Monday, March 30, 2009

organizational - personal.


Informal Communication can occur in all aspects of life. In organizational communication, informal communication can also be known as gossip. Gossip can be referred to as "water-cooler talk" and can be passed on through the "grapevine." Informal communication, or gossip, is the person to person communication between two employees of an organization, which often is facilitated by events within the organization.
The summer before my freshman year in college, I worked at Abercrombie & Fitch. Working there, I gained a lot of respect for anyone who works in retail. The store employees many high school and college students, and is usually managed by a college graduate, who has majored in business management. 
Many of the employees work five hour shifts and cannot wait until their shift is over. It is extremely surprising how much each employee knows about one another and the managers. Often times, I would spend my shift folding clothes and working the register with one other person. Working during the day, when most other people are at work too, the store is kind of slow, which allows for gossip time. Also, since many of my co-workers are relatively the same age, it is easy to share stories during slow periods. 
Throughout my summer, I found out alot about the other people I worked with and my managers. Many times it affected how I perceived a certain person or who I spent most of my time talking to. However, I learned to not judge a book by its cover and I also learned to listen quietly while others complained. I was able to avoid my managers on their cranky days and help out as much as possible on days they were willing to pass off jobs. It is clear informal communication can be a positive and negative thing in the workplace. 

organizational - artifact/structure.


In designing my own organization, I am choosing to establish the National Women's Cycling Association (which might already exist). This organization's goal would be to unite all the women cyclists in the nation and bring them together at specific events, such as races, training programs, and conventions. 
In assuming leader, I would establish a supportive communication style within the organization. I would rather help my members out, than yell at them or always tell them they are doing something wrong. Lately, interviewers have consistently asked me what type of leader I am and what qualities I possess. Every time I tell them I do not like to dictate or tell a person exactly how to do something. I like other people to give me their opinions, so I can help them, and the entire group, come up with a plan that works for all of us. In this cycling organization, I would like to help them, support them, and encourage them. 
In designing this organization, there are definitely pros and cons. When employees or members receive support, they are more likely to be motivated to continue working hard and doing well. Encouragement allows them to have self-satisfaction as well. They learn to become confident and self-efficient. This structure of communication may not be good because it may allow members to become over confident. Also, it may give the member a false sense of hope. They might start to think their boss, or the leader, is more of a friend. Therefore, when they do something wrong and have to be disciplined or corrected by the boss, the friendship may be affected. 

organizational- definition.


Culture can be defined in all different ways, but according to dictionary.com culture is defined as "the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic or age group." In organizational communication, there are four different ways to define culture. The four types of culture are tough-macho guy, work-hard-play-hard, bet-your-company, and process culture. 
Tough-macho-guy culture involves those who are put into high risk situations, such as police officers, military personal, and surgeons. These people often have to act tougher than they actually are or tougher than they actually feel in order to get their job done. The name of this culture is extremely stereotypical because it suggests the exclusion of woman. However, it is obvious women can be put in the same high risk situations and men and handle them equally. Often times these people are considered tough because they have to be courageous and brave to enter into the situations they do. 

Work-hard-play-hard cultures focus on sales and making their customers happy. They want to work hard to meet their customers needs. By working hard individually, a person is working to make the company better as a whole. If individuals succeed in the company, the company will improve and succeed as a whole. This relational progress will ultimately make the individual happier, allowing them to continuously work hard. Individuals in this company are usually determined, highly motivated, and initiative taking. Some examples of these cultures are Mary Kay Cosmetics, McDonalds, and IBM. According to the Mary Kay Website, "every day Mary Kay is changing lives of women and children around the world. It is part of the Mary Kay heritage, and we are honored to continue Mary Kay Ash's legacy of making a difference." Mary Kay has individual make-up consultants who strive to make other people's live better. Since they all work towards creating a better business, they are individually happier. 

Bet-your-company cultures endure high risks, but do not see immediate results. The feedback they receive is slow and is therefore not immediate. Some companies that exhibit this culture would be oil companies, architectural firms, and the military. The military was sent into Iraq taking extreme risks, however the feedback from their actions has been slow and minute. It could take years before the military receives the results they want or expect.

Process cultures endure low risks and receive feedback slowly. Often times, these employees do not see the results of their actions while they are still working. These cultures hold long meetings to discuss the best action. Since these cultures include the government and pharmaceutical companies, they must ensure that their action is the best possible action available. If the government implemented a law too quickly, they would soon regret it if something went terribly wrong. They must test the pros and cons of every decision they make to ensure it is plausible. 

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

health- personal.


