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Please think of these posts not as busy work, but rather as an opportunity to explore and build on the readings, thereby learning in the process. These discussions focus on examining and explaining communication as a social construct.. For assigned chapters (see schedule), you reflect on your thoughts regarding the chapter by answering a critical thinking question. In addition, pls list three “golden nuggets” or take-aways you learned from the chapter (something you will think about in the future or thought was interesting from the video/chapter.)
Pls answer the following question: What are some virtual team building activities that could be used to increase communication and culture for an organization? Use the text or another source to support ideas. Word count should be between 300-500 words.
EXAMPLE ****
CAN WE JUST TALK?
CHAPTER ONE:
Does human bias make communication a more difficult field to get into? How can one eliminate human error to be a successful communicator?
GOLDEN NUGGETS:
I wasn’t well aware that delivery within communication is often more important than the message being decoded. Delivery has been considered of great importance for success within the realm of communication. The gestures used by the speaker and the tone of voice need to be on point, or else the message might get lost. The Greeks believed other canons used for communication were more important, but I really felt that delivery played a bigger role than originally thought. After learning about elocutionists, I realized that comedians use delivery and timing to land jokes for a reason.
I find it interesting that Christianity caused the rhetorical study of communication to decline, until the Renaissance where people wanted enlightenment. I think most religions do not do well when questioning comes into play. With the Renaissance and people starting to question the way things are, it makes sense that rhetoric came back.
Being an English major, I find it interesting that English controls of the rule of rhetoric more so than communication. It makes sense for rhetoric to be part of communication studies, and speech should be taken more seriously. I know a lot of people that are not big on public speaking. I have been looking a lot into my life and the field I want to go in. Public speaking has never been too difficult for me, because I am an extrovert and think quickly on my feet. However, I can’t imagine a field where being a public speaker can make me a decent living other than teaching or being a lawyer. Otherwise, most public speakers are either famous or in another field that causes them to speak in public.
PRACTICAL EXAMPLE
In the first chapter, we learn about the modern thinkers that, like the ancient Greek philosophers, assist in making communication what it is. Today we have great communicators that often change the way we look at the world. For me, one of those people is a man by the name of Gary Yourofsky, an animal rights activist that gave a great speech on animal rights to a college class. This speech not only helped me become vegan, but inspired me to fight for the rights of animal’s that can’t do so themselves.
VIDEO HERE (Links to an external site.)
CHAPTER TWO:
Did t

he models help you understand communication better? Formulaic processes have always been hard for me to grasp, I appreciated how the text mentioned that models are often simplified versions of reality and that they assume a lot about the processes involved.
GOLDEN NUGGETS:
The psychological perspective is the one that resonated the most with me because I truly feel that a person’s mindset can impact how they receive a message. I had not considered that this perspective would also take into account the “noise” that might occur. A lot of time, if someone is frustrated, any small interference can both make the decoding and encoding of a message much harder. I think having these perspectives can be limiting, like I mentioned earlier with the models, but it definitely makes a good point on trying to understand the mindset first.
I find the emphasis that cultural studies has on modern culture and pop culture to be of interest. It is an interdisciplinarity field that looks into these moderns tropes and studies them. I didn’t know this was a thing. I would like to find out more about it, actually, and how we are all interconnected by this. I find that the actual theory of communication is not as simple as one might assume.
SPEAKING: Situations Participants Ends Act-Sequences Keys Instrumentalities Norms and Genres – Things to look for when observing communication. This is definitely something I will take with me and consider from now on.
PRACTICAL EXAMPLE
I always struggled with speaking. I’ve googled “why don’t people listen to me,” more times than I can count. I always feel that people speak over me or blatantly ignore me. Learning about bias and how people are dealing with their own things really helped me understand that a lot of times people are just not ready for the message I am trying to share. Again, I am taking with me the keys to better this.
REFERENCE
Trenholm, S. (2021). Thinking through communication an introduction to the study of human communication. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
from Weekly Chapter Reflection Discussion Posts: (200 pts, 6 total)
Jul 4, 2021 9:27PM
Dianelys Camps
Hi Emily,
The fact that communication has changed with the times is something that I had not taken into account prior to reading this chapter. Of course, I realized that we way we speak has changed but not so much how or why. I, too, found the entire mention of Christianity hampering on communication to be an interesting part of the text. Instructing the truth via God seems to be something that a lot of people believe in, even today. I imagine that, back then, it was a principle that made sense to the masses. I have met people that refuse medical care because they believe that only God can cure them. With that being side, I believe that there would be an immense difference in the way we view the world and how we communicate. Opinions would not have the ability to vary, as they come from the text of the bible and, therefore, communication would have to be similar in range. As a society, I think it would be very different than how it is today. Even today we struggle with these notions, as some people still think this way as I mentioned.
Thanks for the discussion question