Communications is More Than Just a Field of Study

I use to think that communications was all about public relations, journalism and digital design. However, once you step outside your cultural norm you realize that there is much more to it then just the things you learn about in the classroom.

Communications also has to do with how you interact with people in other settings outside of the business world. For example, we have now traveled from London to Germany to Prague, and in each of these countries a different language was spoken. You could tell that people were more comfortable in their surroundings while in London because there was no language barrier-- you could read the menu, talk to locals and understand maps/road signs. Then when we moved on to Germany and Prague things started to change-- it was more difficult to read the menu, it was harder to talk to locals and it seemed almost impossible at times to read maps/road signs. 

People often overlook how much of an impact a different language has on your communication with others. Lacking this sense of communication, that seems so easy, ends up being one of the hardest things to deal with on your time abroad while, interacting with different people from different cultures. 

I believe no one truly realizes that language is also a communications skill. It's not just about the things you learn in your communications classes it is also about being able to communicate with those around you, in their native language. Therefore, learning and experiencing new cultures and languages is an important, everyday life skill because it helps you communicate with others outside your cultural norm.

Personally, as much as I love to travel and continue to make an endless bucket list of places of where I would like to go, traveling is hard for me. It pushes me outside my comfort zone specifically because of the language barriers in other countries. Although this has never and will never stop me from traveling it is definitely a state of anxiety I seem to never be able to get rid of. I like to be able to communicate with the people around me, and not being able to speak to others in their native language is hard for me. However, if there is something I have learned from this trip it is that although language barriers build up some anxiety, it is okay, it comes with the package of traveling. If I do not step outside my comfort zone I will never learn the culture of others and will never learn how to communicate in any way with someone who does not speak English.

Traveling is part of learning to communicate in other ways such as learning the basics of another language such as the words "yes", "no" and "thank you" or simply point at an object. You pick up and learn communications everyday no matter where we are in the world-- we just don't realize it. It also makes you sensitive to other cultures, which ultimately I believe will translate into my communications education at Elon because it will make me more effective at communicating to different audiences.

-Jordyn Jaffe

Getting Hands-On With History

On Sunday we did a Berlin walking tour. We had never been to Germany before this trip therefore, it was fascinating to be able to see some of the most important historical landmarks of Berlin. The city of Berlin has some very rich history within it so it was intriguing to be able to see where history took place-- things we normally only read about in textbooks-- and be able to see the transformation of this city over the years.

From a communications aspect, there were a lot of things on this tour that we learned and that the tour guide spoke about which hit on our fall project of Nazi Propaganda.

Although the whole tour was not focused on Nazi Propaganda there was some portions here and there that did. For starters, the tour guide discussed Joseph Goebbels and his promotion of Hitler and the Nazi Party to the public. In addition, the tour guide showed us some structures that were used and multiple posters used during WWII and explained the many usages of propaganda during WWII.

Included among the propaganda shown to us by the tour guides was the book entitled, "Der Giftpilz." In English, this translates to "The Poisonous Mushroom." 

       

The book itself was a complication of short stories written by Nazi writer Ernst Hiemer and directed towards a German youth audience. Essentially what this book did was brainwash German children to have a strong dislike for Jewish people. In the fall, we learned that this book's title came from the first story in the book. In the story, a German mother talks to her son about how Jewish people are like poisonous mushrooms. She tells him, "Just as a single poisonous mushroom can kill a whole family, so a solitary Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire folk." This utilization of propaganda in the form of childish stories and pictures is important because children are highly impressionable. The implementation of Nazi ideals are easily transferred within this propaganda type.

Another propaganda piece described to us by our tour guide was a poster entitled, "Entartete Musik." In English this means, "Degenerate Music."

This poster is representative of the influence music had as a form of propaganda. German music, a source of pride to the country, was threatened during the interwar period. The increase in popularity of swing and jazz, as well as African-American and Jewish musicians meant a collapse of German values to the Nazis. In the eyes of the Nazis, the degeneration of music meant the degeneration of the nation and its people. This is represented in the poster by the inclusion of a man that appears to be an ape wearing the Star of David. This poster was meant to show the fact that the current state of German musicians is regressing just as humans can regress to their primative ape ancestors.

Our tour guide's description of these pieces on our walk was very relevant to our topic of Nazi Propaganda. We walked away with a more detailed knowledge of what we learned in the fall about the different avenues of propaganda within the Nazi Party.

