Chapter 3 Concept - Week 6

In Chapter 3, the idea of different styles of listening and ways of responding cued my interest.  The book repetitively states, "We can not not communicate", for even not saying anything, is a form of communicating! When I would wait for a response, and the "silent" treatment is given, I know that reaction obtains anger in the other individual, and he or she is upset and wishes to end or not continue on with the negative conversation.  Active listening is crucial, very crucial, in today's environment for allowing other to feel comfortable and overall connect.  As I have experience in customer service, I believe it does make a difference when I respond to a customer's "story" about his or her day by active listening.  1) They tend to tip more because he or she notices you are engaged into the conversation respectively. 2) A customer can relate and show positive feedback because you are signifying an actual intake of information, not just a head nod or small laugh.  Empathetic listening is listening to another person and responding by paraphrasing what he or she has already said.  I love how the book also states, "You need to respond to what is not said as well is what is said".  Sometimes the answers to other people's problems lie in depth of what he or she has not told you.  Empathetic listening shows that another person is actually engaged especially they can repeat what the speaker just said.  I get frustrated when I express myself and the responder can't even adhere or repeat the material I just said.  Listening is extremely important, I mean it's half of the holy grail of communication. And to be a superior listener is excellent, because follow instructions for a job can determine whether or not opportunities will grow for an individual.

Women vs. Men Language - Week 6

Women and men both has different ways on how they use language, but they also have similarities.  I truly believe it does reflect mainly on an individual's personality and liking in whether or not they are using language "like a woman" or "like a man".  Because young boys and girls are raised on a gender-driven society (and yes, I took a woman's studies course, so this is present today), they are inflicted behaviors on how to act, and what to say.  Based on how a child is raised, growing up does effect the "expectations" derived out of a female or male individual.  For example, I was raised with male and female siblings, a mother and a father all present, and my abilities to act "like a lady" were never more influenced because I had both genders available when growing up.  My boyfriend, on the other hand, was raised in a house full of females, without a male figure present until later in life, he however, wasn't told to "act like a man" either and show autonomy, because it was not present as much.  Now, these aren't concrete examples, just everyday (random) examples, of how men and women based on their raising of gender culture, can grow out of holding language speaking connected to his or her gender.  But, of course, men and women do not act stereotypical all the time, because even though we are taught how to identify our gender roles (unfortunately it is not justified for the LGBS&T community), we ultimately choose our own path to follow.  I also do believe, that women contain similarities in how they prefer to communicate, and same goes to men. We may categorize this concept, as women being attached to emotions, details, and mother nurturing, only because it is built as an instinct (inside DNA coding) or maybe because it was influential behavior as a child. I do see the relation, but I would not conceptualize women communicating in only in those particular means. ( same goes for male dominance, achievement, and superiority)

Week 6- Judging and Categorizing

In some cases, it is possible to perceive others without judging or categorizing, only if you have a clear mind set on the actual presentation of what is being presented.  In most cases though, I do believe sometimes that person prototypes, personal constructs, and scripts enable use to judge others.  Person prototypes can effect the way an individual wants to listen to another because he or she is already put into a category.  I do see how this can help us recognizing when listening is important, (i.e. teachers, professors, coaches), but it can also damage our process preferred listening and ignoring others.  Constructs are events that cause an individual to think a certain way after a certain event.  This to can be bitter sweet depending on if the individual had a good or bad day.  Scripts are a process based decision that an individual inhabits due to routine.  A person knows how to act or react because the situation has come up before and often. So back to judging others, I do see that listening actively to a person is hard if a prior judgement hasn't already been made, either conscientiously or not. For a personal example, sometimes my educational level gets judged or categorized as "low" by others due to my hair color and gender.   A person may spend more time focusing on whether the information is valid based on his or her beliefs, attitudes and customs.  Categorizing others information negatively should not take effect as often as it does today, but as individuals ( and like the book states ) we will believe what we want to believe.

Chapter Concept - Week 4

WOW! Chapter 9 is filled with numerous topics that I would enjoy to discuss, but unfortunately I can only pick one, otherwise I would fill up my entire blog with these engorged thoughts.  One of the concepts that captured my attention the most, had to be the "Attitudes" section on pg. 244.  To start off, I was particularly surprised that attitudes came in three different dimensions: cognitive, affective, and behavioral.  I knew that attitudes are a mental structure which an individual acts upon based on his or her perspective.  Yet the three forms revealed more depth.  Cognitive dimension is basically our attitude towards a subject based on what an individual believes, or known factually, about the topic.  Affective dimension is an individuals reaction or response to a topic emotionally.  Behavioral dimension is the act, or the thought of an act, of what should be done, in which an individual portrays his or her attitude on a topic.  The first thing that I think of when I describe attitude is "positive", not only because we were taught to express that in an interview or resume', but also because attitudes should reflect positive connotations.  Then, after reading this section of chapter 9, my scope broadened a bit, for I felt as if I didn't truly understand the meaning of attitude.  These three stages has allowed me to understand the importance of breaking down what attitude is, and being able to use the definition properly.

