What to like and what not to like

There were a few things I really like about taking this course that were different from other online courses I have taken in the past. The first thing is that I never got to do a blog in any other of my online classes. It felt kind of cool to have your own website that you could put your ideas on and that wa nice. The other thing I liked is being able to view other people's ideas on their blog. This was fun because you got to see a wide range of opinions on one subject. This creates a unique learning experience. Now to the things that could use some work.
I felt liek a lot of the assignments were very repetitive. All of the projects we had to do were about concept application. After doing a couple of the papers I felt like I had to try really hard not to repeat information i had in another assignment. Grading the journals was also something nthat didn't really fit for me. While it is interesting to grade the journals as we are sort of switching roles form student to professor, this is something that got fairly repetitive as well and really didn't feel like it enhanced my learning experience.

Cool Mediums

Cool medium is one concept that I don't really think I grasped in the course. The discussion about how television is a "cool" medium because it gives you so much information at once compared to like a newspaper or the radio, i guess confuses me. Is it because it stimulates more than one sense at once. I mean I don't get it.

Collectivism vs.Individualism

My favorite discussion in this course was probably individualism vs collectivism. It is a part of everyday life that here in America we are indivisualistic in the way we think and act. The media portrays a sense of individuality and it is looked upon in the community as well. Everybody wants to be their own person, but at the same time people get put into group listings and get put under categories. It would be crazy to think of a culture where individualism wasn't looked at as a primary way of viewing yourself and the world around you.
Collectivism is prcaticed in many Asian cultures and really focuses on the importance of the group primarily. This is something different to look at because this is simething we're not used to here in American culure. It would certainly be interesting to see more of a emphasis on the group here. There would be a backlash against that here because you always have people that argue against so called "socialist" views. Overall this is the concept in the course that has interested me most this semester.

Obstinate Audience

I think it is funny how far research has come over the past fifty or so years. The mention of the idea of the passive audience is interesting to look at. People just going about their lives passively consuming what they see without any sort of opinion. These activities are viewed only as ways to be mindless and get away from the perrils of everyday life. It was actually progressive thinking in that time to think that an audience forms an opinion about the forms of media they consume.
The idea of an obstinate audience is something that seems like it would be common sense. The idea that consumers have an opinion and make decisions that dictate the media that they are exposed to follows the idea of human thought. What person wouldn't think about what movie they are going to go see or what type of music they are going to listen to. While this idea lost popularity over time and was thought by theorists to be incomplete, it does show a step in the right direction. This is just a small example of how much communication theory has evolved over time.

Cool Mediums

I agree with McLuhan that the format of a medium determines the content of the message. In order to have the television be successful you start with the television. The format would be a screen that you stare at. In order to have that screen capture interest, you have to have content that is interesting. In this way format determines what kind of content you have to have. The format of the TV also allows for a lot of content to be accessed, that may not be able to be accessed through another medium. While i agree with the fact that the format determines that content of the message, i do not know if I agree with the idea of television being a "cool" medium.
The fact that the radio was suggested as a hot medium as compared to TV's cool distinction doesn't make sense to me. While TV may stimulate more senses in being able to see and listen at the same time, the content can be just as differentiated in commercial play. Outside of commercials, TV shows are mostly based on one topic. This is the same as radio. I don't really understand the standing as TV being a cool medium.

Online Relationships

While I communicate online on social networking sites, I don't really spend that much time communicating on the internet as a whole. I prefer face to face communication and usually have too busy of a schedule to spend time online. I have never had a friendship that was exclusively online. I never got addicted to the computer lifestyle like many of my friends did with the online games and chatrooms. I think this is because online communication is very limited.
In a regular old style relationship, you see a person in a face to face contact and hear their voice on the phone. In a online relationship, you never see or hear the person if it is only text based. Of course there are ways where you can communicate over video chat and things. I just feel like you have to make more of a connection with a person than just communicating through an online medium. I don't feel like I spend enough time online to maintain a relationship with a person with that being the only medium

Feedback

Feedback is something that comes with age and is learned over time. When you are younger and people criticize you, you tend to take it more personally. People are scared to criticize you to your face and sometimes do it behind your back which may cause conflict if it comes back around. This has to do with owning your own message. You need to say what you think in a polite way and not put it on other people. People often apologize for their own feeling which also doesn't really make sense. You feel the way you feel for a reason and you shouldn't have to feel sorry for it.
Another part that stood out in this part of the textbook was the evaluating or interpreting your partner. This is a case in my relationship. Often times my girlfriend will ask me "what's the matter?" I won't feel upset maybe just tired. If this questioning continues I might get annoyed and then really get upset.

