Communication and Theatre 310 Organizational Communication: The Nature of Communication

Communication and Theatre Communication and Theatre 310310

Organizational Organizational Communication:Communication:

The Nature of CommunicationThe Nature of Communication

Information Transfer:

• Language can convey meaning

• Communicators put meaning into messages

• Words contain meaning

• Receivers extract meanings from words

Communication as a transaction:

• Meaning is in people

• Receiver oriented

• Negotiation of meaning

Communication as controlling action:

• Personally

• Socially

• Politically

• Ethically

Strategic ambiguity . . .

• Multiple interpretations

• Preserve position

• Facilitates change

Communication as balancing creativity and constraint

• We are socially constructed vs. we are independent agents

• We are determined via communication

• We reflect who we are by communicating

Organizational communication is “the moment-to-moment working out of the tension between individual creativity and organizational constraint.” p .36

What if balance is not possible?

Unbalanced mind by Paul Hero

Organizations as dialogues . . .

• “I”

• “Me”

• Context                                                                                                                 

Who is the “other?”

We are situated multicontextually . . .

What might multiplexity mean?

Have you ever mixed up your performances?

• Equality . . . How real is that?

• Empathy . . . This sounds like an ideology

• Real meeting = I say what I think and listen to you

Requirements for dialogue:

We seem to be left with corporate dominance in the service of capitalism.

What if the ideas presented here are only “window dressing?”

My hope is that, through education, you will do better.