What are your initial perceptions of the professional field of Communication Studies? Why do you find it interesting?

Learning how people communicate, understanding why people react the way they do, examining the best way to approach a situation are all strengths of the Communications Studies major. Communications studies means the study of communication according to Rowan university. These three ideas are important to me because these are all areas that I would like to comprehend to a fuller degree in my life. I can see these theories that we are beginning to learn about in the textbook helping my interaction with my peers, colleagues and superiors become clearer and more efficient. It is almost essential to understand how someone may react to the message you are sending out, both in a personal and a professional setting.

Originating in the days of Plato and Aristotle, today the field of communications studies is connected to studying rhetorical forms of communication, interpersonal communication artifacts and organization communication. (Rowan) Considering the idea that I can learn about these things and obtain a degree for doing so is an interesting idea. However, I am not sure that I would know how to apply these theories and studies to the real world. I would like to work with the mass media, to communicate with them and for doing such I need more specialized training in how to accomplish those tasks. Communication Studies does give an insight into how the messages may be received or portrayed the influence that the audience may have, however, I do also need to learn how to construct the physical message. This course will help me to make sure that the physical message that I produce will have the intended effect on the audience.

Another weakness of the Communication Studies is that theories are constantly changing. The world today is changing with the flood of technology that is sweeping every corner. The means of communication today are different than they were 50 years ago. Changes like this make me wonder how useful all of our theories to predict, explain or simply state communication issues will be in another 50 years.

I know that these theories have lasted for years and the effect of the change is obviously dependent on the utility and scope of the theory. Thus, it is certain that several theories will stand the test of time. The need to create new theories may also be addressed in a Communication Studies major. Creating a new theory is not a field that I desire to explore, it is more interesting to see how those of others can be applied to what I already know and will learn in the future.

In fact, there are studies like the one done by Loet Leydesdorff at the Amsterdam School of Communications Research that analyze the effectiveness of new papers and journals in the communications studies field. Seeing that these different established scholars don’t even take the time to explore their colleagues research makes me wonder how much one more communications studies scholar can add to the already existent theories. (Leydesdorff)

The Communication Studies major is a good fit for my academic goals. I feel that I would succeed and learn much that would truly enrich my life. It stretches my mind, makes me think in different directions and about different things than I ever have before. To analyze the why, or try to predict the outcome, or just describe interaction between people or groups is very interesting and I enjoy reading the chapters in the textbook.

My career goals however are more specifically directed to working with one area of communication and thus require greater training in the specified area. The course of basic communication theories will open my mind to be able to apply these new facts and ideas to the field of Public Relations and majoring in Public Relations will teach me how to apply these communication theories to the field itself, more than just the world in general.

Outside Sourcing
“Communication Studies.” Rowan University. Fall 2007.
Leydesdorff, Loet and Park, Han Woo. “The Journal of Communication and the Field of Communication Studies: Mapping Scientific Communication Online.” http://users.fmg.uva.nl/lleydesdorff/communicationstudies/index.htm Fall 2007.