This Class

2). What have you learned throughout this class?  What was your favorite thing about this class?  What was your least favorite thing about the class?  How can this class be improved? 

I have learned a lot of things throughout this class. I really liked this class because it was a well rounded Communication studies class and it covered most of the major topics that i have learned in Comm so far. The text book we used for this class was probably my favorite in all of my comm classes because it was easy to understand and straight forward not too wordy. I was able to review subjects that I have previously studied, but things seemed less complicated. I don't know if it was because i was familiar with the subjects or if the textbook was just really clear. I really liked the discussion blogs, and i appreciated that we only had to log on to two different websites to do our class work. Ive taken some online classes before where we had to go to four different sites, to do our work, and that got really confusing. I wish we could have had it all on one site, but two is way better than four! Other than that I wouldn't change anything about the course and even that isnt really that big of a deal! 

My Favorite Concept!

1). What concept/s in the class have you found most interesting?  What was it about that concept/s that you found interesting?

I really like the chapter that we studies on Interpersonal communication. I found that there were many concepts from this chapter that I found interesting, and also enlightening. Relational maintenance is one concept that I liked because it discussed a subject that affects us everyday. The behaviors listed can help people evaluate how much relational maintenance they are doing and I think it would be valuable for everyone if they knew this information. I looked at the table for the first time and realized that my boyfriend and I are doing a good job as far as maintenance in our relationship. I have friends that have moved away and i realize that we did not do a good job of maintaining our relationship because we share the task of keeping in contact. I just really liked this section because it totally helped me to understand interpersonal relationships, and how to communicate in them effectively. I have even been able to give my friends advice from the information about interpersonal relationships and thats really cool!

Social Constructionist perspective

" Consider the social constructionist perspective. How do we "build worlds" through communication? Think of some ideas we talk about in our culture that may not exist in other cultures. How do these concepts contribute to our happiness or success (or the lack of these) in our culture?"


We build worlds through communication, by constructing them with ideas about norms, cultures, what we have been taught, beliefs, values and traditions. These ideas are shared among people in groups, and they believe that the world that they have constructed is reality. Its difficult to see outside of the world, you know unless you experience it. If you are taught about the world in a certain way, that is they way you will believe the world to be. 

Some ideas that we talk about in our culture that might not exist in other cultures, are things like freedom of religion and equality between men and women. In some other cultures there might be tribes of people that may have a certain belief system among their community, and the only religion that exists in their mind is their own. Here we are aware that other religions exist, and we  have the freedom to explore, and choose to fallow whatever religion we believe in. Here we talk about women and men and how they should be treated equally, but in other parts of the world, people may believe that women and men each have a “place” and they stick to that norm.

My first Model

Pick one concept from Chapter 2, not already discussed, that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.


I liked the psychological model of communication perspective. When I took my first few communication studies classes the psychological model was something that was discussed  frequently. Im pretty sure it was the first model of communication that I ever learned about. I like it because it visually shows the precess of communication and how there is a sender and receiver and they transmit messages. The sender encodes the message, sends it though the channel (which is the medium that the message is sent through like talking, emailing, or text messaging and so on.) then the receiver has to decode the message and then replies with feedback. The diagram shows how messages can me sent back and fourth, and how noise can affect the message. I like the concept of noise, because it represents anything that can affect a message in transit. This means that other things outside of the conversation can affect or change a message. If someone calls you to tell you happy news, the message can be changes if he phone is static and you cant hear them. The happy news that you cant hear turns frustrating for you because of the interference.

One of the methods that I find the most interesting in chapter 13 is experimental research. Cause and effect situations present themselves all the time. Even with my own life I run experiments to see if I can improve something that I feel needs improving. For example I find that I feel the need to take a nap everyday and I never feel refreshed when I wake up. So I looked at the things that could be the cause of this effect and I came up with, diet, exercize, medication, and sleep patterns all as possible causes. I experimented by changing my diet, and exercise  habbits, and was able to rule those out. Exercise does give me a boost of energy once I do it, which helps me take less naps. Next I need to try to set a daily bed time and wake up time to see if it is my sleep pattern that is  my lack of energy. Anyway I manipulated the independent variables so that I could compare them just like in experimental research! so cool!

What are some of the moral dilemmas that face ethnographers?  How would you resolve them?


One of the moral dilemmas discussed was that the ethnographer had knowledge about things that were secret, but he wanted to share with the world, that gangs were not just drug crazed hooligans they were their own organized nations, with networking all over. I think that being let in on secrets and then going and exposing them to the world is a reasonable dilemma, because you do not want to throw the people that informed you of the information under the bus. If i were to resolve this issue I am not exactly sure how i would handle it. Conquergood said that he negotiates, because of "the delicate boundary between respect and sensitivity to my field consultants, and the need to write the fullest, most complex ethnographic account of their communication practices that my data support". I think that i might evaluate what is really important for the world to know and what might cause trouble for the people involved, and go from there.

Chapter 8

In chapter 8 a concept that I really liked was structural diversity. In structural diversity there are “teams with members from different units within the organization and with different training and knowledge”(211). I liked this concept because I have experienced this at my current job, and I will probably experience this in most of the other jobs I have. One time i had to do a group project for a class. Our teacher had us do a personality test to divide us into different categories. Then he chose a person from each category to form the group. It was like each person a a specialty to contribute to the group project. It was a great project because it applied real world scenarios of working in a group in a work environment. With everyones special skills, and knowledge combined they can accomplish the tasks at hand and get the job done, just like in structured diversity in the workplace.