PXE

Living in Communication

Pearce states in his book “Communication and the Human Condition.” That “The process of describing forms of communication is made more important because the discovery that we live in communication transmutes communication from a secondary to a primary role in human life. Rather than a means by which ‘internal states’ are expressed and ‘objective’ facts represented, communications is that process by which ‘persons ’,’institutions’, and ‘facts’ are constructed.” (Anderson56). If we accept this perspective into how we view communication, communication becomes less the vehicle by which we submit and receive messages, like the conduit metaphor put forth by Reddy, Lakoff, and Johnson whose fundamental principle is the assumption that communication is transmitted in this fashion (Anderson 349), from other and more a continuous subconscious states that we live in like access theory which I will address later. By adhering to Pearce’s belief we take away the idea that communication is only a neat and tidy process like making coffee. The user needs only coffee grounds, and a French press to create the product which we all understand to be as a cup of coffee. Pearce takes the process of communication into being a type of progression or machine which turns the internal gears of the entire universe and perhaps the only reason we take it for granted is we do not understand it is a type of well oiled machine in the first place. We have no ability to know how to truly describe the action of communicating, similar to how a fish would have difficulty describing what water is like. It is all it has known. When we move communication from being a secondary role to a primary role in human life, we accept what has been innate but unexamined as a fundamental truth about the nature of our being.
The acceptance of communication as having a primary role in our lives gives way to theories such as the aforementioned access theory which is consistent with the current way we use technology to receive information and messages. Access theory believes it is the access to messages instead of on the message reception as the crux of communicating. It does not require the senders to know the context in which the receivers are given the information. Access theory when looked at in relation to multimedia and internet technology holds true in that it is up to the receive to draw connections between messages and create their own meaning when exposed to these messages and symbols. (Anderson 97) The ability to essentially pick and chose the messages that a person decides to spend their time looking at online, can be backed up by research and observations stated by Kathleen Hall Jamison when she spoke to undergraduates at Linfield College in the Spring of 2008. She addressed the audience with the evidence that in regards to political associations, many people lean towards their own ideologies when exploring issues and media relating to their political leanings. This association, I believe can be extrapolated outwards into other areas which we explore hypertext links (Anderson 97) that the subconscious way in which we decide on which messages to look at we are reinforcing our own ideologies and beliefs. While new information is brought forward by the exploration of these links, it can be argued that the new information is only perhaps utilized when it is consistent with our current beliefs. I think that in some part this way of gathering information could be harmful to persons who would not have the ability to tease out falsehoods or the ability to expose downplayed harmful potentialities. I believe that while we do indeed live in communication, if we are unaware about how we do that, the way we live our lives and our understanding could be extremely limited and potentially harmful. For example, if I hold the belief that stem cells are always going to be harvested from aborted fetuses, and I believe that is wrong I may type into Google something to the effect of “Stem Cells and Abortion” and I will be faced with 342,000 responses (Google). Now I would have the ability to pick out any number of those sources, but it doesn’t mean that those sources are correct or that I would even believe the ones that are based on factual evidence. If I can find websites that support my ideology I am reinforced by my own belief perseverance. Never mind that if I branched out from my own values and beliefs, I would clearly be exposed to situations where zygotes are obtained through fertilization clinics and other areas of medical science. So while I believe access theory is very accurate in the way we are currently gathering knowledge. It does not take into account the damaging consequences that happen when lay persons may research a certain discipline online. Another example of this is apparent in regards to mental illness stems from my own observations of media. Many pharmaceutical companies now have commercials which discuss a problem such as bi-polar depression and also list four of the five diagnostic criteria for being diagnosed with a particular disorder (DSM-VI) A person only digesting that causal reality for their symptoms could miss a very important differential diagnosis for their behavior and as a result could end up on pharmaceuticals which they never needed in the first place.
I think in many ways if we as humankind continue on this type of divide and leaning towards what we choose to reinforce and learn about, there are of course going to be damaging results. I hope that as the newly emerging model of access theory comes into a more solid formation that these potentialities are taken into account. Relating back to Pearce’s belief that we live in communication we also live in a context, which in access theory is clearly disregarded by the sender. While both access theory and Pearce’s statement that we live in communication both point to subconscious states of acquiring information and knowledge the inconsistency between how we are exposed by messages on a face to face basis and online are horribly discrepant. In real time and life, senders are aware of the context and receiver of their messages. When compared to access theory I believe that the ability to have contextualized communication leads to a better understanding of the message due to factors such as non-verbal communication, relational level and meaning. They also have the ability to change their message to ensure a better understanding from the receiver. Online messages fall flat when compared to interpersonal and group communications in “meat space”. For example, there is no true way of knowing if this message “Hey you are sort of a jerk” Is someone really saying that the person is a jerk, or joking they are a jerk, or relating to some meaning from the sender about what they think being a jerk is. What does the smily mean? Is that a passive aggressive way of them saying I am being a jerk? There are many ways to interperate that message as well as media messages. In real life a person would in some cases have the immediate ability to say “What did you mean by that” When in a text setting it could be hours or days before they might get a response- if at all. I feel that in our subconscious state of living in communication, online communication in some ways complicates and further perpetuates the problems of language, which I believe could be alleviated in a real world setting (Barnett 3).
To sum, while I hold to the belief that communication is a fundamental part of our existence and the most primary way in which we gain knowledge and insight about the human condition and other factors. In many ways it is pertinent that we are aware of this inherent quality about ourselves and examine the ways in which we gather our knowledge. So we are not persuaded by messages which only reinforce what we believe, or what we subjectively believe is correct but that we focus on and understand our biases as well as others to not only live in communication but to truly communicate.

