James Carey and Wilbur Schramm

Paper Summary:

Studies of human communication often take several approaches. Two such approaches are those by Wilbur Schramm and James Carey. The paper shows that in his book "The Story of Human Communication", Schramm presents a rather broad history of human communication in which primitive communication technologies have led society to the high levels of communication that the world utilizes today. Schramm's model of communication is one in which the history of human communications is quite linear and exemplifies Carey's description of a transmission model of communication. On the other hand, the paper shows that James Carey, in "Communication As Culture", studies communication as a cultural phenomenon; one in which the act of participation in communication is more important than the information communicated. From these two approaches to communication, different communication technologies can be analyzed.

From the Paper:

"An important step in the process of developing modern communication technologies was the utilization of "The Newspaper." For Schramm and his transmission model of communication, editors of newspapers prepared the news they felt was relevant and sent that news to the receiver via a channel. This represents a simple transportation model of communication; one in which information moves from one place to another. In this case, the newspaper editor sends the information to an expected audience. He does so for the purpose of control. What information the sender (editor) decides to transmit to the readers impacts them as they are likely to change their opinions and attitudes towards different subjects."

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