Blog #1 - Communication is Interactive and Cultural

Messages Vary Depending on Cultural Interactions

My most memorable idea and sentence from the readings so far is from early on, the first chapter we read, chapter 2, First Principles of Communication: A Critical/Cultural Introduction On the second page of this chapter John T. Warren and Deanna L. Fassett state that “histories usually serve the purpose of explaining the present; as our presents, so to speak, change from the person to person, so do their stories,” (pg. 2). The sentence following is just as important for helping the message of the author come through. The author indicates that the story being relayed by whoever it may be for whatever reason it is being told, is then cultural since it has come from and is going to someone with a different cultural background. The author continues by saying that the stories are not only meaningful to the speaker but the listeners too. Although, the meaning turned over to each person will bring a different sentiment to them because of their cultural differences.

There is a scientific method that was created in 1963 by Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver that gave us as students who student communications the ability to “divide communication into component parts,” (Warren & Fassett, pg. 8). Therefore giving us the opportunity to pick a part specific interactions. This theory helps us determine how communication works and functions as a whole. There are models that indicate how communication works between people who interact and how they interact with one another differently depending on the situation and cultural makeup. A simplistic model of this theory is shown as such:

Speaker ⇒ Message ⇒ Receiver

Speaker ⇐ Message ⇐ Receiver

There are also other ways of showing the interaction between communication patterns. It is known that communication is an interactive and dynamic process. In the book Public Speaking: Finding Your Voice, the authors, Michael, Suzanne and Randall Osborn and Kathleen J. Turner explain that communication isn’t just one person having a conversation with another person, it “is a complex interaction among seven elements: speaker, message, channel, interference, setting, audience, and feedback,” (Osborn & Turner, pg. 8). Each part of this interactive communicative process brings another cultural element. Therefore it is not simply just one message spoken among people, rather a message with multiple meanings based on the context, cultural backgrounds, and channels of those interacting with the message. Osborn and Turner also indicate that communication is a dynamic process and therefore can change depending on the people listening to it (pg.13). The authors state that communication is “largely ethical” (Osborne & Turner, pg. 13), and whether the audience is being informed of deceived will change the way that they look at and interact with the words being spoken to them.

In the one sentence, it reminded me about what I have studied in other communication classes. The concept of communication is actually quite complex compared to how I thought of it before. Understanding that the interaction between others during their communication process will be different depending on several factors is important when communicating with others.
References:
Osborn, Michael, et al. Public Speaking: Finding Your Voice, 10th Ed. Pearson, 2015.
Warren, John T., and Deanna L. Fassett. Communication: a Critical/Cultural Introduction. SAGE, 2015.