CMN 1160 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Scientific Modelling, Mass Media, Communication Studies

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Communication
• Course: CMN 1160
• Professor: Aliaa Dakroury

Document Summary

Lecture 5 - week 6: the long tradition of media effects. Understanding the causes and effects: to give people means to control and understand events, and control/predict future. Analysing mass communication in terms of causes and effects fits well with the scientific model of research: if we repeat the experiement again, we"d have the same results. All media, all acts of communication presume the existence of an audience, of someone to whom a message is addressed. With the existence, all media effort is worthless, no need to be clear or organized. Useful way to proceed is to distinguish the audience from other types of social groupings. In communication studies, the audience is usually placed alongside the crowd or the mass and the public. In na the study of communication can be divided into 2 major tendencies: behaviourism and functionalism. Behaviourism derives principally form psychology; functionalism drives principally sociology.