-Jordyn Jaffe and Chelsea Weber

BBC vs. Sky News

As a communications study abroad program visiting the British Broadcasting Center (BBC) and Sky News is essential. Although these are two different broadcasting centers in London, England, they are both very important and well-known to our world.

These broadcasting centers provide an immense amount of information to the pubic, not only in the United Kingdom but also all around the world. However, through the wonderful tours that we had the pleasure of having at these two places we realized many similarities and differences between BBC and Sky which, made it interesting to see just how different each broadcasting center is yet, how well each of them functions.


BBC:

Before visiting BBC all I knew was that it was a broadcasting center in the United Kingdom that not only broadcasting through TV and radio but also through internet sources and social media sources. However, after visiting BBC I realized they do much more than just that. They also have radio drama and radio TV. In addition, I learned the technical portion of their broadcasting system. I never understood how much work it took to broadcast a "simple" news report. Here are some of the things I learned:

Old building is on the left. New building is in the
middle and on the left.

BBC consists of two buildings, the new building and the old building. BBC operates due to taxes on household television. They broadcast in 26 different languages and everything has to be verified twice before it can be aired. They air world news, local news, radio, radio drama and much more. Something I found very interesting about BBC that I believe a lot of people do not know is that they are very technology savvy-- most of their cameras are remote operated and therefore do not need cameramen. In addition, BBC pays well-known and not very well-known performers 66 pounds to perform on their shows which are open to the public for free.

Two very interesting facts that I learned from this tour was that in 1940, the old building was struck by a bomb. The bomb didn't explode until about 15 minutes after the bomb hit the building. However, at the time the bomb hit, a live live radio segment was being aired in that exact location. The broadcaster did not stutter while on air because he did not want to cause panic among London. The second interesting fact that I learned was that the new building has a structure on the roof that shines a light every night representing all of the BBC journalists that have died while reporting.

In my opinion, I believe the BBC tour was very interactive we were able to participate in mock news reports, weather reports and radio drama story. This was a valuable opportunity because we were able to experience what it is like to be on camera and understand what journalists go thorough everyday.


Sky:

Just like BBC I didn't know much about Sky before visiting. However, it was very interesting to see how different broadcasting centers operate. Based on their size and the technology they have access to.

Inside Sky News 

Although Sky is a smaller broadcasting center than BBC and the tour was less interactive I believe I was still able to learn a lot of information and see a lot more than I was expecting. Our group was able to tour Sky News and Sky Sports. Unfortunately, not all of us were able to get a full tour of Sky News because of what has been happening in Paris. However we were able to get a full tour of Sky Sports and see how busy a news room gets when sensitive information is released about a current event. Here are some of the things I learned from visiting Sky:

Sky News is owned by Sky Sports and unlike BBC  it is a profit company. The Sky News buildings look after itself. What this means is that the windows open and the heat goes on when the buildings reaches 28 degrees Celsius and the windows close when the sensors on the top of the roof senses rain.

At Sky Sports the cameras were operated by camera men and some cameras had prompters-- this is something also very different compared to BBC. In addition, for every hour that is aired Sky Sports is only allowed to have 12 minutes of advertisements and the other minutes are allowed to be used for promotion of Sky News and Sky Sports.

An interesting fact that I learned while touring was that Fox News has a room at Sky News where they hold cameras and equipment to help edit and broadcast small segments.

In addition, one of the tour groups had a unique experience at Sky Sports by running into journalist Jeff Sterling and journalist Jim White. This was able to give the group a more personable interaction. Jim White actually stopped and talked to the group to explain how Sky Sports works, how he likes Sky Sports and the work environment at Sky Sports. It really gave that tour group an inside look at him, his job and a large area of the communications field.

Personally, I am not a huge cinema, broadcast/ journalism fan however,  I believe that both of these tours were very valuable. They both gave us different insights into two very different broadcasting centers and different ways in which each center does their work. It really made me realize that there is a lot more planning and monitoring that goes into broadcasting then one thinks. This really is a remarkable area of communications and these tours made me realize just how wonderful this area of communications is.

-Jordyn Jaffe

Exploring the Winston Churchill War Rooms

In the depths of London lies the famous Cabinet War Rooms. Located discreetly underground, most would not even realize the secret government headquarters were beneath their feet if it wasn't for the Churchill War Room Museum. I, for one, would have just walked right by the Whitehall building it was under. Luckily though, this was not the case thanks to our group tour of the museum on Wednesday.

