Games people play when communicatingEm Griffin likens interpersonal communication to games. He gives three game metaphors: bowling, pingpong, and charades.  Photo by Xiaphias In bowling, Griffin tells us, the player is the Sender, the bowling ball is the Message, the lane is the Channel, bumps on the lane make up Noise, and the set of pins is the Receiver. When I asked my students to comment on this metaphor, they added the score as Feedback.
In pingpong, Griffin says the players alternate as Sender and Receiver, the ball is the Message, the table the Channel, and the net is the Noise. In charades, Griffin says the players are both Senders and Receivers, the verbal and nonverbal symbols are the Messages, the Channel is the space separating the players, and the wrong guesses make up Noise. But Griffin adds that what differentiates charades from bowling and pingpong is in the exchange. Charades is more of a transaction than the one-way or two-way interaction in bowling or pingpong. Griffin then presents three communication theories that exhibit this transactional approach to interpersonal communication. These theories include Symbolic Interactionism, Coordinated Management of Meaning, and Expectancy Violations Theory (this last one is not included in our classroom discussion). 
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Topics
Orientation Theory in Communication Interpersonal Communication Theories
 Interpersonal Communication by Nino Soria de Veyra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.  |
