Observing Communication Through Television

Week 2 is upon us and we continue to learn about the importance of effective, appropriate, and ethical communication, especially within the Early Childhood field. This week, we took a closer look at types of communication: verbal communication, nonverbal communication, and listening skills. Each of these types of communication are equally important to being a competent and effective communicator. For the assignment this week, we needed to view an episode of a television show that we do not normally watch and observe the nonverbal communication exhibited when the show is on mute and with volume on. While on mute we need to decipher what the characters' relationships are based on their nonverbal communication, as well as what they are feeling and expressing. With the sound turned on, we need to state what assumptions we made about the characters and plot based on what was observed with sound on and off and whether or not our assumptions would have been more accurate if we were watching a familiar show instead.

For this assignment, I decided to watch an episode of Modern Family as it is not a television show I normally watch on TV yet have heard from many friends it is great. After watching the episode, I ended up watching the rest of the marathon on TV that night as I found it very funny and entertaining! In this episode, there are several characters interacting in different houses but all seem interconnected. The main focus of this episode was one particular family. While watching with the sound turned on mute, you can pick up on the tension between the young characters in the show who seem to be disagreeing about entering a bedroom when the door is closed. From the eye rolling, crossed arms, stomping feet, red faces, and waving hands, you can see there is frustration and annoyance taking place in an argument between what seems to be siblings. Two adults enter (seem to be the parents) and the mom is yelling to fix the problem while dad is acting sincere using sign language and body language to signal behind mom's back that she is overreacting and he loves them all. Mom and Dad leave the room and there seems to be a disagreement, mom makes a decision, and leaves. Dad seems uncomfortable handling a situation with the daughters at first then becomes much like a drill sergeant ensuring they complete chores. The girls look scared and exhausted. Mom takes the boys out for fun to go on go carts, eat junk food, and more. Mom looks as though she is trying to force herself to be "the fun parent" and crosses the line, scaring the boys and making them eat too much. The boys look freaked out and then later sick as they get sick from too much junk food. Their body language shows that they were a family with mom and dad and four children, two boys and two girls, teenage years. The nonverbal communication shows a lot of emotion and feeling throughout, such as frustration, annoyance, worry, anger, fright, exhaustion, humor, and more. After turning the volume on to rematch the episode, I learned that the two adults were in fact the parents, but only three of the teens were their children - the two girls and one boy, the other boy was a cousin. The disagreement in the beginning took place because the boys entered into the sisters shared room when the door was closed without knocking first and the girls were in the process of changing. Therefore, an argument commenced in the hallway about privacy and sibling rivalry and the cousin chiming in as he is from a different culture that it is normal in his culture and it shouldn't be a problem here. The parents depart to another room as the mom shows her frustration through body language that she is tired of being the "bad cop" parent and the dad being the "good cop" parent and decides they should switch roles. Dad takes this seriously after a moment of being unsure because he discovers his daughters have lied and goes seriously bad cop becoming borderline drill sergeant like ordering them around all day. It is a comical twist.

This episode of the show encompassed a great deal on communication as well as concepts from prior courses on diversity and culture. The families in the show are all part of the same extended family. There is one family, as described from the episode, with a mother, father, son, and two daughters; another family with two gay males and an adopted baby daughter; and lastly the father (of the mother from the original family) and his second wife and son. This is, in fact, a modern family, as the title shares. I thought this assignment was enlightening in what we can pick up on from nonverbal communication in terms of relationships and emotions without verbal communication involved. In addition, I think it would have been a little easier to truly follow the episode if I had been more familiar with the show but the nonverbal communication from a realistic family interaction was evident and easily readable.

Until next time...