Stigma

So I’ve gone in a completely different direction after a series of observations about attitudes and beliefs about mental illness.

I’ve decided to focus on social stigma relating to mental illness.Social Stigma relating to mental illness is a pervasive problem within our society. There is evidence to suggest that stigma relating to mental illness affects the way we treat mental illness in a medical setting as well as within social in and out groups. Persons with mental illness need social support and understanding from the community and through education and debunking of the myths about mental illness I believe that is possible. I also hope that with my research relating the stigma it will benefit the age 18-25 population of Linfield in seeking help related to mental illness.  According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) this age group is the least likely age group to engage in help-seeking behaviors. So I will beworking on a research proposal which will focus on stigma, more specifically, physical distance, attitudes, and lay beliefs about persons with mental illness.

I feel pretty good about this. I’m also planning to present a poster/presentation in May at the APS conference in San Fransico if I am able to gather enough data. I’ve already submitted my grant letter for funds to attend the conference under the FUSES project so hopefully I will able to be a part of both projects for that conference.

Hippocratic craptastic

Why hello darling tumblr I have missed you.

School is going fairly well, I have had several life stressors wiggling their way into my structure but over all I am performing well and keeping up with all of the reading within my classes.

My favorite class so far is the Abnormal seminar and I am very glad I made the decision to take the Intro class over the summer.  I ended up with a 3.7 at the end of the summer with a B in the 5 week accelerated course but it is to be expected when you throw yourself at material like that. I’m slowly incooperating the material I learned over the summer into my brain and it’s working out nicely as I continue to read more literature in the field.

Personality theory so far is interesting but at times I feel during the debates and discussions that a lot of elements which I consider to be of importance in the formation of traits other people in the class room do not. This leads to my defending my points alone which I have no problem with but it is difficult for me when the majority of people within the class room come from entitled backgrounds and have never studied Marx or any of the social strata theory people.  I DO consider those elements to be crucial in the formation of the FFA model and I honestly believe someone has to be a complete dodo to disregard those.

Other than those two classes that are towards my major I am enrolled in Communication and Consciousness as well as Persuasion and Social Influence. These classes are an extention  into my Communications minor and I enjoy them whole heartedly. They focus primarily on ethical and philisophical models of communication.  Aristotlian proofs and the like.

Two others things I am working on this semester are peer mentoring with a freshman student who has aspergers syndrome, I will be assisting with life skills and self care information as well as being a support system. I am also working on research with a team of 9 other students. We are working on studying dyads for various reasons which I will not disclose here considering I do not want to  hint at the hypothesis!

