Week 17, Question 3: More Focus on Organizational Communication

The one concept that I feel needs further discussion is the Organizational Communication. There are so many corporations and organizations out there that us students are going to be involved with such as school and work. Therefore with organizations being so prevalent in our lives, it is important to focus on better understand its function and its communication methods. With better understanding organizations, we can be prepared when going into interviews or approaching our supervisors to solve a conflict. During that week's discussion, we talked about how the organizations is dependent and connected to its environment. But I feel we should also be talking about how we are dependent on them as well as how to effectively communicate with them to get what we need. After all, organizations are a big part of our lives.

Understand how to better manage organizational communication will help all of us students to get achieve higher positions in the organizations we are a part of. For an example, I could use what I learned about the information flow to my advantage my getting my publishing my work for my job. I could also use this concept to take advantage of the informal structures to learn more about the company and to get recognized by the company. This concept is really useful to me in terms of better understanding my organizations. Therefore, more focus should be on this concept of organizational communication.

Signing out,
Events Dreamer

Week 17, Question 2: Communication is interesting

Sarah Trenholm does a great job with explaining communication concepts through her book. She address the positive impacts and methods of communication as well as the negative impacts of miscommunication. Throughout this class, I found many concepts interesting such as the concept of listening, nonverbal communication, public communication etc.

But if I must choose one to talk about, I will discuss the nonverbal communication concept where your physical appearance does affect other people's impression of you and how they communicate with you. For an example, one of the physical appearance concept is how people prefer to communicate with people based on their body type. For an example, some people prefer to only talk to thin and frail people, also known as ectomorph. Also, the way you dress can affect the way people view and talk to you. Desmond Morris (as cited in Trenholm 2008) clothing or the way you dress serves 3 major function: comfort protection, modesty, and cultural display. I find this to be really true. People will dress to be comfortable and be modest with their body. Some may not dress that way because they are portraying a side of their culture. I watching the movie Mean Girls and found dress and body type truly does have an affect on other people's perception and communication with you, especially in grade school. Kids have a certain perception and favor towards what is "cool" therefore they choose to only hang out with other people who dress "cool" and ignore those who are not. Then those are not as "cool" become isolates or outcast in their own community. It's strange really. But then this gets me thinking, who defines what is "cool?" I believe that it is the mass media that defines what is cool and what is not through their television shows and their advertisements. Getting into that topic is another post, so I'll leave I'll leave it at that.


Signing out

Events Dreamer

Week 17 Question 1: Survey Research Method

The research method that I found interesting on Chapter 13's Table 13.3 is the survey research. Trenholm writes that the survey research method are used by researchers to survey groups of people through written questionnaires or face-to-face interviews. I like this method because it is direct and straightforward. With the survey research method, I can talk to people directly and be able to receive an honest answer.


Assuming that I am doing a study regarding deception, my main research question would be "What are the main causes of Deception?" To conduct this research question, I would use the survey research method to find out what the general public believe to be the cause of deception. This survey method will allow me come up with a series of questions (questionnaire) that will help me determine what the causes of deception are. These questions can range from multiple choices or even open-ended. Even though survey methods do not have extremely high response and accuracy rate, surveys are useful when researchers want to know the truth about how people fee about certain things. With surveys, researchers can make it convenient for the participants by allowing them to take it at home and turn it in at their earliest convenience.