You study Communication?

[VioletAyame]

-So do you go on the TV and talk or what?

 

-You write/speak a lot right?

 

-Oh I have a friend/cousin/person I know who works for [a cable/Internet provider] too!

 

From talking to a lot of grad students and fellow prospectives/admits, I notice that we share the same problem every time people ask us what we study. No one seems to really know what "studying Communication" really means. Above are some of the responses I usually get, and my usual recourse is to talk about the media violence research being discussed during the gun control debate, tell them that I would do that, except not in that topic. Now I realized it's heavily in the domain of mass comm and doesn't apply to org and human comm folks, so while we're all waiting, I think we can have some fun by sharing stories about the responses you get and how you usually explain to people (or not).

[trizzleYO]

I just show them this:

[Meanyus]

I use that video when I teach public speaking :-)

[CommPhD20]

Since I tend toward political communication, it isn't too hard for me to communicate the basic aims of my research. Oh, you want to know whether people really learn from Jon Stewart? Or if watching the news makes you want to vote? These are questions that lots of people ask. 

[hellofandom]

I study fan communities ("online participatory communities").  I usually get, "Oh, aren't fans crazy?" 

 

But my favorite people by far are the ones who think I study actual fans.  Like air conditioners and crap.  Umm....just, no.

[natebassett]

Everything I've done up to now has been under the guise of media studies so that's how I usually describe myself - when I have to explain I usually say something like "I study the way technology mediates the political and social relationships of groups of people" blah blah blah

[beyondaboundary]

My MA is in New Media and Society...I tell people my degree is in Facebook

[NOWAYNOHOW]

I don't generally tell people that my MA is in communications.  I use the media and cultural studies part of our department title.  I don't do comm work, really, so it doesn't make sense.  I also think that the popular idea of communications degree can be very off the mark in terms of the reality of research-oriented comm scholarship.

[VioletAyame]

I just show them this:

That. Is. Gold. The question is, did he get nominated after that speech?

 

Since I tend toward political communication, it isn't too hard for me to communicate the basic aims of my research. Oh, you want to know whether people really learn from Jon Stewart? Or if watching the news makes you want to vote? These are questions that lots of people ask. 

That's true. It seems that political communication can resonant better with most people.

 

I study fan communities ("online participatory communities").  I usually get, "Oh, aren't fans crazy?" 

 

But my favorite people by far are the ones who think I study actual fans.  Like air conditioners and crap.  Umm....just, no.

But wouldn't a Ph.D in Fans & Air Conditioners Studies be super fancy?

 

I don't generally tell people that my MA is in communications.  I use the media and cultural studies part of our department title.  I don't do comm work, really, so it doesn't make sense.  I also think that the popular idea of communications degree can be very off the mark in terms of the reality of research-oriented comm scholarship.

 

I agree. The meaning of "Communication" varies widely, not just between the popular idea and the academic one but also within the discipline. My undergrad degree was in Comm with a concentration in PR. In fact, our department offers PR, advertising, journalism, and visual comm concentrations, all under the umbrella of Communication, with Human Comm in a separate department. A lot of schools we're applying in have 2 departments/schools both using the term "Communication". It's such a wide field that we can study entirely different things and go on to get the same degree

[Rhetgirl]

I study fan communities ("online participatory communities").  I usually get, "Oh, aren't fans crazy?" 

 

But my favorite people by far are the ones who think I study actual fans.  Like air conditioners and crap.  Umm....just, no.

 

Hahaha! Sorry, I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the fan/air conditioner thing!

 

Don't you have (at least, I kind of do in Fance) the reaction of "communication people" are like the "evil ones" who "manipulate" the rest of the population? "You are on the obscure side of the Force" type of reaction...

[natebassett]

Hahaha! Sorry, I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the fan/air conditioner thing!

 

Don't you have (at least, I kind of do in Fance) the reaction of "communication people" are like the "evil ones" who "manipulate" the rest of the population? "You are on the obscure side of the Force" type of reaction...

