Wk 10 Discussion, Question 1

The concept from the book that I found to be the most interesting was false memory. False memory is information that is painful or unpleasant can be pushed aside, while things that never happened can be remembered as though they were true. I think this concept is very interesting because I think at some point in all of our lives this will happen to us. We will all experience some type of false memory. We all have painful experiences whether it be with our friends, family, coworkers, or even our community. When something terrible happens to us we try not to think about it. We try and replace it with positive thoughts. Sometimes those thoughts can be so overpowering that you come to believe that they are true. I've experienced false memory before. I was going through a really rough time with my ex boyfriend. We were fighting a lot and it was causing a lot of stress for both of us. When I would sleep I would have dreams about how I wanted everything to work out and how I wanted our next conversation to go. I would dream about this so often and so strongly that I would start thinking they were true when I woke up. After I got to thinking about it some more I realized that it was only a dream and not reality.

Wk 10 Discussion, Question 2

We finally made it to the end! The past 10 weeks have been a little challenging but the class was great. I really enjoyed all of the things that we have learned. I really enjoyed learning about all of the different types of speaking such as impromptu speaking, extemporaneous speaking and manuscript speaking. I know that I used impromptu and extemporaneous speaking in my previous communication classes and it was nice to refresh my memory on what they are and how to use them properly. I also learned more on how to prepare a speech and what techniques I should use such as chronological order, spatial order or topical order etc. There are a number of other things that I learned throughout the class that I know I will use no matter where I go in life.

I really liked the way the class was scheduled. I feel that the assignments were very reasonable and they did help me understand the concepts a little more. I think the discussions were also a very good way to keep the class connected. An online class is hard enough when you don't meet face to face with the professor but not meeting classmates face to face is hard too because you don't have a way to reach out to someone who is in the class if you need help. I think that having us comment on other students post was good because it helped us develop a link with classmates so we could reach out to them if we needed to.

Overall the class was great. I really did enjoy the past 10 weeks. The professor made the class really enjoyable even though it was over the summer!

Wk 10 Discussion, Question 3

Of all the concepts that we covered in class over the past ten weeks, the one that I found to be my favorite was the concept "the medium is the message." The textbook describes this concept as the channel through which a message is transmitted is as important as the message itself and that the channel, in fact, often determines which messages will be transmitted and which will be ignored. I think this is my favorite because it is very true. I took a PR class at SJSU about the media and society. We learned all about the different types of medium and everything that I learned in that class relates to this concept. The marketing teams of companies need to be smart when they choose what medium to select to sell their products. If they choose the wrong one then their problem can fail overnight.

Wk 9 Discussion, Question 1

The social constructionist perspective sees communication as a process whereby people, using the tools provided by their culture, create collective representations of reality. Whatever culture you belong to is the ultimate influence of how you shape the reality of the world around you. We use communication to “build worlds” around our sense of reality. We each use communication to see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear in the world. If we choose to hear only the negative things about a specific group of people then negativity is going to be communicated to us. Some ideas that we talk about in our culture that may not exist in other cultures is democracy. Democracy is how the United State functions and without it I think that we would have major problems. The country was founded on democracy and I don’t think the United States would have made it as far as it has in history without democracy.

Wk 9 Discussion, Question 2

In the pragmatic perspective communication consists of a system of interlocking, interdependent moves, which have become patterned overtime. The class textbook says that this perspective focuses on the game people play when they communicate. I think that it makes sense to think of communication as a patterned interaction because people tend to do a lot of the same things in communication that follow a specific pattern. Communication is also like a game. When people communicate people always test the waters to find out what they can get away with. They do this to figure out what they can and cannot say. People also know certain steps to take in order to get what they want out of certain people when they communicate with them. On the other hand communication is not like a game because it doesn’t always follow the pattern that people think it will take. You can say something to one person and expect them to come back with a specific response, but they can surprise you and come back with something completely different.

Wk 9 Discussion, Question 3

The concept from chapter 2 that I choose to discuss is Key. Key is the tone or spirit (for example, joking, aggressive, or ecstatic) in which a given activity is undertaken. I thought reading about the key of a persons voice was interesting because there are a great number of different keys that one persons voice can make. After I read this part of the chapter I tried to pay attention to all of the different keys that my voice takes in one day while I speak. I noticed that I made more then I thought I would. I used a different key with every person that I talked to in that one day of observation. I was in different situations with everyone so the way that my voice sounded was different. I also tried to listen to the different keys in the voices of the people that I talked to in that one day. That was interesting as well because they were all different then mine.

Wk 8 Discussion, Question 1

After looking at all of the research methods presented in table 13.3 the one method that seemed most interesting to me is the ethnography method. Ethnography is when a researcher observes behavior in it's natural setting. They do this to describe the communication practices of a group of people. I think that ethnography is very interesting. I think that it would be fun to go and observe a group of people that I don't know anything about and try to figure out how they do things.

If I were to study some aspect of deception and I had to come up with a research question my question would be How often do people feel a sense of deception from someone they love? I always hear stories on the radio of people who have been deceived by someone that they love. I want to know if it happens as often as these people make it sound. I think the type of research method that I would choose to answer this question would be survey research. Survey research is a very good method to reach out to a lot of people at one time. It could help with finding out the answer to my question.