09 communication english

Communication Communication is a process of transferring information from one entity to another Communication processes are sign-mediated interactions between at least two agents which share a repertoire of signs and semiotic rules Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs" Although there is such a thing as one-way communication, communication can be perceived better as a two-way process in which there is an exchange and progression of thoughts, feelings or ideas (energy) towards a mutually accepted goal or direction (information) * Overview Communication are a process whereby information is enclosed in a package and is discreeted and imparted by sender to a receiver via a channel/medium The receiver then decodes the message and gives the sender a feedback Communication requires that all parties have an area of communicative commonality There are auditory means, such as speech, song, and tone of voice, and there are nonverbal means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch, eye contact, and writing * Information communication revolutions As time progress, so does technology Technology has made things much simpler for humans, including adding new ways for us to communicate Researchers have divided how communication works into revolutions The 1st Information Communication Revolution: The 1st written communication began with pictographs These writings can be found on stone, which were too heavy to transfer During this era, written communication was not mobile The 2nd Information Communication Revolution: The Gutenberg press was invented Gutenberg printed the 1st bible The books were able to be transferred for others across the world to view Written communication is now storable, and portable The 3rd Information Communication Revolution: Information can now be transferred via waves, bits, and other electronic signals Communication is thus a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding This process requires a vast repertoire of skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating It is through communication that collaboration and cooperation occur There are also many common barriers to successful communication, two of which are message overload (when a person receives too many messages at the same time), and message complexity Communication is a continuous process * Types of communication There are three major parts in human face to face communication which are body language, voice tonality, and words According to the research: - 55% of impact is determined by body language - postures, gestures, and eye contact, - 38% by the tone of voice, and - 7% by the content or the words used in the communication process Although the exact percentage of influence may differ from variables such as the listener and the speaker, communication as a whole strives for the same goal and thus, in some cases, can be universal System of signals, such as voice sounds, intonations or pitch, gestures or written symbols which communicate thoughts or feelings If a language is about communicating with signals, voice, sounds, gestures, or written symbols, can animal communications be considered as a language? Animals not have a written form of a language, but use a language to communicate with each another In that sense, an animal communication can be considered as a separate language Human spoken and written languages can be described as a system of symbols (sometimes known as lexemes) and the grammars (rules) by which the symbols are manipulated The word "language" is also used to refer to common properties of languages Language learning is normal in human childhood Most human languages use patterns of sound or gesture for symbols which enable communication with others around them There are thousands of human languages, and these seem to share certain properties, even though many shared properties have exceptions There is no defined line between a language and a dialect, but the linguist Max Weinreich is credited as saying that "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy" Constructed languages such as Esperanto, programming languages, and various mathematical formalisms are not necessarily restricted to the properties shared by human languages * Nonverbal communication Nonverbal communication is the process of communicating through sending and receiving wordless messages Such messages can be communicated through gesture, body language or posture; facial expression and eye contact, object communication such as clothing, hairstyles or even architecture, or symbols and infographics, as well as through an aggregate of the above, such as behavioral communication Nonverbal communication plays a key role in every person's day to day life, from employment to romantic engagements Speech may also contain nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, including voice quality, emotion and speaking style, as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation and stress Likewise, written texts have nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, or the use of emoticons A portmanteau of the English words emotion (or emote) and icon, an emoticon is a symbol or combination of symbols used to convey emotional content in written or message form Other communication channels such as telegraphy fit into this category, whereby signals travel from person to person by an alternative means These signals can in themselves be representative of words, objects or merely be state projections Trials ave shown that humans can communicate directly in this way without body language, voice tonality or words Categories and Features: G W Porter divides non-verbal communication into four broad categories: - Physical: This is the personal type of communication It includes facial expressions, tone of voice, sense of touch, sense of smell, and body motions - Aesthetic: This is the type of communication that takes place through creative expressions: playing instrumental music, dancing, painting and sculpturing - Signs: This is the mechanical type of communication, which includes the use of signal flags, the 21-gun salute, horns, and sirens - Symbolic: This is the type of communication that makes use of religious, status, or egobuilding symbols Static Features - Distance: The distance one stands from another frequently conveys a non-verbal message In some cultures it is a sign of attraction, while in others it may reflect status or the intensity of the exchange - Orientation: People may present themselves in various ways: face-to-face, side-to-side, or even back-to-back For example, cooperating people are likely to sit side-by-side while competitors frequently face one another - Posture: Obviously one can be lying down, seated, or standing These are not the elements of posture that convey messages Are we slouched or erect ? Are our legs crossed or our arms folded ? Such postures convey a degree of formality and the degree of relaxation in the communication exchange - Physical Contact Shaking hands, touching, holding, embracing, pushing, or patting on the back all convey messages They reflect an element of intimacy