Purposive Communication

Lesson 4:
Significance of Effective Communication, Communication and Globalization

Why Does Communication Important?

• Communication is one of the essential social skills required for any individual
to survive in the world.
What Is Effective Communication?
It means having an ability to listen attentively and to convey information
efficiently with empathy. It portrays your confidence and body language which is
important while having a communication with people around you.
Why Effective Communication Important?
When communication is effective, it leaves all parties involved satisfied and
feeling accomplished. By delivering messages clearly, there is no room for
misunderstanding or alteration of messages, which decreases the potential for
conflict. In situations where conflict does arise, effective communication is a key
factor to ensure that the situation is resolved in a respectful manner. How one
communicates can be a make or break factor in securing a job, maintaining a healthy
relationship, and healthy self-expression. Here is the simple list of the importance of
effective communication.

1. It builds and maintains relationship.

2. It builds trust.
3. It helps build the team as an effective unit.
4. It builds understanding with your audience.
5. Effective communication encourages innovation.
6. It increases employee engagement.
7. It increases accountability and brings clarity in work flow.
8. It helps in building strong team relationships.
9. It helps with decision making.
10. Effective communication improves customer satisfaction.
11. It reduces conflict.
Effective Communication Skills

1. Observance: A person must possess sharp observing skills to gain more and
more knowledge and information.
2. Clarity and Brevity: The message must be drafted in simple words, and it
should be clear and precise to create the desired impact over the receiver.
3. Listening and Understanding: The most crucial skill in a person is he must
be a good, alert and patient listener. He must be able to understand and
interpret the message well.
4. Emotional Intelligence: A person must be emotionally aware and the ability
to influence others from within.
 Purposive Communication

5. Self-Efficacy: Also, he/she must have faith in himself and his capabilities to
achieve the objectives of communication.
6. Self-Confidence: Being one of the essential communication skills, confidence
enhances the worthiness of the message being delivered.
7. Respectfulness: Delivering a message with courtesy and respecting the
values, believes, opinions and ideas of the receiver is the essence of effective
communication.
8. Non-Verbal Communication: To connect with the receiver in a better way,
the sender must involve the non-verbal means communication too. These
include gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, postures, etc.
9. Selection of the Right Medium: Choice of the correct medium for
communication is also a skill. It is necessary to select an appropriate medium
according to the situation, priority of the message, the receiver’s point of view,
etc.
10. Providing Feedback: Effective communication is always a two-way process.
A person must take as well as give feedback to bring forward the other
person’s perspective too.

Barriers of Effective Communication

There are certain obstacles which sometimes hinder the process of

communication, making it less useful for the sender as well as the receiver. These
barriers are categorized under three groups.

Barriers Involving Words

Words play an essential role in the process of communication. Any

disturbance or distraction in the way a message is presented may lead to
miscommunication. Following are the different types of communication barriers
related to words:

1. Language: It is a medium of communication. If the sender is making

excessive use of technical terms, it will become difficult for the receiver
to understand the message clearly.
2. Ambiguity and Overuse of Abstractions: Even if the message is
presented in a non-realistic or vague context involving a lot of notions,
the receiver won’t be able to connect with the idea properly.
3. Disorganised Message: When the words are not organised
systematically to form a powerful message, it loses its efficiency and
meaning.
4. Information Overload: The effectiveness of communication reduces
when a person keeps on speaking for an extended period. Thus,
leading to the receiver’s exhaustion, who won’t be able to keep track of
everything that is conveyed.

Barriers Involving People’s Background

People belong to different backgrounds, i.e., culture, education level, gender,

etc. These attributes majorly affect the efficiency of the communication process. It
involves the following related obstacles:

1. Attitudinal Differences: At times, people are resistant to

understand or change their mind when they have set their views
 Purposive Communication

about a particular topic. Their attitude obstructs meeting the

purpose of the communication.
2. Demographic Differences: The difference in age, generation,
gender, status, tradition, etc., creates a lack of understanding
among people and thus, hinders the process of communication.
3. Lack of Common Experience or Perspective: The
experiences of a person develop their perspective of seeing
things in a particular way. This perspective varies from person to
person. Therefore, it becomes difficult for a receiver to relate
with the sender’s experience or views as he might have never
gone through it himself.
4. Jumping to Conclusions: Some people lack the patience of
listening to others and often jump to conclusions between the
communication, thus neglecting the motive of the message.

Physical Barriers

These barriers can be experienced directly but challenging to overcome. These

include:

1. Physical Distance: When people communicate over long

distances, they miss out the non-verbal aspect of
communication, since the gestures and expressions of
the receiver cannot be interpreted.
2. Noise: The environment or the communication system
sometimes involve unwanted noise which interrupts the
process of communication making it inefficient.
3. Physiological Barriers: One of the most common
barriers to effective communication is the physical
disability of the people involved. Some of these are
hearing impairment, poor eyesight, stammering, etc.