Filters

As far as choosing a romantic partner, sociological cues come into place. This has to do with proximity and how youcan maintain a long distance relationship. This is something i have tried before and will never try again. I think there needs to be more connection that that. As far as preinteraction cues, I am very picky here. I look for a girl that doesn't look too high maintenance. Any girl that has tons of makeup on with a designer purse and appears as if she is shopping all of the time really leads me to believe that these people are too concerned with material possesions and I think there is a lot more to life than that. This plays into cognitive cues as well. This kind of material attitude often times leads these types of people to think they are somehow better than other people.
Ducks realtional dissolution model is pretty accurate, although much of the time there is a lack of the dyadic phase. Partners often don't explain the reasons why they want to get out of the relationship, they simply leave. There is always the grave dressing phase when people reflect on what went wrong in the relationship and whatthey did wrong. This is a very accurate model though and i do agree with it.

Complementary Pattern

I think the rigid complementarity would be the hardest pattern to change. The submissive partner may very well be the one with a less mild personality. The dominant partner has a stronger personality and this makes it hard to change. Unless each partner is willing to change thier personality drastically this problem will continue for a long time. The symmetrical pattern would be the most damaging to a relationship
The symmetrical pattern would be most damaging because it involves constant competititon. When tempers flare and there may be hurtful things said. With the members always at each others throats, it would be very damaging to a relationship. This would also be the most damaging to the sefl esteem of the members involved. They constantly have to hear the negative things said about them in constant competition. Hearing these things all the time will definetely be damaging to self esteem. Symmetrical paterns seem to cause the most damage

Individualism vs Collectivism

Individualism and collectivism are very important issues to discuss considering we in America are very much form an individualistic culture. Individualism is the belief that people should do things for themselves as far as their lifestyle, their problems and their possessions. This way of thinking is very much promoted in American society through the media and cultural norms. Thinking for yourself and being your own person is constantly pushed in American culture. I agree with what the book said about individualistic cultures using horizontal relationships. I find in my own social circle that most of my friends are from the same social class and mostly the same sort of family relationships. While individualism can be discussed as it applies to American cultures, the opposite can be applied to collectivist cultures.
Collectivism uses the mindset that personal decisions should benefit the group as a whole. This is very much opposite of an American mentality and really puts emphasis on the strength of the group. The example in the book illustrates this in a good way by referring to the fact that Chinese people use their family name first, emphasizing the importance of the group. Collectivist cultures utilize vertical relationships where some people may have a higher social status than other members of the group. Collectivist cultures are interesting to look at when you are used to an individualist culture.

Rationality, Perfectability, and Mutuability

I very much agree that anyone is capable of discovering the truth through logical analysis in rationality. We are very much taught rationality in college and in a more basic sense in life. College is very much a social institution that pushes rationality as a way of critical thinking and making the right decisions. This is easy to agree with.
I very much do not agree with perfectability. I am under the impression that people are born inherently innocent given they hadn't done anything wrong. I don't think people can be held as sinful until they are actually mature and coherent enough to know the repercussions of their actions. The only institution I can believe that uses this premise is the Puritans or Quakers.
I agree somewhat with the mutuability premise that people are shaped from their environment and surroundings. This is a good explanation to a certain extent. Eventually people have to make there own rational decisions that go outside the environmnet their exposed to. The social institution this can be applied to is any educational environment one is exposed to at a young age. This is a part where environment and the people around you play an important role in your life.

Creatures of Our Culture

Our daily lives are very much shaped by our culture. This is the way we learn how to live. The people around us that are part of this culture learn how to live the same way and this slowly becomes collective. Everybody lives in the same sort of way. There are many influences such as the media and just general attitudes of people that develop over time. People that learn to live in the same environment are naturally going to have the same habits, beliefs, and barriers that keep them living the same way. Being multicultural and getting along interculturally is very difficult, but it is not impossible.
If you are in the same area with the same type of people, it is only natural that you may become ethnocentric or think your culture is more elite than others. This is becuase you will have no reason to think differently. The only way to break barriers interculturally is to become exposed to different ways of life. Be open to the fact that not the all groups of people see the world in the same way. Knowing about the attitudes of other cultures and being aware of their history is very important to communicating interculturally. In order to do this, people must be open minded.

Adaptors

Adaptors are nervous habits that pretty much everyone has. The book describes it as a version of a security blanket. Some of these adaptors are worse than others. Some people also have more adaptors than other people. I feel like I always have to be moving in many cases always hitting my pen on the desk or tapping my feet. The book discusses how these are habits that satisfy personal needs or stresses. I especially feel like this is due to stress in my personal case. Currently being at a debate tournament, it is easy to see many other people's adaptors.
In a situation where people feel a lot of stress and nervousness in debate, there are many adaptors in play. There was a girl I met who was telling me she couldn' t stop playing with her jewlery when she was speaking. Other adaptors I've observed this weekend include pulling at the neck, playing with the collar,and touching the face. I was just going through the chapter and found adaptors incredibly relevant to the activities I went through this weekend.

