An Analysis of the Types of Communication in House of Cards Beau Willimon’s House of Cards is a fairly new political drama that premiered on Netflix last year. The series features the fictional Democratic majority whip of the House of Representatives — Frank Underwood — in his attempt to climb the ladder on Capitol Hill. After being passed up for the promised appointment as the head of the State Department, the power-hungry main character sets his target on the President of the United States, Garrett Walker (Willimon). Following Underwood’s every move from Election night on through an array of interactions with other characters, House of Cards examines the various types of communication this revenge-seeking congressman uses to get even with the leader of the free world.
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Linda After receiving the news that he will not be the next Secretary of State from Linda Vasquez, the White House Chief of Staff, Underwood’s tone goes from calm and relaxed to uptight and defensive (Willimon). This “vocal modulation that expresses feelings of moods” shows that his anger is deeply rooted (O’Hair
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In one scene, Underwood is suffocating a dog with his bare hands and mutters, “Moments like this require someone who will act, do the unpleasant thing, the necessary thing” while looking away from the dog. Another scene shows Underwood raising his flute of champaign as if he were toasting while saying “Welcome to Washington” (Willimon). Both of these nonverbal actions complimented his verbal messages. Looking away from the dog he was killing reinforced that the act was unpleasant, and raising his glass reinforced the celebratory nature of his comment. Complimenting nonverbal communication reinforces the content of someone’s verbal
The talk we hear from politicians, bureaucrats, and commentators tends to distill the issues we must confront to those of unity, security, and retaliation. It is difficult for citizens to be aware of what is taking place in Washington in times of crisis, because of these talks. In my own opinion, Berry could have helped to prove his case by providing examples of the oratory we hear from politicians or bureaucrats. He could have also sought the thoughts and opinions of ordinary citizens, in regard to their views on what the politicians say. Furthermore, Berry could have provided politicians’ thoughts on the 9/11 attacks, and compared them to the opinions of citizens on said attacks. A use of ethos such as this would have greatly benefitted Berry’s
Nonverbal Communication is just what it sounds like, communicating without words. This movie is very good about displaying nonverbal communication toward the audience without breakin...
Key terms will be pointed out and highlighted, as well as described in relation to the examples extracted from the film. To begin with the film started out with a communication climate that was both tense and without verbal communication. This was mainly due to the variance in membership constructs of the characters involved. The character's included the brain Brian, Andrew the athlete, the criminal Bender, the princess Claire, and the basket case Allison. There was a great deal of interesting nonverbal communication taking place between these people. Their reactions and responses to each other demonstrated perceptual errors, which would be shown as the story progressed.
In the beginning of his speech, he uses a unique style to communicate his speech. He immediately starts off with a clear and precise tone, however his assortment of words indicates a consciousness of concern. Reagan’s tone in this speech is serious and influential. He wants the audience to understand his viewpoints and how he fee...
Carl Roger’s article “Empathetic: An Underappreciated Way of Being,” examines the rhetoric of emotions. On the surface level, rhetoric is simply persuasion, thus implying some degree of written or verbal communication. In reality, however, this is equally apparent in non-verbal situations because body language and tone creates an unspoken language that is potentially more powerful than the written and spoken word. Therefore, being empathetic towards others helps understand the underlying meaning behind their words. By “locat[ing] power in the person, not the expert,” the listener is able to understand others’ as they see themselves (Rogers 104). Furthermore, Rogers notes that frequently, the most powerful dialogue is within the unspoken word. He encourages others to listen for feelings rather than just for
Interpersonal communication is underappreciated. When doing this media analysis paper for Breaking Bad I did not realize how much interpersonal communication played a role in this TV series. Communication, especially in TV series or movies, is critical to making a piece of media desirable and fun to watch for the viewer. Breaking Bad’s producers did a fantastic job with their writing of the script. Everything they wanted to communicate to the audience through the characters was fully understandable. Communication in our everyday life plays such an important part because it is how we communicate to the people around. It is how we express our emotions and thoughts. It is a very powerful tool that could be used positively or negatively. We see both of the situations in Breaking Bad. Walter and Jesse used it positively in Breaking Bad because they grew their drug empire to stretch across the globe. It was also used negatively when Walter is communicating with Skyler. Walter does lie to Skyler a lot and does not do the best job get his point out to her. He makes it a very hostile environment where communication from Skyler is oppressed because of fear. Even in Breaking Bad Walter could improve on his interpersonal communication skills. Even myself, I can improve my interpersonal communication skills. When I do work on my interpersonal communication all my relationships will improve dramatically as well as me being able to express my thoughts more
On September 11, 1998, former president Bill Clinton delivered the infamously self-proclaimed speech entitled “I Have Sinned.” In an attempt to convert the public suspicion and hatred back to trust and loyalty, Clinton finally confessed to the inappropriate relations with Monica Lewinsky. By deeply expressing his sorrow through his foreboding and apologetic tone, Clinton constructs various examples of ethos, uses stiff body language and blank facial expressions, direct eye contact, and crafts the majority of his speech on short and choppy sentences. The overall purpose of this speech was for Clinton to ultimately express his remorse for the regretful acts he committed, and also to ensure the American people that he will remain trustworthy throughout
In every society nonverbal communication is one of the most powerful tools that a person can use to interpret the message that is being delivered. Even though verbal communication is fairly straightforward, nonverbal communication allows others to sense the true emotions of the person that is expressing them. For example even though a person may say that they are not irritated, their usage of voice may display otherwise. Nonverbal communication not only reveals hidden messages, but it also complements, substitutes, and exaggerates verbal communication.
