October Blog Post

Jake terHorst

Christina Ivey

Comm 160-001

2 November 2017

October Blog Post

            Whether it is communicating about different hobbies, political ideas, or culture, communication is the bridge that connects people together through their ideas. In Chapter 10 of Communication: A Critical/Cultural introduction, written by John T Warren and Deanna L Fassett, anthropologist Clifford Geertz compares culture to a spider web that “surrounds, supports, and connects us to others with threads of meaning we create through our communication” (p.193). According to Geertz, there are four ways communication is like a spider web. First, people, like spiders, make an impact or contribution wherever they go. A woman starting a new job will influence the culture of that job.  A spider will contribute to regulating insect population in their area. Secondly, people are constantly spinning, or making and remaking culture.  Thirdly, spiders can alter the intricate woven threads in their web, much like how humans can adjuster communication in a way that makes appropriate for a time or place.  Lastly similar to how a spider web cannot be made without the spider, human culture and communication cannot work without the humans. This makes every person within a culture valuable, because without each contribution, culture would not be what it is today.

This metaphor it is very important in explaining how humans interact. Culture is not something that can be forced but is rather constantly being altered, usually little by little. And whether or not somebody intentionally attempts to change culture, every person has at some point been constitutive, or constructed character, community, and culture through language. Culture is the collective pool that we find ourselves in wherever we go. People can be a part of many different cultures simultaneously. They can be based off of socio-economic standing, hobbies, backgrounds, experience, etc. It is important that communication be tailored in a way that does not harm other individuals in other cultures. This can be especially crucial when dealing with people in independent relationships.

Interpersonal communication is defined as “the interaction or exchange that occurs between people who are in an independent relationship”. This kind of communication takes place between a husband and wife, between colleagues, or between a parent and child. The key to interpersonal communication is to “have stake in each other”. For this type of communication to work, both parties rely on each other, to some extent, to fulfill something. One form of listening that can potentially kill this form of communication would be selective listening, which is when the listener only focuses on a portion or fragment of a message. When this occurs, essential information can be missed. One way to avoid this is to give them a reason to have a stake in listening. My public speaking teacher often gives us a reason to listen before she talks about content. She will warn us ahead of time that there will be a quiz on the content or, more often, relates the content to us from the beginning. Both methods give us a reason to listen more attentively.