The idea of communication is pervasive. That is the idea that we are communicating. Yet, how often is it that we are truly communicating? Well first of all we'd have to agree about what it is that communicaiton is, so let's start here shall we?
Communication - com-mu-ni-ca-tion (n) 14th century
1. an act or instance of transmitting
2. a) information communicated b) a verbal or written message
3. a) a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs or behavior; also, exchange of information
Copyright 2003 Merriam-Webster, Incorporated
[We'll keep it to inter-personal communication today and pick-up on mass communciation a bit futher on again, okay?]
I'd say that about covers it as most people consider it to be; communication is about the transmission and transfer of information, and the means by which this transmission and transfer occurs.
Yet that presupposes that "information" is transmitted, which may be wholly in the capacity of the sender to do - MAYBE.
That is that the sender may in fact have the ability to transmit the information they intend and then to do so. However, I'd suggest that all of us know individually that this is not necessarily true. That there are times when we need or want to transmit a message containing information that we ourselves can't get to adequately. Surely not adequately enough to make clear or clean what we intend. The common expressions like, "I just don't know how to say this." or "I don't have the words." expresses quite clearly that this is the case, probably far too often for comfort.
Then take that example above further and think where is it most prevalent that someone "doesn't have the words" - and you'll find that it's likely to be when they are interacting the most intimate situations and circumstances. There where it might be expected that communication would occur most freely and easily is where the "the words" are sometimes least present, or least adequate. So it seems that the act and art of even the transmission phase of communication may be beyond the scope of any one individual.
Now to complicate things just a bit there is the taking into consideration the reception of the transmission. That the part where the message sent is the message received (this is before interpretation and meaning making). This is the pure aspect of the message simply getting there. Are the words used known? Is the structure of the language used familiar enough to be incorporated as a message? But for our example's sake let's just say that the message sent is the message received. Let's ignore the simultaneous signals that could corrupt the message - like tonality, facial expression, gesture and posture that could be seen as an alternative message or a modifier to the verbal message. We'll just ignore that for the time being, and we'll say the message intended is the message that is received.
This is where we get to interpretation and meaning making. What's present for the receiver in terms of their internal framework with regard to where the message lands will actually determine what the message is more than the senders intent. The message received must "fit-in" somewhere in the receiver's worldview, the gestalt of their world experience and perception, the structure of their reality. Then this message as it fits with this internal subjective, phenomenological (for those of you who want a bit more on the actual structure of it all) form held by the individual becomes what the message "is" for them. This response becomes the inter-subjective experience they have. This is where the "rubber meets the road" to use a phrase. It's in this meeting up of message, interpretation and meaning making that the inter-subjective experience is formed.
What's magical, mystifying and manical is that inter-subjective experience is always being built on previous inter-subjective experience all the way back. Even when a person is doing intensive "personal work" that's introspective and profound the work they are doing is based in the framework of the previous inter-subjective experience they are organized around. It doesn't "remove," "erase," or "delete" the impact of the existing framework it only can add to it, thereby altering it somewhat. Inter-subjective experience layered on inter-subjective experience building more inter-subjective experience ... and on and on.
This opens for us two explicit paths which I'll want to pursue with you:
1. How can you possibly communicate effectively if this is the process by which meaning making occurs? This is the "trick" of magnificent communicators, knowing how to use the pre-existing framework to make their meaning.
2. How is the pre-existing framework of meaning making stored, how and where does it operate?
Knowing the answers to these two question of course would open the pathway to becoming able to build the inter-subjective experinces you want to be having.
More to come ...
Best regards,
Joseph Riggio
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