Formal Communication, how is it presented?

Okay, so this week's blog post is going to reference heavily from last week’s (if you haven’t gotten the opportunity to read it yet, check it out here). We’re going to basically develop on the idea that communication is a complex study, and therefore is presented in a formal manner in various different professional areas. So, without further ado let’s get started.

Probably the most recognized areas of formal communication would be: advertising, marketing, institutional and journalism. If you’re not completely familiar with one of these, don’t worry, I’ll provide a brief explanation for the main objectives of each one. After all, the main objective is a crucial element to take into account when analyzing the communication process present.

Let’s start off with journalism. In simple terms, it’s main objective is to transmit a part of reality (defined as news), towards a specific audience. As you could imagine, this proves to be much more complex than it first sounds. For starters, there’s a whole bunch of theories that try to narrow down specifically what section of reality is actually considered news by the media, and once that’s taken care of, journalism doesn’t just flat out give you the news in its “raw” state. There’s a whole process that goes behind it. Communication as expected has an immense role in this process, where the main objective is arguably to present the news in a way that it becomes appealing (or not) to the target audience. Remember the crucial element of communication, it’s never innocent.

Advertising and marketing work real close, hand in hand. To put it simply, they aspire for a product or brand to be placed in the mindset of the audience. Communication in this area is quite tricky, it really depends on a bunch of other disciplines. Photography and graphic media are pretty crucial for example, but their uses differ from when used in other areas. In journalism they act as a compliment for the news presented, more dynamic ways of adding on to the main message that is normally verbally transmitted. But, in advertising in marketing, it has a more centric role. The main difference could be the possibility of enhancing an image or audiovisual production. After all, since the objective would be to make a brand or product more appealing so it gets better positioned, enhancing is the least you could do. Never underestimate the impact of a visual production. 

Institucional communication is as complex as the other areas mentioned, but most people might not know about what it’s actually about. Think of a bunch of gears working together to move a machine. Now imagine that a few of those gears are a tad too small, breaking the connection and henceforth making the movement impossible. This is where communication comes in. All those gears are the members of an institution, if they don’t work together, the institution isn’t going anywhere. Communication inside an institution looks to fix this exact issue, it tries to create a sense of identity between the members, fostering a cultural attachment. But it also has a much bigger role than maintaining the internal order of an institution, it also has to worry about connecting said institution with the outside, with its target audience. An institution has an image to maintain, it has to reflect its ideals and objectives and of course, communication is in charge of that. 

If it hasn’t been clear until now, it must be brought to your attention that communication is present in all its different forms simultaneously. There is no journalism without a bit of advertising and marketing. There is no institutional communication without journalism. Viceversa and all the combinations you could imagine. Every area works with each other, to some degree or another. And as said before, communication isn’t a lonely discipline that works solo, it requires the cooperation of photography, audiovisual productions and such. Remember, we’re always surrounded by different forms of communication, presented in different degrees and aspects, and it’s never simply there just because.