Extra Credit, Missed Blog Post #3, Statistics

            The murder rate in the city of Philadelphia is in my eyes the greatest problem the city needs to deal with year in and year out, especially when children are involved. I found an article from March of this year, 2011, that addressed the problem of the increased number of murders in 2011 in comparison with previous years. At that point in the year, fifty six people had already been killed. This was the highest number of murders since 2007, when Mayor Nutter had promised to decrease the number of homicides in half within five to seven years.

            In this article, multiple statistics are displayed, comparing homicide rates of this year compared to previous years. However this article fails to show in depth detail (no detail actually), in regards to how the statistics were acquired and what went into the numbers. The article mentions nothing about children and the tragedies that children have been the victims of, which I believe should be addressed before anything else. The writers also talked with criminal justice professors at Temple University who displayed no concern and believed that the city should only be alarmed if the murder rate continued on its track until the final months of the year. The article describes how under Mayor Nutter homicide had dropped twenty two percent and violent crime had dropped thirteen percent from 2007 to 2010. Again, the whereabouts and how the numbers were decided upon are completely left out of the article. Instead of trying to go out and decrease the numbers, the deputy police commissioner talked in the article about how the police should not be blamed because thugs are the ones starting all the problems. Not to rant too far away from the focus of this blog, I just believe more should be done considering the statistics the article displays. This article should have gone into more detail about what actually goes in to figuring out the statistics regarding homicides in Philadelphia, the article would have been more informative.

Here is the link to this article http://articles.philly.com/2011-03-03/news/28649502_1_homicide-rate-murder-rate-mayor-nutter

Group Work

                When the groups were decided upon I was excited to see that I was able to do the topic I wanted and was going to have a strong group around me. Everyone in the group is very hard working and has made sure everyone has been up to date on their sections of the project. After one of the members walked away from the group, everyone accepted their role to do a little extra to make up for one less member. This is when the storming phase kicked in and everyone decided on what they would be doing for the project and no one felt left out or upset with their tasks. This was also relatively easy because everyone had a general idea of what they wanted to do going into the project. After we decided on what everyone was going to do the performance phase kicked in. We all went to the library that day to find articles on our topics and worked close to one another to help each other out if anyone needed it. Since then, aside from class, we have not worked together due to every ones different crazy schedules but everyone has kept each other up to date on what is going on with their part of the assignment. We will work together more next class and hopefully more outside of the class room in the upcoming week. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of work this group will create for this assignment. 

The Power of Group Think

     Group think can become extremely dangerous to society with a perfect example being set at Penn State University. Upon the firing of Joe Paterno, thousands of Penn State students and fans rioted throughout the streets of the university, breaking public property and flipping cars. The students heard the news of Joe Paterno’s firing without knowing the true reasons of the University and quickly felt betrayed as fans. Joe Paterno is clearly an icon to the Penn State community and the students felt it was their duty to form together to avenge his firing and show their displeasure. With the power of thousands of students all thinking the same thing and not hearing any outside information, they quickly formed an “us against the world” attitude. Since the students only interact with each other, they all had the same view points on the scandal and shunned any outside opinions with the belief that since they attend Penn State they know the real story. With Penn State being the crazy party school that it is, a couple beers mixed with angered attitudes of thousands of students caused the students to riot and felt that is was their right in doing so. Knowing some friends that attend Penn State, after more information was released and the riots were shown as an embarrassment to the student body, the angry group think was sort of dispersed and new opinions came about between the students. The rioting at Penn State displayed how the power of group think can become extremely dangerous and powerful. 

Meeting New People

                Being in my third year here at Kutztown University, I never thought I would ever interact or come even relatively close to getting along with one of the towns people. With my background and judgment, I never wanted to even interact with anyone from the town. So with this being said I do have to admit that this person approached me, but normally I would have tried to end the conversation quickly and carry on with my day. At “club” shorty’s on wing night, a man approached the table where myself and two of my teammates were seated completely focused on eating the god like teriyaki wings. He said his name, which I also have to admit I quickly forgot, and told us he overheard our conversation about football and asked if we were on the team. We all answered yes and he quickly started telling us about how excited he is to have a winning team in town and how he and his friends bet on how many points we will score for each upcoming game. Before I knew it, we ended up talking to this man for over twenty minutes and found out that we had a lot more in common with him than we ever would have thought, especially considering how much older he is and by the way he was dressed. The man turned out to be a crazed football fan from the greater Philly area that moved out here for work. The whole event turned out to be a great learning experience for me about the prejudgments that most students have about the people that live in this town.     

Dyadic Relationships

           There is no part of a dyadic relationship that is not communication. People’s brains are constantly processing information subconsciously and can turn nothing into something. When someone is trying to not communicate, for example sitting down expressionless, is still communicating that the person does not want to communicate. This is because of the spontaneous factor of dyadic communication. Since dyadic communication is not planned out, no matter what one person in the conversation does, the other person will have to spontaneously process what is going on. Four other characteristics that make all dyadic relationships communication are direct, personal, immediate, and informal.

            The directness of dyadic relationships forces everything to be some sort of communication. For example, a person can hide in a group of people, but cannot hide in a face to face with another person. Being so direct, everything one person in a dyadic relationship does is communication because some sort of message will be sent to the other willingly or unwillingly. The immediateness of dyadic relationships causes each person to expect a response right away, causing each person so subconsciously process what is going on. The informal characteristic goes along with the spontaneous characteristic since everything is not planned out.

            Everything in a dyadic relationship is communication; there is no way around it. Even when someone tries to not communicate they are communicating something. The direct, personal, immediate, spontaneous, and informal characteristics of dyadic communication forces whatever is going on at the time to be some sort of communication. 

