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I am trying something new today. This thread will introduce you to an academic concept that scholars of media and communication have found useful: the distinction between "transmission" and "ritual' views of communication. Let's see if i can bring it alive for you. Ready? 1/
Contrasting a "transmission" with a "ritual" view of media comes to us from the work of James W. Carey, greatest and deepest scholar of journalism in the 20th century. As a child Carey contracted an illness that required him to stay indoors and at home. This left him acutely— 2/
—sensitive to a social flow he was isolated from, and led to a lifelong interest in conversation, communication, and the tools by which we take in the world and "grasp" it. Jim Carey, John Dewey, Neil Postman, Hannah Arendt are the writers who taught me the most— and still do. 3/
James Carey's most famous essay is "A Cultural Approach to Communication." There he wrote that "two alternative conceptions of communication have been alive in American culture since this term entered common discourse in the nineteenth century." bit.ly/2E1Rj3m 4/
One he called "transmission." This is the dominant view. It models communication as the movement of messages across space. Picture a radio tower sending broadcast signals to far flung receivers, a daily paper landing on the doorstep, a newsletter sent "straight to your inbox." 5/
"At the deepest roots of our thinking," Carey wrote, "communication is [seen as] a process whereby messages are transmitted and distributed in space." When your cable news anchor says of an upcoming press conference, "we'll bring it to you live," that is the transmission view. 6/
In contrast to a transmission model, where messages are sent and information is delivered across space — physical or social space— Carey inscribes a "ritual" view. Here, the point of communication is not to "send a message," but to create a shared world in which we can dwell. 7/
Simple example: a church sermon. Certainly an act of communication, a medium, as it were, but rarely used for delivery of information. A good sermon reminds people of what they believe, draws them together in fellowship, creates community. This is the ritual view in action. 8/
James W. Carey again: "A ritual view of communication is directed not toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs." bit.ly/2E1Rj3m 9/
So there's the concept I want to introduce to you lay people. A transmission vs. a ritual view of what communication is all about. Here we must pause to mention that even in a mostly "ritual" setting, some transmission may take place. And vice versa. Let us not overdraw it. 10/
If that's the concept, what can we do with it? Or as William James (1842–1910) might have said, what's the cash value of this distinction? What does it get us? One thing it gets us is an interpretive principle: what fails to make sense as information may make sense as ritual. 11/
Simple example: the CNN panel o' pundits. Information-wise, there is almost nothing there for the intelligent viewer. No news, no revelations. Instead, an opportunity to identify — and share a belief system – with one or another speaker. Or to "hate watch," also a ritual. 12/
When I talk on Twitter about Sunday morning talk shows, people say, "How I miss Tim Russert. I haven't watched since then." But what do they miss? The information he elicited from his guests? No. It was the ritual: Russert doing battle against slippery politicians. 13/
Thirty-seven years ago I agreed to house sit a brownstone in Brooklyn while the owners were in Europe. The second night of my stay burglars struck. They stole a TV and some paintings. A house key was also missing, which freaked me out. The next night I was extremely nervous...14/
So to calm myself down I turned on the remaining television set and there — thank god! — was the Tonight Show on NBC, starring Johnny Carson. It was the total predictability of his routine that I craved. A laughing communion with his studio audience helped me get a grip. 15/
Do not under-estimate the power of ritual communication. We have many derisive names for it. Entertainment is one, "echo chamber" another. They are apt at times, but just as often the people who pride themselves on being information transmitters think their way is THE way. 16/
In this explainer video where I appear with @voxdotcom's Carlos Maza @gaywonk we look at the White House press conference as a ritual, which is a lot more satisfying that expecting information delivery from it. 17/
It's harder than it looks to inform people. Delivering reliable information is not enough. You also have to deliver some sense of a shared world. News consumption is itself a ritual. The user of the news system learns what is new, but also affirms what always been true. 18/
James W. Carey again: "Our basic orientation to communication remains grounded, at the deepest roots of our thinking, in the idea of transmission: communication is a process whereby messages are transmitted and distributed in space for the control of distance and people." 19/
So here is my parting suggestion, lay person. Whenever you cannot make sense of media as the transmission of information or "news," switch frames and ask if instead this makes sense as ritual. Cheers. 20/ END
