COMMUNICATION MODE

Communication mode refers to the channel through which one expresses his/her communicative intent. It is the
medium through which one conveys his/her thoughts.
Views or feelings can be communicated through face-to-face interaction, video, or audio. The mode may also be text-
based.

1. Face-to-face interaction
- the most common of all these modes
- informal or casual conversation between two or more people
- people engage in social conversations to establish relationships or maintain them
- it is one way of gaining new acquaintances or friends
( How to speak, what to speak, when to speak, and to whom one is speaking are all important considerations in
building relationships)

How then do you initiate conversations? Faced with a group of new people who you do not know in a social gathering,
you should be able to begin a conversation. You will be able to test the saying: “ First impressions last.” In this case,
depending on the kind of impression you leave to your audience, you create either a positive and negative image of
yourself. One advantage of face-to-face interaction is that aside from directly hearing the message being conveyed,
you are able to note visual cues through facial expressions, gestures, movements, or even objects or realia from the
from the person/s you are communicating with.

Dau Voire suggests: “ Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.” This simply means that even if the people
surrounding you in a social event are strangers to you, you need to be confident enough to meet new faces and initiate
an interesting conversation. But what kind of topics matter to strangers you are meeting for the first time?

In other words, topic initiation should be followed by topic maintenance, topic change or shift, and, finally, topic
closure.

Margaret J. Wheatley states: “ All social change begin with a conversation.”

Diana Whitley said, “ Meaning is made in conversation,

Reality is created in communication,
And knowledge is generated through social interaction….
Language is a vehicle through which we create our understanding of the world.”

2. Video
Web cameras are used so that two or more people who cannot interact face-to-face can communicate. If there are no
technical glitches encountered, this could be very effective mode of communication especially for people separated by
distance. For example, you may engage in a conversation via Skype with your loved ones especially during significant,
meaningful or memorable occasions.

You are able to hear clearly the voice and see up close the face of your beloved. In more formal settings, people can
also engage in video-conferencing. While this is a convenient communication mode for people who want to reach out
to each other despite distance, a disadvantage is the time zone difference between countries. In this case, one of them
should make the necessary adjustments to pave the way for a successful communication.
3. Audio
Audio means transmitted sound. Thus, in this mode of communication, only the voice of the speaker is heard.
Ordinarily, someone’s voice is heard through the telephone or an answering machine when the other party is not able
to answer call. An obvious downside of this mode is not being able to see the body language or cues of the person you
are talking to.

The audio communication mode is quite difficult especially if you are listening to people with different accents. For
instance, in relation to the World Englishes paradigm, other speakers of English apart from those who speak it as
native language may find it peculiar listening to the accent of Filipinos. Some Filipinos are not able to distinguish the
sound of /I/ and /i/ in English words as in the examples sin and seen.

4. text-based communication; such as e-mail, facsimile, text messaging, and instant messaging. Social networking site
such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram likewise offer text-based interaction. While text-based communication mode
does not originally provide video and audio benefits, it has a wider reach and can disseminate information to a bigger
audience quickly.