An Introduction to

Human Communication Roland Raoul Kouassi

FHB University
 References
❖ Adler, Ronald B., George Rodman, and Carrie Cropley Hutchinson. 2010.
Understanding Human Communication. 11th ed. Oxford University Press.
❖ Alberts, Jess K., Thomas K. Nakayama and Judith N. Martin. 2019. Human
Communication in Society. 5th Ed. London: Pearson.
❖ Baran, Stanley J. And Dennis K. Davis. Mass Communication Theory:
Foundations, Ferment, and Future. 6th ed. New York: Wadsworth
❖ Birdwhistell, R. L. 1970. Kinesics and Context: Essays on Body Motion
Communication. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
❖ Birdwhistell, R. L. 1952. Introduction to Kinesics: An Annotation System for
Analysis of Body Motion and Gesture. Washington, DC: Department of State,
Foreign Service Institute.
❖ DeVito, Joseph A. 2013. The Interpersonal Communication Book. 13th Edition.
New York: Pearson
❖ Efron, D. 1941. Gesture and Environment. Oxford, England: King’s Crown Press.
❖ Fast, Julius. 1970. Body Language. Pocket Books.
❖ Hall, Edward T. 1959. The Silent Language. New York, Doubleday & Company, Inc.
❖ Hartley, Peter. 1999. Interpersonal Communication. London: Routledge
❖ Knapp, Mark L., Judith A. Hall, and Terrence G. Horgan. 2014. Nonverbal
Communication in Human Interaction. 8th Ed. New York: Wadsworth
❖ Knapp, M. L. 1978. Social intercourse: From Greeting to Goodbye. Boston, MA: Allyn
& Bacon.
❖ McKay, Matthew, Patrick Fanning, and Martha Davis. 1995. Messages: The
Communication Skills Book, New Harbinger Publications, 2nd edition
❖ McLaughlin, M. L. 1984. Conversation: How talk is organized. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
❖ West , Richard and Lynn H. 2011. Turner Understanding Interpersonal
Communication: Making Choices in Changing Times. Boston: Cengage Learning.
❖ Wood, Julia T. 2016. Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters. Eighth
Edition. Boston: Cengage Learning.
 Course objectives
❖ Upon successful completion of this course; the students will be able to :
❖ Explain the basic concepts of Human Communication

❖ Account for the link between Communication, Perception, and the Self

❖ Account for the link between Communication, Culture, and Cultural Identity

❖ Account for the basic concepts of verbal communication

❖ Account for the basic concepts of nonverbal communication
❖ Describe effective Listening accurately

❖ Show the relation between effective communication, Emotion and Emotional Intelligence
❖ Account for the speci city of Intercultural Communication
❖ Describe Crisis Communication Accurately
❖ Understand group, public and mass communication

❖ Account for Mediated Human Communication

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 Contents
❖ Foundations of Interpersonal Communication

❖ Communication, Perception, and the Self

❖ Communication, Culture, and Cultural Identity

❖ Communicating Verbally

❖ Communicating Nonverbally

❖ Effective Listening

❖ Communication, Emotion and Emotional Intelligence

❖ Intercultural Communication
❖ Crisis Communication

❖ Mediated Human Communication

❖ Mass Communication
Foundations
 Why should I study communication?

❖ A major part of human existence

❖ Understanding self and others
❖ Understanding human history, culture
and geography
❖ Personal and social development
❖ Professional development
 Definition
❖ Communication
❖ comes from communicare "to impart, share,"
lit. "to make common," from
communis (common).
❖ It is the act of sharing meanings with one
entity or group through the use of mutually
understood signs, symbols, and semiotic rules
for a speci c purpose.
❖ It affects change, intentionally or not.
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❖ Human communication is the process of
creating/sharing meaning through symbolic
interaction.
❖ Human communication can be de ned as a
process in which people generate meaning
through the exchange of verbal and nonverbal
messages.
❖ It is a transactional process in which people
generate meaning through the exchange of
verbal and nonverbal messages in speci c
contexts, in uenced by individual and societal
forces and embedded in culture. (Alberts 2010)
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❖ Human communication is:
❖ the verbal and/or nonverbal interaction
between two (or more) interdependent
people.
❖ the process of message transaction
between people to create and sustain
shared meaning.
 Features of Interpersonal Communication
❖ It is relational
❖ It exists as a continuum
❖ It involves verbal and nonverbal signs
❖ Multimodal (several channels, several codes, etc. )
❖ It involves choices
❖ It is systemic
❖ It is meaning making
❖ It is a process
❖ It involves personal knowledge
 Elements of Interpersonal Communication
❖ Interacting agents (sender and receiver)
❖ Context
❖ Channel: the medium through which messages pass
❖ Code or semiotic system
❖ Message (content)
❖ Noise: anything that distorts a message, or that prevents
the receiver from receiving the message appropriately
(physical, psychological, semantic, cultural, )
Human Communication Habits
Contribution to Meaning

