Human Communication Models - Report Example

Communication Theory Name Tutors Name Course code Date Table of Contents Communication Theory 1 Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Propaganda 4 The main features of propaganda theory 4 Ownership 5 Funding of the propaganda 6 Sourcing 7 Flak 8 Application of propaganda model to spin doctoring and media management 8 Conclusion 11 Works Cited 12 Introduction Human communication is known in different ways and the diversity is due to the fact that it is not common and has not been explored in terms of study. It is also made up of different elements. It entails various expressions, sociological works among other different factors. It can generally be said that human communication is mainly concerned with formation of various meanings and mutual understanding among individuals and the society in general. Cunningham notes that there are different communication models which take into consideration the human communication with the main aim of passing information from one person to the other (200). According to Klaehn, communication has been there since human being came into existence. The study about communication started in 20th century. Since then there has been various developments in communication technology which has greatly improved the level of both the study and communication itself. The interest in communication research strengthened at the end of world war part 1. The study of social science was completely recognized as a genuine subject after the Second World War. The theory of communication has a distinctive universal law. The law states that very living creature communicates. They usually communicate via sounds, movements, responses, gestures, breath, among other forms. Communication is a way of survival. For example when a kid cry it communicate that it is injured, cold or hungry. When an animal cry it communicate that it is hungry, angry, injured, among others. Anything that lives communicates in its search for survival. Propaganda Propaganda is a type of communication that is intended to influence the community’s attitude toward several causes. Propaganda presents news mainly to influence listeners. It always presents truths selectively to promote a given synthesis. It can also utilize loaded information to generate an emotional rather than normal reaction to the news presented (Baran 250). The drug wars coverage is well outlined by the propaganda theory. In health insurance argument of 1992 to 1993, the refusal of media to take the single-payer alternative seriously, in spite of apparent extensive public support and the efficiency of the structure in Canada, served fine the attentions of the medical and insurance service complex. The media reporting that are not critical and commentary on the claimed urgency of monetary control and a balanced budget in 1992 to 1996 suits well the corporate desire of the community to minimize the social budget and deteriorate regulation, ending in the agreement with America. The main features of propaganda theory Propaganda theory is a theoretical theory in political economy. It was developed by Edward S. Harman and Noam Chomsky. The model put forwards how propaganda, systematic biases included, is able to work in mass media. The theory seeks to clarify how people are propagandized and how permission for different economic, political, and social policies is created in the mind of the public as a result of this propaganda. The theory explains a decentralized and non-conspiratorial market structure of management and processing. At times the private or government actors may get plans and mobilize organized elite in issue handling. Propaganda theory takes into consideration the private media as organizations that are interested in product’s sale. These include the readers and audiences, to other organizations such as advertisers, instead of delivering quality information to the community. The theory assumes four main filter’s classes that determine the news type that is presented by the media. (O'Donnell 370). Ownership The size, strong possession, and profit-seeking imperatives of the leading corporations are believed to generate a unfairness. The press addressed worker’s concerns but too much stamp duties, planned to limit ownership of the newspaper to the respectable and wealthy individuals, started to change the image of the press. However a degree of diversity remained. In postwar Britain the newspapers such as the Sunday citizen, daily Herald, News Chronicle, and Daily Mirror that was friendly to workers, frequently published articles inquiring the capitalist system. These early newspapers were not limited by corporate ownership. Therefore they were free to assess the capitalist system (Klaehn 150). Since normal media outlets are lately either big corporations or corporation’s part, for example, Westinghouse, the news offered to the people will be biased. These corporations often expand past traditional fields of the media, and thus have wide monetary interest that might be threatened when particular information is broadly publicized. Therefore information matters that mainly endanger the business monetary interests of the media owners will experience the greatest restriction and bias. This then follows that if profit maximization implies sacrificing information objectively, then the information sources that eventually survive have to be basically biased, with respect to information in which they posses a conflict of interest(O'Donnell 370). Funding of the propaganda The propaganda model’s second main feature is the funding made through advertising. Many newspapers have attracted and preserved a high percentage of advertising so that they can cover the production’s costs. If they do not do like this, the companies would be forced to enhance their newspaper’s price. There is stiff competition within the media industry to attract advertisers. A newspaper that obtains fewer advertising as compared to its rivals is in a serious disadvantage. Inability to raise revenue for advertising in 19th and 20th centuries was one of the factors that failed the people’s newspapers. The product is made up of wealthy readers who purchase the newspaper and who also include the knowledgeable decision-making part of the population, while the viewers comprises the companies that pay for their products to be advertised. According to this feature, the information is like filler that obtain advantaged readers to view the advertisements that creates the actual content, and takes any form that is most favorable in attracting knowledgeable decision-makers (Baran 250). Stories that are not inline with their purchasing mood might be excluded together with news that presents an image of the world that conflict with interests of advertisers. The theory states that individuals purchasing the newspapers are themselves the good that is sold to the companies that purchase advertising space. The information itself has a single marginal function as the product (Dwyer 200). Sourcing The third feature relates to the mass media information’s sourcing. The mass media are tired into a symbiotic association with influential sources of news by economic requirement and reciprocity of interest. Large media companies such as BBC cannot manage to put journalists everywhere. They therefore place a lot of their resources where most important news stories are expected to happen. That is, the white house, 10 Downing Street, the pentagon, and other centralized information terminals. According to Dwyer (2010), business firms and trade organizations are believed to be sources of stories that are regarded as newsworthy. Editors and reporters who upset these influential information sources, may be by questioning the reality of the provided material, can be endangered with the rejection of entrance to their media