Tasks Due Today from Week 3

  • Review Week 3 Agenda
  • Schedule a Meeting
  • Revise your Reading Response – Why Theory? OR contacted the professor requesting feedback
  • Assignment: Reading Response – Semiotics
  • Art of Noticing activity
  • Submit Week 2 Homework Checklist

This Week’s Topics

Check-in (15+ min)

Fall 2024 Playlist

Why do so many people wear all black?

Simbarashe Cha/The New York Times – Vanessa Friedman, Sept. 16, 2024

Freewrite – The Art of Noticing

Prompt: In your language of choice, write continuously in your notebook for 10 minutes about what you noticed on your Color Walk. Don’t edit, or correct, don’t stop, just write. Feel free to share or not.

This week’s task brought to you by the Rob Walker (the author):

Take a Color Walk

Give yourself a block of uninterrupted time. Try not to talk or interact with other people during this time. Let color be your guide. Allow yourself to become sensitized to the color in your surroundings. What are the colors that you become aware of first? Choose a color (yellow, for example) and then follow it. See where it takes you. NOTE: please be careful and don’t get lost. 🙂

ART OF NOTICING – adapted from Color Walking

Next Week’s Prompt by Saul:

Listen Deeply

In any space you wish, “listen to all possible sounds.” When one sound grabs your attention, dwell on it. Think about what it reminds you of. Consider sounds from your past, your dreams, from nature, from music. How does it make you feel?

ART OF NOTICING

Meeting request

If you haven’t already, please sign up for a 15 min remote or in-person meeting. If you haven’t completed your first two reading responses, sign up right now! 🙂
If you are unavailable during the meeting slots, please contact me to find another time.

Schedule a Meeting

Activities

Below, find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.

1. Reading Response – Semiotics Feedback and Discussion (30 min)

Let’s take a closer look at the Readings (Signs and Signing and Ways of Meaning), the Reading Response – Semiotics guidelines and our Hypothesis annotations.

Review your colleagues responses and add a reply!

Review, revise, and repost your reading response based on feedback/questions and discussions with your peers. Or reach out to me for feedback!

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me.

2. The Message Cycle & Models of Communication (30 min)

Last class, we looked at semiotics theory (the theory of signs and meaning in communication). We started with French philosopher Ferdinand de Saussure, who identified a sign as composed of a signifier and a signified. The signifier is that part of the communication process that carries the message (sound, image, text), and the signified is the concept delivered to the receiver. Now, let’s look at an the Message Cycle and Models of Communication, which will be important for understanding this week’s reading.

Careful analysis of the message cycle can help us to understand when our communication works and when it doesn’t – and why. If we are aware of these concepts and the communication models, we can be more effective communication designers!

Circular graphic with arrows showing the communication cycle
The Communication / Message Cycle

Shannon-Weaver Model of Communication

Check out the following video to reinforce the following concepts: sender, intention, transmission, noise, receiver, destination, feedback.

Shannon and Weaver Model- Davidson & Naffi, University of Ontario, Institute of Technology

Transactional Model of Communication

This model emphasizes the importance of context, feedback, and the dynamic nature of communication, reflecting the complexities of contemporary communication in various contexts such as interpersonal interactions, organizational communication, and mass media.

Key elements include:

  1. Sender: The person who originates the message and encodes it into a form that can be transmitted.
  2. Message: The information being transmitted from the sender to the receiver.
  3. Channel: The medium through which the message is transmitted (e.g., face-to-face, email, phone call, social media).
  4. Noise: Any interference or distortion that may disrupt the communication process, such as environmental distractions, language barriers, or differences in interpretation.
  5. Context: The situational factors surrounding the communication, including cultural norms, social dynamics, and physical environment, which can influence how messages are sent, received, and interpreted.
  6. Receiver: The person who receives the message and decodes it to understand its meaning.
  7. Feedback: The response or reaction from the receiver, which may be verbal or non-verbal, providing information to the sender about how the message was received and understood.
  8. Transactional Nature: Communication is seen as a continuous, interactive process where both parties exchange roles as senders and receivers, with each participant influencing and being influenced by the other.

Communication Models

Communication Models – COMMpadres Media

Key Take Aways:

  • Messages take different paths between the sender and receiver and back again via different mediums.
  • Noise is the distortion in the meaning of a message, whether intended or not. It affects whether or not the message has successfully reached its destination.
  • Truth in communication. Where a message says it is from may be very different from where it is really from. It can sometimes be hard to determine the intention of the sender, and that can affect how we understand the message.

3. Discussion: Visual Rhetoric / Reading Response – Visual Rhetoric Prep

In preparation for this week’s reading, let’s go through the reading together. You will be reading and annotating an excerpt from Roland Barthes’ 1977 essay, “Rhetoric of the Image.” This essay is challenging, but it contains important tools for deconstructing visual design using a semiotic approach, including “close reading” of visual images. The use of visual images to persuasively communicate meaning is called “Visual Rhetoric” – an important skill for designers.

4. Assignment: Reading Response 3 (2+ Hours)

Follow the assignment guidelines and prompts for Reading Response – Visual Rhetoric.

DUE Wednesday before the next class to allow for feedback.

Resources

Week 4 Homework Checklist

Below are all of the tasks, big and small, for this week. The due date is Wednesday, 11:59 pm before our next Thursday class. Timely completion of these tasks will contribute to your success in this course.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Tasks from the Week 4 Agenda
Name

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