Nonverbal 5 Point Cycle and Me

Nonverbal Communication is the process of communication through sending and receiving wordless (mostly visual) messages between people. These messages can be communicated through gestures, touch, body language, posture, facial expression and eye contact. Nonverbal messages could also be communicated through material such as objects or artifacts. We use this to repeat verbal messages, accept a verbal message, be compliant to a verbal message, regulate interactions, substitute for a verbal message, and in some cases contradict a verbal message.

Nonverbal five point cycle for effective communication;

1-      Be aware of your communication with yourself and others. = In terms of myself and others I would have to think my communication is above average. Communication with others I tend to feel I pick up on the nonverbal cues quite well. I then analyze them affectively giving pronounced feedback. Communication with myself I also think is good, but I feel most are.

2-      Effectively use and interpret verbal messages. = I feel that I send, receive, and interpret verbal messages very well both intentionally and unintentionally. Good listeners are conscious of this, although I can lack attention sometimes, most of the time I’m alert of these cues.

3-      Effectively use and interpret nonverbal messages. = On this point I would have to say I over analyze the nonverbal messages. Most of the time I analyze the nonverbal cue as intentional when most of the time there not and mean nothing. At least I’m conscious of this and most of the time won’t miss the nonverbal cue that will actually mean something.  

4-      Listen and respond thoughtfully to others. = This I do very well because I believe in karma and the results that follow from your listening and responding.  Your response is compliant to your communication and I try to limit the contradiction in most situations between my verbal and nonverbal cues. These various functions to me need to be followed to accept the response.

5-      Appropriately adapt messages to others. = My answer on this question I feel could vary. Depending on the environment or situation I could adequately adapt the message, but in some situations that I feel aren’t deemed necessary to me I won’t.  So if I do deem the situation necessary the message will adapt appropriately in my opinion.  

The Show Entourage and Communicative Culture

The show Entourage appeals to me for the fact that's its a life I would like to live. The show itself is made up, although its based off the real life of Mark Wahlberg. This to me means the literal sense of the show is fantasy but the actual life is being lived somewhere else. Entourage is not a essential component of my life, but the depicted life within it IS.
The shows depicted life is very desirable, which accumulates media consumption thus bringing people of a common desire together. This serves our emotional needs in many ways, one of which is giving us a dream. Since media is plural, the dream represents competition. This forms the question which media best represents the most desirable show? Most answers will very because this is an opinionated question, but Entourage is to me because I desire that depicted way of life.
My way of life and the shows is very different although overlapping in some aspects. The show is a comedy series that represents a day to day life of Vincent chase, a famous Hollywood actor, and his inner circle (The Entourage). His entourage consists of his brother and two of his childhood friends that grew up with him when he lived in NY. The components of the series is the experiences of the today's celebrity lifestyle.
As this has nothing or little comparison to do with my own life, living like they do does have some minor impacts. Key values of the show could be money, friendship, triumph, loyalty, and success. If I compare my life to the show just based off the key words, then there could be very debatable comparisons. Speaking from a visual standpoint of how my life and the shows are different then yes there is little in common.
In conclusion I believe we watch shows to dream. If I was actually part of an entourage and lived exactly like the show depicts, then watching this particular show might not be so desirable. Social functions of this show keeps us watching. If there was no enjoyment or desire then why watch it. Mass media directs people's attention towards that of desire, the global interest of this life is popular, thus widely distributed. We are drawn in due to our own values and way of life. Although if the dream becomes reality does the show become irrelevant?

Controversial Photograph

As we all know ethics are decision making systems for balancing conflicting moral principles.  The picture above is it ethical or unethical?  If so is it because you agree with it or is because it upsets you?  In today’s society photographs are manipulated on a daily bases.  A bases built on moral principles whether you agree with those principles or not.  From a documentarians point of view the above picture is a form of evidence and supports a various number of things.  The main idea is that President Bush is for steroids.  Since he became president his effort for supporting the non-use of steroids have been off the charts.  Although before he was president and part owner of the Texas Rangers where notorious steroid users were starters on the team he had no problem with it.  So what exactly is wrong with the above picture?  Is it wrong because it actually evokes the idea that our president went against what is right.  Or maybe its because it actually presents the idea that most of us refuse to believe.  Almost like a form of ignorance, we don’t like some photographs especially controversial ones because we don’t want to believe it.  We don’t even want to go as far as research it because we are afraid we’ll find out exactly what we don’t want to believe.  So for those that actually do the research or even apply the controversial idea are rationalized and called unethical.  But unethical according to who? Us? Who is us? One journalist or one documentarian that has the power to voice his opinion to hundreds of thousands. 

I’m starting to believe that being ethical or rational is according to a certain number of people in the media.  My final thought is analyze your own morals and ethics according to your own beliefs and principles.  Don’t believe what your lead to think the majority opinion is.        

Family Photo of the Past critique

The photo that I have chosen took place about 12 years ago.  I can’t scan it because the only copy I have is a 2 by 2 foot hanging on our wall at my house.  I'll try to explain it as much as I can in detail Dr. Bock, sorry I can’t scan it.  What I should have done was taken a picture of the picture and upload it.  I left to come back to school before that idea crossed my mind.

