon , etc.). These roles can change over time, as a member of a group develops as an individual: promotion, a child in a Japanese family: up to eight years - lord, after eight - a slave, after sixteen - equal );
distribution and adoption of certain roles within the group: each member has a certain status ( leader - slave, chief - subordinate, teacher - student, wolf - hare );
the role and identity of each member of the group can be supported additionally by verbal and non-verbal markers ( Your Majesty, Comrade, insignia, crown, form, salute , etc.).
What are the main and additional goals of grouping? This is the achievement of a common goal or resistance to a common threat (to unite for or against ); getting a sense of belonging (own usefulness and utility) and security. Identity ( identity ) is created through various social connections ( I tell you this, as a communist; I am a loyal Leninist; as an employee of this company, I ...; or even: I am a pofigist ). One of the additional benefits of group membership is the ease of communication with one's fellows (hence, jargons, argot, professional languages, local humor and literature, etc., right up to body hex: I recognize the bearing of the soldier ).
The three main factors in the grammar of intragroup communication are roles, norms, and leadership .
Roles are similar to grammatical functions, this is a behavior that is considered appropriate for a particular situation (group of situations); script behavior (written by parents, teachers, friends, party comrades, etc.). There are also cases of resistance imposed on the role (the resistance of a reasonable voter "cheap" political advertising, teen revolt , etc.). But both in the case of resistance, and in the case of sacrificing a part of one’s own freedom for the sake of the group’s interests (for example, silence in the hall during the concert, the notorious “loyalty to the business of the company” of Japanese workers and employees ) In this case, the microenvironment - the group). Roles appear in the process of communication, in discourse as speech, because the term role itself is borrowed from the realm of drama and means 'text segment'.
The individual plays a lot of different roles in life. The diagram from the book of Dimbleby and Burton shows the possible social roles of the male communicator, performed by him in one place or another, at one time or another (family, social, production). The following types of roles can be distinguished:
age ( child, teenager, boy / girl, adult, old man , there is a cultural-historical variation of the boundary between ages);
sex (they are vividly manifested 'in contrast' in violation of the usual characteristics of the role: crying man: crying Bolshevik, crying prime minister ; compare hugs and kisses for men and women, but at the same time the traditional triple kiss from the communist leaders ). With the exaggeration or diminishing of the importance of the separation of roles by gender, even with the struggle against sociocultural separation by gender, such social movements as sexism , feminism , Political Сorrectness - PC are associated .
class roles. It is generally accepted that there are behavioral stereotypes of the higher, middle and lower class, which is expressed even in verbal preferences: eat (meat dishes) - eat (meat, fish) - eat, eat, hunt (seeds) .
The versatility, polyphony of the human personality, playing a variety of roles in the environment while maintaining the main rod of identity, resembles lexical meanings and polysemy of words. Man appears as a polysemous word. Within the group, he can perform functional roles ( leader, organizer, performer, conciliator, joker, humorist ) and dysfunctional roles ( jester, mocker, snitch, overseer, accuser, intriguer, gossip ). And this is closer to grammar and its violations.
The norms or rules of grammar of intragroup communication include accepted patterns of behavior, permissible communicative tactics. Compare different models of conversation: simultaneous conversation at the banquet table in a friendly company and alternately at a family dinner. According to the American psychologist B. Takman (BWTuckman), communicative processes in the formation of the group go through four stages:
stage of formation (selection of the leader, setting goals, rules of communication),
protest stage (the conflict of individuals and subgroups, the rejection of the leader and attitudes),
stage of standard setting (the emergence of a stable structure of the group, its norms, mutual grinding of members),
stage of cooperation (overcoming interpersonal tensions, solving common problems).
The process of forming a group takes place in a dialogue between a person and another person, or - a person and an aggregate person, if the team has already formed and a new member joins it. The basis of the formation of the group is a mutual concession, a consensual sphere of interests and actions is formed here (according to Maturan).