or a feeling of (or lack of) attraction Dynamic Features - Facial Expressions: A smile, frown, raised eyebrow, yawn, and sneer all convey information Facial expressions continually change during interaction and are monitored constantly by the recipient There is evidence that the meaning of these expressions may be similar across cultures - Gestures: One of the most frequently observed, but least understood, cues is a hand movement Most people use hand movements regularly when talking While some gestures (e.g., a clenched fist) have universal meanings, most of the others are individually learned and idiosyncratic - Looking: A major feature of social communication is eye contact It can convey emotion, signal when to talk or finish, or aversion The frequency of contact may suggest either interest or boredom * Visual communication Visual communication as the name suggests is communication through visual aid It is the conveyance of ideas and information in forms that can be read or looked upon Primarily associated with two dimensional images, it includes: signs, typography, drawing, graphic design, illustration, colour and electronic resources It solely relies on vision It is form of communication with visual effect It explores the idea that a visual message with text has a greater power to inform, educate or persuade a person It is communication by presenting information through visual form The evaluation of a good visual design is based on measuring comprehension by the audience, not on aesthetic or artistic preference There are no universally agreed-upon principles of beauty and ugliness There exists a variety of ways to present information visually, like gestures, body languages, video and TV Here, focus is on the presentation of text, pictures, diagrams, photos, et cetera, integrated on a computer display The term visual presentation is used to refer to the actual presentation of information Recent research in the field has focused on web design and graphically oriented usability Graphic designers use methods of visual communication in their professional practice * Other types of communication Other more specific types of communication are for example: mass communication, facilitated communication, graphic communication, nonviolent communication, oral communication, s cience communication, communication strategic communication, superluminal communication, technical * Oral Communication The first step in planning an oral presentation involves acknowledging two fundamental differences between oral and written communication One essential goal of oral communication is to make personal contact with the audience, and to help connect them to the content Reading a written report aloud is not usually an effective strategy for engaging with the audience The needs/preferences of the audience play an even larger role in oral presentations than in writing The content of presentations should be prepared with this goal in mind Second, oral presentations are fleeting (or time-sensitive) If readers get lost or stop paying attention for a few minutes, they can always flip back a few pages Listeners, on the other hand, usually can’t interrupt the speaker and ask that s/he start again and go back a few minutes Once words are uttered, they vanish Presenters can account for the fleeting nature of oral presentations by making sure that the presentation is well organized and by making structure explicit in the talk, so the audience can always knows where they’ve been and where they’re going Communication modelling Communication is usually described along a few major dimensions: Content (what type of things are communicated), source/emisor/sender/encoder (by whom), form (in which form), channel (through which medium), destination/receiver/target/decoder (to whom), and the purpose or pragmatic aspect Between parties, communication includes acts that confer knowledge and experiences, give advice and commands, and ask questions These acts may take many forms, in one of the various manners of communication The form depends on the abilities of the group communicating Together, communication content and form make messages that are sent towards a destination The target can be oneself, another person or being, another entity (such as a corporation or group of beings) Communication can be seen as processes of information transmission governed by three levels of semiotic rules: - Syntactic (formal properties of signs and symbols), - Pragmatic (concerned with the relations between signs/expressions and their users) and - Semantic (study of relationships between signs and symbols and what they represent) Therefore, communication is social interaction where at least two interacting agents share a common set of signs and a common set of semiotic rules This commonly held rules in some sense ignores autocommunication, including intrapersonal communication via diaries or self-talk, both secondary phenomena that followed the primary acquisition of communicative competences within social interactions In a simple model, information or content (e.g a message in natural language) is sent in some form (as spoken language) from an emisor/sender/encoder to a destination/ receiver/ decoder In a slightly more complex form a sender and a receiver are linked reciprocally A particular instance of communication is called a speech act The sender's personal filters and the receiver's personal filters may vary depending upon different regional traditions, cultures, or gender; which may alter the intended meaning of message contents In the presence of "communication noise" on the transmission channel (air, in this case), reception and decoding of content may be faulty, and thus the speech act may not achieve the desired effect One problem with this encode-transmit-receive-decode model is that the processes of encoding and decoding imply that the sender and receiver each possess something that functions as a code book, and that these two code books are, at the very least, similar if not identical Although something like code books is implied by the model, they are nowhere represented in the model, which creates many conceptual difficulties Theories of coregulation describe communication as a creative and dynamic continuous process, rather than a discrete exchange of information Canadian media scholar Harold Innis had the theory that people use different types of media to communicate and which one they choose to use will offer different possibilities for the shape and durability of society (Wark, McKenzie 1997) His famous example of this is using ancient Egypt and looking at the ways they built themselves out of media with very different properties stone and papyrus Papyrus is what he called 'Space Binding' it made possible the transmission of written orders across space, empires and enables the waging of distant military campaigns and colonial administration The other is stone and 'Time Binding', through the construction of temples and the pyramids can sustain their authority generation to generation, through this media they can change and shape communication in their society (Wark, McKenzie 1997) The