[Air-l] Is all Communication Commercial?

[Charlie Balch]

Interesting thoughts Will. Are you suggesting something like a hierarchy of
communication like Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Higher levels of the scale
communication would not occur until other communication requirements are
met. At a basic level we are all communicating feed and don't hurt me. Once
that message is received we can discuss what car I should buy or even the
nature of communication. I really like the elegance of this idea and I think
it helps to explain a lot. Of course the model is far to simplistic to
explain everything. 

As others have noted a lot hinges on our definitions of commercial and
communicate.

As I recall classic signal theory, the sender must have a message (something
to say) that is sent in a media that can be transmitted (signal) and
understood by a receiver. The signal's clarity or effectiveness is reduced
by noise. For instance, there's some research (mostly Nielsen) that shows
experienced net surfers simply ignore extraneous communication (usually
commercial advertisements) on the pages they visit. That is unless the ad is
particularly noisy. I've got a dancing ET as on one of my screens right now
and it is hard to ignore.

In the biological sense, do amoeba communicate? Does a baby in the womb do
more than communicate its existence? Should a political advertisement be
considered commercial? If I ignore it, is a political advertisement
communication?

I was intrigued with your focus on food in the context of commercial. As
others have suggested, perhaps everything biological is commercial. Do I
become commercial when I seek to earn more than I need for comfortable food
and shelter?

More questions than answers here. Hmmm, I suppose questions are
communication.

Thanks to all participating in this fun topic.

Charlie Balch M.Ed., MBA, Ph.D.
Professor of CIS
Arizona Western College

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of William Bain
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 2:19 AM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Is all Communication Commercial?

Hi,
   
  I've been thinking the comments on this over and it seems to me that for
one thing commercial may not be exactly the same as economic. At base level,
I blelieve all biological activitiy is economic because without constant
nourishment the organism dies. Economics is thus a psychological constant,
and even altruism reduces to a subject's own needs. But I think it's
basically the economics feeding (nourishment) system that goes back to
before birth. No mother, no life, in a sense. And once born, getting fed is
largely a question of advertising. A few hasty humble stabs at the
question............
   
  Best regards,
   
  Will
   


William Bain
PhD Student
Comparative Literature
Department of Spanish Philology
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
       
---------------------------------
Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha! 
Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo!
Games.
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