barebones communication

You may remember, that I used the expressions basecamp building or gearing up the garage. The overall intention with this blog is to engage in analysis of real life acts of communication. Not only engage in my pictures, even if those are real enough. They are a good training ground. That’s all.

I will engage in verbal, visual or auditive communication, or the combinations of these. Being it advertising or other forms of commercial communication. Being it non-commercial communication. 

But, I also said that I would need to collect the proper tools for this kind of work. So, how far has this project come at the moment? How many tools are there in the garage? Not enough yet? Let’s look in the garage.

Remember the resource areas? And the very basic barebones resource diagram? Here it is again.  

Brief status on garage content: 

Gestalt Factors: 

Tools on gestalt analysis are mostly there. I might bring in a few more factors. The posts on gestalt factors, by the way, draw a lot of hits. That goes for all of them. But proximity and closure do best.

Phenomenology and Hermeneutics.

The most important steps in a phenomenological analysis have been loaded during the last two days. I will eventually rewrite these to make the area more operational. But the steps are usable already now. Although with some intellectual effort

Naturalism: 

I have started quoting headlines from Steuart Henderson Britt’s  book on marketing and consumer behavior, but I still have lots of work to do. We will end up with some 200 important research areas.

The ones on exposing and attending are in place.

Semiology or Semiotics. 

Well, I still have some way to go, but I have linked to Daniel Chandler’s fascination web book on Semiotics for Beginners. There are plenty of valuable information to get from that site. 

I have learned a lot

The post on denotation and connotation is the post doing best on the blog. 

Experiential Resource:  

I have done nothing yet, but it is not going to a big deal. One or two post and a checklist for you to use instantly. I am working on it. 

Why all the fuzz?

I am glad you asked.

The fuzz is there to establish the necessary tools within important resource areas for you to do analysis of acts of communication yourself. That is why the notebook posts are there too.

And of course they are for me to use, as well. As already mentioned

Any blog conclusions so far? Yes: simple posts do better. Particularly if they are illustrated and operational. 

Thanks for looking in :-) 

“”Constitution” is one of the key terms in Husserl’s phenomenology, particularly in its developed phase.  But as we have seen, its meaning has remained fluid. It became a basic concept for his transcendental idealism with its idea that the objects of our consciousness were the “achievements” of constituting act. For the present purpose I shall interpret the term in a less demanding sense and confine myself to the reflexive use of the verb according to which objects “constitute themselves” in our consciousness.  Such a conception does not involve an epistemological commitment. Thus constitutional exploration consists for us merely in determining the way in which a phenomenon establishes itself and takes shape in our consciousness. Tracing the stages of such a “crystallization” does not mean, however, a psychological, and especially not a factual, case study of what actually happens to concrete individuals. The purpose of such a study is the determination of the typical structure of a constitution in consciousness by means of an analysis of the essential sequence of its steps”. 

Blog author’s comment (now smiling), “only two more steps to go“.  

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 706. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster. 

“Phenomenology is the systematic exploration of the phenomena not only in the sense of what appears, whether particulars or general essences, but also of the way in which things appear. To be sure, not all phenomenologists have paid equal attention to this aspect of phenomenological research. But is has been prominent in Husserl’s phenomenological work, beginning with the Logische Untersuchungen. Here the studies of intentional acts laid particular emphasis on the ways of appearance (Erscheinungsweisen) of the intentional objects. Obviously the contrast between the appearance and what appears, as implied in this connection, is not that between appearance and a reality which may actually be an unknowable thing-in-itself. What is involved is merely the way in which an object which is by no means beyond our range of knowledge present itself to us. These ways of appearing are usually overlooked in our preoccupation with what appears”.

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 703-704. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster. 

“Analyzing an entity in itself acquaints us only with its components. But a phenomenological study of essences claims to achieve more. It also includes the discovery of certain essential relationsships or connections pertaining to such essences. It is this kind of relationships which is involved when we use such phrases as “it is of the essence (or: in the nature) of,” or “it belongs to the essence (or: part of the essence) of”; also, the adverb “essentially” usually point to such relationships”. 

Blog author’s comment; “sigh“.  

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 699. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster. 

