Slides from NM1101E NUS Communications and New Media

Slides from NM1101E

1. Communication,
Media & Society
NM1101E / Week 1 / 2023

2. Welcome!
•Background: information systems,
arts/IT, information science, new
media
•Worked in research, media and
telecommunications industries
•Research –digital citizenship, digital
well-being and media policy, digital
humanities
•Hobbies –birdwatching, cycling,
bike touring

3. Welcome!
Teaching Team
•HuilinChen([email protected])
•Xueyan Cheng ([email protected])
•Linqiu Li ([email protected])
•JiarongFan([email protected])
•NurulHuda Binte Abdul Rashid
([email protected])
•Farah Bawany ([email protected])
Please go to your assigned tutorialand don’t forget
that to achieve full marks in your Participation
assessment, presence in tutorials and participation
in reflective exercises are important!

4. The CNM Care Committee (CCC)
fass.nus.edu.sg/cnm/cnmcarecomm/
[email protected]
Hello, I am the
new CCC
mascot! Catch
me and my
friends coming
your way soon
The CNM Care Committee (CCC) is a resource for
anyone in the Communications & New Media (CNM)
department to consult on issues of bullying,
harassment, equality, diversity, and inclusion.
What we do:
•We affirm CNM’s commitment toward creating a
positive, safe, and inclusive environment.
•We serve as a point of contact for students and
faculty on issues such as hate speech,
cyberbullying, and sexual misconduct.
•We raise awareness of these issues through a
variety of initiatives.
•We engage with students and faculty to discuss
these issues.
•We reach out to student clubs, associations, and
advocacy groups with similar interests.

5. Your CNM Care Committee (CCC)
Members
Michael Basaldella
Admin Representative
Michelle Ho
Chair
Shobha Avadhani
RenyiHong Dennis Ang
Nurul Huda Rashid
Graduate Representative
Soh Kai Ruo
fass.nus.edu.sg/cnm/cnmcarecomm/
[email protected]

6. Communication, Media & Society
•What are the intersections between how we communicate,
media and society?
•Key definitions: ‘media’; ‘communication’ & ‘society’
•Communication Studies & Models of Communication
•Administrative matters
•What to expect in New Media. Communication & Society
•How you will be assessed
•Questions?

7. Welcome to CNM!
Department of Communications, New Media & Society
•Communication Management (strategic communications;
communicating to people in workplaces)
•Media Effects (measurement of the impact which media has
on society)
•Interactive Media Design (development and production of
media and content –journalism; games; videos)
•Communication and Culture (critical engagement with
popular communicative media)

8. Lensa AI

9. LensaAI
•Commercial app product,
developed by Prisma Labs Inc,
in 2016
•Magic Avatar feature went
‘viral’ in 2022
•Upload actual selfies and AI
generates a set of new avatars
•“simple and fun” (Prisma 2022)

10. LensaAI raises
questions …
•About howmedia operates in our
society … about whatmessages
might be communicated about
whom…
•What questions do you think Lensa
might raise?
•For artists?
•For young people?
•For women?

11. Key
Definitions

12. Media
•An object
•Technology: egiPhone; Huawei; laptop …
•Content: ‘the news’; ‘social media’; apps,
like Lensa
•A process
•mediation between people
•Mediating between people and things
•As something between(ega screen;
a word / words; an image)

13. Media is an
object … & a
process

14. Communication
•An object
•Content: egan advertisement; a post; a
TikTok; an email
•A process
•Social interaction, anchored in shared
meaning, between people
•Transmission of content / messages
•A process of interaction through
signals / messages

15. Communication
generates meaning
through verbal and
non-verbal symbols

16. … and
Society?
•An object
•A population or group of people, often
organized around a particular place (ega
nation-state); or culture (ega diasporic
group, or even a fan group)
•A process
•How ‘society’ is formed via social
interaction between people in relation to
the world around them

