Class Notes – Jan 29

 Communication
o Characteristics:
 Pervasive – always happens even if we are not aware
 Important
 Complex
 Powerful
 Universal Human Experience – walang taong hindi nagco-communicate
o Messages & Meanings
o *Different definitions have different functions
o *Communication theories have multi-disciplinary origins
o *Definitions are tools that must be used flexibly
 Mass Media – we have to have a medium to communicate to a large number of people—society
 Theory
o provides explanations to help us understand a phenomenon
o A set of informed hunches about the way things work (Griffin, 2009)
o *A theory can’t be all-encompassing (kaya meron tayong categories; to explain relevant
phenomena)
o *Possible: isang case, maraming theories

Class Notes – Feb 12

 Communication
o It is:
 Multi-disciplinary in origin
 Interdisciplinary still present
 There is no canon of general theory for comm
o Craig, 1999 – to argue over definitions of communication is pointless
o Reinard, 1999 – process of transacting and giving meaning to messages (verbal & non-
verbal cues that communicators exchange)
 Traditions
o Instrumental constructions rather than essential categories
o They represent recognizable communities of scholarships
 7 Traditions
1. Rhetorical Tradition
 Rhetorical inquiry – study of public communication
 Rhetoric – primary source of ideas about this communication prior to the 20th
century
 Practical art of discourse
 Artful use of discourse to persuade audience
 Criticism: action is more important than mere words
 *Test of parsimony – bakit ba nagging theory ang theory
  *Testing theory – falsification
2. Semiotic Tradition
 Focus: how people convey meaning
 The study of signs
 Also has ancient roots – language theory
 Intersubjective mediation by signs
 Language and other sign systems are used to mediate between different
perspectives
 Problems studied: representation & transmission of meanings
 The medium is the message
 Criticism: Merely the same as rhetoric
3. Phenomenological Tradition
 Understand the otherness; kaya kailangan ng dialogue
 Communication as the experience of “otherness”
 Communication is theorized as “dialogue” or authentic relationships
 Experience of unmediated contact with others
 Experience affect “understanding”
 Importance: We are all different
 Criticism: Impulse = search for common ground
4. Cybernetic Tradition
 Information processing
 “systems”
 Complex systems function and malfunction
 Rooted in the functionalist thought
 Challenges in simplistic notion of linear cause and effect
 Criticism: Is everything a matter of function?
5. Sociopsychological Tradition
 Communication as an expression, interaction, and influence
 Roots: psychology = “effects” answers “why”
 Criticism: Has moral views -> Responsible choices based on scientific
evidence
6. Socio-Cultural Tradition
 Communication as the (re)production of social order
 Reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transformed (Carey, 1989)
 From socio and anthro
 Magagamit ang communication to maintain status quo
 Shared rituals, rules & expectations
 Individuals are products of their social environment
7. Critical Tradition
 Communication as discursive reflection
 Deconstructs/defamiliarizes
 Studies power relationships
  Transmission – reception is faulty, deceptive and incomplete
 Power & Domination can overcome truth & reason
 Criticism: Offers no concrete reason

Make-up Class #1 – Feb 16

EVALUATING COMMUNICATION THEORY (measures to evaluate a theory)

1. Appropriateness
 (merong pwedeng ibigay na explanation to a phenomenon)
 Claims are consistent with assumptions
 Logically consistent
2. Heuristic Value
 Can generate new ideas
 New situations, new ideas = still consistent
 (Would there be new knowledge that would be generated using that particular theory?)
3. Validity
 Truth values
 Value, correspondence, generalizability
 (Does the theory give an explanation? Valid ang theory if it would yield the same
results.)
 (Can I falsify the theory?)
 (Value - hindi sa lahat ng phenomenon, pwedeng gamitin.)
 (Correspondence – Does your theory fit the research problem?)
4. Parsimony
 Logical simplicity
 (Makukuha mo ‘yung sagot kahit konti lang ‘yung variables mo.)
 (Hindi parsimonious kung marami kang ininterview pero hindi mo pa rin makuha sagot
na hinahanap mo.)
5. Openness
 Open to dialogues
 (Hindi ka natatakot na buksan ‘yung research na ginawa mo. Confident ka sa theory mo.)

