Ritual view of communication

Overview

"Ritual view of communication" is a term first coined by James W. Carey (1934–2006), a journalism and media expert, in his seminal work Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society (1988). Carey became one of the most important thinkers in communications studies, and his work has been published in several languages worldwide. The term "ritual view" is meant to define a theory of the media environment, in general, and, more specifically, that of news media. Carey believed that the news is an important dimension of democracy and public life. He also believed that mass media—and its subset, the cultural industries—disseminates and maintains and shapes, the shared values and beliefs of a society. Furthermore, his view also maintains that mass media controls society, by supporting and sustaining a specific view of life.

Carey's work is particularly important to the field of journalism. For Carey and his followers, journalists and news outlets are more than information transmitters. They are public actors, people whose work is meant to contribute to the quality of public life. Journalism is meant to examine the how power works, that is, the ways in which power controls and supports the values and worldviews shared by the citizenry. The job of journalists, then, is to contribute positively to public debate and the relations between the people and the state.

As an academic, Carey is not well known beyond in the fields of communications and cultural studies, but his thought transcends disciplines. He has contributed to the social sciences in general by illuminating the realm of "symbolic meanings" and how these are created, recreated, and inserted in media products and used daily by individuals. By symbolic meanings, thinkers in the social sciences refer to the symbolic or non-material value of an object or product and their capacity to transmit ideas and values—that is, meanings. Products may be laden with different meanings for different people, but they are mostly abstract elements such as power, status, and ineffable sentiments such as "coolness," among others. Although the feelings elicited by these representations are non-material, they can improve an individual's credibility among certain groups. Think of the value given, beyond its mere economic cost, to certain brands of cars, watches, and electronics; or, to the contrary, for some people, the fact that the product does not have a brand and is considered "artisanal."

The media, then, is inherently tied to the values and assumptions that undergird the structures that construct social reality. It is a dialectical relationship between different interest groups and social actors, some of which hold more power than others. A dialectical relationship is that which strives to reach the truth by confronting arguments opposite to each other. From this debate will emerge a new idea or truth. In other words, it is a system that arrives to the truth—or, at least, gets closer to the truth—by challenging the apparent reality.

Likewise, for Carey mass media must be questioned because, although its purpose is to disseminate information, the media also shapes and modifies reality for its consumers. Communications research, then, should move beyond just metrics, such as quantifying the effects of the media on its audiences, and cast a critical eye on its effects. It is also necessary to analyze the methodologies and ideologies that are used in designing research projects and the ideologies inherent in the interpretation of results.

Within this critical framework, Carey defined two modes of communication: transmission and ritual communication. Transmission is based on conventional media technologies that transmit a message through a specific channel. This establishes a link between sender and receiver, in which the sender is usually at the top and the receiver, at the bottom. The communication action is a one-way street, since the sender does not expect a direct response from the receiver. This relationship is characteristic of traditional media and culture industries, such as television, radio, cable TV, movies, and so on. In other ways, the audience is a passive recipient of information and cannot respond directly to the medium by which it is received. Such a view emphasizes a notion of the viewer as an individual.

Ritual communication, on the other hand, emphasizes the notion of community, by focusing on the shared beliefs of media consumers. Communication here is embedded in the "ceremonial" space of the communicative action, and it creates an experience of community or belonging. In time, this ritual communication develops a cultural space that allows consumers to establish or set an identity. In other words, these communicative aspects of daily life shape the culture and identities of the audience, and, by extension, society itself.

Think of all the ways, for example, in which mass media impacts such daily habits as what people eat, wear, use for entertainment, and vote—all are inevitably shaped by the media channels that disseminate information. People feel a sense of belonging stemming from their engage in all these activities, because they are shared with others who participate in them, too. The ritual view, then, enables the observer to understand the shared interactions between media and the public, and between actors in the public. It helps understand that the communication has the power to help develop strong community ties, especially when it favors communicative exchange.

This is particularly important in industrialized societies, which have moved away from the cohesiveness of smaller or more rural environments, or from what Carey viewed as oral traditions. The sense of community fostered by the media takes the place of former face-to-face interactions in oral cultures, offering instead these "ritualistic" spaces and interactions. People, who yearn for the dialogue and interactions of a mythic past, cleave to these communicative spaces in order to recreate that experience.

