Portfolio Exercise 1: Communication Case Studies
Welcome to Principles of Professional Communication (or Popcomm for short). We will be using this site to provide additional resources and exercises for this unit. You should check this site weekly. You can access this page either through the university's e-learning portal vUWS, or directly via the web at stc.uws.edu.au/popcomm.
This unit is taught as a core subject in a number of courses of the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics, although your tutors and lecturers, Myra Gurney and Ray Archee, work for the School of Humanities and Communication Arts which is located at Werrington South. The unit is taught on Penrith (Kingswood), Parramatta and Campbelltown campuses. Our contact details can be found in the Learning Guide, on the vUWS homepage or under the 'Welcome' tab on the left hand side.
CAUTIONARY NOTE: while the most popular way to save data these days is by using one of those nifty, tiny USB Flash drives, a portable HD is a much safer option. If you insist
on using a USB drive for all your assignment work, get one that is mainly made of metal (not plastic) and one which has a long cord attached so you do not accidentally leave it plugged into a public computer. Cheap, no-name drives will not work very well, or may stop working just as you need the data. Do not work off USB drives, instead copy the data to your Desktop on to the Hard Disk, work off the Hard Disk, then copy it back the USB drive when you are ready to leave the computer. We know quite a few students who have had their drives made unreadable by just using them too much.
EXTRA NOTE: make sure that the computer you are using at home has excellent virus protection. The most important thing is that the database of viruses which your virus scanner uses, is updated online on a regular basis. Avast! or AVG are ones we know which works better than Nortons' and are free.
So what is Professional Communication?
Whenever I begin to teach this unit, students ask why they should have to study a communication subject when they have enrolled to study computing, accounting, nursing, engineering etc. To answer the question you only need to go the professional job ads in your local newspaper. Typically, prospective employers ask for employees with qualities such as:
We all assume that, having been well educated, we will naturally develop these essential criteria but this is not necessarily the case. Newspapers frequently print stories of failed business dealings caused, for example, faulty written instructions to staff or misunderstood email briefings. Other more serious consequences can be technical failures which occur as a result of poorly written technical communication resulting in disasters such as the crash of the space shuttle Challenger.
Communication is a complex
issue. The aim of this course is to do more than to
help you improve your professional writing and speaking skills, it is to
help you understand some of these complexities.
For a detailed overview, read Chapter 1 of your textbook.
Defining Communication
Here are some examples from your textbook (Archee et al, 2012, 6) which show different ways in which the term 'communication' can be used. Think about how the word is used, what it means in the context of the sentence and how each example says something about a different meaning of 'communication'.
Models of Communication
As a starting point for exploring the complex nature of communcation, we will be looking at several models which attempt to explore the processes of communication. The problem with models, whether they are real (like model planes) or academic (such as economic or climate change models), is that they are a simplified version of something which is inherently complex. For example, these days, business people and politicians love to talk about 'modelling'. According to a recent paper titled "The Use and Abuse of Economic Modelling" published by the Australia Institute, Dr Richard Denniss defines a model in this way:
A model, be it a model car or an economic model, is a simplified representation of amore complex mechanism. A model is typically smaller, simpler and easier to build than a full scale replica. A model sheds light on the main features of the reality it seeks to represent (Denniss, 2012, 1).
For this very reason we should be careful with the way that we use them, in economics or communication. However, that is not to say they are not useful as ways to initially understand a complex phenomenon which is why we use them to discuss human communication.
The two common approaches to understanding communication use what are described as transmission and transaction models.
The Transmission Model
The transmission model emphasises conveying a message, with the process drawn as a series of stages. The emphasis is on the message and the model also uses any identification of problems in the stages to explain the success or failure of the communcation 'event'. The earliest and most famous example of a transmission model was developed by Shannon and Weaver in 1949.
Note that the model shows the process as being linear, that is, occuring in a sequence of steps which follow each other. Transmission models also assume that communication is always intentional or purposive – that is that we only communicate when we intend to and in order to convey specific information. Also note the terms which are used. Check out the glossary for some definitions. Other examples of transmission models include one by David Berlo which will be discussed in the lecture. The difference is that this later model uses more human (as opposed to mechanical) terms to describe the communication process. However, Berlo still sees communication as a transmission of information.
The Transaction Model
Later communication theorists believed that communication was not as simple as theorised by Shannon and Weaver. A favourite saying in communication studies is that "meanings are in people, not in words." In other words, meaning is the interpretation of words, not the words themselves and this interpretation can be different from one person to the next and from situation or context to the next. Below is a much more complex meaning-oriented model of communication.
We all have had experiences of interpreting a situation in a different way to another person. While we may have heard the same words or observed the same actions, our individual past experiences, knowledge, education and feelings can lead to different interpretations. The model above which is an example of a transaction model, introduces the notion of shared experiences in a common language. It argues that humans are not like computers or telephone systems where the operating system which runs it will give predictable and identical results to the same input.
What are Portfolio Exercises?
Each week there will be several exercises listed on these pages for you to complete as part of Assignment 3 the Class Exercise Portfolio. Over the course of the semester, you must complete a MINIMUM of least ten (10) of these in total to be submitted in a folder. You do not have to complete each exercise each week, but may choose the ones that interest you. The minimum number submitted must be made up of the following:
- A MINIMUM of six (6) short answer/research type questions (like those below)
- PLUS at least four (4) of the writing/style exercises that we will mostly do in the second half of the semester.
These exercises will vary in difficulty and we recommend that, for the best possible marks for this assignment (which is worth 40%), that you complete as many exercises as possible.
PLEASE NOTE: These exercises are designed to be completed as you go along. If you leave your exercises until the end of the semester to complete, you may find that pressure of other assignments means that you may not have time to complete them properly. There will be NO extensions granted for this assignment. These exercises are designed to be done individually and you should not share your work with others unless it is specified by the exercise. You should save them to a suitable hard drive and don't leave them on a USB stick as these are frequently lost or can become corrupt.
Exercise 1: Communication Case Studies
Download these short case studies which illustrate different scenarios of communication breakdown. Write a brief (250 words) commentary on two of these, identifying the problems and issues which you believe led to the breakdown. Apply on of the communication models discussed this week to explain the communication breakdown? There are a series of questions which have been included to help guide your answers. Save this exercise to submit for your portfolio.
Our textbook has been newly revised especially for this unit. Most lectures and many class activities will be based on the book, so we recommend that all students have access to a copy and bring it to class every week. Copies are available in the Library Closed Reserve.
In addition, class discussions and presentations will be based on more specific readings on the weekly topic. These can be found under the 'Tutorial Readings' tab at the top of this page.
Professional communication in the news |
