Communication, Image, Text

It's interesting how communication is changing in the electronic age.

Key words. Fewer words. More images.

People read differently online. They skim. And they consume content differently.

The same with film.

The average length of a shot in films has declined from nearly 12 seconds in 1930, to 9 seconds in 1960, 6 seconds in 1990, to 4 seconds in 2005, while the latest research reveals the Average Shot Length (ASL) in 2020 is 2.5 seconds. 

So the volume of information is growing. The speed at which it arrives at is accelerating.

We have to compete with so much information. Getting a message across is tough.

Ernest Hemingway said that when you write a story, imagine you are sending a telegram and you have to pay for every word.

Blaise Pascal apologised to a correspondent: ‘I’m sending you a long letter, because I didn’t have time to write a short one.’

It takes time to edit, to distil a message so that its message is clear and the tone is right.

Shakespeare had the knack, according to one critic, of ‘uncanny eloquence’. In other words, he could say more in fewer words than anyone else. Any attempt to translate or paraphrase the density of his meaning usually reveals this fact.

‘All of our troubles’, Albert Camus insists in his novel The Plague, ‘spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.’

We made a decision some years ago at the BSM not to send lots of separate emails but instead to distil key messages into a single weekly Newsletter, which we then archive.

We know that around 65% of parents open the weekly Newsletter. The ‘most read’ item is usually the menu. It gets far more hits than a letter from the Chair of the Board.

Of the parents who open the Newsletter, another 65% read it on their mobile phone.

We try to make each item short, with a maximum of three paragraphs and 140 words.

We know that items with images have 600% more chance of being read than items without an image – so we attach an image to each item.

We try to make titles self-explanatory. We embolden key words. We keep an item in twice, sometimes three times, if it is important.

We are aware that 70% of parents are non-native English speakers, so we try to make the language relatively simple.

And yet.

We receive two basic complaints.

One: that we do not communicate enough.

Two: that we communicate too much.

Harold Evans, former editor of The Times, said that ‘transmitting information is easier than creating understanding’.

And ‘It’s not what you say,’ said Frank Luntz. ‘it’s what people hear.’

We try to give key information, to explain why we think it is important. And so we try to create understanding. But people inevitably read through the lens of their own lives.

Language is a complex and subtle tool. It also carries an emotional charge and can be either positive or negative.

It is particularly charged when it comes to race and gender. For language is not neutral. It does not reflect an objective truth. Instead it reflects the inherited prejudices of those in power who have controlled language – until now, white heterosexual males.

Language can also be very manipulative.

Consider the terms ‘blended’ or ‘hybrid’ learning. These are corporate inventions. We might equally refer to such learning as ‘mongrelised’, ‘cross-bred’, ‘bastardised’, or even ‘Frankenstein’ learning. The choice of epithet determines the positive or negative charge.

An awareness of the manipulative functions of language is important so that we make informed decisions on issues without succumbing involuntarily to emotional bias. 

This is important because it is through the medium of language that we perceive and understand the world.

This is a blog. A blog is a form of social media.

The problem with social media is that it robs us of the willingness to be complex.

Simplicity and clarity are features of effective communication.

But there is a big difference between what is simple and simplistic.  Simplicity allows clarity, something one works hard to achieve, like condensing a theory into a simple formula.

To be simplistic, however, is to falsely reduce an idea and therefore to distort its meaning.

Simplistic ideas flourish online because complexity is not rewarded by many clicks.

At least a blog can develop ideas more subtly than a tweet or a WhatsApp message. But I recognise it takes time to read, and neither patience nor objectivity are rewarded online.

All of which is to say that when we communicate as a school, we will try to do so simply and clearly but without sacrificing the need for complexity or nuance.   

Thank you for your patience in a complex world where time is too short and where we are all bombarded with too many messages. 

 

And thank you for taking the time to read this, if you have reached this far.

Chris Greenhalgh
Principal & CEO