Abstract
Communication an essential tool not only in business organizations, but also in our daily lives as it provides a framework through which people interact and associate with one another.
Communication has continually improved over the past years as technology advancements are being invented hence presenting more and more effective ways of communicating. The topic of communication is so diverse and complex as it is conceived to be a science and/or an art. This paper is a close examination of communication as an art rather than a science.
Introduction
Communication is a vast subject that cuts across the tenets of verbal and non-verbal skills such as listening and presentation skills, analysis and evaluation, identification of audience’s needs, platforms and modes of transferring or passing on information. This brings us to the question, is of communication an art or is it a science? In layman’s terms, an art’ can be defined as a refined or a perfected skill.
On the other hand, a science’ can be referred to as the act of doing. This is a clear indication that there is a close relationship and a strong correlation between these two concepts. Though most of the times neither of the two concepts is completely exclusive of the other, I maintain that communication is an art.
Communication as an Art
From the basics of communication, there must be a sender, a recipient, a message/ information and a mode or platform. The mode/platform is used as a framework through which a message is conveyed. This involves the process of coding and decoding. The sender codes the message and the recipient is supposed to decode the same upon receiving the message.
However, there exists a slight vacuum between the sender and the recipient and is normally depicted as noise’ (Perkins, 2008,.p 1). This is because when you look at the broad scope of consciousness and information theory, people communicate in a variety of ways which are not limited to the formal arts.
The vacuum dubbed noise represents perceptual concept. Perception refers to the way that the recipient of information translates, understands and internalizes the message received. Upon internalizing the message, the recipient becomes consciously aware and reacts to his/her perception of the message.
I maintain that communication as an art because the whole process of coding the message from the sender to the recipient involves a skill of collecting the information (by the sender) from different sources and clustering it accordingly. Before sending it, the sender evaluates the content of the message to ensure that the intended information is well understood by the recipient.
This leads to the conclusion that through communication, there is the creation of relationships which allow free flow and correct understanding of the intended message. For this to happen, the presentation of the information has to be done through different modes, either jointly or exclusively. This portrays communication as being subjective and objective in nature.
Subjective means that facts cannot be drawn hence leaving room for opinion whereas objective communication is purely drawn on facts. This brings us to another question of how can we improve the quality of communication? To answer the question, we know that the intention of communication is to strike a balanced perception in the mind of the recipient (Murphy, 2009, p. 1).
The perception is generally created within the awareness realm of the recipient. Therefore, perceptions can be said to be common denominators of ideas. This is so because ideas are triggered by different modules into perceptions.
The communicator may be objective on his message but still the recipient, on the other hand, understands the intended message. Failure to this, confusion is created which definitely leads to misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the information received. This, therefore, portrays a case where the intended meaning has already been altered.
This alteration therefore impedes the quest to improve the quality of communication across different modes of communication. The alteration of the meaning as discussed above presents a scenario whereby, the recipient interprets the message in conformance to own believes, attitudes, experiences, principles and values inscribed within individual conscious – awareness.
This brings us to another concept of what happened versus what we think it means. Communication is a two way process that engages two or more people with an aim of creating a common ground of understanding the underlying message. Thus, people differ in the manner they decipher messages. This is brought about by the innate subjective and objective factors within a person’s world of perceiving things.
Facts are objective in nature and are usually taken down as points of references because they tend to standardize a message. But in essence, these facts lack credibility due to lack of evidence and because people always tend to agree to different meaning of events (Dennison, 2008, p. 1).
The freedom to choose how to interpret life or information draws a clear picture of why people have a problem in finding a common platform when it comes to discussing meanings, theories and evaluations under varied conditions. Therefore, communication draws its precepts from direct experiences and symbolic meanings.
On the other hand our actions create facts of our direct expression thereby giving rise to our being in the world as persons. This creates our own world within the framework of our consciousness that we choose to align our concepts, theories, values, feelings, attitudes, to name but a few, in a definitive and highly subjective way.
