COM 395 Comm & Social Cognition Group Project 1

Interpersonal Communication in Work and Family

Project Completion Date

November 8, with short (10 miunte) group presentations made at that time.

The Groups

Groups were formed based in part on concentration within communication studies and in part based on preference. Hence the public relations workplace group is formed entirely of students concentrating in public relations, the core of the mass media (broadcast journalism) group are majors in broadcasting and journalism, and human communications concentrations are distributed between family, the knowledge worker workplace, and (to a lesser extent) the mass media (broadcast journalism) workplace. If you were in class, you got to choose. If you weren't, I assigned you to a group and you should make contact as soon as possible (e.g. right now). I have provided e-mail addresses for group members that have agreed to be on the lookout for your e-mail.

Group Focus	Members	E-mail contact(s)
The Public Relations Workplace	D'Ippolito, Melissa Fidler, Karen Lavin, Colleen Luisi, Amanda Proscia, April Yockell, Kathleen	kmyockell@aol.com lavin@oswego.edu
The Mass Media (Broadcast Journalism) Workplace	Kehoskie, Thomas Perry, Katie Regan, Kristin Sunga, Michelle Vecchio, Sara Williams, Scott	kperry@oswego.edu
The Family	Derby, Shanissia Drayton, Cedric Figaro, Holly Fors, Desiree Rovin, Samantha Slywka, Tricia	drayton@oswego.edu shanissia21@hotmail.com fors@oswego.edu rovin@oswego.edu fighol21@hotmail.com
The Generalized Knowledge Worker Workplace	Cassidy, Mary Entrekin, Jennifer Herzog, Robert Lloyd, Daniel Moynan, Kelly	kmoynan@hotmail.com

The Project

This is a two part project in which your groups will explore the various kinds of one and one and group communication that people use in specific "interaction ecologies"

Part 1.

Do a brainstorming session (about 20 minutes of dedicated group time) in which you list all of the ways in which people, working in your assigned interaction ecology, communicate with each other on a one to one or small group basis. Note, in particular, that this assignment has no interest in "mass media" (e.g. speeches, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, newsletters, etc). Recall that the rules of brainstorming can be found in the Brookfield text. You should probably review those rules briefly before doing the brainstorming session. Save the list that results from this brainstorm. It is one of the outputs of this project.
When you have completed the brainstorming session, select, from among the "ways of communicating" that you identified in the brainstorming session, three "ways of communicating" as follows:
- the most valuable
- the most trivial
- the most interesting
Note that it doesn't actually matter to this assignment that a particular form of interpersonal interaction is actually the most valuable, most trivial, or most interesting. It only matters that the group thinks/decides they are after discussing the results of the brainstorm. Note that the second stage of the brainstorm, in this case, is a sort of a modified PMI: in this case one might call it a "VTI" (valuable, trivial, interesting).

Part 2

Research each of the three forms of interaction as a group to see what you can find out about that kind of interaction. I would imagine that you will be able to find a fair amount of literature on any of the forms of communication you decide on. Of course, if you can't that's interesting too (but keep in mind that I can look things up too).
Create a short group presentation (no more than 10 minutes total) in which overviews what you found out about each of the three ways of communicating interpersonally. Be prepared for questions. You will present on November 6.
The group does not need to turn in a paper. It does, however, need to submit:
- The ecology you group focused on
- The results of the brainstorm
- A list of the things you found for each form of interpersonal interaction
- A reference list showing the places you found the information.

That's it. If you have any questions, send me e-mail, drop by my office during office hours, or ask during class.