Krishi Vigyan Kendra Kannur under Kerala Agricultural University has pioneered a new branch of agricultural communication called Creative Extension * Non-human living organisms communication Communication in many of its facets is not limited to humans, or even to primates Every information exchange between living organisms - i.e transmission of signals involving a living sender and receiver - can be considered a form of communication Thus, there is the broad field of animal communication, which encompasses most of the issues in ethology Also very primitive animals such as corals are competent to communicate On a more basic level, there is cell signaling, cellular communication, and chemical communication between primitive organisms like bacteria, and within the plant and fungal kingdoms All of these communication processes are sign-mediated interactions with a great variety of distinct coordinations Animal communication is any behaviour on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behavior of another animal Of course, human communication can be subsumed as a highly developed form of animal communication The study of animal communication, called zoosemiotics' (distinguishable from anthroposemiotics, the study of human communication) has played an important part in the development of ethology, sociobiology, and the study of animal cognition This is quite evident as humans are able to communicate with animals, especially dolphins and other animals used in circuses However, these animals have to learn a special means of communication Animal communication, and indeed the understanding of the animal world in general, is a rapidly growing field, and even in the 21st century so far, many prior understandings related to diverse fields such as personal symbolic name use, animal emotions, animal culture and learning, and even sexual conduct, long thought to be well understood, have been revolutionized Plants and fungi Among plants, communication is observed within the plant organism, i.e within plant cells and between plant cells, between plants of the same or related species, and between plants and non-plant organisms, especially in the rootzone Plant roots communicate in parallel with rhizobia bacteria, with fungi and with insects in the soil This parallel sign-mediated interactions which are governed by syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules are possible because of the decentralized "nervous system" of plants The original meaning of the word "neuron" in Greek is "vegetable fiber" and as recent research shows, most of the intraorganismic plant communication processes are neuronal-like Plants also communicate via volatiles in the case of herbivory attack behavior to warn neighboring plants In parallel they produce other volatiles which attract parasites which attack these herbivores In Stress situations plants can overwrite the genetic code they inherited from their parents and revert to that of their grand- or great-grandparents Fungi communicate to coordinate and organize their own growth and development such as the formation of mycelia and fruiting bodies Additionally fungi communicate with same and related species as well as with nonfungal organisms in a great variety of symbiotic interactions, especially with bacteria, unicellular eukaryotes, plants and insects The used semiochemicals are of biotic origin and they trigger the fungal organism to react in a specific manner, in difference while to even the same chemical molecules are not being a part of biotic messages doesn’t trigger to react the fungal organism It means, fungal organisms are competent to identify the difference of the same molecules being part of biotic messages or lack of these features So far five different primary signalling molecules are known that serve to coordinate very different behavioral patterns such as filamentation, mating, growth, pathogenicity Behavioral coordination and the production of such substances can only be achieved through interpretation processes: self or non-self, abiotic indicator, biotic message from similar, related, or non-related species, or even “noise”, i.e., similar molecules without biotic content * Communication as academic discipline Communication as an academic discipline, sometimes called "communicology," relates to all the ways we communicate, so it embraces a large body of study and knowledge The communication discipline includes both verbal and nonverbal messages A body of scholarship all about communication is presented and explained in textbooks, electronic publications, and academic journals In the journals, researchers report the results of studies that are the basis for an ever-expanding understanding of how we all communicate Communication happens at many levels (even for one single action), in many different ways, and for most beings, as well as certain machines Several, if not all, fields of study dedicate a portion of attention to communication, so when speaking about communication it is very important to be sure about what aspects of communication one is speaking about Definitions of communication range widely, some recognizing that animals can communicate with each other as well as human beings, and some are more narrow, only including human beings within the parameters of human symbolic interaction * Mass communication Mass communication is the term used to describe the academic study of the various means by which individuals and entities relay information through mass media to large segments of the population at the same time It is usually understood to relate to newspaper and magazine publishing, radio, television and film, as these are used both for disseminating news and for advertising Field of study Tuba Nacar - Mass communication research includes media institutions and processes such as diffusion of information, and media effects such as persuasion or manipulation of public opinion In the United States, for instance, several university journalism departments evolved into schools or colleges of mass communication or "journalism and mass communication" In addition to studying practical skills of journalism, public relations or advertising, they offer programs on "mass communication" or "mass communication research." The latter is often the title given to doctoral studies in such schools, whether the focus of the student's research is journalism practice, history, law or media effects Departmental structures within such colleges may separate research and instruction in professional or technical aspects of mass communication With the increased role of the Internet in delivering news and information, mass communication studies and media organizations tend to focus on the convergence of publishing, broadcasting and digital communication The academic mass communication discipline historically differs from media studies and communication studies programs with roots in departments of theatre, film or speech, and with more interest in "qualitative," interpretive theory, critical or cultural approaches to communication study In contrast, many mass communication programs historically lean toward