Empirical
The analytic category of ritual can designate both formal rites and ceremonies, set aside in special place and times and receiving special degrees of attention, and the relatively more formal elements and characteristics of otherwise ordinary, everyday activities—all of the little ways in which how you do it matters: a handshake or an introduction well—given or not, for example, or all of the examples of facework, deference, demeanor, and politeness studied by Goffman and other (e.g., Goffman, 1959, 1967).
The study of ritual communication thus requires attention to both the explicit use of communication in formal rites and ceremonies and to the often-implicit communicative consequences of the formal element of everyday activities. This latter category is very broad and thoroughly entangled in the meaning and morality of life. Wherever serious things are at stake, people will read observables as signs; little or nothing will be dismissed as accidental and the details will have meaningful or moral implications, whether or not they were intended. Engagement with the serious life, then, renders the world a communicative experience. Just as the animist may see the natural world as a text of spiritual activities, the modern man or woman is inclined to engage the social world as a communicative text—as if it were written to be read.
Ritual communication, in both of its aspects, is consequential. This is most explicit in formal rites and ceremonies, which are usually conducted for the explicit purpose of bringing about some of their consequences. Oaths, promises, and rites of transition such as bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings, or baptisms establish obligations, often through defining new social roles. Citizen of one country can be turned into citizen of another; citizens can become soldiers, holders of office, or imprisoned felons; single individual can become married couples; and children become adults. In the ritual aspects of everyday communication, too, people’s selves are constructed and conveyed, their identities are at stake, their hopes are invested. In short, the ritual communication aspect of everyday life constructs the realities in which we live.
The study of ritual communication, then, including the realiry-constructing consequences of communication in both formal rites and ceremonies and in the ritual aspects of everyday activities, requires a broad focus on “the communicative.” This is a large category then messaging behavior, larger than activities designed to communicate; it includes all of the ways in which things are done in the saying and said in the doing (Rothenbuhler, 1993).
It is useful to think of communication as ritual for empirical, theoretical and moral reason. More often than we usually think, it is empirically true that communication is ritual. Thinking as communication as ritual is a useful theoretical strategy because it draws our attention toward the social consequences of communication. Thinking of communication as ritual reminds us, finaly, of the importance of communication in moral life, of our roles in life as moral agents.
Empirical
“Communication is ritual” nay be an overgeneralization, but not by as much as it might appear. We tend to overlook how often our communication is primarily ritualistic, and nearly all communication has at least home ritualistic character or function.
The term phatic communication, designating relatively contentless greeting and formulaic questions and answer such as “how are you today?”, “fine, how are you?” is well know (Malinowski, 1923/1949, pp. 313-316). Goody (1973); Coupland, and Robinson (1992), and other have demonstrated how important this apparently empty communication is. These are aspects of greeting and leave-taking that maintain the reality or two people in social relation (Firth, 1972). Bateson’s (1972/1987) concept of meta-communication has been used to draw attention to a functionally similar relational aspect of all communication (watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967). In intimate relations, families, and organizational life, these relational aspects of communication and ritual forms for conducting them are that much more important (e.g., Bossard & Boll, 1950; Knuf, 1989-1990; Sigman, 1991; Wolin & Bennett, 1984). Identity as couple, family or organization is implicitly threatened by the multiple roles and time apart required by modern life. Ritual of greeting, parting, boundary maintenance, and reunion thus are developed to ménage those multiple roles along with time apace in relational terms.
Ritual also appears in a variety of form in mass communication. Starting at the most mocro and prosaic, newspaper reading, television viewing, or music listening are important parts of many people’s daily leves. To count as a ritual, this media use must be more than a habit or routine; there must be an element of the serious about it. The serious life, the realm of ought and ought-not, enters into daily media use comes to be associated with a family or household ritual. Watching the evening news together, along with food and talk, for example, an irrespective of the content of the news, can be a way to reintegrate the family after work, school, and other activities. Similarly, watching David Lettermen or putting some music on the stereo after the kids are in bed can become the anchor for an important time of adult conversation and intimacy. These are not the most serious things in the world, but they are activities that one would regret missing, and that, if neglected, could impact family happiness. (See Lull, 1988; Morley, 1992; and other for studies or family television watching that are rich in examples).