Language
Paralanguage
Body
 Types of Human Communication
❖ Intrapersonal Communication
❖ Dyadic Interpersonal Communication
❖ Small Group communication
❖ Public Communication
❖ Mediated Human Communication
❖ Mass Communication
 Functions of Communication
❖ Physical needs (health, food, drink)
❖ Identity needs (interaction with others orient our
sense of who we are. ‘your communication
interactions with others allow you to establish
who you are to them’ (Gergen, 1982; Mead, 1934)
❖ Social needs (creating, maintaining, developing
social relations)
❖ Practical needs (effectiveness in everyday
behavior. eg. Job interview, proposing a girl…)
 Principles of Interpersonal Communication
❖ 1. Interpersonal communication is unavoidable. One
cannot not communicate (School of palo Alto)
❖ 2. Interpersonal communication is symbolic
❖ 3. Interpersonal communication is rule-governed
❖ 4. Interpersonal communication is learned
❖ 5. Interpersonal communication is purposeful
❖ 6. Interpersonal communication is both symmetrical and
complementary
❖ 7. Meanings in people, not in signs.
❖ 8. Interpersonal communication is both content
and relationship
❖ 9. Interpersonal communication is a continuum
❖ 10. Interpersonal communication is irreversible /
unrepeatable
❖ 11. Interpersonal communication involves choices
❖ 12. Interpersonal communication is not a panacea
❖ 13. People construct meaning in interpersonal
communication
❖ 14. Metacommunication affects meaning
 Communication Competence

❖ There is no ideal way to communicate

❖ Competence is learned, not innate
❖ Competence is situational
❖ Competence is relational
 Effective communication
❖ A communication is effective when the needs of
the interacting agents are satis ed.
❖ An Effective Communication is a
communication wherein the intended message is
successfully delivered, received, understood and
leads to the appropriate feedback.
❖ Effective communication involves achieving
one’s goals in a manner that, ideally, maintains
or enhances the relationship in which it occurs.
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 How to be effective in Communication?
❖ GENERAL SKILLS
❖ Develop a wide range of behaviors
❖ Develop the ability to choose the most appropriate behavior in a given
situation
❖ Skill at performing the appropriate behavior chosen
❖ Develop emotional intelligence and perspective taking
❖ Cognitive complexity vs. cognitive misery.
❖ Self-mentoring or metacognitive activity on the communication process
❖ Develop understanding and effective use of verbal and nonverbal tools
of communication
❖ Keep on learning about the world
❖ CONTEXT-SPECIFIC SKILLS
❖ Get appropriate knowledge about the context of
communication
❖ Get appropriate knowledge of the audience
❖ Set clear objectives
❖ Design the appropriate strategy
❖ Implement the strategy appropriately
❖ Assess and control
❖ Improve
Barriers to effective communication
❖ Lack of the appropriate strategy
❖ Lack of accurate implementation
❖ Physical barriers
❖ Sociocultural barriers
❖ Psychological or emotional barriers (eg. attention,
opinions, attitudes, status consciousness, emotions)
❖ Personal barriers (knowledge de cit, lack of listening
skills, selective attention, lack of vocabulary)
❖ Semantic barriers
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Communication, Perception, and
the Self
❖ Communication starts with perception
and a speci c understanding of the self
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 Perception and the Self
❖ Perception and representation: attending, selecting,
organizing, understanding, judging
❖ Self concept
❖ Self awareness (who I am)
❖ self esteem or self worth (how I assess or evaluate
myself)
❖ Self con dence
❖ Self ef cacy
❖ Personal identity: introvert, extrovert…
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Communication, Culture, and
Cultural Identity
❖ Culture is “that complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any
other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society.” E. B. Tylor (Primitive Culture, 1871:
1)
❖ The culture of a group consists of shared, socially
learned knowledge and patterns of behavior.
❖ Culture is learned, shared, and responsible for
differences between different communities
❖ Cultural knowledge is a set of information, skills,
attitudes, conceptions, beliefs, values, and other mental
components of culture that people socially learn during
enculturation.
Cultural factors that affect communication
❖ Gender
❖ Ethnicity
❖ Race
❖ Age
❖ Social status
❖ Language
❖ Language variety
❖ Style
Models of interpersonal
communication
❖ Linear model (one-way process)
❖ Interactional model (feedback)
❖ Transactional or synergetic model
(shared meaning, co-construction of
meaning, dynamic or simultaneous
encoding-decoding processes)
Verbal Communication
❖ Verbal communication is
communication through human
natural language.
❖ It is
❖ Oral, and
❖ Written
 The components of oral language

