Unknowningly readible! scary but true.

Welcome to the world of non verbal communication! Look at this picture and what is the first thing that comes into your mind? Are you judging his facial expression? His hand gestures? Or you just dislike him from the way he looks? All thoughts like these all fall under your cognitive appraisal of a person which determines your perception of an individual. Such thoughts about someone might be greatly influenced by self serving biasness and most of the time we are wrong about someone because of the fundamental attribution error that is innate in all of us. For those who dislike him or just cant stand his guts, this individual here is Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who is about to annouce his resignation as prime minister. The press chose this picture for dileberate reason so as to invoke readers like us emotions and associations when we see such hand gestures and facial expressions. From the way i see it, the press probably wanted to show or potray the helplessness and frustration of his resignation. A sign of throwing in the towel i guess after being accused of battle graft allegations. The usage of such provoking pictures with strong physical gestures is reciever orientated communication where the receiver will attach meaning to non verbal cues like body language. From a single pciture like this, once can observe that there are actually many channels of communication involved like for example body movements, facial expression etc. Whatever media that is involved, even in our daily lives, we use multiple channels of communication knowingly or unknowingly.
Within the context of interpersonal communication, we use both verbal and non verbal cues to engage, deliver and develop relationships with others.
So just a careful warning to all, sometimes your body language and facial expression betrays the words that come out from your mouth to another individual hence think before you talk and bring along a portable mirror just to keep those twtiching eye browns in check! :P

News! Open your eyes and you will see things more clearly

This article is about Russian airliner that crashed near a city in the Urals, killing all 88 people on board, caught fire and exploded in mid-air. Although this is a typical news report of a plane crash, there are many communication tools being employed in just this one article. Reading the article, one can see the different types of cognitive schemata being used here to portray the information intended. Such use of cognitive schemata include scripts where there is an organization of events, or pieces of information arranged in specific sequences. For example the article starts of by stating the amount of casualties, time and place of the event. This is followed by witness accounts and description of what happened during the flight. Other organizational principles used here include figure ground where a picture of the burning inferno is shown at the backdrop of dark shadows of buildings. Such contrasting images of the inferno of the plane wreckage and the dark shadows of the buildings forces readers to focus their attention to the inferno more clearly. Although sometimes local news or even foreign news may just be a day to day event, do open your eyes and notice the subtle use of such communication devices to alter and restrict our perceptions on a particular issue or event. As the human mind is complex and we store different schemata and have different stero and prototypes, each individual perceives the same piece of information given differently. All in all for such public display of information, communication devices such as cognitive and schemata and organization principles help the majority focus with the same intended objective.

LOTUS 12 , a new perspective

Just a couple of weeks ago my friend and I watched a movie called lotus 12 at vivo city. The movie is by Roystan tan and what struck me most about this movie is the different perspective that the director used to portray the tragic story of love, Chinese opera and betrayal.

In most movies, the director usually uses a script which dictates the character movements and speech. Similar to the scripts in communication where it is a framework of interaction for an event and how they are suppose to occur in chronological order. Such system of delivery is seen very common in most movies however for this show, delivery of messages were through songs and plays. The songs played during this movie reflected very much on hokkien culture and the nature of the expressive language. In terms of communication, this is a very apparent example of the modern period where Francis bacon proposed the 4 idols where one idol being idol of the theatre states that it is culturally driven. In this movie it shows the culturally driven biasness in certain songs where the portrayal of being poor is the most miserable thing in the world. As in Chinese culture, rich is prosperity hence such cultural biasness can be clearly seen expressed in hokkien songs such as ‘一百万 which directly translated as one million dollars. This song expresses the hope of an individual obtaining one million dollars where achieving that would solve all life problems.

Other tools of communication used in this movie were songs where this is known as the ‘Lexis’ of communication. In other words, how the message was delivered to the audience. The ‘Lexis’ used here was by songs and with songs, music which is a form of phonemes help further enhance the delivery of the intended message.All in all, directors use different communication tools on developing, enhancing and ultimately potray a certain theme or message to the targeted audience. However for Roystan tan, he explores the world of flim differently and potrays certian life lessons through the use of songs, dramatic opera style acting and the embrace of local singapore hokkien culture!