Week 2 The Application of the Communication Theories

So, this week's readings basically dealt with theories and concepts, and we have learned:
Bullet Magic, Spiral of Silence, Social Validation,
Cultivation Theory, Mc Luhan's "Medium is the Message", etc.

I am most interested in two theories: The Cultivation theory and the "Medium is the message" school.

Cultivation theory basically addresses to the phenomenon that the more exposure to TV shows, the more likely the receivers are to incorporate the ideas in the shows in their daily life. More importantly, this theory implicates that when young adults are exposed to violence on TV, they are more likely to pick up such violent behavior or embrace the ideas of violence. The theory has critical meaning for contemporary communication studies because it tells the TV industry to be cautious about the impacts of what they broadcast on air.

The” medium is the message” tells that communication technology has important meaning for communication scholars because it was the first in its time to point out how important the changes of medium and technology mean to both the senders and receivers and how technology can drastically changed the way individuals are connected and communicate with each other. For example, the arising of internet and the Web 2.0, social media application have shaped the way even the language people communicating. Social media has created a digital platform where individuals meet and interact with friends and in more cases, “strangers” and “stalkers” at a level that no era before can compared. Individuals feel it is much easier and faster to interact to people in long distance. More importantly, individuals are getting used to a “customized” medium—Blogs, My Space, Facebook, Twitters, Foursquare and so forth. Extremely, by examining a person’s facebook, myspace, foursqure and bloggers, you can effortlessly see through this persons’ personal life. The boundary between reality and digital world has never been so ambiguous. You can argue the negative impacts of such technology changes making people’s privacy vulnerable. However, on the other hand, the level and the scale of such communication style changes is the one at a time and no compare in the history. It even gave birth to a new communication school “Digital Communication”.

In summary, I think both the Cultivation Theory and the Medium is the message tell me that both the content and the medium of communications matter to the receivers and one cannot live without the other for making impacts.