Can It Be Defined?

Hello! Welcome to my first blog post for my class.

The focus of Week 1 was: what is communication? Seems like a pretty broad question, doesn’t it? Well, it is. I was relieved to read that even scholars in the field of Communication have trouble formulating one, exact definition. I feel like we all kind of know the gist of what is meant when we say “communication,” but to put it into words is not an easy task.

Nevertheless, we have to make an attempt. So, in class we went over 27 definitions of communication- perfect evidence that one simple sentence can’t quite encompass all of

what communication is.

One definition that stood out to me was: “Culture is communication… communication is culture.” I’m not sure if it stood out to me because I was the member of my group who read it out loud, or because of how circular, for lack of a better word, it is. Maybe both reasons. The employment of chiasmus made the definition a little confusing. It seems to answer the question (“what is communication?”), but at the same time, not really. Another reason this particular definition probably stood out to me was because I happen to be currently taking a class about Intercultural Communication, as well. It seems like “culture is communication… communication is culture” would be a good tagline for that class. (UPDATE: Today in that class, one of the slides on the PowerPoint said that exact quote! Isn’t it great when material from one class shows up in another?) Anyway, the definition/quote speaks for the connection that exists between culture and communication. Each one reflects the other. In other words, how we communicate displays our culture; and, our culture influences how we communicate.

One last extra side note about the class itself: like I mentioned, we worked in groups to go over the definitions. I was pleased to find that the other members of my group were nice and we seemed to work well together. One interesting thing that came up while we were talking was: why did we get put into a group together? After discussing, we found that we were different ages and majors. I found that to be pretty cool. We come from different places and have different interests, yet twice a week, we end up in the same classroom, learning the same information. Who would of thought- communication bringing people together? What a crazy idea.

See you next week.