empirical analysis and quantitative research - from statistical content analysis of media messages to survey research, public opinion polling, and experimental research Interest in "New Media" and "Computer Mediated Communication" is growing much faster than educational institutions can assimilate it So far, traditional classes and degree programs have not been able to accommodate new shifts of the paradigm in communication technologies Although national standards for the study of interactive media have been present in the U.K since the mid-nineties, course work in these areas tends to vary significantly from university to university Graduates of Mass Communication programs work in a variety of fields in traditional news media and publishing, advertising, public relations and research institutes Such programs are accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication is the major membership organization for academics in the field, offering regional and national conferences and refereed publications The International Communication Association and National Communication Association (formerly the Speech Communication Association) include divisions and publications that overlap with those of AEJMC, but AEJMC historically has stronger ties to the mass communication professions in the United States The terms 'Mass' and 'Communication' The term 'mass' denotes great volume, range or extent (of people or production) and reception of messages The important point about 'mass' is not that a given number of individuals receives the products, but rather that the products are available in principle to a plurality of recipients The term 'mass' suggests that the recipients of media products constitute a vast sea of passive, undifferentiated individuals This is an image associated with some earlier critiques of 'mass culture' and Mass society which generally assumed that the development of mass communication has had a largely negative impact on modern social life, creating a kind of bland and homogeneous culture which entertains individuals without challenging them However, with the advancement in Media Technology, people are no longer receiving gratification without questioning the grounds on which it is based Instead, people are engaging themselves more with media products such as computers, cell phones and Internet These have gradually became vital tools for communications in society today Each term tends to be associated with particular ideas about the way science should or does relate to the rest of society For example, the Public Understanding of Science (PUS) movement is generally associated with a rather didactic approach, assuming non-scientist publics are deficient in scientific knowledge which will improve their lives A 1985 report by Walter Bodmer for the Royal Society is often credited as mobilising people in the UK around this approach In the USA the term scientific literacy is more often used to describe a similar approach, often associated with the work of Jon Miller (e.g 1983), whose work testing how well the public matched understand science formed the basis for the National Science Foundation’s biannual science indicator surveys from the 1970s onwards In contrast to PUS and scientific literacy, science communicators who stress the word ‘engagement’ are more likely to respect non-scientist’s own knowledge (and lack of it) and feel there is worth in getting scientists and publics to talk with each other The House of Lords Third Report on Science and Society from 2000 formalised such ‘a new mood for dialogue’ in UK science communication Soon after, a highly influential report from the think tank Demos, See-Through Science popularised the need for ‘upstream’ engagement which emphasises the need for the public to be involved at an early stage of science policy development Arguments for and against the Public Understanding of Science/ Scientific Literacy Writing in 1987, Geoffery Thomas and John Durant describe the various reasons for increased Public Understanding of Science as follows: - Benefits to Science – This is the ‘to know is to love’ argument, and perhaps mixes up the word ‘understanding’ with ‘appreciation’ It suggests that increased PUS will lead to more funding, looser regulation and more trained scientists - Benefits to National Economics – This argues that to compete economically we need trained scientists and engineers, which more PUS will provide - Benefits to Individuals – This is based on the sense that we live in a technological society, and assumes that we must know some science to negotiate it (e.g knowing about surface tension helps us kill spiders) - Benefits to Democratic Government & Society as a Whole – This train of thought emphasises that a scientifically informed electorate equals a more democratically run society - Intellectual, Aesthetic, and Moral Benefits – These arguments assume science is good for the soul in some way and increased PUS will lead to a populous of happier and more fulfilled individuals, perhaps equating science with the arts or religion Such arguments are quite old As are rebuttals of them For example, writing in 1952, I Bernard Cohen points out a set of ‘fallacies’ in arguments for improved science education: - Fallacy of Scientific Idolatry – ‘believing scientists to be lay saints, priests of truth, and superior beings who devote their lives to the selfless pursuit of higher things’ - Fallacy of Critical Thinking – understanding science does not necessarily give you this transferable skill, as ‘may easily be demonstrated by examining carefully the lives of scientists outside of the laboratory’ - Fallacy of Scientism – science is not the best or only way to solve problems - Fallacy of Miscellaneous Information – ‘the belief in the usefulness of unrelated information such as the boiling point of water, the distance in light years from the earth to various stars, the names of minerals’ Most of the key criticisms of PUS come from 1990s work from scholars in Science and Technology Studies For example Steven Hilgartner (1990) argues that what he calls 'the domanant view' of science popularization tends to imply a tight boundary around those who can articulate true, reliable knowledge By defining a deficient public as recipients of knowledge, the scientists get to contrast their own identity as experts The process of popularisation is a form of boundary work Understood in this way, science communication may explicitly exist to connect scientists with the rest of society, but its very existence only acts to emphasise it: as if the scientific community only invited the public to play in order to reinforce its most powerful boundary (see also Bucchi, 1998) Similarly, [Brian Wynne], in his seminal study of Cumbrian sheep farmers Imagining Science’s Public(s) Many criticisms of the PUS movement have emphasised that this thing they were calling the public was somewhat of a (unhelpful) black box Approaches to the public changed with the move with the move away from PUS Science communication researchers and practitioners now often showcase their desire to listen to non-scientists as well as acknowledging