On Saturday we had our Communication Metrics Laboratory bbq at my colleague Dr Philip Savage’s house. It was a wonderful night! Many old friends turned up and we had lots of great bbq lamb that Phil cooked and amazing steaks that Dr David Ogborn made. The conversation was pleasant, and we chatted up a storm. …
Category Archives: Research
Summer 2010 residency for MCM733:CommTheory complete
Yesterday, we completed day 5 of the summer residency for MCM733: Communication Theory, offered in the Master of Communication Management Program at McMaster University. It was an excellent class – quite intense, quite a whirlwind, very engaging. The class was very active – we had many in-depth discussions on how a solid grasp of communication …
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Video: Public Relations and Edward T. Bernays
Public relations was born out of idealism, elitism and a desire to perfect democracy. The founder of the field, Edward T. Bernays, was the nephew of Sigmund Freud. He created the field and named it on a whim. This video, produced in the United Kingdom and called The Century of the Self, while quite critical …
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MCM733: Communication Theory!
Today we had our first introductory class in MCM733: Communication Theory. It went very well! We worked through the following questions: “What is communications theory? and why is it useful to public relations practitioners?” I focused on the idea that theory provide vision, language and strategy. When you use communication theory, you stand on the …
We remember what we hear and feel, not what people say.
I have always believed that humans have feelings and that these feelings impact our reasoning. Current trends in neuroscience seem to be bearing this belief out. For me, my thinking about emotional cognition started during a philosophy seminar in which we discussed René Descartes notion that cognition is purely rational. Cogito ergo sum. He also …
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McLuhan on the Global Village. Amazing.
I am continually amazed at how prescient Marshall McLuhan was about how new media would change our culture, economy and society. Listen to him in this series of clips: Here he is, interviewed on CBC TV: And here he is, presented by Peter Hirshberg during his TED Talk: The Web and TV, a sibling rivalry …
Montréal, je t’aime.
Sometimes, my mind wanders, during that brief moment between dusk and night, as my eyes adjust to the dimming light and advancing twilight makes the edges of tree branches seem soft and hazy against the paling sky. My mind wanders back through misty memories to moments I would like to relive or retrieve. Perhaps it …
QPMAP – Question Period Monitoring and Analysis Project Launched at CCA in Montréal!
Today, my colleague Philip Savage and I presented the first, very preliminary results from our QPMAP: Question Period Monitoring and Analysis Project in front of a great crowd of 24 engaged colleagues from across Canada at the Canadian Communication Association’s (CCA) annual conference at Concordia University in Montréal. The CCA was part of the Congress …
A day of writing at Le Westin in Montréal
I spent today holed up in my hotel room at Le Westin in le Vieux Montréal. It was a quiet day – I woke up really late, because it took me 8 hours to drive in from Hamilton with the crew. I was annoyed because I was tired last night and scratched one of my …
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Happy Mothers Day! A party in King City with my family.
I like feasts like Mothers Day, because I get a chance to spend time with my extended family in a relaxed way. I like parties that focus on a person or a theme. They have a warmth and ease that regular get-togethers sometimes lack. If people have had a rough week, their trials can sometimes …
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