Portfolio Assignment
People use nonverbal and verbal means in order to reach an enormous number of personal objectives and deliver meaningful messages. Communication can take different forms depending on whether it occurs in everyday or organizational contexts and the presence of technology applications and tools. This paper’s purpose is to summarize and discuss my skills in interpersonal, group/organizational, and technology-mediated communication with reference to models of communication.
Interpersonal Communication
Just like other individuals, I have to apply interpersonal communication skills linked to speaking, listening, and building relationships to deal with everyday tasks and be able to transform my efforts and ideas into tangible and substantial results. Speaking about the general trends related to my performance, despite occasional difficulties and the cases of misunderstanding due to value differences, I usually succeed at performing tasks that require well-developed interpersonal communication skills. As an example, I am capable of getting across to people of different generations, including children, adapting to various speech patterns when listening to my partners in conversation, and managing conflicts to maintain productive relationships.
The application of interpersonal communication skills is always aimed at receiving the expected reaction, and it is reasonable to use the concept of the looking-glass self to conduct self-evaluation. As Cooley suggested in 1902, individuals’ self-concept is a combination of their self-image and others’ reactions to their behaviors (Jones, 2015). Basically, with reference to the reactions component, I am quite successful at exchanging messages with other people.
Since I live in a multinational country, I have to verbally communicate with individuals from different linguistic backgrounds, which requires the presence of well-developed spoken language skills. When engaging in communication with non-native speakers of English, I rarely observe confusion and puzzlement as a reaction to my words since I strive to formulate verbal messages with attention to my interlocutors’ characteristics, including age, a field of expertise, and ethnicity. In business, educational, and everyday contexts, my interlocutors usually get at the intended meanings of my phrases effortlessly, which is clear from their substantive responses.
My listening skills can also be evaluated with reference to the looking-glass self. As a woman, I fulfill multiple social roles, including those of a daughter, a relative, a mother, a friend, a student, and a professional on a daily basis, and it requires being an active and reflective listener. An important component of active listening, behavioral processes, involves the use of verbal and nonverbal signals to demonstrate that the message has been understood (Jones, Bodie, & Hughes, 2016).
In my conversations with people from different cultures, I may use nonverbal signs, such as nodding and maintaining eye contact and also paraphrase some parts of what my interlocutors have just said to show mutual understanding. It is worthy of notice that my interlocutors in business conversations react to these strategies in a positive way, which is evident from their willingness to continue speaking and sharing their ideas. Basically, I find pleasure in listening to others and trying to understand different worldviews as it often helps me to find inspiration for working on my creative projects, including a poetry book and a podcast.
When it comes to relationship skills, my acquaintances would probably describe me as a friendly and polite person capable of softening sharp corners. Others usually manifest emotional openness and readiness to discuss their successes and failures with me, which is, to some extent, the result of my self-improvement efforts. Before studying communications and media and getting experience in podcasting, I was more selfish when applying interpersonal skills to relationship building. Applying Lasswell’s sentence-based model, it is possible to say that I express willingness to understand others and avoid judging them using both online channels and real-life communication in order to build and improve relationships (Tinianow & Fairley, 2015).
In the Relating Through Communication Assignment completed before, I reflect on my communication issues in the past, including being less understanding and trying to stay quiet instead of voicing my position in case of conflicts. Today, both personal experience and new knowledge from the course prevent me from repeating the mistakes of the past.
Group and Organizational Communication
Organizational and group communication, as is clear from the term, refers to the coordination of efforts to pursue the goals of groups or organizations. Basically, to practice this form of communication, a person should be a good team member and demonstrate awareness of his or her group’s objectives and the desired vector of growth. Throughout my life, I have been a part of multiple groups, including hobby groups at school, sports teams, groups of employees, and so on. I have experience in the roles of both team leaders and usual members, and it makes me quite good at communicating with others to organize their work and sharing information with team members to be a cog in the wheel.
Five characteristics that would describe me as a communicator include politeness, attention to details, readiness to built rapport, emotional intelligence, and IT literacy. According to the symmetry model proposed by Newcomb, there are reciprocal links between two communicators and the subject of communication (Tinianow & Fairley, 2015). As Newcomb explains, the way that one communicator feels about the other influences his or her orientation towards the subject of communication, and this is why I apply situational awareness and my knowledge of specific details when formulating messages.
For instance, when acting as a team leader, I make any conversations about common goals aligned with my interlocutors’ personal circumstances and problems. Building rapport and digital literacy are believed to be critical to success in organizational communication, and I demonstrate these characteristics by using proper body language and active listening and engaging in online communication (Powless & Schafer, 2016). Finally, as a group member, I apply emotional intelligence skills to prevent conflicts and reduce emotional overload.
Summarizing my learning and work-related experiences, I can say that my most frequent roles in groups and organizations include acting as an intermediary between conflicting parties or individuals and creating a sense of unity. The details of these informal roles may vary from one group to another. Territoriality in the workplace is inherent in psychological ownership and sometimes leads to conflicts (Brown & Zhu, 2016).
When acting as a team member, I avoid engaging in territorial behaviors to prevent creating the imbalance of power and barriers to communication. Also, my personal space bubble is quite small since I have enough resistance to stress needed to work hard as a team member and fulfill my parenting responsibilities on a daily basis. This has not always been the case, but today, this fact makes my communication with others more productive and prevents me from having emotional outbursts.