Leadership , according to several authors, is of four types: autocracy (one person subordinates others: a certain type of family, dictatorship, monarchy, a number of parties),
laissez-faire (from the French expression literally meaning “let it do”, cf. expression: anarchy is the mother of order, sometimes this type of relationship between the people and government in society as a whole is called ochlocracy, crowd power) ,
democracy (within this subtype there are varying degrees of 'popular participation' in one’s own fate),
collectivism (formal equality, but functionally the group is unequal; sometimes this subtype is criticized for slow decision-making, it’s not for nothing that the word parliament in the original French language meant 'chatter').
In any society, all types are present and used, one of them is usually institutionalized (for example, the constitution in the society as a whole establishes the subordination of the authority of the king or president; through the 'tacit laws of the mafia or the family - the power of the godfather or mother).
Communication in a group can be divided into informative (exchange of information between members of a group) and constitutive (aimed at maintaining relationships, at maintaining the group itself). Constitutive communication is often formal: Comrade General , a submissive look, to salute . The main function of such communication is phatic and unifying. Semiotic idealism sometimes takes the conventions of a certain period in discourse at face value: the mother-in-law called his mother, electoral promises of deputies, “instructions of voters” , etc.
Communication skills necessary for successful communication in groups are mostly interpersonal, but there are also those that are aimed at preserving the group and maintaining its status.
First of all, the rules of communicative behavior in a group include
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mutual recognition of the status of participants of communication as communicants and as members of a group; in addition, it is customary to publicly evaluate the achievements of others ( Well done! Good idea! ); need to be able to defuse the situation in time ( joke, anecdote ); be able to agree with group ideas, actions and decisions ( Let's do this, for example, I can bake a cake ); be able to offer the necessary information and ideas to the group ( And why shouldn't we ... ; the reverse action here is destructive: questions are off topic ); |
be able to evaluate the proposed ideas and information (so as not to offend: I do not see anything wrong with that ... It's great, but will it not happen that ... );
you should encourage others to express their opinions and provide the necessary information ( you are an expert on Australian rock bands, what do you think about ...; this is especially important for the couple, the leader is silent);
need to be able to integrate various ideas and information (such is the institutionalized role of the teacher, the workshop leader; the head of the enterprise in the 'five minutes', etc.);
be able to propose a plan of joint action ( And why do not we ... ).
The tone of the statements may be different, but a democratic, deliberative tone is preferable, although in some cases people are even waiting to be ruled and dictatorial manners are welcomed. This is largely characteristic of the employees of Russian enterprises and organizations, mainly of the older generation. In determining the image of a manager, one should be guided by the “addressee factor”, and not proceed only from the personal qualities of the manager himself or from ideal ideas about how to “properly” or “how best”. Lead people need the way they want to be led.
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2. Organization: structure, relationships, communication flows
We are born in organizations, and we spend much of our lives. We spend much of our leisure time paying, playing and praying in organizations. Amitai etzioni |
As the author of the book Modern Organizations (1964) A. Etzioni writes, we are born, we bring up, we live, we work, we have fun and we pray in organizations . Indeed, as a group animal, a person interacts and communicates in various institutionalized social groups - organizations (small business, school, office, bank, church, factory, shop, etc.). From birth to death, we are not alone. An organization is created precisely for organizing the work of a certain group of people aimed at accomplishing a certain set of socially significant tasks. A significant part of the process of organizing the collaboration of people is communication during planning and during the actual execution of the task. We should not forget about communication after implementation (discussion of results), and about communication aimed at maintaining good relations between members of the organization (social tasks). In general, communication processes in which organizations participate can be divided into two major areas: communication within organizations and external communication (board of directors - ordinary employees; school director - teachers; university board - teachers / company - tax inspection; company - consumer group or customers; company - suppliers of consumables; company - local administration). Both of these areas fall within the purview of the PR service. |
What is an organization? Here are its main features:
it is formed at a certain time by someone's establishment or agreement between people (the date of adoption of the charter; the general meeting of members of the cooperative);
it develops formally structured relationships between people (the general director is the commercial director, the director for advertising and marketing — the chief accountant — the head of the research department, etc. — an employee, dealer, manager);
the organization has established goals and objectives (enterprise charter; production of goods, hidden: making a profit; shareholder income; hidden: income of managers; training, etc.);
the division of labor between members and groups of members (production - management - sales - innovation);
the activities of the members of the organization are coordinated within the framework of a common effort (planning department; PR department);
the organization manages material and human resources (department manager, personnel department, personnel retraining, internal PR department);
communication in the organization is aimed at achieving the greatest efficiency of this organization in the framework of the implementation of its tasks.
