I will be declaring communications as my major. I admit that SFU is not the greatest university around. However, it is known for its communications department as successful, interesting, and internationally acknowledged. When I attended my first communications lecture, Intro to Communications 110, I realized why it was so great. Fortunately for me, this happened to be taught by the Graduate Chair of the Department of Communications, Gary McCarron.
I dare to say that he is one of the best, if not the best, lecturer ever. I could not say this before, for I had never attended any other university lectures. Yes, I am in second semester of my first year now, and I realize that it is nearly impossible to have another lecturer like Prof. McCarron. His lectures are very powerful yet humourous, and livens things up when certain topics seem extremely boring. An example is when one lecture was about privacy and the political aspects of this.
Most first-year students are NOT interested in politics. But Prof. McCarron talked an hour about an incident between the government and one person's debate about how he got caught with a growth-op (I forget the actual term for this). It seemed like ten minutes, but it was time for the mid-lecture break by the time he was finished speaking about that one topic. I downloaded all the mp3 files of his lectures when I was in his course, and I still have them, and when I have time, I will listen to them again.
One of the main themes of CMNS 110 was: "The medium is the message", a famous statement made by one of the most innovative communications theorists of all time, Marshall Mcluhan. It basically means that despite what the content may be - sports, sex, activities, debates, ethics, etc - the medium, that is the technology or method through which communication occurs, is ultimately the message. I find it very interesting that Gary McCarron, in this case, the medium, became the message of CMNS 110, rather than the course material, which in this case, is the content. Had it been a different professor, a boring, vague, and arrogant character, I would not have understood at least half the material. It was also Gary who confirmed my interest in majoring in communications.
I will now attempt informal introductory paragraphs of what I learned from this course (medium is the message, bias of the medium, ideas of our "identity", capitalism, democracy, privacy, gender issues, ethics, morals, psychology, etc), in order to help me with my future cmns courses.
1) When we live in a world full of constantly improving technologies, it is inevitable that society itself will undergo a change. This is not an issue; it has been a proven fact. Television has changed North America so much that our beliefs, our values, and our idea of what is "normal" was based on what we saw and heard on television. This was a couple decades ago. Today, the interminable growth of the internet continues to confirm our beliefs, values, and idea of what is "supposed to be". Again, the change itself is not an issue, but rather, how that change occurs, and how that affects us as participating audiences in the media. This is also proof that society and media are dependent on each other, and therefore undergo a transactional form of communication.
2) The Western idea of Democracy is so simple that sometimes we fail to look at what it really means: everyone is equal, everyone has basic rights, everyone has a chance to succeed, etc. However, if one looks at this crucially, he might ask, what does it mean to be equal? What does it mean to have basic rights? What are the basic rights? Do we, ultimately, treat and be treated equally?
3) North Americans live in a literate culture. The ability to read and write goes beyond what we normally assume. Such skill has led to the revolution of media technologies: the radio and, arguably, television (oral), to the internet (literate).
There are pros and cons for both sides. I think the most important point out of the seven main points of the two cultures is the level of comprehension one experiences in a situation. The oral-biased person is situational, whereas the literate-biased person is abstract.
4) The creation of one's identity has been a debate for many years. George Mead's proposal of the "thought as the internalized conversation" is perhaps the most popular theory of building an identity. Basically, there is a "I" and the "me". The "I" is the personality full of desires and wishes, whereas the "me" is the conscious self, assuming the attitudes of others. So in a quite study hall, if the "I" wants to yell out, 'world peace!', the "me" assumes the role of the 'generalized other' - the term Mead uses for everyone else - and, in simple words, has a conversation with the "I", saying that this is a study hall and that the self should stay quiet and continue to study. I still remember this complicated theory, for this was, and still is, one of my favourite topics in communications. It had a bit to do with psychology as well.
5) Capitalism and democracy: Can capitalism really exist in a democratic country? Marxism and socialism comes into debate. Noam Chomsky is a big promoter in this issue. Marx says that we lose the history of commodities that we acquire, such as the workers involved, the processes that occur with the products, etc. The crucial point is the labor wages, conditions, and terms. If we live in a democratic country with democratic beliefs and values, how can we continue to purchase products that allow its producers to recieve injustice? While the big corporations with elite businessmen recieve all the wealth in a "free, open, capitalist market" and a very tiny percentage, which is handled by the wealthy, goes to its actual workers, is this not fascism? Is this not what America fought against? It is not necessairly political fascism, but it is economic fascism. Is it democratically correct if we see starving kids in third world countries and say, "poor kids", then continue to drive our technologically advanced automobiles to go to fast food restaurants, eat and waste the food, and then spend ten-plus dollars to watch a movie - the same ten dollars that is equal to approximately a month of a person's income in a developing country?
6)Speaking of Capitalism, advertisements provide huge areas of debate in the communications sector. Advertisements do not promote products, but images, beliefs, and "the normal". When it achieves to sell a product, that's not all that ads have done: they have also gained the audience's loyalty. Not just any loyalty, but misinterpreted loyalty. For example, the ads of women always consist of slim, large-breasted, great facial features, etc. Studies have shown that only 8 percent of American women fit into such criteria., and that with the ad-promoted body shape and size, it is biologically improbable that such women have big breasts, and if they do, it is most likely a surgical result. Yet ads say that if women buy the right products, they can acheive this goal. And many do pursue this perfect flawlessness - something no human being can achieve.
7)The selection we have within the media may not really have as much variety as we may think. Fashion, music, movies, products. They are all carefully researched and produced by elite corporations. For example, the most skilled band in the world can be ignored if their music is not appealing to "society", because they do not reach the largest audience. Almost all the movies shown in theaters are from Hollywood, following the same plot line: Hero/ine goes through an issue, overcomes it, and has a happy ending. This formlua was so successful that Hollywood adopted it as one of its main guidelines. Evidence of this are everywhere: Rambo, James Bond movies to Sin City, Star Wars, Finding Nemo, to the Pirates of the Carribbean, Juno, and the Bourne series, are just examples of many, many Hollywood movies following the same formula.
*Note that this is an informal, first-draft, closed book entry. I may have grammatical errors or statistical errors that are controversial*
