PURPOSIVE COMMUNICATION

S01E01 | 1ST SEM | 2ND SHIFTING

HUMAN COMMUNICATION
OVERVIEW
- Of all knowledge and skills you have, those concerning communication are among your most
important and useful

- Your communication ability will in uence how e ectively you live your personal and professional life;
it will in uence your e ectiveness in your di erent roles

PRELIMINARIES TO HUMAN COMMUNICATION

- Human communication: sending and receiving of verbal and nonverbal messages between two or
more people

- This is seemingly simple but in reality quite complex

A. Myths about human communication

- understanding these myths and why they are false will help eliminate potential barriers and pave the
way for more e ective and e cient learning about communication

1. The more you communicate, the bettie your communication will be

- lies behind the popular belief that “practice makes perfect”

- but if you practice bad habits, you’re likely to grow less, rather than more and e ective

2. When two people are in a close relationship, neither person should have to communicate needs and
wants explicitly; the other person should know what these are

- this assumptions is at the heart of many interpersonal di culties since people aren’t mind readers
and to expect them to be sets up barriers to open and honest communication

3. Interpersonal group con ict is a reliable sign that the relationship or group is in trouble

- con ict is inevitable in relationships and in groups

- and if managed e ectively, it may actually bene t the individuals and the relationship

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4. Like good communicators, leaders are born, not made

- communication and learning is a learned skill

5. Fear of speaking in public detrimental and must be eliminated

- you can learn to mange your fear, making it work for you rather than against you

B. Skills of Human Communication

1. Self-presentation skills

- enable you to present yourself as a con dent, likable, approachable and credible person

- it can also display negative qualities of yours if you lack communication skills

2. Relationship skills

- help you build di erent relationships

- skills for initiating, maintaining, repeating and sometimes dissolving relationships of all kinds

3. Interviewing skills

- enable you to interact to gain information

- to successfully present yourself to get the job you want and to participate e ectively in a wide variety
of other interview types

4. Group interaction and leadership skills

- help you participate e ectively in relationship and task groups as a member and as a leader

5. Presentation or public speaking skills

- enable you to manage your fear and make it for you, rather than against you

- enable you to communicate information to small and large audiences and in uence their attitudes
and behaviors

C. Forms of Communication
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1. Intrapersonal communication

- communication that you have with yourself

2. Interpersonal communication

- when you interact with a person with whom you have some kind of relationship

- it can take place face-to-face as well as through electronic channels or even in traditional writing

3. Interviewing

- a form of interpersonal communication that proceeds by question and answer

4. Small group communication

- communication among groups (5-10 people) and may take place face-to-face or in virtual space

- may serves relationship needs or task needs

5. Public communication

- communication between a speaker and an audience

- a speaker will inform and persuade you. And you, in turn, inform and persuade others

- you can also address such audiences electronically (social media networks)

6. Computer-mediated communication

- includes all forms of communication between people that take place through some kind of computer
and devices

7. Mass communication

- communication from one source to many receivers who may be scattered throughout the world

- ex: newspapers, magazines, radio, television and lm

- the coverage of mass communication here is limited to media literacy

COMMUNICATION MODELS AND CONCEPTS

- In early models: communication process was thought to be
linear; the speaker spoke and the listener listened; speaking
and listening takes place at di erent times

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- At present: communication is a transactional process in which both
person serves as both speaker and listener, sending and receiving
messages

- The transactional view also sees the elements of communication

as interdependent (never independent). Each element exists in relation to
the others. A change in any one element of the process produces
changes in other elements

- Communication occurs when you send or receive messages and when

you assign meaning to another person’s signals

A. Sources-Receivers
- according to the transactional model, each person involved in communication is both a source
(speaker) and a receiver (listener)

Encoding

- when you put your ideas into speech, you’re putting them into a code

Decoding

- when you translate the sound waves (speech signals) that in uence on your ears or read the words
on a screen, into ideas; you take them out of the code they’re in

*In encoding-decoding, you perform these functions simultaneously

- Usually, you encode an idea into a code that the other person understands however, you may also
want to exclude others by speaking language that only of your listeners knows such as using jargon

B. Messages
- communication messages take many forms and are transmitted or received through one or more
sensory organs or a combination of them

- you communicate verbally (with words) and nonverbally (without words)

- everything about you communicates a message

1. Feedforward messages

- information you provide before sending your primary message

- it revealed something about the messages to come and includes

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- may be verbal (“Wait until you hear this one”) or nonverbal (prolonged hands or pause to signal an
important message is to be spoken) and a combination of both

- Phatic communication: small talk that opens the way for big talk that are designed to maintain
rapport and friendly relationships

- it may also include listener’s short comments that are unrelated to the content of the
conversation but indicate interest and attention

