Barriers to communication or problems in the communication process
Test your knowledge of Terminology
For more examples of exam questions, see "AS Communication and Culture: The Essential Introduction" by Peter Bennett and Jerry Slater (click here for review)
Getting Started
So how do we set about analysing texts? Even now, at the very beginning of the course, you have quite a lot of skills when it comes to interacting with lots of different kinds of texts in the world around you.
Task 1
Make a list of all the different kinds of 'texts' you can think of which you come across in your everyday life - they can include written and visual information.
Task 2
Look at the product image on this link What kind of text is this? How is it a product of it's culture - click here
It's a media text - to contextualise texts always ask these questions (S.P.A.T)
Subject Purpose Audience Text Type
Write down four questions which would make me describe the product for you e.g "What colour is it?'
Write down four questions which would make me analyse the text e.g "Why is the colour red used?"
The first four questions are called LOWER ORDER questions - we don't want to use these on the textual analysis paper so avoid questions beginning with 'what', 'when' or 'where'.
The second four questions are called HIGHER ORDER questions - these are the sorts of questions you should use - they usually start with the words 'HOW' and 'WHY'.
Look at the text on this link.. Click on the image to get a full size image. The purpose of this next task is to determine how this text communicates with us?
What questions do we need to ask about this text, in order to answer the question above and ANALYSE the text? Only use questions starting with HOW or WHY.
Come up with four questions which will help us to understand what is happening in the text.
Genre
Texts belong to different categories, types or genres and provide a context for the message we receive. When you are asked to interpret or decode a message, part of what helps you do so is the context (what sort of text it is). If you are analysing or decoding a magazine article, you recognise the conventions of a magazine article - the language, the way of laying it out, the use of certain kinds of image. If you are watching a film, you recognise key elements (read this article about font styles used in different film posters )which identify it as science fiction or horror and this helps you to understand the narrative.
Task 4
IN GROUPS OF FOUR
Collect some examples of texts from around your house, in your handbag etc . Stick them down on the sugar paper. Label each text with the genre. Then write around each text what you can tell us about each text and how it is communicating, using the questions we developed in earlier exercises.
Have a look at this BBC article about the significance of different font styles in film posters etc.
Task 5
Select three magazines aimed at women and girls . Look at the covers of these magazines. Remember the questions which helped us understand the previous text - ask yourself those questions about these texts.
• What similarities do you notice between these three texts? Write them down.
• What differences are there? Why are there these differences?
The similarities you listed for the magazine covers were conventions of the genre, or the typical features of that type of text.
When we look at a text we need to be aware of the 'cultural communicative context' in which it works. In other words, if we are looking at a text aimed at teenagers we would expect the conventions of 'youth culture' to be observed - in the language, the use of images, the use of colour etc. In previous tasks you looked at a number of texts which do this.
We also have conventions which are associated with the medium the text is using. If the text is a newspaper, we have expectations of what it will look like in terms of layout, what sort of images there will be and the sort of language normally contained there. In the exercise you did with the texts brought from home, you identified the genre and the conventions of that text. That helped you to understand how and why the text had been constructed that way.
Other mediums such as Television, Film and Advertising also have conventions, as you have just seen with your film posters. We watch films knowing what conventions of camera movement, editing, SFX, music we will see depending on the genre of film it is. The conventions of television programmes are different in terms of the use of camera, lighting etc. This is how we recognise the difference.
It is common now to encounter texts which use conventions from other media - news formats or advertising using magazine article conventions (they're called Advertorials) or film conventions in television advertising. This mixing of conventions - intertextuality - works because we recognise and appreciate the cleverness of how this is done.
Paradigm and Syntagm
When we create a message visually, verbally or non-verbally we choose from a set of signs (verbal or words, non-verbal such as clothing, posture and visual such as colour, layout) to make up our message, as you just did in order to make your magazine cover. The technical term for a set of signs is a PARADIGM. When you have combined these signs into a message, it is called a SYNTAGM. We choose which signs to pick from our PARADIGM, by choosing things suitable for the genre of the text.
