Comm250 Notes 09 19 2014 Lecture 1 Issues in Defining Communication Must Communication So many different definitions of communication that those outside the field criticize it Be Intentional o Watzlawick Beavin Jackson 1967 o Some believe that the sender must intend to send a message in order for communication to take place o The problem is that this is very sender focused because there are receivers o Good because it limits what is and isn t communication o Some believe that communication does not have to be intentional you cannot not communicate o Problematic because it makes communication too broad and difficult to distinguish comm from other fields Have Correspondence o Does the message sent have to equal the message received o People take both sides some say yes some say no o Any meaning received is enough for communication to have o Do you have to get the person to do what you want in order to taken place Be Successful have the message received o Some say yes but more say no Be Ethical Honest o Should we only study those things that are ethical honest and sincere o Or is it okay to study things like lying behavior and deception Include Symbolic Actions o The answer is yes but the issue is whether or not we should include only codified symbols Codified symbols have specific meanings that we know what they mean Words nonverbal o Should we include signals that come from our body that aren t necessarily controllable Include Cognition Thought Perception o Whether or not these factors are enough to constitute o Some don t think we should limit communication to just these communication factors Be Human to Human o Whether or not communication should just be between human and humans or other animals Lecture 2 Why is it important to define communication A process in which individuals use symbols to establish and interpret meaning in their environment definition Models of Communication Linear to get across o Sender encodes creates the message has meaning they want o Encoding is the process of taking pure ideas thoughts and feelings labeling them with symbols and then organizing them in some way o Meaning lies in the message o Send the message through a channel o The channels are the 5 senses o Receiver decodes the process of figuring out what the message means o One way model goes from left to right o Set up so that a message is coming to an audience Ex radio o Noise is anything that interferes with the sending and receiving of messages Physical external noise anything that is external to the participants that interferes with the communication process Ex loud sounds large billboard TV Interactional Semantic has to do with the meaning of the words Ex you don t understand know what a word is different languages medical jargon slang Psychological any predispositions or biases that interfere with sending and receiving of messages Ex disagree with the other person different beliefs political religious etc Physiological body does something that interferes Ex hunger pain deafness tired sick o Two way model of communication o Sender encodes the message sends it through a channel to the receiver who decodes it noise can interfere o Feedback response to the message lets the sender know what meaning the receiver got from the message o Field of experience everything about a person that they bring to the communication experience age gender religious affiliation every experience you ve had up to this point o The importance of the field of experience is that we use it to understand messages o There needs to be some overlap in the field of experience but the more overlap the better we can understand each other Transactional o Simultaneous communication sending and receiving messages occurs at the same because of nonverbal communication o You cannot not communicate We know look at communication as taking place in a content driven environment can effect the rules for communication Lecture 3 Defining Theory What is Theory Stephen Littlejohn Any conceptual representation or explanation of a phenomenon o Phenomenon is communication behavior o Theories represent reality but are not reality in and of itself o Theories create an explanation to a question that is posed A set of statements specifying an explanatory relationship between two or more classes of phenomenon Mary John Smith o Theories must answer the question how or why o Theories link concepts together Theory vs Taxonomy and Model Taxonomy o A conceptual representation of categories of a phenomenon o Ex natural sciences kingdom phylum class etc Example of a Taxonomy Marwell Schmitt s Compliance Gaining Strategies The strategies o Promise o Threat o Expertise positive o Expertise negative o Liking o Pre giving o Aversive stimulation o Debt o Moral appeal o Self feeling positive o Self feeling negative o Altercasting positive o Altercasting negative o Altruism o Esteem positive o Esteem negative What strategies people use to get others to do things Lumped similar strategies together and gave them labels The Taxonomy Marwell Schmitt 1967 I Rewarding Activities o Promise liking pre giving II Punishing Activities o Threat aversive stimulation III Expertise o Expertise positive and negative IV Activation of Impersonal Commitments o Moral appeal self feeling pos and neg altercasting pos and neg esteem pos and neg o Take it beyond the person and go more broadly V Activation of Personal Commitments o Altruism and debt Organized the 16 strategies based on commonality and labeled them Who Would Consider a Taxonomy a Theory Stephen Littlejohn would consider taxonomy a theory Mary John Smith would not because she believes that theory involves explanatory relationships Theory vs Taxonomy and Model Model o A simplified representation of reality o Specifies relationships between concepts o Temporal order time beginning middle end Models have multiple concepts and say how the different concepts relate fearful Example of a Model The Extended Parallel Processing Model Kim Witte 1992 Public service announcements were designed to make people Witte wanted to know how people respond to these frightening messages are they so fearful that they do it or ignore it She created a model of how people respond Key concepts o Self efficacy whether or not the person can perform the act o Response efficacy belief in the effectiveness of the response o Both go into perceived efficacy o Perceived efficacy ability to do what the message is saying o Perceived threat is made up of
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