Organizational Communication: Who Knew?

The meaning of communication is not so black and white that it produces a singular, black and white definition. When you consider that the subject of communication, in itself, has so many more diverse concentrations, it’s not a surprise to learn new aspects constantly. Being a college student in the communication major, it’s actually quite mind opening to learn just what the subject entails.

Starting COMM 320 with organizational communication, I assumed — and I’m sure most of the class did as well — that it meant organization within communication. However, chapter one, right off the bat explored aspects I hadn’t even considered. Globalization, terrorism, global warming and demographic changes were things I’d explored in other, non-communication related courses in college but I hadn’t stopped to consider how they do tie into communications altogether.

Globalizaiton is changing the world more and more each day. It makes sense that this poses a challenge to the relm of communication. Terrorism, which scares many of us no matter where in the world you live, doesn’t seem to be a communication issue but when you take a step back and look at it’s organizational aspect, it’s easier to see how communication, especially organizational communication plays a vital role. We see the debate of global warming all the time — does it exist? Is it really as bad as we’re being told? Well yes, it does exist and organizational communication also plays a part in the issue. The world we live in today, is much different from the world our parents, or more so, great-grandparents grew up in decades ago. Marriage, age, even ethnicities in the United States are rapidly changing and with that change comes the need to change how it’s addressed.

Besides the obvious four topics covered in the first chapter (globalization, terrorism, global warming and demographic changes), I took away from the perhaps the main reason organizational communication is so important: it exists everywhere. It can be tied into almost every dilemma or issue we, as human beings have faced. With that, it can also bring with it the solution for such issues.