According to the social constructionist model, we communicate using tools that are found in our cultures. For example, in some cultures they press the palms of the hands together and gently nod when greeting someone, where as in the west we tend to shake hands or hug when greeting each other. Here in the west, we try to collaborate and talk to each other when solving problems, this helps us to build trust and form lasting relationships. In other cultures, village elders or the husband is involved in the collaboration and women are shunned from discussions, this leads to women feeling undervalued. In the text, John and Judy do not see things the same way, because their experiences are different and are based on different time periods.
Times are changing really fast in our world, when my parents moved they communicated through letters to family back home and now I communicate with my parents via telephone or email. When we write letters, we can read them over again and again, however with a telephone call we can communicate instantly but we may not say the right things or get our ideas across accurately. There are cultural norms that we need to follow when we communicate and this is not always followed. Communication is really an art that is constantly changing and needs to be taught so humans understand each other better.
Hey Sunshine! I like you're blog. It made me smile when I saw the big sun picture on your introductory blog. I liked your post about how we build culture through communication. I can really relate to how you the communication between people are really changing with time. People are performing face to face communication less and less with the advancement of all of our technology and the popularity of social networking. I also have family that no longer lives in California. When they moved away we would write letters back and forth to each other. As we got older we began writing fewer and fewer letters and we started relying on phone calls to communicate.
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