Here is a set of words (paradigm) from which you have to create an advertising slogan (syntagm). What do we know about slogans, as a genre? This will help you use the words in the box.
New Amazing Soap Power Your woman Your man
Cleaning Easy Cheap Stylish Impress Today
When we are creating a text, we choose what to put in that text by identifying the purpose of the text, the audience of the text and the type (genre) of text so that we know what to include. These factors help us to choose from the correct paradigms.
Approaches to analysing communication
There are two ways of examining communication in order to analyse what is going on. One way is to look at communication as a Process, in other words as something which has to be transferred from A to B.
In Communication Studies theorists explain what happens when someone creates a message and someone else reads or interprets it in a diagrammatic form called a Model.
We have already identified this as a helpful way of explaining what is going on in texts - we looked at who produced the text, what kind of text or message it is and who the audience or receiver of the message is.
Looking at the producer or sender of a message does help us to understand why it has been constructed the way it has, as does knowing who the text is for (receiver). However, in order to really understand a text we need to ask more questions.
Look at this more elaborate version of the simple model:
We have added some extra aspects to the process. They are
Encode All communication messages use a code which will be
understood by the receiver. The codes are usually LANGUAGE, NON-VERBAL or VISUAL. When we want to transmit a message to another person we make a decision which of these codes to use and then we put our thoughts into a form that others will understand.
Channel What we mean by a channel is the method we use to pass on the message - written, spoken, gesture or visual.
Decode When a message is received it has to be translated or
interpreted by the receiver - they have to understand the words or the gestures or interpret the images used.
Context The context of a message helps the receiver to understand it and work out what is going on. For example, Text A on the previous page is from the context of a problem page on a magazine. It is not a personal message, it is not from a boy etc
How have these extra aspects helped us to understand the text better?
Exchange approach
The Process School had a number of theorists who came up with different and increasingly more elaborate ways of explaining the communication process but none of these models focused on how meaning is created and interpreted in texts - another approach called the Exchange School or Semiotic Approach tries to do this.
Semiotics means the study of signs. It comes from the Greek word 'semion' meaning 'sign'.
We use 'signs' to represent things in the world around us - we give things names, we create images of things or gestures to represent greetings or rude messages! The first person to come up with the idea of looking at communication as a way of re-presenting the world this way was a Swiss linguist called Ferdinand de Saussure.
Obviously, since he was a linguist he was principally interested in the idea of language being a sign system invented by humans to communicate with each other.
Sign systems are called CODES. There are three primary codes in communication - VERBAL, NON-VERBAL and VISUAL. We can use all of these to decode and understand texts.
Semiotics - signs and how they represent the world for us
Saussure came up with a way of explaining how signs like words worked. He said that every sign had what he called a SIGNIFIER (an identifier, like a word) and a SIGNIFIED (a mental concept or idea associated with the word).
The relationship between SIGNIFIER and SIGNIFIED was ARBITRARY - that means it was purely chance or agreement. In other words, why did we call the tall thing with brown stem and green stuff a TREE? Why not a GHU or a VUCAN? The answer is because we just didn't! In English, we decided to associate the marks TREE on a page and the sound TREE with an particular object that we saw and was part of our experience. People in France decided to call it an ARBRE.
The same thing happens with our NON-VERBAL communication - we associate emotions or meanings to gestures and facial expressions purely on the basis of what our culture has decided they might mean.
Look at these words. Write down what they mean to you. Compare what you have written down to a friend. Check the meaning given in the dictionary. What did you find?
harridan
libel
meridian
picket
Presuming that you recognised the words at all - they are signs for nothing if you don't know them - I bet there was some difference of opinion about the SIGNIFIED of these words.
The STATUS of SIGNS
Other theorists who extended the Semiotic Approach were C.S Peirce , an American and Roland Barthes, a French philosopher.
