Communication Theories Paper Essay

Communication theories are important to learn and understand. Learning these theories helps us apply the theory to our own life. It helps our critical thinking skills as well as benefits one to understand the value of research that has been accomplished in this field. Understanding communication theories can help us make sense of our daily life experiences. There are three Communication theories that I have studied that have touched on my personal and professional life. These theories are Communication Privacy Management, Social Penetration Theory, and Organizational Culture Theory. One theory that reinforces the importance of communication is the privacy management theory. This theory has applied to my personal and professional life in many ways. There are three examples on how this has affected my daily life. It has affected me in my social networking, at my job, and when using my personal mobile device. In the communication and privacy management theory it explains that disclosure in relationships requires managing private and public boundaries (West, R. , & Turner, L. H. 2010). This theory tells us that people use this to manage the relationship between screening and revealing their private information (West, R. , & Turner, L. H. 2010). This theory has had an impact with my social networking. I use the popular networking cite called Facebook. On Facebook I have to be really careful on what information I reveal on my profile. I don’t want just anyone knowing something that could hurt me. On Facebook I have learned that if you are not careful with the pictures or information you reveal about yourself it could hurt your job, your reputation, as well as relationships. I have eliminated this from happening to me by using the privacy management theory. I have chosen to set up certain privacy settings on what people can and cannot see on my profile. Protecting myself makes me feel more secure of what others can see or know about me. I am a pretty private person so there is not much to my Facebook. Having public and private boundaries makes me enjoy using this social networking site. I have used this theory by only accepting close friends that I know very well on my Facebook. I also chose who can see my pictures and who can’t. There are many different privacy settings that protect ones confidentiality. The second example of how this theory applies to my life is at my job. I work in a medical office. We have to be real careful of what information we give out about our patients. We have HIPPA that protects our patient’s private information. One of my main duties at my job is answering the phones. Each phone call I take I have to be extra careful of what information I reveal to the caller. If I was to give out information to someone that should not be receiving the information, I could get terminated or worse even go to jail. It is crucial for me to follow this theory in my profession. In my profession I am also careful about what I tell my coworkers about my personal life. As a professional it is not always good to tell your personal information to coworkers. You never know if they could use any of your private information against you. This is why I modify the information I give out to my coworkers. The third example of how I use this theory in my daily life is when I use my personal mobile device. I use my cell phone every day. This theory applies to me when using my cell phone in many ways. Text messaging is something that my family and friends do throughout the day. This is a fast and convenient way to communicate with one another. In text messaging one has to be careful of what they reveal to another because it can be used against them. Once you text someone something it is always there. They can save it and share it with others. It may be something that you do not want anyone else to see. I have to think about that before I send a text to the other person. Out of all three of my examples using this theory in my daily life, I would say that my communication was effective in my first example in using Facebook. My private information is secure now because of the privacy setting offered to me on the site. This is effective for me because it protects me against anything that can be used against me in my profession or even relationships. Taking that step helps me feel comfortable to have control over what others can or cannot see. Taking these steps has made me feel more secure on the information and communication I have with others. This effective communication that I do reveal shows to my friends what type of information I want to be revealed to them. In my second example I talk about giving out too much information to your coworkers. I have learned from the past of what is appropriate to discuss with others at work. If I can continue to strive to do this, than my communication will be more effective. In the future I might communicate differently in using my mobile device. I have had friends get in lots of trouble by saying too much through text messaging. Someone ended up using things the other person said through text against them. In knowing this, I have learned to communicate differently when I use my text messaging. I screen what I say so that I don’t send something to someone else that I will regret. The Social Penetration Theory explains why as relationships develop, communication moves from less intimate levels to more intimate, more personal levelsI can apply this theory to my professional as well as personal life. Three examples that I can give how this has been practical in my daily life are through my relationships, work, and my primary care giver. In a particular relationship I was in, we started off as good friends. I did not reveal my most private personal information to him in the beginning. I waited until time went on. When we were in a committed relationship, I eventually little by little shared with him more information about myself. This theory allows one to be more honest with one another. In some cases it helps one be more careful in the relationship because you learn what the others sensitivities are. In my workplace overtime I have been aware of who to share certain information with and who I should not. At work I try to speak of only work and stay very professional. There is one particular coworker that I know I can trust. I do share a little bit more with this person. This is someone that I have learned overtime I can confide in. Lastly my primary doctor is someone that at first I felt awkward talking to or asking questions to. Overtime we have formed a personal relationship. I am now comfortable with talking to her about my health. I also don’t feel strange asking her questions that can sometimes be uncomfortable around just anyone. In my first example I feel the communication was effective overtime by building on a strong, trusting relationship. It made me more comfortable to share more about myself with him. In my second example I could be more effective by even with my close coworker to try and not talk too much about work if we go out to lunch. On my last example I could communicate differently with my provider by writing down my questions that I have for her. This would also help if I felt like I was going to forget something that I needed to ask her. There are always ways we can improve on this theory. These are just some examples on how I use this theory in my daily life. Organizational Culture Theory explains meanings for routine organizational events, thereby reducing the amount of cognitive processing and energy members need to expend throughout the day (West, R. , & Turner, L. H. 2010). There are three examples I can think of that can apply to my personal as well as professional life with this theory. They are through my work, through my church, and though school. An example of not having this was my last supervisor. She hardly was ever in the office. We never had monthly meetings like we do now with our current supervisor. We never expanded like she wanted because of lack of this theory. We now have monthly meetings with our new supervisor as well as have rules and regulations we have to follow. We have a certain dress code we have to abide by each day. We also come together on certain holidays and have a tradition where everyone one brings their favorite food dish. Having all of these routine organizational events has helped us expand as a more successful organization. My second example of how this theory has applied to my personal and professional life is through my church. We have certain customs and symbols that we use at church that we use on each Sunday. We have a routine service. For example when we first arrive, we start singing then have announcements, followed by the sermon. At the end we all sing again, and pray. This is something that our congregation is used to each Sunday. We also, have a certain time our service starts and ends each Sunday. The third way this theory applies in my life is through school. At University of Phoenix we have certain rules and regulations we have to follow. For example, we have attendance policies we have to abide by. We also have certain dates that our assignments are due. If we do not follow this, there will be consequences. If we didn’t have organizational structure, we as students would not know what to do in order to be a successful student. There are certain questions I can ask myself to take a look deeper in my examples of this theory. Through my example of school this communication is effective to me because we have pretty much the same rules and standards to go by in each class. Having this structure makes each student understand how to become a successful student in their current class. In my example of church I feel like there is always ways to be more effective. The church could send out bulletins before each Sunday. This would help update the congregation on what the next message will be about. In my example of work to have better communication in the future, my old supervisor could have done this by having monthly meetings. Having monthly meetings addresses questions and concerns that other employees have for the office manager. This way she can better the organization. In conclusion I can see how important communication theories are to my personal and professional life. Now knowing these theories I will be more aware of how much these are a part of my daily life. References West, R. , & Turner, L. H. (2010). Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application (4th ed. ) Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Retrieved from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/content/eBookLibrary2/content/eReader. aspx? assetMetaId=299dcc53-f1c8-4924-a9b0-b8ff6d645a5f&assetDataId=0cdf2509-a90a-4f76-a84b-7cb7098cc897&assetpdfdataid=076561d1-57c7-472c-9712-6f5644b9ebd7