Kind of sad that I think I am coming across my last blog! This class definitely challenged me in ways I would never expect. I learned new things about myself, like I would prefer to not take online classes. I just forget most of the times when things are due and when there are readings, but while I was in this class I tried to make the most it!

My goals to start out the semester were to be able to communicate at a higher level, try to cut out killer fillers (like, um, so) can also be able to put what I am thinking into words on my papers. These goals were very reachable in this class, considering we had a paper every week! I think I learned to write my papers in a timely manner while saying what I need to say at a high level. I think over the time throughout the semester I got better at writing these papers and using the quotes to support my situations in the blogs. I also believe by being in this class it I did get better at communicating whatever I am trying to say to someone. Which is very useful in things like media after or before games. I even got compliments on how much better and confident I sound this year! I can definitely see the difference in the way I speak now vs last year! Finally, one thing that really is stagnant are my use of killer fillers. I tend to use ‘like’ and ‘um’ the most. Whenever I feel like I am getting better at not using them the come right back full throttle. Something to definitely keep working on, but as long as it is at my attention I know that I will fix it eventually.

This class was very beneficial to my life, especially being that I want to be a sports broadcaster in my near future. For people that want to be announcers or sports analysis I definitely suggest this class. Be ready to work because it is a lot of work that goes into. I was able to get the opportunity to shadow Maria Taylor, a ESPN sideline reporter, and I utilized a lot of things I learned in this class that made me feel more at ease while getting the opportunity to shadow her. Thank you for allowing me to take this class!

Me shadowing Maria Taylor at the OU Baylor football game

For this blog I decided to write from the perspective of how different people have been raised to exercise either individualistic culture or collectivistic culture. Growing up my parents encouraged me care about the people around me and their feelings. I have a friend, who on the other hand, was raised completely different. Her mom taught her to only care for herself and her family, do whatever it takes for her to be successful. No matter what, don’t let anything stand in her way. That in return, made her this person who is very blunt, sometimes rude, and very nonchalant about everything. She is still one of my closest friends and I love her more than I can explain but she is still more invested in no one but herself and her family.

birthgiverrrrrr

This chapter could have been interpreted different ways, but I immediately thought of the way people act and how some people cannot control the fact that they act the way they do. In other words, I think of it as a personality trait, some people are individualistic and some are more collectivistic. The article can further support this notation in many ways. For example, Griffin et. al. defines individualistic culture by saying, “wherein people look out for themselves and their immediate families; I-identity, a low-context culture,” (437). The chapter goes on to define collectivistic culture with Griffin et. al. stating, “wherein people identify with a larger group that is responsible for providing care in exchange for group loyalty; we-identity; a high-context culture,” (437). The chapter also included a real-life scenario and in the second paragraph Griffin et. al. states, “we must have frowned because this girl from a collectivism culture instantly retracted her statement and continually apologized, saying that she didn’t believe we had “round” faces,” (439).

There were plenty of quotes that could have been used in order to support my claim but I felt by giving both of the definitions it would give a better understanding to what was being talked about. The definitions helped support the claim because it further defined what was being said. The last quote helps by showing that some people learn differently because further down that article was the mom stating something totally opposite of the girl that came off as blunter.

For today’s blog over communication accommodation, I decided to make my blog on my old teammate Kristy Wallace. Kristy was from Australia originally and played with us my freshman year. When I came here her accent was so strong, you could barely understand her calling out the plays on the court. In order for us to be great either we had to zero in on only her voice or she had to make it to where we understood her. Over the course of the year the team started noticing that she started talking like us a little more. She used to talk like us jokingly but it became natural towards the end of the season.

In the article it gave an example about communication accommodation and how it works. Griffin et. al. defines communication accommodation as, “changing communication behavior in a way that reduces social distance,” (423). In the example that was given in the article, Griffin et. al. states, “he noticed his accent changed depending upon where he was,” (423). On the following page, Griffin et. al. defines convergence as, “a strategy by which you adapt your communication behavior to become more similar to someone else,” (424).

