15 MYTHS ABOUT MODERN COMMUNICATION

"There's too much useless trash on TV"; "The information superhighway is creating a democratic global village"; "People need to communicate more to solve their relationship problems." These are among the most commonly heard claims in our society about mass media and face to face communication. People have strong feelings about these issues, and rightly so. In American society, media and face to face communication play an increasingly critical role in our personal, social and professional lives.

The communication programs offered by the Department of Communication at Western attempt to equip students with the ability to examine and apply issues such as these in a thoughtful as well as practical way. The philosophy of the faculty in the Department, based on our own research over the years, is that all of us must not only have the skills to participate in the new "Information Age", but also a better understanding of the history, purposes, effects and complex nature of communications technologies (e.g. television, computers, hypermedia, etc.) and communication in personal and professional relationships.

In our courses, we encourage our students to challenge the most popular beliefs, including their own (and their professors') about these issues. Research in communication and media often challenge accepted notions, conventional wisdom, and sometimes even common sense. To give you some idea of the kinds of things we study and where our research leads, we present 15 of the most currently popular "myths" about media and face to face communication, and what research is telling us about these ideas

MYTH 1

Television is the most powerful, influential medium ever invented.

REALITY

TV is indeed a powerful and even world changing medium, but it is no more powerful than the invention of speech, writing, the alphabet and the printing press. Somewhere around 1500 BC, for example, one innovation of a Middle Eastern syallabary became the phonetic alphabet we know today. Before that, scribal writing systems like hieroglyphics insured that very few people would read and write. With the invention of phonetic writing, masses of people would gain control over information, and later demand access to information as a basic human right.

MYTH 2

We are better informed today than ever before.

REALITY

The average American in 1850 knew more about politics, economics, geography, history and foreign languages and cultures than the average American today. Of course, the range and type of information changes with each new medium. In the mid 19th century, Americans would know a great deal about their own representatives in Congress but almost nothing about what went on in Europe. Today, people may not know who their representatives are, but know many details about a sensational murder trial in another State.

MYTH 3

Televised coverage of trials increases the public's understanding of the legal system.

REALITY

The more people see of trials on television, the less they understand--and respect--the legal system. The possible exception may be viewers of "Court TV" who get an unfiltered look at trials, which may enhance their understanding of the legal system. Otherwise, exposure to trials on television seems to confuse people rather than enlighten them.

MYTH 4

Entertainment shows on TV are "junk" with no redeeming educational value; there should be more "educational television."

REALITY

Entertainment shows are the most educational on television. For better or worse, Americans may learn more about social, cultural and political life from entertainment shows than from "educational" or public television--and perhaps even from school. Research suggests that while television coverage of trials teach little or nothing about our legal system, dramas about lawyers teach quite a bit about how the legal system works. If you know what "stat" means in medical jargon, chances are better that you learned this from an entertainment program on television rather than all other sources combined.

MYTH 5

The media have a liberal/conservative bias (depending on your point of view.)

REALITY

Studies searching for political bias in television news have been unsuccessful in finding any consistent bias except for the bias toward the status quo. (Most of the people interviewed on all news programs are government spokespeople and journalists.) Other studies, in what is called the "critical school," suggest that the political biases of the media are less important than their sociological and cultural biases, and far less important than the fact that fewer and fewer individuals, regardless of their viewpoints, are controlling more and more media outlets.

MYTH 6

Communications technologies are neutral tools that we can choose to use in any way we want.

REALITY

Communications technologies have built in biases that determine how we communicate, think and learn, and how they can and even must be used. They also fundamentally change any social or professional setting into which they are introduced. You might think that the typewriter is just a tool for writing, for example. But historical research shows how the introduction of typewriters into business settings created a need for a new office skill, never before heard of, which in turn led to the new office job, that of typist, which in turn led to massive job opportunities for less educated people and a complete reorganization of the business office. Remember that the next time somebody says "computers are just tools."

MYTH 7

Every child must have access to and learn to use computers to guarantee, or at least greatly facilitate their success in school and in the new high tech American culture.

REALITY

Although it may now be necessary to have basic computer skills, these skills in and of themselves guarantee children nothing. In fact, they may even cause problems. Four hundred years after the invention of the printing press, we discovered dyslexia. Before that, dyslexic people were simply considered not intelligent enough to read. Every new communication technology favors certain cognitive skills and ways of learning and disfavors others. The tricky thing is, we have never known in advance who will benefit and who will lose out. When the first writing system was invented, about 3500 BC, it favored people with artistic graphic skill and the capacity to remember more than 5,000 symbols. If you couldn't draw and couldn't remember pictures well, you were doomed to illiteracy. This would not surprise people though, because most people couldn't do it. This changed when alphabetic writing and the printing press created the idea of social, or mass literacy. Then if you couldn't do it, you came to be considered an inadequate person.

MYTH 8

Using on line search technologies is like looking things up in a Library, only faster.

