As I watched the show Revenge with the sound turned off, which I have never seen before, I can tell in the first five minutes of the show that there are relationships that have secrets. They were communicating by nonverbal eye brow rising, whispering to one another, and looking very seriously at one another. In the show I could tell there were two main characters. It was hard to tell which one was being portrayed as the good one and which one was the bad one. As the show progressed, there was small talk at social parties and you could still tell by their body language that there were secrets.You could tell that the young lady in the show was new to the area and may have been feeling nervous. As I observed her interacting with people at a party, she was very quiet and held her glass of wine tight. Some of the other characters were portrayed as rich and their actions and activities portrayed a arrogant attitude.
I then turned on the volume and concluded
that most of my assumptions were true.
My assumption that they were wealthy was true, and the assumption that they
had secrets between them was also true.
Without hearing them speak I was not able to pick up on the fact that
the main character was there for revenge.
Their body language was portraying something secretive, but without
hearing them speak I could not understand what exactly was going on. When I
heard the conversation, I could then understand the plot of the story. O’Hair & Wiemann, explain peoplet-oriented
listeners. They are listeners with
relationships in mind and are able to listen in a non-judgmental way (O’Hair
& Wiemann, 2012). I feel I am this type of listener and this is
why when I turned the volume up I able to relate what was going on in the
story. My interest was piqued to find
out what the relationships were like in the story.
I feel if I tried this activity with a show
that I know well my assumptions would have been more correct. I would have known
the characters qualities and relationships and would have been able to follow the
nonverbal communication with a better understanding.
Reference
O’Hair, D. & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Tisha, I have not watched this show but have seen the advertisements. Interesting how I don't think you would notice such a dynamic in real life - not knowing who was good or bad (unless witnessing something disturbing) . I love to people watch and this was a fun exercise!
ReplyDeleteTisha, I have not watched this show either and I have also seen the advertisements for it. This was definitely an interesting exercise in how we are at reading nonverbal and verbal cues as well as how well we listen. Thank you for sharing your experience about watching this show. I look forward to reading more of your insights.
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