There were so many more quotes in the article that could have went along with my scenario but these connected so well. In the first quote he defined communication accommodation and that just supported the simple fact that the situation that happened had a scientific name for it. The second quote was a great comparison from the situation in the article to the situation that happened to my team and I. Depending upon who Kristy was talking to she would sound more like them, and we thought it was pretty neat. Finally, the last quote shows another definition that connected to our team and our struggles at the beginning of the season. If she didn’t start to renunciate the way we do, we would have struggled all season.

freshman year team! kristy is #4

In this chapter I thought about this situation that happened to my cousin at the house. My little cousin loooves watching Disney and nickelodeon, she was growing up in a bling of an eye. I was telling them that she was learning this from the shows she was watching and my parents were not believing me. We got in an argument that shows cannot dictate her life, and I was trying to tell them that growing up my life kind of revolved around mickey mouse and whatever they said to do I would do. My little cousin loves watching doc mcstuffins an in order to prove my logic I began to put the character from doc on everything I wanted her to do, and miraculously she began to do everything I wanted because I said ‘doc mcstuffins’ would do it.

In this chapter, there were many quotes that led me to this situation. On the first page, Griffin et. al. stated, “multinational corporations such as GM, AT&T, Apple, Tie Warner, Disney and Microsoft are the dominant force in society- more powerful than the church, state, or family in their ability to influence the lives of individuals” (259). Another quote on that page, Griffin et. al. uses is, “more than 90 percent of the mass media outlets—newspaper, broadcast, cable, telephone, and satellite- are owned by just a handful of corporations” (259). The last quote in the chapter that Griffin et. al. says, “Deetz says that corporations “control and colonize” modern life in ways that no government or public body since the feudal era ever thought possible,” (260).

The quotes that were used in the chapter were great support for the situation that I used in the first paragraph. The first quote supports the situation because it showed that Disney every other company has a huge influence on our life and it just supported what I was telling my parents. In the second quote it also reiterated what I was trying to tell my parents about when I was growing and now why Layla is the way she is about Doc, yes that is majority our fault for always sitting her in front of a tv when we are trying to occupy her but it also shows that Disney is taking over. Finally, the last quote also emphasizes the fact that with doc it makes sense why Layla did everything to help me when I used doc as the motive.

my mom!!

In this chapter it talked about cultural approach to organization, the organization that I am going to use is our Baylor basketball team. On a basketball team, there are roughly 12 players. On our team, we not only have 12 players but we are all from 5 different states. To know that we are from 5 different states, is to also know that with that comes different backgrounds and different cultures. That is hard on its own, in order to gel we must understand each other’s backgrounds, which is also known as our webs according to the chapter. In order to perform the act of untangling one’s webs we needed to play team bonding games and get to know each other!

At the beginning of every chapter, there is a little story or scenario, that is where I got all of my quotes from this week. I felt that the describing at the beginning was enough for the whole chapter. It definitely described it well. In the first paragraph, Griffin et. al. defined culture as, “shared meaning, shared understanding, shared sensemaking,” (237). In the same paragraph Griffin et. al. stated, “in order to travel across the strands toward the center of the web, an outsider must discover the common interpretations that hold the web together,” (237).  A couple of paragraphs down, Griffin et. al. talks about communication by saying, “that process is communication. It is communication that ‘creates and constitutes the taken-for-granted reality of the world,” (237).

This one was pretty tough to find a connection for, that’s why I kind of stayed on the first page. I didn’t really understand the chapter sadly. IN the quotes that I did make out, it seemed to connect to the idea of a team, and how we don’t really know anything about each other when we get here. The first quote kind of emphasizes the whole idea that with different people come different cultures. In the second quote, it just showed that we need to get to know a person by getting to know their culture and what holds them together. Finally, the last quote emphasizes communication as the main way of figuring out someone’s webs. Which goes a long way in our team bonding skills and getting to know each other.

ropes course