社会传播结构与功能英文版字.docxVIP

The Act of CommunicationConvenient way to describe an act of communication is to answer the following questions：WhoSays WhatIn Which ChannelTo WhomWith What Effect？The scientific study of the process of communication tends to concentrate upon one or another of these questions.Scholars who study the “who，” the communicator， look into the factors that initiate and guide the act of communication.We call this subdivision of the field of research control analysis.Specialists who focus upon the “says what”engage in content analysis.Those who look primarily at the radio， press， film， and other channels of communication are doing media analysis.When the principal concern is with the persons reached by the media， we speak of audience analysis.If the question is the impact upon audiences， the problem is effect analysis.Whether such distinctions are useful depends entirely upon the degree of refinement which is regarded as appropriate to a given scientific and managerial objective.Often it is simpler to combine audience and effect analysis， for instance， than to keep them apart.On the other hand，we may want to concentrate on the analysis of content， and for this purpose subdivide the field into the study of purport and style， the first referring to the message， and the second to the arrangement of the elements of which the message is composed.Structure and FunctionEnticing as it is to work out these categories in more detail， the present discussion has a different scope.We are less interested in dividing up the act of communication than in viewing the act as a whole in relation to the entire social process.Any process can be examined in two frames of reference， namely， structure and function； and our analysis of communication will deal with the specializations that carry on certain functions， of which the following may be clearly distinguished： （1） the surveillance of the environment；（2） the correlation of the parts of society in responding to the environment； （3） the transmi