Effective mediated communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Effective mediated communication - Essay Example Few people write letters or read the newspaper anymore as these are seemingly archaic methods of communication. Neither provides instant information, a tool that is today essential for businesses to compete and simply a fact of life that is taken for granted for most in the U.S. â€Å"Nowadays, we think nothing of emailing our aunts in Germany and getting an answer back within minutes, or seeing the latest streaming video full of up to the minute news† (Boswell, 2006). There are as many disadvantages as advantages offered in this mode of communication as messages are misread, misdirected, misunderstood or simply go missing. While several of these issues don’t arise when people are given the opportunity to communicate on a face-to-face basis, an entirely new set of issues are introduced as messages are forgotten, lose their focus or the participants become sidetracked on other issues or other external events. The purpose of this paper is to discover just what are the str engths and weaknesses of face to face communication as they compare with the strengths and weaknesses of hard copy communication methods. For many people, face to face communication is the best means of interacting with another person for a variety of reasons. People who communicate face to face are obviously able to do so in a real-time format, meaning that it occurs for both people at the same time as they are looking at each other. When the conversation reaches a point where greater clarification or further discussion is felt necessary, this conversation has the opportunity of taking place immediately. According to Adler et al (2007), this attribute of synchronicity is the first of three significant features of oral face to face communication. The second significant feature is the richness of information that can be obtained through this method of communication. While two people are looking at each other,