A naked emperor and a dancing guy

“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it”.

– Robert Frost

Public opinion
In the last entry I spoke about mass communication and why nowadays we talk simply about media and don’t use the term “mass media” anymore. Following with that, we ought to wonder when did people’s opinion start to be taken into account. The concept of public opinion is related to the mass and also strongly tied to democracy. The French Revolution and the American Revolutionary War both played an important role in paving the road to democracy, but the biggest step towards paying attention to the people’s thoughts was only possible thanks to mass media.

There might be a significant difference between what we think others think and what they really think, though. There’s where the concept of perceived public opinion comes on the scene. We can never be sure of what others think, but we do have a perception of what we think is the majority’s opinion. When we think that our own personal beliefs don’t match the majority’s view we might be less likely to voice our thoughts.

Source: www.saintpetersblog.com

Spiral of silence
That fear of expressing an opinion that is perceived as a minority was first explained by Elizabeth Noelle-Nuemann in her theory of the spiral of silence. She explained the phenomenon of the spiral of silence in the context of the Nazi Germany. But long before that, there have been plenty of examples of this occurrence in history, both in everyday life and in popular culture.

One of the most notorious ones is in the tale The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen. In that story, the emperor walks in a parade wearing a suit that was, supposedly, invisible for anyone who was “stupid or incompetent”. The emperor had been tricked and was actually naked, but nobody dares to say the truth fearing they will be considered stupid or incompetent. In the end, a little boy speaks up and screams “He’s naked!” and only then the public loses the fear and voices their true opinion.

The spiral of silence, therefore, takes place when individuals think their point of view is a minority and censor themselves because they’re afraid of being isolated. This happens especially when one thinks their opinion will lose more support in the future. The ones who think are a majority punish this minority and try to silence them. When people with similar opinions don’t voice them, the idea loses more support and it will continue to be perceived as a minority.

Spiral of silence. Source: www.comindwork.com

As can be seen in the picture above, media has a significant role in this incident. Media tells people, if not what to think, what to think about. Media expresses views that are usually considered as the opinions of the majority. If one’s opinion is not on the media, then one will probably think that the majority thinks differently. That’s why representation, objectivity, diversity and independence are so important in media, in order not to keep the spiral of silence alive and going. And those are goals that I, as a student in the field of Communication, expect to contribute to as well.

Breaking the silence
There are two ways of breaking the spiral of silence, or two kinds of people who break it: on the one hand, hardcore nonconformists, who have very strong opinions and values and don’t get influenced by the majority’s opinion; and, on the other hand, avant garde visionaries, the first ones who dare to speak up. In the tale of the emperor, even when the kid is the first one who speaks up, we can’t consider him an avant garde visionary. He speaks up not because he’s a visionary, but because he isn’t concerned about the public opinion, what makes him rather a nonconformist.

There have been numerous cases of thinkers and scientists who have had to kneel down before the Church (majority) and retract of their progressive thoughts. It is wide known the case of Galileo Galilei, who was forced to say that the Earth didn’t actually spin around the Sun. It’s said that at the end he added “eppur si muove” (“and yet it moves”), referring to our planet. It’s uncertain whether he really said those words, but I personally find it nice to believe so. That would make him both a visionary, for thoroughly explaining the movement of the Earth and the Sun for the first time, and quite a nonconformist too.

Another interesting case is Michel de Montaigne, an important philosopher of the French Renaissance (thanks to my History of Political Thinking class for this input!). He was a skeptical and thought that cultures, ideas and religions were neither true nor false; they were just superstitions for him. But at the same time, he was a conformist and advised not to voice opinions contrary to the beliefs of the majority because that could be dangerous. Of course, that was said in a time when Inquisition was in full force in Europe, but he was still contributing to the spiral of silence – 400 years before that theory was even formulated!

Here’s a video we watched during the lecture that explains how the spiral of silence can be broken by an avant garde visionary:

Silence in the Basque Country
Anthony T. Spencer and Stephen M. Croucher carried out a study about the spiral of silence regarding the Basque terrorist organization ETA[1]. They found out that, although neither French, Spanish nor Basque respondents had a good opinion about ETA, French and Spanish residents were less likely to voice their opinion in front of Basque residents. They also discovered that Spanish residents outside the Basque Country had the most unfavorable opinion of ETA, while French residents had the least unfavorable opinion.

They conclude that, since Spanish residents live closer to the violence than French residents, the fear of isolation and therefore the effect of the spiral of silence is stronger in Spain than in France. That spiral of silence happens especially in front of Basque residents, mainly because ETA is part of the Basque group.