Well- Known Speaker -Week 4

The well-known speaker I would like to consider is Steve Jobs, although he is (unfortunately) not currently with us today, I do believe his speeches and presentations were ( and still are) strong, boastful, and engaging.  Steve Jobs strongest characteristics as a speaker are definitely credibility, power, and attractiveness in that order.  To start off, Jobs' credibility as a creator, inventor, and overall a life changing go-getter, able him to pursue interest with his audience.  Steve Jobs co-founded the company of Apple, which is extremely popular in the nation as of today.  Since then, he has integrated making life easier and more enjoyable through the products of Apple.  The fact that Steve Jobs allowed his passion and ideas to go to work in such a company, has attracted many fans, followers, capitalist, and the general public.  Steve Jobs has the ability to give such presentations about his products, because they are "his" products.  Now, I am not saying he created each "iPhone" individually, or even the first Apple personal computer at that, but he did allow his ideas and works of others around him to become the best product for the people.  Steve Jobs has power, in the first three years of Apple his company became a multi-million dollar embassy and 50% of all personal computer owners had Apple.  Not only his money, but also his products gives Steve Jobs power.  Then comes attractiveness, Jobs created a product that the consumer wanted and were attracted too, then presented it at huge presentations nationally. Steve Jobs could build ethos in these areas by incorporating his family into presentations, talking about his personal life and usage, and displaying a sense of character of why he was presenting these products of Apple to consumers.

Influenced Speaker - Week 4

Last spring semester, during "Love Your Body Week", my current professor, Kathleen Taylor, delivered an immaculate speech called "Selling Desire".  Kathleen is an amazing speaker, her words are overall flourished with power and quick stamina.  "Selling Desire" did not only contain a particular concept that captured my interest, but also the way the speech was presented, organized, and laid out gave me a positive reaction.  Kathleen Taylor was able to layout her presentation with a picture-to-picture based power point.  She discussed each slide with slight humor and allowed her audience to guess where each picture display could be found.  For example, she displayed a picture of a young girl's lacy bra and matching pantie set, then described how this is for sale at the local Wal-Mart (hence, selling desire at a young age).  Kathleen was quick and intuitive with her thoughts and words, she knew how to react timely with the audience's reactions, and explain every aspect of her presentation.  Her vocabulary was superb, yet understandable to the common people.  I remembered the most how she was so accurate in matching her words to her visuals; I was extremely impressed and focused on her speech.
The worst speaker I have ever heard, would probably be a first timer college student giving a speech and/or presentation in a class.  Obviously, because most students are nervous, new, and not an expert on public communication, labeling them as a "speaker" wouldn't exactly be accurate.  I also think of certain politicians ( I wish not to name), that I conclude are horrible speakers.  The main aspect I can remember about a politician being a horrible speaker is the opinionated, offensive, and not intelligent material they choose to recite in their speech.  Yes, they have a right to their own opinion, yet when the material gets offensive to certain groups of people in society, I believe that person is not a good public communicator.  Also, with first time college students giving a speech, most of the time they seem to embarrassed and not confident.  I couldn't even make out the concepts of their presentation because of the lack of "taking a stand" to their audience.  I have come to realize, sometimes people who don't really give great context in their speech, yet deliver it with a strong, boastful manner give great speeches as well, which is another aspect of communication (nonverbal, verbal).

Reading Concept - Week 3

The concept of the psychological model of communication in chapter 2 gave me an abundant amount of interest for this weeks reading.  I found the psychological model to be not only familiar, but to spark my interest on how communicating is effective and defective.  When a sender encodes a message, the message travels, and thus the receiver decodes it (straightly from the reading model pg.25).  The noise of a message is the distraction that interrupts the meaning, or overall alters what the message entails.  When the chapter gave us an example of a professor wearing extremely distracting clothes, a windy loud room, and a bad microphone, while trying to present his speech, half the class got the irony, while the other half was still confused.  I believe when a speaker, or any person for that matter, presents his or her self, noise is constantly occurring between the individuals intentionally or not.  I believe some businesses, for this matter, have strict dress codes not only due to professionalism, but also because of the fact the business would like to present themselves and their employees properly and effectively.  A business would want their customers to know what they portray.  If you went to a restaurant and ate possibly one of the most delicious steaks, but couldn't stop thinking about the waiter/waitresses pink frizzy hair and bare feet, the message of the restaurant would be altered.  I find myself trying to decode messages with noise even in classrooms today.  If a professor is giving a lecture and suddenly to A/C unit comes on, I can lose focus on what is being discussed.  Also, if another student walks through the door late, I tend to lose concentration on the subject.  I do believe however, that noise does not necessarily burden or bury the message to where it is almost unobservable.  Some people can multitask, like listening to music while reading a book, and doing so benefits the individual to concentrate more on what is being read.