“While no explicit and generally agreed formula can be offered, the following may be considered as implied in the eidetic method especially as practiced by Husserl himself, who insisted on the need of carrying the “small change” (Kleingeld) of specific examples. There is no adequate intuiting of essences without the antecedent or simultaneous intuiting of exemplifying particulars. Such particulars may be given either in perception or in imagination or in a combination of both. But while this is the necessary condition of genuine intuiting, it is certainly not its entire content. In order to apprehend a general essence we have to look at the particulars as examples, i.e., as instances which stand for the general essence. Thus, using the particular red of an individual rose as a point of departure we can see it as an instance of a certain shade of red in general. But we also see it as exemplifying redness and, finally, color as such. Thus the intuiting of particulars provides stepping stones, as it where, for the apprehension of the general essences”. 

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 697. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster.

Herbert Spiegelberg:

“”Phenomenological description” of the phenomena thus intuited and analyzed goes usually and - according to some phenomenologists, essentially - hand in hand with the preceding steps. Yet it seems to me that the distinctive nature of this procedure has as a rule not been sufficiently considered. At the same time its importance has been overemphasized, as when phenomenology has been characterized simply as descriptive science. Thus there is definite danger in beginning a description of the phenomena before we have explored them intuitively and analytically. Phenomenology begins in silence”. 

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 693. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster.

Library Thing. 

Herbert Spiegelberg:

“... But what, exactly, does analysis undertake to do in this case? Primarily nothing but to trace the elements and the structure of the phenomena obtained by intuiting. It does not in any sense demand dissecting them into separate parts. It comprises the distinguishing of the constituents of the phenomena as well as the exploration of their relations to and connection with adjacent phenomena”.

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 690-691. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster.

Library Thing.  

Herbert Spiegelberg:

“To intuit the phenomena seems at first blush a fairly elementary affair, if one approaches this task without preconceptions. This may be so in theory, but it is certainly not so in practice. It is one of the most demanding operations, which requires utter concentration on the object intuited without becoming absorded in it to the point of no longer looking critically. Nevertheless there is little that the beginning phenomenologist can be given by way of precise instructions beyond such metaphoric phrases as “opening his eyes,” keeping them open”,”not getting blinded,” “looking and listening,” etc. Some help in the attempt to grasp the uniqueness of specific phenomena can be obtained by comparing them with related phenomena, giving special attention to similarities and differences. Watching trained practitioners in their approach to the phenomena, usually by studying their subsequent accounts, may further sensitize one’s own intuiting”.

the phenomenological movement. a historical introduction by herbert spiegelberg, essentials of the method, page 682-683. martinus nijhoff publishers 1984, the hague/boston/lancaster.

Library Thing. 

I have promised you a closer look at Stueart Henderson Britt’s world. And it is an extensive universe.

In this blog I call it The Henderson Britt Heritage, follow by the section headline in question. The title for this post is then The Henderson Britt Heritage: Exposing.

Stueart Henderson Britt is for communication psychology and sociology what Philip Kotler is for marketing management (yes, that is about it, imo).

The communication principles, that I will introduce to you below, and in a row of forthcoming posts, are quotes from his famous book “Psychological Principles of Marketing and Consumer Behavior”, Lexington Books, D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1978. See Library Thing.

Britt breaks down the area in 1) exposing, 2) attending, 3) perceiving, 4) leaning and remembering, 5) motivation and 6) persuading, and that is the structure that we are going to stick to as well.

Each area are subdivided  into a) message and medium variables,  and b) variables within the audience. We will even stick to that. The section below on exposing is far the smallest section of the lot. There are much, much more to come.

The numbering of the principles are mine, and so are the brackets that refer to the page numbers in his book.  I will not comment on these principles at present. The idea, however, is to use the principles as anchors for specific discussions later on. 

Britt’s work will constitute the main source for the resource area called naturalistic human science (or social science).  Please go here for further information.

You may argue that Britt specifically talks about advertising, and not more broadly on communication. Well, here is how I see it: Britt’s primary objective is marketing and consumer behavior, but the the validity of his principles go beyond that and into communication in general.

For important issues on copyright, please read this post. 

1. Exposing 

Message and Medium Variables 

1.1 (48-49) Compatibility with Possible Current Beliefs and Activities

The members of an audience are more likely to be exposed to a message or medium that is compatible with their beliefs, activities, and lifestyle, than to a message or medium that is incompatible with such beliefs or activities.

1.2 (49-50) Freedom from Distractions

Members of an audience are more likely to be exposed to a message or medium if conflicting activities are minimized than if the audience members are distracted from the message or medium.

Variables within the Audience. 

1.3 (51-52) Lifestyle

The more compatible a medium is with audience members’ lifestyle or their desired lifestyles, the greater is the probability that they will be exposed to the medium and subsequently to the message, as contrasted with a medium less compatible with their lifestyles.  

