Function of Communication Theory to University Student and Society

Function of Communication Theory to University Student and Society

Communication is a process of sending and receiving information between two or more people. The person who send the message is called as sender, while the person who received the message is called the receiver. The information conveyed can include facts, ideas, concepts, opinions, beliefs, attitudes, instructions, and emotions. A theory is a set of parts or variables, definitions, and propositions that are interconnected which presents a systematic view of phenomena by specifying about relationships between variables, with the intention to explain the phenomenon of nature.

There are a lot of experts describes the meaning of communication theory. According to Borman (1989), communication theory is a word or term which is consist the whole discussion and analysis which are carefully crafted, systematic, and conscious about communication. Meanwhile, according to Littlejohn (1996), communication theory is a theory or a set of collective thought or those found in the overall theory is primarily related to the communication process. According to Cragan and Shields (1998), communication theory is the relationship between the concept of theoretical physicist who helped to give overall or partial, description, explanation, information, assessments or predictions of human action that is based on the communicator that communicates which consists of speaking, writing, reading, listening, watching and so on for a period or a specified period through media (tools).

Theory of uses and gratification was introduced by Herbert Blumer and Elihu Khatz in 1974 through their book The Uses of Mass Communication; Current Perspective on Gratification Research. The theory is much related to the attitude and behaviour of the consumer, how they use the media to find information about what they need. This theory states that people look for certain media and content to gain satisfaction.  As university students, I always use mass media in variety of things. One of the medium I use is the internet. Besides, there are many applications that can be downloaded easily in the smartphone like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that becomes some mediums that I used in my life and learning activity in the university. The wide usage of internet in the university including in the learning process has opened more opportunity for me to find information. The usage of ‘online learning’ in teaching and learning process at the university have a lot of benefit to me. I can download the notes that was uploaded by the lecturer of each subject easily. By using application like WhatsApp in the learning process helped me get information from my friends about something I don’t know. This uses and gratification theory in my life as a university student give a lot of benefit to me. I don’t have to rush to settle down my task with good internet facilities in my university.

Next, onion theory or social penetration theory has introduced by Irwin Altman & Dalmas Taylor (1973). They explained that the process of interpersonal communication aims to share information between a person. They highlighted this theory by saying that the concept is self-personality such as onions that have a layer of thin skin and followed by other layers that becomes stronger and compact. This means that the longer we get acquainted or doing interpersonal communication, the more we know what is inside the heart of the person. For example, I have a friend name Adam. He always talked about video games and football. When we met, Adam always nagging about video games that he played last night, about he losing or winning the game and sometimes he talked about football team that he admire of. From that, I realize that Adam is a hardcore fan of Manchester United and he played DOTA too. We became closed because I am a fan of Manchester United football team and a gamer too. From that on, Adam and I became close friends because of the chemistry. The last process that will happen is the reverse of penetration, which is the process of withdrawing from one layer to another layer. At this point, our friend may not even say hello when meeting each other on the road. The social penetration theory occurs very fast at the beginning but become slow and difficult to impregnable on the middle layer.

David K Berlo is an American communication scholar who earned his doctorate at the age of 29 years old at the University of Illinois in 1955. He explained about the most popular theory of SMCR model of communication. There are four main process in this model named as SMCR (Source, Message, Channel, Receiver). Sender is the source that send the message to the receiver. The message is the substance that is being sent by the sender to the receiver. Channel is the medium used to send the message and the receiver is the person who receive the message. For example, there are a football match between Kedah and Selangor next week. I want to tell my friend, Aina (receiver) about the football match between Kedah and Selangor and ask her to join me watching the football match at the stadium (source). So, I directly message her through WhatsApp and tell her about the football match (message). Aina receive my message through WhatsApp (channel). She agreed to join me watching the football match at the stadium.

Groupthink, a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis (1972), occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment”.  The groups come to situations where they must decide between unanimity and objective solution and they go for an unanimity rather than going for other options. This is because they want to avoid conflicts between group members. For example, I must complete a group assignment about Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad for my Nationhood class. Sara, one of my group members come with the idea of Tun’s contribution to Malaysia. She decided to take one of the contribution which is about Petronas Twin Tower (KLCC) as the main point. I think that other topics are more interesting than KLCC. But majority of my group mates agrees with the topic that Sara chose so I agreed to accept the topic as our group assignment. This happens because I want to avoid arguing with my group members who agree with Sara’s decision. The decision lead me to disaster when I need to stress out on the thing that I don’t have to in the first place.

As a conclusion, the theory of uses and gratification explains that satisfaction and needs help drive the audience decisions regarding what they expose themselves to while social penetration theory is being used in the process that people making friends. Self-disclosure is the key point. Berlo’s model believes that for an effective communication to take place the source and the receiver needs to be in the same level, only if the source and receiver are on the same level communication will happen or take place properly. Meanwhile, groupthink theory can alter the decision-making capabilities of a group and prevent a group from making a rational decision.

Based on what I have mentioned above, there are many functions of communication theory in our daily life as a university students and society in general.