Another way the serious life enters every day media use is as a means of contact with more serious things beyond the individual’s immediate experience. This is a (ritual) version of the classic vision of what the media are supposed to be good for: they connect center and periphery; they help integrate the social whole, even in massive modern societies; and they broaden the life worlds of their audience members. There is no reason, really, to believe all that, especially given the cheap amusements and commercial manipulations to which today’s media industries have dedicated themselves, but the idea is there in the culture for a reason. It is not unusual for media audience members to experience obligation. Some things should be watched, some news in more important, some events required further reading. There are people who feel out of sorts if they are not caught up on the news. Similarly, some media use has a sense of propriety about it; some music listening requires undivided attention, favorite shows have to be watched in the TV room, Mom or Dad can’t be interrupted, and so on. When media use is more than a habit or a circumstantial choice, when there is a sense of obligation or propriety, then that media use may well be ritualistic, providing a means of contact with the serious life.
A third way that daily television use, in particular may be ritualistic is based on implications of the program schedule. The program schedule is a structure that viewers more or less must accept; it is an order that is imposed or their lives. That might mean relatively little, but it also can be built into more. More than a clock, the program schedule can regulate other activities and can be used as a way of marking time. Children and adult alike are prone to eat and sleep, among other things, at moment that fit the schedule at much higher proportions than would be predicted by the relevant biological processes. The progress of the day and the flow of the week can be noted and, modestly, celebrated with attention to be television. This often involves setting aside a certain time for television viewing: the week is almost over and we relax with Thursday-night TV, for example.
Most of these examples would fit in the category of family rituals, but I raise them here because of another intriguing question. What does it do to our experience of communication when we must fir ourselves into program flows? Was there something more important about watching television in a quasi-ritual way, when there were only three channels and one had to watch it when shown or not at all? When one accept the program schedule and arrange one’s life (in whatever small ways) to view a certain thing at a certain time, is there something slightly ritualistic about that, something that is absent with time-shifted videotaping or on-demand pay-per-view? Is there something slightly ritualistic about getting news from a TV program available to everyone at a certain time and no other, more so than searching for the news on the internet?
Another approach to media ritual has recently been delineated by Couldry (2003). He points out that the media have come to be seen as important social institutions because of the idea that they are in touch with important things that happens at the centers and tops of nations; he calls this the myth of the mediated center. He analyzes media ritual as all of those activities that mark “the media” as the distinct category and valued institution, and that protect the myth of the mediated center. Media rituals, in this light include not only many of the activities of media organizations and their production staffs, but also those aspect of the content of the media that portray a sense of the importance of being in the media or that recruit audience members to these ideas. Celebrity systems, talk show, advertising, and the most important of news event all work together, in this view, to maintain the idea of the media and its ritual importance.
Finally, the most obvious form of ritual communication in the media is ceremonial television. Certain special event on television require a kind of dressed-p viewing. They interrupt the normal schedule flow; are broadcast live; may attract huge audiences who plan their viewing and make special arrangement (perhaps to view in group or with food and drink); and are proclaimed to be historic by their participants and the media. These event, such as state funerals, royal weddings, some of the Pope’s trips, and former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Juresalem, were dubbed “media events” by Katz and Dayan in a series of articles in the 1980s and later in their book of the same name (dayan & katz, 1992). For the French translation, Dayan engaged in some revisions, and the new title was translated into English as “ceremonial television.” On these occasions, television viewing has an obvious ritual element that can be identified in a variety of empirical indicators. (e.g., Rothenbuhler, 1988,1989).
So, from face-to-face interactions through organizational life and everyday media use to the most special of mediated events, nearly all communication has at least some ritual characteristic. A substantial proportion of communication is primarily ritualistic, having little other content or function. Very often, then, it is in a general sense true that communication is ritual. Even if it is, strictly, an overgeneralization, it is a reasonable estimate and a good starting presumption for a theory of communication.