 

I have that sentiment towards PR/advertising people - I think there is a specific sentiment towards commercial/for-profit institutional communications professionals, as well as those who are accruing the skills to promote their agenda, something that speaks to the phenomenon of market forces taking advantage of a media-illiterate population. If you wanted to make it a good vs evil thing, I do think that it is far more ethical to provide critical perspectives and analysis of those forces, as well as promote greater public literacy so that people can evaluate those messages better on their own. 

 

This sentiment is very strong in me, to the point where I grievously offended a PR phd candidate during a panel we were both on at a grad student conference. She was talking about how to use smart mobs and collective organization for commercial motivations which I found completely antithetical to the ethos behind the examples she provided. We were at The New School so LIGAF

Edited February 25, 2014 by natebassett

[Rhetgirl]

 

This sentiment is very strong in me, to the point where I grievously offended a PR phd candidate during a panel we were both on at a grad student conference. She was talking about how to use smart mobs and collective organization for commercial motivations which I found completely antithetical to the ethos behind the examples she provided. We were at The New School so LIGAF

 

 LIGAF? (Sorry, I'm not American!)

 

I see what you mean! Maybe your perception is different because Communication Studies are so specialized in the US, between PR, advertising, rhetoric, mass communication... Whereas in France for example, you have classes of pretty much everything in a College of Communication (even if you are more specialized in an area than in another).. So the feeling toward Comm students is sort of global!

[natebassett]

 LIGAF? (Sorry, I'm not American!)

 

I see what you mean! Maybe your perception is different because Communication Studies are so specialized in the US, between PR, advertising, rhetoric, mass communication... Whereas in France for example, you have classes of pretty much everything in a College of Communication (even if you are more specialized in an area than in another).. So the feeling toward Comm students is sort of global!

 

Like I Give A Fuck - it's a meme. To really explain what I was saying, we were at the New School which has a reputation for radical politics and I felt like I was very much in the spirit of that with my critiques.

 

Very interesting to hear about how that is structured in France! I know that in much of the English speaking world media studies is something that has structured and established programs, but in the US this is not the case, these subjects are often dominated by other disciplines (such as Communication) which can skew away from studies as a research/theory thing to a practical/commercial exercise. I did not know what the state of these subjects are in France, but at TNS we drew extensively from French/continental philosophers and critical theory to understand media phenomenology

Edited February 26, 2014 by natebassett

[generativeIR]

I'm going to apply to a MA program in Communications this year.  Some of the faculty and grad students study things from Jon Stewart to video game design managment, tv (media) production, social media, cognitive science (psychology) as it pertains to visual/auditory stimuli, intellectual property, government communications policy, business strategies for tech firms, economic landscape of tech and media industries, and ethics of information and free speech stuff.

 

I get the feeling that the field is a good mix of humanities, professional studies, and social sciences and as such it allows people to have pretty insignificant research projects.  One kid, and I hate criticising people like this but, he is a PhD candidate and studying the economics of video games. 'Okay' I thought, I've considered Steam as a unique behavioral and economic phenomenon.  But his focus was on single player RPGs and, having experience there, I could tell that his hypothesis would yield almost no information.  You can see flaws in his logic of business behavior in his hypothesis too.  So, I thought to myself that 'this kid knows his project is BS (that is to say BasicallyuselesS)...he is milking a fully funded mass comms PhD and doing a BS project because his profs aren't experienced enough with his subject (incentive/rewards in single player RPGs) to criticise him like they should.

 

I don't think older people (most professors, cough) quite "get" the culture of the internet like the people who grew up in it - I consider myself a "native" and i don't even get the culture of the internet.  This, I think, is why depts look so chaotic; there just isn't a coherent direction to the study; the more "inter" you get in "interdisciplinary" the more likely you are to suffer diminishing returns.  I think that comm depts before the internet were probably useful and had specific things that it examined.  The internet was just an explosion of content and different niche markets/cultures popping up and creating their own social signals and jokes and self-observation.  A lot of comms projects could probably be better served in anthropolgy and sociology than comms and rhetoric et al.

