The subtitle of "Communication Studies Turns Out to Be Interesting" (Liang Ping/Author, Tsinghua University Press, September 2021) is "The Essence of 16 Masters", and the main title uses "interesting" to describe it, which I am not very interested in or unbelieving. Past learning experience has taught me that entering the "territory" of subject theory is often difficult to link with interesting, and the abstract, complex, highly generalized and other characteristics of the theory itself lead to boredom. But from the introduction, its interestingness begins to emerge.
First of all, the positioning of the book is clear: an introductory book for communication. It is based on the breadth and breadth of theoretical introduction in terms of content architecture, so some trade-offs have been made in theoretical depth.
Based on this positioning, the introduction section sets a fresh background: a certain school's journalism and communication major has carried out teaching reform. "One of the biggest changes is that their communication studies courses are no longer taught by professional teachers, but instead use intelligent interactive classroom teaching." This new teaching model relies on a set of head-mounted smart devices with built-in AR glasses, headsets and microphone functions, so that the wearer can present a unified image in front of their eyes and can communicate and interact with them. In fact, high-tech equipment is just a means, and the real brilliance of the new teaching model lies in the content of the visualization image: 16 masters in the field of communication science appear to give lectures and answer questions and answer questions from students on the spot.
The main content of the whole book is to record the teaching process of 16 introduction to communication in written form. At first glance, it may sound like minutes, but it's different. It is a comprehensive description of the teaching situation, in addition to recording the key points and difficulties of each lesson, it also vividly shows the personality characteristics of each teacher and student, and restores the "starting and turning" process of a lesson from introduction, climax to end. "Comprehensive" is a great source of fun.
Among the 16 masters were Wilbur Schramm, the "father of communication", Kurt Lewin, one of the main founders of communication and the "father of social psychology", Marshall McLuhan, the founder of modern communication theory, and Harold L. McLuhan, the proposer of the "5W model" and the "three-function theory". D. Laswell, one of the proponents of the "knowledge gap theory" hypothesis, philip J. Titchno and others are outstanding figures in the academic world.
They have different styles, such as Lewin's lip service that time is tight, but he still has to make an opening statement, and in contrast, Zarasfeld saves himself and cuts directly into the main content. For example, Lippmann attaches great importance to the effect of teaching, and in the "public opinion" chapter he teaches, he records his pauses 5 times before and after in order to observe the students' reactions, understand their understanding of the knowledge points, and worry that their expositions are not clear enough. For example, Hoffland did not shy away from complaining about the unreasonable curriculum of the Academic Affairs Office, McGuire's bold attempt to "teach with a debate competition", Neumann's humorous boasting, etc., the tutors' teaching style and small personality are hidden in the teaching records, which also makes these records not boring to read at all.
As a "comprehensive" teaching situation, the teacher has already appeared, and it is natural that the students are indispensable. Among the students, two characters were created, one is Ma Pengwei, a student of this major, who lacks professional interest, and the goal is only to ensure that credits are not hung up; the other is Lu Fangna, a library science major, who lacks interest in this major like Ma Pengwei, but has a special love for communication, intends to apply for a transfer major, and the bottom line goal is to enter the media industry. Together, they represent a type of person who is not in the minority of college students: after entering a certain major by mistake, they sadly find that they are not interested. There are two kinds of such people, like Ma Pengwei who have not found the point of interest and the direction of effort for the time being, and like Lu Fangna, who has found the point of interest and actively tried to get closer to it. More dramatically, the two are still boyfriend and girlfriend.
In the course of teaching, unlike Lu Fangna's thinking and speech, which always leads to professionalism, Ma Pengwei plays the role of gag, his humorous answer is the "king of salvation" in the cold field, his timely questioning and interaction with the tutor is to abstract the theory into concrete, esoteric to shallow "converter", as if becoming the flavor of the classroom, contributing a lot of interesting elements to the course.
At the same time, Ma Pengwei's change in attitude toward communication science reflects that this course is really interesting. At first, his goal was limited to not hanging on to the subject, and when the first instructor, Wilbur Schramm, intended to explain a theory in detail in order to make up for the lack of in-depth explanation, he was very different from his excited girlfriend Lu Fanna, who he thought "didn't seem to make much sense". But the "Law of True Fragrance" came too quickly, and by the third lesson schrammer, he became interested in the combination of communication science and real life. At this point, the ending is without suspense, and he has become interested in communication science. Although ma Pengwei's interest changes are the result of the author's plot design, most beginners in communication studies will automatically bring in Ma Pengwei's character and perspective when they read books, and feel his feelings.
"Comprehensive" is also reflected in the restoration of the "starting and turning" process of a lesson from introduction, climax to end. Just by introducing the curriculum, the tutors have different ways of doing it. When McLuhan teaches "Medium as Message," he begins with the transformation of the new environment into a man-made art form, like a poet who forgets himself. Parker saw the students scrolling through Weibo, asking the parties what kind of fun they had gained from it, and then introducing it into the theme of the course. Tard screened the popular web drama before class, guiding students to think about the reasons for the fire of the web drama, thus cutting into the subject. The diversity of forms leads to a rich experience, and interesting feelings follow.
In addition to the comprehensive description of the teaching situation, another major source of interest is the close connection between the content of the lecture and social life. How do you get your audience to click on your article? Are the anchors, game streamers, and Tieba moderators the "opinion leaders" of our time? What communication theory is involved in the order in which the sales of a product is advertised? The reasons for the formation of the "global village" can also be explained from the perspective of communication. There are also praise cashback, algorithm recommendation, mobile phone addiction, entertainment gossip and other various phenomena in social life, which can be related to communication science, just like Lu Fangna's sigh: learning communication is gradually understanding their own life. It is interesting to be able to use the theories learned to understand the world and explore the mysteries of life.