American "Conversation Ideal" and Communication

Essay by babo9999 November 2007

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The American “conversation ideal” is a multi-channel communication. It is based on continuous feedback from one person to another, face to face. It is very common to see one person saying his opinion to another holding up a conversation in many social groups. Personally, I concluded that my friends share their opinions about an issue such as the football game in a group. They will say things like, “That touchdown just screwed us over, and we should have won that game.” The American “Conversation Ideal” is also identified as spontaneous utterances (Croteau Hoynes 34). This means that people do not wait to talk and blurt out things that are on their mind. People have this common understanding where a person does not wait for another to stop speaking. In some cases, he tries to stop you from talking by overlapping your conversation to address his point. The American “Conversation Ideal” is more ideal when there are more than two people speaking.

There would be more multi-channel communication and spontaneous utterances when there are more people around. However, in mediated communication, the American “Conversation Ideal” does not apply. We can not talk back to a media such as television or radio. All we can do is listen to the sender and either absorb or discard the message. There is no overlapping of conversation whatsoever. The American “Conversation Ideal” is important to communication because it shows a great example of sender, message, receiver, and feedback. It is significant that one person can be a sender and a receiver, which also provides feedback. Using the group of students talking about football as an example, person A is the sender saying that the touchdown screwed us over. The person A can also act as a receiver when person B gives feedback to his...