Communication Terms List

Process School

Sees communication as the</i>transmission of messages.</i> Concern with accuracy, whether or not communication has take place based on if the audience or listener had the intended reaction.

Redundancy

That which is predictable or conventional in a message. Lets the reader easily understand what is being communicated.

Entropy

That which is unpredictable in a message.

Infantilizing

The act of emphasizing the eyes and mouth of a subject to make it appear childish

Silence

The act of not speaking is a form of nonverbal communication.

Communication

The act or process of using words sounds, signs, or behaviors to express or exchange info or to express your ideas, thoughts, feelings to someone else.

Uses and Gratification Theory

The belief that the audience has a complex set of needs which it seeks to satisfy in the mass media

Referent

The object to which a sign is referring

Cultivation

The relationship between mass media and the culture from which it grows and to which it speaks

Convention

The structuring of a message according to shared patterns.

Semiotics

The study of signs and messages

Medium

The technical or physical means of converting the message into a signal capable of being transmitted along the channel.

Deviation

The unexpected or non-conventional

Feedback

Transmission of a reader's reaction back to the sender.

Paradigm

an explanation of how the world works and maybe why

Content Analysis

designed to produce an objective, measurable, verifiable, account of the manifest content of messages

Encoding

Changing abstract thought into communication

Decoding

Changing symbols/language into abstract thought

Hegemony

Dominant ideologies made up by the dominant class that are constantly resisted by the submissive class. Works to make certain--not necessarily true--ideologies "common sense"

Message

Content the sender is trying to communicated to the receiver

Dominant Culture

Group that has the power to make decisions for the institutions in that society W=White A/S=Anglo-Saxon P=Protestant H=Heterosexual A=Able-bodied M=Male

Commutation Test

Identify significant differences, or distinctive features, within a paradigm or syntagm to help define that significance. Change a unit in the system to assess the change of meaning

Arbitrary

If relation between the signifier and the signified are by agreed upon by users its...?

Context

Impacts the way the message is perceived

Boundary Rituals

Rituals made to ease the transition between categories ex. funeral

Semiotic School

Sees communication as the <i>production and exchange of meanings.</i> Concerned with texts and how they interact with people and their cultures.

Myth

Creates an explanation, thereby "naturalizing" something which often isn't natural

Perception

"A process": -Selection -Organization -Interpretation

Accentuation

(Functions of nonverbal communication) Accenting verbal language with nonverbal. Reinforces meaning, adds emphasis

Impression Management

(Functions of nonverbal communication) Dramaturgy; Trying to manage the impression people have of you using nonverbals

Substitution

(Functions of nonverbal communication) Nonverbal is used instead of verbal

Repetition

(Functions of nonverbal communication) Repeats the verbal in some respect

Cultural

(Functions of nonverbal communication) Using nonberbals to denote culture

Regulation

(Functions of nonverbal communication) Using nonverbals to control the flow of a communication event

Contradiction

(Functions of nonverbal communication) Verbal and nonverbal communication contradict; Easier to lie verbally than nonverbally

Ideology

-A system of characteristics of a particular class or group -A system of illusory beliefs--false ideas or false consciousness--which can be contrasted with true or scientific knowledge -The general process of the production of meanings and ideas

Shannon and Weaver

-Developed the first communication model -Bell Telephone workers, did technology research

Empiricism

-It is deductive instead of inductive -It assumes a universal, objective reality available for study -It assumes that humans are able to devise methods of studying this reality objectively -It assumes that hypotheses explaining this reality are capable of proof or disproof

Denotative meaning

Dictionary definition, meaning shared by speech community

Visual Metaphor

A metaphor depicted in imagery that associates characteristics of more than one paradigms by transposition

Symbol

A sign that has no connection or resemblance to object, has shared meaning

Norm

A statistically average example of behavior or evaluation. Common practices

Myth (Lévi-Strauss)

A story that is a specific and local transformation of a deep structure of binarily opposed concepts that are important to the culture

Codes

A system of meaning common to the members of a culture or subculture.

Binary Opposition

A system of two related categories that, in its purest form, comprises the universe

Semantic Differential

A wa of studying peoples feelings, attitudes, or emotions toward a certain concept

Narrowcast

Aimed at a specific audience

Noise

Anything that interferes with a message unintended by the sender.

Signs

Artefacts or acts that refer to something other than themselves; signifying constructs.

Sender/Source

Individual with original abstract thought.

Kinesics

Language incorporating the use of body language, gestures, posture

Oculesics

Language incorporating the use of eye contact/movement

Proxemics

Language incorporating the use of personal space

Paralanguage

Language incorporating the use of rate, pitch, intonation

Anomalous Category

One that does not fit the categories of the binary opposition, but straddles them.

Broadcast

One that is shared by members of a mass audience

Connotative meaning

Personal reaction toward a word

Channel

Physical means by which a signal is transmitted.

Frame of Reference

Psychological window though which we see the world