Analyzing Media: Communication Technologies as Symbolic and Cognitive SystemsFor the past 25 years, critics of communication have focused on the content and form of verbal and nonverbal communication, while for the most part neglecting what traditionally has been considered a technical rather than a critical issue - the impact of how messages are produced or formatted in the various media. Topics such as the sexual and violent content of television and films, the meaning of pornography, and the persuasive efforts of advertisers largely have been examined with the use of social science methodologies that ignore the behavioral and message-generating implications of specific media systems themselves. Filling a significant void in the literature, this volume eschews the notion of communication technologies as neutral conduits, and instead depicts them as active and creative determinants of meaning. In doing so, it offers an illuminating examination of the dynamic relationships among communication, cognition, and social organization. Providing a framework for the chapters that follow, the first section of the book presents a history of human communication from a technological perspective, explores the integral role of communication technologies in everyday life, and isolates the ways in which criticism can function as an assessment system. Three specific technological cultures that define human communication are identified: the oral, the literate, and the electronic. The authors identify structural features and discuss the social implications of each. They also provide descriptions, interpretations, and evaluations of these technological cultures, and show how criticism changes when the media of transmission is taken into account. The book concludes with a cogentdiscussion of a range of topics surrounding media criticism, such as its pedagogical implications, how multiple selves can exist in a world of varied communication technologies, the integration of communication technologies, and how media studies should be incorporated into the disc |
From inside the book
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Contents
Introduction | 1 |
A History of Human Communication | 3 |
A World of Communication Technologies and the Human Response | 30 |
The Critical Moment and the Critics Method | 47 |
The Critical Process | 49 |
Media Cultures | 81 |
The Oral Culture | 83 |
The Literate Culture | 108 |
The Electronic Culture | 134 |
A Future Perspective | 161 |
Analyzing Media Comparatively Comparative Media Criticism and the Future of Media Criticism | 163 |
Glossary | 177 |
189 | |
218 | |
About the Authors | 227 |
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Analyzing Media: Communication Technologies as Symbolic and Cognitive Systems James W. Chesebro,Dale A. Bertelsen No preview available - 1996 |
Common terms and phrases
Accordingly activity affect analysis approach argued audience audio auditory systems behavior chapter characterize Chesebro cognitive communica communication technologies communicative act conception construct context created cultural systems defined electronic culture electronic media emerge environment evaluation examine example experience face-to-face film function Gumpert hacker culture Havelock human communication identified Iliad images individual influence interac interactive communication systems interpret Kenneth Burke knowledge language literacy literate communication systems literate culture mass communication mass media meanings media criticism media systems mediated communication medium messages mode of communication nication nologies nonverbal oral communication systems oral culture patterns perception perspective postmodern printing press production punk rock relationships rhetorical rock and roll role sense social institutions society sound specific structural features suggested symbolic technocultural dramas telecommunication and interactive television tion Turkle understanding uses-gratification verbal viewers virtual reality visual visual perception Weaver words writing written mode