CASE STUDY
It was 12.30om on a frantic day in the offices of Sporting Quarterly magazine. Jasmine Singh had been working for the organisation for a little over a year now, and was beginning to dread the chaotic end-of-quarter time period. Since her arrival at 8.45 am that morning, the stream of anxious work associates flowing in and out of her office had not let up. Jasmine had already given up her morning tea break, and realised that she would have to forego her lunch-break as well so the current edition could meet its 5.00pm deadline.
The workforce at Sporting Quarterly magazine consists of 18 full-time, permanent employees, as well as numerous contributing writers operating on a casual basis. The editor, Steve Pringle, maintains that the organisation is an equal opportunities employer, and that employees are all treated with the same amount of respect. However, behind the scenes some tension has been building up over the perceived lack of ability of certain employees to fulfil their job requirements. Recently, Jasmine Singh has been the subject of snide accusations by fellow staff members, although none have made them in her presence. This cover-up is probably due to Jasmine’s strategic placement in the organisation. She is both office manager, in charge of maintaining an efficient workflow, and subeditor with particular responsibility for page layouts.
New technology has made radical changes to the publishing industry in recent years, and many staff members are trying to come to terms with the alterations in their work patterns that have resulted. Sporting Quarterly is fortunate to have someone with Jasmine’s skills, but her expertise with new technology sometime seems to cause tensions among other staff that lack her knowledge. Part of Jasmine’s work is to oversee all the office technology, including several photocopiers, binding machines and electronic scanners. She also controls the stationery supplies. Some other staff members resent Jasmine’s control over office supplies, but Jasmine is sure that without some reasonable system of controls, material costs (for which she is responsible) would go through the roof.
Most requests for work to be done are made via a standardised form, which is then deposited in her in-tray. This is done to ensure all detail are included but this often proves to be time consuming. Some conversations can be quite frustrating for her as she has yet to learn some of the slang, phrases, idioms and acronyms, of New Zealand English, which are foreign to her native Indian tongue. She becomes even more upset after trying to converse with some individuals within the organisation who are known to be demanding and impatient.
One such individual, David Parsons, the designer/illustrator of the magazine, demands a lot of Jasmine’s time and effort to perfect the final product. Usually he is quite relaxed, and the occasional interactions between the two have remained at a polite level. Today however has been a different story. Due to an ambiguous request form, Jasmine has reformatted an article of six pages without leaving room for photographs. Although mistakes of this nature happen frequently, they are usually cleared up within a day or so with a minimum of fuss, but a lot of paper wastage. In fact, Jasmine and her associates have come to expect such misunderstandings to arise from time to time.
Tolerance and patience decreases when a deadline is rapidly approaching. It is not until 12.45 pm that David discovers the latest mistake, to which he responds very aggressively. He storms down to Jasmine’s office, interrupting a phone conversation. Adopting a threatening stance, he shouts at her at the top of his lungs. “What the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you do anything right? I give you a simple job to do and you manage to stuff it up completely!”
Shocked at the sudden outburst, Jasmine apologises, hangs up the phone and lowers her head at the shame of being spoken to in such a manner, waiting for David’s instructions. This angers David even more, so he remains rigid in posture, fists clenched. Nothing is more annoying to him than a meek person who will not even explain themselves in such situations. For him, this was the final straw. “As far as I’m concerned you were only hired because of this stupid multicultural push. All it does is slow down the workflow when jobs have to redone because of misunderstandings.”
1.0 Interactional Model of Communication and Meaning Centred Theory
There are two parts to this question. First the group will analyse the case study and answer the following questions in paragraphs.
1.1 Analyse the situation described in Case Study (paragraphs 6 & 7) using an ‘Interactional model of Communication’. Discuss the strengths and limitations of this theory.
1.2 With reference to Case Study, explain in your own words the meaning-centred theory approach to communication. Discuss the strengths and limitations of the Meaning Centred Theory of Communication.
1.3 Identify and describe one cause of a communication breakdown in the Intercultural Communication Case Study. Explain what could have been done to prevent these communication breakdowns.
