C02520 Analysis 2.1
K. Pointer
CO2520 Analysis 2.1 (Week 3)
Societal Influences on Communication and Perception In today’s society it would appear that we are communicating more as time passes with the addition to social media into individual lives. With applications such as Twitter, YouTube, and Face book, people are able to communicate with people around the world almost instantly as well as see the things that are being experienced in other countries. However, even though this has somehow made the world seem a bit smaller, communication has not gotten better. Miscommunication is actually now more readily noticeable because of the amount of social media that is available. We begin to see the societal and cultural factors that lead to misunderstandings resulting in miscommunication. When we communicate most of us receive the information based off our sense of perception at that time. What we see, hear, taste, smell, or touch is all based on how we perceive it. This perception is developed at infancy and because of this many people forget that others were raised completely different than they may have been raised. During our childhood we begin to organize things in our mind by our experiences so that we can categorize them, interpret what it is, and then make a sound decision on how to respond to what has just been perceived. Often times our parents or lack of has a huge effect on how this information is interpreted. If the parents are used to labeling things to describe them then the child is more likely to be used to labels in order to categorize things. Unfortunately these labels also lead to stereotypes which in turn attributes to loss in communication. People often consider themselves as multidimensional so to label someone or stereotype them could instantly make them less receptive to the message being given. For example, if a person is interested in computers he may be labeled a ‘nerd’. Or if a person is interested in sports he may be labeled a ‘jock’. This
CO2520 Analysis 2.1 (Week 3)
Societal Influences on Communication and Perception In today’s society it would appear that we are communicating more as time passes with the addition to social media into individual lives. With applications such as Twitter, YouTube, and Face book, people are able to communicate with people around the world almost instantly as well as see the things that are being experienced in other countries. However, even though this has somehow made the world seem a bit smaller, communication has not gotten better. Miscommunication is actually now more readily noticeable because of the amount of social media that is available. We begin to see the societal and cultural factors that lead to misunderstandings resulting in miscommunication. When we communicate most of us receive the information based off our sense of perception at that time. What we see, hear, taste, smell, or touch is all based on how we perceive it. This perception is developed at infancy and because of this many people forget that others were raised completely different than they may have been raised. During our childhood we begin to organize things in our mind by our experiences so that we can categorize them, interpret what it is, and then make a sound decision on how to respond to what has just been perceived. Often times our parents or lack of has a huge effect on how this information is interpreted. If the parents are used to labeling things to describe them then the child is more likely to be used to labels in order to categorize things. Unfortunately these labels also lead to stereotypes which in turn attributes to loss in communication. People often consider themselves as multidimensional so to label someone or stereotype them could instantly make them less receptive to the message being given. For example, if a person is interested in computers he may be labeled a ‘nerd’. Or if a person is interested in sports he may be labeled a ‘jock’. This
References: Alberts, J., Nakayama, T., & Martin, J. (2007). Communicating Identities/ Communicating Perceiving and Understanding. In Human communication in society (3rd ed., pp. 54-102). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.