Kathy Wohlert in her reply (LO14183) suggests the existence of linear
thinking in my statement that communication depends upon the receiver.
Kathy, it is no more linear than your point:
> According to the symbolic interactionist perspective of
> communication, communication is not so much the exchange of messages, but
> the creation of shared meaning and understanding, even if not agreement
For the sake of argument, assuming I didn't "buy" the symbolic
interactionist perspective, would I be in trouble? Is that not a simple
example of your own linear thinking, that x is not this, but it is that?
Fact is, I don't disagree that communication is a complex set of
interactions. The only thing I will say again, is that the complex set of
interactions IS DEPENDENT UPON the receiver. otherwise one might as well
be talking to a tree. If the receiver doesn't speak the same language,
doesn't feel inclined to listen, doesn't grasp the concept, doesn't choose
to participate, then there is no communicating at all, just emissions from
the sender. Advertising and marketing efforts have been tuned to finding
the "hot button", the spark which will be ignited by the sender in the
mind of the receiver; thus the consumer is capable of buying what he/she
doesn't actually need, but thinks he/she does.
If that hot button doesn't exist, there may be little fertile soil in
which to plant the seed. Even if there is shared meaning (of the concepts,
message, words, etc.) my understanding may well be different than yours,
as it appears to be from your reply. Being RESPONSIBLE FOR, and BEING
DEPENDENT UPON are two different concepts entirely, are they not? Did I
not communicate my message appropriately, so that you chose to see and
"hear" what you wanted to, rather than what I actually "said"?
"He who has eyes to see and ears to hear...", etc.
One example of how this process works in real time is the response of the
several communities to the activities and results of the OJ trial. Why is
it that, looking at the same information each day for over a year, two
different sets of interpretation resulted? Was it the "fault" of the
media? The fault of the attorneys? Was there not communication, as we
understand it?
I yield to your expertise as an Organizational Communication consultant
and am not trying to be confrontational. Do you buy that?
--Regards, John Constantine rainbird@trail.com Rainbird Management Consulting PO Box 23554 Santa Fe, NM 87502 http://www.trail.com/~rainbird "Dealing in Essentials"
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>