Communication, Media and culture: one discipline or three?

To understand how the three disciplines: Communication, Media and Culture are connected to each other and whether they are alienated or parts of the same topic, it is important to understand the definition of each of them and what they are applied to.

There have been founded 164 meanings of culture by A.L. Kroeber and C. Kluckhohn (A.L. Kroeber and C. Kluckhohn,1952). For anthropologists the term of culture, which is stated by Stan Le Roy Wilson in the book called “Mass Media/Mass culture”, “includes everything that occurs in a society– all the customs and practices handed down from generation to generation.” (Wilson:4)

There can be defined 3 types of culture: popular, elitist and specialized. Each of these refers to some specific groups of people. "Groups also develop cultures, composed of the collection of rules, rituals, customs, and other characteristics that give an identity to the social unit". (J. Rank) In fact, every social unit and organization has its own culture "composed of the collection of rules". (J. Rank) The culture also depends on time. Michelle LeBaron says that there are two fundamental elements of the cultures: “they are always changing, and they relate to the symbolic dimension of life.”

That’s still a question to discuss whether its culture created by the communication or the communication created by the culture. For example, James Carey states that “Our existing models of communication… are a contribution to the chaos of modern culture”.(Carey:27) Although the majority of scientists like Geoff Gration, John Reilly and John Titford conclude that one always shapes the other. As it is stated in the J Rank article: “All institutions within society facilitate communication, and in that way, they all contribute to the creation, spread, and evolution of culture”.

Communication is a part of the everyday life. People send or receive the messages, share some information between the each other and that is a method which defines a process of communication. The "effective communication demands both skill and sensitivity to others". (Gration:3). But everyone has a chance to improve their skills.

There are also different forms or "ways” of communication “in which message can be organized" (Gration:5). It can be either spoken words, written words or a body language.

The ways of "deal" (Wilson) with the messages can be also different. Message can be ignored or "stored for a later response" or "acted upon immediately" (Wilson). There is no doubt that a lot depends on the information which is being send, however also There is also much depends individually on person who sends the message and on person who receives it. This identifies as a "process of perception" (Wilson) which means that everyone understands the information on base of their previous experience. Humans tend to pre-judge before they hear or see something, or some people may simply have a poor listening skills. Communications connect people between the each other however, they have to be able to clarify the message the others send.

Geri-Ann Galanti says that it is dangerous to divide individuals based on their ethnic background because of the risk of stereotyping people, however there is no doubt that those who belong to a different social units and have a dissimilar cultures will therefore have a diverse experience in communication what may cause a lot of misunderstandings. As Marcelle E. DuPraw and Marya Axner say “Our culture influences how we approach problems, and how we participate in groups and in communities”. (article: “Working on common Cross-cultural Communication Challenges”)

Michela Negrini claims that media plays role “for a strategic communication in cultural heritage, including social media, and more generally has grown rapidly”. G. Gration also claims that media "combines several forms of communication and which often involve the use of a particular technology" (Gration:5) and

sums up by saying that “people communicate for variety of different purposes”. (Gration:119). For example advertising is a form of media which aim is to inform or persuade the people. In fact by sharing some information and communicating within the society public often tries to influence on each other in order to make their own beliefs and cultural ideas more represented. There is often, what’s called propaganda, takes place. It is “used to describe attempts to mislead people and deceive them into believing something which isn’t true.” (Gration:120). In some countries, for example in Soviet Union or China, the communist regime applied to a lot of propaganda in the Mass Media and government used to control everything comes up in the media. Therefore under the political influence the culture of the citizens was shaping and changing. At the result it is very unique and different to the European or American. In the same way, the American culture, which although is historically based on English, has been gradually becoming more liberal and as a result the Americans tend to be more open-minded then any other nations. Jeremy Tunstall writes that “the major Mass Media – newspapers, magazines, films, records, radio, and television – originally from different countries. But each of these media was first given its characteristic large market shape within a single nation – the United States.”(Jeremy Tunstall:3). American government has been helping the mass media to develop particularly through creating a positive atmosphere for it and fighting for Freedom of speech. Because of the “mass mediation” of the popular culture there has been produced term “the mass culture” (Wilson:5) which refers to almost every part of the mass media, and American society.

