wk 3

what have communication studies evolved into after a century of development??A number of sometimes competing, sometimes compatible academic disciplines have sprung up due to the incredible uprise and devlopment of different forms of communication throughout the 20th century. It saw the development of mass society and an explosion of broadcast media forms such as newspapers, cinema, radio, and television, where messages were distributed from centralised sources to audiences around the world.From this many studies arose (communication studies, media studies and cultural studies) and as they were establishing themselves it seems that more job orientated studies were also developing such as:- Journalism- Public Relations- Advertising- Marketing- DesignThe advance in technology over the last ten years has lead to the further expansion in communication studies to include more computer orientated investigations.- New Media Studies- CyberStudies- Internet Studies- Cyberculture Studies- Web StudiesThough, it is understood that this all began in the 1900’s with a man named Ferdinand De Saussure who studied semiotics.But what exactly is semiotics?The shortest definition is that it is the study of sign. Semiotics is the study of language, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood (Semiotics.15/3/07 URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics).If it is believed that the study of communication began in the 1900’s with it also being documented in the USA, UK and throughout Europe, could it be that it began well before this as humans have used different ways of communicating since the beginning of time?Communication can range from very subtle processes of exchange, to full conversations and mass communication. Human communication was revolutionized with speech about 200,000 years ago. Symbols were developed about 30,000 years ago, and writing about 7,000 (History of communication. 15/3/07, URL: http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of-communication). Therefore if signs and symbols were widespread so long ago would there not have been an early form of semiotics being studied?As communication technology continues to change and develop so will the number of communication related studies available. It seems inevitable that this will continue on and no doubt I will most likely be writing about them also in future blogs.