COMM 1000 Final Exam
Why do we study communications? - correct answer ✔✔1. It keeps you alive: we use communication to
keep each other alive, our parents warn us about dangers. Being able to read situations, signals, and
advice keeps you alive
2. It impacts everything: we are sensitive to the idea that others are watching, commenting, and
discussing us. Words impact everything that we do
3. Doing it well is a skill: you can work at becoming a better speaker/communicator
4. Employers value it: most jobs are turning into collaborative things and therefore it is important to have
good communication skills
Human Communication - correct answer ✔✔The process of managing messages for the purpose of
creating shared meaning. Two people have communicated successfully when they both have a similar
meaning about what was being discussed.
A transaction between at least two people, simultaneously sending and receiving messages to and from
one another
Messages - correct answer ✔✔Messages can be verbal (words) or nonverbal (faces, body language) and
they can also be intentional (we wanted to say this) or unintentional (we didn't fully explain what we
meant/wanted to say).
There is usually a blend of this
Channels - correct answer ✔✔How we choose to send the message, the medium through which the
message is sent.
Ex. Face to Face, Texting, Emailing, Facetiming
Interference - correct answer ✔✔Interference is what prevents messages from being received or
prevents an intended meaning from being understood
Technical Interference: sometimes our technology stops working. Ex. Our phone loses service
Semantic Interference: when people talk to each other and their words are taken in different ways. Our
understanding of language and different language devices. One word can mean one thing to you and
something completely different to someone else
,Listening, Feedback, Time - correct answer ✔✔Listening: we do not spend enough time listening. The
majority of the time we focus our time on us talking and not necessarily on what it is that we are
listening to
Feedback: our reaction to communication. Can be verbal or nonverbal
Time: we spend a lot of effort and energy waiting to communicate. Ex. saying you won't answer a text
right away, you'll wait like ten minutes
Model of Human Communication - correct answer ✔✔Person 1: Input: Filters, Sender, Receiver.
Someone has something they want to say. Filters, we filter what we say and what we don't say, our filters
are comprised of our environment, background life, people around us, our mood. We then send the
message.
Messages: the message we are sending. Ex. 'It's cold in here'
Channel: the way we send it. Ex. We text them
Interference: problems within our message. Ex. Our phone has no service so we cannot send the
message.
Person 2: Input: Filters, Sender, Receiver. You receive their message and filter the message based on who
the person is that you are responding to. You send your feedback back to that person
Messages
Channel
Interference
Communication Contexts - correct answer ✔✔Intrapersonal Communication: communication within a
person. Our thoughts, how we perceive ourselves
Interpersonal Communication: communication with another (dyadic). Interactions with other people, we
use this to develop intimacy with someone else
Interviewing: focused on question-answer pattern
Small-Group Communication: 3 or more members of a group influencing one another, working to
achieve a more common goal
Public Communication: one person relaying information, delivering content to a group/crowd of people
Organizational Communication: businesses, hospitals, etc... In a work environment, usually a task that
needs to get done
,Health Communication: the way a doctor/nurse communicates with a patient. It is acknowledged when a
doctor does a good job in explaining a diagnosis in a way that it is understood between both the doctor
and the patient.
Mass Communication: communication through media, not always entertainment. Ex. Television, Radio,
Books, Social Media, etc...
Elements of Effective Communication - correct answer ✔✔Understanding: you have to understand what
the other person is saying
Pleasure: you make the communication experience a good one, and therefore it tends to be
remembered more
Attitude Influence: influencing other people's attitudes on topics
Improved Relationships: good communication makes our relationships better, all kinds of relationships
Actions: effective communication gets things done
The Field of Communication - correct answer ✔✔Humanistic Approaches:
- Rhetoric: like to look at the language that someone uses
- Interpretivists
- Critical Scholars
Social Scientific Approaches:
- Qualitative: employs rigorous observational rules. Work 'in the field' and collect data that are rich in
detail and description. Ex. In-depth interviews, Ethnography, Participant-Observation
- Quantitative: seeks to uncover patterns in communication behaviors via numbers. Employ advanced
statistical techniques and rigid testing to support/reject a hypothesis. Can work 'in the field' or in the lab
The Scientific Method - correct answer ✔✔Ask a question or state a problem
Formulate a hypothesis or research question
Think through and refine the hypothesis or research question
Design and conduct the observation, measurement, or experiment
Analyze and interpret the data
The Scientific Method Has to Be - correct answer ✔✔Empirical: verifiable by observation or experience
rather than theory or pure logic
, Objective: you remove all of the bias
Logical: inferences you make from the data have to be consistent and rational, they have to be clearly
seen from the data
Public: making it public allows us to fact-check and verify and improve our research
Designs Typically Employed: Quantitative Research - correct answer ✔✔Content Analysis: systematic
analysis of the content of communication messages
- Purposes: describes frequency of a behavior, compares behavior types/rates across different context
- Content Analysis Issues: requires a representative sample, need clear and specific definitions of
behaviors (requires coding), limited to studying what is already occurring
Survey Research: examines what people do, relies on self-reports, examines relationships between
variables. Ex. Relationship Questionnaires, Attitude Surveys, Media Habits Research
- Survey Research Issues: need representative sample, questions must be of high-quality, limitations are
that there is no control over variables, cannot make causal conclusions (can only see relationship), and
self reports
Experimental Research: manipulation of variables. Ex. One group gets treatment and the other group
does not.
- Experimental Research Issues: goal is drawing causal conclusions, requires random assignment to
conditions, limitations are that it is hard to generalize results from a lab experiment, artificial setting,
limited subject population,
and experiment requires strong procedure to prevent issues.
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - correct answer ✔✔All measurement contains error, anything that
can happen, can happen by chance
Two Measures - correct answer ✔✔Reliability: the idea of consistency, are we getting the same result
over and over again?
Validity: the concept of accuracy and truthfulness in our data.
Our data needs to measure what it is supposed to measure, and be accurate