❖ Segments and combinations of segments

❖ Prosody
❖ Rhythm
❖ Pauses and llers
❖ Voice quantity and quality
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Nonverbal communication
❖ Nonverbal communication is communication
through semiotics systems other than human
natural language
❖ Nonverbal communication refers to
communication effected by means other than
words, assuming words are the verbal element
❖ nonverbal behavior is about the signals produced,
or encoded, to which meaning will be attributed,
not the process of attributing meaning.
❖ Nonverbal behavior, like verbal behavior, is
encoded [or decoded] with varying degrees of
control and awareness (Lakin, 2006)
 “By a man’s nger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by
his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his fore nger and
thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuffs—by each of these
things a man’s calling is plainly revealed.”

– Sherlock Holmes
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 Examples of nonverbals
❖ Silence
❖ Context factors (culture, climate, architectural design and physical
arrangements, natural environment, other people, animals or objects
in the environment, state of xtures, colors, sounds, lighting…)
❖ Paralinguistic vocal gestures (eg. Vocal cues and personality,
emotion, status, ethnicity…)
❖ Proxemics (intimate: up to 45 cm; personal: 45 to 152 cm; social:
152cm to 2.1 m)
❖ Mimics or facial expressions
❖ Eye behavior
❖ Kinesics
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❖ Body posture
❖ Haptics or touching behavior
❖ Chronemics
❖ Symbols
❖ Physical/body characteristics of the communicators
(height, weight, morphology, scars, hair, color, image,
smell, body hair…)
❖ Clothes and other artifacts of the communicator
(clothing style, colors and types, )
❖ Territory and personal space: (territoriality or territory
ownership… mastery and comfort, invasion,
defense…)
 Sources of non verbal behavior