1.4 (52-53) Cultural Framework.

The members of an audience are more likely to be exposed to messages and media that are in agreement with the norms of their cultural framework than to those messages and media which are not. 

1.5 (53-54) Expected Benefits of the Medium. 

The more valuable a medium is in satisfying audience members’ needs and wants, the more likely they will be exposed to that medium.

1.6. (54-55) Repeated Exposure to the medium. 

The more often that audience members are exposed to a medium, the more likely that they will develop positive attitudes towards that medium. 

1.7 (55-56) Repeated Exposing and Attending and Perceiving Behaviour. 

The more often a message is exposed to audience members, the more likely they will attend to and perceive the product or service advertised. 

 ……………………………………………………………………

Next section will be on attending.

Steuart Henderson Britt’s papers are at Northwestern University, Evanston, USA.

Time for another step into the interesting world of gestalt factors.

This is the fourth factor we are dealing with: The Factor of Direction.

Wertheimer says: ” As Figs. (…) also show we are dealing now with a new principle which we may call The Factor of Direction”.

The figures, that he is referring to are simple figures consisting of a straight line or curve (A & C) hit by one, or more, shorter lines or curves e.g. line/curve B. 

 Visual Figures: Main and secondary lines.

The two figures above are similar to some of the simplest figures Wertheimer used in his experiments, hereby indicated that some figures can be more complicated than the ones shown. However they all illustrate the same idea about directionality.

The main line structure is along the longer line A/C. He talks about “good continuation”, “inner coherence” and suggests that some linear structures show good gestalt simply “by its own inner necessity”. 

The shorter lines, B, in both cases above will tend to have secondary role in perceiving visual figures as these.

Wertheimer talks about the unequivocally of such patterns. They are unambiguous, and have a clear direction that is based on what is perceived as the main line structure of a figure.

This is not only the case when straight lines are involves, but it is also valid in curved lines when the longer curves is perceives more dominant than shorter, tangential curves. It seems to be a general phenomenon at work here, thus a gestalt factor. 

When talking about more complex units than those Wertheimer points to, like for instance photographs or pictures, it seems relevant to talk about perceived lines and perceived direction of a second level. Let’s call this second level directions for impressions. So, let me illustrate this with some pictures.

 Second Level Direction: Impression of coherency.

The coherent line in this image is, in my opinion, the diagonal line from the left hand low corner - the beach line. The horizontal line, which is the other main line in the image, cannot visually compete with the strength of the beach line. The placement of the woman in the continuation of the beach line gives a relaxed, coherent impression. Her facing the horizontal line helps lock up the line structures in the image.

 Second Level Direction: Impression of collision.

The main line in this image is perceived to be the line going vertically from the bottom of the picture to the other end of the tunnel, where the crowd of people are gathered - the tunnel line. The perceived horizontal line, where the three people move, is the secondary line - the crossing line. The inner coherence will be constituted along the tunnel line. As the crossing line is quite strong in thus picture it creates a kind a tension, a conflict in the image. However, as in the former picture, it helps to lock up the picture, that two of the crossing people face the main line and thereby link into that.

The main point with The Factor of Direction is that certain line structures seems to lend themselves to some sort of unambiguity, that ease the perception of them.

Adding more lines, and thereby introducing a more complex visual picture, can stress that ease of perception. Using Wertheimer’s visual figures it is pretty easy to agree on this, but these simple figures rarely exist in our life-world. As seen in the two photographs above, the visual deconstruction of real-life situation will be much more complex and demanding.

Real-life communication, of course, is in terms of complexity closer to the two photographs than to Wertheimer’s clinical experiments. And more demanding. Nothing to do about that, I am afraid .

How to use: 

As indicated in the pictures above, you can use the factor of direction in two ways: use it coherently and built on the good continuation, or skip the good continuation to set things, objects, logos, whatever, apart. 

Doing the first thing, you can expect perceptions that are less troublesum for the reader/viewer, than if you go for the second. Dependent on what your aim, or for that matter, what your target or target group is, you will pick your choise.

Does it work for other areas of communication than mere visuals?  Well, you consider e.g. storytelling where you could have one major theme, and more minor themes. Or music? And other areas?

I would say yes, definitely.

Max Wertheimer: ”Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms” in A Sourcebook of Gestalt Psychology, prepared by Willis D. Ellis,  Routledge & Kegan Paul, Great Britain 1974, page 81 ff. (Library Thing).