Peirce explained signs differently to De Saussure. He felt that signs worked in different ways and could be categorised into three types, ICON, INDEX and SYMBOL .
ICONS had a direct relationship with an object or person e.g a photograph, painting etc.
The photos are highly motivated icons because they look almost exactly like the objects they represent. The images next to the photos are still icons, because they still look like the things they represent, but not as precisely - they are said to be less motivated icons.
What kinds of text do we most often see iconic signs used in? What kind of audience or reader would these kinds of sign work best with?
An INDEX is a sign which does have a relationship or link with what it is representing but not a concrete one e.g A car horn sounding is a sign that there is a car - it is made by the car but is NOT the car itself. Facial expressions are signs of emotions like happiness but they are NOT happiness itself.
What emotions do the first three indicate to you? What do the clouds indicate? You will note that several of the signs below are NON VERBAL SIGNS or EXPRESSIONS
Indexical signs are most useful when you are trying to represent things which are not tangible or concrete like emotions or sounds. They work with most kinds of audience and text because there is a logical link between the sign and the thing it is representing.
SYMBOLS are signs which have no direct relationship with what they are representing - it is arbitrary or random why that particular sign stands for that thing. We understand these kinds of signs because it has been agreed between people in a culture that the sign will be used to stand for a particular meaning e.g Language, logos for companies etc.
Try the symbols on the sheet the teacher will give you - how many of them can you guess?
If you can guess these symbols correctly it is because you happen to recognise the symbol from past experience. The reason it is difficult to identify these signs is because there is no direct relationship between the image you are looking at and the thing, idea etc that it stands for. Symbols work as signs because we remember them and learn to associate them with companies or objects or ideas. Symbols can also be words - SMILE only means what we do with our mouth when we are happy because we have decided that that combination of sounds or letters will indicate that emotion - the French write SOURIRE instead!
Peirce's categories for signs, icon, index and symbol only explain how the sign works at given time, in a given context. One sign can operate as an icon, an index and a symbol at the same time. For example:
The picture on the left is an ICON of
a gun. It is a direct
representation/photo of a gun.
The gun is also a SYMBOL of war . It is not a direct representation of war (because that is too big an idea to have a picture of), but guns stand for war in people's minds.
It is also an INDEX of death - there is some connection between the gun and death but the gun is not actually death itself.
C.S Peirce suggested that it was useful to differentiate between the ways in which signs function as icon, index and symbol. Examine the ways in which signs function differently on the leaflet for Magna (Science Adventure Centre).
Roland Barthes took De Saussure's work a little further. He was interested in the whole concept of SIGNIFICATION (how signs have meaning and communicate) but used the terms DENOTATION and CONNOTATION to differentiate between the different levels on which the sign operates.
DENOTATION - the literal description of something e.g a PIG is a pink, fat, short legged farm animal
CONNOTATION - the associations or ideas surrounding something e.g PIG on the denotative level is a farmyard animal but can give mental associations with men as in 'chauvinist pig' or police as in a nickname.
IDEOLOGY - A set of values or beliefs e.g 'PIG' comes to stand for a whole set of values about cleanliness, not being greedy and behaving with manners so that using the sign 'PIG' shows your contempt for certain behaviour and values and implies you think the opposite.
Denotation - black and white drawing of man holding something up, with feathers around head, barechested, with container with arrows. Crumpled body in front of man.
Connotation - An American Indian - a fierce warrior who has killed person on ground.
Myth/Ideology - Belief behind this connotation comes from films, prior knowledge of seeing this sort of person - savages who killed innocent white settlers? Original in habitants of North America , robbed of country by white European invaders?
Barthes was interested in how codes or sign systems worked within a whole culture. His most famous work was a collection of essays on cultural phenomenon called "Mythologies". He looked at food, toys, film stars and all sorts of cultural objects and tried to work out how ordinary objects or items come to mean so much within a culture. During the course you will look at clothing, in particular, the Doc Marten boot and see how it has meant different things to different groups or subcultures within British culture.