We respond to gestures with an extreme alertness and,

one might say, in accordance with an elaborate and secret
code that is written nowhere, known by none, and
understood by all. Edward Sapir
Sources of nonverbal communication
❖ Three primary sources of our nonverbal behavior
(see Ekman and Friesen (1969)):
❖ Inherited neurological programs
❖ Experience common to all members of the
species (e.g., regardless of culture, the hands
are used to place food in the mouth)
❖ Experience that varies with speci c
community, culture, class, family, or the
individual
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The communicator’s behavior
 Types of gestures
❖ Speech-independent gestures (emblems
(Ekman, 1976, 1977) or autonomous
gestures (Kendon, 1984, 1989). eg.
Thumbs up, victory gesture, say no
with the fore nger
❖ Speech-related gestures (palm gestures,
punctuation gestures, )
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 Gesture frequency
❖ More gestures in the following cases:
❖ Face-to-face interaction
❖ Caused by excitement
❖ A speaker who seeks more understanding
❖ A speaker who wants to dominate
❖ When answering questions about manual activities
❖ Low language uency
❖ According to cultural background (in general US speakers
gesture more than Chinese)
❖ Sharing information that has been learned visually
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Effective listening
“The hearer is the master of what is
useful.”
–Ptahhotep
 Hearing and listening
❖ Hearing is the process in which sound waves strike
the eardrum and causes vibrations that are
transmitted to the brain.
❖ Hearing is generally automatic because it does not
need attention.
❖ Listening occurs when the brain reconstructs these
electrochemical impulses into a representation of the
original sound and then gives them meaning.
❖ Listening is not automatic because it needs attention.
 Faulty listening behaviors
❖ Pseudo-listening: as if listening, imitating, pretending
❖ Selective listening: responding only to parts they choose
❖ Defensive listening: taking innocent comments as personal attacks
❖ Ambushing: listening carefully to collect information to attack or
counterattack
❖ Insulated listening: avoiding certain topics
❖ Insensitive listening: unable to grasp hidden or additional meanings
❖ Stage hogging: stage hogs or conversational narcissists turn
conversation topics to themselves instead of showing interest in the
other party
 Effective listening
❖ Effective listening skills are the ability to
actively understand information provided by
the speaker, and display interest in the topic
discussed.
❖ It consists in hearing the message being sent,
making meaning of it and responding in a
way that lets the sender know you truly
understand
 The Stages of Effective Listening
❖ Effective Listening is the process of:
❖ (1) receiving (hearing and attending to the message),
❖ (2) understanding (deciphering meaning from the
message you hear),
❖ (3) remembering (retaining what you hear in memory),
❖ (4) evaluating (thinking critically about and judging the
message), and
❖ (5) responding (answering or giving feedback to the
speaker).
 The Importance of Effective Listening
❖ To learn
❖ To relate
❖ To help
❖ To develop socially
❖ To understand the environment
❖ To grow professionally
❖ To sustain interpersonal relations (friends,
family…)
 Barriers to Effective Listening
❖ Physical noise
❖ Psychological noise (attention,
memory, etc.)
❖ Biases and prejudices
❖ Lack of appropriate focus
❖ Premature judgement
 Active Listening
❖ It is a process of sending back to the speaker what
you as a listener think the speaker meant—both
in content and in feelings.
❖ Thomas Gordon (1975) made it a cornerstone of
his P-E-T (Parent Effectiveness Training)
technique
❖ It is not merely repeating the speaker’s exact
words, but rather putting together your
understanding of the speaker’s total message into
a meaningful whole.
❖ The functions of Active Listening are:
❖ Checking understanding of what the
speaker said and meant
❖ Sharing your knowledge and feelings
❖ Accepting the speaker’s knowledge
and feelings
❖ Stimulating the speaker to explore
feelings and thoughts
❖ Techniques of Active Listening
❖ Paraphrase the speaker’s
meaning
❖ Express understanding of the
speaker’s feelings
❖ Ask questions
Intercultural Communication
❖ Intercultural communication is the
sending and receiving of messages
across languages and cultures.
❖ A negotiated understanding of meaning
in human experiences across social
systems and societies.
❖ It is a communication between persons
who have different cultural beliefs,
values, or ways of behaving.
❖ Communication between different
❖ Races
❖ Religious groups
❖ Ethnic groups
❖ Nations
❖ Gender
❖ Subcultures
 To be effective in intercultural comm
❖ Educate yourself / get prepared
❖ Confront your stereotypes
❖ Reduce your ethnocentrism (the tendency to see
others and their behaviors through your own cultural
lters)
❖ Recognize cultural differences
❖ Recognize differences in meaning
❖ Be rule or customary code conscious
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Cultural sensitivity in Interpersonal Communication

