Study Abroad

       The study abroad experience is definitely a very independent process.  I want to compare this process to our study of sensation and how it works.  It is a neurological process, you then become aware of your current environment, and this in turn is a very individual process.  This process can be applied to the study abroad experience because you process that you are in a new environment, and everyone responds differently to this experience.  Professor Stoner talked about culture shock, and this definitely ties into our sensation process because the process of culture shock is definitely a sensation one might go through when immersing themselves into a totally new environment.  

       Professors stoners work focuses on the role that new media plays into the study abroad process.  Is this constant connection to our world back home impede the true study abroad experience.  Culture shock is a process that starts with a honeymoon experience, then goes to the culture shock, and turns to adjustment and finally mastery after a number of months.  This is the natural progression of sensations that one may go through, it does vary case to case, however is our new era of being constantly connected destroying this experience.  I find this very interesting because I do believe our constant connection destroys the feeling of being in a totally different place away from everyone you know.  When you are constantly connected, you are still relying on your past environment, and not getting the true study abroad experience.  

        Adrienne described how important this culture shock is to the whole experience.  She explained that the severity of the shock is important in relation to how much we really learn about a culture.  This is so important because perception also relates to this idea.  How can we really take in another culture when we are still so intensely immersed in our own.  Cultural interpretation of an experience abroad is tied so closely to perception.  Our ability to perceive a culture is apart of the perception process, which is why completely immersing yourself is necessary.  Professors Stoners lecture was very interesting because I think that our constant connection and consumption of new media is destroying a number of things.  Not only do I agree that the study abroad experience is destroyed, however I think our ability to verbally communicate in general is effected.  We rely so much on Facebook and texting to communicate, that I think as generations progress our communication skills will deteriorate.  

Professor Barnhurst

         Professor Barnhurst’s lecture focused on human communication, particularly storytelling. He focused on how we tell stories, and how these stories effect the communication of others.  There is always a clear pattern to how someone tells a story, we don’t necessarily think about this, but Professor Barnhurst brings up a great point.  When we begin a story we do not just start by saying something like, “This is my story so listen” or anything along those lines.  The way we bring up a story is more organic, and this then enables other to relate to your story or to continue to interaction.  

While listening to Professor Barnhursts lecture, I could not help but relate it to basic verbal communication that we covered in class.  I wanted to relate this lecture to overlapping codes and code switching to begin with.  This goes along with professor Barnhursts lecture because we use overlapping codes to provide an arena of common interest.  We would use overlapping codes when story telling in order to relate to the person you are talking to.  Using overlapping codes helps you gain a more intimate interaction with whomever you are speaking with, we subconsciously use this in order for our verbal communication to match the situation we are in.  Code switching goes along with this as well, this is when we switch between communication styles or even dialect in order to further reinforce intimacy.  This is very common, you may tell your friend a story in one way, but when you tell your mother or grandmother that same story, you might take a different approach.  This different approach can be through your dialect, or just communicating in the style that you know the listener uses to communicate.  We use these two tools all the time when we are communicating, because we interact with so many different people throughout everyday.  

Professor Barnhursts lecture was cut off at the end however I wanted to make a connection between his mention of interpretation and judgement.  This definitely relates to our discussion of perception in class. Interpretation is the third step to perception.  When someone tells a story, we attach meaning, this can be negative or positive, however our interpretation is how we internalize something we hear or see.  People who  tell stories use language as their tool to entice people and keep people interested.  However if someone interprets a story differently than the speaker intends, this can turn to judgement.  This is important to keep in mind because communication is so powerful, there is a chance that something you say can be interpreted incorrectly and then judgement comes into play, which does not reinforce intimacy.  It is also important to appropriately code-switch in order to match the communication style of the listener so the interaction does not lead to judgement.  

Professor McCloskey

Professor McCloskey discussed rhetoric, how we use rhetoric in terms of persuasion.  We live with language, understanding how these words work is important.  In class we discussed verbal communication.  I want to relate professor McCloskey’s ideas to code switching within language.  We use code switching all the time, we switch our communication whether it is language, tone, or subject in order to match our desired outcome in an interaction.  This reinforces intimacy, which is important in persuasion, if someone feels a connection with you, they are likely to succumb to your persuasions.  I also wanted to connect this idea of language within persuasion to the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis.  This is the idea that language impacts how a person understands and behaves in the world.  Professor McCloskey talked alot about sweet talk and its important role within persuasion.  This hypothesis promotes this idea, if we use sweet talk, this will impact the way a person will behave or what decisions they will make.  

This idea of sweet talk and persuasion also relates to framing.  We discussed framing as well as salience in class.  Framing is selecting certain aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient.  Salience is making one piece of information more noticeable or meaningful.  In relation to sweet talker, they will frame a situation, and use the positive aspects of that situation to persuade an individual.  Persuasion directly relates to framing because you are going to chose the information that is most inciting to the individual you are trying to persuade in attempts to achieve a goal.  So all in all someone will frame a situation as beneficial to a certain party in order to persuade them.  

          Professors McCloskey’s speech also related to perception, in relation to the person who is doing the sweet talking in order to persuade. When the person trying to do the persuasion frames a situation as beneficial by using sweet talk, the person trying to be persuaded will select this as important and likely agree.  This next idea goes along with the sweet talker and well as the person that is being persuaded.  Perception organization is important because this is when a person categorizes what is important, and uses language as a tool in order to signal the importance of a situation.  The sweet talked will organize what is important in a situation and what is likely to have the best result.  The sweet talker then uses language as a tool in order to carry out their persuasion, they will also signal importance to further persuade the person.  However the person who is being persuaded has a part in this as well, they subconsciously select what is important to them, and the use of sweet talk has alot to do with what appears to be important.  

           Professor McCloskey’s speech on rhetoric opened my perception of language, and how people use it to their advantage.  She used alot of comparisons with the economy, and how economists use their language to persuade people in accepting prediction patterns and just their knowledge in general.  

Professor Yuan

Professor Yuan discussed her research on audiences, regarding television broadcasting.  She was interested in how users take advantage of media sources.  There are two ways to approach this  by studying the audience as individuals or studying the group as a whole.  These days people have more than 100 channels to watch on the television.  This number has greatly increased due to specialty channels.  We can look at audience loyalty to certain programs and compare it to perception.  These specialty programs  are organized in a way that stimuli draws in audience members and they are likely to maintain loyalty to these programs.  This loyalty is something to look at when understanding audiences.  In the past people have relied on this scary world theory, in which people perceived television shows as scary and applied what they saw on TV to real life.  This created a false perception of the real world, because the real world wasn't nearly as dangerous as the television made the world appear.  This shows that the media may not have an immediate impact, however people will be biased in the way they perceive the world.  

Professor Yuan looked at the shifting of audiences, when audiences stop watching one show, where do they go after? Originally television consisted of 3 main channels, however, with the growth of specialty channels we see these other shows gaining prominence.  This channels once again attach meaning to the viewer as well as  use stimuli, people and language to draw in viewers.  Audiences are then likely to seek out more specialty channels that will draw them in based on their perceptions of certain topics. 

Professor Yuan ‘s research focused on the cultural differences of audiences, she focused on a town near Hong Kong.  The sample consisted of 300 families and 900 individuals.  Professor Yuan  used devices similar to a cable box to track what each family member in each family was watching and how long they had watched it for.  The use of this sample is representative of the whole community and it showed that the audiences showed polarization in what they watched, and most focused on specialty channels rather than the main channels.