17. Society is a way of
thinking about
peoplewho share a
culture and
practices

19. Media,
Communication
& Society
•Overlapping and interconnected terms
•Communication requires media(eg
messages move between people; and
people and things)
•Media is a form of communication(eg
media content communicates messages)
•Society shapes, and is also shaped by, both
media and communications (egwho
communicates a media message is
important; and how it is understood by
people may have differential effects)

20. Communication &
Media are Important
in our Society!

21. Mediating Me!
What mediahave you
accessed this morning?
This Photoby Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

22. Communication
& Media …
Shape our everyday lives –how we
study; how we work; how we
socialize; how we relax …

24. Think about …
•How shifting to online exams; or to
Canvas; or Zoom (!) affects how
you study?
•What sort of new jobs might be
enabled by recent media
innovations? And what jobs might
disappear?
•How our boss/supervisors
communicates with us about
work? And how they communicate
about themselves on LinkedIn …

25. Think about …
•How much of our leisure time is
mediatedby screens and devices
...
•And how that might shift how we
communicate … (LinkedIn cf.
Tinder; cf. fam group chat …)

26. Think about …
•How much information we
receive every day through
media …
•And how that might influence
our decisions and how we
communicate with and
interact with other folks …

27. Communication
Studies

28. Communication Studies
•As an area of academic study
•Arguably traced back to Classical Greece and philosophers like
Aristotle …
•But also, a more recent field, institutionalized in universities in the
20
th
century
•Parallel to the rise of advertising and news media
•Many sub-groups, but can be organized into two overlapping groups
•Those who study how to communicate to apply it to persuade populations (comms
management; IMD)
•Those who study how communications works to critique such persuasion (Media
Effects; Comms & Culture)

29. Communication Studies:
Classical origins
•Communication (as ‘rhetoric’ or
‘the art of speech’) is key to
participating in democracy
•Aristotle also theorized that there
are three canons of persuasion:
•Ethos (based on the speaker’s
credibility)
•Pathos (appeals to emotions)
•Logos (appeals to logic and
reasoning)

33. Communication Studies: Contexts
‘Print era’ (1450-1850): communication
technologies such as the printing press saw
widespread literacy
1450–1850
‘Audiovisual era’ (1850-1990): saw the invention of
radio, telegraph, telephone and television
1850–1990
‘Internet era’ (1990-present): expansion of digital
and personal media
1990-present

34. Models of
Communication

35. Transmission
Model
Shannon, C. E. & W. Weaver. (1949). The
Mathematical Theory of Communication.
Urbana, IL: The University of Illinois Press.

36. Transmission
Model
•Boss messages his employee
on Skype for Biz: ‘Please come
along to a meeting at 2pm’
•But the wificuts out mid-email
(transmission error) , so the
employee only receives
‘Please come along’
•Employee replies after a few
minutes (feedback) ‘Where
and when?’

37. Transmission
Model
•Sender: Boss
•Encoder: Skype for Biz (Boss)
•Channel: fibre internet
•Noise / error: wifi cut out
•Reception: Skype for Biz
(Employee)
•Receiver: Employee
•Due to transmission error or noise
Employee cannot understand the
Boss’s message

38. Transmission
Model
•One way flow of communication: sender 
receiver
•Lacks consideration of non-verbal
communication
•Lacks an account of multiple, competing,
sources of information (and noisy ones at that!)

39. Interaction
Model
Schramm, W. & D. F. Roberts. (1971). The
Process & Effects of Mass Communication.
Urbana, IL: The University of Illinois Press.

40. Interaction Model
•Inclusive of some context for the
message being communicated
•Who is saying what?
•Where are they?
•Allows for feedback outside the
sender and receiver
•Lacks a strong account of the
impact of more nuanced social
positions (egan Australia-woman-
prof-living-in-Singapore receiver cf.
an American-man-CEO-living-in-
Silicon-Valley etc.)