❖ Cultural sensitivity is an attitude and

way of behaving in which you’re aware
of and acknowledge cultural differences;
❖ It is crucial for such global goals as
world peace and economic growth as
well as for effective interpersonal
communication (Franklin & Mizell,
1995).
Culture shock in interpersonal communication
❖ Culture shock is the psychological reaction you experience
when you’re in a culture very different from your own (Ward,
Bochner, & Furnham, 2001; Wan, 2004).
❖ Culture shock is experienced when entering a new and
different culture.
❖ Culture shock occurs in four stages:
❖ The honeymoon
❖ The crisis
❖ The recovery
❖ The adjustment
Communication and Emotion
 Definition
❖ There are three absolutely irreducible faculties of the mind, namely,
knowledge, feeling, and desire. (Kant, The Critique of Judgment 1791)
❖ The Critique of Pure Reason (1781), concerning the intellect;
❖ The Critique of Practical Reason (1788), concerning the will; and
❖ The Critique of Judgment (1791), concerning feelings of pleasure
and pain.
❖ The trilogy of mind (Hilgard 1980): Cognition, Emotion, Motivation.
Mental states, which can be represented in conscious awareness
❖ Cognition -- the mental representation of reality (real or imagined),
as re ected in sensation, perception, attention, learning, memory,
thinking, and language.
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❖ ‘Emotion’, derives from the Latin emovere, ‘to move
out, remove, agitate’
❖ Emotion is the subjective experience of arousal,
pleasure, and displeasure, and its expression in
behavior.
❖ … an internal mental state consisting of various
subjective feelings of pleasantness or unpleasantness.
❖ Emotions come from the limbic brain – the area of
your brain that reacts to the world around you
instinctively without rational thought or reasoning.
❖ Motivation: the activation of behavior and its
direction toward a goal.
 Emotional intelligence
❖ Social Intelligence: getting along well with others. Edward Thorndike
1930
❖ Affective components of intelligence and success in life. David Wechsler
1940
❖ Pyramid of needs and emotional strength: Abraham Maslow 1950s
❖ Multiple Intelligence: Howard Gardner 1970s
❖ EI (Wayne Leon Payne 1985/ Keith Beasley EQ 1987/ Peter Salovey and
John D. Mayer 1990, Daniel Goleman 1996 )
❖ EI is the ability to:
❖ Recognize, understand and manage our own emotions
❖ Recognize, understand and in uence the emotions of others (see
Daniel Goleman)
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❖ “EI is a set of skills hypothesized to contribute
to the accurate appraisal and expression of
emotion in oneself and in others, the effective
regulation of emotion in self and others , and the
use of feelings to motivate, plan, and achieve in
one’s life.” Salovey and Mayer 1990:185
❖ “EI is the ability to monitor one's own and
others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate
among them and to use this information to
guide one's thinking and actions.” Mayer and
Salovey 1990
MSCEIT™
Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test™
 Communicating Emotion
❖ Accurately identify a set of emotions
❖ Empathetically grasping others’ emotional
states
❖ Effectively conveying a set of emotions
❖ Monitoring the communicated emotions
accurately
 Communicating with Emotional Intelligence
❖ Low EQ:
❖ No self awareness
❖ No empathy
❖ Oblivious to own emotions and emotions of others
❖ Lashing out
❖ Buck passing
❖ EI involves emotional awareness and effective management and use.
❖ EI then allows the communicator to:
❖ accurately understand emotional states in the context - including his/hers -
and encode meanings accordingly
❖ control and monitor emotional ows arising during the delivery of the
message
❖ grow his/her empathy
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Crisis Communication
 Definitions
❖ A crisis is
❖ a risk manifested.
❖ the perception of an event that threatens expectancies or
prospects.
❖ a radical change or unexpected shift of outcome.
❖ a turning point for better or worse. (Fink 1986: 15)
❖ A speci c, unexpected and non routine event or series of
events which create high levels of uncertainty and threat
or perceived threat to an individual's or a community's
priority goals.
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 Crisis management
❖ Crisis management is “a set of factors designed to
combat crises and to lessen the actual damages
in icted” (Coombs 2007b: 5)
❖ There are three stages in crisis management:
❖ Prevention and preparation (the pre-crisis stage).
❖ Process and content (the crisis stage)
❖ Managing opportunities for follow-up
communication (the post-crisis stage) . See
Coombs (2009a)
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 Crisis communication
❖ Crisis communication consists in planning and
implementing communication processes aimed at
mitigating a crisis damages or negative
consequences on reputation, relationships, smooth
system functioning, performance, and sustainability.
❖ The process consists in the collection, processing,
and dissemination of information required to
address a crisis situation.
❖ There are three main stages: pre-crisis comm, crisis
comm and post-crisis comm.
❖ In pre-crisis, crisis communication
revolves around collecting information
about crisis risks, making decisions about
how to manage potential crises, and
training people who will be involved in
the crisis management process.
❖ The training includes crisis team
members, crisis spokespersons, and any
individuals who will help with the
response.
❖ Crisis communication includes the collection
and processing of information for crisis team
decision making along with the creation and
dissemination of crisis messages to people
outside of the team (the traditional de nition
of crisis communication).
❖ Post-crisis involves dissecting the crisis
management effort, communicating necessary
changes to individuals, and providing follow-
up crisis messages as needed.
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❖ Communication is the essence of crisis
management.
❖ A crisis or the threat of crisis creates a
need for information.
❖ Through communication, the information
is collected, processed into knowledge,
and shared with others.
❖ Communication is critical throughout the
entire crisis management process.
 Crisis Response Strategies
❖ Denial: claiming there is no crisis.
❖ Scapegoat: blaming some outside entity for
the crisis.
❖ Attack the Accuser: confronting the group
or person claiming that something is wrong.
❖ Excuse: attempting to minimize crisis
responsibility by claiming lack of control
over the event or lack of intent to do harm.
❖ Justi cation: attempting to minimize the
perceived damage caused by the crisis.
❖ Ingratiation: praising other stakeholders
and/or reminding people of past good works
done.
❖ Concern: expressing concern for victims
❖ Compassion: offering money or other gifts to
victims.
❖ Regret: indicating they feel badly about the
crisis.
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Technology in Interpersonal
Communication
❖ Presentation applications and softwares
❖ Video/teleconferencing
❖ E-social media
❖ Telephones
❖ Emailing
❖ Blogs
❖ Websites
❖ Discussion groups
❖ Communications through intranets
❖ Spamming: sending the same message indiscriminately to (a
large number of Internet users)
Mediated communication
 Introduction
❖ The human communication apparatus is constrained in
several ways.
❖ There are limits to the distance at which speech is audible,
and visible behaviors such as gesture, gaze or facial
expressions are perceivable.
❖ Time also maybe a limit to the effectiveness of human
communication
❖ People then rely on some form of mediation to
communicate and solve interaction issues at distance and
across time.
❖ This is mediated communication.
❖ The word media is, after all, a Latin plural form of the
singular noun medium, meaning an intervening
substance through which something is conveyed or
transmitted.
❖ Examples are: paper, postcards, paintings, Television,
newspapers, music, movies, magazines, books,
billboards, radio, broadcast satellites, and the Internet
❖ People have therefore invented technologies
that attempt to circumvent these limits and
allow remote
❖ synchronous or interactive or real time or
simultaneous communication (e.g.
telephone, videoconference, video call), or
❖ asynchronous communication or non-
interactive (e.g. letters, telegraph, email,
fax, electronic text messaging, mms,
voicemail, social networking, etc.
 Characteristics/advantages of
mediated communication
❖ Depending on the media used, MC has the
following characteristics:
❖ Synchronicity
❖ Persistence or recordability
❖ Anonymity
❖ Privacy
❖ Rich media
❖ Higher level of self-disclosure (face saving)
❖ Better communication impression
management
❖ Attentiveness
❖ Expressivity
❖ Composure
❖ Stress reduction
❖ Less time and space constraints
 Disadvantages of mediated communication