In the twenty-first century, ritual communication research is interested in how evolving technologies and new media shape the participative experience of its consumers. Moreover, it is a framework that can be applied to a wide range of fields. Theorists who have shared or expanded upon some of Carey's theoretical views hail from a variety of disciplines, such as anthropologist Clifford Geertz, cultural critic Raymond Williams, sociologist Max Weber, communications scholar Marshall McLuhan, political philosopher Richard Rorty, and social scientist Jürgen Habermas, among many others.

Further Insights

Carey's two main definitions of communication—transmission and ritual—are rooted in religion, albeit they address different areas of religious experience. According to Carey, although both views are apparently secular or non-religious, they are truly rooted in a religious perspective. The transmission view, as explained above, refers to a view of communication as transmitting messages or information from sender to receiver. Its purpose was to disseminate these messages, laden with ideology, with the aim of controlling society. Transmission, as an action, is steeped in a religious conception of communication as of "spreading the word," a dissemination of information and values, as a way to control the behavior of individuals and ensure social order.

The ritual view refers to a way to represent shared beliefs. Carey described it metaphorically, as how the faithful share a sacred ceremony in fellowship. Rather than highlighting the preacher's role, however, this view focuses on the ceremony as an activity and feeling shared by all. The transmission and ritual views are complementary. For example, an investigation can study the role of a specific medium as a transmitter of information from one point to another, in other words, of communication as transmission. A transmission analysis can also focus on the effects of the medium and message on its audiences—this is, whether the message is believed, disbelieved, or partially accepted. A ritual view of the same phenomenon, on the other hand, would focus on the experience individuals have in interacting with the medium. A useful framework for this is to think of how people experience a religious ritual. Individuals seldom attend religious services to gain more information; it is, instead, an act of faith and community, in which their worldview and beliefs are confirmed. It is, in other words, a ritual act.

It is important to keep in mind, then, that both modes of communication are not necessarily inimical to each other. The ritual view of communication does not deny the function and effect of the transmission view. Instead, it argues that an understanding of how it works is limited if one does not take into consideration how the media product is experienced by viewers, their symbolic and emotional significance, and their role in maintaining the social order. As an example, then, it could be argued that a news broadcast is part of transmission, while watching the broadcast and exchanging opinions about it is the ritual part.

It is also important to dig deeper on Carey's notion of the symbolic culture of communication. Carey is not the only thinker to have developed a theoretical work on the subject. His contributions, however, are considered important by many experts in the field of communication and cultural studies, among others. The cultural industries create and shaping culture and worldviews; cultural industries are everywhere and impact all walks of life. They include all the media products by which information is transmitted and knowledge created, such as journalism, the arts and sciences, education and religion, television and film, music, fashion and many other. The behaviors and attitudes of people as consumers of these products occur in a historic context, that is, they are inextricably linked to social factors and institutions of their times.

One of the most common applications of the ritual view in contemporary communication theory is to examine the use and effect of communicative technologies used in the cultural industries. In his work, Carey studied the history of communication, and found that technologies of mass communication propagate a series of mythical visions of progress, in which progress and peace is inextricably linked to technology as the generator of universal peace and democracy. These myths are not new; in fact, they are historically and culturally bound to the nineteenth century. Carey argued that the industrial era in the United States developed an ideology that welded modern technology to national sentiment, with technology as the spine from which spread a new society: a freer, stronger, and more democratic society. One of his main examples is the invention of the telegraph, by which communication stopped depending upon conventional transportation, and began to rely on electricity. The telegraph was groundbreaking for communication in the sense that it dramatically shortened the gap between time and space and decreased face-to-face interactions.

These ideas of the inextricability of technology and progress prevail, to date, in the world of digital technologies. Computer-based communication and the Internet have fostered widespread standardization and a greater participation than ever before in the public and political arena. Supporters find that the Internet provides the space for a greater participation and sharing of knowledge and interpersonal relations, although critics debate that its structure allows the concentration of power in the hands of a few private actors and fosters the alienation and depersonalization of human beings. Nevertheless, many find that Carey's views share commonalities with Benedict Anderson's concept of imagined communities, in which the purpose of mass media is to draw upon a shared cache of cultural symbols and values, to represent and maintain for the people shared meanings—a whole worldview—over time.

