After listening to both Communication Theory and Media Theory presentation, I think both of the theories are inter-related or overlapping. But to date according to the two team presenters and Professor Han, these two theories are still quite new or novelty in the field of educational technology. So in this paper I would like to briefly explain again what is communication theory and media theory based on my findings and own understanding and finally to give a discussion on whether both these theories are important in instructional design or not? And if yes, how important it is and how we should apply them into instructional design?
Communication Theory vs. Media Theory
In order to understand what communication theory is, we should first know what is communication? There are lots of different definitions for communication. According to Newman & Summer, communication is an exchange of facts, ideas, and opinions by two or more person whereas according to Katz & Khan, it is the exchange of information and transmission of meaning. As defined by Wilbur Schramm, communication is the sharing experiences on the bases of commonness. In addition, lots of scholars such as Aristotle and Plato have termed the process of communication as Rhetoric which explained as from the very beginning communication was seen as a process in which the speaker constructed messages to be transmitted to the receiver to bring about a desired response in his or her receiver and for a effective communication process, communication should included the below three condition which are language, culture and environment. And the three conditions mentioned are almost the same as the Three Views of Media by Meyrwitz(1993) mentioned by Media team in presentation which are media as conduits of contents, language and environment. Besides, if we continue to see the evolution of communication, we could see that the evolution of communication and media are almost the same too except that for communication evolution, instead of starting from printing technology/newspaper, it started from smoke signals/pigeon service/drum beats/letters words or mouth. Other than this, the both communication and media evolution are the same which are from printing technology/newspaper to telegraphy/telephone then towards radio/TV/Cinema then finally computer /internet/web 2.0/mobile device. Communication has been characterized into different types of communication such as intra personal communication, verbal and non verbal communication which we can again sub categorized into interpersonal, group and mass communication. From here again we can see that the relationship of communication and media. Lastly, communication is important for information dissemination, instruction, persuasion, debate and discussion, integration, culture promotion, entertainment, transmission of knowledge, social contact and etc. According to the communication team, there are few models that can explain communication theory such as the Shannon-Weaver Model, the Berlo’s SMCR model, the Schramm interactive model, the campos ecologies of meaning model which could be use in ET based on different learning theories. I agreed that these models could be used in ET but then I think in order to use communication t model maybe we should also think about media theory/model at the same time.
In media theory, there are three important theories that explain what media theory is. First, effects theory that explain what the media does to audiences, second is the uses and gratifications (U&G) which explain what audiences do with the media and finally is the reception theory which explain what audiences do to the media. In effects theory, media may reinforce attitudes through repetition or media could control how the audiences think by keep repeating certain information in media. As for U&G, users of the media use media texts to satisfy certain needs. Whereas reception theory is just the opposite of effect theory and it sees media consumption as active and not passive. All these models could be used together with learning theories in designing an instruction. According to the evolution of media history, as explained above, it is highly related to communication evolution too. So now how can we adopt both these theories into instructional design?
Instructional Design using Communication Theory and Media Theory
In order to develop an effective instruction design, instructors should skillfully adopt both the theories into ID. Why? ID is a two way communication especially in today teaching and learning environment. Instructor should not just provide one way communication which is just to design an instruction that only spoon feed all the information to the learners. Instead instructors should communicate properly with the learners and during ADDIE process, SMCR model should be applied so that both sender and receiver could be analyzed. Sender meaning the teachers or the trainers, instructor should know the characteristic and style of the sender while delivering a course or training in order to design a more effective instruction for the use of the teachers or trainers. During the design and developing process, proper messages and channels should be decided and developed in order to achieve effective communication between both sender and receiver. During this process, Media also play an important role especially in today’s teaching. Instructor should choose a proper media based on the context, environment and learners to be applied into the ID. Instructor should also consider about the learners (receivers) whether they could accept the information effectively (communication) and also to involve the learners into the whole learning process. Finally, as for evaluation, both senders (instructor/SME/teacher) and receivers (learners) should be evaluated to find out whether the use of different media is successful or easy to use for senders and as for receivers whether the media is engaged, motivated and finally increase their performance or not. All these should be evaluated and communicated clearly so that both senders and receivers could learn from the experience and to improve in the future teaching & learning process.
Conclusion
From the discussion above, we could notice that in order to develop an effective ID, instructors should used three models together while designing their ID which are ADDIE from ISD, ASSURE from Media and finally SMCR from Communication. With the combination of three and with the dynamic application of each model based on condition and situation, only an effective ID could be developed and with these it only could benefit the learners. So in conclusion, I would say that both media theory and communication theory are important in instructional design process. So Instructors should adopt these two models into their instructional design process based on their knowledge; skill and experience to provide the most effective learning experience to the learners. Lastly, with the increasing usage of social media in education nowadays, instructors should also apply the difference social media tools in their teaching based on different situation, such as if appropriate, instructors could use Facebook for group discussion since most of the students nowadays have Facebook, twitter for information update, YouTube in teaching to make the teaching and learning process more interesting, computer games or simulation for different subjects to engage and motivate the learners and etc. I believe that if we use technology wisely and not blindly, obviously it will bring more benefits (motivation, engagement, increase achievement and etc) than burden to both the senders (instructor/SME/teacher) and receivers (learners)!
References
Suchitra Patnail (2008). Communication Concepts, Theories, Models and Processes. Retrieved Jun 5, 2011, from http://www.slideshare.net/suchi9/communication-concepts-theories-and-models1-presentation
Geoff Moss (2009). Media Theories. Retrieved Jun 5, 2011, from http://www.slideshare.net/geoffjmoss/media-theories-3016026
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