Daniel Chandler | |
---|---|
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Magdalene College, Cambridge |
Thesis | The Experience of Writing: A Media Theory Approach (1993) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Philosophy |
Sub-discipline | semiotics |
Institutions | Aberystwyth University |
Notable works | Semiotics:The Basics Oxford Dictionary of Media and Communication |
Daniel Chandler (born 1952) is a British visual semiotician based since 2001 at the Department of Theatre,Film and Television Studies at Aberystwyth University,where he has taught since 1989. His best-known publication is Semiotics:The Basics (Routledge:1st edn 2002,2nd edn 2007), [1] which is frequently used as a basis for university courses in semiotics, [2] and the online version Semiotics for Beginners (online since 1995). [3] He has a particular interest in the visual semiotics of gender and advertising.
Chandler trained as a schoolteacher at Magdalene College,Cambridge,and began his career teaching English in middle and secondary schools in the 1970s and 1980s. He adopted a progressive,constructivist philosophy of education at a time when microcomputers were first introduced into the classroom. Resisting the hyped image of computing in education as a boon to instructional productivity, [4] Chandler recognized the computer as a tool for learning,but he rejected a prevailing objectivism that considered data as information,and information as knowledge. He held a constructivist view that data is translated into information by human beings,not computers,and humans negotiate the meaning of information by means of dialog and discussion (Chandler,1990a). The computer,for Chandler,was not a teaching machine,but a medium of expression for young learners. [5] His early adoption of computers in the classroom led to the publication of several authored and edited texts related to computing in education. [6] He left teaching in 1981 and set up an independent consultancy,notably serving as a design consultant for Acornsoft on the development of educational software [7] for use by the BBC. [8] In 1989,Chandler returned to academia,joining the Education Department at Aberystwyth University. His initial role as a lecturer in educational technology soon changed to that of a lecturer in media theory,and in 2001 he moved to the Department of Theatre,Film,and Television Studies as a lecturer in media and communication studies.
Chandler's 1993 dissertation on The Experience of Writing focused on the phenomenology of writing. That work led to the 1995 text,The Act of Writing [9] which he posted freely on the World Wide Web. Where the tendency of most authors had been to withhold their work from online access for various reasons, [10] Chandler was never so inhibited. Self publishing The Act of Writing was one of several experiments that he launched in an exploration of the Web's possibilities as a medium for teaching. In 1994,he began placing lecture materials online for use by his own students. This practice of open access proved successful and rewarding. As the richness of this material evolved in the ensuing months,and as the population of Internet users exploded in the mid-1990s,Chandler's site quickly attracted an international audience of students,scholars and mediaphiles hungry for rewarding academic content. [11] The MCS Web [12] offered tangible content that went beyond the typical outlines,bibliographies and promotional material hosted on most academic and commercial sites of the time. The Media and Communications Studies site established itself as a premier online academic resource for theoretical and educational material in the fields of rhetoric,communication studies,semiotics,media and contemporary philosophy.