Filtering Theory

The filtering theory is defined in the book as using a series of filters to judge how close to others we want to become, at each filter, some potential partners are eliminated and some move on. This process involves four different filters that people go through to develop relationships, which are social or incidental cues, pre interaction cues, interaction cues, and cognitive cues. The filtering theory runs true in the movie “Bad Teacher”, where a character played by Cameron Diaz, tries to force a relationship with a character played by Justin Timberlake.

                Social or incidental cues are essentially how much two people come into contact with each other. In the case of Cameron Diaz and Timberlake in Bad Teacher, their characters came into contact every day considering they were both teachers. Pre interaction cues are non verbal messages used by people to decide if they want to contact someone. Diaz’s character became attracted quickly to the physical appearance of Timberlake, and particularly an extremely expensive watch that Timberlake’s character was wearing. The interaction cues occur when first contact happens with two people; this can become smooth or awkward. This initial conversation in the movie displayed the two characters personalities not clicking, but Diaz still forced the conversation due to the expensive watch. Cognitive cues deal with psychological factors that create long lasting relationships. By the end of the movie, the two characters simply do not bond psychologically and the forced relationship does not work out.

                The filtering theory portrays how every day relationships break down from person to person. This theory can explain in simple terms why relationships can flourish or end. In the movie Bad Teacher, the filtering theory shows clearly how the relationship of two characters played by Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake simply does not work out.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7li6gJA1hY&noredirect=1

How Language Shapes Our World

                I completely agree with the theory presented in this article with the evidence that Boroditsky found through her experiments. When dealing with language and how it shapes thought, most people focus too much on our own American language and how people here react to our language. Boroditsky brought in other countries and cultures to show how their understanding of language can be completely different from ours and others. For example when she talked about the bridge in France, Germans saw the bridge as having feminine features because their word for bridge is feminine. On the other hand, the French saw the bridge with masculine features because their word for bridge is a masculine one.

                Language also varies across the world through things like war. How war is described in America from the news to the public can be interpreted in an opposite way in another country depending on what their words mean. This comes into great importance with things like the United Nations, when leaders of countries meet, or simply just a tourist traveling in another country. Another simple example is how you greet someone from another country. What we say and how we say it may seem normal to us, but completely rude to someone from another country. When it comes to the fashion industry, more complex names are used for colors. This makes it so that when someone looks at a shirt that seems blue at first glance, once a different name is used people can recognize the different and distinct hue in the color of the shirt and not just plain old blue.

Improving Listening

                My sister and I have a bond that most siblings do not have with each other. Because of certain circumstances, my brother and I serve as father figures to her and many times need to be there for her as more than a brother. My sister is nine years old, making her twelve years younger than me, and fourteen years younger than my brother, which sometimes makes me become a bad listener. A lot of times when she tries to tell me something, I find myself pre determining the argument because of how much older than her I am, and do not truly listen to what she is really trying to get across.

                I now realize I need to improve my interpretation skills. For example, when she comes to me with a problem, I quickly relate it to old information that I have and make a quick assumption that my solution will work the same for her, which causes me to ignore the important details. This also means I skip the whole step of asking for clarification. Also, with my sister being so young, I automatically deny her credibility with the pre determination that little kids like to lie.

                With some of these examples, I need to concentrate more on improving my responding to her and realize that I may be older, but may not always be right, especially when I am missing out on the full story. I need to start seeing from her perspective and realize that nine years old is not as young as I realize and that she’s only getting older and smarter. 

Publication

                Our content analysis exercise from class revealed how different types of magazines use their advertisements to target different groups of people. I will use my magazine, ESPN the Magazine, to talk about the process and findings from the advertisements in the magazine. ESPN the Magazine uses mostly average middle aged person’s with a “sports fan” look in their advertisements, with the occasional star athlete or super model type girl.

                ESPN the Magazine first had to ask themselves what type of people would be reading their magazine, and what these people will be interested in to keep them immersed in the magazine, and buy another copy of course. The reality of this question is, the typical “sports fan” is usually a non athletic white male who also likes to drink, which explains the multiple beer advertisements. ESPN realizes this and uses their advertisements to make the reader feel as if they are a part of the magazine by seeing people that look like themselves. The magazine creates a world where the fan can feel as if they are closer to the athletes and can be a part of the games. This strategy is extremely effective because it removes the thought of just being someone who pays too much attention and money to sports and doesn’t exactly get anything back.

                The process and results delivered by ESPN the magazine are extremely effective to their target audience. The magazine uses their advertisements to make the reader feel as if they are a more important part to sports than just a crazed fan.    

Communication is an art

     Communication and the variety of ways it is used can only be limited to the creativity of the mind, which is why communication is an art, not science. Communication is no different than a way an artist paints a picture, it can be designed and delivered however someone wishes. Communication is no doubt an art because of how senders and receivers interpret information.

                One definition I like is that, “communication is a process of acting on information”. I like this because the way someone interprets this definition is exactly what the definition is talking about. In other words, information about communication is given, and how you interpret the information is completely up to you and how you act on it. I think this agrees with a more cultural studies approach and how individual’s process information and how it is original to each individual, like interpreting art.

                Relationships can be good examples when dealing with communication, not in the sense that relationships fail because of lack of communication, but more because there is miscommunication. How each person in a couple acts on each other’s communication can bond or break them. For example when someone say’s “that’s not what I meant”, one side took what was said in a bad way because of how the communication was sent and received. Whatever was said was interpreted in two completely different ways between each other.

                I believe communication is one hundred percent art over science because of the endless possibilities and creativity that communication can be sent, received, and interpreted.