He thought that objects and people could come to represent a whole IDEOLOGY or set of beliefs for a group of people, for example America and apple pie, we say "It's as American as apple pie" which has associations of good, wholesome homemade like the founding Americans in the U.S.A! One of the most powerful modern symbols of America is shown below
Answer the questions in this section, on paper headed ‘Levels of Meaning.
• What kind of text is this?
• What genre does it belong to?
• What are the conventions of this genre?
• Who is the sender of this text?
• Who is the receiver?
Barthes says that the ‘message' of this text is not simple and straightforward – we can ‘read' or interpret it on three different levels. These levels depend on our personal knowledge and experience – this gives things in the text different associations for us than it does for other people. It also depends on what your cultural background is.
Read the original story and look at the original picture of the historical figure, Mulan.
The Original Story and Character Mulan
Mu-lan
Anonymous (5th or 6th century A.D.)
Translation from The Flowering Plum and the Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry by Hans H. Frankel
Tsiek tsiek and again tsiek tsiek,
Mu-lan weaves, facing the door.
You don't hear the shuttle's sound,
You only hear Daughter's sighs.
They ask Daughter who's in her heart,
They ask Daughter who's on her mind.
"No one is in Daughter's heart,
No one is on Daughter's mind.
Last night I saw the draft posters,
The Khan is calling many troops,
The army list is in twelve scrolls,
On every scroll there's Father's name.
Father has no grown-up son,
Mu-lan has no elder brother.
I want to buy a saddle and a horse,
And serve in the army in Father's place."
In the East Market she buys a spirited horse,
In the West Market she buys a saddle,
In the South Market she buys a bridle,
In the North Market she buys a long whip.
At dawn she takes leave of Father and Mother,
In the evening camps on the Yellow River's bank.
She doesn't hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,
She only hear the Yellow River's flowing water cry tsien tsien.
At dawn she takes leave of the Yellow River,
In the evening she arrives at Black Mountain.
She doesn't hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,
She only hears Mount Yen's nomad horses cry tsiu tsiu.
She goes ten thousand miles on the business of war,
She crosses passes and mountains like flying.
Northern gusts carry the rattle of army pots,
Chilly light shines on iron armor.
Generals die in a hundred battles,
Stout soldiers return after ten years.
On her return she sees the Son of Heaven,
The Son of Heaven sits in the Splendid Hall.
He gives out promotions in twelve ranks
And prizes of a hundred thousand and more.
The Khan asks her what she desires.
"Mu-lan has no use for a minister's post.
I wish to ride a swift mount
To take me back to my home."
When Father and Mother hear Daughter is coming
They go outside the wall to meet her, leaning on each other.
When Elder Sister hears Younger Sister is coming
She fixes her rouge, facing the door.
When Little Brother hears Elder Sister is coming
He whets the knife, quick quick, for pig and sheep.
"I open the door to my east chamber,
I sit on my couch in the west room,
I take off my wartime gown
And put on my old-time clothes."
Facing the window she fixes her cloudlike hair,
Hanging up a mirror she dabs on yellow flower-powder.
She goes out the door and sees her comrades.
Her comrades are all amazed and perplexed.
Traveling together for twelve years
They didn't know Mu-lan was a girl.
"The he-hare's feet go hop and skip,
The she-hare's eyes are muddled and fuddled.
Two hares running side by side close to the ground,
Look at this traditional Chinese image of the Mulan story – it conveys it's message visually rather than in words but it also communicates on more than one level.
Level 1 Denotation
Describe everything you can see in the picture, in detail – make a list of the individual items
Level 2 Connotation
What associations do these items have for you? What do they remind you of or make you think of? How do you know it is a Chinese picture, for example?
Level 3 Myth/Ideology
What does the picture tell you about Chinese beliefs, values and ideas about life, behaviour and social roles? How does it do this?
TASK – Groups of three
Paste the image of the Mulan video cover onto a piece of display paper.
