The picture above demonstrates a simple communication between a dyad. The “sender” of the message codes the message and sends it through a “channel” or “medium” to the “receiver”. Once the receiver has received and decoded the message they will give the sender some form of verbal or non-verbal “feedback”. All of this seems simple enough, but the environment in any communicative situation is the variable which influences what we can talk about at any given place or time.
The environment (also context) is primarily the difference between a public versus a private setting for communication. Depending on where we are, what we talk about is different. We think about what is appropriate for the given situation. As an international student in the US I have naturally been around many other international students because we tend to migrate towards each other. Now, being from Australia, I have had minimal culture shock. I think that America is so similar to Australia it’s uncanny. But I have witnessed things by watching other international students that are borderline unacceptable in the culture that we know. This raises the question, “Why are certain things appropriate in some cultures but not in others?” This is a question that I find I cannot answer. Is it a question of civility? Morals? Manners? Maybe even the sensitivity level across cultures?
Within our communication environment we have cultural trends, which are ever-changing. There are expectations within our cultures, which we are expected to adhere to; however, we are never truly educated on other cultures unless we become part of them in some way. This is why there is so much confusion across cultures about what is and is not acceptable behavior. In our culture (the US culture) our communication is seriously influenced by our patterns of work. What we talk about, how long we can talk, and when we can talk is all influenced by our work schedules, our availability. At work we are also expected to multitask. Gone are the days when people had one career for their entire lives, now we are expected to have a much more extensive skill set. This translates into our everyday life because we now multitask our relationships; we may be talking to someone while we text, or we may be on the phone while w update our facebook page. We have all been culprits and victims of this sort of behavior, and despite how frustrating it is when people start to phase out of our conversations because of another one they are having through a different channel, it is the cultural trend of this day and age and it doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon. Channels can also alter the reactions of the receiver. If we send a text we expect an almost instant response and if we don’t get it we assume something is wrong. However, if we send the same message through the mail, we will wait about a month before we start to worry.
Along with the impact of the channel through which we send/receive messages comes the impact of the media. No matter how much we try to deny being influenced by the media, we are influenced by it an extraordinary amount, but sometimes we don’t even know we are being influenced. Every day we can be influenced by all sorts of different media, such as; magazines, radio, books, novels (fiction and non-fiction), television, newspapers, billboards, etc. There are three distinct time periods that the impact of media has been divided into; I-1950-1960, II-1960-1970, and III-1970-1990 (debated as to whether or not we are still in this stage). Supposedly vision I was when we had effective communication only when everyone involved was happy. Vision II was when we could only make people happy by being ourselves. And finally, vision III was a combination of I and II. I don’t doubt that our communication methods have improved, but I don’t buy the three vision theory. I’m sure that people still had the ability to care about both themselves and others in the 1950’s. However, as time has passed and technology has developed, movies have changed completely. Some things we see in entertainment today would have been completely unacceptable 50 years ago, but when we watch movies from that time period it is not realistic enough for us, consequently producers have to give their consumers what they want.
As a final point, the way we perceive our environment strongly influences the way we act. In a formal environment we will go into less breadth and depth. In a warm environment we will be more comfortable, more personal, more spontaneous, and thus, more efficient. In a private environment we will be more intimate, thus going into more breadth and depth. In a familiar environment we will less deliberate in our communication and express more about what is really on our mind. In a constrained environment we will evaluate how long we will be there, and quite often reveal less information early. Can you think of a particular situation where any of these have influenced your communication? How about every communication situation ever?
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