I am also working on a research proposal so that next semester I can conduct my own study. I am debating if I should shoot for a sky in the pie  proposal for this term and work on something more realistic in a group at a later date or if I should start with something feasible now. I am very interested in the construct of creativity and how it relates to psychotism. There is a bit of literature available which considers the two to be closely related due to factors such as overinclusive conceptual style.

Another avenue I may explore is looking into the construct of Flow which is a narrower area of Creativity. I have looked at the measure that is used to evalute Flow and it seems that that particular method carries more validity and reliablity that the typical self-report method.

In more personal news my fiance Evan will be returning from Australia on Sunday and after what we have gone through it will be a treat to have him back home. I plan to spoil him.

I'm going to start using this for school journals

So if you don’t want to read that you should remove me.

I will mainly be writing about my reactions, observations and insights to different journal articles that I have been reading for my seminar class.

The Final Numbers are In

The canned food drive Evan and I participated in on Saturday collected 777lbs of food and about 80 dollars in donations.

aces.

Brilliant!

Today was pretty grand. In the morning my rhetoric group met Kathleen Hall Jamieson for a one on one session about the current campaign. Not only is she brilliant but she’s absolutely hilarious. 

I was signed into my Abnormal Seminar today so I have all the class I want for the Fall.  I’ll be taking Personality theory Sem, Abnormal Sem, Social psychology, and for an easy class, intro to statistics.

PT class was awful, while discussing Maslow he inaccurately discussed a critque of Maslow which Maslow himself said was an incorrect interpretation of his work. When I mentioned that it was explicitly stated in the text as so, all he could say was “Ok”.

In my Women’s Issue  group we made some pretty rad embroidered pouches. I helped teach some people how and we also discussed collecting more food for the food bank. I’ve volunteered for a few hours this Saturday to sit outside and collect food at a local grocery store. According to how much was gathered last year, it was very successful. The basic gist of it is you offer information about the most needed for at the food bank,the  person has a choice on whether or not to pick up the much needed items and then gives us the food item upon leaving the store.  Aces. 

 After that I went to the youth support group and the kids had a great time. We first discussed abuse and respect in relation to dating and family life then we made “Happy Cards” by making collages on little cards and then laminating them. I picked up this idea from my Woman’s issues group when our counselor came up with the idea. The kids loved it, but unfortunatly I had to leave early to attend the Jamieson lecture that was at 7:30pm. 

 As far as the lecture was concerned, Jamieson is a sharp, sharp cookie. It was so wonderful to listen to what she had to say. She expressed that this election is unlike any other and has the ability to change future campaigns. She also outlined a way for politicians to really make an impact by  instead of wasting money on useless 30 second ads, to instead buy time to really discuss issues of importance in order for their arguments to be carried forward. She also mention the rise in youth voting which has gone up to 15% as opposed to 9% previously. Another point she made was the role in which the internet has played in getting more detailed information to voters, and in addition to that, that there is more cross generational discourse in regards to political matter and while before husbands and wives may have before hushed it up when their votes canceled out one another’s, they are now instead working towards bringing their spouse to the other side. This is not just happening with significant others but with mothers, grandmothers, sons and daughters as well. 

 So overall things were pretty rad. 

mania

I’m freaking out a little bit over what seminars I should take. I’m rethinking developmental and leaning more towards personality theory. This comes about because I spoke with the Professor in charge of the developmental research and it just seems like because the Abnormal seminar and the Developmental ones are really, really hardcore (I would have to write two research proposals) it might be better for me to take PT which focuses more on types of therapy such as non-directive and psychoanalysis, which I will probably use heavily since cognitive-behavioral therapy is not very appealing to me. 

I have another exam tomorrow in Design and Analysis, I’ve studied all week and I’m at the point where if I look at the text book I start to panic a bit. I’m second guessing what I know and if I know it correctly. 

I also have a low-grade infection which I’m fighting off at the moment. The anti-biotics are these horse sized pills which leave me wanting more out of life.  

Infectious

The department head approved my class for summer so I can keep my fall schedule the way I want to and continue studying in abnormal psych.  He was also really cool this time, I guess before I had caught him on a bad day. 

 Awesome.