My takeaway from this week’s readings is that it is imperative that a company identity is not lost to following trends and or follow making money. When a company loses sight of the customer’s need  or why the customers chose to follow their brand int the first place, the company will fail. My classmates had very good examples of successful brands that either remained successful by having a targeted audience or made smart choices of staying true to their brand, while introducing new products. For example, we learned that Proctor and Gamble has so many products and quite a few of their products are one another’s competitors. P & G was careful about changing their brand, so they created new brands all under the same company.

 

Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Leslie Williams, and currently I am working on my fourth semester as a graduate student at Queens University of Charlotte.

I enjoy life, and try to spend most moments having as much fun as possible. My guilty pleasures are shopping until I drop and fine dining. When I am not on the go, I am somewhere quiet practicing meditation to find my peace within.

Wow, to start, I must say that Com 601 has taught me more than I imagined that I could learn in my first graduate school course. The fear of creating blogs and vlogs for others to see and critique almost crippled me, but as I read our required text and articles, I began to gain confidence in myself each day. The text was a great tool to learn about different traditions and theories of communication. My concern became more about learning the material and how to apply the theories to my life, so I can become a critical thinking and well-rounded communicator.

It was an enjoyable experience to review my classmate’s presentations. Everyone seem to have had a good understanding of how to apply equipment for living to their topic. Therefore, it was evident that my classmates presented well written and thought out inquiry papers. We all may have room for improvement, but we all had a great fresh start to our graduate study education in communication.

Upon viewing my classmate’s presentation, I immediate thought, “I have to improve on my presentation skills”. The presentations all seemed professionally done. I’m new to presenting my work on digital platforms for view, so I was very intimidated. However, viewing my classmates presentations served as a template to my future presentations. It was nice to see how my classmates tied in the readings for “equipment for living” to their topics, where it made sense and flowed. All the presentations were informative and gave me insight on topics that I knew about and some that I did know about.

Most of the projects were very interesting because my classmates chose topics that dealt with overcoming obstacles or dealing with some sought of inadequacy in their life. It was so beneficial to have the opportunity to read other presentations and see how other people communicated through digital media. I learned that I have so much more to learn and feel honored to have the opportunity to work towards my master’s degree, so I am better equipment to achieve my career goals. Com 601 was a great first class to equip me with the tools that I will need throughout my graduate studies. I look forward to my future classes.

 

https://youtu.be/Olcx46t2ki8

Since the sociocultural tradition theories focuses on patterns of interactions between people, the tradition makes sense to me because as a native New Yorker living in the large metropolitan city known as the “melting pot”, I have interacted with people from different cultures and social backgrounds. My curiosity has always been with understanding why people think and act in the manner that they do.
Growing up in Brooklyn New York afforded me with the opportunity to live in an area with a diverse culture. My friends and classmates came from very diverse backgrounds, so I began communicating with diverse groups very early in my life. The neighborhood I grew up in had a large Hasidic Jew population in addition to people from various Caribbean Islands. The community was so diverse, I was almost forced into communicating with people that I did not understand. However, I wanted to understand others that were different from me, so I found ways to communicate with my neighbors. My interactions exposed me to different cultures and norms that have shaped my life. I know that my diverse upbringing has influenced my interest to communicate with diverse groups. “Many sociocultural theories also focus on how identifies are established through interaction in social groups and cultures. Identity becomes a fusion of the individual self with social, community, and cultural roles” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011 p. 55). It seems as I was utilizing the sociocultural approaches to communicate but now I am learning how to apply the theories to become a more effective communicator.
Ironically, I find myself struggling to adjust to southern living since relocating here to North Carolina ten years ago. Diversity seems limited here in North Carolina, and I feel lost. Often times, I feel singled out because I am from the north. Southerners usually express to me that they hear my accent by marking how I say some words followed by laughter. I find this offensive because I have always embraced others for their differences. Studying the sociocultural tradition has helped me to look at communication through the process of interacting with groups. Instead of taking offense to the way southern folks interact with northerners or people not from the south, I took a different approach. I tried to understand the culture of southern folks and realized that people from southern states are welcoming and often use humor as a way to communicate and “break the ice” when communicating with others. One person told me that he wanted me to feel at home, so he thought that by joking with me, I would become more comfortable to talk to him. He wanted me to feel welcomed. Although, I do not feel welcomed when laughed at, I’ve learned that some southerners like to make people feel like family, so an occasional joke and big smile is not always meant to be offensive. I’m reminded of the classical medium theory, “speech also requires knowledge and tradition and therefore supports community and relationship (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011 p. 337).
Theories of Human Communication (2011) has given me insight on how to approach communicating with others. Now, when I am faced with a challenging situation, instead of focusing on an individual’s characteristics, I can approach the situation focusing on social and cultural roles to understand how the group interacts with one another through communication. ”Sociocultural approaches to communication theory address the ways our understandings, meanings, norms, roles, and rules are worked out interactively in communication” (LittleJohn & Foss, 2011, p. 54). I will think of the sociocultural tradition when tackling difficult interactions at work and in my personal life. I have learned how to think about communication in more ways than I thought possible.

Digital Podcast

Truthfully, I am slowly getting  used to the APA style of writing. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2017) has become my reference book for each paper I write, and I’m sure I will use the book for all my graduate courses. My question was why use APA style and not MPA style?

 The APA style manual does not  provide as many writing samples as I hoped for. I find that you must read the rules and apply them. There are samples provided for each rule, but there were a few articles that I needed to cite, and had to figure out how to cite them by using some of the other citation samples. For example, I needed to cite a film, and couldn’t locate a sample as quickly as I could a citation on books and articles. I thought the APA style would provide more writing samples, so I guess that surprised me.

The most difficult rule for me to remember is the mechanics of style. I get so involved in writing my paper, that I forget to use quotation marks and or  italics for titles, which is careless on my part. I’ve been away from school for a while, so I realize that I must make sure that I use The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2017)  as my reference guide for each paper that I write. My writing should reflect that of a graduate student.

Literature Review