life-blood-fresh information. The media therefore become sluggish to work on articles that might damage corporate interests that give them resources that are important to the media. This association provides increase to ethical division of work, in which administrators have and provide the realities, and reporters simply get them. Therefore, reporters are supposed to implement uncritical manner that makes it likely for them to admit business values minus experiencing cognitive disagreement. Flak Flak is another feature of propaganda theory. Herman and Chomsky describe it as negative reactions to a media statement. Flak may take the shape of letters, phone calls, telegrams, speeches, law-suits and other complaint’s modes, threat and disciplinary action. Organizations often come together to create flak machines. Flak has been applied to describe the targeted efforts to dishonor organizations that do not agree with or cast distrust on the available assumptions that are favorable to started power. Flak is distinguished by concentrated and deliberate efforts to control public news (Cunningham 200). Application of propaganda model to spin doctoring and media management Klaehn argues that Spin doctors are always very manipulative and recognized for fixing of image. Their main goal is to make sure they mind about the stuffs their clients minded about, even if it was not important to them. They publish stories about stuffs that their clients demand them to publish about and put them in newspapers, TV shows and magazines. The impressive changes in the economy, communications sectors, and politics for the past decade have increased the applicability of propaganda theory to both spin doctoring and media management. Ownership and advertising features of the theory have become very important in application of the theory. Public broadcasting’s decline, business power and universal reach increase, and unions and centralization of media, have created bottom line concerns more controlling. The competition that assisted advertisers had been intensified. Information rooms have been carefully integrated into transnational business empires, with limited resources and less management interest for analytical reporting that challenges the power structure. The professional independence of journalists has been minimized. All these indicate the applicability of the theory to media management. The propaganda theory has strengthened overtime as a mechanism of elite power. A decrease in resources dedicated to journalism implies that the people who finance the media by offering sources for copy get greater advantage. Alex Carey and Sheldon Rampton work has assisted in viewing how the community relations sector has been capable to manipulate journalist coverage of subjects on behalf of companies in America. Baran argues that the public relation sector knows how to apply journalistic conventions to provide its ends. Studies of information sources disclose that an important fraction of information invents in the public relations sector. There are more than twenty thousand public relations agents today who are employed to doctor the information than journalists who writes this news (250). The propaganda theory believes in the miracle of the market. Currently there is almost religious confidence in the market, at least within the elite, so that despite of proof, markets are believed to be kind and non-market system are suspect. The stagnation of soviet economy in 1980s was attributed to lack of markets. The disintegration of capitalist Russia in 1990s was due to the fact that politicians and employees were not allowing markets to perform their magic. This ideology has been internalized in journalism. Apart from market alternatives, the global influence of market institutions develop anything looks utopian. This provides an ideological package of huge strength. The propaganda theory applies very well to media management, media’s action of the passage of the NAFTA (North American Free trade Agreement) and the subsequent Mexican problems and meltdown. There was a sharp divide among the preferences of common citizens, the elite and corporate community, with polls constantly indicating considerable majorities opposed to NAFTA. The polls also illustrated the bailout of Mexican securities investors. The coverage of media news, expert’s selection, and opinion columns were distorted accordingly. Though majority of the public opposed NAFTA, the pro-NAFTA agreement among the experts just highlighted the enormous elite bias of normal punditry. It might be worth to note that the transnational media companies have a different self-interest in universal trade agreements, as they are among their leading beneficiaries. Therefore, in these scenarios the propaganda theory had been applied in spin doctoring. The pro-corporate and anti-labor unfairness of the normal media was clear in editorial criticism, both in Washington post and in New York Times, of effort of labor to control votes on NAFTA, without similar analysis of corporate lobbying and public relations. After having advertized the weak labor and environmental defensive side-agreements slowly added to NAFTA as commendable, the media then was not able to follow up on their implementation and when labor attempted to apply their provisions to avoid attacks on merger organization in Mexico, the journalists overlooked the case as work aggression. When the meltdown started in December 1994 in Mexico, the media were apparent that NAFTA was not to be blamed, and in practical lock-step they encouraged investor bailout in Mexico, regardless of poll results of huge general community opposition. Experts and media frequently explained that the advantage of NAFTA was that it had trapped Mexico so that it could not opt to controls to guard itself from harsh deflation. They were unaware to the deeply unfair nature of this enclose (Albarran 600). The theory of propaganda is applicable to both domestic and foreign issues. In United States of America Labor has been under obstruction for the last fifteen years. However, this could hardly be reported by the mainstream media. The decertification of mergers, use of alternate workers, and overwhelming levels of strikes like that of engaging caterpillar were handled in extremely low key, and in distinguished illustration of applicability of propaganda theory. For long period of time, the media proved that a large number of ordinary citizens were not at easy with the economic order that existed. This issue was discovered solely under the force of rightwing populist disagreements of Pat Buchanan (Albarran 600). Conclusion From the discussion, it can be concluded that the propaganda theory is all about the behavior and performance of the media, with uncertain and uneven effects. The theory is a framework that works in analyzing and recognizing the normal media. It can also be seen that propaganda theory is well applicable in managing media and in manipulation of media outputs. The theory is applicable to media companies and should therefore be put into practice by the managers. Works Cited Cunningham B. Stanley. The idea of propaganda: a reconstruction. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group (2002). Baran J. Stanley & Davis K. Dennis. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. New York: Cengage Learning (2008). O'Donnell Victoria & Jowett S.Garth. Propaganda and persuasion. New York: SAGE (2006). Herman, S. Edward. The propaganda model: a retrospective. 26.12.2010   Klaehn, Jeffery. Filtering the news: essays on Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model. Michigan: Black Rose Books (2005). Dwyer Tim. Media Convergence. New York: McGraw-Hill International, (2010).208 pages Albarran B. Alan & Wirth O.Michael. Handbook of media management and economics. New York: Routledge (2006). Read More