Nonverbal Ques in Other Cultures

Emblems are the kinesics that stand out as different from culture to culture. The book defines emblems as "kinesic behaviors whose direct verbal translations are known to all members of a social group." I haven't had any experience outside of American mainstream culture so I can use examples from the book. The hardest one to get used to for me would be the example used in the book with the head nodding. In Greece, Italy and surrounding areas nodding the head forward and backwards means no while shaking it from side to side means yes. That is just so natural to me now to do it the opposite way that it would be hard to grasp in traveling to these areas of the world.
When traveling to Hawaii there was a hand signal that was introduced along with language that is unfamiliar. The term "hang loose" means to chill out and go with the flow. The hand signal that went with it was folding the middle three fingers and outstretching the thumb and pinky. This was probably the most foreign thing I've come in contact with having never traveled out of the country.

Mistaking Non-verbal Language

I can't think of a time when I had mistakingly read someone else's nonverbal language, but I can think of a time when someone mistakingly read mine. Most of the time when I am in a bad mood my girlfriend can tell just by my nonverbal ques. Most of the time she is right, but there have been a few when she is not. Sometimes she will ask me what's wrong when there is nothing really wrong besides the fact that I'm tired. Sometimes she thinks I'm angry at her when I am really just tired. There always has to be an emphasis on context like the textbook said.
Considering the context of the situation when reading nonverbal language is very important. nonverbal language is never a given and that has to do with the ambiguity of it. This also reminds me of the last discussion question about judging people and putting them into groups. If you don't know what a person has been through before you make a judgement about their nonverbal language your estimate may be wrong. The best way to increase the accuracy of nonverbal language reading would be to consider all the posibilities of the language being used and try to pick the best explanation.

Improving Interpretation

I find this concept very interesting because it comes into play in all parts of communicating. In the case of a college student it is very important in a formal setting. In interpersonal realtionships it is necessary to maintain relationships.
College students have to place an importance on improving interpretation. This is necessary for success in classes with complex material. The idea of the perception check reminded me of a concept called reflective listening. In order to communicate successfully, you need to let the sender know how you interpreted the message in order for them to know they got the message through the way they intended it. Reflective listing or perception checking is also important in interpersonal relationships.
In disagreements the idea of interpreting successfully is very important. Everyone has their own way of communicating and this needs to be tended to in interpersonal relationships. People communicate in unclear ways especially when they are very reliant on their emotions. This is the most important time to deconstruct the message and ignore your feelings. This is a concept that stood out in the book. Considering the other persons feelings is something that is needed for successful communication to take place.

Gender Differences in Communication

I agree that men and women communicate differently than each other in certain areas and contexts. A lot of men like to show their toughness and usually speaks in a way that shows this. This often involves not really expressing emotion in a healthy manner in many cases. I've read about this phenomena as being called the "cowboy syndrome". Emotions are bottled up and sometimes come out in violent or awkward ways. This is usually in interpersonal or intimate relationships. In a work or school setting, I think there are a lot fewer differences in the way each gender communicates.
As far as female communication goes in an interpersonal or intimate setting, females simply communicate based on emotion. They are able to communicate their emotions very effectively and this could be a negative or positive thing. Many times it is easier to understand how a female feels because of explicit expression. Other times they may be a little too expressive and this could be a negative aspect. In summarizing I think there is a big difference in the way females and males communicate.

Perception of People

In the past I found it was very easy to judge people just based on they way they look. Perceiving others came automatically with judging people. This was based solely on their looks and came through chronically accessible constructs. I would group people by the way they dressed or talked. This would allow me to make quick judgements about pretty much everybody. As you go through life and meet a larger variety of people, you learn that everyone comes form a different backgorund and it gets harder and harder to group similar looking people. This leads me to a quote from the text.
"Cognitive complexity is a mark of maturity and is necessary for good communication. (Trenholm, 2008)" I feel like having more life experience has led me to beleive that you can't judge someone without knowing them a little bit and hearing about their own life experiences. This allows us to make these judgements more fair to everyone that we interact with. The thing about cognitive complexity is it takes into account that everyone is different. Differentiated observation takes this into account and notices that everyone has had a different combination of life experiences that makes them who they are. This has to be taken into account with everyone you meet.

