HFCL GLOSSARY A
glossary . ABSTRACTION . ACCESS . AMERICAN COMMUNICATION ASSOCIATION . ADVERTISING . ARISTOTLE . AUDIENCE . AUTHOR . AVAILABILITY .
ABSTRACTION [HFCL TUTORIAL]
The process of removing details. Humans eliminate many of the details of their perceptions in order to focus on elements that they consider to be important.
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ACCESS [HFCL TUTORIAL]
In mass communication "access" refers to the ability of individuals or groups to make use of the medium to send messages of their own. For example, people have access to newspapers via "letters to the editor." Comparatively, the Internet provides for a large amount of access, while film provides for a small amount.
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AMERICAN COMMUNICATION ASSOCIATION

From the web page: "The American Communication Association (ACA) is a not-for-profit organization, a virtual professional association with actual presence in the world of scholars and practitioners alike. ACA was created to promote academic and professional research, criticism, teaching, practical use, and exchange of principles and theories of human communication. Our community embraces researchers, teachers, business persons, and specialists located in North, Central, and South America and in the Caribbean. We hope that you enjoy your visit with us, choose to participate in some of our many online opportunities, contribute information to our expanding Network, and perhaps even attend one of our future conferences."

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    ADVERTISING

    Typically identified as a variety of mass communication, advertising makes use of any available media to deliver messages designed to elicit certain behaviors from the audience. The most commonly desired behavior is the purchase of that which is "advertised." However, "ads" may ask their targets to do such as join a military service, stop smoking cigarettes, recycle refuse, and the like.

    As a form of communication whose only intention is to persuade, advertising is often studied as rhetoric.

    Television and magazine ads, in particular, make use of images and social codes. These are often studied by means of semiotics.

    Theories based in cultural studies explain advertising in terms of its role in the human communication environment.

    In some cultures, e.g. the United States, advertising may be considered as a form of entertainment.

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    ARISTOTLE
    Ancient Greek philosophper.

    Aristotle's Rhetoric is one of the first formal treatments of the art of argument and persuasion. [RHETORIC]

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    AUDIENCE [HFCL TUTORIAL]
    An audience is a group of people who are receiving or have received a particular mass communication message. In some cases all members of the audience are paying attention to the medium at the same time -- as, for example, the television audience that tuned in just after the space shuttle Challenger exploded. In other cases, however, the attention of the audience is spread out over time -- the audience for a particular magazine, for example, may consist of people who read copies of the magazine at various times over the period of a month or more.
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    AUTHOR [HFCL TUTORIAL]
    The creator of a text. Some texts are said to have a single author, as in Melville's novel Moby Dick. Some texts have multiple authors, as in a television sitcom. In some cases authorship is unknown or ambiguous, as in Homer's epic poetry Ñ "Homer" may in fact be a mythical figure which represents the many authors of the epics.
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    AVAILABILITY [HFCL TUTORIAL: MEDIA]
    "Availability" refers to the extent to which an audience is able to make use of a mass communication medium. In order to use a newspaper, for example, a person must be able to read. Thus, newspapers are not available to illiterate individuals. Similarly, television is only available to those who possess TV sets.
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