an awareness of the fluid and complex nature of (post/late) modern social identities At the very least, people will use plurals: publics or audiences As the editor of Public Understanding of Science put it in a special issue on publics: We have clearly moved from the old days of the deficit frame and thinking of publics as monolithic to viewing publics as active, knowledgeable, playing multiple roles, receiving as well as shaping science (Einsiedel, 2007: 5) However, Einsiedel goes on to suggest both views of the public are ‘monolithic’ in their own way; they both choose to declare what something called the public is PUS might have ridiculed publics for their ignorance, but PEST romanticises its publics for their participatory instincts, intrinsic morality or simple collective wisdom As Susana Hornig Priest (2009) concludes in her recent introduction essay on science’s contemporary audiences, the job of science communication might be to help non-scientists feel they are not excluded as opposed to always included; that they can join in if they want, rather than that there is a necessity to spend their lives engaging The process of quantifiably surveying public opinion of science is now largely associated with the PUS movement (some would say unfairly) In the US, Jon Miller is the name most associated with such work and well-known for differentiating between identifiable ‘attentive’ or ‘interested’ publics (i.e science’s fans) and those who not care much about science and technology Miller’s work questioned whether American publics had the follow four attributes of scientific literacy: - Knowledge of basic textbook scientific factual knowledge - An understanding of scientific method - Appreciated the positive outcomes of science and technology - Rejected superstitious beliefs such as astrology or numerology In some respects, John Durant’s work surveying British publics applied similar ideas to Miller However, they were slightly more concerned with attitudes to science and technology, rather than just how much knowledge people had They also looked at public confidence in their knowledge, considering issues such as the gender of those ticking don’t know boxes We can see aspects of this approach, as well as a more ‘PEST’ influenced one, reflected within the Eurobarometer studies of public opinion These have been running since 1973 to monitor public opinion in the member states, with the aim of helping the preparation of policy (and evaluation of policy) They look at a host of topics, not just science and technology but also defence, the Euro, EU enlargement and culture Eurobarometer’s recent study of Europeans’ Attitudes to Climate Change is a good example It focuses on respondents’ ‘subjective level of information’; asking ‘personally, you think you that you are well informed or not about…? rather than checking what people knew * Strategic Communication Strategic Communication can mean either communicating a concept, a process, or data that satisfies a long term strategic goal of an organization by allowing facilitation of advanced planning, or communicating over long distances usually using international telecommunications or dedicated global network assets to coordinate actions and activities of operationally significant commercial, non-commercial and military business or combat and logistic subunits It can also mean the related function within organisations that takes care of internal and external communication processes History of strategic communication Strategic communication at its nascent ancient application begun with the first attempts to transmit knowledge through writing either to the following generations, or to locations remote to its origin The need to increase the distance and speed of transmission may have been one of the factors behind the domestication of the horse which remained the primary mode of communication until the invention of the semaphore, and later the telegraph The business management reference for Strategic Communication may be the concept of Integrated Management Communication Definition of strategic communication Strategic communication management could be defined as the systematic planning and realization of information flow, communication, media development and image care in a long-term horizon It conveys deliberate message(s) through the most suitable media to the designated audience(s) at the appropriate time to contribute to and achieve the desired longterm effect Communication management is process creation It has to bring three factors into balance: the message(s), the media channel(s) and the audience(s) Current multinational concept development and experimentation defines Strategic Communication as "a function to integrate an organisation's information activities in order to advance its interests and objectives, and to promote the coherence of the organisation" (See Peter E Westenkirchner: Framework Concept "Strategic Communication in Support of Multinational Coalition Operations within a Comprehensive Approach") Application objectives Strategic Communication (SC) provides a conceptual umbrella that enables organizations to integrate their disparate messaging efforts It allows them to create and distribute communications that, while different in style and purpose, have an inner coherence This consistency can, in some instances, foster an echo chamber that reinforces the organizational message and brand At minimum, it prevents contradictory, confusing messaging to different groups across all media platforms Defence application The recently approved NATO Policy on Strategic Communication defines Strategic Communication as "the coordinated and appropriate use of NATO communications activities and capabilities – Public Diplomacy, Military Public Affairs, Information Operations and Psychological Operations, as appropriate – in support of Alliance policies, operations and activities, and in order to advance NATO's aims" (SG(2009)0794) "It is important to underline that Strategic Communication is first and foremost a process that supports and underpins all efforts to achieve the Alliance's objectives; an enabler that guides and informs our decisions, and not an organization in itself It is for this reason that Strategic Communication considerations should be integrated into the earliest planning phases - communication activities being a consequence of that planning" (MCM-01642009) Commercial application Strategic Communications in Commercial Environment is the non-military application of strategic communication principles and techniques are a new way for organizations to respond to a changed business landscape that results from today's networked communication environment Back in the day, organizations could segment publics and audiences and target unique messages to each one Employees, investors, partners, citizens of local communities, potential buyers and consumers could each receive messages that were not widely known or shared by the other groups Now, all potential publics and audiences can access information about the organization Providing dissimilar, even contradictory information is no longer possible