The museum preserves the bunker that was used to shelter Winston Churchill and his government during the Blitz in World War II. Inside the shelter, there are rooms to do everything from dining to sleeping to carrying out important government operations. Since London needed to safegaurd Churchill and communicate about the bombings, the underground shelter was very crucial.

                       

There were rooms that allowed enough space to hold meetings among governmental officials and for multiple typists and dispatchers to transmit information throughout the government and to the public. The typists were so vital as communication tools that they were even supplied with gas masks to wear as to continue to work even during gas attacks.

Just as vital to the communications effort was, of course, Winston Churchill himself. During the fall, we got a brief introduction to Churchill. I learned more about his role as the prime minister and as a very influential public figure. However, I wasn't aware until this museum trip about how much he impacted people with his words. As a poster in the museum quoting Beverly Nicholos of the Daily Telegraph said, "he mobilised the English language, and sent it into battle." With very few real weapons during the war, he really made use of his words as his artillery. His speeches reached out to people at the homefront and abroad with profound effects. His words united the people and most importantly inspired them during the hard times of war. Even to this day, they still have an effect. For example, I found myself so emotionally affected by his quotes that I bought a book in the gift shop of his inspirational messages.

Truly, Churchill's speeches are great examples of successful communication. Furthermore, the print propaganda campaign his government ran further exemplifies persuasive communication during times of war. Within the museum there were some powerful propaganda posters that caught my eye:

All of these posters are very simplistic in style and consequently very powerful in their messages. The bold print of these ads really stood out to me and made me focus on the words and messages the posters were trying to deliver to the British people. In all, the propaganda campaign of the time was exemplary of the capability of the British communication system.

-Chelsea Weber

Central India at The British Museum

Through my journey at The British Museum I wandered into the  India: Amaravati gallery. Where I found a sculpture called Harihara, Vishnu and Shiva combined. This sculpture is from Central India from the Chandella Dynasty around 1000 AD.  The Chandella Dynasty were the builders of temples and sculptures-- such as this one-- which were placed on the outside of temples.

This sculpture represents half Vishnu and half Shiva. The G-d is shown in two parts: is right side shows characteristics of Shiva-- his trident, hair piled on top of his head and the skull in his head-dress. Where as the left side shows characteristics of of Vishnu-- with the crown and wheel in his upper hand and a conch in the lower.

After looking at this sculpture for 15 minutes I really started to recognize the detail within the sculpture. I started to understand the sculpture a little more as time passed. I realized that the sculpture combines the two most powerful Hindu G-d's in a single structure. Showing that G-d is one in the same.

- Jordyn Jaffe

Passing Time at the British Museum

The first academic experience of our journey began yesterday at the steps of the British Museum. With a map in hand, I entered the expansive building. At this point in the day, my body was feeling entirely jet-lagged. Little sleep on the plane and another full day meant that the museum map became harder and harder to interpret with each passing minute. Yet, I opened it anyway and tried to find an exhibit that intrigued me. I skimmed through the titles until I found myself stopping to locate an exhibit called "Clocks and Watches." The name itself thoroughly piqued my interest and I knew I had to find a way to get there, despite my confusion with the museum layout.

After spending 15 minutes wandering around completely lost, I finally approached upon rooms 38 and 39 of level 3. My eyes lit up as I saw the clocks covering the walls and heard the familiar sound of ticking. I traveled around the room, taking in all of the history within each clock. As I passed through the middle of the exhibit, I saw a huge set of gears turning within a glass case. I read the description on the accompanying plaque and found out that the piece in front of me was the Cassiobury Park Clock and was being used to explain how clocks function.

The Cassiobury Park Clock is a turret clock that was made in 1610 and installed in the clock tower in Cassiobury Park. It has 5 crucial elements that make it work as described by the image below:

Since our instruction for this museum visit was to individually examine a piece that intrigued us for 15-20 minutes, I knew that this would be the piece I would choose. I watched the gears twist and turn as I contemplated the concept of it. This clock is just a set of metal gears and rope, and yet it stands for what gives structure to society. Time is what keeps us moving forward and what numerically organizes our days. It's what causes us to be jet-lagged and to decide when we will perform daily tasks. The ticking of a clock requires energy just as our heart requires energy to beat. Each single part works together to transfer this energy into the seemingly simple task of keeping time. But yet, if this clock taught me anything, it is that time is complex.

-Chelsea Weber

Overarching Questions

What makes a person vulnerable to propaganda?

How can multiple propaganda mediums work together to convey a message?

How effective were Nazi propaganda messages in reaching their intended audiences?