RHETORICAL TRADITION
 Practical art of discourse (Practical – doable)
 Artful public address (Art – sining; may technique)
 “The art of using all available means of persuasion, focusing upon lines of argument, organization
of ideas, language use, and delivery in public speaking.” (Griffin, 2009)
 Where the communication discipline began (Littlejohn, 2011)
 Already present during ancient Greece
 Aristotle was the first to codify the two dominant aspects of public discourse: method and social
consequences.
  Aristotle: “The faculty of observing in any given case the available menas of persuasion.”
(Rhetoric)
 Persuasion: How do you present your arguments to win your audience/listeners?
 (Persuasion – may philosophy, may psychology)
 Characteristic: One speaker influences multiple listeners through persuasive discourse
 Is it just mere propaganda?
 Is it just mere empty speech?
 Speeches use human symbols
 Elements of speech: Invention(ideas, ano yung bago sa ‘yo, ano yung kino-communicate mo),
arrangement(order of your speech), style(ano yung unique na hindi makakalimutan ng tao),
delivery, and memory
 Rhetor: Symbol user
 “Rhetoric, as an area of study, is concerned witg how humans use symbols, especially language,
to reach agreement that permits coordinated effort.” (Hauser, 2002)
 Communication: Interaction among elements when persons engage one another with symbols
(Hauser, 2002)
 Rhetoric is a process
o It is continuous
o It is sequential
o Both continuity and discontinuity exist in rhetoric
 Rhetoric is an event.
o It is an action
 Traditional rhetoric: “The public man is influencing the men of his own times by the power of his
discourse.”
 Criticisms:
o Is it all about words?
o Why focus too much on the speaker?
o Ideas presented are integral of the times (criticism by historical perspective)

Class Notes – Feb 26

MEANINGS – SEMIOTICS – SIGNS

 Semiotics
o The science of signs
o The study of the social production of meaning from sign systems; the analysis anything
that can stand for something else
o Founding fathers:
 Ferdinand de Saussure (“Course in General Lingg”, 1915); and
 Charles Sanders Peirce (various works on semiotics theory)
 Saussure
o Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system
of writing , the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals
o Signifier: sound-images
 o Signified: concepts generated by the signifier
o “The relationship between signified & signifiers is arbitrary (depende sa context ng tao)
and based on conventions”
o *Semiology -> Semion (signs) -> Semiotics
 Semiotics – the meaning of the signified can change
 Peirce: 3 Kinds of signs
o Icon – signify by resemblance (representation)
o Index – signify by cause & effect
o Symbol – signify by basis of convention (nakasanayan na)
o A sign is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity
which emphasizes the role of the interpreter of signs
 Roland Barthes (Mythologies, 1957)
o Criticized mass culture and popular culture
o Culture lock in the status quo
o The function of the myth is “to bless the mess”
o Sign: the inseparable combination of signifier and signified
o Signifier: physical form of the sign as perceive through our senses
o Signified: meaning we associate with the sign
o It’s up to the semiologist to deconstruct the mythic system
o Deconstruction: the process of unmasking contradictions within a text; debunking
 Umberto Eco (contemporary semiotician)
o “signs can be used to lie”
o Semiotics is the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie
o Some applications
 We are all semioticians: we look at people, we watch them, we scrutinize them

Class Notes – Mar 05

SEMIOTICS
 Barthes
o Denotative sign system: descriptive sign without ideological content
o Connotative sign system: a mythic sign that has lost its historic referent
o Ideological signs: enlist support for the status quo
o Ideology: Knowledge presented as common sense or natural