and may even be problematic Consumers see information targeted to investors and partners, employees see messages sent to members of the community In short, with little effort, almost everyone can see almost everything Within organizations, the need to integrate communication efforts is moving the authority for creating messages from silos (media relations, investor relations, public relations, advertising, sales and promotion, community relations, corporate training) into corporate headquarters When organizations adopt strategic communication processes, the messageoriginating departments although they were never fully autonomous must report to corporate communications units that issue guidelines for all organizational communication programs and efforts The term "strategic communication" means more than just getting the right message to the right people and so on It also means ensuring that communication programs meet the objectives of the organization In order to meet those objectives and to obtain sufficient evidence to suggest that a program can or will meet them, SC is typically supported by a detailed research plan Once the objectives are clarified, research to define audiences, to measure current attitudes, and to test ways to change those attitudes must be undertaken Once the coordinating unit develops concepts, there will be focus groups and/or surveys to identify the most effective concepts Final messages are also tested The early research that shapes the message is called "formative evaluation." After implementation of the communication program, "summative evaluation" takes place This research answers the questions: Did the program reach its goals? What effects did the campaign have? What remains to be done? Research support for communication programs has long been a facet of advertising and, more broadly, marketing campaigns In the commercial marketplace, sales are often the measurement for success and failure In PR, the metric has generally been "clip files," the number of mentions in the editorial press: the more clips and the more influential the publications, the better The underlying assumptions of strategic communication begin by rejecting these silos and adopting more robust measurements at all stages of program development, implementation, and post-campaign evaluation Public administration application Educational institutions are responding to the perceived need for new ways of planning, developing, and implementing communication programs In the last two years, a growing number of educational institutions offer programs in strategic communication, usually at the master's level Prospective students can search the Internet for available programs Concept Development and Experimentation (CD&E) In a crisis management context involving multinational civilian and military actors, Strategic Communication combines internal and external communication processes at all levels based on mission-specific, superior guidance It involves the understanding and engaging of foreign and domestic audiences within a comprehensive approach Communication is not an optional add-on to coalition operations It must be employed from the beginning and shape both the design and implementation of crisis management activity The following prospective assumptions (hypotheses for concept development) describe the conceptual approach to Strategic Communication: - Common Guidance Issued: If there is common guidance for coalition information activities issued by strategic-political authorities, then contradictory messaging by coalition partners will be minimised - Leadership-Driven: If Strategic Communication is leadership-driven, then it will become effective throughout all levels of involvement ('vertical dimension') - Network of Experts Established: If there is a network of communication experts established at the earliest stage of coalition-building (or even before), then consistent implementation of Strategic Communication by all partners will be facilitated ('horizontal dimension') - Common Identity Promoted: If a common coalition identity is promoted through internal communication along the coalition's vision, then coalition external communication efforts can purposefully assist the achievement of a desired image and credibility - Narrative Shared and Implemented: If a coalition narrative is shared and implemented by all partners, then targeted messaging by coalition partners will be consistent To summarise the basic requirements for implementation of this approach to Strategic Communication, a "3 Layers / Pillars" model is proposed bottom layers constitute the foundation of this model: a systemic and comprehensive understanding the information environment is a condition that enables communication practitioners to tailor communication efforts to audiences and design culturally attuned information activities This notably involves the understanding of audiences from their various perspectives, including the requirement of 'strategic listening' But systemic understanding involves much more than just an audience perspective: it is the system-of-systems approach to analysis and assessment, which should promote a better apprehension of complex communication situations; communication must be understood as a process of creating and conveying meaning through symbolic interaction – verbally or non-verbally, intentionally or unintentionally – with perception and interpretation of actions playing a pivotal role; communicators need to understand the strategy or vision of their organisation in order to be able to craft adequate messages and advise effective activity to get these messages across in support of mission objectives Once these foundations are created, pillars depict the pro-active process requirements of Strategic Communication: communication must be integrated throughout all processes from planning to execution of activity Planners and operators; leaders, managers, supervisors and employees – they all need to consider the information environment and understand the possible information effects of their actions; consulting, education and training efforts should assist leaders in accepting their key role in the organisation's communication When senior executives ignore the importance of communication – and the necessity of their own active, personal leadership in it – they seriously undermine the value of major initiatives of their organisation Ineffective communication can sow dissention, heighten anxiety and confusion, alienate key individuals or groups, and damage management's credibility with critical audiences both inside and outside the organisation; harmonisation of internal and external communication efforts is paramount for the development both common identity and desired image of the organisation, and is thus a major prerequisite for effectiveness and ultimately achievement of objectives or mission accomplishment On these foundations and pillars builds Strategic Communication, which incorporates several processes but needs to be taken care of as a function in order to be implemented consistently and become effective * Superluminal communication Superluminal