is nonverbal easy??...(3rd blog entry, 4th week topic)

(The Jakarta Post, May 25th 2009, Page 7)

(http://www.okmagazine.com/pixandvids/gallery/14367/15)

Both of the images above are non verbal images taken through the media, one is from newspaper in opinion section which showing two people who are in a discussion within a particular issue; the other one is picture of Kris Allen, the winner of American Idol 2009 with his runner up contestant and the host of the show.

The first picture shows that current American President, Mr. Obama, is talking with someone about an issue of Bahamas/ Palestine/ Sudan (Because the picture is black and white, it cannot be determined surely which country it is about). There is also a small image of a person with thinking bubble in the side of the picture. This man is basically showing the fact that he is also thinking about what the 2 men are talking about, since it is clearly seen that they are having issue towards the country that is represent by the flag.
In the other image, the scene is taken when the host of the show notifies that Kris Allen won the competition for this year. Kris Allen is the man standing in the middle of the picture with a very particular face impression.

There are two ways to communicate towards people around us, which are through verbal communication and also non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication occurs when a stimulus other than words create meaning for the communicator(s) and receiver(s). This type of communication is never taught in any regular institution because it is subjective. Therefore it requires an understanding between the communicator(s) and the receiver(s) because one of the parties does not understand; it will create a miss-understanding. There are certain types of nonverbal communication, however in both images; it uses kinetics, oculesics, physical appearance and haptics.

As it illustrates, Mr. Obama uses kinetics, study of body movement, to convey his meaning. While in the same illustration, the Mr. Governor uses Oculesics, study of nonverbal meaning associated with the eyes, to demonstrate that he does not agree with Mr. Obama’s idea. As it is appear with a very decent physical appearance thus as audience that does not understand about this topic, I assume this men are highly educated men with a status. However, it creates misunderstanding, especially because as an “unfamiliar” audience, I cannot obtain the purpose(s) of the image well.

On the other hand, since I watched American Idol 2009, I understand the image better rather than the 1st image. The fact that Kris Allen was shocked because he won the competition with a person that he thought would win the competition instead of him. The shocked given by him is basically a well known nonverbal face expression; since people around the world can understand that it shows stockiness.

Overall, nonverbal communication is very close with human beings since we use that a lot in our daily lives. But indeed in my point of view, nonverbal communication is not an easy way of communication because all of the parties included have to understand one another to diminish possibility of misunderstanding.

Therefore, do you believe that everyone can understand other people’s nonverbal communication, where there are some specifics symbols during the communication? Is there anyone able to understand all the nonverbal communication among human beings?