In 2011,Chandler and Rod Munday published the Oxford Dictionary of Media and Communication. [13]
As a lecturer in media studies at Aberystwyth,Chandler prepared a series of materials on semiotics,written in a language and style that would be comprehensible to his own undergraduate students. He noted with irritation that his personal introduction to the field "had been frustrated by many of the existing books on the subject that frequently seemed impossible to understand".( [1] p.xv). He placed these lectures on the internet to augment the other media and communication studies materials that he had prepared for his students. Over time,this set of lectures took the form of an online book,Semiotics for Beginners. [14] The text attracted the attention of numerous other lecturers in search of materials to augment their own lectures. [15] Chandler credits the philosopher A. C. Grayling with encouraging him to submit his online work for print publication. The first edition of Semiotics:the Basics [1] was published by Routledge in 2002. By 2005,the book had become one of the best-known introductory texts in the field of semiotics. [16] Routledge released a second edition [17] in 2007. (See reviews by Juan A. Prieto-Pablos (2005), [18] and Edward McDonald (2003). [19] )
In “Technological or Media Determinism”(1995),Chandler outlines his five fundamental disagreements with the theory of Technological determinism: [20]
Reductionistic:Technological Determinism assumes that the complex process of historical change is caused solely by technology. Ex:“Social media makes people depressed"
Mechanistic:The assumption that technology causes change in casual predictable ways and that it causes the same change in all people who use it. Ex:“The higher the usage of social media the more reliant on it one becomes”
Reifying:Technological Determinism views abstractions (e.g.,“the Internet”) and inanimate objects (e.g.,tech devices) as if they were scientist entities with intentions,wants,and needs. Ex:“My phone is mad at me”
Technological autonomy:The belief that technology is self-generating,rather than invented,implemented or regulated by human beings. The idea that because a technology has been created,that there is an autonomous self-evolution of that technology. Ex:“Cell phones gave rise to smartphones”
Technological Imperative:The assumption that because we have developed a technology we must inherently use it,or will use it whether people prefer to or not. Ex:Although social media has negative effects on us we still use it because it’s there.
Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not only transmits meaning but also creates it. Models of communication are simplified overviews of its main components and their interactions. Many models include the idea that a source uses a coding system to express information in the form of a message. The message is sent through a channel to a receiver who has to decode it to understand it. The main field of inquiry investigating communication is called communication studies.
Semiotics is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter.
Media ecology theory is the study of media, technology, and communication and how they affect human environments. The theoretical concepts were proposed by Marshall McLuhan in 1964, while the term media ecology was first formally introduced by Neil Postman in 1968.
New media are communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for the influx of interactive CD-ROMs for entertainment and education. The new media technologies, sometimes known as Web 2.0, include a wide range of web-related communication tools such as blogs, wikis, online social networking, virtual worlds, and other social media platforms.
Computers and writing is a sub-field of college English studies about how computers and digital technologies affect literacy and the writing process. The range of inquiry in this field is broad including discussions on ethics when using computers in writing programs, how discourse can be produced through technologies, software development, and computer-aided literacy instruction. Some topics include hypertext theory, visual rhetoric, multimedia authoring, distance learning, digital rhetoric, usability studies, the patterns of online communities, how various media change reading and writing practices, textual conventions, and genres. Other topics examine social or critical issues in computer technology and literacy, such as the issues of the "digital divide", equitable access to computer-writing resources, and critical technological literacies. Many studies by scientists have shown that writing on computer is better than writing in a book
Theories of technological change and innovation attempt to explain the factors that shape technological innovation as well as the impact of technology on society and culture. Some of the most contemporary theories of technological change reject two of the previous views: the linear model of technological innovation and other, the technological determinism. To challenge the linear model, some of today's theories of technological change and innovation point to the history of technology, where they find evidence that technological innovation often gives rise to new scientific fields, and emphasizes the important role that social networks and cultural values play in creating and shaping technological artifacts. To challenge the so-called "technological determinism", today's theories of technological change emphasize the scope of the need of technical choice, which they find to be greater than most laypeople can realize; as scientists in philosophy of science, and further science and technology often like to say about this "It could have been different." For this reason, theorists who take these positions often argue that a greater public involvement in technological decision-making is desired.
In the broadest sense, a code is a correspondence or rule between patterns. It can be an arrangement of physical matter, including the electromagnetic spectrum, that stores the potential to convey meaning. For instance, the pattern of vibration we call 'sound' when activated within the mind, triggers an image; say the word "cat". Also, seeing the shapes we call 'letters' forming the word makes one think of or visualize a cat. The words upon the screen were conceived in the human mind, and then translated into computer code.
Decoding, in semiotics, is the process of interpreting a message sent by an addresser (sender) to an addressee (receiver). The complementary process – creating a message for transmission to an addressee – is called encoding.