Pragmatic Perspective- Week 3

The pragmatic perspective is the interaction between two people conceptualized as a game.  Every answer, or question, or even non-communicative feature, needs a response from the other party in order to keep the conversation moving.  To think of communication as a patterned interaction does make sense, but not entirely.  For every action, there is a reaction, yes, but that statement is not always true.  You cannot base the entirety form of communication without incorporating personality, attitudes, beliefs, or even details of why a conversation is taking place.  I do see how communication is a patterned interaction because, like our text states, " we cannot not communicate".  The pragmatic perspective cannot see into the future of what the opposing party will say or do, yet they can reveal an assumption that a reaction will occur in a likelihood related matter.  Communication is like a game, because each opponent participates, and thus bases his or her "move" on the other party.  However, communication is not like a game because not all "moves" can be based on what the opponent communicated.  All aspects of why we say, what we say, tie into communication, for it is not predictable or completely underlined of what each player will or will not do.  A player moves sometimes cannot be based on what the other party communicated, outside references, sources, or distractions of the conversation are all important variables as well.

Social Constructionist - Week 3

The social constructionist perspective basically shows that people in groups become accustom to their culture, which effects the way they see the world through their eyes.  I believe this model does represent a category of how communication is viewed.  Social constructionist perspective indicates that an individuals beliefs, attitude, and tradition of viewing reality is based upon how that individual was raised in his or her culture.  We "build worlds" through communication by taking a part of life, and allowing people to grow accustom to growing up with a specific view point.  For example, my family may "build" a world we are allowed to eat on the couch or dinner table, have our feet up comfortably, and if we can't finish our dinner plate, it is okay.  Another family on the other hand, my brother-in-laws, in which they are Jordanian, may only eat at the dinner table, having the soles of your feet being seen is offending, and not finishing up more than one plate is not allowed.  As you can see, our cultures our different, thus allowing an individual to not actually recognize their perspective on the world is not the only perspective.  This also causes a problem as well, for then stereotypes of other cultures, religions, or ethnic groups may come into place as outsiders may feel that certain individuals are (and always are) different.  Cultural norms may convey a lack of success and may imply a strength of successes as well.  If a female is brought up in her home to never work and always provide a family, she may not gain work experience or knowledge applicable that an opposing individual may contain.  If a man is brought up to work hard his entire life and go to college to create a career, the motivation of success is definitely present, and passed on down to generations.   When in reality, both women and men should be allowed to stay at home and provide for the family, or/and make a career for themselves.  The social constructive perspective model does show a slight model of how others communicate in their world based on their culture and social life, but I do believe it doesn't provide for individuality of people.  Not every "American" likes baseball, and therefore, stereotypes can be easily misused and assumed. 

Reading Concept- Week Two

One of the most interesting concepts from chapter one is how communication is broadly used in an abundant amount of professions today.  Communication opportunities are widely available for people in almost every existent career.  Whether it is politics, to corporate meetings, speaking itself is much needed, especially a qualified good speaker.  I realized that communication is one of the most important qualities to obtain in life.  The more we know on how to speak to others, deal business, inspire, and teach the more successful we become.  I believe that because communication courses have been integrated into our colleges (and hopefully high school), that great means of learning can benefit individuals all around the world.  Communication is more than just a subject we learn in life, it is a key element needed in life.  The ability to converse with others is what makes communication a necessity.  If you try to think of jobs that don't apply the aspect of communication, you won't get very far. I honesty can't even think of a person being able to obtain a job without using communication.  Our communication as a entire nation(s), should definitely be strengthened, in order to produce massive, enlightening success with one another.  Honestly, before I was given the amazing opportunity to take a communications course, I simple thought it would be a class on giving speeches.  Yes, we did give speeches, but we learned why, how and the overall importance of what communicating is meant to do.  It is a required skill.  The class was a ground work for multiple opportunities that every individual will have to surpass, like: how not to offend others, how you sound describes who you are, and the benefit of being an excellent speaker.