Managing Organizational Communication Article and Getting the Word Out Article -

Summary and What I Learned:

Summary:
I chose to read two different articles on communication to get a better understanding on
how to facilitate communication in different settings and how to disseminate public health
information in different ways. The first article I read was called Managing Organizational
Communication which is an article more focused on work scenarios, but gave a lot of great
information about the importance of communication and how it is a two-way conversation. This
article gave me insight into the different ways that communication is important for various
scenarios and the use of specific modes of communication. The second article that I read was
called Getting the Word Out and was more focused specifically on public health communications
and dissemination of information. This article gave me a better understanding of how to
communicate public health information to a wide audience and how to effectively reach your
audience while maintaining the authenticity of the information being given. Overall, these two
articles help me with sub-competencies #4 and #7 within the communication domain. I learned a
lot from these articles.

What I Learned:
● Managing Organizational Communication - From this article, I learned a lot about
how good and bad communication can affect an organization as well as the importance of
considering the audience. To start with, communication is a vital part of management and
it is important to have comprehensive policies and strategies in place to have effective
communication. Looking at the benefits of effective communication, we see that it builds
morale, satisfaction, and engagement. This is so important for all settings of
communication. In addition, it helps to lessen the chances for misunerasinga and help
other people to have their voices heard. Communication is a two-way conversation, and
thus both parties need to be heard and respected. On the other hand, ineffective
communication can lead to misunderstandings, damaged relationships, breaking of trust,
anger, and hostility. This is something I really want to avoid. Another thing I learned
from this article is the importance of considering the audience when having different
communications. You need to know the group you are talking to, their needs, the
diversity of the group, and the geography of the conversion as well. By geography I mean
is the conversation taking place in a room on site, is it a video conference, is it a meeting
conducted between organizations? The last thing that I took away from this article is
starting to consider different components that impact what mode of communication is
right for a given situation. For instance, timing is important. Is this message one that
needs to reach everyone before the work day begins? An email may be good for that. In
addition, we need to conier the location/geography again. For instance, are we conducting
a meeting at one site, across the state, country, or even globally? Lastly, what message are
 you trying to convey? If the message centres around informing people about dates and
times, a newsletter or email would be appropriate. However, a quarterly staff meeting
would be more appropriately held in a boardroom or as a video conference.
● Getting the Word Out - this article was geared towards the dissemination of information
from scientists and public health individuals to both policy makers and stakeholders as
well as the general public. This article taught me that there is a research-practice gap the
exists between the discovery of public health knowledge and information and its
application in daily life, which is mainly the result of ineffective dissemination of
information. A lot of the different methods of dissemination currently are passive and are
not effective at getting out information to others to be implemented. Instead, when public
health information is given to the nonscientific community, it needs to be baked on
messages that evoke emotion and demonstrate the usefulness of the information that
directly relates to them. The article then goes into talking about how there are 4 different
aspects we need to consider which are the source, message, audience, and channel. I
provided the graphic below from the article as I think it does a good job of illustrating
this concept and it was useful for me. The first component is the message, this is the
information that is going to be communicated. This is very important and is the basis for
the communication. I also learned about the concept of social marketing which I had not
been exposed to before. This is when marketing techniques are used to make the audience
accept, reject, modify, or abandon a specific behavior that will benefit the individual
and/or the community. I had never really thought about this before but found it very
interesting. The source is the researcher or public health officials that are disseminating
the information. Research actually shows that they are often not good at disseminating
their information to the public. The audience is very important as well and their
characteristics are vital when developing the message and channel of communication.
People are emotional, so having a message that connects to their emotions is important in
making them feel that the message is applicable to them. Lastly, we need to look at the
channel. This is the mode of communication. This can include news media such as radio,
television, and newspapers. It could be social media such as twitter, facebook, blogs,
youtube, and instagram. It could be workshops and seminars. All of these channels have
their own benefits and disadvantages.