Chapter 1 Blog Assignment

The communication model for:

Newspaper article:

1. Sender—newspaper/reporter that writes the article

2. Receiver—the reader of the newspaper

3. Encoding—the news, i.e. Hurricane Ike

4. Noise—whether or not the article is read by consumer, how interesting it is, how many other things the reader has to do, how readable the article is

5. Message—what the news article is trying to convey

6. Decoding—what the consumer reads in the article, how they interpret the news, i.e. Oh, those poor people in Galveston, TX

7. The feedback is limited, and often indirect and delayed. Readers can write letters to the editor, they can talk or blog about what they read.

Magazine article:

1. Sender—magazine/author of the article

2. Receiver—the reader of the magazine article

3. Encoding—the article that is written, i.e. an article about corruption in America’s government

4. Noise—again whether or not the article is actually read, how interesting it is, if other people are talking, if the tv is on, etc.

5. Message—the meaning of the article, i.e. America needs to reform its government

6. Decoding—what the reader sees in the article, and what they take from it, either agreeing or disagreeing with the message

7. Feedback, again is more delayed than direct communication. Readers can write in to the magazine, they can post on the website, or they can discuss it with friends.

Radio Program:

1. Sender—the hosts on the program

2. Receiver—you, the listener

3. Encoding—the topic of discussion on the program; anything from surrogate mothers to the war in Georgia to celebrities gone wild

4. Noise—the interest the listener may or may not have in the topic, the music or programs the other stations are playing, the task the listener might be performing while listening.

5. Message—what the radio hosts are trying to get the listeners to understand/support/condemn

6. Decoding—what the listener actually hears; may be the correct message, or they may just hear part of the program and get something completely different

7. Feedback includes calling into the station to answer questions or leave comments, also talking with friends about what you heard on the radio

Television Show:

1. Sender—the station/creators of the show

2. Receiver—the person watching the television program

3. Encoding—the show’s humor, story, and characters

4. Noise—other, more interesting programs, if the show has the watcher’s complete attention or if they are performing a task while watching, the other people in the room, etc.

5. Message—if the show has a moral, like the Brady Bunch, or if it is meant purely for entertainment and escapism

6. Decoding—the laughter or tears or other emotions felt by the viewer; also what the viewer takes away and remembers about the show they were watching.

7. Feedback is very limited with television shows, but not as delayed sometimes, and while viewers could write into a station to talk about their viewpoint, it is rare. Most often, feedback is the ratings the shows get, and how often and how well they are talked about.

This model, I believe, works best either for advertisements or direct communications between people. The feedback is particularly difficult to deal with when one is thinking of mass communications. I think that television shows are perhaps the easiest to model, since the feedback is evident in the ratings the show gets, or, say, the number of people who vote on American Idol. In all models, the sender and receiver are easy to identify, but in both the magazine article and the newspaper article, it is more difficult to identify the decoding, since many people may read an article and think different things. People often take away the same thing from a television show or even a radio program, since we have social and humor norms, but the news is often tricky to predict.

SECOND QUESTION

I am a traditionalist, so in general I would like to believe that the newspaper is the best source of information. However, with the swiftness of the internet, I think that news websites are now the best informer in mass media. One can now get alerts, through websites such as Twitter, on one’s cell phone whenever breaking news happens. Now, you can know the minute news happens, through the internet and other technologies. Newspapers are only updated daily, magazines are generally only once a week or even more infrequently, and things like news shows or radio programs are only at certain times of the day. On top of all that, news websites have every bit of information that these other sources hold, but ordinary citizens who are at the scene of the news can also comment on them, and they are updated whenever news happens.

As far as entertainment goes, I think that television is the undisputed winner. Although I, myself, don’t have a television and I would much rather spend time watching shows on the internet, according to the A.C. Nielsen Co., 99 percent of all families in the United States have at least one television in the household. Computers, while prevalent, are not even close to that statistic. Radios are more or less used for music or talk shows like Dr. Laura, and even then, it is mostly listened to in the car, where televisions cannot be present for safety reasons. Magazines are not frequent enough, and do not have enough variety to hold everyone’s interest for long enough. Televisions have thousands of channels now, we can now record the shows we want to watch, and they have pervaded our lives to the point that everyone, somewhere, has watched one. Not to mention the fact that television requires almost no brainpower whatsoever to enjoy. We can just zone out and escape as we watch the shows. And television is a much talked about part of our lives. Many people watch shows so they can talk about it with their friends the next day. Television is how we relax, how we interact, and a near-constant part of our lives.

The form of mass media that persuades the best is most likely advertisements—more specifically, advertisements on television. The first reason this is true is because everyone watches television. Even if you don’t like it, even if you don’t own one, you have watched television, and you have seen commercials. The other forms of persuasions—like ads in other media like radio, news, or magazines, are too easily muted, skimmed, or just plain ignored. On television, we have two senses engaged in participating in watching tv. And even though some may argue that we can now just fast forward over commercials, I know many people who, when they see what looks like an appealing or interesting commercial as they fast forward, will rewind and watch it. We have commercials ingrained in our brains, and have for years. I know that I don’t even see ads on the sides of webpages, and I just skim them in the newspaper. The newspaper is too impartial to persuade, magazines are too wordy, and the radio isn’t frequented enough. If you want to get your product known, commercials are the way to do it. Commercials are even now an integral part of our Super Bowl. We have competitions trying to decide what the best, funniest, most interesting commercials are.