Online Lesson 1:
The General Theories of Communication

Theories and Stories

Let us begin with some communication theories to which all of us can relate. I have proposed in my definition above that cultural rules and conventions are "learned and shared." That is, that rules for participating in face-to-face interaction are somehow learned or acquired and shared by the people interacting in a specific context. They are learned and/or acquired either implicitly or explicitly (see Module 1 on, What is culture?). Most of the rules and conventions, or the etiquette for participation in social contexts, are acquired implicitly. For example, what are the rules for behaving and interacting in an elevator?

If you think about it, did anyone ever "explicitly" teach you the etiquette for entering, riding and exiting an elevator?" For the majority of social contexts, people "learn" and acquire the rules---the etiquette for participation---through observations, and by trial and error. We enter a social context, we observe the situation and we try to make sense of it by monitoring how others are performing in it. We do this in micro-seconds as we enter a new context. Among a plethora of other communicative cues and clues, we look for patterns of behavior, language use, and uses of physical space to make sense of how people interact in that specific context, to discern the etiquette. We do this as daily routines as we move from context to context. All of us use different social rules and conventions for behaving and interacting for each social context we encounter. In my own social life, I probably encounter over 1000 social contexts daily, and for each there are established social rules for interaction. For example, do you interact the same way with your professors as you do with your very close friends? Do you use the same rules for interaction at a home family dinner as when you are eating with your friends in a public restaurant? Each social context has its rule and conventions.

Now let us explore the elevator example. Since most rules and conventions are acquired and learned implicitly, then how do we know they exist and that we know what they are? Most people are not conscious of their learned and shared rules….they just do it! But if they're wrong, that is, if they don't know the rules, they are seen as out of context, and as a consequence the rules for participation are made explicit if you are able to detect them.

To enter an elevator, we first stand in front of it and look for the up or down button panel on the sides of the elevator doors. We push the up button as we stand facing the elevator doors, waiting for the doors to open. If there are others waiting they all do the same. The elevator doors open, and we stand aside as people walk out usually one at a time. When everyone that wants to leave the elevator is out, then we enter one by one, and once inside we immediately turn around to face the doors. We either push the appropriate floor button inside the elevator, or we ask a person closest to the buttons to do so. Everyone remains quiet during the traveling process with a few very quiet whispers if people know each other. We keep our eyes firmly on the floor indicator (usually at the top of the doors) as it travels up floor by floor. When we reach our floor, the doors open, we say "excuse me" if there are people in front of us and then proceed forward to exit the elevator.

Now this doesn't seem so hard. We all have experienced some variation of this context. How do we know in this example that there are rules for interacting and behaving? I just made some of the rules explicit by merely describing what one normally does in this context. How do we know these rules exist and are shared by others in this context? One way of discovering what the rules are in any context is to break them consciously or by the unconscious mistakes we make. Take for example, you enter the elevator and instead of turning around you continue to face forward facing the other riders as they turn around to face the doors---and YOU have not turned around as expected. How would you feel if someone did that in an elevator? What would you say about that person? "He's crazy, he's nuts! He's weird!" Let's take it a bit further. What if he started talking face-to-face with the people! "Hello there, how's it going," he says to one, and then tells another, "Hey, I love your suit and your briefcase!" In this scenario, it is clear that the reason we think this person is weird is because he's not doing what is expected of him in elevators. He broke the rules and people took notice and made their inferences about that "crazy" person. These rules are not usually taught; they are learned and acquired by doing--- implicitly. Elevator etiquette is usually never posted (made explicit) with a few exceptions such as "10 person maximum." These kinds social of rules are rarely talked about and made explicit because they are routine, and redundant contexts in our lives. If we make an etiquette mistake when we're not aware of such a mistake, people usually let you know by informing you, by making "dirty faces" at you, and by a host of other social means. In short there are norms of etiquette and people usually hold you accountable to the rules. We learn most of the etiquette for social contexts implicitly, including classroom rules and conventions as we shall discuss later! If you don not believe this, then simply try breaching elevator etiquette and see how people around you react. Try some of the suggestions in the Field Trip assignment, "Breaking Elevator Rules", for a study of how implicit elevator rules are made explicit as you break them. Open the link below and complete this activity, then go on to Part II of Online Lesson 1.

Field Trip: Breaking Elevator Rules

Go on to Online Lesson - Part II
or
Go back to Topic 1: General Communication Theory