My mom and I have this tradition to do a girl's shopping weekend every year with her good friend and her daughter (my good friend, Emily). The summer after Emily and I's sophomore year, we were lucky enough to be able to persuade our moms to take us to New York City to go shopping. Throughout the entire weekend, my left wrist was really bothering me. I kept complaining about it throughout the weekend, but everyone just joked it was probably from carrying all the shopping bags. 
When we returned home after our lovely weekend of shopping, I continued to complain about how much my left wrist hurt. My mom said we would continue to keep and eye on it throughout the upcoming week. Well, by the middle of the week I was stuck on the couch watching television because my wrist hurt so badly that I could not move it. Finally, my mom decided it was time to take me to the walk-in clinic to get it looked at. At the walk-in clinic, the doctor took x-rays to see if I had broken anything. When the x-rays came back with no broken bones, the doctor continued to look at my wrist. By the time she got done playing with my wrist, I was bitting my lip and fighting back tears. When the doctor left the room to go check on something, my mom quickly called my pediatrician to get me an appointment. My mom told her what was going on and she said to come over immediately after we got done at the walk-in clinic. 
After the doctor at the walk-in clinic told me to go home take some motrin and put some ice on it, we rushed over to my pediatrician's office. There, my doctor told me to go to the hospital to get some blood work done and to have it looked at it. I ended up spending three days in the hospital with cellulitis, or a virus within my cells. I was later told at the hospital that if I would have gone home like the first doctor told me to, I may have lost my hand and wrist to amputation. 
Completely frustrated by the care we received at the walk-in clinic, my mom wrote them a letter complaining about our doctor and her neglect. She complained about her rude bed-side manner and her diagnosis. She told them how I was clearly in pain when she was examining me and how she continued to turn my wrist in every single way, creating more pain. This is a perfect example of horrible health communication. It is the doctor's responsibility to have good bed-side manners in order to help the patient efficiently and effectively. 

health- artifact.


On youtube.com, there are many examples of prescription drug commercials. These commercials are a great example of health communication and the importance of communication in healthcare. The Zoloft commercial, often seen on television, starts by describing the symptoms of depression. It says if you don't currently enjoy doing the things you used to or things just don't feel the same, you might suffer from depression. They go on to say that depression is a serious illness, which 20 million Americans suffer from yearly. While the cause of this disease is unknown, it may be related to a chemical inbalance of nerve cells in the brain. The prescription drug, Zoloft, is supposed to correct this inbalance. 
There are many people in the world who disagree with healthcare procedures or refuse to see their doctor or dentist. This is where mass communication comes in. If a person refuses to see their doctor for his or her yearly check up, commercials such as the Zoloft commercial may be helpful. Whereas other commercials can be used as persuasive ads, so can prescription drug commercials. These commercials may just prompt someone who has not seen their doctor in years to go see their doctor about issues they have been having. The commercial shows that once the pill is taken, life can improve and people can feel happy again. If a person can relate to the commercial and see the hope of being happy again, they just might go see their doctor. 

health- definintional


As we have seen throughout this class so far, communication can take place in many different settings and falls into many different categories. When dealing with health communication, there are five categories of communication that can be used. According to Corcoran, these five categories are intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational, community, and public/mass communication. It may seem surprising that this many types of communication can be used in one broad category of communication, such as health communication. However, it is actually quite easy to picture. 
Imagine any health facility, such as the Boys Town Research Hospital. Lets say you go there because you think your allergies are getting worse and your pre-prescribed prescription is no longer working. After the doctor examines you, he or she must use intrapersonal communication. Using this internal communication, he or she must think to his or herself what medication or treatment would be best in the given situation. He or she must way the pros and cons of the treatment they decide on. Once the doctor has developed a plan, he or she will then portray interpersonal communication, or communication on a personal level. This is seen when the doctor presents his or her findings and diagnosis. This is where you may be presented with a new prescription or told why your old one is currently not working well. 
 Because many doctors work in a family practice or large hospital, before the doctor presents you your diagnosis through interpersonal communication, he may use organizational communication with his colleagues. In this form of communication, your doctor may explain your symptoms and his findings to the rest of the doctors in his practice to make sure they agree with his diagnosis. Another form of organizational communication that may occur, even before the doctors see patients, is the establishment of rules and guidelines on how to act, treat, and decide on a diagnosis. With the help of this organizational communication, the doctors should always be on the same path as each other. 
If you went in to see your doctor about your allergies and he interpersonally communicates to you that your prescription was filled incorrectly with different medication, this may call for community communication. The family practice or hospital may put out a local, public announcement recalling your specific prescription. Even though no harm was done by the incorrect prescription, they want to make sure everyone who is supposed to be taking that prescription is actually taking THAT prescription. 
In larger cases, other than allergy medicines and more similar to an epidemic of some sort, the doctors would have to take certain precautions and use mass communication. In this case, they would have to notify people nationally of the epidemic and what people should do to avoid it or help control it. It is obvious that health communication involves several other types of communication. Since doctors are responsible for their patient's health, good communication is really important when it comes to health. 