❖ Mostly lacks of nonverbal cues (facial expressions,

tone of voice, prosody, body language, etc.)
❖ Psychological detachment, which inhibits stronger
human relations and creates societal isolation
❖ Media quality may negatively impact
understanding
❖ Absence of metacommunication because lack of
instant feedbacks may distort meaning
 Computer-Mediated Communication
❖ Human-human interaction mediated via electronic devices.
❖ All forms of technologically mediated human interaction
❖ These include computer-mediated discourse, digital discourse,
keyboard-to-screen communication, and Internet-mediated or Internet-
based communication.
❖ Web 1.0 : read-only and static space, where content is provided by
technologically savvy individuals with the skills to create, author,
moderate, and link (hyperlinks) websites and content.
❖ Web 2.0. : the second generation of the world wide web, where it moved
static HTML pages to a more interactive and dynamic web experience.
Web 2.0 is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share
information online via social media, blogging and Web-based
communities.
❖ Web 3.0 or intelligent Web
❖ It is akin to an arti cial intelligence which
understands context rather than simply
comparing keywords, as is currently the case.
❖ This new paradigm in web interaction makes
people's online lives easier and more
intuitive as smarter applications such as
better search functions give users exactly
what they are looking for
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Communication in groups
 What’s a group?
❖ A group is a small collection of people who interact with
each other, usually face-to-face, over time in order to
reach goals
❖ Without interaction, a collection of people isn’t a group
❖ The members of a group are interdependent.
❖ The behavior of one person affects all the others in what
can be called a ‘ripple effect’.
❖ Consists of at least three members
❖ A group is determined by a goal or a set of goals
 Group vs. team
❖ A winning team is characterized by:
❖ Clear and inspiring goals
❖ A result-driven structure
❖ Competent team members
❖ Uni ed commitment
❖ Collaborative climate
❖ Standards of excellence
❖ External support and recognition
❖ Principled leadership
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 Characteristics of a group

❖ Norms and rules

❖ Roles
❖ patterns of interaction
Group networks
Public speaking
“There are two types of speakers: Those who
get nervous and those who are liars.”
– Mark Twain
 “According to most studies, people's
number one fear is public speaking. Number
two is death.”

–Jerry Seinfeld
“The human brain starts working the moment
you are born and never stops . . . until you
stand up to speak in public.”