PHENOMENOLOGICAL TRADITION
 Experience of Otherness
 The process of knowing through direct experience (Littlejohn, 2008)
 The world is understood by personal experience
 Internal
 “If you want to know what love is, you would not ask psychologists; you would tap into your
own experience of love” (Littlejohn, 2008)
 Phenomenology
 o the study of conscious experience
 Interpretation
o Central to phenomenology
o *verstehen
 Edmund Husserl
o Father of phenomenology
o Classical Phenomenology
o Truth can be ascertained through direct experience
o Truth – putting aside our biases
o Experience is objective
 Communication
o Theorized as experience of otherness or dialogue
o Explains: interplay of identity and difference in authentic human relationships
o Explains: Cultivation of communication practices that enable and substation authentic
relationships
 Hans-Georg Gadamer
o “Truth and Method” (1960)
o Hermeneutic studies
o Text: any artifacts that can be examined and interpreted
 Meaning is created through intersubjective method
 Truth is based on our experiences
 Method has totalizing tendencies
o We interpret naturally as part of our everyday experience
o Our experience and the world we interpret are intertwined
o *Experience is understood from the perspective of presuppositions or assumptions
o Interpretive frames: experiences, history, traditions
o History cannot be separated from the present -> “the past operates on us how in the
present and affects our conception of what is yet to come” (Littlejohn, 2008)
o Historical text becomes contemporaneous and speaks to us at present
o Meaning of a text: Dialogue between our own present day meanings and those embedded
in the language of the text
o Language: We cannot separate our experiences from language
o Remember: Traditions are in words
 Carl Rogers
o Self theory
o Psychologist/Therapist
o The self cannot be separated from relationships
o Phenomenal field: Totality of our experiences
o Our phenomenal field grows
o Self-development:
 You want your life to change in ways that work well for you; and
 You want to feel part of your life experiences (you fit into the world)
o Congruence: consistency between who you are, what you do, and how you fit into the
world
 o Incongruence: No consistency between who you are, what you do, and how you fit into
the world
o Relationships affect congruence or incongruence
o Congruence: product of supportive relationships
o Incongruence: product of criticisms in a relationship

Class Notes – Mar 12

CYBERNETIC TRADITION
 Cybernetics
o tradition of complex systems (sum of the parts)
o *there must be balance
o Multidisciplinary/transdisciplinary
o Interdependent
 Communication: “System of parts or variables that influence one another, shape and control the
character of the overall system; achieve both balance and change.”
 Systems theory; Cybernetics theory
 Cybernetics
o Metalanguage of concepts and mode is for transdisciplinarian use (Francois, 1999)
o Could be traced to early Greece: “sustema”—reunion, conjunction, assembly, also used
by Plato -> interdependence
o Well-established in Philosophy and Biology
o Also used by Psychology
o Mathematics = Cybernetics
o Weiner: the use of prediction and control for defense
 1942: first used cybernetics
 1948: feedback, control, communication
 Concept: Homeostasis
o Balance
o Cognitive system is a tool to achieve balance
o Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
 Leon Festinger
 Sociopsychologial but infused with systems
 Cognitive Elements: Attitude, perceptions, knowledge, behavior
 Dissonance produces tension or stress that creates pressure or change
 Individuals will attempt to reduce dissonance
o Network Theory
 Networks: social structure created by communication among individuals and
groups
 Connectedness: structural idea of a network

Make-up Class #2 – Apr 11

Make-up Class #3 – Apr 13

SOCIOPSYCHOLOGICAL TRADITION
 The study of the individual as a social being.
 Focusing on the:
o Behavior
o personal traits, and
o Cognitive processes of the individual as a part of the society.
 We will focus on: cognitive
 Individualist in approach
 Most of the theories in this orientation are cognitive in orientation
 Studies how individuals acquire, store, and process information leading to behavioral outputs
 “mental operation” – paano nag-iisip, bakit ganun mag-isip