To summarize, then, Carey's ritual view of communication is fundamental for scholars seeking to understand the communication in the context of the American tradition and its roots in Christian communion. For Carey, communication is more than the transmission of information, and viewers do more than passively ingest information; rather, communication provides an experience akin to religious communion and fellowship. Moreover, while it is true that Carey viewed mass media as serving as an instrument of social and political control, he also argued that the problem with the conventional model of mass communications studies, as it was then, was that it viewed media as a means to power, politics, and commercialization, first and foremost, rather than as a way in which people learned, exchanged ideas, and created community.

Issues

Critics of Carey's work have pointed out that he failed to propose any concrete solutions, although he did call for rebuilding the modern systems of communication and creating some restorative value in the ways they shape culture. Carey's ritual view of communication, however, continues to be useful to scholars who examine how propagated myths shape what people consider "common sense" or "the way things are," that is, their worldviews and understanding of reality. It also helps understand the historic and material variations across the communicative phenomena observed. On the other hand, some experts have argued that Carey's contributions are methodological rather than theoretical, that is, they provide a system of analyzing concrete events, rather than a way of thought (Toledo Bastos, 2009).

Others have critiqued Carey for what they see as his pessimistic or defeatist stance. Carey held oral culture and face-to-face interactions in high esteem and believed that learning and exchanging ideas were the best way to shape common culture. In consequence, he viewed media technology as limiting or inhibiting, an ultimately unproductive force, where others view it as a facilitator of knowledge and a liberating technology. People use the Internet, for example, to find long-lost friends and relatives, make new friends, join communities of shared interest, learn new things, and even join forces to protest and other forms of political participation (Anderson, 2011). In other words, the Internet can be a force for positive transformation and provide spaces for dialogue that renew the positive aspects of oral tradition and fellowship; or, in theoretical terms, allow spaces for actors to behave in ritual ways.

One of Carey's core points of interest is the speed by which communication shapes identity. This notion has considerable applications in new media research; for example, the relationship between Internet users' identity online and off-line, is currently one of the hottest topics of research and debate. Carey's methods are applicable in analyzing the complex phenomena of how people consume, identify, and create communities on the Internet. It can be argued that digital protocols and practices function in a ritualistic manner, serving as mechanisms for construction and maintenance of individuals' worldview and social reality (Sen, 2016).

It bears repeating, however, that the technology itself is not the ritual. Listening to the radio, for example, is not a ritual in itself. Rather, the ritual is the sound, the music or programs listened to, the sharing of ideas among listeners, in short, the overall significance of radio-listening in daily life. The same, then, applies to how people use or consume any other media channel. Even though Carey's main body of work was done prior to the appearance of the Internet, his theories remain valid. Just as Carey challenged the view of an audience as a passive "receiver," his views can also help frame Internet users as active participants rather than mere spectators.

Bibliography

Anderson, H. (2011). Siblings in cyberspace: Carey's ritual model of communication in the digital age. Intersect, 4(1), 92–100.

Campbell, R., Martin, C., & Fabos, B. (2016). Media and culture: An introduction to mass communication. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Lingel, J. (2017). Digital countercultures and the struggle for community. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Paxson, P. (2018). Mass communications and media studies: An introduction. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Mendez, S.R. (2023, July 16). Ritual communication: What can public health institutions learn from Twitch streamers? Boston Congress of Public Health, bcph.org/blog-samuel-3-ritual-communications/

Pooley, J. D. (2016). James W. Carey and communication research: Reputation at the university's margins. Bern: Peter Lang.

Sen, B. (2016). Information as ritual: James Carey in the digital age. Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies, 17(6). doi.org/10.1177/1532708615625687

Saha, A. (2018). Race and the cultural industries. Cambridge: Polity.

Toledo Bastos, M. (2010). Transmission, communion, communication. Matrizes, (3)2, 243–248.