A choice of futures

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-X

   PDF

2. A model of man as communicator

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      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

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   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

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   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

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.

• Computer
• Design
• Mode
• assessment
• communication
• development
• education
• environment
• information
• mass media
• media
• missing link
• nature
• organization
• television

• Centre for Continuing Education, ANU, Canberra, Australia

  Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery

Policies and ethics