Family communication constitutes a large and important part of my life, and the willingness to maintain healthy relationships shapes my approaches to conflicts with relatives. In family communication, I usually act as an understanding and uncomplaining person but never allow others to ignore my needs and take my care and support for granted. Therefore, as a family member, I am capable of balancing between common goals and my own psychological health, which is embodied in specific characteristics, including self-management, positive self-esteem, and tolerance to stress.
As a single mother of two children, I am often one on one with people who have not mastered the art of negotiation yet, and it requires me to apply both communication and teaching skills to ensure common understanding.
Technology-Mediated Communication
Technology-mediated communication or TMC is aimed at using the most recent technology to facilitate the exchange of information. TMC is broadly defined as any type of communication that uses technology (Tinianow & Fairley, 2015). I resort to it every day to stay in touch with interlocutors that are far away from me and continue working on my projects. Overall, I consider my TMC skills to be rather good since I am aware of differences between offline and online communication etiquette and quickly become familiar with new services for communication and how to use them.
It is challenging to engage in TMC without having proper technological skills, and I devote enough time to develop and improve my practical knowledge. According to the mathematical model of communication, the receiver’s ability to get the message as soon as possible is influenced by the presence of noise sources or factors that delay message delivery (Tinianow & Fairley, 2015). From my experience, such delays can be costly, and I prefer to use my technological skills to reduce the influence of noise sources.
For instance, to increase the chances that an important message is received as soon as possible, I approach an intended recipient using a number of channels, including short message service, social media, e-mail, and so on. Other technological skills that are worth mentioning include my ability to use plenty of programs and services to present my messages in an appropriate format. For instance, I actively use Microsoft Office to format and improve my future poetry book and have experience in creating presentations, audio and video files, surveys, and other information products.
My communication skills related to TMC are based on a good knowledge of the netiquette. It is known that business communications via social media are less open than personal ones, and I always consider these differences when formulating my messages (Linek & Ostermaier-Grabow, 2018). According to Schramm’s model, for the signal to be decoded in an intended way, there should be commonness between the two communicating parties, and these communicators’ fields of experience must overlap (Tinianow & Fairley, 2015).
I make quite successful attempts to create this commonness when engaging in TMC with different populations. As an example, I avoid youth slang or Internet abbreviations in conversations with older adults that are new Internet users. Overall, as a social media user, I demonstrate knowledge of the emoji language and online etiquette when exchanging messages with relatives, any business partners, and friends.
Considering my preferred channels for TMC, I am an experienced user of social networking websites, mobile communications, and programs for video conferencing. In particular, I often use Facebook to stay connected with friends, check out the latest news in my city, and search for like-minded people all over the world. Using mobile services, I make calls and send short messages to my relatives and friends on a daily basis. Finally, I use Skype primarily for personal purposes, including virtual “meetings” with relatives living outside of my state.
Broadly speaking, TMC services available today meet the majority of my needs related to communication and enable me to form new relationships and maintain older ones. However, I would be more satisfied if there was a social networking service for amateur and professional poets for communication, sharing one’s works with more experienced colleagues, and receiving feedback and recommendations. I would use such social networks to win a reputation in the community, learn from other poets, and develop a more unique style of writing.
TMC is commonly associated with multiple issues, but from my experience, it facilitates information exchange and destroys distance barriers effectively. The recent increase in TMC accessibility is believed to contribute to isolation, decreased social interaction, Internet addiction, and depressive disorders (Tinianow & Fairley, 2015). From my perspective, TMC use can have such consequences in people that are initially incommunicative, whereas this communication mode’s effect on privacy is more dangerous because it affects everyone equally. Thus, in the Comparing Modes of Communication Assignment, I discuss confidentiality issues associated with TMC and argue that face-to-face interactions offer more privacy.
Conclusion
To sum it up, despite some areas for improvement, I consider myself a good communicator when it comes to establishing and maintaining contacts with particular individuals or entire groups of people. Moreover, adequately developed communication abilities are used in combination with appropriate technological skills. Therefore, I manage to make use of modern means of communication to remove physical barriers to information exchange and establish new liaisons.
References
Brown, G., & Zhu, H. (2016). ‘My workspace, not yours’: The impact of psychological ownership and territoriality in organizations. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 48, 54-64.
Jones, J. M. (2015). The looking glass lens: Self-concept changes due to social media practices. The Journal of Social Media in Society, 4(1), 100-125.
Jones, S. M., Bodie, G. D., & Hughes, S. D. (2016). The impact of mindfulness on empathy, active listening, and perceived provisions of emotional support. Communication Research, 1-28.
Linek, S. B., & Ostermaier-Grabow, A. (2018). Netiquette between students and their lecturers on Facebook: Injunctive and descriptive social norms. Social Media and Society, 4(3), 1-17.
Powless, S., & Schafer, S. (2016). Eroding business communication skills among B-students: Causes, effects, and suggestions to consider. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 16(6), 127-136.
Tinianow, D. E., & Fairley, M. S. (2015). Messages in context: An introduction to human communication. San Diego, CA: Bridgeport Education, Inc.