Collaboration Topics - Culture & Communication

CULTURE














"A welsh cultural theorist and a professor at Cambridge University by the name of Raymond Williams famously described culture as 'one of the two or three most complicated words in the english language' (Williams 1979, p.76)" (Milner & Browitt 2002, p.2).

In his book Keywords, Williams discussed the originality of the word culture as the tending or cultivation of something, in particular animals or crops.

"In his first major work, 'Culture & Society', he drew attention to four important kinds of meaning that attach to the word; 'an individual habit of mind; the state of intellectual development of a whole society; the arts; and the whole way of life of a group or people' (Williams 1963, p.16)." (Milner & Browitt 2002, p.2)

"Culture as referring to that entire range of institutions, artefacts and practices that make up our symbolic universe. In one or another of its meanings, the term will thus embrace: art, religion, science and sport, education and leisure. By convention however, it does not embrace the range of activities normally deemed either economic or political" (Milner & Browitt 2002, p.5).

Culture can be through viewed various definitions and is something everyone is affiliated with in all aspects of their lives. It is an essential element in any societies past or present and the true meaning of the word is constantly evolving and overlapping into relation with one another.

Reference

Milner, A & Browitt, J 2002, Contemporary Cultural Theory, 3rd edn, Allen & Unwin, Sydney

COMMUNICATION














"The study of the transfer of meaning" (Eunson 2007, p.4)

"Communication, as applied to human interaction includes:

• body language or non-verbal communication
• public speaking & presentation skills
• jounalism or writing for the mass media
• graphic coummunication
• writing documents
• website text, design
• public relations
• electronic messages" (Eunson 2007, p.2)

There has to be a clear separation of two very different meanings of communication and communications the plural.

"Communications (plural) as distinct from communication usually relates to the physics and mechanics of telecommunications systems such as telephone networks, satellites and the internet. A general definition gor these types of communications might be the study of the transfer of data" (Eunson 2007, p.5).

"The difference between singular and the plural usages of communication is to think of the plural encompassing the singular - that is, mechanical transmission enables the transfer of meaning or content" (Eunson 2007, p.5).

"The different types of communication can be represented in such categories:

• intrapersonnel - communication that takes place within one person (thoughts, behaviour patterns, perceptions, accurate/distorted thinking, conscious/unconscious thinking, self-talk, affirmations)


• interpersonal - communication that takes place between two people


• group/team - communication that takes place between members of a work group, team or department, involving more than two people


• workplace/organisational - communication that takes place among the group of groups that is an organisation or workplace


• public/media - communication from inside the organisation to the outside world using public communication or public relations methods, and coming back the other way, the attention paid to the organisation by the media


• intercultural - communication that takes place between people from different cultural/ethnic/religious/racial/national groups" (Eunson 2007, p.3-4).

Reference

Eunson, B 2007, Communication in the Workplace, John Wiley & Sons, Sydney