DCC 1.9 – Weekly Blog
Communication is a pretty straightforward term– it just means conveying ideas to others. Right? Take, for example, this very blog post. I am communicating to you my ideas on communication through typing characters on my laptop, which characters are ordered in such a way that they (hopefully) make sense to you, and convey my thoughts to you. As you read these words, you can comprehend what I might be trying to express.
However, I think it is clear to most of us that communication is never that simple. Perhaps that is because the humans doing the communicating are never that simple. Each person communicating their ideas has different motives and intentions for their communication.
For example, maybe you’ve been in a grocery store, minding your own business, when someone approaches you and strikes up a conversation. Weird, because no one just talks to a stranger in a grocery store anymore (unless they are over the age of 60), but you go with it, because you’d like to believe technology isn’t ruining human connection forever in this digital age. You politely answer this stranger’s questions and ask them some in return. Soon, they steer the conversation to what you do for work. You are already apprehensive, but you answer their questions anyway, hoping that your intuition about their purpose in communicating with you is wrong. Sure enough, this nice stranger was just buttering you up, and here comes the main entree of their polite conversation: Amway. While some people might still strike up conversations at the grocery store to feel connected to their community and get to know people around them, others do it to try to pitch a multi-level marketing scheme. The conversation that arises from both conversation intentions might even be similar, but their outcome and the feelings they leave the other person with are markedly different. I’d say that is because of the differing motivations behind the curtain.
In writing specifically, writers hold an arsenal of tools at their disposal to influence and affect their audiences for worse or for better. Their intentions heavily determine what tools they use and how they carry them into their communication. For example, a political writer who wants to undermine a candidate would likely employ sarcasm and a sense of incredulity to try to persuade the reader to see the flaws and shortcomings of that candidate. A blogger wanting to sell you a product might employ a friendly tone, a relatable anecdote, to try to show that they are trustworthy, and therefore you might believe what they want to sell you is worth buying. A newswriter would want to use a tone of authority and polish, so that you feel they are qualified and professional, and that their reporting has an air of validity to it. A tabloid would want to hook your attention with something salacious (even if it is outlandish), so that you will be curious enough to read their article.
So it seems communication is not always as straightforward as words on a page, due to the purpose behind those words. This is a good principle to keep in mind for both reader and writer alike. Writers should note to never write anything without a clear, definite purpose behind it, and readers should remember that any writer worth their salt is likely trying to influence you to do or believe something or the other. In any case, communication is something that deserves our attention, purposeful intention, and discernment.
Wheat Penny Homes 