“All institutions within society facilitate communication, and in that way, they all contribute to the creation, spread, and evolution of culture. However, communication media such as television, film, radio, newspapers, compact discs, magazines, computers, and the Internet play a particularly important role” says in the J. Rank article. In fact today all the following mass media partially appear in the internet. A vital part in media belongs to it because there are over 360 millions users at the present time. Technologies make the life easier for humans and that influence the way of thinking and state of mind of the individuals. People form communities, social groups, art spaces, political and other interest groups as well as they used to do it before but today they have a chance to do everything online. Individuals find themselves dependent on the internet because the social networks, online books and journals, magazines, shops, catalogues, games, films, news and other kind of resembling materials appear to be online. However the negative outcome of it is that the information “comes to take on a life of their own, quite distinct and separate from their creators, as they are transmitted and shared around the increasingly global community”(J Rank). Internet plays a massive part in lives of the majority of young or modern persons however that means that people destroy some traditional principles of life and ways of communicating. Therefore there are often created separate cultures and organizations with their own sets of rules and ideologies even if its members come from different parts of the world.

As well as under the internet pressure, culture changes under the pressure of all technologies which enter humans lives. John Rose (John Rose “How Social Media Is Having a Positive Impact On Our Culture”) says that it is worrying that individuals depend on the tools and machinery a lot but based on his own experience he states that there are many advantages of it and that is debatable whether the social networks and the internet itself make people closer or further from each other. It is normal for culture to change over the time, what in this case happening because of the mass media interaction with the humans.“Because media extend human capacities for creating, duplicating, transmitting, and storing messages, they also extend and amplify culture-building activities. By means of such communication technology, messages are transmitted across time and space, stored, and later retrieved and used.” (J. Rank)

Therefore, culture, communications and media are the elements of the same subject however they mean different things. A key word for all three disciplines is “sharing”. Individuals share ideas, beliefs and attitudes through the communication. The Mass Media is one of the key elements of mass communication. It shapes the peoples’ ideologies and cultures. A vital part of modern communication process is internet which plays a massive role in peoples’ lives. However, before it has even exist, the media elements such as newspapers, magazines and others were already vitally important. News is a significant “form of culture which invented by a particular class at a particular point of history.” (Carey:17) There is separate news in every country orientated on its citizens but there is always influence of foreign media exist. Some scientists say that it’s wrong to divide people based on their ethnic background but nationality is important because it’s a essential part of the peoples’ culture. Communication, Media and Culture are parts of the same discipline because they all are about changing the society, sharing some ideas and beliefs between the individuals, shaping the cultures and the media influence on all the aspects followed above.

WORD COUNT 1517. Bibliography

1.Wilson, Stan Le Roy ‘Mass media/mass culture: an introduction / Stan Le Roy Wilson.’ 1993 ed. McGraw-Hill series in mass communication. New York; London: McGraw-Hill, c1993. Chapter `1

2.Wilson, Stan Le Roy ‘Mass media/mass culture: an introduction / Stan Le Roy Wilson.’ 1993 ed. McGraw-Hill series in mass communication. New York; London: McGraw-Hill, c1993. Chapter `2

3.Culture and Communication - The Relationship Between Communication and Culture, Characteristics of Culture, Glimpses of Culture - Cultures, Cultural, Individuals, and Time – J Rank Articles, 2011 http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/6491/Culture-and-Communication.html#ixzz1cf9hHCAp

4. ‘Communication and media studies: an introductory coursebook / Geoff Gration, John Reilly and John Titford.’ Walton-on-Thames, Surrey: Nelson, 1992.

5.Daniel Day Communication and Media Research Institute University of Westminster. November 2007 http://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/20055/WPCC-Vol4-No4-Daniel_Day.pdf

6.John Rose, “How Social Media Is Having a Positive Impact On Our Culture”, February 23, 2011 http://mashable.com/2011/02/23/social-media-culture/

7.The Role of Media in Supporting Communication in Cultural Institutions. Michela Negrini, University of Lugano (Vol 3, No 1, 2010) http://journalhosting.org/meccsa-pgn/index.php/netknow/article/viewFile/63/99

8. Kroeber, A. L. and C. Kluckhohn, 1952. Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions.

9.Michelle LeBaron, July 2003 http://www.beyondintractability.org/bi-essay/culture-conflict

10.James W Carey, Routledge, 2009, “A Cultural Approach to Communication”

11.“An Introduction to cultural group differences” 2000, Geri-Ann Galanti http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1070887/

12.Working on common Cross-cultural Communication Challenges, Marcelle E. DuPraw and Marya Axner, http://www.pbs.org/ampu/crosscult.html

13.Internet World Stats http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

14.Jeremy Tunstall, Chapter one, “The American role in Worldwide Mass Communication” of the book “Mass Media Policies In Changing Cultures”, Edited by George Gerbner, A Wiley-Interscience publication, John Willes & Sons, Canada, 1977

15.“Mass Media, Culture and Democracy”, vol. 5, no. 1 March, TAKIS FOTOPOULOS http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/dn/vol5/fotopoulos_media.htm

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