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CS101 Human Communication

Lecture 2

The fields of communication

Intra personal: communication with oneself

Interpersonal; Communication between two persons

Small group: Communication within a small group of persons

Organizational: communication within a formal organization

Public: communication of speaker to audience

Mass: Communication addressed to an extremely large audience, mediated by audio and/or visual means

Ethical considerations

Communications are ethical when they facilitate an individual's freedom of choice by presenting that person with accurate bases for choice (even choice of opinion).

Communications are un ethical when they interfere with an individual's freedom of choice by preventing that person from securing information relevant to the choice.

Purposes of Communication

To discover

To relate

To help

To persuade

Purposes of communication (Myers and Myers)

To learn more about yourself

to learn more about others, to reduce uncertainty about your relations with those around you

to learn more about the world around you

to share that world with others and to help others

to persuade or influence others or to test or resist influnce on you

to have fun, to play, to relaxfrom the rigors of the other kinds of communication we have listed above

Principles of Communication

Communication is a package of signals

usually involve verbal messages and non-verbal signals

these usually reinforce each other

when there is a discrepancy the receiver becomes suspicious or confused

over time these mixed messages can cause damage

contradictory messages may be created when there is a desire to comm. two different emotions

the socially accepted message is sent verbally while the less acceptable is transmitted non verbally

Communication is a process of adjustment & accomodation

Requires the use of the same signals (language system)

All persons have different signal systems

Requires decoding

Problems arise especially in communication between persons of different cultures

Communication Accommodation

Similarity is perceived positively

Communication is transactional

Each person is simultaneously speaker and receiver

Comm. is an ever changing process each elements stands in dynamic relation to the other elements:

One's history, attitudes , cultural beliefs, self-image, future expectations, emotions etc influence the way the message is experienced

Meaning is created by the individual

The bull's eye view (Linear View)

Communication consists of one-way act like shooting an arrow into a target. Doing something to someone .Emphasis was on the sender and his/her encoding skills. "get the message across"

The ping-pong view (Interactional View)

Turns taken in being the sender and the receiver. Linear, single cause-effect relationship.

Transactional View

Communication involves Content & Relationship Dimensions

Both are essential to understanding.

Problems occur when ignored.

Content aspect: Behavioural response expected.

Relationship aspect: Tells how the communication is to be dealt with

Men & women give different importance to these aspects leading to misunderstanding.

Communication sequences are punctuated

Communication events are continuous transactions, no ends, no beginnings.

We divide up this into causes and effects, we punctuate the continuous sequences into stimuli and responses for ease of understanding and remembering. To maintain one's self image and create a positive one.

To understand another requires understanding his/her punctuation of the situation and recognize subjectivity of your own.

Punctuation

A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
Samuel Bulter, Life and Habit

Communication involves symmetrical and complementary transactions

Symmetrical relationships - mirroring of each other's behaviour e.g. both kind

Complementary relationships - individuals engage in different behaviours e.g. one orders the other obeys

Communication is inevitable, irreversible, and unrepeatable

Inevitability
You cannot not communicate (but not all behaviour is communication)
You cannot avoid responding to the messages of others

Irreversibility
You cannot un-communicate