Animation: Principles of Communication

A few principles of communication that I remember from our class discussion were discourse, ideology and audience. These three principles play a part in understanding key elements of communication and are necessary topics for communications students to understand.

Discourse is written or spoken communication or debate. You encounter this not only in communications classes, but in everyday life, with your friends, family, at work, on the computer. This way of relaying information and opinions to one another is one of the most common forms of communication we encounter on a daily basis.

Another topic that we discussed in class is ideology. Ideology is a system of ideas and ideals. This contributes to people’s thoughts and opinions, which contributes to what they communicate.

Another thing that we discussed is “audience.” The audience are the people who give their attention to something. It can refer to a subject having a particular audience, a certain type of group that the material would appeal to. For example, when “Edward Scissorhands” was being screened for the first time (in Orange County) it went over horribly, because the people were not the right audience for the film (they even supposedly sided with the villainous bully character!)

                These three principles are keys to understanding effective forms of communication. Discourse is necessary as participants of a discussion, debate or conversation can trade ideas, information nad opinions. Ideology is a belief system that many people may share, and when these people with similar ideas come together, they may want to communicate their ideas to the world. An audience is very important to understand when you are putting together any sort of production. That plays a part not only in the content (for example, you wouldn’t put a lot of graphic violence in cartoon aimed at preschoolers), but the marketing campaigns to advertise the product as well. With an understanding of these three principles, you can begin to better communicate with the world around.