Mediated Noise

In communication theory there's a term called "noise" which is actually any obstacle in the communication process. It can be a pysical noise like a door slamming, someone coughing, a fire alarm or other literal sound in your environment that would classify as an "audible" distraction. Noise can also be psychological, which is interference in the communication process caused by your mental distractions. This happens when you daydream or when you are thinking about another person or event instead of being an active listener in the current context. Noise can also occur in the physiological sense when there is a biological obstacle that makes the communication more difficult. Examples here include suffering from a migraine headaches, having a lisp, being legally hard of hearing, or even being malnurished which reduces your communication capabilities and affects your ability to learn. Finally there is a category called semantic noise, which is an obstacle that is created based on a lack on understanding behind the meaning of words used in the communication process. Meanings must be shared in order for understanding to occur, and if only one party understands the term in use it would create some semantic noise. For example, if I started talking about my duvet in class, chances are not everyone would know what object I would be describing. These are the common categories of noise found in most texgtbooks, although some might label them in slightly different ways. However, I would like to introduce a fifth type of noise--"mediated noise", or noise interferece from a technical mediated source.

I spent about three hours today trying to work on a live video call between myself and one other individual. We tried all sorts of programs. First we tried America Online's Aim, then we tried Yahoo's Messnger, then we tried Skype. All three were hindered with problems. Sometimes my sound went through just fine, other times it would be all staticy (I'm making that word up--it should be a real adjective anyway!). Sometimes the image of the otherperson would be pixelated (making that one up too!) and distorted. Sometimes my streaming video wouldn't stream smoothly so it resulted in robo-Kari, all choppy and disconnected. It was FRUSTRATING and definitely caused interference for us both. I even tried our Dean of Technology and we went to a fourth site (tokbox.com) to try a video call and the picture was pretty good but the static was horrible.

Some noise you just can't work with. In all 4 formats it would kind of work a couple of seconds and then go bad, then maybe get a little better and then go bad again. With each attempt when the frustration set in we had to just quit--it wasn't getting better. And the worst part of all this is that even after 3 hours--we still didn't know how to fix it. I'm going into school tomorrow to meet with the Dean of Technology and hopefully he can help me get it figured out the old fashioned way--face to face. No noise is good noise when we're talking about the communication process--but mediated noise--is topping my "dislike the most" list!