Cultural Studies

The cultural studies perspective really caught my attention as something to discuss. The part that intersests me is the viewing of various forms of media within a given culture that communicate power. In a way this perspective is similar to the social constructive model in that it focuses on cultures as wholes. However the social constructive model does not put the emphasis on power structure. You can look at various examples in the media here in America.
In order to have this perspective be effective the media forms have to be persuasive. Most of the time with television here in America there are some very suggestive media forms especially on television. Women are depicted on American telivision and other media forms as having a certain look. Through the writing and persuasive aspects of these media forms, women now feel pressure to look a certain way. While this is not a huge form of oppression, it tells you just how powerful certain media forms can be in looking at them through the cultural studies perspective.

The Pragmatic Perspective

I think the pragmatic perspective is a good way to look at the process of communication as a whole. Communication does happen in patterns depending on who you deal with. It also follows patterns based on venues and conditions. Unlike the social construct model, the pragmatic model focuses on the individual and the patterns or games one individual goes through to acheive successful communication. I find this to be very true in certian situations in my life.
There is a difference in the way you act from person to person or place to place given certain situations. I find that when I hang out with certain friends I tend to mimic their laugh or use phrases that they use outside of phrases I would use with others. I also communicate differently in the classroom than I would at work or hanging out with my friends. This is how the process turns into a game. As the players you interact with change, so does the type of communication that goes on. You just have to be aware of this when you are communicating and changing settings.

The Social Constructionist Perspective

Within a community or culture people are exposed to people that deal with the same surroundings and conditions. These surroundings and conditions vary from culture to culture and create foundations that these cultures live by. These foundations are made up of the four elements of the social constructionist perspective: symbolic codes, cognitive customs, cultural traditions, and sets of roles and rules. In a general American social construction there are ways to explain these elements that may not exist in other cultures.
In America there is very much an emphasis on wealth as a way to communicate how successful an individual is. Americans are exposed to this in all elements of the social constructionist perspective. In other cultures the idea of success as communicated through the elements of social constructionism are very much different. In many cultures a person's success in life may be communicated through their spirituality. Many Muslim cultures take religion as first priority and the citizens of these cultures are very much exposed to this through the four elements of social constructionism.
These are just very general ways to look at very large cultures that may have many contradicting sub cultures. It can be argued that lack of either of these elements in their assigned culture may communicate a general message of unsuccessfulness.

Being an Orator and Morality

Some questions come to mind when associating an orator as a individual with good morals. This brings me directly to the textbook and the reference to the "plain" style. Trenholm (2008) describes the plain style as "built ethos by convincing the audience of the speaker's good character, good sense, and trustworthiness". This description of speaking backs the claim that an orator is morally good, but questions come to mind when discussing the "middle" style.
"The middle style emphasized logos by impressing the audience with the soundness of the speaker's position; it consisted of intricate argumentation and careful philosophical distictions. (Trenholm, 2008)" This is where the questioning starts to come. If an individual with bad morals wants to convey their point all they have to do is back their arguments with good points and use a strategy that can disguise the negative parts of their attempt to persuade. The vigorous style can do an even better job of this.
The vigorous style involves the middle position and adds emotion to that formula. Once you do this it is even easier to sway a crowd to your favor. The point is that the better a orator that one individual is, the more they can be influental whether their morals are good or bad.

Chapter 1

A speaker I admire is the one who got me into communication and made me decide to major in the field. He was my professor when i went to West Valley college and his name was Paul Sanders. It is not that he spoke all of the time in our class, that was the students' job. His examples for the class showed his ability to use ethos and pathos. Not only was his personal character very easy to watch, he made the class laugh and provoked emotion. This helped me to find my own qualities when speaking.
I think my speaking style relies on logos and ethos. I rely heavily on my sources and try to create credibility. I am also able to back my arguments by the way I strategize and structure my arguments. I think a mixture of Aristotle's ideas can work to describe anyone's speaking style including my own. I believe a mixture of all styles would be the most effective way to communicate and be convincing.

Introduction and Welcome

My name is Justin Motta and I'd like to welcome you to my blog. I have been at SJSU for two and a half years now and am graduating in December with a degree in Communication Studies. In my free time I enjoy mountain biking and playing the drums. Now that I've told you all a little bit about myself I'd like to share my communication story.
I started my education at West Valley College not really sure what I wanted to do for a degree. When I had to take my first public speaking course I wasn't too thrilled, but I had an excellent proffesor who made the experience quite pleasant. After taking his public speaking course I decided to take an interpersonal class with him. Communication was a challenge for me because I've always been an introverted person. When I decided to major in COMM as a result of taking these classes I knew I was creating a big challenge for myself, which ties into my goals and what I hope to get out of this class.
Every course I have taken in COMM has really taken a different angle on ways to look at Communication. As I have been taught to look at issues through different "lenses" as most COMM professors would say. So my goal is to do well in this class, but my hope is to be able to look at COMM through a different lens to be able to broaden my knowledge in the wide world of Communication.