About Me
- Name: Rick
- Location: La Crosse, Wisconsin, United States
These blogs find me in one of my favorite roles, communication teacher. I feel blessed to be able to make a career out of better understanding, and helping others better understand, how humans communicate.
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Okay, so I'm weird. I think the communication in organizations is really interesting. The fact that I teach and study it has nothing to do with it. . . probably.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Communication Stuff Chpt. 2
How often do you look at the world through the eyes of another person? There are many cliches that suggest we should. We all know we can "walk a mile in the others shoes" and we should "do unto others as we would have them do unto us." Cliches aside, however, actually taking the perspective of another person is a very difficult thing to do. It's kind of hard to believe that the I- centered way we view the world is a cultural thing.
Likewise, the way we think about communicaton is very much a cultural thing. There are many models and theories of communication that make very different assumptions about communication. For most of us, the default model of communication focuses on transmission. A sender transmits a message to a receiver. The telephone becomes the perfect metaphor for any communication with its electronic encoding of message, its transmission of the message over copper or fiber optic cables, and the decoding of message by the phone on the receiving end.
Try this experiment. Think of communication as a waterfall. Communication begins at the top of the waterfall; there certainly is movement as the water rushes off the cliff. As the water cascades it is shaped, changed, and dispersed. Some of the water evaporates. If you're standing near the waterfall you will be cooled or chilled by the mist. Some of the water impacts the land behind the waterfall, over time this land erodes and changes shape. Most of the water lands in the pool at the bottom. Sometimes the stream into the pool is steady and predictable. Other times it seems to land in a random fashion. If the stream stops the pool at the bottom dries up.
What does this metaphor say about the communication between a student and a teacher? What does it say about the communication between you and your significant other. Who's the pool at the bottom? Where does the water at the top come from? Can we learn anything new about communication from radically changing the metaphor we use. Some people believe that our transmissional metaphor causes as many problems in understanding communication as it solves. What things about communication should a good metaphor highlight? What is your default model for thinking about communication? Does it ever prevent you from understanding communication?
--Rick
Likewise, the way we think about communicaton is very much a cultural thing. There are many models and theories of communication that make very different assumptions about communication. For most of us, the default model of communication focuses on transmission. A sender transmits a message to a receiver. The telephone becomes the perfect metaphor for any communication with its electronic encoding of message, its transmission of the message over copper or fiber optic cables, and the decoding of message by the phone on the receiving end.
Try this experiment. Think of communication as a waterfall. Communication begins at the top of the waterfall; there certainly is movement as the water rushes off the cliff. As the water cascades it is shaped, changed, and dispersed. Some of the water evaporates. If you're standing near the waterfall you will be cooled or chilled by the mist. Some of the water impacts the land behind the waterfall, over time this land erodes and changes shape. Most of the water lands in the pool at the bottom. Sometimes the stream into the pool is steady and predictable. Other times it seems to land in a random fashion. If the stream stops the pool at the bottom dries up.
What does this metaphor say about the communication between a student and a teacher? What does it say about the communication between you and your significant other. Who's the pool at the bottom? Where does the water at the top come from? Can we learn anything new about communication from radically changing the metaphor we use. Some people believe that our transmissional metaphor causes as many problems in understanding communication as it solves. What things about communication should a good metaphor highlight? What is your default model for thinking about communication? Does it ever prevent you from understanding communication?
--Rick