Both formal and informal communication are carried out according to the rules of grammar of intragroup communication. Separate individuals can also perform both functional and dysfunctional roles, with the organization often having two parallel rows of roles: formal and informal (leader, for example).
In relation to communication, researchers from Stanford University ( Stanford University ) distinguish the following roles of employees of the organization:
' watchman' - controls the flow of messages (for example, in the university: secretary of the rector ),
' connected' - located at the intersection of communication flows between groups ( academic management, dean's office, councils, in the informal sphere: rumors and their distributors , the so-called OBS system , etc.),
“ Opinion Leader ” - authority for communication, (in mass communication - public opinion leaders ),
' cosmopolitan' - has frequent contacts with the external environment, is a source of new external information, goes on business trips, visits exhibitions, etc.
Another classification of roles (according to the book Belbin RM Management Teams ): complementary functions in solving joint tasks in a team
chairman (coordination and collaboration),
team worker ( “think about your homeland first, and then about yourself”; twenty minutes to Great Japan, twenty minutes to Great Sony Company, twenty minutes to yourself; company loyalty and support from others),
shaper (dominant, busy with a particular case),
company employee (good at practical organization),
observer / evaluator (critically analyzes ideas and tasks),
researcher (research, collaboration),
plant (producer of ideas, but not necessarily in good contact with others),
trailer (details, terms).
Much depends on the head of the organization; therefore, a number of sociological and psychological studies are devoted to its functions.As stated in the previous paragraph, the following leadership styles are usually distinguished: authoritarian, democratic, soft ( laissez-faire ). The diagrams graphically depict the relationship between management and employees with a particular type of communicative style:
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authoritarian style |
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to to to to to |
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hard control |
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accusatory bias |
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avoidance of discussion |
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instructions without explanation |
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rejection of proposals |
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encouraging discussion |
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consultation with colleagues |
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democratic style |
and |
decision making |
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about |
desire to discuss problems |
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adoption of a board of experts |
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training subordinates |
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no job evaluation |
no feedback |
'let them cope' |
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lm m |
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'maybe blow over' |
from laissez-faire and |
no help |
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n to about |
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no intervention |
no discussion |
no employee training |
Роли и способы (стили) общения связаны и с позицией сотрудников в коммуникационной сети (схемы типа: цепь, пирамида, круг, вилка, звезда, открытая коммуникация). Первые из них ближе линейному, авторитарному стилю, последние – диалогическому, демократическому стилю.
Структура организации предопределяет и направления коммуникационных потоков в ней, то есть, движения сообщений по различным каналам, между различными подразделениями и работниками этой организации:
вертикальные коммуникационные потоки идут от администрации к рядовым членам (приказ, постановка задач, убеждение, поддержка, контроль, кризисная коммуникация) и от рядовых членов к администрации (отчет, запрос, служебная записка, профсоюз, собрание 'трудового коллектива');
horizontal communication flows - between equal members of the organization (production communication, exchange of opinions, meetings, smoke breaks, conversation in a bar after work);
External communication flows are any messages related to the intersection of the organization’s conditional boundary (advertising and corporate advertising, articles, interviews, exhibitions, presentations, press conferences, press releases, crisis communication).
Есть охранные механизмы для предотвращения деструктивной коммуникации (гриф 'для внутреннего пользования', 'для служебного пользования', 'совершенно секретно'). Охранные механизмы ограничивают число коммуникантов определенным кругом лиц. В посткоммунистической России многочисленные запреты прежней эпохи сохраняются и в виде коммуникативной фобии (боязнь вступать в контакт с иностранцами, шпиономания, корпоративная закрытость и т.п. явления).
