1. November 6, 2012 [INDIVIDUAL ESSAY]
1 Yam Yih Hwan (0305861) FNBE Effective Public Communication July’12|
Assignment 1
Effective Public Communication
(FCOM0102)
Yam Yih Hwan (0305861)

2. November 6, 2012 [INDIVIDUAL ESSAY]
2 Yam Yih Hwan (0305861) FNBE Effective Public Communication July’12|
Question 4:
Even when nonverbal cues are used in text-based messages, communicating online
can still lead to misunderstandings. Look at the differences between communicating
online and communicating face-to-face and examine how vocal cues are important to
communication.
______________________________________________________________________
For somewhat more than a decade, the internet and social networking have changed
the way we interact with people. Nowadays, non-verbal cues had become rarely used in
society. The absence of non-verbal cues unable speakers to emphasize on important
information in a certain conversation, such as facial emotions, characteristics, and
personalities, which eventually leads to less productive and unapproachable; therefore
miscommunication happened much often.Moreover, people adjust into a different
situation by filling the messages or interpreting from certain rhetorical and contextual
cues into the non-verbal communication medium.Thus, allowing normal relational
communicationto occur, in whichpeople areable to understand an emotion,
characteristic, and attitude easily. There are two types of communication used in society,
the online communication and face to face communication; both communications are
handful to humans but had their differences.
First of all, online communication is a new method introduce in the early 60’s; it refers to
reading, texting, and communicating with others through networked computers. For
examples, people communicate in real time through chat or discussion software, with all
participants at their computers at the same moment; or people communicate in a
delayed fashion usingtheir computer programs such as e-mails; andthe reading and
writing of online news, articles and documents through the World Wide Web.On the

3. November 6, 2012 [INDIVIDUAL ESSAY]
3 Yam Yih Hwan (0305861) FNBE Effective Public Communication July’12|
other hand, face to face communication is a method people usually used to
communicate in places like school, colleges or workplaces. Face to face communication
enables to express visual cues effortlessly, for instances, the uses of facial expression,
oculesics, body movements, hand gestures, haptics, physical appearance and the
objects in surrounding; with the help of visual cues, messages are easily delivered to
listeners and understandable.
If to compare online communication with face to facecommunication, there are several
differences between these two communications. Both communications have its own
characteristics and specialties, online communication is a little bit complex because it
required internet connectionto participants, but face to face communication having
flexibility;with online communication people are able to communicate easily but it is
impossible to transfer the feelings and emotions because this type of communication
only happens in a Cyberspace, but face to face communication, this exchange happens,
but it is difficult to communicate with all friendsbecause they may locate in far distance
or even overseas, so the best way to communicate in this situation is through the online
method.
Besides that, people are able to communicate much often with the uses of online
communication than face to face communication, even if they are located in different
places. They are still able to send an e-mail or messages whenever they want to
present something to others. This is the advantage of online communication. On the
other hand, the advantage of face to face communicationis that emotions, feelings are
able to transfer easily. It requires less time to understand each other.

4. November 6, 2012 [INDIVIDUAL ESSAY]
4 Yam Yih Hwan (0305861) FNBE Effective Public Communication July’12|
Moreover, you have more ways to express yourself like smiles, gestures, different
intonations of speech in face to face communication. Due to all of the factors, you will
be able to understand another person in a proper manner. While you communicate
online you have just letters and symbols, so you have to be more accurate in your
statements, otherwise someone might read what they want to read instead of what you
want them to read.
As mentioned above, non-verbal communication is a form of communication without the
use of words. However, vocal cue played a vital role in communication. A vocal cue is a
sound or inflection of the voice used to send a particular message when we want to
create an impression or express feelings, or conveys variations in tone and volume
toward others. Sometimes, people use capital or lowercase letters differently, typing
errors, exclamation points, and other punctuation marks, emoticons, smileys along with
their non-verbal messages to emphasize on their current feelings and emotions. A vocal
cue is not a word but rather a different sound made with the vocal cords. There are few
types of factors adapt in vocal cue, the volume, rate and fluency. Volume is known as
the voice an individual produced, it is either high or low; when the voice produced is too
high, it might turned into aggressive situation, for examples, cursing or scolding another
individual; when the voice produced is too low, it eventually turned into an awkward
situation, as the listeners hardly able to hear what you are trying to say, therefore
listeners often pretend to remain silence or answered in short sentences.Next, it’s the
rate and fluency; it means the rate you spoke within a specified time. A faster rate
usually represents an individual under terror or furious situation, and slower rate
represents an individual under sorrow or depression situation.

5. November 6, 2012 [INDIVIDUAL ESSAY]
5 Yam Yih Hwan (0305861) FNBE Effective Public Communication July’12|
In conclusion, both communications are important in society nowadays. The lack
of either one communication might bring discomfort toward humans; therefore people
need both to increase their standard of living.