Communication Fluency

       ·      Is gender equality possible in India?

Also, I live in a different culture now, and I like how open-minded people are here rather than in my country. For example, in the united states, women have more voice and are more educated than in my country. I live in a patriarchal country in which men have the last word in the house. Most of the time, men prefer to put their son in school rather than putting their daughter because, for them, women do not need to go to school since they will end up in a marriage where their husband will take care of them.  However, due to globalization, women travel a lot and can embrace other cultures. Nowadays, women know their rights and understand the importance of being educated. Therefore, they go to school and do everything in their interest to have equal rights as men in their society.  

Health contexts

Different theories allow us to understand how messages have an impact on behaviors and also the importance of messages and communication on health. As they construct the nature of health and illness, encourage healthy behaviors, and change behavior. We have the narrative theory of Walter Fisher, Barbara Sharf, and Lynn Harter, which stated that stories about health and illness help us make sense of events and determine the course of action. For example, an influencer on Instagram was diagnosed with cancer. Rather than crying every day, she told her story about how versatile life is as she was healthy one day, and the next day, she was fighting with cancer. But rather than crying in her bed, she was still doing what she loved, which was sharing pictures of herself dressing up like she used to do despite her weight loss. Sharing her story was her way of accepting her condition and helping her to fight the disease with the support of fans. Another crucial topic in health communication focuses on relationships as they are essential to our health behavior. The theory of normative social influence by Rajiv Rimal, Kevin Real, and Maria Lapinski stated that our perception of what others are doing influence our behavior.  Especially,  when we identify with the group, believe the behavior will lead to positive outcomes and believe the behavior will be sanctioned. For example, I have a cousin who wasn’t religious. But when she came to live with us, she started going to church and praying every day because, in my family, we have this ritual.

A representation of an Organization

In the book Theories of Human Communication, the organization is defined as symbolically achieved corporations. Different theories about organizational communication explore how communication is the key to organizing and structuring work of organizations. First, we have Karl Weick’s theory of organizing, which is rational for understanding how people organize and use communication as a basis for human organization. For example, in an organization, we can encounter a significant loss of control due to the lack of organization. Therefore, the theory will help the company in controlling what is coming in and out of the organization. Second, we have the organizational culture, which is the way individuals use theories, rituals, symbols, and other types of activities to produce and reproduce a set of understanding. For example, if employees in a company do not interact in the right way with each other and with their clients as well, it may harm its productivity. Third, we have the network theory, which are social structures created by communication among individuals and groups. This theory is critical in the sense that it allows managers and superiors to understand how their sector and organization function. For example, in a company, network theory will enable managers to understand the way their employees interact with each other in the workplace, and work is given to them.

The medium is a system of communication by which information is transmitted. We have various means, such as traditional/mass media and new/social media. However, face to face communication remains a crucial preference as a means of communicating. Three metaphors have been created to capture different aspects of media. We first have the nature of the medium, which affects both individuals and society. Second, we have the production of media, and it explores the quality of the medium and how the creation of media shapes culture and society. The last section of the chapter is about theories that identify media consumers as active, using media content to meet their needs. We have the agenda-setting theory, which stated that media shape the public agenda. Media do not tell us what to think, but only what we should be thinking about. For example, when there is a world cup, media show a lot of advertisements related to it. For the audience not to think of everything other than the world cup. We also have the media framing theory, which states that the way that a story is put together or structured shapes the way people understand and are affected by the content. For example, media always shows images of Africa as a continent in which wars are frequent and in which starve to death. Therefore, for people who have never been there, they always think about Africa as media portrays. We also have the uses and gratifications theory. The theory states that their needs motivate media consumers and select types of media to gratify these needs. For example, my choice of a movie always depends on the information I want to get from it.  

The fourth chapter of the Theories of Human communication’s book focuses on the message and its aspects. Different theories help us in understanding the aspect of the message. The theories in semiotics have been essential in explaining what goes into a message because it deals with how signs come to represent objects, ideas, states, situations, feelings, and conditions. They help us understand how a message comes to have meaning. The theory of phenomenology by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Edmund Husserl states that the world is known through direct experience with the phenomena or things in the world. The authors are trying to communicate that our knowledge of the world, derives from an experiment of an object, a situation or a person. We all have different ways of interpreting things because of the impact that they had on us. We also have the social construction theory of Peter Berger & Thomas Luckmann, which states that knowledge is constructed through interaction. So, what something means is found within individuals rather than the object or experience itself. In my understanding, the world itself is understood through different points of view. The way an African person view or understand something doesn’t have to be the same as how Americans perceive it as well. Each group, community, and culture develop its understanding of the world. We also have the theory of identification by Kenneth Burke, which stated that identification occurs when symbols promote understanding between people. Furthermore, persuasion only functions when there is a similarity between the speakers and the hearers. For example, when a president talks to the nation, he often uses “we” or “our” to relate with the audience. A message is vital and central to communication, but the meaning of a word depends on the person or group of people's interpretations of the message.  

Communication is excellent because it allows you to look at a situation from our perspective and understand the nature of individuals, among other communicators. To be useful in understanding the communicator, we have to follow five major groups of theories. Such as the physiological, cognitive and information processing, communication competence, theories of identity, and methods of agency. Biophysiological theories consist of Trait theories and embodiment. A trait is a distinguishing quality or characteristic. This theory allows us viewers to explain various communicators behaviors or any situation in a certain way by comparing two people. For example, you can use trait theory to know if a person is a mean or kind based on its behavior. When it comes to the embodiment, it is theories that consider the body as central to communication. For example, when we are sad, you do not need to say it for a person to know because our body communicates much clearly than our words.   Cognitive and information processing theories are more about how human think, organize, process, and store information. Cognitive and information processing theories consist of attribution and judgment, information-Integration, and consistency theories. The attribution and judgment make us understand why a person behaves in a certain way. For example, when a person always looks angry at people, the attribution theory can help its psychologist understand the leading cause of its behavior. Information-integration mostly centered on the way we store information about people and things to form an attitude. On the other hand, consistency theories are more about how we act to address contradictories attitudes and beliefs. Communication competence is composed of theories such as interaction adaptation theory, expectancy violation theory, and theory of communication competence. They all attempt to explain how and why people can behave successfully in interacting with others. Theories of identity are also about how people interact with each other in a social and cultural group. For example, when you meet a person from another culture, the person's actions can seem weird to you because of the differences. But you are the only person who can decide to adapt yourself to the person's culture and accept it. Theories of agency are the capacity to make a difference. For example, back in the days in Côte d'Ivoire, it was challenging for a Christian to get married to a Muslim. Even if the child wanted to, parents were always finding an excuse and opposing themselves. For them, a person who marries someone from another religion isn't following the norms. Nowadays, people are more open-minded and independent. They are willing to marry someone from a different religion because they are more educated. Therefore, they understand and know that what counts the most isn't the religion itself; but it is to be with someone you love and feel comfortable. You can marry a person from the same religion as you but won't be happy.  

Additionally, studying communication theory allows us to improve our communication skills and differentiate the right from the wrong and let a human being to understand each other. We have the nomothetic theory, which is the objective approach to researching human behavior and the practical theory designed to capture the rich differences among situation.