Специалисту по коммуникации в сфере бизнеса полезно представлять коммуникационные потоки наглядно, в виде диаграммы: иерархической, концентрической (паутина), фокусированной (на отдельном коммуниканте или группе). Это иногда полезно и при межкультурной коммуникации (перевод), поскольку дословный перевод терминов типа 'менеджер', 'директор' с исходного языка не всегда соответствует рангу сотрудника в переводящей культуре.
Помимо этих основных коммуникационных потоков, в организации могут наблюдаться и дополнительные (между руководителями и работниками разных подразделений, то есть, 'по диагонали', между работниками и руководителями различных организаций, 'в сторону'). Большую роль играет также неформальная коммуникация на всех уровнях (компания Sony поддерживает неформальные группы вне работы; президент страны играет в теннис/футбол с кем-либо; 'чаепития', 'утренники', 'вечера' и т.п.). В англоязычной терминологии, grapevine (система слухов или ОБС, дословный перевод 'виноградная лоза') поставляет 66% информации работникам предприятия, 80% которой – информация 'по делу', то есть, производственная. Внутренняя форма слова grapevinesuggests a possible graphic image of communication flows in the form of a creeping and branching network; we also speak Russian: rumors have spread.
Неформальные, дружеские или сопернические отношения могут как тормозить выполнение задач организации, так и способствовать их выполнению. Русская бизнес-коммуникация отличается от западной именно значительным превосходством неформальной стороны. Иногда дело не идет из-за неприятельских отношений коммуникантов. Неформальная коммуникация играет важнейшую роль в кризисных и конфликтных ситуациях. Специалисту-коммуникатору важно уметь пользоваться этим чрезвычайно эффективным оружием: неформальные каналы часто действуют быстрее формальных, и почти всегда доверие коммуникантов к неформальной информации выше, чем к формальному источнику (например, обычно правительству не доверяют)
Коммуникационные потоки также могут быть однонаправленными ('приказы не обсуждаются') двунаправленными ('давайте обменяемся') и многонаправленными ('всенародное обсуждение').
Коммуникационные потоки также связаны с различными срезами среды, в которой действует организация: сфера прямого взаимодействия или микросреда (поставщики и потребители, конкуренты, налоговые и разрешительные органы), и сфера косвенного взаимодействия или макросреда (адресант – политические и научно-технические круги; адресат, контактные аудитории, target groups – финансовые круги, СМИ, госучреждения, гражданские группы, местные жители, широкая публика, собственные сотрудники ).
Коммуникативные процессы в группе могут наблюдаться исследователями с двух сторон: участие членов и взаимодействие членов группы. Первый аспект в большей мере количественный (например, кто сколько раз 'берет слово' и т.п.), второй – скорее 'векторный' (на кого направлено слово, каковы направления микродиалогов в группе), в данном случае вычерчивается социограмма.
Качественный анализ внутригрупповой коммуникации анализирует задачи, взаимоотношения, индивидуальные потребности членов группы, их коммуникативный опыт и т.п. Качественный анализ делит коммуникативные события и шаги на те, что способствуют выполнению групповых задач, способствуют сохранению группы и ее работоспособности, и те, в которых коммуниканты преследуют частные цели. Присутствующий на собрании специалист по ПР может провести анализ высказываний, распределив их по строкам и ячейкам таблицы групповой коммуникации (например, заседание совета вуза; производственное совещание, предвыборное собрание и т.п.). В этом случае производится запись и последующий анализ фонограммы, видеозаписи или транскрипта. Исследователь должен установить мотивацию для объединения в группу или присоединения к ней, ожидаемые роли, отношения между членами, коммуникативные навыки членов, объединительные и нормативные процессы в группе, лицо группы и отдельных членов (их identity ).