2. Feedback messages

- you may get feedback from your own messages or from others

- tells the speaker what e ect he or she is having on listeners

- on the basis of feedback, the speaker may adjust, modify, strengthen, deemphasize or change the
content or from of the messages

3. Metamessages

- a message that refers to another message; communication about communication

- ex: includes nonverbal behavior ( ngers or wink)

4. Workplace messages

- messages are often classi ed in terms of their direction

a. Upward communication

b. Downward communication

c. Lateral communication - between equals

d. Grapevine communication - job-relates issues you want to discuss in a more interpersonal setting

C. Communication Context
- meaning of any verbal or nonverbal message

- the same words or behaviors may have totally di erent meanings when they occur in di erent
contexts

- you communicate di erently depending on the speci c context you’re in

Four aspects of communication context:

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1. Physical context

- tangible or concrete environment

2. Cultural context

- lifestyles, beliefs, values, behavior and or rules of a group of people (right or wrong)

3. Social-psychological context

- status relationships among speakers, formality of the situation, the norms of a group or organization

4. Temporal context

- message’s position within a sequence of events

*These four contexts interact, each in uence and is in uenced by the others

D. Channel
- vehicle or medium through which messages pass

- communication rarely takes place over only one channel, rather 2-4 channels may be used
simultaneously

- the means of communication is another way to classify channels

E. Noise
- anything that interfere with your receiving a message

- comes in both auditory and visual forms

Four types:

1. Physical noise

- interference that is external to both speaker and listener

2. Physiological noise

- barriers created within the sender or receiver

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3. Psychological noise

- metal interference in the speaker or listener/ distractions caused by the listener’s internal thoughts

- ex: preconceived ideas, wandering thoughts, biases and prejudices, close-mindedness and extreme
emotionalism

- examples in real life: daydreaming during online class or you have worry about deadlines

4. Semantic noise

- speaker and listener have di erent meaning systems of certain words

- ex: language or dialectical di erences

- example: jargons in medical elds between doctors and patient where the doctor is using high-level
professional terms while the patient is at a beginner level (anatomical terms)

*Signal-to-noise ration

- signal: information that you’d nd useful

- noise: information that is useless (to you)

- information may be high on signal and low on noise and vice versa

*All communications contain noise that can’t be totally eliminated but its e ects can be reduced

F. Channels
- communication always have some e ect on this involved in the communication act

- may be intellectual, a ective to psychomotor e ects

PRINCIPLES OF
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 COMMUNICATION

A. Communication is purposeful
- when you speak or write, you’re trying to send some message and to accomplish some goal

Five General Purposes:

1. to learn: acquire knowledge

2. to relate: form relationships and interact

3. to help: assist others

4. to in uence: attitudes or behaviors

5. to play: experience the moment

*Social networking sites

- for relationship purpose denominates (staying in touch with family, friends, trends and celebrities)

- Men: information, play and relax

- Women: relationship purposes

B. Communication involves choices

- choice points: moments when you have to make a choice (what you say, what you don’t say and
how you will phrase it) as to whom you communicate with

Notion of choice in steps:

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 1. The problem

- view communication interaction as a problem to be resolved

2. The criteria

- speci c communication goal

3. The possible solutions

- what are some of your communication choices

4. The analysis

- pros and cons of each communication choice

5. The selection and execution

- best choice to your goal

C. Communication is Ambiguous
- Ambiguity: something can be interpreted in more than one way

Language Ambiguity:

- words that can be interpreted di erently

- soon, right away, in a minute, early, late

Grammatical Ambiguity:

- What does the cat have in its paws? What monster has the cat in its paws?

- To y planes is dangerous. Planes that y can be dangerous

- Those people are frying chickens. Those chickens are for frying

*Never communicate your meaning exactly and totally; rather, you communicate your meaning with
some reasonable accuracy - enough to give the other person a reasonably clear idea of what you mean

Relationship Ambiguity:

- all relationships are ambiguous to some extent

Using a six-point scale for relationship uncertainty:

(1 = completely or almost completely uncertain and 6 = completely or almost completely certain)

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1. What can you say or not say to each other in this relationship?

2. Do you and your partner feel the same way about each other?

3. How would you and your partner describe this relationship?

4. How do you see the future of this relationship?

D. Communication involves content and relationship dimensions

- Communication exists on at least two levels: a message referring to something external to both
speaker and listener (context) or the relationship between speaker and listener (relationship)

- Women: send more relationship messages

- Men: content talk, things external to the relationship

- Problems often result from a failure to distinguish between the content and the relationship levels of
communication

“It’s not about the story. It’s about Daddy taking time out of his busy day to read you the story.”