 

Having said that, I am planning on using the degree as a platform for a poli sci PhD.  I'd like to study IP laws and IT innovation in a MA thesis.  I am then planning on attempting a PhD in international relations, hopefully studying IP treaties and legal strategies of nation states.

Edited June 27, 2014 by generativeIR

[Duna]

So, based on your own observations while playing one or several RPGs, you can now tell that his hypotheses are crap? And his professors are too dumb and old to read up on something? 

 

Hmm. 

[generativeIR]

There is a certain irony in your response.

 

My intended research project is sort of in the same area as his so I am not completely in the dark on the topic which would probably be classified under behavioral economics or marketing strategies (not simply playing RPGs).  But, yes based on what I read of his work it would seem to me that the yield from his metrics would likely be low and insignificant.  Maybe I am wrong and the guy is a genious and I have no idea what I am talking about.  I'll just have to read his edited paper when he's done with it.

 

And my broader point of the post was that comms seems to be a phoenix field and 'new media' is kind of at an experimental research phase so not everything is going to be meticulous.

[trizzleYO]

I would like to commend you on your excellent skills.  You have taken one piece of anecdotal (possible) evidence and applied it liberally to define an entire field of study.  You clearly have no use for a Com PhD as it would most definitely not be of any benefit to your refined research qualities.  

 

I'm not sure which folly is larger, your possible misinterpretation of another's work, or the idea that one piece of work is enough to draw a concrete conclusion about anything let alone an entire discipline. 

 

Either way, I wish you the best.  You sound like someone who would not be fun to drink with.

[generativeIR]

I should have known that expressing an opinion was the wrong thing to do.  What right do I have to exercise my own judgment without first consulting the sentiments of all indiviudals who may hear or read what I say or type?

 

And how could I possibly be a fun person when I have opinions about things?  Gah, I must have just not learned anything from women in the 1950s.

 

Oh, the irony of being criticized for taking 'anecdotal evidence' and extending it to an area of judgement by someone who is also taking 'anecdotal evidence' to stretch into the area of judging judgements!  And that two points could be conflated by such astute academic minds such as those that can barely define their own field of study. 

 

Yeah, I judged that kids work.  If what he wrote was representative of his actual hypothesis, then I would bet money on his work being next to useless.  As for the discipline, his work is only one example of dozens; just look at the current students and faculty research at all of the universities you are looking at applying.  Tell me that some of it is not plainly useless.

 

The whole reason I posted is because several people, in jest I assume, described the field and their explanations of it...

 

 

 

No one seems to really know what "studying Communication" really means.

 

 

...my usual recourse is to...

 

 

Since I tend toward political communication, it isn't too hard for me to communicate the basic aims of my research. Oh, you want to know whether people really learn from Jon Stewart? Or if watching the news makes you want to vote? These are questions that lots of people ask.

 

 

My MA is in New Media and Society...I tell people my degree is in Facebook

 

 

I usually say something like "I study the way technology mediates the political and social relationships of groups of people" blah blah blah

 

All the best!

Edited June 28, 2014 by generativeIR

[sugarplum]

Well, I might be hated for this but I actually agree with GenerativeIR -all his points of view- and find his example to be quite illustrating about the problem we face in the Communication's field.

 

It shouldn't come as a surprise to us that there is no certain way to explain what do we do as Communication Students. Yes, it sounds harsh and pathetic, but is is true. Our field is based on other disciplines, we don't even have our own methodology, we do not have our own area of study and the only think I kinda believe we do possess for ourselves is our perspective: communications. That said, I love my area, I think that understanding communications is like understanding the chemistry of human relationships (maybe the physics, if you study well enough) but I am not blind to the fact that Communications, alone, has no way to define itself.