В книге Р.Димблби и Г.Бертона приведен пример аналитической таблицы для исследования коммуникации в производственной группе. В таблице учитывается индивидуальный вклад сотрудников в решение общих групповых задач:
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типы групповой коммуникации |
члены группы |
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one |
2 |
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four |
five |
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tasks |
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one |
информирование других |
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2 |
вопрос/поиск информации |
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3 |
организация идей |
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four |
прояснение идей |
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five |
обобщение |
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6 |
оценка |
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7 |
принятие решений |
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relations |
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eight |
воодушевление |
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9 |
гармонизация |
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ten |
распределение/'сторож' |
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eleven |
слушание |
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12 |
stress relief / trade off |
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individual needs |
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13 |
blocking |
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14 |
attention search |
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15 |
domination |
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sixteen |
non-involvement |
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3. The specifics of mass communication and its functions. |
The main parameters that distinguish mass communication from group communication are quantitative. At the same time, due to significant quantitative superiority (an increase in individual communicative acts, channels, participants, etc.), a new qualitative essence is created, new opportunities appear in communication, a need is created for special means (transmission of information over distance, speed, replication and etc.). |
We single out the following general conditions for the functioning of mass communication (according to V.P. Konetskaya, with changes):
mass audience (it is anonymous, spatially dispersed, but divided into groups of interests, etc.);
social significance of information;
availability of technical means ensuring regularity, speed, replication of information, its transmission over distance, storage, and multi-channel (in the modern era, the prevalence of the visual channel is noted by all).
Mass character as a defining characteristic of mass communication creates, in fact, new entities in the communication process. Participants in the process of communication are not individual individuals, but mythologized collecting subjects: people, party, government, army, oligarchs. Even individuals appear as image myths: the president, party leader, media magnate , etc. Modern researchers come to the conclusion that the function of information in mass communication gives way to the function of association, and after it - management, maintenance of social status, subordination and authority.
The problem of communication and power , mutual responsibility for messages and their consequences becomes the defining problem of modern civil society.
The use of activity models of communication and discourse (the economics of linguistic exchanges by P. Bourdieu, N. Ferklaf's critical discourse analysis, etc.), the dialogical approach allows to take into account various factors determining speech in political, advertising and other mass discourse to a greater extent, words about the verbal environment '(M.M.Bakhtin). With any degree of “mass character” both from the source of the message and from the recipient, it turns out that the person responsible for the creation of the text and its final interpretation is always the individual user of the language, the individual with all of his involvement in the language and social environment. The question of "who is to blame," "whom to put on the rails," etc. may thus also receive a legal decision.
The main aspects of the concept of language and power of the French sociologist P. Bourdieu (Pierre Bourdieu), the author of the theory of praxis, are connected with the recognition of the existence
different languages and different rights to speech - hence the possibility of censorship and quasi-censorship, i.e. the usurpation of the right of priority to speak in any given environment and situation ( I, as president, declare with full responsibility ), report the news ( after all, it’s written in the newspaper! ), make judgments ( Who am I to judge, and are there better than us at the top know );
three types of capital: economic, cultural and symbolic , and - most importantly and sometimes dangerous - the possibility of their mutual conversion; a political leader or a company promoting a product on the market is trying to acquire maximum symbolic capital not for the sake of art: the corporate image of a company or a government office makes it easier to replenish capital of the first type;
linguistic market , where a symbolic product allows you to make a profit, hence the different behavioral strategies in this market, associated with different status in the separation of symbolic power, different rights to speech (aggression; condescension; while rarely observed mutual understanding and interaction; and absolutely fantastic - elevation recipient by the sender of the message).
Techniques for accomplishing goals are diverse:
communicative aggression: direct (invectives, accusations, rudeness, party symbols instead of national or state, etc.) and indirect (code): aggressively imposing vocabulary, phraseology, symbols, and with it the world outlook block ( developed socialism, anti-terrorist operation and others. Euphemisms in the service of power, reproduced by the intertextual mechanism); \\
regulation of the right to report: deprivation of the word as aggression (the right belongs to the leader of the meeting or the leader) up to direct or indirect censorship (prohibition of certain media or the creation of filters); 'internal censorship', brought up by years of direct prohibitions, also reproduced by the intertextual mechanism;
the constant reproduction of the relations of the power hierarchy that maintains these relations: the indulgent discourse of the “boss” towards subordinates ( you are my dear ones in the mouth of the general towards wounded soldiers), or the example of P. Bourdieu: the mayor of the French city Po usually considered 'undervalued', dialect, etc .;
mimicry of functions and participants of communication: often the use of communication tools for their intended purpose, with clear intentions, can harm the result, in this case the communicator is “pretending”.
