Course Basics

Question 1

( The coordinated management of meaning)

• Process
• Systemic
• Symbolic
• Meanings
• Management of meaning
• Coordination of meaning and action

Answer 1

An ongoing continuous process

• not just a single encoded and decoded message
• No clear beginning and no clear end.

Systemic

• A set of pieces that make up a system
• You need to understand the complex relationships between those parts in order to understand the system.

Symbolic

• It relays on symbols, it can’t happen without it.
• Thus it is an interpretive process so it always be a little imperfect.

Meanings

Management of meaning
- Not just about transmitting meanings but making and managing them.

Coordination of meaning and action

Question 2

Communication Defined

Answer 2

“Communication is a systemic process in which people interact with and through symbols to interpret, create, and manage meanings, relationships, and social worlds.”

Question 3

Constitutive View Of Communication

Answer 3

• Communication is not just message transmission.
• Communication is also action.
• We MAKE relationships with communication.

Communication makes relationships and a web of social relationship therefore communication creates/shapes social worlds.

Question 4

What is a theory?

Answer 4

• Explains phenomena
• It’s a set of ideas and concepts.
• Is a prediction
• Lens(gives perspective & helps us make sense and brings something into focus)
• A tool for sense-making
• Helps to structure reality
• A tool for academics (relationship between therapy and research)
• A tool for practitioners (Kurt Lewin: “There is nothing more practical than theory…”

Question 5

How can we approach the study of human communication “scientifically?”

Answer 5

Communication is an intangible process between us.

Traditionally it is studied through modeling.

Question 6

Linear Model

Answer 6

Shannon & Weaver (1949)

Indea->Sender->Encode->Message(an encoded idea)-> Channel -> Decode->Receiver->Idea

Question 7

Interaction Model

Answer 7

Feedback

Question 8

Transactional Model

Answer 8

Simultaneous

• Sending
• Receiving
• Encoding
• Decoding

Environment & Context is important

It is a continuous process

Intentional or unintentional (you cannot not communicate)

Question 9

A new(er) model

Transmission view of com

Constitutive view of com

Answer 9

Transmission view of com- the previous edit three models (linear, interactive,transactional)

Constitutive view of com- The upcoming “Serpentine model”

W.Barnett Pearce

Question 10

Constitutive rule

Answer 10

A rule of meaning formed from your social world

-> Regulative rule