Communication Theory lecture notes

Laswell's Maxim 'Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect'

Traditions of communication theory - Cybernetic or information theory - (transmissional)
- Semiotics (Constitutive)
- Systems theory
- Phenomenology
- Socio-psychology
- Socio-culture
- Critical theory

Cybernetic theory of communication - Model based on telephone
- Now applied to other forms of communication

To be effective communicators in terms of design we need to get rid of noise.

Systems theory - Systematic analysis of complex communication theories
- Semiotics (Semantics, Syntactics and Pragmatics)
- Communication through signs
- Analysing structures

Phenomenology - Relates to perception
- Makes lived experience the basic data of reality (Bad relationships dictate future relationships)

Hermeneutic Circle - interpreters constantly go back and forth between experience and assigning meaning

Three schools of the phenomenological tradition - Classical phenomenology
- Phenomenology of perception
- Hermeneutic Phenomenology

Rhetoric - Linguistic devices - Bring people around to your way of thinking.
Hyperbole - Persuasion through extreme measures
Irony - Linguistic trickery
Personification - lifestyle personified in individual.

Paraprosdokian - Suprise - Unusual position/content for advert

Sociocultural theories - Social codes - Categorisation as part of social system

Critical Theory - Psychoanalysis + Marxist mix
- Unpick social structures and contexts from medialogical communication
- Power structures
- Hidden political, social gender.