What we do as designers.
Who says what to whom.
Traditions of communication theory - 7 different.
Information theory - cybernetic (mathematics / statistics) companies use distribution networks.
Shannon and weaver - Bell Laboratories 1949
2nd World War developed (in Bell Lab) - complex systems to predict whether or not information would get to the front lines or not.
Destination - get feedback to the info source. E.g. seminar - understood or not.
3 levels of communication problems.
- Technical - how accurate?
- Coding and decoding e.g. English to Chinese translation - how good is it?
- System compatibility - Apple / PC.
How much of the message cane be lost without the meaning being totally lost?
What language to use?
Effectiveness - does the message affect behaviour?
E.g. fire - people don't move?
What can be done if the required effect fails to happen.
Client ----> Designer ---> Media outlet ----> Audience.
Systems theory
Important - switch around the maths - see it biologically, psychologically ans sociologically.
Interdisciplinary - powerful.
Think about audience - advertisers who will fund need to know who it is they're targeting - so they see if the product is viable and audience is correct.
Semiotics - three basic concepts.
Semantics - address what a sign stands for - Dictionaries (are semantic ref. books) - tell us what a sign means.
Syntactics - relationship between signs - signs rarely stand alone - almost always part of a larger system referred to as codes. Codes are organised rules that designate what different signs stand for.
Pragmatics.
Signs everywhere - is everything a sign?
e.g. clothing - people trying to decode dress sense when you may have just thrown anything on that day.
Playing on semiotics.
Move into various areas:
Lacan - semiotics to understand the unconscious.
Psychologically thinking - changes the way we think about the unconscious - the individual from the idea of the collective.
Semiotics
The rise of the trainer - signing about culture - what is 'cool' - giving status.
Clear indication - object - signal message of status in society.
Advertising uses semiotics a lot. Buy a 'sign' to achieve social status.
Mediated social response can change the meaning of signs. E.g. A few people might not like trainers - people go off them - become not 'cool' anymore.
Code within a code to understand communication.
Codes - only understandable when someone says that is what it is.
E.g. Highway code
Problem - we presume the meaning is clear.
The Phenomenological tradition - very fashionable to look at.
Knowing through experience.
Real phenomenon - makes actual lived experience the basic data of reality.
Problem in today's society - lack of authentic human relationships.
The embodied mind.
Decar - "I think therefore I am"
Justice - 1st ideas to do with in balance (bodily idea).
Bilaterally symmetrical.
Page layout - look at in similar way to how we look at faces:
Biggest area - mouth (look at first)
Eyes
Brow.
Look at a page and apply the same techniques.
Issue of interpretation - what does it mean.
Separate from reality (unlike semiotic tradition).
Interested in what is real for the person.
Works on the fact that our mental psyhcology - predicts all the time.
Rhetoric
old system
Persuasion - convince people you have something important to say and for them to act on it.
How do I use my body to look powerful?
Language used?
Hyperbole - push ideas to the limit.
Irony
Personification - suggests take on an idea - talk about it in such a way it becomes like a real person.
Useful for creating effect.
Problematic - fascists very powerful.
Get it right - affect powerfully.
Pictures without context are meaningless - need to be anchored.
Used at times of great war and conflict.
Metaphor - transfer language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects or activities. Simplifies ideas so we remember.
Memory not just about persuasion.
Sociopsychological tradition
3 Key areas:
Behavioural
Cognitive
Biological
Individual - how accessible to get information.
External - type and efficiency of information coming to the individual.
Change the pattern / shape/ space. Change the meaning
As animals we have "laid a grid" over the world - to survive.
Sociocultural tradition.
Defining yourself in terms of your identity.
Part of a group and this group - frames your cultural identity.
Difficult to decode - due to context.
Context is seen as being crucial to form meanings of communication.
Sociolinguistics - study of language and culture.
Power structures - how they effect us. Effects how we communciate.
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