communication is the term used to describe the hypothetical process by which one might send information at faster-than-light (FTL) speeds All empirical evidence found by scientific investigation indicates that it is impossible in reality Some theories and experiments include: - Group velocity > c experiments - Evanescent wave coupling - Tachyons - Quantum non-locality According to the currently accepted theory, three of those four phenomena not produce superluminal communication, even though they may give that appearance under some conditions As for tachyons, their existence remains hypothetical; even if their existence were to be proven, attempts to quantize them appear to indicate that they may not be used for superluminal communication, because experiments to produce or absorb tachyons cannot be fully controlled If wormholes are possible, then ordinary subluminal methods of communication could be sent through them to achieve superluminal transmission speeds Considering the immense energy that current theories suggest would be required to open a wormhole large enough to pass spacecraft through it may be that only atomic-scale wormholes would be practical to build, limiting their use solely to information transmission Some theories of wormhole formation would prevent them from ever becoming "timeholes", allowing superluminal communication without the additional complication of allowing communication with the past The no cloning theorem prevents superluminal communication via quantum cloning However, this does not in itself prevent faster-than-light or superluminal communication, since it is not the only proposed method of such communication But, consider the EPR thought experiment, and suppose quantum states could be cloned Alice could send bits to Bob in the following way: If Alice wishes to transmit a '0', she measures the spin of her electron in the z direction, collapsing Bob's state to either |z+>B or |z->B If Alice wishes to transmit a '1', she measures the spin of her electron in the x direction, collapsing Bob's state to either |x+>B or |x->B Bob creates many copies of his electron's state, and measures the spin of each copy in the z direction If Alice transmitted a '0', all his measurements will produce the same result; otherwise, his measurements will be split evenly between +1/2 and -1/2 This would allow Alice and Bob to communicate across space-like separations, potentially violating causality But violation of causality is not sufficient as proof of no superluminal communication So superluminal communication remains an open issue * Technical communication Technical communication is the process of conveying technical information through writing, speech, and other media to a specific audience Information is usable if the intended audience can perform an action or make a decision based on it (Johnson-Sheehan 7) Technical communicators often work collaboratively to create products (deliverables) for various media, including paper, video, and the Internet Deliverables include online help user manuals, technical manuals, specifications, process and procedure manuals, reference cards, training, business papers and reports Technical domains can be of any kind, including the soft and hard sciences, high technology including computers and software, consumer electronics, and business processes and practices Technical communication jobs include the following: - Technical writer - Technical editor - Technical illustrator - Information architect - Usability expert - User interface designer - User experience designer - Technical trainer - Technical translator History The origin of technical communication has been variously attributed to Ancient Greece, The Renaissance, and the mid 20th Century However, a clear trend towards the professional field can be seen from the First World War on, growing out of the need for technology-based documentation in the military, manufacturing, electronic and aerospace industries In 1953, two organizations concerned with improving the practice of technical communication were founded on the East Coast of the United States: the Society of Technical Writers, and the Association of Technical Writers and Editors These organizations merged in 1957 to form the Society of Technical Writers and Editors, a predecessor of the current Society for Technical Communication (STC) Content creation Technical communication is sometimes considered a professional task for which organizations either hire specialized employees, or outsource their needs to communication firms For example, a professional writer may work with a company to produce a user manual Other times, technical communication is regarded as a responsibility that technical professionals employ on a daily basis as they work to convey technical information to coworkers and clients For example, a computer scientist may need to provide software documentation to fellow programmers or clients The process of developing information products in technical communication begins by ensuring that the nature of the audience and their need for information is clearly identified From there the technical communicator researches and structures the content into a framework that can guide the detailed development As the information product is created, the paramount goal is ensuring that the content can be clearly understood by the intended audience and provides the information that the audience needs in the most appropriate format This process, known as the 'Writing Process', has been a central focus of writing theory since the 1970s, and some contemporary textbook authors have applied it to technical communication Technical communication is important to engineers mainly for the purpose of being professional and accurate These reports supply specific information in a concise manner and are very clear in their meaning if done correctly The technical writing process can be divided into five steps: - Determine purpose and audience - Collect information - Organize and outline information - Write the first draft - Revise and edit Determining purpose and audience All technical communication is done with a particular end in mind The purpose is usually to facilitate the communication of ideas and concepts to the audience, but may sometimes be used to direct the audience in a particular course of action The importance of the audience is in the notion that meaning is derived from the audience's interpretation of a piece of work The purpose may be something as simple as having the audience understand the details of some technological system, or to take a particular action using that system For example, if the workers in a bank were not properly posting deposits to accounts, someone would write the procedure so these workers might have the correct procedure Similarly, a sales manager might wonder which of two sites would be a more appropriate choice for a new store, so he would ask someone to study the market and write a report with the recommendations The sales manager would distribute the report to all parties involved in making that decision In each of these instances, the person who is writing