I don’t know the exact date but I was around 9 or 10 years old which puts the time period 10 to 12 years ago.  I've always called this photograph the monster family photo.  It’s a group pitcher of my whole family all the way down to 2nd cousins.  My immediate family, all of my mom’s side of the family and my dad’s parents and only sister.  There are about 25 people in the photograph.  You can only imagine how fun it was taking this photograph.    

The picture is taken in the back yard of my cousins’ house.  In which there is a deck with four levels that made it a lot easier for all of us to stagger.  All the men had to where a plain white dress shirt with navy blue jeans and the women a white dress.  It sounds weird but it actually looked pretty cool.  Still to this day I remember taking that picture.  I remember my aunt taking control of everything being a little director the whole day by mostly yelling at people lol.  For example before the photo me and my cousin I recall were playing in the back yard and fell and got screamed at by our aunt because we got our shirts a little dirty.  This is where I remember the one thing that I said all day.  Right after we got yelled at I said “ahhh we can’t do nothing fun around here!” Thank god it didn’t show up on the photo haha.  The one other thing that I remember was getting my hair trimmed by my cousin before the photo.  I remember sitting in front of the mirror looking at my mushroom head hair cut.  I can’t believe that my hair was that style back then (so weird).  As a photo is used to capture a moment in time visually every time I look at it I feel something emotionally.  An emotional remembrance that I hope will stay with me forever.  The feeling of warmth from your family.                

Bennette's Four Step Process

The advertisement that I have chosen is a Budweiser Ad, an ad that is commonly circulated in our society today.  These types of ads are used to put desire in our minds for a certain product.  Although what are we actually desiring the beer or what the ad represents?

        The first question we should ask is what the audience should think or do?  Now the audience that this ad is trying to reach has a majority of being men.   For these men this ad contains a beautiful woman a dream woman among men in our society.  The main message in this ad most likely is men’s desire for women.  Giving the thought to men that if you drink this beer you will attract women like this or women like this desire men who drink this beer.  This ad also gives the thought that if you desire a women like this then you desire our product as well.      

        The second question asks what does the text ask the audience to do?  The text says “you can twist anything into a swimsuit.”  This is implying that you can even take the bottle caps of this product and turn them into a swimsuit for this type of women.  All the text is doing is giving the audience another reason to buy this product.     

        The third question is how does the audience know what the text claims?  The audience knows what the text is claiming by common societal desires.  This desire happens to be a woman that looks like this.  Another claim is that if you buy this product you will get a woman like this.

        The last question is who is empowered or disempowered?  In this ad the woman is disempowered.  The ad is giving the type of impression that women like this are desired like a product.  A product of their bodies that are society says that men want.    

Visual Techniques in Film

The film I have chosen is 7 Brides for 7 Brothers.  This was my grandmother’s favorite movie of all time.  My grandmother died of cancer 3 years ago and every time I watch this movie I think of her and when me and her use to watch it together.  The scene I have picked is the barn scene.  The beginning of this scene starts with the 7 brides dancing with seven men of which are not the 7 brothers getting them mad.  The brothers then intrude on the dance and start to try to steal them away.  The 7 brides continue to go back and for between the two groups of men.  The competition grows fierce between the two groups of men taking them from dancing to competitions around the barn.  Eventually the 7 brothers win when the 7 brides jump into their arms at the end of the scene. 

The first shot is somewhat of an above angle view of the whole dance floor showing every one of which is involved in the scene.  The dance continues then the camera view changes from an above angle view to a below eye level view of the dance floor.  This below eye level view shows you what the people around the dance floor are seeing since the dance floor is elevated.  Throughout the scene the camera view continues to change back and forth between the two views.  Also showing an eye level view the camera doesn’t have any movement staying still through all shots not following and movements.  This use of multiple angles gives us more feelings of direction and what the characters are feeling without using any words.       

Fonts and textual design

We’ve already visited and talked about the fact that words can be the ultimate abstraction.  A meaning within a meaning, a bigger meaning when combined with a photo giving it more narrative, coded messages, yada yada yada.  Now lets analyze the word even further (the font).  What exactly can font do?  Give more meaning?  Maybe even give additional messages?  Since taking this class yes it can. Before this I only new the basics, maybe capital letters meant serious or bold letters meant important.  I wasn’t even close. 

Individual fonts have the ability to convey a wide variety of meanings based on the way they are used in the typed materials.  Selecting certain fonts helps to express meanings in which it is presented.  Many things play a role in this including serifs which are located at the end points of each character, sans, dingbats, and even the amount of space that is shown between characters.

For example since Helvetica is widely known, agreed upon and respectively used among the sans-serif typefaces it is seen in many things from the U.S. government, federal income tax forms, to even NASA.  Giving a meaning of respect and sorta of an agreed upon cultural context for this particular font.  In other words a widely known font that usually is interpreted the same way if interpreted at all.  And if you think about it that way maybe these respected companies and organizations use this font so people don’t even notice the font just the words that it says.  A sense of comfort ability for the readers.

Again this is just an example of Helvetica, other fonts will have completely different meanings.

These are why fonts carry additional messages even if we don’t think about it.