Straightforward Communication

For this exercise I chose to watch the show Sinner, my husband’s current go to show I had not watched with him yet. The show has many characters with many complex relationships watching with and without volume was an interesting tell of how the characters actually interacted.

With the volume off I learned quickly the show is filled with raw emotion. Each character had a high level of anxiety and stress throughout the episode. Anger was also displayed throughout the episode through physical harm as well as facial expressions. Arms being crossed was in almost every scene by the detective and the other main character who committed the murder. When the volume was off it was difficult to tell who actually was trying to work together and who got along.

When turning on the volume I was surprised to see the strongest relationships and clearest communication was done between the detective and the suspect. I learned the man who played the husband, who I thought was possibly a brother, communicated very irrationally with each character, yet was able to control his nonverbal the best. The detective displayed many nonverbal emotions, however when the volume was on he was a very clear communicator along with the other main character.

This exercise has identified the importance of connecting your verbal and nonverbal communication skills. When sending different messages through the different communication styles messages can be unclear. Channel discrepancy was very evident throughout the show the characters had very unclear emotions as well as communication throughout (O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J., 2015, p.96). 

Reference

O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J.  (2015). Real communication (3rd. ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's