Encoding, in semiotics, is the process of creating a message for transmission by an addresser to an addressee. The complementary process – interpreting a message received from an addresser – is called decoding.
According to Robin A. Williams and David Edge (1996), "Central to social shaping of technology (SST) is the concept that there are choices inherent in both the design of individual artifacts and systems, and in the direction or trajectory of innovation programs."
Jannis Kallinikos is an organization and communication scholar and intellectual. He was born in the town of Preveza, western Greece. He is also a citizen of Sweden. Kallinikos is currently a professor in the Information Systems and Innovation Group, Department of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His scholarly projects have over the years covered several themes ranging from the significance writing and notation has assumed in the making of modern organizations through the understanding of markets as semiotic systems to the study of bureaucracy and institutions. His concerns have recently shifted to the investigation of the conditions associated with the penetration of the social and economic fabric by technological information. Kallinikos calls this emerging socio-economic environment, marked by the ubiquitous presence of the Internet, information-based services and software-mediated culture, the habitat of information. The term indicates that the growing involvement of information in society, economy and culture is associated with important changes in the ways institutions operate as well as shifts in behavioural, cognitive and communicative habits.
Medium theory is a mode of analysis that examines the ways in which particular communication media and modalities impact the specific content (messages) they are meant to convey. It Medium theory refers to a set of approaches that can be used to convey the difference in meanings of messages depending on the channel through which they are transmitted. Medium theorists argue that media are not simply channels for transmitting information between environments, but are themselves distinct social-psychological settings or environments that encourage certain types of interaction and discourage others.
Paul M. Leonardi was the Duca Family Professor of Technology Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was also the Investment Group of Santa Barbara Founding Director of the Master of Technology Management Program. Leonardi moved to UCSB to found the Technology Management Program and start its Master of Technology Management and Ph.D. programs. Before joining UCSB, Leonardi was a faculty member in the School of Communication, the McCormick School of Engineering, and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
The semiotics of social networking discusses the images, symbols and signs used in systems that allow users to communicate and share experiences with each other. Examples of social networking systems include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Semiotics of music videos is the observation of symbolism used within music videos.
Multimodality is the application of multiple literacies within one medium. Multiple literacies or "modes" contribute to an audience's understanding of a composition. Everything from the placement of images to the organization of the content to the method of delivery creates meaning. This is the result of a shift from isolated text being relied on as the primary source of communication, to the image being utilized more frequently in the digital age. Multimodality describes communication practices in terms of the textual, aural, linguistic, spatial, and visual resources used to compose messages.
Technological determinism is a reductionist theory in assuming that a society's technology progresses by following its own internal logic of efficiency, while determining the development of the social structure and cultural values. The term is believed to have originated from Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), an American sociologist and economist. The most radical technological determinist in the United States in the 20th century was most likely Clarence Ayres who was a follower of Thorstein Veblen as well as John Dewey. William Ogburn was also known for his radical technological determinism and his theory on cultural lag.
In semiotics, signified and signifier are the two main components of a sign, where signified is what the sign represents or refers to, known as the "plane of content", and signifier which is the "plane of expression" or the observable aspects of the sign itself. The idea was first proposed in the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, one of the two founders of semiotics.
Feminist science and technology studies is a theoretical subfield of science and technology studies (STS), which explores how gender interacts with science and technology. The field emerged in the early 1980s alongside other relativist theories of STS which rejected the dominance of technological determinism, proposing that reality is multiple rather than fixed and prioritizing situated knowledges over scientific objectivity. Feminist STS's material-semiotic theory evolved to display a complex understanding of gender and technology relationships by the 2000s, notable scholars producing feminist critiques of scientific knowledge and the design and use of technologies. The co-constructive relationship between gender and technology contributed to feminist STS's rejection of binary gender roles by the twenty-first century, the field's framework expanding to incorporate principles of feminist technoscience and queer theory amidst widespread adoption of the internet.
Paul Cobley is an eminent British semiotician and narratologist.
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