Write down the sender, genre, receiver of the video cover.
Annotate the video cover – start with denotation, then note connotations and finally ideology/myth. For this final level of meaning ask yourself this question:
Why did the designer of the Disney video cover choose to represent Mulan the way they have? Why didn't they choose the black and white image above?
CHOICE = IDEOLOGY.
When the sender of this text chose particular signs they were showing their attitudes and beliefs and those of the culture they belong to! This sender is Disney who was American.
Representation
We can represent all sorts of things – people, issues, countries etc. You have just looked at three different ways of representing a historical figure called Mulan. The way we do this can affect the ‘meaning' of the message we create. It is easy to create a biased meaning or stereotype by continually repeating a representation which is an over-generalisation.
For example, we can look at popular representations of women or men or old people or families or marriage or love. All these things exist in the world but are represented to us through television, magazines, newspapers, literature etc. Ideas about these groups or ideas depend on your attitudes, beliefs and values. One journalist or author may ‘re-present' women to us as wives, mothers but the weaker sex, homemakers etc. Mulan was represented as a heroine, a female warrior in the texts you have just looked at – using words, images, clothing etc. She is ‘re-presented' to us as strong, capable, intelligent and independent. Which representation is true? How do authors re-present women to us?
• Through the language used about women
• The images we see of women
• The narratives we are told about women
Task 11
Bring in two photographs of yourself – one which you like and one which you dislike – be prepared to say why you feel this way about these ‘representations' of you. (Visual representations )
Which words would you like people to use to describe you to other people? Jot them down.
Which words would you not like people to use when describing you to others?
(Verbal representations)
Task 12
Working in pairs, find pictures of men which you think re-present men in the following ways:
Sometimes the communication process is not straightforward or problem-free. How can we look at communication which goes wrong? Why might communication go wrong?
Consider that the problem may be with the method of communication or the way an audience is being targetted - the barriers can be caused by the attitudes or experiences of the person viewing or hearing a message or the barrier can be caused by the person giving the message. Your job is to identify such potential problems in a text. To help you we will look at a couple of theorists' who have models to help you do this.
In 1949, a pair of telephone engineers called Shannon and Weaver produced a theory to help them to overcome the problem of transmitting information down a telephone line as effectively as possible. All these problems were called NOISE in their diagram. Shannon and Weaver identified three levels of NOISE which could interfere with the most effective transmission of information.
Shannon and Weaver’s Model
Level A
Technical problems/barriers
How accurately were the symbols (sounds) written symbols such as words, figures, communication being transmitted?
Level B
Semantic problems
How precisely do the transmitted symbols convey the desired meaning? (Do we understand the words or images or gestures?)
Level C
Effectiveness
How effectively does the received meaning affect the receiver of the message’s actions?
Dimbleby and Burton’s model
Mechanical barriers
Similarly to Shannon and Weaver’s technical barriers, mechanical barriers are problems like deafness or breakdowns in equipment – anything which physically stops the communication message from getting through to the receiver.
Semantic barriers
These are the same as Shannon and Weaver – problems of interpretation, misspellings or words not understood produce problems with meaning, or semantics.
Psychological barriers
This is similar to Shannon and Weaver’s effectiveness problems. However, Dimbleby and Burton acknowledge that barriers like these are caused by the attitudes, beliefs and values of both sender and receiver – if you have a prejudice against black people you are going to interpret messages about black people in your own way, which may cause a barrier to the communication of an intended message. If you believe textbooks are boring, you will approach a textbook with that attitude and it will block any message the textbook is conveying.
e relationship between SIGNIFIER and SIGNIFIED was ARBITRARY - that means it was purely chance or agreement. In other words, why did we call the tall thing with brown stem and green stuff a TREE? Why not a GHU or a VUCAN? The answer is because we just didn't! In English, we decided to associate the marks TREE on a page and the sound TREE with an particular object that we saw and was part of our experience. People in France decided to call it an ARBRE. 
