2. Identify a Relationship

One relationship of mine that has definitely become closer over time is my relationship with my boyfriend. When we first met I only knew him as a friend of a friend. He was a senior in high school and I was a sophomore. It started out with casual hellos, acknowledging the other's existence, and maybe a brief conversation here and there. So it was definitely I-You communication: we acknowledged each other as humans but the only role he played in my life was "friend of a friend" and we didn't share anything on a personal level.

Eventually, after several short conversations we found out that we had the same taste in music. So that sparked a bit of interest for the both of us, but aside from talking about music our conversations still seemed to mostly revolve around small talk and insignificant topics.

Then, at one point, the subject of fathers came up; a sensitive subject for us both. After uncovering the fact that we both had MIA dads, our "fields of experience" started to merge more and more. We ended up exchanging numbers and the flow of information took off from there.

Three years later we're now in a committed relationship. We talk about pretty much anything and everything with the exception of our fathers since we've already talked about that and neither of us care to relive it. As far as shared fields of experience go, it seems that the more time we've spent together creating memories, finding new things that interest us, and sharing our pasts the closer our fields of experience merge.

1. Linear vs. Interactive Models of Communication

In linear models, communication is described as a one-way interaction in which a speaker talks to a passive listener. The model shows communication as a series of actions: the speaker delivers the message, the listener receives the message, and the message is interpreted.
The interactive model differs from the linear in the sense that it depicts the listener responding to the message rather than just receiving the information. This model also introduces the idea that, when communicating, people operate within "fields of experience". When these fields overlap, greater understanding of one another is found, while the lack of fields overlapping generates confusion.
In my own experience I've found that fields of experience can significantly affect interactions. Over the summer I worked at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. as a host and part of my job was to make conversation with the customers. A lot of the time I found that if I talked about broad areas of interest it was easier to interact with them, but when we talked about more specialized or specific topics we had in common the more enjoyable it was to talk to them.

Intro

Hi everybody,

     My alias is Allison, you can call me Alli for short. I'm originally from Monterey, CA and I'm now a freshman here at SJSU. I don't have any experience in communication studies, but this semester I'm taking this class as well as a public speaking class (Comm 20). I'm currently Undeclared, but I want to go into Graphic Design. My goal in this class is to learn anything I can about how we communicate with each other because I find the idea of it to be fascinating.
     I think this will be a fun and engaging class and I can't wait to see how it goes. :)