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[1] Anthony T. Spencer and Stephen M. Croucher; Basque Nationalism and the Spiral of Silence: An Analysis of Public Perceptions of ETA in Spain and France; International Communication Gazette 2008; 70; 137; DOI: 10.1177/1748048507086909

Theorizing Communication

"Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language".

– Walt Disney

Communication theories

What’s communication? That might seem quite a tricky question to start a class with. But actually the answer turns out to be intuitive and simple: communication is the practice of exchanging information and meaning across space and time using various means. Communication is not exclusive to humans, although what defines human communication is the ability to use verbal expression.

Through history, there have been different models that tried to explain the communication process. The first one was made by Shannon and Weaver in 1948 and applied mathematical tools to explain telephonic communication.

Shannon-Weaver’s model of communication. Source: communicationtheory.org

Since then several different models have been designed, each one incorporating new elements or approaches. The most important additions were made by Lasswell (1948) and Jakobson (1963). On the one hand, Lasswell paid attention to the effect of the communication: in any communication act, there are some consequences that can be expected, but there might also be some unexpected effects. On the other hand, Jakobson included the context in his model: the interpretation of a discourse will depend on the time, place and culture where the communication takes place.

Lasswell’s model of communication. Source: comindwork.com

Jakobson’s model of communication. Source: communicationtheory.org

Therefore, communication theories nowadays study several aspects (the subjects of communication, its functions and purposes, the different channels, languages and codes used and the expected and unexpected consequences) in an attempt to conceptualise the relationship between the media and audiences and to understand the nature and extent of media influence.

Studies on Communication are often wrongly considered less relevant than other social sciences, probably because Communication Sciences were born more recently. But it’s easy to see how communication and media are an important part of anyone’s everyday life. Media influences and shapes society and vice versa, and thus understanding that relationship is an important mean to understand society.

Communication theories are strongly influenced by intellectual models, and the approach will vary from a theory to another: media-centric or society-centric, culturalist or materialist. To summarize, the different communication theories can be classified in 3 main traditions:

• Structural approach: studies media systems and organizations and their relationships to society. It’s society-centric.
• Behavioural approach: pays attention to how humans choose, process and respond to communication messages. It’s media-centric.
• Cultural approach: analyses the meanings of particular contents. It’s also media-centric.

Evolution of communication

In the history of communication, there have been several advances and inventions that have changed and improved our ability to communicate:

• Pre-verbal era
• Speech (100.000 BCE)
• Symbols (30.000 BCE)
• Pictograms (5.000 BCE)
• Writing (3.200 BCE)
• Print – movable type (c. 1440 CE)
• Photography (1827)
• Telephone (1876)
• Radio (1894)
• Television (invented in 1930s / commercialized in 1950s)
• Internet (1994)

This evolution has changed completely the way humans live and interact with each other. For example, while advertising has existed since the birth of commerce itself, the invention of the radio (and later, of the TV) was a huge revolution in that field: advertisements were henceforth able to reach a broad audience and the concept of marketing was created. On the other hand, Gutember’s print can’t be considered exactly a mass media because at that time the biggest part of the population was illiterate, but it definitely had the potential to become one. And indeed, books became more accessible thanks to printing, which inevitably made learning to read a little bit easier.

  

Sources: washingtonpost.com, mymerhaba.com and commons.wikimedia.org, respectively

During the lesson, we discussed and voted which were the most important milestones in communication, besides the speech, and the results were:

1. Writing: for allowing people to communicate without being tied to a certain space and time, and for the opportunity to preserve discourses.
2. Internet: for being a multimedia medium; and for allowing easy, rapid and cheap access to information and communication from all around the world.
3. Print (movable type): for enabling serial printing, without having to manually copy the text and images over and over again.
4. Photography: for the chance to actually show a part of reality and not just talk about it; and for being the precursor of cinema.
5. Radio & Telephone. Radio: for being the first mass medium. And telephone: for being the first medium to allow instant communication between people in different locations.

Mass communication?

The concept of mass media was first introduced at the beginning of the 20^th century, but nowadays we simply talk about media. There are many reasons behind that preference. On the one hand, the word “mass” suggests a shapeless tangle of rootless, faceless individuals and implies a separation from a condescending elite. On the other hand, it’s a concept born in an industrial context, tied to a serial production model that no longer can be applied to media and society.

The term “mass” is viewed currently as scientifically vague, no one can identify what the mass really is or what can be said about it. But what’s more important, the offer is so fragmented nowadays that media can’t attract a massive part of the audience. A show might have a very broad audience and very good ratings, but we certainly can’t speak about a mass anymore.