– George Jessel
 What is public speaking
❖ Public speaking is the process of presenting a
message to an audience, small or large.
❖ Since you are likely to be called on to speak in
public at various times throughout your life, skill
in public speak- ing can empower you.
❖ It can help you develop and maintain you social
status
❖ It can also help you secure employment or advance
your career.
Beebe and Beebe 2012
Mass Communication
 What is mass communication?

❖ The process of designing cultural messages and stories

and delivering them to large and diverse audiences
through media channels as old as distinctive as the print
book and as new and converged as the Internet.
(Campbell et al 2012)
 History of mass communication
❖ Early ages of oral literature and performance
❖ Written manuscripts
❖ The print revolution , late 1400s and early 1500s in Europe following
the invention by Johannes Gutenberg of the movable metallic type.
❖ The printing press came with three advantages:
❖ First, machine duplication replaced the tedious system in which
scribes hand-copied texts.
❖ Second, duplication could occur rapidly, so large quantities of the
same book could be reproduced easily.
❖ Third, the faster production of multiple copies brought down the
cost of each unit, which made books more affordable to less
af uent people.
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❖ The electronic era
❖ 1840s: the telegraph (the dot-dash electronic signal
communication). Four contributions:
❖ Separated communication from transportation
❖ Transformed information into a commodity
❖ Made it easier to coordinate operations
(military, business, political…)
❖ Inspired future technological developments
such as wireless telegraphy (later called
‘radio’), fax communication, and cellphone.
❖ 1950s and 1960s: television
❖ The digital era: In digital communication,
images, texts, and sounds are converted
(encoded) into electronic signals (combinations
of binary numbers—ones and zeros) that are
then reassembled (decoded) as a precise
reproduction of, say, a TV picture, a magazine
article, a song, or a telephone voice.
❖ Digital age reinvented oral culture in the forms
of email, blogs, social media communications,
forum…
❖ Media convergence in the digital age:
❖ (1) the technological merging of content
across different media channels,
❖ (2) a business model that involves
consolidating various media holdings,
such as cable connections, phone
services, television transmissions, and
Internet access, under one corporate
umbrella. Also called cross platform.
Advantages of mass communication

❖ Mass-produced printed, sound and

video materials can spread
information and ideas faster and
farther than ever before
❖ Cost is reduced
 Models of mass media communication
❖ The Linear Model: a linear process of producing and
delivering messages to large audiences.
❖ The Transactional Model: a process of co-producing and
delivering messages with large audiences.
❖ The Cultural Model: this concept recognizes that
individuals bring diverse meanings to messages, given
factors and differences such as gender, age, educational
level, ethnicity, and occupation.
❖ The cultural model also brings about selective exposure,
meaning that people seek content that con rm their beliefs
or ideology
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Use of media DAILY MEDIA CONSUMPTION BY PLATFORM, 2010 (8- TO
18-YEAR-OLDS)
 Ethics and mass media
❖ Socrates: mass media, art and the corruption of the minds of the
youth
❖ Plato (the Republic): art and mass media should be used to instruct
and uplift
❖ Aristotle: art and stories should provide insight into human
condition and entertain
❖ Media shapes mental content, thinking, and representations shape
cultures and society
❖ Political propaganda
❖ An ethical use for personal gain or pro t maximization (reality
shows, wars and con icts, natural disasters…)
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fi
 Media Convergence in Mass Communication
❖ 6 screens boosting media convergence:
❖ Movie theater screens
❖ Television screens
❖ Computer screens
❖ Tablet screens
❖ Phablet screens
❖ Mobile phone screens
❖ This create a constant connection to mass communication
❖ Digital devices connected to the Internet allow
an array of digital media—text, photos, audio,
and video—to converge in one space and be
easily shared, and
❖ wireless networks make it possible to access the
Internet, and therefore a variety of media,
almost anywhere.
❖ Media is also converging on our television sets,
as the electronics industry begins to manu-
facture Internet-ready TVs.
Traditional mass communication media

❖ Print (Newspaper, Magazine, outdoors)

❖ Radio
❖ TV
 Contemporary mass media
❖ The Internet
❖ Connected TV and cable TV
❖ Gaming and online gaming
❖ Digital sound recording and music (MP3 revolution, le sharing,
Napster, iTunes, Apple Music, music in the stream, music in the
Cloud, Pandora stream, MusicDNA… )
❖ Movies
❖ Video streaming
❖ Digital and online radio
❖ Streaming TV (Net ix, Hulu, Apple TV+… )
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fi
Conclusion