SOCIAL SCIENCE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS
COMMUNICATION, PERCEPTION AND THE MEDIA
COMMUNICATION, PERCEPTION AND THE MEDIA
Merrelyn Emery, 2018
Open Systems Theory (OST) has always been vitally concerned about communication in all its forms. Obviously that is because communication is one of the most highly visible behaviours in which we engage: less obviously, it is because ‘communication’ is often taken for granted as some primary, simple and well understood bedrock feature of the human being when it is neither primary, simple nor well understood. As the papers in this section demonstrate, the term ‘communication’ covers a multitude of behaviours both adaptive and maladaptive, in a range of contexts over a range of media.
A CHOICE OF FUTURES: TO ENLIGHTEN OR INFORM
Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery
Exploration of the nature of human communication and the media is a prerequisite to any assessment of the likely future role of communications.
We cannot assume that the nature of these things is transparently obvious to everyone and therefore commonly understood.
INTRODUCTION TO PHD
Merrelyn Emery, 2019
It gradually became clear during the 1970s that our critical cognitive abilities and consciousness itself was being negatively impacted by the new technologies based on the cathode ray tube (CRT). The thesis was written when this was the dominant technology being employed in our search for more efficient and effective ways of working, learning, being informed and entertained. Like all innovations it was subjected to diverse explorations.
THE SOCIAL AND NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF TELEVISION AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR MARKETING PRACTICE: AN INVESTIGATION OF ADAPTATION TO THE CATHODE RAY TUBE
Merrelyn Emery, 1986
I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis - Merrelyn Emery
THE BATTLE FOR ORILLIA
Merrelyn Emery, 1986
This is the full report of the conference at Orillia that led to the theoretical insights about the origin of Bion's group assumptions, and the nature of the group assumption of Pairing in particular, that I published in Searching, 1999. The conference was called Explorations in Human Futures but it turned out to be explorations in human communication. It was this conference with its detailed record of the group's subterranean life of its assumptions tussling with task oriented work, the "music of the group', that convinced me that human beings are the most expert, sensitive and sophisticated communicators.
EDUCATIONAL PARADIGMS: AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
Fred Emery, 1980
In any process of increasing participation in workplace decision making one inevitably comes to a social barrier between skill based labour and knowledge based labour: between what is properly blue collared labour and what is white collared labour.
This is typically interpreted as the line where participation should sensibly cease. In what follows it is suggested that this is a social barrier: not a barrier dictated by inherited natural differences.