Communication and technology

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Текст 1.

Communication and technology

HADFORD University

By Jan Robinson

Human communication is a complex process. Basically, it involves a sender, a message, a channel through which the message travels, and a receiver. However, effective communication is difficult to achieve. Oral communication must be encoded into words, transmitted by sound waves and decoded by the receiver into an understanding of the sounds, which can only happen if that person is within hearing distance. For written communication to be understood, the message must be encoded into meaningful typographic characters (e.g., English or some other language), transmitted on a printed page (and/or some other channel, e.g., a computer screen), and decoded by the receiver (assuming that the person understands that language and typographic characters). Individuals and target audiences have to receive the messages, understand them, and retain or remember them. However, as Stamm and Grunig (1977) point out, although people receive and understand a message, they may still not change or act in accordance with the information. Consequently, it can be argued, communication has not occurred. For communication to occur, the messages must have an impact on the receiver's knowledge, attitude or behaviour. In public relations practice, the objective is that the receiver responds to the message. However, some communication theorists argue that public relations mostly involves information dissemination, not communication.

A number of factors impact on is communication. Any barrier to communication is referred to as 'noise'. This includes physical barriers, such as other people speaking, and psychological factors, including preconceived ideas or misunderstood meanings due to differences in culture, customs, language or occupation, etc. So, to achieve better communication, public relations practitioners need to reduce noise.

Broom and Dozier's (1990) co-orientation model of communications suggests that the closer the relationship on agreement and accuracy between the sender and receiver, the easier it is to communicate. In other words, if the views of the sender and receiver are similar (i.e., in agreement) and the perceptions of the other person's views are accurate, communication is easier. Seltzer (2006) emphasizes that the nature of the relationship between the parties involved in the communication experience "rests on shared meaning" (p. 1 3).

Despite the fact that early communications models assumed the «direction of communication was one way (asymmetrical), from the sender to the receiver, later theorists have argued that the receiver is not passive. Grunig and Hunt (1984) state that a response to a message can be latent (low involvement), aware or active (high involvement). Grunig developed a number of public relations communication models. In addition, in 2001, he presented a new two-way symmetrical model of public relations. In this model, he illustrated public relations as a continuum, with the organization and the publics placed in asymmetrical positions at either end, while "the middle of the continuum contains a symmetrical win-win zone". Grunig (ibid.) further points out that when the organization and publics meet in the middle, where there is a two-way win-win zone, they "can engage in mixed motive communication" (p. 25). In other words, both parties are actively engaged in communication to negotiate, resolve conflict, and promote mutual understanding and respect.

In the late 1980s, the development of the world wide web and the Internet resulted in radical changes in communication. By 1997, business e-mail had overtaken regular mail. Each development of the web has resulted in improving its functionality. Whereas the World Wide Web contained non-interactive static HTML pages that limited users to passive viewing of provided information, the focus of Web 2.0 (2003) is open communication, sharing information and user control of website content, e.g., Wikipedia. Components of Web 2.0 include blogs, wikis and web services. This more personal, digital means of communicating has created a challenge to public relations disciplines and skills.

While these changes also present opportunities, they can create possible problems, for example, managing privacy issues, ethical questions relating to web research practices, higher workloads, etc. Whereas Web 2.0 is focused on people, Web 3.0, the trend of the future, is focused on knowledge. It has been referred to as connective intelligence, as the 'semantic web', since it is a project aimed at designing web page data that computers understand. The focus is on using computer systems for searching, aggregating and combining web information without human intervention. Today, many practitioners in the public relations field are being challenged by the explosion in computer-mediated us communication and a new range of electronic mass media. As the communication medium constantly changes, it also challenges methods of communication, but the core components, involving a sender, a message, a channel through which the message travels, and a receiver, remain the same.

Текст 2.

REPORTING THE FACTS

(1) Should you believe what you read or hear in the media? What is presented as fact is not always so. Sometimes errors occur because the reporters and editors did not check the facts properly. Sometimes news reporters misreport or misrepresent information in an effort to make a story more newsworthy. Changing the facts a little can make the story either more serious or more sensational.

Failing to check the facts

(2) There have been some embarrassing examples where major newspapers and TV networks have published false information because reporters have not checked it for accuracy. One such example was the publication of a report of the death of the elderly comedian, Bob Hope. A U.S. Congressman apparently misheard someone talking about Bob Hope. He stood up in Congress and announced the death of the comedian. This was then picked up and published widely in the media. When reporters called Mr. Hope's home to follow up the story his daughter was very surprised and assured them that he was at that moment happily eating his breakfast.

Misreporting

(3) Research into the accuracy of media reporting has revealed some inter-esting findings. One media researcher (Bell 1991) collected and studied newspaper articles about climate change. His study revealed a number of examples of errors in the way that units of measurement were reported in the media. In one article about the rise in sea level, it was reported that the sea level was rising at 1 to 2 centimeters per year, when the interviewee had (correctly) said millimeters. Another story predicted that the annual rainfall would increase 8 centimeters rather than millimeters. The researcher argued that these mistakes did not occur at random. If they were random we would expect to find units of measurement that were both smaller and larger than the correct ones. But all these incorrect measurements made the figures larger, not smaller. The exaggerations helped to build up the news value of the stories.

Misquoting

(4) Misquotation of sources is a common complaint about news stories. In the study mentioned above (Bell 1991), 34 percent of sources believed they had been misquoted, that is, the sources did not really say what was reported in the news story. When you read a direct quotation in a news story, you probably think you are reading someone's exact words. But often the part of the text in quotation marks is actually a summary of what was said, put together by the reporter (van Dijk in Bell 1991). In some cases, sources that are quoted in media stories have never even spoken to the reporters.

(5) A well-known case of misquotation occurred in the U.S. media in 1999. Al Gore, the U.S. vice president at the time, was speaking to a group of secondary school students about efforts to clean up toxic waste. He was referring to a community where the issue had been taken up by local residents and said, "...that was the one that started it all." One prominent newspaper reported his words as "I was the one that started it all." As this misquotation was re-reported by other newspapers around the country, Al Gore faced enormous criticism for trying to claim credit for things he had not done.

(6) Misquotation is also possible in broadcasting (radio and television). Technology makes it possible to edit what someone says so that it sounds like continuous speech, when in fact some phrases or sentences have been removed. Broadcasters argue that this is sometimes necessary. They say that if they are quoting someone who is not a very skilled speaker, they have to edit the talk. Another issue is the rearranging of questions and answers, so that a question receives an answer that was originally given to another, though similar, question.

Rumors on the Internet

(7) The Internet is the source of many rumors, or unverified stories. Rumors are generally spread from one person to another by word of mouth, and the story evolves or changes in the process. But the Internet has allowed rumors to spread much further and faster than ever before. In fact the Internet has begun to be used as a deliberate strategy to circulate rumors, often for political purposes and often with a serious impact. In 1998, false reports of riots in Malaysia sparked panic that prompted people to stock up on food and lock themselves indoors (South China Morning Post 1998).

Текст 3.