41. Transaction
Model
Barnlund, D. C. (1970). ‘A Transactional
Model of Communication’. Foundations of
Communication Theory. K. K. Sereno & D.
Mortenson. Eds. New York, NY: Harper &
Row. 83-92.

42. Transaction Model
Social context: norms that guide
communication (stated or
unstated)
Relational context: the
interpersonal history/encounters
we’ve had with a person
Cultural context: different aspects
of identities often bracket and
influence our communication

43. Lensa AI

44. Lensa
•Which approach (transmission,
interactionor transaction) could
best help us tackle the questions
posed at the beginning of class?
•What questions do you think Lensa
might raise?
•For artists?
•For young people?
•For women?
•Why?

45. Administrative
Matters

46. Where do I
start?
•Canvas–all your resources are there!
•Contact information; reading materials;
lecture and tutorial slides; assessment
information & submissions
•Optional extra materials (relevant non-
academic material such as podcasts;
vlogs and articles)
•University study requires
independent learning and resilience
•Before you shoot off that email … ask
yourself ‘Have I checked Canvas?’

47. What to expect in
‘Communication,
Media & Society’
Lectures
Conceptual material grounded in
real-world exemplar and
applications (like Lensa today!)
Conceptual material upfront (plus in
the reading)
Application and activities
How do I do well?
Attend, listen, contribute
Sing out if you have a
question or need
clarification

48. What to expect in
‘Communication,
Media & Society’
Tutorials
•Begin in Week 3, run fortnightly
•Attendance is marked and counts

49. What to expect in
‘Communication,
Media & Society’
Tutorials
•Team-based learning, you will meet your new friends in
tutorial 1, and travel with them throughout Semester
•Team-based quizzes (not marked / for conceptual
clarity)
•Each week a quiz will be posted for you to peruse
before class
•In class you will work in your group to try and get
the answers right
•Team-based discussion in class (participation)
•A chance to go in depth on concepts and apply to
examples from your everyday lives
•Team-based assignment work (more info in a moment)
•A chance to apply concepts to you’re a client
organisation based on a real-world context

50. Assessment Tasks

51. Assessment
Tasks:
Overview
1.Team-based activities /
tutorial participation and
weekly reflections: 10%
2.Mid-term assessment: 20%
3.Group project: 30%
4.Peer evaluation: 10%
5.Final assessment: 30%

52. Group Project
•A chance for you to apply what
you’ve learned to a real-world
issue (egclimate change;
women’s rights; mis-
information & fake news …)
•A chance to meet new friends
and make new study-buddies
•An experience vital in
preparing you for the
workplace

53. Group Project
•Contextualisingyour issue
•What is your issue?
•Who and what does it effect?
•Developing a communications campaign
•How do we communicate to people
about this issue?
•What are the best ways to target a
specific group affected by this issue?
•Creating an innovative, interactive media
campaign
•What kind of interactive media can we
harness to get our message across?

54. Group Project
•More information on Canvas
and upcoming in tutorial 1
•Work hard and be generous
with your group-mates
•Issues? Speak to your tutor and
me and let’s work together to
resolve it

55. Questions?

56. Check out:
•Barnlund, D. C. (1970). ‘A Transactional Model of
Communication’. Foundations of Communication
Theory. K. K. Sereno & D. Mortenson. Eds. New
York, NY: Harper & Row. 83-92.
•Chandler, D. & R. Munday. (2020). A Dictionary of
Media and Communication. 3
rd
ed. Oxford: Oxford
UP.
•Prisma Labs Inc. (2022). ‘Company’. Prisma Labs.
https://prisma-ai.com/about
•Schramm, W. & D. F. Roberts. (1971). The Process &
Effects of Mass Communication. Urbana, IL: The
University of Illinois Press.
•Shannon, C. E. & W. Weaver. (1949). The
Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana,
IL: The University of Illinois Press.