LECTURE 3 -- FUNDAMENTALS OF COMMUNICATION
July 13, 2005
Communications Theory 9:15-11:00
I) REVIEW / OVERVIEW
Exhibition as a medium:
- "a specific type of artistic technique or means of expression as determined by the materials used or the creative methods involved"
As a means of communication, exhibits follow the communications loop:
ENCODING – what you say (and what you don’t say)
Content or message
TRANSMISSION – how you say it
Putting info out there, in exhibit format
DECODING – how it is heard
How visitor takes it apart and understands it
FEEDBACK – how we know if we’ve succeeded
Audience research and evaluation
Often overlooked
How do you get a message to travel that loop?
FORMULA for successful communication:
Dramatize a Proposition to a Receiver: D – P – R
Proposition: what are we saying?
Dramatize: how are we saying it?
Receiver: who are we saying it to?
D-P-R is borrowed from Advertising. Museums call it “Conveying a Message to the Visitor,” but it’s the same thing.
Corollary: Principle of Singularity
ONE message, expressed clearly. James Liter: “One thought driven home is better than three left on base.”
ONE unified style of dramatization. Common mistake: some components for adults, some for kids. Want something adults and kids can do TOGETHER.
Speaking to ONE receiver: no one likes to be lectured to. HOWEVER – museum visit is a social setting; must acknowledge and allow for it.
THE WAY THE FORMULA WORKS is: backwards
- Start with RECEIVER: who they are, what they like, what they know
- PROPOSITION: given that, what do we most want to tell them?
- DRAMATIZE: only after you’ve figured out first two, can you develop a compelling way to get your message across.
II) THE RECEIVER
Recap:
Define audience in three ways:
- Demographics: census statistics – age, gender, race, income, family size, etc.
- Geographics: where they come from, where they work & live
- Psychographics: motivations, beliefs, wants and needs, behavioral profile
The better you know audience, the better you’ll be able to reach them.
Any communication starts with audience
- Their wants and needs
- Their interests and motivations
- Their emotional and cognitive “language”
Museums, as public-service institutions, need to place special emphasis on the visitor.
III) PROPOSITION
THIS IS CONTENT. And when it comes to content, many museums make one or more of the following three big mistakes:
1)Jump to this first, without considering audience interest, knowledge, needs
2)Try to include everything
3)Think this is what exhibit is about.
Exhibition is not ABOUT content! It’s about creating meaningful experiences for broad audience.
Hope they connect with content in some way – learn, understand, appreciate, resonate, wonder.
Any “content” – art, dinosaurs, history – can be communicated in many ways – book, film, song, exhibit. The art of communication is using the features of your medium to express content. The art of exhibition is using the features of the exhibit medium to express content.
More on that in a minute. First: what is content?
Tortoise and the hare
Shakespeare sonnet
Episode of CSI
The message, the moral of the story.
So, what is message, moral of an exhibit?
King Tut example (solicit answers)
Lots of possible answers.
Often, you can’t tell – due to problems above, many exhibits are not clear.
In a couple weeks, we’ll have an entire session on content – how to define it for an exhibit, how to organize it, how to flesh it out.
For now, important thing is:
Exhibits HAVE content – not just a pile of stuff
Good exhibits have clear content
Very good exhibits have clear content matched to their audience.
IV) DRAMATIZATION
“Drama” comes from Greek word for “life.” How do you bring an idea to life, using dead stuff under glass?
Exhibit is MEDIUM. Things it can do, things it can’t.
(Dreaded comparison to recording technology.)
cylinder – linear, time, no mass produce
78 – time, yes mass produce, sound quality
album – get around time limitation
LP – more time =
Longer songs
Sequenced songs
More songs (lots of stinkers)
Linear (tracking)
Stereo
Tape – make your own
CD – even more time (good / bad)
NOT LINEAR! Random
Added features
MP3 – back to song
How would Sgt. Pepper be different in different formats?
Characteristics of the exhibit medium:
- A three-dimensional space
- Experienced physically and temporally
- Non-linear
- Broad audience (non-expert)
- Self-guided / free choice
- Brief (12 – 20 minutes)
- Multi-modal (different types of experiences)
- Thematic (is “about” something)
- “Educational”
THE FEATURES OF THE MEDIUM SHAPE HOW THE MESSAGE IS CONVEYED.
How do we “dramatize,” bring message to life in exhibit?
1)Clarity (main message)
2)Story (memorable, logical organization)
3)Appropriate experience
Again, those first two we will discuss at length in a couple weeks. The last one, the physical experience, is design and production – Teresa will cover.
[Maybe a few words from Teresa?]
Think of exhibits in terms of verbs, not nouns. What is the visitor doing, and how does that relate to content?
BAD: linear, text-heavy, detailed / fact-based (book on wall, dead stuff under glass) – inappropriate for medium; doesn’t take advantage of features
GOOD: DOES take advantage of features, and uses them well:
- Embraces three-dimensional experience – object and setting
- Juxtaposition – objects in case; cases side-by-side
- Non-linear – makes sense if you jump around
- Self-guided: navigable at a glance – transparent organization
- Can “get it” quickly – built for success
- Compelling explanations for general audience
- Multi-modal (learning styles)
Human brain evolved to control body and sense environment; cognitive functions built on top. Multi-sensory experience integrates knowledge powerfully.
I read and I forget
I hear and I remember
I do and I understand
“Exhibit” = to SHOW. Not “to tell.” Not “to show off.”
Due to the features of the medium, exhibits are actually pretty bad at conveying specific facts. BUT, due to the features of the medium, exhibits are wonderful at inspiration, wonder, reality.
The Museum is the Temple of the Muses.
The Muses were the Greek goddesses of inspiration.
Who have you inspired today?
ACTIVITY:
Split into groups
Go into one exhibit
Analyze it in terms of
RECEIVER: whom is this meant for? Demo, geo, psycho. WHY?
PROPOSITION: what’s the main message, the moral of the story? WHY?
DRAMATIZATION: how did they get it across? Experience.
BREAK 11:00-12:00 (includes bathroom / snack break)
12:00-1:00 debrief, discuss, next session, etc.
If time, Jim Volkert’s menu game