CAS100B:

Lesson 2: The Nature of Communication: Transmitting and Receiving Messages

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Lesson Overview

Lesson 2 exposes you to the notion of communication as "processual."  This means that much of what occurs when we interact with others is shaped by our relationships to those others, what we bring to the situation, and characteristics of the situation itself. Our exchanges, in turn, have consequences for our relationships, who we are, and the outcomes we experience.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you should:

• be aware of basic principles of human communication.
• overcome common myths concerning communication.
• develop an appreciation of the dual roles of speaking and listening in successful communication.

Lesson Readings & Activities

By the end of this lesson, make sure you have completed the readings and activities found in the Lesson 2 Course Schedule.

Background

Individuals sometimes view success in communication as a relatively simple matter. After all, we start communicating early on and continue throughout our lives. The mere experience of communicating, in principle, should lead to continual improvements in our skill as communicators. To some extent this is true, but experience alone is usually insufficient for substantial improvement. Of equal, if not greater, importance is a knowledge of how communication works, what conditions and capabilities contribute to success, and what factors and practices may lead to its breakdown.

This lesson introduces you to some important information about what communication is, what determines the success and failure of communicative acts, and how this knowledge can help you to become more skillful in your interactions with others, especially in small groups. The lesson will also enable you to reflect on your own past successes and failures in communication and thereby develop new insights into how much they are a product of practices you have typically followed, versus how much may be the result of other factors over which you have little if any, control. Such insight can lead you to a more realistic set of expectations about your interactions with others than those who have not formally studied communication usually have.

In Chapter 2 (pp. 21-38) of the textbook, the authors emphasize the fact that communication involves the exchange of symbols (words and actions) that represent thoughts and feelings. The thoughts and feelings themselves are not exchanged. Because individuals who are interacting with one another seldom, if ever, have identical meanings for the symbols they exchange, some degree of miscommunication is inevitable. The degree of miscommunication, however, can be minimized if one is careful about how he or she frames messages, uses feedback (others' reactions) to messages to form later ones, and provides feedback, so that those with whom he or she is communicating can do the same. To use and provide useful feedback requires that one be a careful listener. Knowing this, you may have a greater appreciation for the attention in Chapter 2 that the authors pay to listening in the communication process. As you move through the chapter, you will discover that the authors are primarily concerned that the reader understand that communication is a process, that success in the process depends heavily on communicators' ability to bring shared meanings to the symbols they exchange, and that they cannot do this very well if they are careless about how either they form messages (choose what to say) or attend to them (listen), not to mention ignoring other sources of interference.

For a visual illustration of this process, you may find the video below to be of interest.

Lesson 2 Essay Nature of Communication

Assignment

Think of some experience you have had (preferably in a group situation) in which you came away feeling, “We just were not communicating.” Write a short account of the experience in which you first describe what happened that led you to think that communication was not occurring or, at least, not occurring as you would have liked and then, drawing on the material covered in Chapter 2 of the textbook (pp. 21–38), offer plausible reasons for the breakdown or failure. Did the problem appear to be a result of the ways in which the parties involved were forming and transmitting messages, poor listening, or a combination of both? Develop your account in sufficient detail at either the content or relational level and with enough specific illustrations that a person with no knowledge of the situation could read your account and say to him- or herself, “Well, that makes sense. I can easily see why these people failed to communicate successfully.” You should be able to complete this assignment in 250 to 500 words.

Expected Outcome

Carefully reading the pertinent material in Chapter 2 of the textbook and applying it to the situation you have chosen for your submission should make you more sensitive to the communication realities of everyday life and appreciative of the complex nature of human interaction. Often we attribute what we perceive to be failures in communication to the deliberate unwillingness of one or more of the parties to communicate. This is sometimes the case, but in most instances, such a view represents a gross oversimplification. When we understand that successful communication is almost always complicated, we are on the road to becoming better at it.

Contribution to Course Grade 4%