Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

A choice of futures

  • Book
  • © 1976

Overview

Authors:
  1. Fred Emery

    1. Centre for Continuing Education, ANU, Canberra, Australia

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Merrelyn Emery

    1. Centre for Continuing Education, ANU, Canberra, Australia

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Part of the book series: International Series on the Quality of Working Life (IQWL, volume 4)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (17 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-X
    Download chapter PDF

  2. A model of man as communicator

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Persuasion and communication

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 3-4

    3. Informational structure of the physical world

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 5-15

    4. Assumptions relating an individual to the informational structure of his environment

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 16-18

    5. Basic characteristics of interpersonal situations

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 19-26

    6. Awareness, images (symbolization) and psycho-logic

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 27-32

    7. The extended social field and its informational structure

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 33-41

  3. The modern media and man

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 43-43
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Differences between the communication functions of the mass media, for individuals

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 45-63

    3. Television and maladaption

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 64-71

    4. Television is a dissociative medium OR tele turns you off

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 72-94

    5. The long term consequences of regular viewing

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 95-108

    6. Further notes on maladaptive strategies

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 109-121

    7. Taking stock of McLuhan

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 122-144

  4. Human communication and the adaptive response

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 145-145
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Communication requirements in an adaptive society

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 147-165

    3. Human communications in work

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 166-178

    4. Human communication and community life

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 179-190

    5. Leisure: recreation or the pursuit of beauty ?

      • Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
      Pages 191-199
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

Exploration of the nature of human communication and the media is a pre­ requisite to any assessment of the likely future role of communications . . We cannot assume that the nature of these things is transparently obvious to everyone and therefore commonly understood. Three developments in recent decades should adequately warn against such an assumption. First, we had the fiasco of social scientists trying to apply Shannon's mathematical theory of information as if it were a theory of human communication. 'In Shannon's use of information we cannot speak of how much information a person has only how much a message has. ' (Ackoff and Emery, 1972, p. 145). They would not have wandered into that blind alley if they had stopped to think about the nature of human communication. Second was the belated but wholehearted acceptance of the Heider theory of balance and its subse­ quent wane. Its wane had nothing to do with its inherent merits. It waned because it could not survive on the Procrustean bed of the psychologists' theory of choice. It did not occur to the psychologists to question their as­ sumptions about how people made the choices that lead to purposeful com­ munication (Ackoff and Emery, 1972, p. 58). The last example has been the bitter and unended furore about McLuhan. This time the psychologists and sociologists haye been strangely quiet but we can be sure this does not imply acquiescence in McLuhan's views.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Centre for Continuing Education, ANU, Canberra, Australia

    Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: A choice of futures

  • Authors: Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery

  • Series Title: International Series on the Quality of Working Life

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6948-6

  • Publisher: Springer New York, NY

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: H. E. Stenfert Kroese b.v., Leiden, the Netherlands 1976

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4684-6950-9Published: 23 March 2012

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4684-6948-6Published: 06 December 2012

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: 212

  • Topics: Sociology, general

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation