Unit3- Interpersonal and Group communication

President Barack Obama has called a meeting ( Health Summit Meeting) of representative leaders from the two parties- The Senate and the House on Thursday, 25February 2010. The aim of this meeting is to propose health insurance reform that offers various guarantee choices and enhances quality health care for all Americans. He looks forward to discussing ideas for further improvements from Republicans and Democrats at the meeting. “Some Republican leaders, fearing a charade, have questioned whether there's any reason to go, but they also fear a boycott would play into Obama's hands. Will the meeting accomplish anything?”

The concept of the Health summit has been interlinked with the four characteristics of group communication, beginning with Interaction.

Interaction the conclusive characteristic of a group is the central element of the characteristic model of group communication, the rest of the model specifies factors and relationships that influences and are influenced by the interactive processes. The interaction process influences the group members, the environment, and the relationships in the group. In reference to the Health summit we can see how there is interaction between the president , the house and senate , the members of congress, republicans and democrats. All of them belonging to one group ; to one confederation. The last three quoted sentences are very important in the area of interaction as it shows how the group members with particular reference to the "Republicans” are not willing to attend the Health summit as they are not sure about the potential of the meeting and are to some extent fear what the president's decision would be determining the legitimacy of individual and group goals.

In general as tasks become more difficult , complex ,and significant , the more likely people will prefer to compete them through the co-ordinated group activity of being interdependence rather than individual activity.


Other more psychological and interpersonal factors also influence people’s thoughts in co- operating with others .When individuals fear that they may be blamed for a bad decision , they might form a group in order to help them make decisions to avoid responsibility for negative outcome. In the context of the Health Summit we can see that President Barack Obama is interdependent on the opinions and thoughts of the other members of the Confederation so he could come up with a reasonable solution. The last three sentences of the first paragraph shows how the members in particular reference to the “ Republicans” are interdependent to the President’s decision whether they like it or not ,further depicting the recognition of full membership as time comes.

When one is practicing group communication it is important to be competent as it helps in promoting shared behavioural standards which further enhances the shared values that holds the group together such as integrity, teamwork, respect for diversity,etc. In context to the Health summit we can see how shared behavioural standards has been applied as the nature of the problem that is to be solved by the group is more practical rather than theoretical and requires emotional intelligence and knowledge.

Proximity increases interaction between people and repeated interaction may result in interacts thinking of themselves as a group and even people outside the group begin to think of them as a group due to their collective identity. In the context of the Health summit we can see how the people involved in the group belong to the government of the United States. The factors that bind them together are their similarities, their professional background and their goal of reforming the health care system.


Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/20/obama-health-meeting-test-problem-solving/