Theoretical
Thinking of communication as ritual draws our attention toward the social consequences of communication. Theoretical Of communication as ritual are
The study of ritual communication thus requires attention to both the explicit use of communication in formal rites and ceremonies and to the often-implicit communicative consequences of the formal element of everyday activities. This latter category is very broad and thoroughly entangled in the meaning and morality of life. Wherever serious things are at stake, people will read observables as signs; little or nothing will be dismissed as accidental and the details will have meaningful or moral implications, whether or not they were intended. Engagement with the serious life, then, renders the world a communicative experience. Just as the animist may see the natural world as a text of spiritual activities, the modern man or woman is inclined to engage the social world as a communicative text—as if it were written to be read.
Ritual communication, in both of its aspects, is consequential. This is most explicit in formal rites and ceremonies, which are usually conducted for the explicit purpose of bringing about some of their consequences. Oaths, promises, and rites of transition such as bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings, or baptisms establish obligations, often through defining new social roles. Citizen of one country can be turned into citizen of another; citizens can become soldiers, holders of office, or imprisoned felons; single individual can become married couples; and children become adults. In the ritual aspects of everyday communication, too, people’s selves are constructed and conveyed, their identities are at stake, their hopes are invested. In short, the ritual communication aspect of everyday life constructs the realities in which we live.
The study of ritual communication, then, including the realiry-constructing consequences of communication in both formal rites and ceremonies and in the ritual aspects of everyday activities, requires a broad focus on “the communicative.” This is a large category then messaging behavior, larger than activities designed to communicate; it includes all of the ways in which things are done in the saying and said in the doing (Rothenbuhler, 1993).
It is useful to think of communication as ritual for empirical, theoretical and moral reason. More often than we usually think, it is empirically true that communication is ritual. Thinking as communication as ritual is a useful theoretical strategy because it draws our attention toward the social consequences of communication. Thinking of communication as ritual reminds us, finaly, of the importance of communication in moral life, of our roles in life as moral agents.
Empirical
“Communication is ritual” nay be an overgeneralization, but not by as much as it might appear. We tend to overlook how often our communication is primarily ritualistic, and nearly all communication has at least home ritualistic character or function.
The term phatic communication, designating relatively contentless greeting and formulaic questions and answer such as “how are you today?”, “fine, how are you?” is well know (Malinowski, 1923/1949, pp. 313-316). Goody (1973); Coupland, and Robinson (1992), and other have demonstrated how important this apparently empty communication is. These are aspects of greeting and leave-taking that maintain the reality or two people in social relation (Firth, 1972). Bateson’s (1972/1987) concept of meta-communication has been used to draw attention to a functionally similar relational aspect of all communication (watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967). In intimate relations, families, and organizational life, these relational aspects of communication and ritual forms for conducting them are that much more important (e.g., Bossard & Boll, 1950; Knuf, 1989-1990; Sigman, 1991; Wolin & Bennett, 1984). Identity as couple, family or organization is implicitly threatened by the multiple roles and time apart required by modern life. Ritual of greeting, parting, boundary maintenance, and reunion thus are developed to ménage those multiple roles along with time apace in relational terms.
Ritual also appears in a variety of form in mass communication. Starting at the most mocro and prosaic, newspaper reading, television viewing, or music listening are important parts of many people’s daily leves. To count as a ritual, this media use must be more than a habit or routine; there must be an element of the serious about it. The serious life, the realm of ought and ought-not, enters into daily media use comes to be associated with a family or household ritual. Watching the evening news together, along with food and talk, for example, an irrespective of the content of the news, can be a way to reintegrate the family after work, school, and other activities. Similarly, watching David Lettermen or putting some music on the stereo after the kids are in bed can become the anchor for an important time of adult conversation and intimacy. These are not the most serious things in the world, but they are activities that one would regret missing, and that, if neglected, could impact family happiness. (See Lull, 1988; Morley, 1992; and other for studies or family television watching that are rich in examples).
