the first episode of the new season of gossip girl featured an unforgettable scene where after a long summer break, Serena returned from Europe as a popular person, constantly swarmed by reporters. in the beginning, her family, especially her stepfather had been very concern about the reason behind the reporters tailing her everywhere. but she had merely shaken the concern off her stepfather by telling him that she didn’t know why she was suddenly bursting with popularity. she had also managed to put up an innocent, i-dont-know-what-is-going-on act in front of her family so that it would make her excuse legible where she had managed to put all the blames on her past.
however, it soon became clear to everyone that it had not been her past haunting her, but her wild Europe parties which was made public in every magazine around the globe. instantly, her family came to the conclusion that she had somehow returned to her old habits where she would party with friends irrationally. but the real reason for Serena’s odd behaviours was revealed soon. all the effort of partying absurdly and featured in the cover of multiple magazines, was only so that she was able to acquire attention from her father whom had abandoned her for years. this was only because despite her countless effort to seek out her father whom have not been in contact with her for several years, he had made it clear to her that he didn't want anything to do with her anymore. as a result, Serena tried really hard to capture the attention of her father no matter where he went, by doing ridiculous things in front of paparazzi so that she would be featured in every mass media possible in the world.this episode got me thinking a lot about the way Serena tried to get the attention of her father in spite of not being able to verbally communicate with him. she attempted to send messages across to her father and get him to notice her by communicating non-verbally. though, regardless of her efforts, she was only successful in obtaining all the wrong and unwanted attentions from random people but not the attention that she had thirsted for. attention from her father.
non-verbal communication is receiver-oriented as it depends on the receiver to interpret and attach meaning to the non-verbal cues. this could very much explain why Rufus has misinterpreted the real reason behind Serena's peculiar behaviours. this is because, to Rufus’s perception of the situation, he construed the non-verbal cues displayed by Serena as one of the many terrible and foolish things that she does, which resulted in troubles for everyone around her to resolve.
some other examples of non-verbal communication also include the part where Lily, Serena’s mother had gotten her family, consisting of Dan, Jenny, Eric, Rufus and also Serena invitations to a prestigious private event. as most of them had never really been able to enjoy the beauty of a prominent event held by people from a higher social status, Dan, Jenny and Eric made faces to express their disliking towards the idea of having to attend the event. from their facial expressions, it was apparent that they had articulated their dissatisfaction towards the decision to attend the event without their prior approval.
perhaps non-verbal communications are not always as easy as it seems. although all of us would have engage ourselves in any kind of non-verbal communications at least once in our lives whether or not we even realise it. because when it comes down to it, not being able to speak your mind and express yourself with words can more than once, create misunderstanding and misinterpretation of things that we want to say. just like in this case, Serena wanted to attain attention from his father but instead, she got herself in trouble with her stepfather, Rufus who thinks she is a trouble child. and as a result, endeavours to keep her out of the media.
5 comments:
i feel that it's easy for people to misinterpret our messages or whatever it is we intend to send across when we communicate non-verbally. the reason is that, we don't know what triggers that particular action so we would make assumptions based on our perceptions. and this is when miscommunication or misinterpretation occurs. different people have different perceptions and we tend to derive meanings through our established perceptions.
i don't know. i'm just saying =P
nvc is hard. i myself have problems communicating non verbally. i mean, how do ppl communicate purely through eye contacts, gestures and etc? how can messages be sent across effectively? though smiles often exude the aura that you're a friendly person, but it can also be a cynical smile.
i guess what i'm trying to say is similar to what anon has just mentioned. diff individuals have diff way of interpreting meanings. we perceive things differently so how can we ensure our gestures signify accurately what we're trying to convey?
to add, i think culture plays a huge role in non-verbal communication too. for instance, indians shake they head when they agree with something but the rest shake their head when they disagree.
can we really rely on non-verbal communication? in my opinion, it has to be complemented with verbal communication.
omg i love blake lively. well, i think non verbal communication is very important. you know how a girl flips her hair when she's talking to her crush or how a guy flexes his muscles when he see his crush? without those gestures the other party won't realise someone is crushing on them (:
anonymous 2: surely, you're right. nvc is really difficult, because most of the time, it is interpreted wrongly by most people and it is somehow related back to the idea of perception where different people have diverse opinions about the nv cues used. most of the time, when verbal and non verbal communication are used, they must be used together, whether or not they complement each other, thats another case to be discussed.
I've watched that episode of gossip girl, and after reading your post, i really think it is true according to what you have evaluated. non verbal communication has been widely used in this episode especially kinesics and oculesics. and after reading your post i have become more aware of all these gestures and eye contact between the characters. and i think, like what have been repeatedly said in the previous comments, nvc and vc needs to co-exist. even though sometimes nvc can contradict their vc.
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