Week 2 Blog Assignment

For this week’s blog assignment, we were asked to watch a television show once with the sound off and again with the sound on. Since I am not an avid television viewer, it was fairly easy to find a show that I do not frequently watch. The show I chose to view is “Keeping up with the Kardashians”. This is a reality tv-show about a large glamorous family in Los Angeles. While watching the show with the televisions volume turned off, this is what I observed:

•What do you think the characters’ relationships are based on the ways in which they are communicating? Just by watching the family members communicate without any sound, I could definitely tell that the people on the show were family. There seemed to be a sense of closeness as well as some bickering going on.

 •What are they feeling and expressing based on the nonverbal behavior you are observing? I observed a lot of tension between some members of the family and lots of non-verbal facial expressions.

This is what I observed with the sound turned on:

 •What assumptions did you make about the characters and plot based on the ways in which you interpreted the communication you observed? I assumed that they were family members who were close and experienced lots of arguments on a regular basis.

 •Would your assumptions have been more correct if you had been watching a show you know well? I think my assumptions would have been the same. While I do not what this show on a regular basis, I know somewhat about the dynamic.

This was a very interesting assignment that I never would have thought to do on my own. What was particularly interesting is that I grasped what was happening fairly accurately without having the sound on. That just goes to show you how critical non-verbal communication is and how one can be affected by it.