This brings about creation of comprehension of perceptions and actions in choosing and giving light to the symbolic content of our expressions. This is a clear justification of the artistic nature of communication. Additionally, our actions and information deciphering levels are subject to our past or present experiences and expressions.
As the saying goes actions speak louder than words’, to some extent the facts are well presented. For example, nodding means the recipient is in agreement with whatever is being said, but when we cross borders and go to Asia, individuals agree by shaking their heads in a right-left motion which would be interpreted otherwise in our society (Chasteen, 2011, p. 1).
This is a representation of a direct form of communication which has different perceptions and meanings across different societies.
This commands a great deal of non-conformance of communication across different scenarios. Another illustration can be deduced from violence. Violence is a form of communication that is defined to be a negative infliction to the violated party. The violator, on the other hand, would have a different view of personal protection without having the conscious awareness of the impacts.
In a business set up, a trade-off normally ensues between a buyer and a seller. This holds as a fact in commerce in that factors such as feelings, attitudes and believes remain constant so as to allow the transaction to go through. This is so because people often take the platform on which the message is relayed through to be the most important in the communication field.
Take for example the media: a television program is a one-way and this renders the recipient of the content passive. As the word suggests, “program” is a gadget used to psychologically alter ones believe system and program the mind to accept certain perceptions as true thus leading them to adjust to them. This conformance is generally instigated so as to assist the media raise revenue through adverts.
Advertisers often use key stars to promote their products thus creating a different attitude and perception towards their audience. This, on the other hand, translates to manipulation of the recipient by the advert or TV program. Intelligent persons are, however, not easily lured by the adverts. This is because they have strong principles and understanding of the awareness of commercial – free art.
This phenomenon is being combated by the advent of computers since they give freedom of information enquiry through the use of the internet. This is opposed to what the adverts lure people to do or purchase (Connor, 2006, p. 1) therefore giving the recipient the freedom to choose what to buy or purchase.
Thus, the purchased product satisfies the recipient’s current or felt need. This eliminates the compelling urge of wanting to buy something due to the need to mimic someone else. The television programs and advertisements manipulation tendencies draw a clear picture of the artistic nature of communication. This is well endowed by the manipulation effect on the recipients of these television programs and advertisements.
On the other hand, good communication is based on honesty which hails from sincerity, openness and integrity. Human dishonesty creates tension and lack of trust and harmony. A good communicator must therefore be a good listener, often referred to as ‘an active listener’. Many human problems are as a result of communication breakdown.
This is normally as a result of failure to consider the symbolic meanings and emotions portrayed by the other party. Communication, therefore, creates a platform where people find common ground and the divine spirits to agree and understand one another.
If our thoughts and feelings are not expressed freely through communication, then we become isolated in our consciousness. Through communication, love, wisdom, world unity, harmony and life is brought forth among the conforming partisans.
Conclusion
With the above illustrations it is clear that communication is highly subjective thus making it more of an art than a science. The freedom to choose our thoughts, our feelings, our actions and reactions defines a whole new world of creating a conscious world and an awareness that limits us to accepting facts or perceptions rallied upon by other people which are non-conforming to our belief systems.
Our consciousness, on the other hand, creates freedom of choice and it is out of the choices we make that we become creative in defining our course under any given situation. This is subjective in nature and therefore cements communication as an art since we always choose something at the expense of another. This gives choice a dual framework which dwells in tenets of good or bad (Wood, 2011, p. 1).
As humanly, we always choose what we deem as good and disregard what we deem as bad; whereby to someone else it might be directly opposite. That is, what you may deem as good, some one else might deem it to be bad and vice versa. In conclusion, communication presents itself in an artistic way for it goes beyond mere actions and facts and beyond sending and receiving messages.
Reference List
Chasteen, S. (2011). Speaking physics: the art of science communication. Web.
Connor, E. (2006). Science communication…it’s an art. Web.
Dennison, B. (2008). Is science communication an art? Web.
Murphy, D. (2009). In search of the art and science of strategic communication. Web.
Perkins, p. (2008). The art and science of communication: Tools for effective communication in the workplace. Web.
Wood, J. (2011). The art of communication. Web.