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Your mission:
Today you are going to be amateur communication researchers and practice a simplified version of the research method of ethnography. “Ethno” comes from the Greek for people and “graph-y” comes from words meaning to write or (re)present. Thus, put simply, you go into a setting and observe the people interacting, write about it, and then reflect on your written observations and records of what seems to be significant about the human symbolic activities in that setting. So, after a brief period of observation and reflection described below, your mission is to write a brief ethnographic account of this field trip.
Primary Question: What did you learn about symbolic activities and social interaction(s) just from watching and reflecting on the people in your environment?
Tools: A notebook and pen or your laptop/tablet/smartphone, your good humor, and your keen powers of observation.
Process: Take your notebook/electronic device and find a place to sit and observe other people at the Student Center or some other public place. Spend 25 minutes describing and writing whatever features of the communication environment seem significant to you—perhaps the environment itself, the
communicators, the process, the messages, the noise, the emotions, the action, your own decoding of the scene, perceptual lenses, etc. Whatever seems significant to you about the communication of these people, write it down—do this for 25 minutes.
Reflection Questions:
1. What

got your attention? Why? What had the most significance for you in your observations (e.g., volume, gestures, relationship, size of group, individuals, culture)? What noise was present?
2. What elements of the transactional communication model were apparent in your observations? Which ones didn’t you think about? Did you interpret both content and relational levels of meaning?
3, How much was “listening” a part of your experience? Do you focus on the meaning of nonverbal relationships between people and groups, or what you can actually hear in the content of their verbal messages, or both?
4. How do systems influence personal communication? How do persons communications influence systems?
5. Did you observe any relevant cultural differences in this particular environment? Did you observe intercultural communication?
Written Assignment: After completing the observation and reflection questions, please write (type) an individual description of your experience as an amateur cultural anthropologist—what do you understand about your culture, human beings, and human communication after this exercise? Use at least six terms from Chapter 1. Write as much as you want but write no less than 200 words.
KEY TERMS: source encoding decoding receiver message channel noise feedback context
Beebe, Steven A.; Beebe, Susan J.; Ivy, Diana K.. Communication (p. 24). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.
The word Essay is an example of how this assignment is soppost to be.