Week 4 Post 3: Communicating in the Public Sphere

3). Pick one concept from the assigned reading that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.

One concept from the reading that I found really interesting was the idea of communicating in the public sphere. The book looks at this concept and compares it to communicating in the private sphere. The public sphere is communication as a member of a group with a topic that applies to many people. The private sphere is communication with only our own interests in mind. An example of communication in the public sphere would be a mayor, speaking at a town meeting. He’s speaking as a member of the community, to other members of the community about issues that affect them all. An example of communication in the private sphere is when a teenager asks their parents for permission to do something. They are only focused on an issue that directly affects them, with no concern to any group they may be involved in.

Week 4 Post 2: Speaker Characteristics

2). Consider a well-known speaker, for example, the current President of the United States. What is the speaker's strongest characteristics as a speaker? Is it credibility, attractiveness, power or all three? In what ways could the speaker build ethos in these areas?

I will use President Barack Obama and describe his strongest characteristics as a rhetorician. I think that his strongest characteristic as a speaker is his ability to arise emotions in his audience. Pathos is an emotional appeal, the concept of arising emotions in your audience for more persuasive power. President Obama has a huge advantage because of the historical power of his candidacy, but he holds it well. He manages to arise emotions in people of all race, and both genders. I think that he definitely has the other two modes of persuasion as well, pathos and logos, but his powers of emotional appeal are undeniable.

Week 4 Post 1: Influential Speakers

I am not sure if this is an accurate example because I didn’t hear this speech live, but I heard the recording and I definitely think that this is one of most influential speakers of our time. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of the best rhetoricians in our countries history. He was eloquent and good at using the three modes of persuasion, ethos, pathos, and logos. A good example of his skills with pathos, emotional appeal, is his most famous speech after Pearl Harbor. Aristotle once warned rhetoricians of the dangers of emotional appeal because if you arise emotion in the mass public, you must be able to control it or you will end up with riots. President Roosevelt’s speech arose the pride in his country and directed it into appropriate masses to support the war effort. One of the worst speakers I have ever heard is definitely President George Bush. In looking at the five canons of rhetoric, I think that he fails in every way. His arguments are not convincing, his material is never well organized or easy to follow, his language selection is way too simple for a leader of his status, and his delivery is extremely poor.

Week 2 Post 3: Communication Models

3). Pick one concept from the assigned reading that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.

One concept I found interesting in chapter two was the small section on how models help is understand communication. The whole chapter is on different perspectives or models of communication and this is just the preface but I thought it did a lot to explain why people use models to understand challenging concepts.

"Models stimulate creativity; by building models, we may find out interesting things that we might previously have overlooked" (23). Almost every concept we can come up with can be modeled. By creating models, we are forced to think about, and analyze every step of the way which inevitable leads to future studies, either about something we may have missed or ways to improve a current process or model.

Week 2 Post 2: Patterned Interaction

2). Consider the pragmatic perspective. Does it make sense to think of communication as patterned interaction? How is communication like a game? How is it different from a game?

This is an interesting question because answering either yes or no to the question, "Does it make sense to think of communication as patterned interaction?" brings many exceptions to my mind with either answer.

In many contexts, yes, communication is a patterned interaction. In some formats, like interviews, questionnaires, or surveys you are asked something and expected to respond with an answer. Typical conversations often begin with "Hi, how are you" and the recipient typically answers "Good, how are you?" In these situations I could definitely see how communication could be filled with many instances like these and definitely be seen as a patterned interaction.

On the other hand, communication is way too diverse and deep to try and compare it to a game. In chess, there are rules and in certain situations you only have one or two options. Communication is so much deeper than that. To use my earlier comparison, person A could say "Hi, how are you?" and person B could instead say, "It's fantastic! I just won tickets to a Britney spears concert and I am so excited, let me tell you all about it!", or they could say, "Fine" and effectively end the conversation. There are no set rules or regulations in communication so it's hard to compare to so something like chess, as chapter two attempts to do.

Week 2 Post 1: Online Social Networking

1). Consider the social constructionist perspective. How do we “build worlds” through communication? Think of some ideas we talk about in our culture that may not exist in other cultures. How do these concepts contribute to our happiness or success (of the lack of these) in our culture?

According to chapter two in our textbook, the concept of building worlds through communication looks at how communication is more than a conversation between two people, but is in fact something by which the human race could not survive without. With communication, cultures are able to share ideas, concepts, and symbols of themselves and the world around them.

One mainstream idea in our culture is the idea of online social networking. This is a humungous part of our culture, especially now with MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but even before those networking websites e-mail was the way to sty electronically connected. These electronic means of communication affect our culture to great extents, but the majority of the world remains unconnected. LinkedIn for example plays a huge part in connecting people in the business world, affording them opportunities that they have otherwise missed. MySpace allows friends, coworkers, classmates, and even families to post pictures and comments about what’s going on in their lives.

Week 1 Post 1: Steve MacMillan, CEO

A speaker that I really admire is Steve MacMillan, President and CEO of the company I work for, Stryker. Stryker has always been a very successful company with 9 strait years of double digit growth, but with the turn of the economy, it is feeling the effects of it’s customer’s capital freezes. Steve MacMillan spoke at the national sales meeting and really used a persuasive speech to get the sales force to forget 2008 and convince them that 2009 will be a more successful year.

His power to persuade these hundreds and hundreds of people to not give up and to continue the fight definitely came from the ethos mode. According to Aristotle, a speaker relying on the ethos mode must be able to convince his audience of his credibility through a demonstration of his intelligence, character, and goodwill. For MacMillan, he can show his practical wisdom and shared values with the sales force through the experience he has gained in the past. He is good at showing his character because he is a generally likable guy and emits a certain friendly quality that people can relate to. He can also show goodwill easily because what’s good for him is good for his audience so it’s easy for them to believe he wants what’s best for everyone.

I think that I have the ability to persuade people because I think that I am good at relating to people, and involving them in what I do. Aristotle has a theory on Enthymeme that I can easily relate to. It essentially means that the audience is provided the premise but then expected to make their own conclusions. It’s a way to make the audience feel involved and feel a personal connection, and this is something I really like to explore when trying to persuade.