Communication
From a cultural studies perspective communication is concerned
with the production, consumption and exchange of meaning. The idea of
‘meaning’ is an important one to cultural studies in so far as the concept of culture
is based on the notions of ‘maps of meaning’ and ‘shared meanings’.
Communication takes place in a socially and culturally formed world that in turn
makes it possible, so that communication and culture constitute each other. That
is, every time we communicate we do so using cultural assumptions and tools just
as that very culture is enabled by communication.
Of course, meanings are not simply ‘out there’ waiting to be found and
exchanged, rather, they are generated through the organization of signs, most
notably those of language. Hence the strong interest that cultural studies has had
in semiotics (the study of signs), discourse (regulated ways of speaking) and the
philosophy of language. However, signs do not have transparent and authoritative
meaning but are polysemic, that is, signs are able to generate more than one set of
meanings. Indeed, the meanings of signs are always unstable and continuously slip
away. Further, the texts that are constituted by signs have to be read by people to
activate any meanings and it is now an axiom of cultural studies that audiences are
active and knowledgeable producers of meaning not products of a structured text.
How an audience reads signs will depend on the cultural competencies they bring
to the text and the context of communication.
From a cultural studies perspective then, ambiguity is built into communication
processes. This stress on ambiguity, circularity and meaning in the cultural studies
approach to communication is in stark contrast to the early ‘classical’ models of
communication that centred on the passage of information and/or the sending and
receiving of messages.
Thus the model of communication proposed by Shannon and Weaver in the
1940s (Figure 1) presents the process as a linear one in which the informational
message itself is clear and can be understood unambiguously by its receiver
provided it is not subject to interference (noise).
The study of communication within cultural studies has taken place at the levels
of production (political economy), text (semiotics, discourse analysis) and reception
(or consumption). Although debate has raged about the relative significance of each
level, it is clear that the processes of communication and culture need to be explored
at all these levels in a multi-perspectival examination of the circuit of culture.
(adapted from: The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies, by Chris Baker)
From a cultural studies perspective communication is concerned
with the production, consumption and exchange of meaning. The idea of
‘meaning’ is an important one to cultural studies in so far as the concept of culture
is based on the notions of ‘maps of meaning’ and ‘shared meanings’.
Communication takes place in a socially and culturally formed world that in turn
makes it possible, so that communication and culture constitute each other. That
is, every time we communicate we do so using cultural assumptions and tools just
as that very culture is enabled by communication.
Of course, meanings are not simply ‘out there’ waiting to be found and
exchanged, rather, they are generated through the organization of signs, most
notably those of language. Hence the strong interest that cultural studies has had
in semiotics (the study of signs), discourse (regulated ways of speaking) and the
philosophy of language. However, signs do not have transparent and authoritative
meaning but are polysemic, that is, signs are able to generate more than one set of
meanings. Indeed, the meanings of signs are always unstable and continuously slip
away. Further, the texts that are constituted by signs have to be read by people to
activate any meanings and it is now an axiom of cultural studies that audiences are
active and knowledgeable producers of meaning not products of a structured text.
How an audience reads signs will depend on the cultural competencies they bring
to the text and the context of communication.
From a cultural studies perspective then, ambiguity is built into communication
processes. This stress on ambiguity, circularity and meaning in the cultural studies
approach to communication is in stark contrast to the early ‘classical’ models of
communication that centred on the passage of information and/or the sending and
receiving of messages.
Thus the model of communication proposed by Shannon and Weaver in the
1940s (Figure 1) presents the process as a linear one in which the informational
message itself is clear and can be understood unambiguously by its receiver
provided it is not subject to interference (noise).
The study of communication within cultural studies has taken place at the levels
of production (political economy), text (semiotics, discourse analysis) and reception
(or consumption). Although debate has raged about the relative significance of each
level, it is clear that the processes of communication and culture need to be explored
at all these levels in a multi-perspectival examination of the circuit of culture.
(adapted from: The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies, by Chris Baker)
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