Mindful communication

In the last chapter, I gained new insights on mindful communication. It's more then just being ethical, or sensitive to another culture, it's making conscious choices about the words you say, how you say them, and what situation you say them in. it also seems to be more than just adapting your communication style to the situation, it's being truly present in the situation and adjusting your mode of speech and attitude accordingly. It ties into the concept of being authentic, and a whole person. Treating another person as a whole being makes mindful communication easier and makes us more mindful in other situations and of ourselves as whole people. A more holistic approach to life should begin with mindful communication, and them branch in to other areas of life. It's been a consistent theme in other areas of study as well, and starting with mindful communication seems like a good place.

Phatic Communication

Chapter 11 expanded my knowledge of phatic communication. I knew about "small talk" before, but had no idea it extended beyond "hi, how are you?" "fine". For me, though, even phatic communication can be difficult. With people I am not well acquainted with, and even some that I am, I struggle through even phatic talk. I think it may also be because of the short, unleading answers people give. When you say "fine" to how are you, or "same old, same old" to what's new, they're not really participating in the conversation even if you're interested in how they are or what's new. It seems like we need to develop new questions for this type of interaction, for personal use, so they don't become scripts, like how are you and what's new, or to tailor your approach to each person you're talking to. If I'm talking with an acquaintance or someone I know, I try to actually answer these questions, and lead the conversation in a new direction. However, this can lead to one person dominating the conversation, which can be bad, but is probably better than phatic communication.

Participatory Democracy

Seeing the different types of democracy spelled out in the web lecture was very useful to me. I have been involved in a democratic organization on campus, and through volunteer projects, have been advocating for different types of democracy. I never had names for these things, which is very important to me. When something is named, it is more easily understood. Under these various volunteer projects, such as voter drives, discussion panels, and conventions, I realize now I have been advocating for participatory democracy. The goal of these volunteer projects was to give people more access to participate in their democracy and government, to register to vote, to talk with panelists about issues and to meet and talk with other democrats and learn from them. I think of the types of democracy discussed, participatory is a good model, however I also an drawn to deliberative democracy. Reasoned discussion, I believe, should be central to all decision making, and especially in government and democracy. Dialogic democracy is an interesting concept as well, emotion and passion should be accepted arguments as long as they are based on fact. It would seem that all forms of democracy, procedural, competitive, deliberative, participatory, and dialogic should have a place in the democracy, advocacy, and government of the U.S. and other democratic governments.

Gender Differences

I found the section on gender differences in communication fascinating. I have taken communications classes in the past, and am aware of some of the differences in how men and women talk, women want to discuss problems, and men want to immediately fix them. This often leads to friction because women feel they are being told what to do when they know how to solve the problem, they just want to talk about it. Chapter 7 gave me new insights on this and other differences in male and female communication. I was especially interested in report talk vs. rapport talk. I thought that although I'm a female, I might be more inclined toward report talk because I have a leadership position in an on campus club, and this and other responsibilities would lead me to be most interested in efficient communication rather than being tentative or demonstrating equality. Once I read the description for each, however, I found I had a small bias toward rapport talk.

The four frames for gender communication were also very insightful to me. I saw how women's ways of doing things are undervalued, when research has shown that societies with female leaders are more democratic and more representative than male only represented societies. I also found that I preform a lot of emotion labor in my everyday life, and although it is very satisfying, it contributes to an underlying feeling of exhaustion in my life as well. I also notice that men are less likely to engage in emotion labor because they deal with problems and move on more quickly than their female counterparts, and so don't have as many emotional tasks to accomplish with other men. However, while I have noticed that between men and men there is less emotional labor, between men and women or between women and women there is much more.

Another part of chapter 7 I found interesting was the example of the payscale for the sexes. A man and a woman might be offered the same job, but the man will be more likely to negotiate a larger salary and earn more over his life. What I disagreed with here was that women are less likely to negotiate larger salaries or other needs because of gendered communication. I think this type of negotiation comes down to assertiveness, self confidence, or the options available to a person, of either gender. While assertiveness is socialized in men more than women, I don't think this is a gendered communication issue, I think it is a socialization or gender issue. Self confidence also seems to be fostered in men more than women, and because a man may not have as many family obligations as a woman, (children) he would be more likely to pass on a job offer for something better. This really seems to me to be an issue of gender socialization and not one of communication syles.

Questionable Labor Practices

Outsourcing and globalization were the two topics of chapter one that most resonated with me. I have been studying these two concepts as a political science major, and was very interested to find the topics discussed in a communication class. When I looked at the title, "organizational communication", I perceived it as relating to small group, organizations, or small and large businesses. Now I am aware that organizational communication can refer to the link between international businesses and the world in general as people try to organize across borders. As globalization is an issue I am very interested in, it's heartening to see it in another context and to know that people in another community, the communications major community, may be learning more about it.