Schramm’s models of communication, 1954A B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWis placed between ‘bankers’, trusting to the
inheritance factor. Conversely there is the
so-called ‘pre-echo’ eff ect where anticipation of
a really popular programme can induce viewers
to switch on earlier and thus watch a programme
with less popular appeal.
Scheduling techniques assume a high degree
of passivity on the part of an audience, and
might be said seriously to underestimate
audience potential for variety and challenge.
Competitive scheduling above all reduces the
range of choice open to the viewer simply by
making risk-taking more diffi cult. In any case,
the ability of viewers to decide their own view-
ing schedules by video and DVD recording
complicates the best intentions of program-
mers, though custom and habit continue to
serve as vital allies of planning.
Schema (plural, schemata) A schema is
basically a framework or pattern, stored in
the memory, which preserves and organizes
information about some event or concept. Th e
framework may be expanded as new informa-
tion about the event or concept is acquired. It
is argued by several researchers concerned with
learning and memory that existing schemata
aff ect our perception of new information, and
that there is a tendency for us to try and fi t new
information into our existing frameworks, at
least initially.
Schemata themselves can form cross-linkages
to provide a wider mental or conceptual map
of an area of knowledge or experience. This
perspective on the way in which we receive and
process information has important implications
for the analysis of the way in which we send and
receive messages in the communication process.
★Schramm’s models of communication,
1954 Wilbur Schramm built on shannon and
weaver’s model of communication, 1949
(Th e Mathematical Th eory of Communication),
but was more interested in mass communica-
tion than in the technology of communication
transmission. In ‘How communication works’
in Wilbur Schramm, ed., Th e Process and Eff ects
of Mass Communication (University of Illinois
Press, 1954) the author poses three models (see
fi gure). Shannon and Weaver’s ‘Transmitter’ and
‘Receiver’ become ‘Encoder’ and ‘Decoder’, and
their essentially linear model is restructured in
Schramm’s second model to demonstrate the
overlapping, interactive nature of the communi-
cation process and the importance of what the
Encoder and Decoder bring with them to the
communication situation – their ‘Field of Expe-
rience’. Where that fi eld of experience overlapsTV pictures were fi rst transmitted via satel-
lite on 10 July 1962 when Telstar was launched
at Cape Canaveral, USA, and circled the earth
every 157.8 minutes, enabling live TV pictures
transmitted from Andover, Maine, to be received
at Goonhilly Down, Cornwall and in Brittany (11
July). In 1964 the unmanned Syncom relayed
pictures of the Olympic Games from Tokyo. Th e
fi rst commercial communications satellite was
Early Bird, which marked the beginning of regu-
lar TV transmission via satellite (2 May 1965).
The UK franchise for a three-transponder
direct-broadcast satellite (DBS) was granted in
1986, with a start date of 1990. After fi nancial and
investment doubts which led to early backers
such as the BBC withdrawing from DBS plans,
the contract for Britain’s fi rst two DBS channels
was awarded to British Satellite Broadcasting
(BSB). Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Satellite arrived
ahead of BSB, beginning programme transmis-
sion in the UK in March 1989.
Between them, the rival companies are
estimated to have spent 1.25 billion, yet by
October 1990, such were the colossal start-up
expenses that British Satellite Broadcasting was
forced into a merger with Sky. Th e ‘squarial’ dish,
created to bring BSB programmes into the home,
suddenly became scrap. Th e founding principle
of the free market – that competition is the basic
dynamic of success – was itself ‘squarialized’. Sky
took on the initials of BSB, becoming British
Sky Television. Corporate monopoly of satellite
transmission joined that of those other ‘free
enterprise’ industries in the UK – rail transport,
gas, water and electricity.
Murdoch’s ambition to make news corp
a global provider of TV programming was
marked in the 1990s with the acquisition of Star
Television in Asia. In November 1995 News
Corp joined with the Globo Organization of
Brazil, Grupo Televisa of Mexico, and Telecom-
munications Inc. of the US to set up a satellite
TV service for Latin American and Caribbean
markets with estimated total launch costs of US
500 million. See communications act (uk),
2003; cross-media ownership. See also topic
guide under media: technologies.
Scheduling Process by which programmes or
types of programme are ‘timetabled’ in order
to attract maximum audiences, and to keep
them attracted in the face of competition from
rival programmes. Th e aim of the programme
scheduler is to minimize the danger of audiences
switching off , or even worse, over. Low-appeal
programmes are usually placed against weak
opposition, or they are ‘hammocked’, that