Essay Assignment 1 (Question 8)

Why our society might especially need to improve communication between and among people.

___________________________________ Effective Public Communication FCOM0102 Class Assignment 1

Joshua Chua Shu Min 0313572

FNBE JAN2013-FCOM 0102 NATHANIEL WOON WAI CHEONG EFFECTIVE PUBLIC COMMUNICATION JOSHUA CHUA SHU MIN - 0313572

COMMUNICATION, THE FACET OF LIFE Why is communication the facet of life? In my point of view, communication is part of an ingredient that helps to shape and mould the world into a better place. Communication is defined as a complex verbal and non-verbal process between partners as claimed by Dettmer, Dyck and Thurston. Hence, societies hinge on all aspects of communication from verbal to non-verbal communication to fulfill their daily task. According to Joel Osteen's quote You can change your world just by changing the words that you speak..., this shows that communication is essential in all spheres of our life regardless what language we use. Why is it so important? This is because communication acts as a basic foundation of sharing information between each other in order to ensure that everything is clearly explained and can be done veraciously. It is hard to imagine a life where there is absolutely no communication. Even the mute uses sign language to express their feelings and emotions. The importance of communication is building better human relationships between mankind, helping us to exercise our inborn freedom of speech and to see ourselves in a better manner. First and foremost, a greater bonding between mankind will be built by learning communication effectively when one can increase its enlightenment on communication. Homo sapiens are a part of the animal kingdom. Therefore, we definitely cannot live without interacting with each other. For instance, human communicate with each other in their workplace to improve productivity, retention and also to motivate each other. Besides that, human relationships also serve various functions. For example, it not only provides us with affection, pleasure, escape, control
FNBE JAN2013-FCOM 0102 NATHANIEL WOON WAI CHEONG EFFECTIVE PUBLIC COMMUNICATION JOSHUA CHUA SHU MIN - 0313572

but also inclusion. This is why human relationships are vital in the 21st century. As we move on further about the knowledge of communication, we will notice that the intricacy of human relationships varies. For instance, people may be receptive or dismissive towards us. Moreover, we also learn that interactions may be helpful or even harmful to us. This is because learning how to communicate effectively can not only help us to share personal trust but also sympathy towards the source. At the same time, this would cause havoc if it is not used wisely because it has its pros and cons too. Furthermore, communication helps us to practise our inborn freedom of speech. Benjamin Franklin once said that Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech. Just by referring to this quote, it shows the dominance of freedom of speech in our everyday life. The freedom of speech is essential for a democratic country like the United States of America as it invites the whole nation to convey their viewpoints and postulations. Hence, the citizens are able to update themselves with the current controversy that is happening around the country and they are also able to speak forth for themselves. This shows that communication also plays a part in our political lives too despite which country we are living in. As a result, people from the countryside all the way to the rural area are able to receive information in a blink of an eye. The quality of communication has slipped in the past few years as the overwhelming of technology that has crept itself into our lives. However, political news is just a click away from us in our world today as people are using the technology in a proper manner. Thus, with all these advancement of communication technology, speaking, analyzing arguments and synthesizing a huge amount of information in order to fight for our own rights is no longer a huge issue. In
FNBE JAN2013-FCOM 0102 NATHANIEL WOON WAI CHEONG EFFECTIVE PUBLIC COMMUNICATION JOSHUA CHUA SHU MIN - 0313572

this way, a fully functioning adherent of a democratic nation will be built despite of what race or religion we are. Last but not least, studying communication helps us to see ourselves in a greater perspective. We become more familiarized with ourselves through communicative experiences such as intrapersonal communication and interpersonal communication. Intrapersonal communication is a process of using messages to generate meaning within ourselves whereas interpersonal communication is a process of using messages to generate meaning between at least two individuals that allows mutual opportunities for them to listen and to share their thoughts. By referring to the definitions of both different types of communications, it shows that communication affects our selfrecognition because it can lead us to greater gratitude towards ourselves. Based on a research, extroverts are normally more confident of themselves compared to introverts as they normally get involved in events that help them to ameliorate their communication skills like public speaking competition and debate competition. Henceforth, learning about communication will help us understand the function it plays as effective communication is indispensable in our society today. In conclusion, communication is also said to be inevitable as it occurs almost every minute in our daily lives. Additionally, learning communication is not about the quantum that we digest because increasing in our communication quantity does not necessarily increase our communication quality. Thus, quality communication plays a dominant role in many aspects of our life as it is part of our existence and interaction. Improvement is not constant and is a continual process. Likewise, communication is continuously evolving and is in need of daily improvement and enhancement.
FNBE JAN2013-FCOM 0102 NATHANIEL WOON WAI CHEONG EFFECTIVE PUBLIC COMMUNICATION JOSHUA CHUA SHU MIN - 0313572

References: Anderson, J., Poole, M. (2001) Assignment and Thesis Writing, Milton: John Wiley & Sons Australia Wood, J.T. (2002) Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters, (3rd ed.) Australia: Wadsworth Pearson, C.P., Nelson, E. N., Scott, T., Harter, H. (2013) Human Communication, (5th ed.) Boston: McGraw Hill ameliorate. Merriam-Webster online dictionary. Retrieved from : http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ameliorate

FNBE JAN2013-FCOM 0102 NATHANIEL WOON WAI CHEONG EFFECTIVE PUBLIC COMMUNICATION JOSHUA CHUA SHU MIN - 0313572