is transferring knowledge from the person who knows to the person who needs to know This is the basic definition of technical communication The most commonly used form of technical communication is technical writing Examples of technical writing include: project proposals, persuasive memos, technical manuals, and users' guides Such materials should typically present an (informal) argument and be written diplomatically A user's guide for an electronic device typically includes diagrams along with detailed textual explanations The purpose should serve as a goal that the writer strives toward in writing The identification of the audience affects many aspects of communication, from word selection and graphics usage to style and organization A non-technical audience might not understand, or worse, not even read a document that is heavy with jargon, while a technical audience might crave extra detail because it is critical for their work Busy audiences not have time to read an entire document, so content must be organized for ease of searching, for example by the frequent inclusion of headers, white space and other cues that guide attention Other requirements vary on the needs of the particular audience Examples: In Government: Technical communication in the government is very particular and detailed Depending on the particular segment of the government (and not to mention the particular country), the government component must follow distinct specifications In the case of the US Army, the MIL-spec (Military specification) is used It is updated continuously and technical communications (in the form of Technical Manuals, Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals, Technical Bulletins, etc.) must be updated as well The Department of Defense utilizes Technical Manuals regularly and is a core part of the agency's responsibilities Although detail oriented in their requirements, the DoD has deficiencies in technical communication The following paper discusses those deficiencies and identifies the major contributing factors Duffy, Thomas M.; and others (1985) Technical Manual Production: An Examination of Four Systems CDC Technical Report No 19 Carnegie- Mellon University, Pittsburg, PA http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/2f/2c /63.pdf Collecting information The next step is to collect information needed for accomplishing the stated purpose Information may be collected through primary research, where the technical communicator conducts research first-hand, and secondary research, where work published by another person is used as an information source The technical communicator must acknowledge all sources used to produce his or her work To ensure that this is done, the technical communicator should distinguish quotations, paraphrases, and summaries when taking notes Organizing and outlining information Before writing the initial draft, all the ideas are organized in a way that will make the document flow nicely A good way of doing this is to write all random thoughts down on a paper, and then circle all main sections, connect the main sections to supporting ideas with lines, and delete all irrelevant material Once each idea is organized, the writer can then organize the document as a whole This can be accomplished in various ways: - Chronological: This is used for documents that involve a linear process, such as a step-bystep guide describing how to accomplish something - Parts of an object: Used for documents which describe the parts of an object, such as a graphic showing the parts of a computer (keyboard, monitor, mouse, etc.) - Simple to Complex (or vice versa): Starts with the easy-to-understand ideas, and gradually goes deeper into complex ideas - Specific to General: Starts with many ideas, and then organizes the ideas into subcategories - General to Specific: Starts with a few categories of ideas, and then goes deeper Once the whole document is organized, it's a good idea to create a final outline, which will show all the ideas in an easy-to-understand document Creating an outline makes the entire writing process much easier and will save the author time Writing the first draft After the outline is completed, the next step is to write the first draft The goal is to write down ideas from the outline as quickly as possible Setting aside blocks of one hour or more, in a place free of distractions, will help the writer maintain a flow Also, the writer should wait until the draft is complete to any revising; stopping to revise at this stage will break the writer's flow The writer should start with the section that is easiest for them, and write the summary only after the body is drafted The ABC (Abstract, Body, and Conclusion) format can be used when writing a first draft The Abstract describes the subject to be written about, so that the reader knows what he or she is going to be told in the document The Body is the majority of the paper, in which the topics are covered in depth Lastly, the Conclusion section restates the main topics of the paper The ABC format can also be applied to individual paragraphs, beginning with a topic sentence that clearly states the paragraph's topic This is followed by the topic, and finally, the paragraph closes with a concluding sentence Revising and editing Once the initial draft is laid out, editing and revising can be done to fine-tune the draft into a final copy Four tasks transform the early draft into its final form, suggested by Pfeiffer and Boogard: Adjusting and reorganizing content During this step, the draft is revisited to 1) focus or elaborate on certain topics which deserve more attention, 2) shorten other sections, and 3) shift around certain paragraphs, sentences, or entire topics Editing for style Good style makes the writing more interesting, appealing, or readable Some changes are made by choice, not for correctness, and may include: - shortening paragraphs - rearranging paragraphs - changing passive-voice sentences to an active voice - shortening sentences - defining terminology - adding headings, lists, graphics Editing for grammar At this point, the document can be checked for grammatical errors, such as comma usage and common word confusions (for example, there/their/they're) Edit for context Determining the necessary amount of context is important There needs to be a balance between exuberance, which may lead the audience to take unintended additional meaning from the text, and terseness, which may leave the audience unable to interpret meaning because of lack of context Controlled languages In environments where readability and (automated) translatability are of primary concern, authors may be using a controlled language, i.e a subset of natural languages whose grammars and dictionaries have been restricted An example of a widely used controlled language is Simplified English, which was originally developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals ... as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, or the use of emoticons A portmanteau of the English words emotion (or emote) and icon, an emoticon is a symbol or combination of symbols used