The presence of nonverbal messages in our communication is very important. Following the text, researchers have estimated it is up to “65 percent of social meaning we convey in face-to-face interactions is a result of nonverbal behavior” (131). The movie “Mrs. Doubtfire” is a typical example about the interactions among characters, also with audience. Several scenes in this movie show us the effects of nonverbal messages in communication, especially through the character Daniel, who disguises himself as a middle-aged British nanny in order to be near his children.
In this assignment, we made observations of nonverbal behaviors which are utilized in everyday life as a form of communication whether we know it or not. There are many ways that individuals’ are capable of communicating without even saying anything, such as, an individual rolling their eyes can display they’re annoyed, smiling at someone can portray that the individual is happy, and so on. Nonverbal communication uses many different aspects of life to portray meaning, such as, behaviors, attributes, symbols, or objects (Seiler, Beall, & Mazer, 2015, p. 109). When partaking in this assignment, I found that utilizing nonverbal communication was much easier than verbal, but I did feel peculiar when participating in these acts. The goal for the assignment was to find a nonverbal norm that we wanted to violate, and then we needed to violate this norm three different times. Once we had violated the norm we needed to observe and analyze the reactions we received. The norms that we had the option to violate were kinesics, oculesics, haptics, etc. I just so happen to pick kinesics, which is using movements or gestures to portray nonverbal communication.
Richmond, V & McCroskey, J 2011. Nonverbal Behavior in Interpersonal Relations. 7th ed. Allyn & Bacon.
Nonverbal communication can be shown by many different gestures, body movements, and understood by all the different channels. For example, when Dory believes that Marlin has entered her personal space by following her too closely she reacts by using proxemics to intimidate Marlin. Dory purposely enters Marlin’s personal space to show dominance and her gestures show “affect display.” Dory’s affect display is “the movements of the face that convey emotional meaning- the expressions that show anger and fear, happiness and surprise…” (DeVito 144) It is a nonver...
It’s amazing how much simple supportive gestures can affect us. Based on findings from this experiment, I learned that words can literally hurt you, in a sense. I also learned that nonverbal communication can be more than just gestures and eye contact. Now, I know that even the tone of voice you use when talking is a form of nonverbal communication.
I learned a lot about Human Communication in this class when I read the chapter about Nonverbal Communication. Nonverbal Communication is the process of using messages that are not words to generate meaning. I learned that it happens every day. I also learned that is very hard to read or understand depending on the person you are speaking to or with. Verbal and Nonverbal codes work in conjunction with each other. The words we speak or say are used in conjunction six different ways: to repeat, to emphasize, to complement, to contradict, to substitute, and to regulate. I never knew until reading this chapter that we do these things all most every time we communicate. These are things I took for granted until now. I now know that I will pay
...tention to how people react to one another’s comments, guessing the relationship between the people and guessing how each feels about what is being said. This can inform individuals to better understand the use of body language when conversing with other people. It is also important to take into account individual differences. Different cultures use different non-verbal gestures. Frequently, when observing these gestures alone the observer can get the wrong impression, for instance, the listener can subconsciously cross their arms. This does not mean that they are bored or annoyed with the speaker; it can be a gesture that they are comfortable with. Viewing gestures as a whole will prevent these misunderstandings. Non-verbal gestures are not only physical, for example; the tone of voice addressing a child will be different from the way it is addressed to an adult.