Planning Theory
 Charles Berger
 “People do not engage in communicative activity merely for the sake of doing so; they
communicate to satisfy goals.”
 Plans for communicative behavior are hierarchical cognitive representations of goal-directed
action consequences (may purpose, may gusting i-achieve)
 Plans are mental images of the steps one will go through to meet a goal (Littlejohn, 2009)
 Remember: Goals are complex; they are arranged in hierarchies
 Specific domain knowledge (topic) vs. general domain knowledge (how to communicate this
specific topic)
 “The more you know, the more complex the plan will be”

Message-Design Logic
 Barbara O’Keefe
 People think differently about communication and messages, and they employ different logics in
deciding what to say to another person in a given situation (Littlejohn, 2009)
 (There is a system in designing a message)
 Expressive logic (emotions)
 Conventional logic (rules)
 Rhetorical logic (negotiation) (may flexibility in the rules, mabe-bend/sway mo)
 Nagkakaroon ng alterations/modifications depende kung sino kausap natin

Cultivation Theory
 George Gerbner
 Television has “effects” on its viewers
 TV: cultivation – has homogenizing agent on culture
 Remember: this theory studies periods (“over time”)
  From Powerful Effects Theory
o Media – powerful
o Penetrates individuals
o Thinks – cognitive
o Feels – affective
 “mean world syndrome”
 It is a violent world
 TV is an institutional storyteller
 Dramatic violence: overt expression of physical force
 Those who spend more time watching TV are more likely to see the real world through TV lens
 Focuses on crime
 (For soap opera watchers: romanticized view of the world)

Class Notes – Apr 16

Class Notes – Apr 23

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
 Came from: Pragmatism = practical, we make decision based on realities, what would be
beneficial to us
 Meanings
 Everything is a result of past interactions
 Proponent: Herbert? George Meade? Mid?
 Coined: Herbert Blumer (bluh-mer)
 Key assumptions:
o Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings that things have for them
o The meanings of things derive from social interaction
o These meanings are dependent on and modified by an interpretive process of the people
who interact with one another

Class Notes – May 7

CRITICAL TRADITION
 Pwede rin dito ang ibang tradition ex. Semiotics (like others)
 Challenge existing theories
 Branches of Critical Media Theories (Littlejohn and Foss, 2008)
o Classical Marxism: The media is an instrument of the dominant class and a means by
which capitalists promote their profit-making interests
 Ex. Fight ni Pacquiao
 Media doesn’t criticize the government, never really attacks the government
o Political-Economic Media Theory: Media content is a commodity to be sold; this
explains why some programming are very conservative
 o Frankfurt School: The media is a means of constructing culture; the media manipulates
images and symbols to benefit the interests of the dominant class
o Hegemonic Theory: The media helps in the domination of false ideology. Ideology
becomes pervasive.
 Ex. Soap operas – pag yumaman ka, gagantihan mo yung mga umapi sa‘yo ->
Binibigyan ng false hope
o Cultural Studies: Primarily semiotics
 Propaganda Model
o Manufactured Consent, published in 1988
o Edward Herman (expertise is Pol. Sci.) and Noam Chomsky
o Media Functions: To amuse, entertain, inform, inculcate individuals with values, beliefs
and codes of behaviors that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the
larger society.
o SYSTEMATIC PROPAGANDA
o Chomsky (2000), citing various studies
 The masses are notoriously shortsighted
 Self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government
 Missing: Reports that may lead to popular indignation
 Who may access private media; it’s a question of resources
 Do private media actually watch the government?
 FOCUS: Inequality of wealth and power and its multi-level effects
 Those fit for publication are filtered
 Filters:
 Ownership (size, owner’s wealth, profit-orientation)
 Advertising
 Sources (agents of power)
 Flak – negative feedback given to media organizations
 Anti-communism
 Result of filtering – elite domination of media and the marginalization of
dissidents