What is a message? sxsw__07_24_15.key

What is a message?

“Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'? How many rainbows can light create for the untutored eye? How aware of variations in heat waves can that eye be? Imagine a world alive with incomprehensible objects and shimmering with an endless variety of movement and innumerable gradations of color. Imagine a world before the 'beginning was the word.’”Stan Brakhage, Metaphors of Vision

Eventually, Brakhage’s crawling baby grows up and understands extraordinarily complex messages.

How does that happen?

What’s most important about a message? Its meaning, its affect, its nature?

Two of the great minds of communication theory—George Gerbner and Ray Birdwhistell—had two radically different views on

how communication worked.

Gerbner—famous for studying the impact of violence on television—believed that a message was about its affect.

Birdwhistell—the man who first taught us the importance of “body language”—thought that was ridiculous.

1. Individuals did not invent society. 2. Society invented individuals. 3. Social communication invented (and maintains) society.

Before he even contemplated the idea of “message,” he set out several challenging principles:

He proved that point when he found that babies only a few weeks old reflect the gestural patterns unique to their cultures.

Their societies shaped their individual identities.

And he taught us that a smile is not just a smile. It depends on who is smiling, what world they occupy, and what

the smile means to those around them.

SO….What is a message?

A message is not simply the transmission of information. Nor is it simply the affect or impact of that transmission.

The depth and complexity of a message is far greater.

This was Ray Birdwhistell’s fundamental insight:

A message is a code within a context.

And when you look at it that way, you understand the true nature of complex messages that the crawling baby

grows up to understand.

What does this mean for us? That’s what this session will answer.