Overcoming the Barriers of Effective Communication

 Summarizing what has been said

- It is a form of summarizing message/ideas to easily understand the
message.
 Effective Questions
- Think or construct a questions appropriately.
 Seeking Participation
- It is the most basic level, through seeking you will get their attention and
your audience can identify opportunities and strategies for action and build
good conversation.
 Connecting with the audience
- It is the process to make the speaker and receiver met the "Good
communication"
 Checking for understanding
- It is a formative assessment practice where the speaker ask questions or
give short assignment and then the receiver construct their responses.
 Simple words
 Purposive Communication

- Use simple words/sentences to easily and get your message correctly.

 Body language (Smile, Eye contact, Gestures, tone)
- It is the process of communicating non-verbally through conscious of
unconscious gestures and movements.
 Cultural Sensitivity
- It is a cross-cultural sensitivity or simply cultural awareness, knowledge
and acceptance of other cultures and others cultural identities.

Communication and Globalization

”Only in the past couple of centuries, as every human community has
gradually been drawn into a single web of trade and a global network of information,
have we come to a point where each of us can realistically imagine contacting any
other of our six billion conspecifics and sending that person something worth having:
a radio, an antibiotic, a good idea” (Appiah, 2006: x).

Globalization
There are many varying definitions of the term globalization. These are as
follows:
1. Globalization is the increasing interaction of people, states, or countries through
the growth of the international flow of money, ideas, and culture. Thus, globalization
is primarily focused on the economic process of integration that has social and
cultural aspects.
2. It is the interconnectedness of people and business across the world that
eventually leads to global, cultural, political, and economic integration.
3. It is the ability to move and communicate easily with others all over the world in
order to conduct business internationally.
4. It is the free movement of goods, services, and people across the world in a
seamless and integrated manner.
5. It is the liberalization of countries of their impact protocols and welcome foreign
investment into sectors that are the mainstays of its economy.
6. It refers to counties acting like magnets attracting global capital by opening up
their economies to multinational corporations.
7. The uprooting of human activities – political, cultural, economic, social or
interconnectedness -> interdependencies of many different parts in the world.

Interconnectedness refers to the ability to understand and function in an

increasingly multicultural, international, yet interconnected environment. It fosters the
development of individuals to become successful professionals, civic leaders, and
informed citizens in a diverse national and global society.
 Purposive Communication

Interdependence refers to two or more countries that impact and rely on each other

Tracing The History Of Globalization And Communication

 Thompson, J. (1995). Media and Modernity – ch. 5 ’The Globalization of
Communication’
Main points:
- Today communication is increasingly global
- This promotes a ’reordering’ of time and space
- This in turn, promotes global interconnections interdependencies =
globalization.
- Globalization is a progress, not an end state. Started mainly with three
processes during the 19th century:
1. 1830’s. The telegraph – electric communication via transatlantic underwater
cables.
No more messengers.
1843 – Washington and Baltimore connected
1865 – Britain and India connected
1870s – Europe linked to large parts of the world
1924 – King George V sends a message to himself that circulated the globe in
80 seconds
2. 19th century. Emergence of global news networks. Significant in three
ways 1.) News over large territories
2.) Global in scope
3.) Reached big audiences
3. Electro-magnetic waves. The emergence of organziations with the mission
to dissiminate radio INCREASquencies.

Different Globalization[s]: The Dimensions of Globalization

1. Cultural: ’Global images’, global audiences, value-spreading, ’neo-
imperialism’/’media imperialism’. World culture.
2. Social: Global social relations, mobility, tourism, sense of global of community.
3. Political: Supra-national organizations: UN, WTO etc. Supra-national
governance: ’world-police’, Obama phenomenon, regionalization: EU.
Cosmopolitansim
4. Economic: Common discourse. Trade links, instant money transaction -
global business. Global exploitation of labour.
Common thread: They all depend on global communication infrastructure.

for of Globalization in Communication

1. Virtual Interaction
 Purposive Communication

— introduced virtual communication and collaboration

2. Cultural Awareness
— major impact of globalization
3. Time Differences
— need to communicate and share information

References:
Adler, R. Elmhorst, J.M., Lucas. Communicating at Work: Strategies for Success in
Business and the Professions. NY: McGraw Hill, 2012.

Lim, J.M., Hamada,I., & Alata, E.J. (2019). A Course Module for Purposive
Communication. Rex Book Store. Manila, Philippines.

Prachi, M. (2018) Effective Communication. Retrieved on February 5, 2022 from

https://theinvestorsbook.com/effective-communication.html

Shoenberger, E. (2018) The Effects of Globalization on Global Communication.

Retrieved on February 5, 2022 from https://bizfluent.com/info-8232542-effects--
globalization-global-communication.html

Suman, K. (2017). 11 Reasons Why Is Effective Communication Important. Retrieved

from https://sumankher.com/2021/03/05/11-reasons-why-is-effective-
communication-important/