Foundation of Communication
1. COMMUNICATION DEFINED
1. Act of exchanging thoughts, messages or information
2. Is social interaction through messages
3. The reciprocal 相互的 creation of meaning in a given context
4. Creates both Denotative & Connotative 象征性和内涵性 meaning
5. Facilitates collaboration and cooperation
6. Reduces errors
7. Improves organizational performance
2. EFFECTS OF COMMUNICATION (DeVito, 2015, p28)
For very communication act there is a consequence
1. Intellectual(cognitive) effect: changes in your thinking
2. Affective 情感的 effects: changes in attitudes, values, beliefs
3. Psychomotor 心里运动 effects: changes in behaviour
These effects are not separate & interact with each other
3. TYPES OF COMMUNICATION
• Verbal (written & oral)
• Nonverbal
• Graphic ( a subset of nonverbal) Graphic communication involves the use of visual material
to relate ideas such as drawings, photographs, slides, and sketches.
• Electronic
All have advantages & disadvantages
4. COORDINATED 协调的 MANAGEMENT OF MEANING (Pearce & Cronen in Griffin, Ledbetter
& Sparks, 2015)
• Our communication creates our social worlds
• Persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities & are simultaneously shaped
by the worlds they create. (Social Constructionists)
• Selves 自我, relationships, organizations, communities, and cultures are the “stuff” that
make up our social worlds.
• Our social worlds are not something we find or discover——we create them.
• CMM promotes a deeper understanding of people and of the social worlds they create
through their conversation
5. UNCERTAINITY REDUCTION THEORY (URT) (Berger in Griffin, Ledbetter & Sparks, 2015)
• Beginnings of personal relationships are fraught with 充满 uncertainty
• Using communication to gain knowledge & create understanding
• As the ability to predict the future of a relationship decreases, our uncertainty increases
• We seek to reduce uncertainty to predict the future of the relationship
• We engage in “information seeking behaviours”
• Similarities with others reduces uncertainty, dissimilarity increases uncertainty
6. URT - SEEKING INFORMATION TO FORM IMPRESSIONS
• Passive Strategy: Observing the person interacting with others
• Active Strategy: Asking others about the person (will their reply be unbiased?)
• Interactive 互动的 Strategy: Face-to-face discussion with the person. Will they reciprocate
往复? Cross examination syndrome?
• Extractive 萃取的 Strategy: Searching online
7. FOULGER’S ECOLOGICAL 生态的 MODEL (Foulger 2004 in Eunson 2016. P12)
• “Senders” become Creators; “receivers” become Consumers
• We have a multiplicity of messages from different sources
• Messages are created & consumed using language
• Language occurs within the context of media
• A consumer’s interpretation of a message attributes meanings imperfectly within limits of
language & media used
• The synergy 协同作用 of message creation & consumption is subjective
8. LANGUAGE (Adler, Rosenfeld & Proctor, 2015, Ch.7)
LANGUAGE IS SYMBOLIC
• Words are arbitrary symbols that have no meaning in themselves
LANGUAGE IS RULE GOVERNED
• Different languages have different evolving rules that people agree on how to use them
LANGUAGE IS SUBJECTIVE
• Not everyone obeys the rules - different meanings are attached to the same message
(Denotative & Connotative 象征性和内涵性)
LANGUAGE & WORLDVIEW
• Language both reflects & shapes our worldview (Linguistic Relativity 语言相对论)
9. LINEAR/TRANSMISSION 班轮/运输 MODEL (Shannon and Weaver, 1939)
10. COMMUNICATION IS TRANSACTIONAL 交易性的(Watzlawick, 1978, in DeVito, 2015)
The elements in communication:
1. Are always changing
2. Are interdependent 相互依存的
3. Depend on the individual for their meaning & effect
4. Each person in the communication act is both a speaker & a listener
11. TRANSACTIONAL MODEL FEATURES
• An ever changing process
• Elements are interdependent ( relates integrally 整体地 to every other element)
• Is influenced by a multitude of 许多 factors
• Each person in an interaction is simultaneously both sender & receiver
• Senders & receivers create their own meanings
12. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION – NOISE (De Vito, 2015)
EXTERNAL
• Physical
INTERNAL
• Physiological 生理的
• Psychological 心理的
• Semantic 语义的
13. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION – CONTEXT (DeVito, 2015)
The environment in which the communication occurs:
PHYSICAL
The tangible environment of the communication
SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL
Status, roles, formality/informality, relationships, occasion, society
TEMPORAL
Time of day, time in history
CULTURAL
Beliefs, values & attitudes
14. ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION – SOURCE & RECEIVER
• Interchangeable & simultaneous roles
• Encoding/decoding
• Metacommunication 元通信
• Response/feedback – may be real time or delayed
• Feed forward 前馈
15. TYPES OF COMMUNICATION-CHANNELS
• Channels as the media/medium of communication & include:
• Face-to-face
• Telephone/smart phone
• SMS
• IM
• Email
• Letter
• Online
May be synchronous or asynchronous 同步或异步
16. Factors Influence Media Selection
Feedback
Channel
Type of communication
Language source
17. Information richness
18. COMMUNICATION - A PROCESS OF ADJUSTMENT
• Strategic Flexibility (Hybels & Weaver, 2012)
Expanding your communication repertoire to enable you to use the best skill or behavior
available for a particular context
• Content & relationship dimensions
Meaning of content is influenced by the relationship
19. SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS IN THE WORKPLACE (Cardon, 2018, Ch. 8)
• Evolution of the Internet from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 (Web 3.0?)
• Networked communication
• Collaborate across boundaries
• Communal 公共的 problem solving
CHANNELS
• Dashboards • User profiles • Blogs & status updates • Discussion forums 论坛 • Present
benefits & challenges
20. BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
BARRIER DESCRIPTION
Information overload：Amount of information received exceeds one’s processing capacity
Emotions：How one feels when receiving messages
Trust & credibility: Message met with cynicism 玩世不恭 if it does not exist-meaning may be
distorted 曲解
Time: Lack of time; speed of required response
Filtering 过滤: Intentional manipulation 操纵 of information to make it more favourable to
the receiver
21. THE COMPETENT 能干的 COMMUNICATOR (DeVito, 2015)
Makes reasoned choices
• Thinks critically & mindfully
• Is culturally sensitive
• Is ethical
• Is an effective listener
• Is media literate
22. ETHICAL COMMUNICATION (Eunson, 2016)
ETHICS & RATIONIALISATION 合理化
• The Democracy cliché – “numbers determine what is right”
• “ Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t I”.
• “It’s not illegal”.
• They did it to me, so I’m doing it to them”.
• “If I don’t do it someone else will”.