Thursday, March 19, 2009

nonverbal communications - personal.


   The use of nonverbal messages within communication often involves cultural influence. Depending on where you live around the world, nonverbal messages can vary because of personal space. Within the United States, personal space is regarded highly among its citizens. In the States, we like to create what many call a "personal bubble." This personal bubble is considered the 1.5 to 4 feet of personal space around us that we like to keep for ourselves. In contrast to the States, many European countries are more accustomed to intimate distance, or the zero to eighteen inches around them. The reason they use zero to eighteen inches is because they are much more intimate with everyday people, while Americans reserve that space for close friends and family. 
Even those these boundaries are different in various countries, they can often be crossed. For instance, in America we have what we call a "close talker," or somebody who invades the personal bubble. When somebody decides to talk very close to my face, my first reaction is to back away. I know this because it happens quite frequently to me because my dad is a close talker. It is really funny because when he gets so close to talk, I back away, and then I get in trouble for "not listening" and walking away. 
It is one thing when a close talker is talking to you, but it also can be fun to watch a close talker from an observing position. Knowing my father is a close talker, it is fun to watch him in certain situations and see how other people react. When we are at my cottage and he is talking to my uncle, they are really close, but my uncle does not back away. This may because my uncle has known my father for many years and is completely comfortable with him being that close. 
When my dad talks to colleagues at a work party, it is a completely different story. Many times when he gets in his employee's face, he or she starts to back away or fidget with his or her hands. 
I think it is fun to think about close talkers in different cultures. Would it be more beneficial for my dad to run an international company where he communicates with Europeans more often? Would they be more open to his tendencies as a close talker? 

nonverbal communication - artifact.


Often times, advertisement can be used as a form of nonverbal communication in today's society. Nonverbal communication can be used to replace verbal messages or communication, it reinforces or adds to verbal communication, and it can be a contradictory sign to verbal messages. The main use of nonverbal communication in advertisement is to replace verbal communication or add to it. 
This advertisement is advertising dance lessons. If this advertisement were placed on a billboard somewhere along the highway, it would take the place of verbal communication. I don't know about you, but I would find it kind of weird and unproductive for someone to be standing along the highway with a megaphone advertising dance lessons. In this instance, nonverbal communication is more effective for the company and easier for the drivers to pay attention to/notice. If these dance lessons were also advertised on a radio broadcast or commercial on the radio, then this advertisement would be in addition to verbal communication. 
Either way, advertisements are a great form of nonverbal communication. Creative and decorative, they draw attention from people without the use of spoken word or vocalizations. They allow people the ability to be focused on two different things, such as driving and learning about dance lessons from the billboard. In addition to a great form of advertisement, nonverbal communication also allows for multitasking in our busy lives. 

nonverbal message - definitional.

NONVERBAL MESSAGES
Within the study of communications, there are four kinds of communication that are used throughout everyday life. The four categories of messages within communication are...
  1. verbal/nonvocal messages
  2. nonverbal/vocal messages
  3. nonverbal/nonvocal
  4. verbal/vocal 
Verbal/nonvocal messages involve words, but they are not spoken or vocalized. These words may be in the written form. 
Nonverbal/vocal messages are vocalizations that do not involve words, or that involve nonspecific words. These messages may include groans or vocalizations, such as "uh."
Nonverbal/nonvocal messages are gestures and appearances which do not involves sounds. Some examples of these messages may be a high five or a hand wave. 
Verbal/Vocal messages involve spoken word communication. 

According to www2.andrews.edu, "nonverbal communications involves those nonverbal stimuli in a communication setting that are generated by both the source [speaker] and his or her use of the environment and that have potential message value for the source or receiver [listener]." Throughout society, there are many different types of nonverbal communications, such as the three types mentioned above (nonverbal/vocal, verbal/nonvocal, nonverbal/nonvocal). More specific examples include ...
  • touch 
  • glance
  • eye contact (gaze)
  • volume
  • vocal nuance
  • proximity 
  • gestures
  • facial expressions ? pause (silence)
  • intonation 
  • dress
  • posture
  • smell 
  • word choice and syntax
  • sounds (paralanguage)