REALITY

The World Wide Web and hypermedia encyclopedias are redefining what we mean by "information" and "connection." This is like saying, "The car is like the horse only faster." As we now know, that early view was far from the truth. Speed itself may be the least significant part of the process. Research into hypertext is only just beginning and already suggesting that what people think of as useful information is changing. A case study revealed that many "wireheads" (the term some computer enthusiasts use for themselves) no longer have any interest in seeing a "book" in its conventional form (except perhaps as a wall decoration) but only will consider them if they come in CD format. They refer to them as "searchable texts" and consider paper pages as useful a communications technology as we consider a town crier.

MYTH 9

Internet, America On Line and similar services are creating more democratic interaction and relationships that overcome gender, racial and other biases by eliminating visual information about a person.

REALITY

So far, research reveals that the same biased patterns of communication take place via computers as in face to face settings. In fact, it appears that computer mediated communication encourages more violations of rules of civility that are usually observed during face to face communication. The occurrences of insults which are taken seriously are between one and five hundred times more likely on a computer bulletin board than in face to face conversation. As for democracy, historical research shows us that we often confuse what a communication technology could do with what it is likely to do. That a new technology will realize the dream of participatory democracy and improve education has been said about the internet lately, but this has also been said in its day about: the phonograph, the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television, cable television, and CB radio.

MYTH 10

People can solve romantic, family, gender, racial, ethnic and other conflicts by communicating more, and understanding different communication "styles."

REALITY

More of unhealthy communication only makes matters worse, so it's true that how we communicate is more significant than how much. However, differences in "style" are only symptoms of conflicts caused by personal, social, cultural and political values. Of course, this myth completely misses the point that some human problems are simply not communication problems and no amount of communication will solve them. As a common example, think about a position you hold very strongly, for example on abortion, the death penalty, religion, or healthcare and imagine how your disagreement with the opposite position could be reconciled with more communication. "I've heard the arguments many times and I'm kind of sick of it," you say? Exactly. As another example, consider that for all the popular literature about the differences between the communication styles of men and women, not much has changed or improved as a result.

MYTH 11

Communication across diverse and international boundaries is increasing and improving relations.

REALITY

As America becomes more diverse and more internationally connected (by technology and travel), you are less and less likely to communicate with anyone outside your own subculture. If you are an average, white, middle income person, it is very likely that 100 percent of your communication over a month is with people very much like yourself, at work, home, or shopping. If you are a member of a minority group, you chances of communicate with someone different than you improve. If you've heard that American culture has moved from a "melting pot" to multiculturalism, communication research certainly supports it. What often is not mentioned, however, is that more and more Americans separate themselves by racial, ethnic, and economic criteria and see very little of any culture but their own.

MYTH 12

Our most common and important means of communicating with each other is verbal language.

REALITY

Much of our most important communication occurs in non verbal languages, including gestures, tone, facial expressions, conceptions and rules of time and space (e.g. "waiting for the doctor" and "the executive washroom"), etc. . More often than not, the most significant communication "rules" are unspoken. That may explain why we feel so betrayed when those rules are "broken." Remember how you felt the last time someone cut in front of you in a line? This doesn't just violate a social convention, but part of our language of space and how to order it. Studies from communication and anthropology show that when people from different cultures are make each other uncomfortable, it is not the language barrier which is the problem, but rather the "languages" of time, space, order, and other non-verbal communication messages.

MYTH 13

Communication is a "thing"--a message that one person "sends" and another "receives" intact, barring any external noise or physical barrier. (This is a particularly popular classroom communication myth.)

REALITY

Communication is a shared process of creating and manipulating meanings, influenced by factors such as setting, relationships, purposes, individual knowledge and values and so on. The "meaning" one person intends is often not the one the other understands, nor is that always the goal. Studies in what is called the "transactional" view of communication produced new ways of teaching and understanding learning, among other things. The "transmittal" model of communication being a thing inspired teachers to say things like "I don't know why you didn't learn this; I taught it to you three times!." The transactional model led teachers to believe that if the student didn't learn it, the teacher didn't teach it. Similarly, when a politician says, "We're sending a message to the American public..." students of communication are likely to ask "what messages are people receiving, if any?"

MYTH 14

People in an organization determine the quality of communication in it.

REALITY

The structure of an organization, including its purposes, relationships and their rules, have more to do with how people communicate (or don't) than the people themselves.

MYTH 15

Political communication has become a science of focus and test groups and sophisticated polls, so that campaign managers and "spin doctors" can now effectively control people's minds (and choices).

REALITY

In any election, someone loses. This has always been true. And, there is evidence that political campaigns are no more nasty or manipulative now than from the time Americans first held one. Today's "spin doctors" have little on the political cartoonists of 18th century America--however, they can reach more people at a faster rate. All that seems to be observable is that despite complaints about them. negative campaign tactics still work well, but always better for one candidate than the other.

© Bill Petkanas 2005