So, the Voronezh gypsies no longer ask: Young, can you ask ? (pure fatika, asking for permission to start communication), the introductory question now sounds like this: How to get to the bus station? - This is especially touching in the mouths of gypsies, who have been engaged in this city all their lives. The aggressive start of communication no longer involves the seeking of permission; an aggressive phatika here pretends to be a complaint or a request.
In the pre-election political discourse of directives Give me power , in fact, pretend to be assertive (describing a well-known state of affairs in a negative way) or commissioner (campaigning promises in the form of a program that almost never can be implemented). The informative function in this case is also, in reality, minimal. Pre-election communication actually aims to unite social groups that recognize one or another authority in power. The sole purpose of political discourse, therefore, is to achieve power (symbolic capital), and the main purpose of advertising discourse is to generate profit (economic capital).
In modern Russia, there is a sad tendency to obtain cultural capital by converting monetary capital or power. The system of paid education is sometimes examples of perverted communication: I paid you, let's get a diploma. The main function of pedagogical discourse fades into the background when money or the authority of the authorities are directly exchanged for diplomas and degrees. The concept of Bourdieu, therefore, indirectly explains the Freudian bundle of desire for knowledge and the desire for power.
In addition, the most important problem in the study of mass communication is the problem of the relationship between reality and communication . In many ways, this problem is reminiscent of the controversy about the natural or social origin of communication, the natural or social nature of the mark. As in the case of folk etymology, the naive consciousness of the participants in the mass communication process perceives the message as a direct reflection of reality. The interpretational component of the message is perceived only in binary terms of “truth” or “lie”.
The modern visual stage in the development of mass communication adds fuel to the fire. Earlier (in the period of the 'Gutenberg galaxy' - the expression of M. Mac-Luen), the magic of the printed word acted on the naive consciousness . After all, the newspaper is written! In vain will not write! - this is how most mass media addressees interpret newspaper messages, especially in the era of totalitarian discourse. Now the naive consciousness gives the following considerations to prove the credibility of the source and the credibility of the message: I saw it on TV myself! A naive addressee does not think about the multi-stage creation of a message in mass communication, about the multi-tierness of filters that it passes (from self-censorship, through agencies and editors, to censorship itself). In this regard, now we should rather talk about creating a secondary reality in the narrative of mass communication, rather than about any reflection of the primary reality.
Narrative (from lat. Narro 'to tell, report') is a concept borrowed from literature, it denotes the sequence of presentation and the structure of the message (plot, plot, conflict development, outcome, heroes). Studies of the narrative of modern news largely rely on the work of our compatriot V.Ya. Propp on the structure of a fairy tale. As in the tale, there are wizards and villains, heroes and fools in the news (multi-story tale). The initial prototypes (real political subjects) are called newsmakers , that is, the creators of news situations. If there is nothing out of the ordinary on this or that day, there are no news situations, the workers of newspapers, radio and television come up with them.
The subjective component of the narrative, that is, the interpretation of events by newspapermen or television broadcasters, the sign means of expressing attitudes towards the message, constitute the strategy of manipulating the consciousness of the recipient of the message, called narrative positioning. The position in the value system of the recipient that the product or the politician receives depends on how they are presented to him. So, in the television news you can show how the president of the country stumbled, but you can not show this detail, you can show the shaking hands of the members of the Emergency Committee, or you can insert some symbol of the unity of the USSR, etc. The means of influence, even when saving the phonogram without cuts, are at the complete disposal of the operator and editor.