 

Communications is the mixture of sociology, psychology, arts, economics, politics, and so much more humanistic and social sciences. Nowadays, we seem to also add some mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and other hard sciences (numerical sciences). I once had a professor who told me that the problem our career had was that we never really established what made Communication Studies different from other studies. And it is told, in books and essays, that the origins of Communication Studies come from a group of people who started wondering about communication processes and media, thus borrowing research, methods and knowledge from other fields.

 

So, yes, there is NO CORRECT way to say what do we do in Communication Studies. However, we can be sure that:

 

> Communication encompasses many other areas which are related to human behaviors, relationships,  society, culture and media (and others, but they didn't pop into my mind right now).

> Communication is intended to: 1) create people who are skillful in the media fields (TV, radio, cinema, etc.); 2) educate people who are hoping to pursue a career in public relationships and politics; and 3) communication can also focus on research as long as this is made under the communication's perspective.

 

And THERE is where I believe GenerativeIR is completely right in his "accusations". 

 

[Geez, I took so long to make my point, don't I?]

 

Why is GenerativeIR right in my own opinion?

 

Because as Communication Students, lacking our own well defined area (we lack our own personal area liked the rest of the sciences, and YES we mostly borrow our study fields from sociology) we must be very careful on how we decide to study a phenomenon. We can't just go and say "I want to study the economics of [insert group of people here]" if we don't have an economics background, neither can we say "I am going to understand how computers provide happiness to [insert other group of people here]" if we are unable to fully understand how emotions are created.

 

We might be able to do it, yes, but it will take years -a lot of years- of study to understand phenomenons from those perspectives, and even then our research will be lacking two components: fully understanding and a Communications approach. And no, I am not saying that we should only focus on media, TV, games, etc. All I am sayings as that the studies we make have to be related to our field: Communications and Communications related things only.

 

In GenerativeIR's example the PhD candidate is studying the "economics of video games". And I can't help but wonder, does he hold a B.A. in economics? How are economics related to communication? Did he used an phenomenological or critical approach? Qualitative or quantitative method? How did he approached the problem? Was he studying how economics variation affect users? Was he studying how certain games affect the websites economy? And...well...how does Communication relates to economics? How did he mixed both topics? Which theories did he used to explain the phenomenon? 

 

Where is the communicative approach? How did he justified the use of economics in his topic...and why did he choose to add economics into his research if he doesn't truly understand it. Can you imagine an engineering student using the Uses and Gratifications theory in order to explain a house remains stand? And who (oh, please tell me) hasn't feel offended whenever someone from other disciplines uses communication theories without really understanding them, to say thing like "Media manipulate us" or "Communicators are always hiding information by framing because they are non-ethical themselves"?

 

I also agree with GenerativeIR's point of view that you just can't talk about a topic you haven't fully understand. And if you do so, you have to be careful enough to point out the deficits and delimitation of your research. Because you're compromising your results and, thus, the whole investigation. However, I'd have to know more about the PhD candidate's work to say if he was indeed correct or he was just "lost in translation" between communications and other sciences. 

 

Last, I'd also like to add how important it is for us -Communication students- to be honest with our field and admit we can't study all (as most people seem to think). We have to be able to say: "I am a Communication student with media orientation" or "I am a Communication student with a research passion" or even "I am Communication student focused on journalism and printed media". In doing so, we are not know defining an area (still fuzzy but at least more defined), but we are also limiting our study topics.

Because no matter how wonderful things like "How hospital's staff handle stressful environments" sound, that is not Communication but Sociology or Psychology.

 

We can, however, study: "How hospital's staff communicate during stressful environments" or "How stressful environments in hospitals affect communication between the staff, this affecting the organizations social policies".

 

For now, we should understand Communications not as a field or area of study, but as a perspective.

That is, in my opinion, the only way to truly be able to define what Communication Studies are about. 

[beyondaboundary]

Hope this helps: https://www.natcom.org/discipline/