E. Communication has a power dimension

- your power in uences the way you communicate and the way you communicate in uences the
power you wield

Six types of power:

1. Legitimate

- My position is such that I often have to tell others what to do

- when others believe you have a right to in uence or control other’s behavior

2. Referent

- People wish to be like me or identi ed with me

- others wish to be like you

3. Reward

- People see me as having the ability to give them what they want

- you control the rewards that others want

4. Coercive

- People see me as having the ability to administer punishment or to withhold things they want

- usually, people who have reward power also have coercive power

- coercive power may reduce your other power bases

5. Expert

- Other people realize that I have expertise in certain areas of knowledge

- you expert power increases when you’re perceived as being unbiased and as having nothing
personally to gain from exerting this power

6. Information or persuasion

- Other people realize that I possess the communication ability to present an argument logically and
persuasively

- having the ability to communicate logically and persuasively

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 *The power you yield is not static; it can be increased or decreased depending on what you do and
don’t do

*You can also decrease or lose power

F. Communication is punctuated
- Communication events are continuous transactions that have no clear-cut beginning or ending

- Punctuation of communication: segmenting of the continuous stream of communication into smaller

pieces. Some pieces you label causes (or stimuli) and other e ects (or response)

- Try to see the sequence of events as punctuated by the other person

G. Communication is inevitable, irreversible and unrepeatable

Inevitability

- in interactional situations, it is always taking place, even when a person may not intent or want to
communicate

- not all behavior (non-verbal messages) is communication

- two people must be in an interactional situation and the behavior must be perceived for the principle
of inevitability to operate

- in some situations, your lack of response is itself a response

Irreversibility

- you cannot uncommunicative or take back the message

- you can still try to reduce its e ects

- in group and public communication situations, it’s especially crucial to recognize the irreversibility of
communication

Unrepeatability

- a communication act can never be duplicated

- you can never recapture the exact same situation, frame or mind or relationship dynamic that de ned
a previous communication act

CULTURE AND HUMAN COMMUNICATION

Culture - beliefs, ways of behaving and artifacts of a group; transmitted through communication and
learning rather than through genes

- cocultures: collection of many di erent cultures that coexist somewhat separately but all
in uence one another

Gender - cultural variable which means that it shapes di erent attitudes, beliefs, values and ways of
communicating and relating to one another (ex: boys and girls)

A. Importance of Culture

1. Demographic changes

2. Sensitivity to cultural di erences

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 - In US, from assimilationist perspective (idea that people should leave their native culture behind and
adapt to their natural cultural ways) to cultural diversity (people should retain their native cultural
ways)

- often translates into nancial gain and increased employment opportunities and advancement
prospects

3. Economic interdependence

- our economic lives depend on our ability to communicate e ectively across cultures

- ex: political unrest or nancial problems in any part of the world a ects our own security (Russia’s oil
crisis)

- intercultural communication and understanding now seem more crucial than ever

4. Communication technology

- tech enology has made intercultural interaction easy, practical and inevitable

5. Culture-speci c nature of communication

- communication competence is culture speci c; what proves e ective in one culture may prove
ine ective (even o ensive) in another

B. Dimensions of Culture

1. Uncertainty avoidance

- degree which a culture values predictability

- (high-certainty-avoidance cultures): predictability and order are extremely important

- (low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures): risk-taking and ambiguity are tolerated more easily

2. Masculinity-femininity

- extent to which cultures embrace traditionally masculine characteristics (ambition and assertiveness)
or traditionally feminine characteristics (caring and nurturing others)

3. Power distance

- the way power is distributed throughout the society

- (high-power-distance cultures): great power di erence between those in authority and others

- (low-power-distance cultures): power is distributed more evenly

4. Individualism-collectivism

- culture’s emphasis on the importance of the individual or of the group

- individualist: self-reliance, independence and individual achievement

- collectivist: emphasize social bonds, the primacy of the group and conformity to the larger social
group

5. High and low context

- extent to which information is seen as embedded int he context or tacitly known among members

- high-context cultures: information is part of the context and does not have to be verbalized explicitly

- low-context cultures: information is made explicit and little is taken for granted

6. Indulgence and restraint

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 - relative emphasis a culture places on the grati cation of desires, on having fun and enjoying life
(indulgent cultures) as opposed to cultures which emphasize the curbing of these desires (restraint
cultures)

7. Long- and short-term orientation

- degree to which a culture teaches an orientation that promotes the importance of future rewards
(long-term orientation) versus cultures that emphasize the importance of immediate rewards

- these cultures also di er in their view of workplace

Di ering values selected by Asian and American executives:

1. Asian (long-term orientation)

- hard work

- respect for learning

- honesty

- openness to new ideas

- accountability

- self-discipline

2. American (short-term orientation)

- freedom of expression

- personal freedom

- self-reliance

- individual rights

- hard work

- personal achievement

C. Aim of a Cultural Perspective

- culture in uences communications of all types

- but the di erences should not blind you to the great number of similarities among even the most
widely separated cultures (such as close interpersonal relationships are common in all cultures,
although they may be entered into for very di erent reason by members)

- when reading about cultural di erences, remember that they are usually matters of degree (most
cultures value honesty, but not all value it to the same extent)

- advances in media and technology: homogenizes cultures, lessening intercultural di erences and
increasing similarities; and also “Americanizing” various cultures

*Culture in uences but does not determine your values or behavior. Often, factors such as personality
will prove more in uential than culture.