The social significance of mass communication lies in meeting certain social needs and expectations (motivation, waiting for evaluation, shaping public opinion), impact (learning, persuasion, suggestion, etc.). In a sense, the message that is expected is better perceived (example: the pre-election communication of Vladimir Putin often contained mutually contradictory messages for various target groups).
The relationship between the source and the recipient in mass communication also acquires a qualitatively new character. As the sender of the message is, as has already been said, a public institution or a mythologized individual. The recipient is the target groups (target groups) , united by some socially significant characteristics. The task of mass communication is to maintain communication within groups and between them in society. In fact, such groups can be created as a result of the impact of mass messages (electorate of a new party, consumers of a new product, clients of a new company).
We should not assume that the target groups and society as a whole are passive 'rabbits' in the mass communication process. Their impact on the process is manifested, firstly, in considering the addressee’s factor by the message compilers, and secondly, in the real response of the message, the consequences in the form of certain public actions, and taking into account the development of modern communication tools, the possibility of interactivity (inverse communication).
cultural context
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developments ® |
at s b about R |
knowledge |
with about s d but n and e |
clear level |
and n t e R P R e t but c and I |
knowledge |
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public opinion ® |
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information ® |
senders ® |
bulk messages |
audience ® |
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effects ® |
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® Topics |
values |
hidden level |
values |
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® actions, an attitude |
social reality
In the above model of mass communication, the direction of the arrows can be changed to the opposite. Feedback in mass processes is carried out both by explicit means (speeches of rank-and-file members of the organization at rallies and meetings, letters to the editorial board, interactive television or radio broadcasts) and implicitly (public opinion polls through opinion polls, analysis of rumors and anecdotes, listening to conversations and viewing private e-mails).
Technical means in mass communication include the media (media: press, radio, television, Internet), mass media (MWSS: theater, cinema, circus, shows, literature) and the technical means (mail, telephone, fax, modem) . Mass communication, especially in the modern era, is characterized by multi-channel: a visual, auditing, audiovisual channel, oral or written form of communication, etc. are used. There was a technical possibility of bidirectional communication, both open (interactivity) and hidden (reaction of the listener or viewer, behavior), mutual adaptation of the sender and recipients. Since both the choice of channels and the adaptation are carried out under the influence of the society and groups of recipients, sometimes they say: the media are ourselves.
The peculiarity of mass communication, as W. Eco shows, is that there is something in common in different ways of communication (newspaper, cinema, television or comics). Like M. Mac-Luen ( The medium is the message ), the Italian researcher notes that the industrialization of the means of communication changes not only the conditions for receiving and sending, but also the very meaning of the message, that is, the block of values that the author intended to convey, from the ways of distribution. Mass communication, according to W. Eco, appears at a time when there is
In fact, mass communication is a conditional term: “everyone” does not communicate, in fact there is communication between social groups that strengthen or shake the existing social structure. Apparently, it is this function (unification, sociocentric ) that should be recognized as the main one in mass communication. At the same time, according to tradition, the hierarchy of the mass communication function begins with the information. Thus, G. Lasswell identifies informational (world view), regulating (impact on society and cognition through feedback) and culturological functions (preservation and transmission of cultural heritage from generation to generation). A number of researchers add an entertaining feature. VPKonetskaya identifies three groups of theories, focused on the predominance of a leading function of mass communication: the function of political control; function of mediated spiritual control; cultural function.
The globalization of mass communication, predicted by M. McLuhan, at the end of the 20th century was expressed in the development of the world wide computer network the Internet . Having the possibility of almost instant communication with the simultaneous use of the visual and audio channel, text and non-verbal communication qualitatively changed the communication. The concept of virtual communication has appeared. In a sense, the network itself is not a mass medium, it can be used for interpersonal and group communication. At the same time, the opportunities that it opens up specifically for mass communication indicate the beginning of a new era in the development of communication systems.
It can be said that communication in nature and society has gone through the following stages: tactile-kinesic in higher primates, oral-verbal in primitive peoples, writing-verbal at the dawn of civilization, printed-verbal after the invention of the book and multichannel , beginning in the modern moment.
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Communication theory
Terms: Communication theory