Another way the serious life enters every day media use is as a means of contact with more serious things beyond the individual’s immediate experience. This is a (ritual) version of the classic vision of what the media are supposed to be good for: they connect center and periphery; they help integrate the social whole, even in massive modern societies; and they broaden the life worlds of their audience members. There is no reason, really, to believe all that, especially given the cheap amusements and commercial manipulations to which today’s media industries have dedicated themselves, but the idea is there in the culture for a reason. It is not unusual for media audience members to experience obligation. Some things should be watched, some news in more important, some events required further reading. There are people who feel out of sorts if they are not caught up on the news. Similarly, some media use has a sense of propriety about it; some music listening requires undivided attention, favorite shows have to be watched in the TV room, Mom or Dad can’t be interrupted, and so on. When media use is more than a habit or a circumstantial choice, when there is a sense of obligation or propriety, then that media use may well be ritualistic, providing a means of contact with the serious life.
A third way that daily television use, in particular may be ritualistic is based on implications of the program schedule. The program schedule is a structure that viewers more or less must accept; it is an order that is imposed or their lives. That might mean relatively little, but it also can be built into more. More than a clock, the program schedule can regulate other activities and can be used as a way of marking time. Children and adult alike are prone to eat and sleep, among other things, at moment that fit the schedule at much higher proportions than would be predicted by the relevant biological processes. The progress of the day and the flow of the week can be noted and, modestly, celebrated with attention to be television. This often involves setting aside a certain time for television viewing: the week is almost over and we relax with Thursday-night TV, for example.
Most of these examples would fit in the category of family rituals, but I raise them here because of another intriguing question. What does it do to our experience of communication when we must fir ourselves into program flows? Was there something more important about watching television in a quasi-ritual way, when there were only three channels and one had to watch it when shown or not at all? When one accept the program schedule and arrange one’s life (in whatever small ways) to view a certain thing at a certain time, is there something slightly ritualistic about that, something that is absent with time-shifted videotaping or on-demand pay-per-view? Is there something slightly ritualistic about getting news from a TV program available to everyone at a certain time and no other, more so than searching for the news on the internet?
Another approach to media ritual has recently been delineated by Couldry (2003). He points out that the media have come to be seen as important social institutions because of the idea that they are in touch with important things that happens at the centers and tops of nations; he calls this the myth of the mediated center. He analyzes media ritual as all of those activities that mark “the media” as the distinct category and valued institution, and that protect the myth of the mediated center. Media rituals, in this light include not only many of the activities of media organizations and their production staffs, but also those aspect of the content of the media that portray a sense of the importance of being in the media or that recruit audience members to these ideas. Celebrity systems, talk show, advertising, and the most important of news event all work together, in this view, to maintain the idea of the media and its ritual importance.
Finally, the most obvious form of ritual communication in the media is ceremonial television. Certain special event on television require a kind of dressed-p viewing. They interrupt the normal schedule flow; are broadcast live; may attract huge audiences who plan their viewing and make special arrangement (perhaps to view in group or with food and drink); and are proclaimed to be historic by their participants and the media. These event, such as state funerals, royal weddings, some of the Pope’s trips, and former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Juresalem, were dubbed “media events” by Katz and Dayan in a series of articles in the 1980s and later in their book of the same name (dayan & katz, 1992). For the French translation, Dayan engaged in some revisions, and the new title was translated into English as “ceremonial television.” On these occasions, television viewing has an obvious ritual element that can be identified in a variety of empirical indicators. (e.g., Rothenbuhler, 1988,1989).
So, from face-to-face interactions through organizational life and everyday media use to the most special of mediated events, nearly all communication has at least some ritual characteristic. A substantial proportion of communication is primarily ritualistic, having little other content or function. Very often, then, it is in a general sense true that communication is ritual. Even if it is, strictly, an overgeneralization, it is a reasonable estimate and a good starting presumption for a theory of communication.
Theoretical
Thinking of communication as ritual draws our attention toward the social consequences of communication. Theoretical Of communication as ritual are
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