D. Ethnic Identity and Ethnocentrism

- As you learn your culture’s ways, you develop an ethnic identity

- Ethnic identity: you embrace largely the attitudes and beliefs of the group and behave as a member
of the group

- A healthy ethnic identity is generally regarded as a positive trait. It helps to preserve the ethnic
culture, build group cohesiveness and enable it to make its unique contributions to the culture as a
whole

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On the other hand,

- Ethnocentrism: extreme ethnic identity; tendency to see others and their behaviors through your own
cultural lters, often as distortions of your own behaviors

- It is the tendency to evaluate the values, beliefs and behaviors of your own culture as superior and as
more positive, logical and natural than those of other cultures

Ethnocentrism Continuum

COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE
- refers to (1) your knowledge and understanding of how communication works and (2) your ability to
use communication e ectively

- Knowledge: elements involved in communication, how these elements interact and how each
communication situation is both di erent from and similar to other situations; also an understanding
of the choices you have for communicating in any given situation

- Using communication e ectively: ability to select and implement the best choices for
communicating; and to read and adjust to the ongoing feedback that you receive from your own
messages and that guide the choices you make in selecting future messages

*In increasing your communicative competence gives you a broad range of options to use in your own
communications.

A. The competent communicator thinks critically and mindfully

- ability to think critically about the communication situations you face and the options for
communicating that you have available

- it’s thinking that us well-reasoned, unbiased and clear

Mindfullness

- state of awareness in which you’re conscious of your reasons for thinking or behaving

- opposite: mindlessness wherein you lack conscious awareness of what or how you’re thinking

Ways to actively increase your own mindfulness:

1. Create and re-create categories

- group things in di erent ways

- learn to see objects, events and people as belonging to a wide variety of categories and are
constantly changing

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 - ex: try to see other person in a variety of roles

2. Be open to new information

- be open even in listening to di erent points of view that may contradict your most rmly held beliefs

- new information forces you to reconsider what might be outmoded ways of thinking and can help
you challenge long-held, but now inappropriate, beliefs and attitudes

3. Beware of relying too heavily on rst impressions

- treat rst impressions as tentative, as hypotheses that need further investigation

- be prepared to revise, reject or accept these initial impressions

4. Think before you act

- especially in delicate situations such as anger or commitment messages

- it’s wise to pause and think over the situation mindfully that you’ll stand a better chance of acting
and reacting appropriately

B. The competent communicator is culturally sensitive

- communication competence is culture-speci c

- the principles of e ective communication vary from one culture to another and what proves e ective
in one culture may prove ine ective in another

- thus, cultural implications accompany all of the major topics considered in communication

C. The component communicator is ethical

- involves questions of ethics, the study of good and bad, of right and wrong of moral and immoral

- ethics: concerned with actions, behaviors, it’s concerned with distinguishing between behaviors that
are moral and those that are immortal

- there’s an ethical dimension to any communication act

Some of the ethical issues raised:

- your own ethical beliefs a ects the way you answer these questions

1. What are your ethical obligations as a listener?

2. When it is unethical to remain silent?

3. At what point in a relationship do you have an obligation to reveal intimate details of your life?

4. Are there ethical and unethical ways to engage in con ict and con ict resolution?

5. When is gossiping ethical and when it is unethical?

D. The competent communicator is an e ective listener

- listening is an integral part of communication; you cannot be a competent communicator if you’re a
poor listener

- listening should be your most important communication activity and most often used of all
communication activities

EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE GOALS

SDG
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- 2015 to 2030

- 17 developmental goals

- interconnected

3 layers

- environment (6, 15, 13, 14)

- society (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 16)

- economy (8, 9, 10, 12)

Targets and Indicators

- things to do and nish

RESPONSIBLE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

IS SOCIAL MEDIA HURTING YOUR MENTAL HEALTH? | Bailey Parnell

Four Stressors on Social Media

1. Highlight reel

2. Social currency - reactions

3. Fear of missing out (FOMO)

4. Online harassment

Addiction = anxiety and depression

Dark side of “people”, not social media

Four Steps to Social Media Wellness

1. Recognize the problem

2. Audit your social media idea

3. Create a better online experience

4. Model good behavior online

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Is social media hurting your mental health?

- I doesn’t have to

IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON YOUTH | Katana Mbevi

Factors

1. Insecurity - highlight reel

2. Social currency

3. FOMO

Action Plan

1. Build a strong value system

2. Collaborative creativity - making di erences

3. Be yourself
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